CATHY ROSS HER 
 
 MRS VICTOR RICKARD
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 MRS. VICTOR RICKARD
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. VICTOR RICKARD 
 
 AUTHOR OF "YOUNG MR/GIBBS," "THE FIRE OF GREEN 
 BOUGHS," "THE HOUSE OF COURAGE," ETC. 
 
 NEW XSJr YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
 
 COPYRIGHT, I92O, 
 BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITE* STATES F AMERICA
 
 That wasteful triek of yours, that gust prodigious 
 Of dreams too great for their comparison, 
 Blew stars ablaze, but drowned us in the ditches. 
 Sad, generous, valiant, tired ephemeron ! 
 Had we but coined the vision when it shone 
 We too had ruled, and moeked the dispossessed. 
 Well, we have the rags, the prudent have the riches 
 We have not lived as wisely as the rest." 
 
 T. M. KETTLE. 
 
 2137900 '
 
 CATHY ROSSITER
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 fire was burning rather low, for Monica Henstock was 
 never lavish with coal, and the temperature in her sitting- 
 room had fallen perceptibly. Her room was decorated in 
 hard greens and greys, and none of the easy chairs were 
 really deserving of the title, but the effect was tidy and ex- 
 cessively neat, and Monica herself was the acme of tidiness. 
 A lamp with a hard green paper shade threw a circle of light 
 on to her writing-table, and all her letters were put away into 
 packets, marked respectively "Answered" or "Unanswered," 
 and no one who knew Monica ever suspected her of mixing 
 the one with the other. She had come early to her sense of 
 power, and had taken her degree as a Bachelor of Medicine 
 with real distinction, and the contrast between her metier 
 and herself was sufficiently striking to make her interesting. 
 In figure, she was slender and rather frail, and her fine, 
 mobile features had an original and almost mystic sugges- 
 tion. Her mouth drooped at the corners, and she was full 
 of abstract ardours. Since she began to think for herself, 
 which was very early in life, as these things count, she had 
 flung herself into extremes, and fought for a number of 
 causes. Studied closely, it was possible to discover that 
 there was a deep strain of morbidity in her, which induced 
 her to dwell upon the ugly, dangerous side of things, and 
 her training had accentuated her natural tendency. The 
 force with which she was able to express herself was light- 
 ened by her attractive smile, showing white regular teeth, 
 and her small head was crowned with a wealth of thick red 
 hair. She was by no means the stereotyped professional 
 woman, and even though her room had all the rigidity of 
 
 9
 
 io CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 a consulting-room, Monica conquered it, unconsciously, be- 
 cause she was essentially feminine. Her views on life, men, 
 women and marriage, on the social questions of the day, 
 were defiant, not to say bombastic. Life, to her, was not 
 so much a battle-ground as a platform, and she lectured 
 whenever opportunity arose. She was thirty-two but looked 
 younger. Without her special distinction she would have 
 been dowdy, but with it, her total lack of chic became an 
 asset. 
 
 On one side of her nature she was careful, hard-working 
 and steady, and this had brought her early success ; and, on 
 the other, she was an emotionalist, given to great friend- 
 ships with other women, and unconsciously susceptible 
 where men were concerned. In fact, Monica knew less of 
 herself than most of us, and while she believed that she was 
 a merciless antagonist, she was, actually, quite unusually 
 vulnerable on the side of sex. But Monica had "made 
 good." She ranked with the men whom she affected to 
 despise, and she was of real use in the world. 
 
 Her small house in Colebrook Street, off Cavendish 
 Square, was well known, and her engagements, apart from 
 hospital work, were almost more than she could deal with. 
 
 She had her scorns, feeling she had earned a right to be 
 scornful, and some over-indulgence in this respect had 
 pulled down the corners of her flexible mouth. Yet, behind 
 all this, the real Monica craved for another life, which in- 
 cluded love and rapture. Women came to her in shoals, 
 but men, unless her own colleagues, were rare in her life; 
 when they did appear, the hidden Monica peered out, and 
 the Monica that she believed herself to be had to invent 
 fictions to account for the fact that she always preferred 
 them before her own sex. 
 
 She was standing by her writing-table talking to her 
 greatest friend, Cathy Rossiter, and Cathy was grumbling 
 at the excessive angularity of the chair in which she was 
 sitting. 
 
 Why they were friends was one of those strange, psycho- 
 logical puzzles which no one understands, and can only be 
 explained through the fact that they had been schoolfellows.
 
 II 
 
 Cathy had everything. Monica frequently dwelt on the sub- 
 ject with a hint of rancour in her heart. Everything she 
 wore suited her, and her easy grace was a poem. Sir Neville 
 Rossiter, her father, had left her well provided for, and she 
 had the type of beauty which proclaims itself to the whole 
 world. She was not neat, she was careless to untidiness, 
 and yet she commanded the full joy of the most critical 
 observer. Her hair was wavy and brown, and her eyes 
 wide and very blue. Her beauty of feature was even less 
 than her beauty of expression and the frankness of her 
 smile. Cathy touched the human being in every one, and 
 there was a dash and gallantry in. her bearing which called 
 for an immediate response. No one could grudge her her 
 good fortune in life, because she herself was so generous. 
 In fact, the whole of Cathy was just her lavishness. She 
 held out her arms to the world, smiled at it, and asked to 
 be a friend, for she was entirely herself. Monica counted 
 everything. She knew what she spent on stamps ; she knew 
 what she had at the bank, and she knew to a halfpenny how 
 much small change there was in the voluminous bag which 
 she carried when she went out. With Cathy, everything was 
 otherwise ; she hadn't the least idea what her yearly expendi- 
 ture amounted to, and never troubled about it ; she said she 
 had "holes in all her pockets, mental and material," and 
 Monica suspected that her gloves and stockings were prob- 
 ably in the same condition. 
 
 Cathy was an aristocrat by birth, a democrat from choice, 
 and Monica came from a steady middle-class home, and felt 
 an inward satisfaction to know that the Rossiters were so- 
 cially above her, though she would not have admitted it 
 under torture. When Cathy laughed, no one in the world 
 who listened could remain altogether serious. She knew 
 her own world well, and at the age of twenty-eight she still 
 remained unmarried. Love had come to her, and she had 
 lived through a whole avalanche of entreaty. She had been 
 sought by great and small alike, and was as invincibly at- 
 tractive as a woman well can be. Yet no one had come who 
 had ever captured her whole undivided love, though she 
 had always responded in a measure. You could no more
 
 12 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 keep Cathy from showing that she was glad to be loved than 
 you could keep her from breathing. Without being a flirt, 
 in the accepted meaning of the term, she flirted desperately 
 and unconsciously, and she was perpetually interested in 
 men. 
 
 Towards Cathy's long list of suitors Monica adopted an 
 attitude of amused scorn. She could not believe that it all 
 happened without overt act on the part of her friend, and 
 she decided that Cathy's wiles were well considered, and 
 her effects the result of considerable care and attention. It 
 gave her a further sense of superiority, and she looked down 
 upon Cathy as though from a cold and distant height, where 
 she stood, proud, lonely and aloof. Cathy got mixed up in 
 one affair after another, and her public was masculine. 
 Furthermore, Cathy believed in men, and Monica hadn't a 
 good word for them. 
 
 Cathy lay back in her chair, looking at her friend with her 
 soft blue eyes, her feet stretched out to the wretched fire. 
 
 "I ought to be getting ready to go to the reception at the 
 American Embassy," she said in her wonderfully modulated 
 voice. "Aunt Amy warned me that I was to go with her." 
 
 Monica put down a thermometer which she had been 
 looking at ; a newly invented thermometer of which she ap- 
 proved, and she intended to write a letter, expressing her 
 approval, to the inventor. She sat down by the table. 
 
 "I sometimes wonder," she said reflectively, "if you are 
 always honest with yourself, Cathy. You profess very 
 extreme views, and yet you are walled about with Debrett. 
 Lady Carstairs usually gets you to agree to be present at 
 most of these functions, either in her house or elsewhere. 
 Are you sure that you don't appreciate them more than you 
 admit?" 
 
 Cathy gave a stifled yawn. 
 
 "You see, she is my aunt, and I live in her house. One 
 has to be civil. Even you would make that concession, 
 Muggins. I am a trial, but, when I can, I do my best." 
 
 Monica nodded silently. She was never sure whether she 
 altogether liked the adaptation of her name, a relic of school 
 days, and she said nothing.
 
 13 
 
 "Aunt Amy is a dear," Cathy went on, "and she often 
 agrees with me. She is absolutely devoid of snobbery at 
 heart, and at least there is none of that in the house." 
 
 Monica put a log on the fire carefully as she spoke. "You 
 must come to the 'Epoch' Club. We had a splendid meeting 
 there" she grew enthusiastic as she recalled it "crowds 
 of men and women, all determined to get their rights." 
 
 "Rights," Cathy said, repeating the word, and immedi- 
 ately giving it the value of her own voice. "I hate the 
 fever of the 'Epoch.' They are destructive." 
 
 Monica went back to her chair, and looked round her 
 room thoughtfully. 
 
 "We can't do things by a rule of smash," Cathy contiriued, 
 turning a large diamond ring on her finger. "Teach people 
 honour and integrity, and you get every single reform that 
 is needed, here." 
 
 Monica shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "Oh, I know," she said, and her mouth drooped at the 
 corners. "You are only an echo of the old order; a 
 dreamer. I belong to the people who act. Even when I 
 began to work for my degree, women were at a wretched 
 disadvantage." 
 
 Cathy smiled and looked at the fire. She knew Monica's 
 difficulties, for she had heard them all countless numbers of 
 times. 
 
 "Have you heard anything of Lilian?" she said, turning 
 her head and looking at her friend. "She has the courage 
 of her opinions." 
 
 "Yes, and it's taking her to the Divorce Courts," Monica 
 replied, picking up some knitting and working at it rapidly. 
 "I agree that it's all no one else's affair, but the question, in 
 my mind, is rather whether one has to stand by one's friend, 
 or stand on a general principle." 
 
 Cathy held out her beautifully shaped hands to the blaze, 
 and considered the question. 
 
 "Robert made her life wrong for her," she said slowly. 
 "I don't see how either you or I are to decide. It is simply 
 ugly to be unfaithful or promiscuous, but we both realise 
 that Lilian is neither. It isn't easy for any woman to give
 
 i 4 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 up all she is giving up ; I can't see your difficulty ; she needs 
 her friends." 
 
 Monica patted her thick plait and continued her knitting. 
 
 "I don't wish to see our standard go down to the level 
 which is good enough for men," she said, a touch of anger 
 in her voice. "Surely you feel the same, Cathy?" 
 
 "I'm not a judge, or even a juryman," Cathy said, with 
 a soft little laugh. "It is always easy to accuse the woman 
 of selfishness. All the martyrs of the marriage service are 
 open to that jibe." 
 
 "If it is a real thing, of course," Monica said, flattening 
 out her work over her knee, "it is different ; but if it is only 
 sheer love of excitement " 
 
 A ring at the door interrupted her as she spoke, and both 
 women looked up. 
 
 "I expect it is the car," Cathy remarked, "but there's no 
 special hurry. It never takes me long to dress." 
 
 "Do try to be tidy," Monica said, glancing at her with an 
 indulgent smile ; "put plenty of hairpins in, Cath." 
 
 "Hairpins, safety-pins and common pins," Cathy replied. 
 "How would one get on without them? I trimmed this 
 hat," she picked it up from a chair, "without threading a 
 needle. It's rather a success, and I think it suits me." 
 
 She got up, and began to collect a number of her belong- 
 ings which she had strewn around her when she came in, 
 and was still looking approvingly at her hat when the door 
 of the room was opened, and a woman of about the same 
 age as Monica stood there and smiled at them. She was 
 tall, dark and graceful, and there was a slight suggestion of 
 hardness round the lines of her clever mouth. Her eyes 
 were intelligent, and she had a very marked touch of defi- 
 ance in her manner, even though she held out both hands to 
 Monica and Cathy. 
 
 "Lilian !" Cathy said impulsively, as she kissed her. r 'We 
 were just talking of you." She threw down her hat again, 
 and Lilian Amyas took a chair which Monica pushed to the 
 centre of the circle of light. "Muggins was trying to be 
 judicial, weren't you, Mug? And we had actually begun 
 at last to discuss clothes or rather pins."
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 15 
 
 The new-comer sat down and drew off her gloves, and 
 she looked at Cathy, and then at Monica. 
 
 "Am I to make a confession of faith ?" she asked quickly. 
 "I've been doing it for weeks, but I'm prepared to repeat 
 it all over again." 
 
 "There is such a thing as principle," Monica remarked. 
 "You can't sweep away the need of discipline, it gives one 
 confidence." 
 
 "And how about the price of compulsion?" Lilian asked, 
 with the same touch of being on the defensive. "Indis- 
 criminate obedience is shameful." 
 
 "Tell me about the man," Cathy said, leaning forward 
 and giving her friend's arm a kindly squeeze. "I know 
 Robert, and I don't know Anthony. Let me begin well, Lil, 
 by seeing him through your eyes." 
 
 "I heard that he did well in France," Monica said, taking 
 up her knitting again. 
 
 "And came out of it without a decoration," Lilian added. 
 "He hasn't been much in England, and is hopelessly out of 
 place in a drawing-room." 
 
 Cathy leaned back, her eyes interested, and watching her 
 friend closely. Bit by bit, Lilian built up the presentment 
 of Anthony Hinton. A big, dark-haired man, with a strong 
 voice, who had fought his way through life with bare fists. 
 
 As she presented him to her friends, Lilian's eyes grew 
 bright, and her quick words followed rapidly one on the 
 other. His grit, his sense of honour, and his courage; all 
 these things were known' of him, for he was perfectly fear- 
 less and perfectly unselfish. 
 
 When she finished speaking, both Monica and Cathy were 
 silent. Cathy was thinking of Robert, with his tremendously 
 exotic manner, his white spats and effeminate hands, even 
 the bottle of aspirin he always carried in his pocket. He 
 had been engaged in literary work during the war; writing 
 up articles from collected reports, and also writing a little 
 poetry. His educated voice was always pleasant to listen to, 
 even when he said very trifling and silly things. 
 
 Robert desired that his wife should paint her face and 
 look like a demi-mondaine, and when he read his poems, he
 
 1 6 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 did so by the. light of two altar candles. He felt sure that 
 no good thing ever came from anywhere but Eton and Ox- 
 ford, and as he had been the product of the school he loved, 
 he was quite sure of his own worthiness. You could hardly 
 treat Robert very seriously, and yet, once he stood between 
 Lilian and this bushranger of hers, he became such a prob- 
 lem. He had never liked the idea of Lilian working in a 
 canteen. The word, he said, was so "hopeless." If it had 
 been called almost anything else he could have borne with it, 
 and, as though his forebodings had some real ground for 
 existence, it was there that Lilian met Anthony, who was 
 then neither more nor less than a trooper. 
 
 How did one adjudicate between Anthony and Robert? 
 And once Anthony had come in, how could Lilian go back 
 to sit in Robert's holy of holies when he wrote his verses? 
 
 Cathy was always sorry for the weak, while she admired 
 the strong, and she wondered again as she looked at Lilian. 
 She was fighting for a phase of liberty, but, as Monica said, 
 how then did one grapple with the question of principle in 
 the abstract ? 
 
 Cathy drew a long breath. 
 
 "You could hardly help loving him if he is like that," 
 she said, feeling, as everyone feels when questions be- 
 come personal, that it is the people involved who count. 
 
 "It's a mercy he is not neurotic," Monica remarked in a 
 professional voice. "Anyhow, Lil, I hope you will be happy 
 and not become disillusioned." She had her own views 
 about Robert, and he interested her, because she felt that 
 he was slightly abnormal. 
 
 Lilian looked at the fire. She was well aware that a gulf 
 was widening between them, and she did not very greatly 
 care. Cathy could be trusted to stick to a friend through 
 anything, because she was sympathetic and always fought 
 for a lost cause; Monica might or might not. She would 
 not break off suddenly, but after a time you would find 
 that she had drifted out of range. Her enthusiasms were 
 all public, and she openly admitted that she gave herself 
 to bigger questions than mere personal difficulties. 
 
 "I shall dream about him to-night," Cathy said, as she
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 17 
 
 took up her hat again, and fixed one or two reluctant pins, 
 for the car had been announced. 
 
 "You'll be far too much interested in the last man you 
 have met," Monica remarked, with the slightest touch of a 
 claw hidden under a velvet pat on the cheek. "You are in- 
 corrigible, Cathy, and always will be." 
 
 Cathy turned at the door and looked back at her friends ; 
 she had some innate quality lacking in them both, and it 
 shone through her, star-like, intangible, but very real. 
 
 "She is such a darling," Lilian said, as she left them with 
 a gay wave of her hand. 
 
 "She uses too many pins," Monica replied, "both in her 
 clothes and in her ideas." 
 
 "I don't think I agree." Lilian sat down again. "I ought 
 to be going, Muggins ; it's late, isn't it ?" 
 
 "One day," went on Monica, "she will marry her cousin, 
 Lord Twyford, and play at Socialism ask the servants to 
 tea, and make everyone awkward and uncomfortable. 
 Cathy's Socialism is also put on with pins. Obviously she 
 must marry Twyford." 
 
 "Cathy doesn't bother to understand anything except her 
 own feelings, that is what makes one so sure about her," 
 Lilian said, preparing to depart. 
 
 "The very last reason for being sure of anyone," said 
 Monica.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 CATHY was late in getting back and late in getting dressed. 
 Her aunt's maid, who admired her tremendously, could only 
 wring her hands. There was no time to do her hair properly, 
 and, though her dress was ready for her, Cathy managed to 
 tear some of the saxe-blue films in which she was shrouded, 
 so that her beautiful shoulders shone whitely under the 
 gauze which covered them ; and she was reduced to falling 
 back upon pins, as they were preferable, in the eyes of Lady 
 Carstairs, to unpunctuality. 
 
 There was a brilliant crowd of celebrities at the Embassy 
 that evening, and Lady Carstairs and Cathy were soon di- 
 vided one from the other. 
 
 Cathy looked around her, with her usual quick interest 
 in crowds of every kind, and found herself near Jerry 
 Hazen, one of the secretaries, a man she always liked. He 
 was tall and spare, and when he smiled he closed his eyes, 
 a little trick which amused Cathy and made her watch for 
 it. 
 
 People flowed past and around her, and whenever she 
 began to talk to Hazen she was immediately interrupted by 
 someone else, who wanted to say that it was cold, or that 
 the reception was unusually crowded ; and, at last, she made 
 a bid for freedom, and Hazen took her to a low seat in a se- 
 cluded corner. He felt that he was more or less in love with 
 Cathy, and he was always elated and excited to be near 
 her. A bit of hjer hair had come down, and he wondered 
 whether or not he ought to tell her, as he watched her face. 
 She was looking at the room, just beyond the alcove, and 
 she was for the moment unconscious of him. 
 
 "Who are you searching for?" he asked. "I shall be 
 jealous in another minute, Miss Rossiter." 
 
 She turned her look of immortal mirth towards him. 
 
 18
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 19 
 
 "No one and everyone," she said. "I always love a 
 crowd. It's full of secrets." 
 
 The group outside the alcove broke up as Amyas, who 
 was standing just outside, turned and peered in at them. 
 The band was playing the National Anthem, and the guests 
 in the room beyond had all been standing to watch the Great 
 People go by, for they were going away. 
 
 "Cathy," he said, and he laughed. "Cathy, by George." 
 He came towards them delicately. "There's a rod in pickle 
 for you," he said, laughing at her, and holding up an ad- 
 monitory finger. "She has been talking about God, I'm sure 
 of it, it's her obsession." He put his hand on Hazen's shoul- 
 der. "Quite mad on the subject, aren't you, Cathy?" 
 
 "I'm not a monopolist," she said. "God belongs to every 
 one." 
 
 "I haven't believed in that fiction since I was twenty," 
 Robert remarked with a shrug, and then he laughed again. 
 "Gods, if you will; gods who loved like men and sinned 
 like men." 
 
 Cathy looked at him and shook her head. "You're not 
 even a good modern, Robert, if I must believe you. You're 
 trundling along, centuries back a hopeless reactionary." 
 
 Again their eyes met, as Hazen wished her good night 
 there was no use staying on to be de trop. 
 
 "You can't go yet," Robert remarked to her as he sat 
 down. "Twyford must wait. Are you really going to 
 marry him, Cathy?" 
 
 She laughed, and shook her head. 
 
 "I have other things to do than think of marriage," she 
 said, with her quick, living eyes on his dark, thin face. 
 
 "I'll bet anything that you encourage every man Jack of 
 them all." Amyas half closed his eyes, and smiled. "You 
 can't help it. At present you are hypnotising me, and adding 
 me to the list." 
 
 "Why in the world should I want you ?" she said, touch- 
 ing his arm. "My dear Robert, humility is a virtue which 
 you certainly don't seem to possess." 
 
 "I shall be what's called 'a free man' soon," he replied,
 
 20 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 and his mouth twitched slightly at the corners. "Have you 
 seen anything of my airy, fairy Lilian ?" 
 
 "I saw her to-day." Cathy lowered her eyes. No one 
 could logically be expected either to respect or love Robert, 
 but he was hurt, and she felt for him at once. 
 
 "She is in love, as you know, with a creature of beef 
 and muscle." 
 
 "Be fair, Robert, be fair." Cathy's voice was imploring. 
 
 "Oh, these things happen," he said, with an assumption 
 of indifference; "I am quite calm about it. Some people 
 like beefsteak, and, if they do, well, I suppose they must 
 have it. She will be bored stiff then, by God, Cathy/' he 
 laughed his sophisticated laugh, "she'll give him hell. A 
 sweet-tempered woman, Lilian; you might guess that by 
 the set of her chin." 
 
 "Lil is one of my greatest friends," Cathy said, with a 
 touch of frost in her voice. "I think it was rather wonder- 
 ful of her to have stuck you as long as she has, Robert. 
 You aren't an easy man to get on with." 
 
 "She has my best wishes and congratulations," he said 
 idly; "it will be amusing enough for all our friends." 
 
 Cathy considered for a second, and then she spoke very 
 earnestly. 
 
 "Are you really a righteous man yourself? You're so 
 shadowy, that I often can't catch hold of you at all. You 
 say you are a pagan, yet, now that your own roof is men- 
 aced, you see the use of laws, and so on. When you are 
 dying, you will send for the nearest clergyman to come and 
 say prayers. That's the kind of man you are." 
 
 Amyas sat up and looked at her, as though her words had 
 stung him into some feeling of anger, and then he decided 
 it was too much trouble, and he subsided again. 
 
 "A woman can't afford to do things of the kind," he said, 
 in his slightly complaining way. "Lilian will get it in the 
 neck, socially. She should have shown more gumption." 
 
 "Conquer herself for the sake of the conventions, in 
 fact?" Cathy's voice was scornful. 
 
 "Oh, call it that, if you like. A little common sense would 
 be all to the good."
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 21 
 
 "If you said that she was bound to stick to a principle," 
 Cathy spoke with growing warmth, "then I could under- 
 stand you." 
 
 She thought, with a kind of historic vision, of the crowded 
 masses of men and women who had placed an* ideal, clear 
 to them if not to the rest of the world, above all else. In- 
 tensely human, they thronged the road of life, with their 
 red passions and burning wrongs, their frenzied rights, their 
 fighting and their death, all carried through in the very 
 world where she herself now stood. 
 
 "You discard principle, and, though you laugh at con- 
 vention, you profit by it in this case and are glad." 
 
 "Laugh? Of course I laugh. I laugh at a policeman, 
 for instance ; you can't expect me to do anything else with 
 him; but, all the same, when a thief steals my spoons, I 
 call him in. Common sense again." 
 
 "Now you are back to property rights," she retorted. 
 "This man of Lilian's couldn't steal her; she is an individual 
 and decides for herself." 
 
 Robert laughed again. 
 
 "Forgive me, Cathy," he said, "but I am thinking of you 
 and Twyford, later on, when you do marry him, as you 
 certainly will. He has his own ideas." 
 
 Cathy was thinking again, watching the people in the 
 room beyond. 
 
 "It's the different standard," she said suddenly; "that's 
 where the whole thing tumbles to bits. Before you married 
 Lilian, were you a Puritan, Robert?" 
 
 "I may have been," he said, half closing one eye, with a 
 kind of lazy impertinence. "I knew my way about, Cathy, 
 if that's what you are driving at." 
 
 "You were just a rather nasty little boy, and you grew 
 nastier as you went on." 
 
 "Cathy, do be reasonable. I wasn't any different to the 
 others." Robert spoke in tones of exasperation. 
 
 "You haven't the smallest right to say a word," she said. 
 "What have you been teaching Lilian since you and she 
 were married ? Love of honour, high aims, love of the poor 
 or the helpless ? Love of a clean name, of any real beauty ?"
 
 22 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 " 'Here the speaker was interrupted by loud cheering,' " 
 Amyas commented. "Let me remind you, Cathy, that we 
 live in London, and not in Hyde Park. By the way, do you 
 mean that I am a coward and a hypocrite? It isn't very 
 civil of you." 
 
 "You have the backing of your own kind," she said 
 scornfully. "It's wrong, dreadfully wrong somewhere." 
 She sighed, and opened her fan. 
 
 "I loved Lilian," he said, glancing at her lowered eyes, 
 "and it's not altogether easy to forget her. Give me credit 
 for that much sincerity." 
 
 It seemed as though he was going to say something fur- 
 ther, when Cathy looked up and saw that her cousin was 
 coming towards her. He was a man of middle height, with 
 a bright colour and fair hair. Twyford was curiously in- 
 different, and his indifference invaded every region of his 
 mind, except that inhabited by Cathy ; he did not care what 
 happened to anyone else. He never spoke in public, though 
 he was a hereditary legislator, and had never wished to 
 assist any cause, nor had he done so, and yet he was steady 
 and right-minded. Women, in dozens, had tried to marry 
 him, and he had once been in love, before Cathy's day 
 dawned, when he had shown all the necessary common sense, 
 and no one had been much the wiser when it all ended. 
 
 His coming made an end to further talk between Robert 
 and Cathy, and silenced her longing to say to Amyas that, 
 if he had really loved Lilian or loved her still, he would not 
 be thinking of what the world was going to do, the conven- 
 tional world, to which he boasted himself superior. He 
 hadn't even an angry god to stand at his side, but he was 
 glad, because, as it were, he knew that there were butchers 
 about who slaughtered reputations. But he did not dwell in 
 the green pastures, and no one had said to him, "My peace 
 I give unto you." 
 
 Robert hailed Twyford once he saw that his coming was 
 inevitable, and Cathy rose to her feet. He watched her as 
 she smiled at her cousin. Trust Cathy to smile at a man. 
 She smiled so readily too readily, he fancied.
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 23 
 
 "I'm so sorry" ; she became repentant at once, ard Twy- 
 ford stared at her, as was his habit. 
 
 "Aunt Amy has got the jumps," he said; "she wants to 
 leave, and, as usual, can't find you. You've been like a 
 needle in a bundle of hay to-night." 
 
 "Do think of an original simile," Cathy said, turning a 
 valedictory smile towards Amyas. "Good night, Robert, 
 I'm glad we had a talk." 
 
 "It was a very one-sided affair," he replied, rocking him- 
 self a little on his long legs. "Cathy's preparing to take 
 Holy Orders, Twyford ; it's a bit of a bore." 
 
 "We shall be the last to leave as it is," Twyford said 
 impatiently. 
 
 "Well, what if we are?" Cathy retorted. "It shows how 
 much we enjoyed the evening."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THERE was trouble and commotion in the house of Lady 
 Carstairs ; the big, spacious house in Cavendish Square. 
 
 Properly speaking, the trouble belonged to the school- 
 room quarters, but it had leaked painfully through, like 
 some trickle of ugly colour, and made its way elsewhere. 
 The governess, Miss Batten, who was there to superintend 
 the training of Elizabeth and Constance, Lady Carstairs' 
 twin grand-daughters, was young and pretty, in a colour- 
 less fashion, and led a secluded existence in the dim land 
 that stretches between the employer's own domain and the 
 servants' hall. It was rather a dull place for a young girl, 
 and when kind Lady Margaret Roper gave a small dance, 
 she suggested that Miss Batten might be allowed to be 
 numbered among the guests. It all should have turned out 
 well, because the motive was a good one, if Miss Batten had 
 not lost her ridiculously fluffy head. She had, one may 
 suppose, lived too much on dreams, and to get away from 
 grammars was in itself too intoxicating for such as she. 
 Lady Carstairs regarded her kindly before she left, and 
 made one of her usual remarks. Everyone who knew Lady 
 Carstairs knew what she was likely to say. She said, "it 
 never rains but it pours," and that, "there are always faults 
 on both sides"; she also said that "marriage is a lottery," 
 and that "truth is stranger than fiction"; and she made 
 some statement of the same kind when luckless Miss Batten 
 was swept off in pursuit of pleasure. 
 
 Miss Batten enjoyed the dance. She knew no one when 
 she got there, and Lady Margaret introduced her to a man 
 who also knew no one. He had been brought by Mr. Otho 
 Adamson, a young and rather headlong nephew of the host- 
 ess. The man, whose name, it transpired, was Taylor, was 
 a tall, garish individual ; a person whom, you might hesitate 
 
 24
 
 25 
 
 to introduce to a debutante, but quite suitable for a govern- 
 ess. Otho admitted afterwards that he knew him at his 
 Club, believed that he came from Australia, and that, as 
 he had been instructed to find enough dancing men, he had, 
 on an impulse of hospitality, requested the lanky stranger 
 to "come along." He had once given him a reliable tip at 
 Doncaster, and here Otho fell back on the excuse that you 
 expected people to know how to behave. 
 
 Soon after the early part of the evening had gone through, 
 Miss Batten, and the man from Australia called Taylor, had 
 disappeared, and when the eager dancers were still hard at 
 it, dancing to "God Save the King," she was still absent. 
 In the end she did appear, in company with Mr. Taylor, 
 who looked, so report had it, more like the Flying Dutchman 
 than ever, and Lady Margaret, alone in the empty drawing- 
 room with its lights nearly all extinguished, took a grim 
 farewell of her. 
 
 Next day Lady Margaret called on Lady Carstairs and 
 spoke to her quite frankly. She did not think Miss Batten 
 could exercise "a good influence over girls." This was 
 paying Miss Batten rather a handsome compliment, for she 
 had never influenced any living being in all her hapless days. 
 Lady Carstairs felt distressed, and said that "there were 
 faults on both sides," and that "it was never too late to 
 mend," and decided to hush up the whole thing. Cathy 
 took the part of the governess, and blamed Lady Margaret 
 for handing her over to a man with a large nose and a 
 heavy moustache, who looked as if he had dined too well; 
 and so the incident passed into oblivion and Miss Batten 
 was pardoned. 
 
 "She must have been very hysterical," Lady Carstairs 
 said, when she described the interview to Cathy, "because 
 she said she 'wished she had been dead' before she went to 
 dear Margaret's little dance. What an odd thing to say." 
 
 Time went on, and Miss Batten with it, and time also 
 disclosed the inevitable truth, and the morning after the 
 reception at the American Embassy, Lady Carstairs was 
 called to her governess's room, to find that Miss Batten was 
 ill. The nature of her illness was so shocking, that Lady
 
 26 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 Carstairs forgot to say that it was the unexpected which 
 always happened. 
 
 "She has told me everything," she said, sitting down near 
 the fire in Cathy's room. "It was that disreputable friend 
 of Otho's. He is probably married. I believe all Austra- 
 lians are before they leave their own country, and, in any 
 case, a man who would behave like that " 
 
 "Couldn't be trusted to marry any woman," Cathy said. 
 "I quite agree with you, Aunt Amy." 
 
 "Not that at all, my dear," Lady Carstairs replied. "If 
 he could be induced to, it would be a blessing in every way ; 
 but I rang up Otho, who knows nothing whatever about 
 him, nothing whatever oh, really, it is very dreadful." 
 
 "Something must be done for poor Batkins," Cathy said, 
 getting up and standing by the fire. 
 
 She was thinking of the hundreds and hundreds of newly 
 created spirits who came into the world day after day; 
 wasn't it Mr. H. G. Wells who had seen a vision of a stream 
 of babies pouring down a pipe into a gutter? 
 
 "I'll go and see Monica," she said, "when I have talked 
 to Miss Batten. Monica will know what it is best to do 
 with her." 
 
 "She behaved dreadfully badly, and of course the girl is 
 ruined," Lady Carstairs said sadly ; "yet, really, Cathy, who 
 could have foreseen such a thing? Margaret acted out of 
 kindness, and one expects people to behave decently." 
 
 Cathy hurried out of the room, and went upstairs to Miss 
 Batten's landing. She felt that the governess was faced 
 by the most awful punishment which can fall upon living 
 woman, and for the sake of what? What had she been 
 thinking of? How could she? The man was, so she had 
 heard, a coarse looking creature, with hot eyes and a grin. 
 How could it be explained within the limits of reason ? She, 
 who had everything to lose by such a hazard, and nothing 
 whatever to gain. Did some madness possess her, or had 
 the airless civilisation and gentility of her lot reacted sud- 
 denly, and had she leapt full into an hour of wild revolt, 
 desecrating her altars and dancing on the lesson books and 
 all under Lady Margaret's roof? Any sane person might
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 27 
 
 be capable of an hour of madness, but the price of it, in this 
 case, was staggering. 
 
 Knocking at Miss Batten's door, she went in, and found 
 her sitting by the fire, dejected and wretched, her face 
 smeared with crying and her eyes heavy with grief. There 
 should be something which one ought to be able to say to 
 help her. Was it any use to tell Miss Batten that "morality 
 was merely a geographical condition," and that, in some 
 other country, she wouldn't be regarded as a pariah? Miss 
 Batten raised her bruised eyes and looked at her, out of the 
 depths. 
 
 "Batkins," Cathy said, crossing the room and taking her 
 cold hands impulsively, "don't take it so hard." 
 
 "I wish I were dead, dead," moaned Miss Batten. "It's 
 all awful, you don't know how awful." 
 
 "I know in a kind of way," Cathy looked at her earnestly, 
 "but there must be a brave way out. We are given a chance 
 here to face consequences, and you have to be desperately 
 brave." 
 
 "I'm terrified," the girl hid her face on Cathy's shoulder. 
 "My people, for instance; they will disown me." 
 
 Cathy was looking over her head, through the window, 
 The mystery of life was so tense, and there was not one 
 gleam of divinity or beauty in the incident which had gone 
 to the making of the trouble. 
 
 "He said that it would be all right," Miss Batten's words 
 came stifled and smothered. "Everyone did it; all the 
 
 smart people and the fashionable people, and that " her 
 
 voice was choked with sobbing. 
 
 Cathy thought of Robert Amyas, who, before he had 
 married, "knew his way about." What were they all think- 
 ing of, she wondered, to accept such a ridiculously one- 
 sided dictum? 
 
 "Don't think of the man," she said quickly ; "forget him." 
 
 Miss Batten raised her head, and her face looked yellow 
 and drawn. 
 
 "Yet he is responsible," she spoke with a kind of dull 
 rage. "No one will do anything to him. I lose my whole 
 life, and how I am to live at all I don't know. I'm not say-
 
 28 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 ing that I did not know it was wrong, I did know ; but some- 
 thing came over me, and I lost myself, and now," she 
 sobbed afresh, "I can't face anyone again. My people will 
 disown me." 
 
 Her litany always ended on the same note, and Cathy 
 wondered why it was that, just when they were so urgently 
 needed, they should fail and turn away. 
 
 "Are you sure?" she asked. "Perhaps you are wrong.' 
 
 "Oh, no, I'm not," Miss Batten's voice was unhesitating; 
 "they are very strict and self-respecting, and also very 
 religious. I am dead to them, and I wish I were really 
 dead!" 
 
 They were "strict, self-respecting and very religious," 
 but they had no use for the miserable lost sheep, who was 
 so absurdly like a sheep, as she sat and mopped her dim 
 eyes. She was silly, sentimental and hungry for love, and 
 she would have outworn all that, had it not been for Lady 
 Margaret's kind thought, and come to an early middle-age, 
 respected and liked by the pupils she had taught. There 
 was not the least spice of the devil in the girl to brave her 
 through, and her gods, who were reproductions of her par- 
 ents, were also angry and hid their faces from her. 
 
 Cathy took her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. 
 
 "It's my awful lack of principle," Miss Batten said, cry- 
 ing afresh. "When I went to Lady Margaret's dance I was 
 perfectly happy " 
 
 Cathy's voice was firm. "All that matters now is that 
 you should pull yourself together. We know all about it, 
 Aunt Amy and I, and you aren't alone with the misery any 
 more." 
 
 There was no use talking to poor Miss Batten. All the 
 sacredness had been pushed out of her life with one sweep, 
 and she was broken. Even love was remote from her, and 
 the story was likely to become a kind of joke. Lady Mar- 
 garet was the most correct of hostesses, Miss Batten the 
 most unlikely guest to cause confusion; but Bacchus had 
 passed along, and, for an irredeemable second, Miss Batten 
 put on the leopard skin and rushed after him. Shallow,
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 29 
 
 weak, at the mercy of the man with the large nose, she had 
 gone down to disaster. 
 
 As Cathy went out and on to Monica's house, she worked 
 herself up into a feeling of rage. Muggins would help her 
 to see more clearly, for incidents of the kind were the com- 
 monplace of her days. She would be able to help and 
 assist, and her sympathies were always strongly on the side 
 of the weak. 
 
 Monica was wearing her hat, and had set out a table for 
 tea; and she looked unusually pretty. Her pale face was 
 flushed and her eyes bright, and she greeted Cathy with an 
 enthusiasm not wholly connected with her arrival. Cathy 
 looked at the table and noted a box of cigarettes and a cake 
 
 "Is it a party?" she asked. "Oh, Mug, I wanted you to 
 myself." 
 
 Monica smiled, and put her arm over her friend's shoul- 
 der. 
 
 "Not a party, no," she said in a gay voice; "only Jack 
 Lorrimer. He's an old friend, and now he is back and out 
 of the army." 
 
 "Well, I wish he'd stayed where he was," Cathy said 
 petulantly, raising her beautiful eyebrows in a kind of pro- 
 test. "You are thinking of him, and not of what I want 
 to talk about." 
 
 "Can't I have even one man friend ?" Monica said, with a 
 playful pretence at reproach. "Really, Cathy, you are rather 
 greedy. But what's up?" 
 
 Cathy took off her fur coat and adjusted her close velvet 
 hat so that the wing was all on one side. 
 
 "It's Batkins," she said ; "Batkins has gone a mucker." 
 
 "Miss Batten, your aunt's governess?" 
 
 "Exactly. She went to a dance, Mug, and some beast of 
 a man got hold of her and " 
 
 "Did the trick," said Monica shortly. "Poor girl. How 
 old is she?" 
 
 "Twenty-seven. She was nursery gov. to Elizabeth and 
 Constance. Took them for walks and taught them gram- 
 mar."
 
 30 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "I suppose all you people are fearfully shocked," Monica 
 remarked, with a twist of her mouth. 
 
 "Some of us," Cathy agreed. "Don't be too much out- 
 raged, Mug, we all know so little." 
 
 "And yet you'll dance with the man, and ask him to dine, 
 and one of you will marry him." Monica's scorn intensi- 
 fied. 
 
 "I shall not," Cathy spoke with some heat. 
 
 "Not this special one, because you've had a chance to 
 understand the workings of things, but others, Cathy, others. 
 Why, there is your own friend, Sir Hector Foulkes; his 
 record is as dirty as it well may be. What about poor little 
 Esther Kynaston?" 
 
 Cathy looked at the fire. 
 
 "It's quite true," she admitted sadly. "I have danced 
 with Hector often since, and he stays about everywhere. 
 But I did go to see Esther, only she wouldn't have anything 
 to do with me." 
 
 "And I don't blame her," Monica gave a quick sound of 
 anger; "she has some pride." 
 
 "Can't you do something, and help me about Batkins ?" 
 
 Monica went to her table and took up a paper. 
 
 "This is the place," she said. "I am one of the visiting 
 doctors, and I'll look after her." She stood in the centre 
 of the room and looked at Cathy. "I'll try and get some 
 sense into her silly head. Oh, you all make me rabid. You 
 won't face any facts. Miss Batten is a human being, and, 
 if she was married to a tinker, you'd regard her child as 
 a perfectly right and proper result. She was starving for 
 sheer magnetism, and, worked up by the music and the sur- 
 roundings, she hadn't an ounce of resistance in her." 
 
 Cathy moved uncomfortably. When Monica began to 
 speak plainly she had a way of making her feel intensely 
 uncomfortable. Nebulous things became close, clear and 
 ugly, and the world revealed a visage which grimaced at 
 her elbow. 
 
 "I want to help her," she said ; "I can't think of whether 
 it's good or bad." 
 
 "There you are," Monica made a gesture of despair.
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 31 
 
 Cathy shook her head. She knew that it would be a fine 
 thing if one had the courage to face the whole of life, and 
 that it was wiser to train the faculties as Monica had trained 
 them, all ready for battle. She had disciplined strength at 
 her disposal, and could go to war with the great allied 
 powers of the world and the flesh. 
 
 "I can't bear to know ugly and cruel things, Muggins," 
 she said, almost pleadingly, "and it's no use telling me." 
 
 "Well, it comes to this," Monica Henstock said, with a 
 slight movement of her shoulders, "Miss Batten inherits the 
 existing conventional justice meted out by the respectable. 
 She bears the disgrace, the danger, the whole burden; and 
 she is only one of many." 
 
 "Mug, dear, don't preach." Cathy got up and looked at 
 herself in a small glass over the mantelpiece, "I don't be- 
 lieve in casting any one out; I simply couldn't do it." 
 
 There was a sound from the hall of an arrival, and 
 Monica's face changed. She grew suddenly soft and gentle, 
 and the fire died from her eyes. Cathy was not watching 
 her. She turned when she heard a man's voice. "Oh, Mug, 
 I'm de trap; I should not be here; but I'll only stay a very 
 little time. I must see what was his name?" 
 
 "Colonel Lorrimer," Monica replied, and her eyes were 
 guarded. < 
 
 You couldn't have told whether she wanted Cathy to stay 
 or not, and probably she herself was not altogether sure. 
 
 "I know some Lorrimers," Cathy said, "Kentish people. 
 I stayed with them once " 
 
 "Not the same," Monica said, with a touch of sharpness. 
 "Jack isn't anybody, any more than I am. We're both 
 middle-class." 
 
 Muggins was always almost unaccountably touchy when 
 Cathy asked who any one was. 
 
 "My Lorrimers aren't anything frightfully aristocratic," 
 Cathy said, apologising at once. "I only wanted to know 
 out of curiosity. I'm always interested in people."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 CATHY liked Jack Lorrimer at once. He was large and 
 commanding, and though he was weather-beaten he did 
 not look hard. He was a man of about forty, with a tend- 
 ency to put on weight, which he combated skilfully, partly 
 because he went to a good tailor, and partly because, of 
 late, he had been leading an active life which had fined 
 him down. His hair was short and smooth, his forehead 
 narrow, and he had regular features, marred by a heaviness 
 around the lower part of his face, and his clipped moustache 
 did not hide the full, loose lines of his mouth. 
 
 His coming brought a fresh element into the room. Be- 
 fore he came they had been two women discussing life in 
 secret feminine pastures where no man ever penetrates; 
 Colonel Lorrimer drove away the rancours and antagonisms 
 which had somehow begun to creep into the argument, and 
 Monica greeted him with shining eyes. She was immensely 
 proud of him as he stood there, returning her smile. 
 
 Cathy made ready to leave them, but she stood watching 
 Lorrimer with her eternal and provoking interest. He 
 could not be supposed to know that she looked at every- 
 one like that, when he turned, as Monica made the introduc- 
 tion. 
 
 Cathy looked very vivid in the dull green of the room, 
 with its sad, faded note, and her fur coat was a beautiful 
 and expensive garment. The blue wing in her hat called 
 out the colour of her eyes, and her face was slightly flushed. 
 In her hands she held a bunch of violets, deep purple in 
 colour, and she smiled at him with her quick, wonderful 
 smile. 
 
 "You have often heard me talk of Cathy Rossiter," Mon- 
 ica said, "here she is, Jack." 
 
 Colonel Lorrimer advanced a little awkwardly. He had 
 
 32
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 33 
 
 a trick of sticking out his elbows when he was impressed, or 
 desired to be impressive, and he did so now. 
 
 He seemed to fill the room with himself and his conversa- 
 tion, but it was quite right that he should. He sat down as 
 though Monica's room belonged to him. He was possessive ; 
 that was Jack Lorrimer's main attribute, and though the 
 suggestion was tentative and remote, he flung a filmy strand 
 in the direction of Cathy, like a stout and handsome spider, 
 and prevented her departure. 
 
 "She mustn't go without tea," he said; "don't let her, 
 Monica." 
 
 Monica looked at Cathy over the copper hot water kettle 
 which was burning on the electric ring, and saw that Lorri- 
 mer had made exactly the impression she expected. She 
 wanted Cathy to like him ; she was one of her oldest friends, 
 and "later on" it would be very nice if they got on happily 
 together. 
 
 She had been interested in Jack Lorrimer, whose people 
 lived in the semi-detached house next to her own home, 
 since she wore a pigtail, and before she had been sent abroad 
 to school ; and she had fallen out of love with him because 
 he felt that women would become "unsexed" if they had the 
 privilege of making a cross on a voting paper. She had lost 
 him completely in the winding ways of life, and found him 
 again, rather unexpectedly, through a letter he had written 
 to her during a long and dull time in Kut. Lorrimer had 
 revived a number of old memories during that period, but 
 none turned out so successfully as Monica. She was a 
 good letter writer, of the exact kind, and she wrote him 
 pages. She found out what he wanted and sent parcels to 
 him, she also sent him papers and books, until Lorrimer 
 began to count a great deal on her faithful and tireless 
 ministrations. 
 
 For a whole year Monica had been gradually gathering 
 herself around Jack Lorrimer, and, though she made no 
 admissions, she had really decided to take the ultimate step 
 and marry him as soon as he got home. He was leaving 
 the army, and had done well, she believed. He had his 
 D.S.O., and, though he was not in the eye of the public, he
 
 34 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 was entirely creditable. Furthermore, and Monica was not 
 above taking such a fact into consideration, he was now a 
 rich man, having inherited money from an uncle. 
 
 Monica had her profession, and had made her way, and, 
 even though she knew that she longed almost wildly to feel 
 his arms around her, she was not going to capitulate, nor 
 were the walls to fall at the first blare of the trumpet. 
 
 As she made tea she felt glad that the moment had been 
 postponed. She was agitated by the meeting, her hands 
 shook, and it was well to have time to compose herself again. 
 He sat and chattered at Cathy, his schoolboy suggestion ac- 
 centuated and his solidity and neatness very marked indeed. 
 The years since Monica and he had met had aged him, and 
 put lines round his eyes, loosened the over-fullness of his 
 mouth, and left him a happy materialist. He was telling 
 Cathy a series of stories which they both enjoyed, and, 
 every now and then, he included Monica in their talk. 
 
 Cathy saw him as Monica's man friend the one rare 
 bird whom Monica permitted to enter through her virgin 
 door and she felt the hardiness and vigour of his physical 
 strength. He was far too large for the room, and his voice 
 resounded in the small space; he kept his legs tucked away 
 as best he could, because Monica tripped over them, and 
 everything about him was warm and alive, except, perhaps, 
 for his eyes, which were disappointing, for they were col- 
 ourless and rather dull. There was something pebble-like 
 about them, and they did not reflect his mood. Still, he was 
 wonderfully joyful and almost triumphant. He had been 
 to the War Office, and had told them there what he thought 
 of them. 
 
 "My pension doesn't matter to me now," he explained. 
 "It used to be the blot in the sun, but now I'm lucky enough 
 to be independent. An old uncle of mine died, and left a 
 whole pile of pennies to me." 
 
 Cathy was interested in Lorrimer's uncle, and asked a few 
 questions, while Monica poured the boiling water into the 
 tea-pot. She wondered what Lorrimer would say. If he 
 told Cathy that his uncle had begun as a miner, she would 
 at once think a great deal of the nephew, but Monica
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 35 
 
 guessed that the Lorrimers were unlikely to advertise the 
 fact. 
 
 Colonel Lorrimer leaned back, and, crossing his legs, he 
 explained to Cathy that Walter Baggett had been a suc- 
 cessful investor, a recluse, who never saw any one and who 
 never allowed his relatives near him. 
 
 "The old man was always good to me/' he said. "We 
 were awfully poor, Miss Rossiter, and life was a tussle, as 
 Monica probably remembers. I couldn't have taken my 
 commission, or gone up for Sandhurst, only for him, though 
 he wasn't very generous then. However, when he died, I 
 got his savings. Do forgive me for talking like this," he 
 added, "it can't be of the least interest to you." He turned 
 quickly, and began to laugh at Monica, reminding her of an 
 old habit of hers as a child, of saying that "her little finger" 
 told her things. 
 
 "What is your little finger telling you now ?" he asked. 
 
 "Mine tells me that I must go," Cathy said, getting up 
 and putting her arm over Monica's shoulder. 
 
 "Won't you come and see me, Colonel Lorrimer? It's 
 no use asking Muggins, she doesn't ever come, but perhaps 
 you will." 
 
 "Is there anything more you want to ask me, dearest?" 
 Monica said, holding Cathy's hand against her face. "About 
 that business?" 
 
 "I have got the address," Cathy said, suddenly returning 
 to the subject of her visit. "Batkins can go there any 
 time?" v 
 
 "Not 'any time,' " Monica said. "How like you, Cathy. 
 The Home is crammed; but I'll ring you up and let you 
 know when she can go. Meanwhile, be kind to the poor 
 soul, and try to understand her." 
 
 Cathy's sensitive face flushed and her eyes looked hurt, 
 but it was Lorrimer who spoke. 
 
 "I should have thought your advice quite unnecessary." 
 Their eyes met, and Cathy gave him a glance of gratitude. 
 
 "I'm not an ogress, Mug, and I have told you how sorry 
 I am," she said, half petulantly. 
 . "I'm not talking about you." Monica got up, and, with her
 
 36 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 hand on Cathy's arm, walked to the door. "I was only 
 thinking of your world, your aristocratic world, Cath, where 
 rotters abound. Save her from them; don't let them turn 
 her into a joke, and when they sneer at her " 
 
 "They won't see her." Cathy was growing restive. "Aunt 
 Amy is frightfully kind, and you may trust us to make it all 
 easy. After all, Muggins, I hold no brief for the rotters, 
 but we aren't fiends." 
 
 "You, again." Monica laughed and kissed her. "How 
 easy it is to get a rise out of you, Cath." She gave a laugh. 
 "When shall I see you again?" 
 
 "Soon," Cathy called back to her, and Lorrimer hurried 
 forward to let her out through the demure little door which 
 led into Monica's narrow hall. 
 
 He stood for some time on the steps watching her, and 
 at last he turned inwards, and found that Monica had not 
 moved from where she had been standing. 
 
 They sat down again, and now the party was as it should 
 have been from the first ; as it was when Monica had planned 
 it, and before Cathy walked into the picture. Cathy had 
 gone, but, in going, she had taken some at least of Jack 
 Lorrimer's thoughts with her. Monica could see this very 
 clearly. She gave him another cup of tea, and waited until 
 he came back to the starting-point. Cathy had done what 
 she invariably did, set the man thinking about her; for she 
 had a way of stealing into people's hearts and surprising 
 them into unexpected moods of romance. 
 
 "She is a dear, isn't she?" Monica remarked, cutting a 
 slice of cake. "I always told you that there is no one like 
 Cathy. Full of enthusiasm, and fearfully inconsistent, but 
 a darling." 
 
 "Does it matter whether she is consistent or not?" he 
 asked. "She's just herself." 
 
 "No one would wish her altered," Monica said emphati- 
 cally, "only, like the rest of us, she is patchy, and some- 
 times disappointing." 
 
 Lorrimer put down his cup and looked at Monica. He 
 had come there with the idea of asking her when she would 
 marry him. He was forty-four, and it was time to settle
 
 37 
 
 down; he was not exactly an ambitious man, but he was 
 beginning to feel that he was rich, and that he could be- 
 come powerful in a small way. Buy a place in the country, 
 keep hunters and become a J.P. ; his ambitions were not 
 tremendous. He looked again at Monica. Set beside 
 Cathy, she was like a well contrived lamp compared to a 
 star, and just then he was overcome by Cathy's clear shin- 
 ing. 
 
 "Cathy is wastefully abundant," Monica went on, smil- 
 ing at Lorrimer. "You must be on guard against her lavish- 
 ness." 
 
 "Do you mean that she is insincere?" he asked, a little 
 stiffly. 
 
 "No more than sunrise or sunset can be insincere," she 
 replied quickly ; "but they can't go on all day. Cathy is by 
 way of being crazy about social reform and public welfare. 
 Don't take her seriously, Jack, she is just a beautiful joke." 
 
 Lorrimer appeared to be applying the term to his recol- 
 lection of Cathy Rossiter, and whether he agreed or not he 
 did not say. He wasn't at all sure that he understood 
 women, but he knew that he thought Cathy very wonderful, 
 and that he was not in any special hurry to unburden his 
 heart to Monica. He was taking a flat in St. James's Court, 
 and he wanted assistance about his wall papers. Monica's 
 room was different to his mother's drawing-room, which, of 
 course, he expected it to be. Monica was modern, and 
 Lorrimer knew that he had not moved with the times. A 
 man needed pulling together when he had been absent so 
 long from England, and he felt out of it. She became im- 
 mediately interested in his flat, and was unhesitating in her 
 choice of colours for his rooms; she knew the people he 
 should apply to for specially good electric light fittings, and 
 she was helpful. 
 
 Gradually the sense of Cathy's presence receded, and 
 Lorrimer became more easy and less reserved; he could 
 even talk of Cathy again, and he asked Monica what they 
 were "squabbling about" before he had come in. 
 
 It was the case of the governess, Miss Batten, Monica 
 explained, turning on the lamp at her elbow, the light fall-
 
 38 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 ing on her clever face. The people of Cathy's world in- 
 spired her with a sense of their utter futility, and they were 
 up in arms over the moral guilt of Miss Batten, while they 
 neglected the cleansing of their own Augean stables. Cathy 
 believed she was doing her best, Lady Carstairs was also 
 anxious to do her best, but the monstrous liberty allowed 
 to those of their own house would continue unbroken.. 
 
 Lorrimer listened judicially, and leaned his elbows on the 
 arms of his chair, supporting his full chin on his folded 
 hands. He was amused, and only that Monica appeared to 
 be in rather deadly earnest, he would have laughed. 
 
 "It sounds a bit promiscuous," he said at last. "Are you 
 sure this was the lady's first faux pas?" 
 
 The subject interested him, and he found a touch of 
 the unusual in sitting there, discussing it with Monica; but 
 nowadays you might talk of anything. 
 
 "My dear Jack, women are human animals," Monica said 
 scornfully ; "get that into your head, and make no mistakes. 
 Nature cares nothing whatever for civilisation, or for mar- 
 riage laws ; it's a bit older than either." 
 
 "Still," Lorrimer laughed inwardly, though he kept the 
 smile from his mouth, "it's rather a daring affair for a 
 governess. What does Miss Rossiter think?" 
 
 "Cathy wants to help her or wants me to help her and 
 she will be sweet and kind, and all the rest of it. She has 
 got the traditional attitude, covered by sentiment." 
 
 "She spoke very kindly." Lorrimer took out his case, 
 and asked Monica if he might smoke a cigar. "I am sure 
 she will be kind." 
 
 "When is she anything else?" Monica said, almost ir- 
 ritably. "Cathy lacks what I call courage; she can't be 
 anything but kind. Take the case of Hector Foulkes or 
 even the case of Lord Twyford, her own cousin, the man," 
 she added with slight emphasis, "whom she will certainly 
 end by marrying. Cathy never asserted herself. She told 
 me that she was sorry for Twyford, because he was very 
 wretched for a long time. He isn't wretched now." 
 
 "One has to keep up the standard," Lorrimer said, from 
 behind a cloud of blue smoke. "Be reasonable, Monica. A
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 39 
 
 goverriess has to be like Caesar's wife, and if she isn't, 
 
 well " He shrugged his shoulders quite amiably. "As 
 
 it is, people know what they are going to get, if they play 
 the fool." 
 
 "And what have you to say about men?" she retorted. 
 "Jack, it's no use pretending things with me; remember 
 that I am in a position to know facts. Let the case be an 
 equal one." 
 
 "Oh, men." Lorrimer's eyes were reflective. "It's not 
 the same. I'm not speaking of myself," his eyelids flickered 
 and he looked down at his hands, "perhaps I am a bit fas- 
 tidious; but I know scores and scores of good fellows who 
 aren't, and they're none the worse for it. Don't take it so 
 seriously." 
 
 He suddenly felt outraged by Monica. What earthly 
 right had she to talk as she did, and fling, as she was now 
 doing, a string of statistics at his head, with regard to 
 houses of ill-fame in Eastern ports. A veil should be 
 drawn between such knowledge and the minds of decent 
 women, and for any woman to attack a man upon such a 
 subject was peculiarly unpleasing. 
 
 "Why !" Monica stopped tiptoe, as it were, on a staccato 
 note, "I believe I have succeeded in shocking you, Jack." 
 
 She had, but he was not shocked by what she had told 
 him, he knew all about that already; he was shocked to 
 think that she should be cognisant of these things. 
 
 "I am rather old-fashioned," he said, rubbing his eye- 
 brows and ruffling them, for they were thick and rather 
 'coarsely marked. "I don't like the idea of your knowing 
 all these facts. Why should you? Any decent man keeps 
 them out of sight of his women folk." 
 
 "Yes, you are old-fashioned," she agreed. "If Miss 
 Batten had been educated a little about her own physiology, 
 the disaster wouldn't have occurred." 
 
 She had forgotten that she intended to marry him, for 
 the moment, for Monica was very much two people in 
 one person, and the propagandist was up and out in 
 her. In her oddly cold heat, she got up from behind 
 the table and stood by the fire, the hem of her neat
 
 40 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 skirt touching his well polished brown shoes. She real- 
 ised that Jack was excessively masculine, and was war- 
 ring against her, even though he still smiled quite pleas- 
 antly. He breathed a little hard, and then he leaned for- 
 ward and touched her wrist; only just touched it, as 
 though to attract her attention, and the contact went 
 through Monica like a stab of electric fire. She forgot what 
 she had been going to say, and her eyes met his ; it seemed 
 as though she must slide into his arms, and that all their 
 talk would fall into an ecstatic silence, but, even as she 
 felt the rush of her suddenly surprised feeling overcome 
 her, she realised that Lorrimer was rising to leave, and 
 that he was totally unaware of any special emotion. He 
 stood up, and pulled down his waistcoat, regarding the 
 two clear creases in his trousers, and then he held out 
 his hand, his elbows sticking out slightly, for he was shy 
 at the moment. He was always self-conscious, both when 
 he arrived in a room and when he got up to leave it, 
 and his constraint was quite obvious. 
 
 "Then we'll go over the subject of the wall papers 
 later," he said, and he looked down at her raised face. 
 His hand felt a little hot, and he looked down at her 
 and bit his lip ; he was wondering if he would ask her then, 
 and get it over. But she must give up all that bow-wow 
 about sex questions, she really must, no county society 
 would put up with it. 
 
 He was still holding Monica's hand, and, though she 
 spoke of wall papers, her eyes were eager terribly eager. 
 
 "Red for the dining-room," she said mechanically, "and 
 white for the drawing-room. For the hall I should have 
 buff " 
 
 "I've brought back a lot of rubbish from the East," he 
 said, and he drew her a little closer to him. "Nothing of 
 any value, but gay things, phulkharis, and a heap of gold em- 
 broidery, as well as brass trays." 
 
 Monica's slender fingers were lying over his wrist, and, 
 with a true sense of her profession, she became aware 
 that Lorrimer's pulse was beating very rapidly. For one 
 moment she tasted the joy of conquest and realisation, for
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 41 
 
 she knew what he was going to say to her, and then 
 the bell on her table rang fiercely and they started apart, 
 Lorrimer had said nothing, and the interruption was mad- 
 dening to Monica. 
 
 She walked to the table, hiding her irritation, and spoke 
 sharply down the receiver. 
 
 "Who is it?" she asked. "Dr. Monica Henstock speak- 
 ing. Oh, you, Cathy. What in the world do you want?" 
 
 Try as she would, she could not keep her anger out of 
 her voice. Monica was not a successful woman in the 
 affairs of love, and such as she are at the mercy of small 
 incidents. A moment before, Lorrimer had been on the 
 very edge of the spoken word, but Monica knew, only 
 too well, that the intervention of this ridiculous call might 
 mean postponement, and postponement mean that Lorrimer 
 would never speak. She was the victim of unfulfilment, 
 and this was not the first time. 
 
 As she listened to the reply, her face changed, and 
 her eyes grew startled. She gave a few clear directions, 
 and, hanging up the receiver, turned to Lorrimer. She 
 was Dr. Monica Henstock to him now, and the other 
 Monica had vanished. 
 
 "That girl we spoke of has been trying to kill herself," 
 she said. "I must go at once, Jack. Luckily Cathy got 
 to her in tinaefbut it's serious." 
 
 "By God," Lorrimer said, hiis face serious and dis- 
 mayed, "what a dreadful thing. I hope Miss Rossiter isn't 
 fearfully upset." 
 
 "I'm more interested in Batkins," Monica said, taking 
 up her hat. 
 
 "I'll see you as far as Cavendish Square. I've got a 
 car, by the way, now that I'm a plutocrat, and I told the 
 fellow to call here at six o'clock. He'll rattle us round 
 in less than no time." 
 
 Lorrimer was very anxious to see Monica as far as her 
 destination, and she sat beside him and felt more secure 
 again. One had only to look at Lorrimer to be assured. 
 He was like a mountain, the kind of mountain which 
 would not be removed by any amount of prayer, neither
 
 42 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 would he travel to see Mahommed; the mountain, in fact, 
 that remains just where you always expect it to be, which 
 is the duty of all good mountains. 
 
 In the comfort of the padded car, Monica's nerves began 
 to tingle again, and she gripped her neat bag, and pressed 
 her fingers against the lock until it hurt her. Lorrimer 
 had been very nearly in love with her a few seconds back, 
 but he didn't feel at all so sure about it now. He did 
 not like the idea of a wife who went off suddenly, with a 
 bag in her hands, upon some indescribable errand. It 
 was very admirable and good and fine, and he admired 
 her. She allured him by her vestal clarity of profile, and 
 her terrible knowledge of the byways of life, but, if he 
 married her, she would have to relinquish her practice. 
 He pulled on a chamois glove and studied the seams. 
 
 "I hope Miss Rossiter hasn't got the wind up badly," he 
 said. "Give her my salaams, Monica." 
 
 "If I remember," Monica said absently. 
 
 She was beginning to worry about her case. From what 
 Cathy said she would have to strip and fight for the un- 
 necessary life of poor Batkins; the "mistake" was already 
 doomed and done for. 
 
 He dropped her at the steps, and she was engulfed by 
 the great doors which opened to let her in, and Lorrimer 
 stood there for a little time before he turned away. But 
 there was no sign of Cathy anywhere, and the only per- 
 son he saw was a tall, dark young man, rather over- 
 dressed, who came out just as Monica went in, and looked 
 at Lorrimer contemptuously, as though he hated him on 
 sight. His look ruffled Lorrimer considerably, and he 
 wondered if this was Twyford, the man Monica had 
 spoken of in connection with Cathy. He felt like hurrying 
 after him and kicking him, but he restrained himself, and 
 then he walked down the steps to where the liveried chauf- 
 feur was eyeing him with a look of compassionate amuse- 
 ment. He seemed to feel that Colonel Lorrimer wasn't 
 really anything or anyone, and he took his order from 
 him without enthusiasm, when told to drive to the Army 
 Club of which Lorrimer was a member. Lorrimer wished
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 43 
 
 that he had known a duchess, for the pleasure of directing 
 his chauffeur to her house or even a celebrated actress 
 but he felt, quite suddenly, that he was a nobody, and that 
 it was time he should make an effort to assert himself.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 COLONEL LORRIMER had postponed his visit to Monica Hen- 
 stock for a considerable time. He was living at the Carl- 
 ton, and the flat remained tenantless, awaiting his com- 
 mands as to paper and paint. 
 
 He was settling down a little and felt less out of things ; 
 also, he had met Cathy Rossiter accidentally in Bond Street, 
 and she had invited him to call at her aunt's house. His 
 further impression of Cathy was even more vivid than 
 the first, and she seemed to him like some royal princess 
 who owned wide realms where everyone bowed before 
 her. She had sailed, into his vision, walking with her 
 cousin, Lord Twyford, and, though Lorrimer was not 
 impressed by Twyford, he felt that he had gained some- 
 thing intangible by being included in their company as 
 they walked along together. 
 
 Cathy's wonderful untidiness was part of her charm. 
 She was quite badly dressed, he supposed, but it did not 
 matter. No one else could look like her. During the walk 
 they had met one of the best known members of the 
 Cabinet, who had teased Cathy about a hole in her glove, 
 and spoken to Lorrimer, supposing him to be someone he 
 had met before. All this pleased Lorrimer, but it was 
 very little compared to the pleasure he had in realising that 
 Cathy not only remembered their first meeting, but was 
 quite obviously glad to think that they should improve their 
 acquaintance. He wanted to buy her some flowers, but he 
 felt that Twyford, who endured him with evident dislike, 
 would have been affronted. It was not a good reason, 
 but it prevented Lorrimer from acting on impulse. He 
 was afraid of Cathy, in some subtle way. The whole meet- 
 ing and parting had only been a. matter of a few minutes, 
 for Lorrimer had allowed Lord Twyford's gloomy silence 
 
 44
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 45 
 
 to rout him. But the memory of it abode in his heart, 
 and he felt that a marriage with Monica would be, at 
 best, a dull affair. 
 
 Still, there was another side to his friendship with 
 Monica; she was Cathy's friend, and he might count upon 
 meeting her in the little house. He told himself that 
 Monica was a sensible girl, and that she was one of the 
 Amazons. Certainly, he had felt a conviction that she 
 only waited for the words to be said to throw her own 
 theories to the winds; but, then, he might have mistaken 
 the indications. In his imagination he had regarded her 
 as a possible wife, and set her, like a lay figure, on the 
 throne of his hearth, and now he took her down again 
 and stuck her away in a corner. Cathy was utterly out 
 of his reach, but she had made Monica impossible at 
 present. Once Cathy became Lady Twyford, and that 
 particularly ungracious cousin of hers had actually a right 
 to call her his own, Monica might be reinstated, but Lor- 
 rimer felt that he was falling in love, and that he must 
 just allow things to take their course. 
 
 With mixed feelings, therefore, he set out one blowy 
 afternoon to call upon Monica, and found her at home, 
 nursing a cold. She was looking weary and tired and 
 far too old for her age, and yet, when she saw him, she 
 brightened up at once. 
 
 Lorrimer had brought her flowers, not the flowers he 
 would have offered to Cathy, but good strong blossoms, 
 which would keep fresh for a week if their stalks were 
 attended to, and she received them from him with an ex- 
 clamation of pleasure. She ordered tea at once, and had 
 a great deal to say. Monica was very seriously annoyed 
 about what she called "the Batten muddle." Miss Batten 
 had been revived and brought back to health and strength 
 under her ministrations, and then, as usual, the Philistines 
 had conquered. 
 
 Lady Carstairs, whom Monica described as "a pious im- 
 becile," had made arrangements for the ex-governess to 
 learn weaving under the tuition of a certain Mrs. Beau- 
 mont. She was given just enough money to starve on, and
 
 46 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 was told that she could never again be trusted with the 
 charge of pupils. The wretched girl accepted anything 
 she was offered with a pitiable readiness, and had promised 
 to learn to weave. What happened at the school where 
 Miss Batten was taught her work Monica did not know, 
 but, after a month, the girl vanished, and there was no 
 trace of her anywhere. 
 
 "Well, I suppose it's no one's fault," Lorrimer said 
 contentedly. It didn't seem to matter very much. The 
 only interest he felt in the erring Miss Batten was, that 
 she had once been living in Lady Carstairs' house. "She'll 
 probably turn up later on." 
 
 Monica flushed suddenly, and stared at him. 
 
 "Jack, I won't believe that you are so selfish," she said 
 emphatically; "I simply won't." 
 
 "But, my dear girl," he spoke persuasively, "what can 7 
 do? I can't go round with a bell and look for the miss- 
 ing lady. She is a responsible human being, and if she 
 wants to disappear " 
 
 "Don't you realise that she was persecuted?" 
 
 "No, I don't," he said flatly and with decision. "She 
 got her chance and hadn't the wit to keep it. I should call 
 it a very good thing if she chose to drown herself." 
 
 "You are very unjust," she said, and, to his surprise, her 
 voice shook, and she seemed nearly tearful. "I took a 
 special interest in the case, and these people messed it all 
 up." 
 
 After that the rest of his visit had been unaccountably 
 jerky and had lacked the smoothness of the earlier hour. 
 Monica recovered herself, and the sense of awkwardness 
 lessened, but very soon Lorrimer got up and said "Good- 
 bye." 
 
 He had nothing very special to do that evening, and he 
 was a man with few friends. A cheerful, agreeable ac- 
 quaintance he remained, and friendships of the deeper order 
 did not come in his way. Beneath his surface heartiness he 
 was lonely, and also intensely critical, constantly finding 
 that people offended and slighted him, and he was acutely 
 sensitive. Now that he was really a rich man, he thought
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 47 
 
 things ought to have changed for him, and, so far, they 
 had not. He dined alone very often, unless he picked up 
 a man at the Club and stood him a dinner, but he had 
 no engagements. When he left Monica's house he had 
 no objective, and he walked slowly towards Piccadilly. 
 
 To be a really rich man, and at the same time to be so 
 absurdly devoid of entertainment, was, as Lorrimer told 
 himself, "damned stoopid." Why did not someone appear 
 and bring with him an object in life? He thought of her 
 again. Monica was a dear, and most undeniably clever 
 and attractive, but she was very professional. He might 
 have asked her out to dine with him, in spite of her cold, 
 for she would have come had he done so, and he wondered 
 whether it was worth while ringing her up. 
 
 By the time he had reached Piccadilly he decided against 
 this. London was utterly wearisome to him, and he won- 
 dered why he had ever taken the still unfurnished flat. 
 Again he thought of Cathy and the Cabinet Minister who 
 had found a hole in her glove. Lorrimer wished that he 
 could forget her for a little. These piercing memories of 
 her face, seen only twice, were painful to him. It was 
 useless to love her; he might as well love a star in the 
 night sky, and yet, as he dressed for dinner, he kept on 
 thinking of her and wondering when he could go and call. 
 If he called, and she was out, it would be like paying his 
 last shilling for a chance which might not be repeated, and 
 he wondered if he could induce Monica to get her to come 
 to a little dinner or a theatre. Cathy was devoted to 
 Monica, and perhaps, if Monica were not jealous, it could 
 be done. He tied his tie badly, and sat pulling at it. One 
 thing he would not do, and that was, make a cat's paw 
 of Monica. He liked the girl far too honestly for such a 
 cad's game. With a sigh he relinquished the project, and 
 he looked at himself in the long mirror. He was a fine- 
 looking man, with a good effect of leadership, unless he 
 became nervous. He liked to give lavishly, now that he 
 had money to give, and the only trouble was that his 
 world was impossibly and ridiculously small. 
 
 When he got down to the hall he decided that he would
 
 48 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 dine out, and that it would be interesting to push his way 
 beyond the more select circle of restaurants and find some- 
 thing to beguile his mind with in the Soho region. Some- 
 times he wished that he knew a little of the Continent, 
 and could go over to Paris, certain of enjoyment; but his 
 French, what there was of it, was deplorably bad. Be- 
 sides, he disliked foreigners. 
 
 Taking his time, since there was no need to hurry, he 
 wandered vaguely along a side street, where, outside one 
 door, there hung a huge lantern with the name "Voyons" 
 inscribed upon it. It looked rather a second-rate, one- 
 horse show, he thought, but it was probably as good as 
 any of the neighbouring places, and he decided to go in. 
 The sound of music attracted him, for he was intensely 
 fond of popular airs. He could disparage the people, the 
 food, and the whole place, and he felt it might do him 
 good. Lorrimer was not out for adventure but for dis- 
 traction, and he knew well how to deal with the advances 
 of women who might become troublesome. He had gained 
 his experience of the type, and he had no intention of let- 
 ting himself in for anything. 
 
 The "Voyons" Restaurant was a cheap place, and a few 
 musicians with weary* faces were fiddling at the far end. 
 Solitary men and women, or groups of both, sat at the 
 small tables, and the waiters fled about with fearful zeal. 
 The air was thick with smoke, and Lorrimer came in and 
 looked around him with no approval in his face. He gave 
 his order sternly and with immediate effect, and was 
 abrupt and rude to the man who waited upon him. In all 
 the collection he was the only really impressive person 
 there. 
 
 At the next table to him a man with a yellow face and 
 black hair was reading a French paper and drinking cof- 
 fee, and opposite, a woman with bobbed hair and a long 
 hose was evidently waiting to pounce. Let her wait; Lor- 
 rimer was not going to interest himself in her. 
 
 He ordered his meal with his touch of stiff reserve, and 
 sat drumming his fingers on the cloth. They were a rag- 
 bag collection, these neighbours of his, and he scorned
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 49 
 
 them all. Yet they gave him relief from the sense of be- 
 ing out of it; and they were all interested in him. 
 
 Lorrimer was a good judge of wine, and the wine at the 
 "Voyons" was by no means of a bad quality. He was 
 also, in a surface way, a judge of people. Nearly every- 
 one in the restaurant was cheap, struggling, and aiming at 
 the joyous life of the rich, and, alone of them all, he 
 really belonged to the solid land of large banking accounts 
 and security. After a time he became aware of the exis- 
 tence of a small, quiet-looking girl, of anything between 
 twenty-five and thirty. She had dabbed a wretched patch 
 of rouge on her cheeks, and wore a velvet cap which did 
 not suit her; she looked as much cut of it as anyone well 
 could be. He could see her well from where he sat, and 
 considered her carefully. She had large, eager eyes and 
 a wavering mouth, and, in spite of her flimsy dress and 
 thin stockings, she bore the stamp of respectability. Every 
 now and then she looked around her and smiled, and a 
 very tragic smile it was, Lorrimer thought. He did not 
 like to study her too intently, in case she might get up 
 and try to join him at his table, but she looked as though 
 she wanted a meal, and she was drinking coffee, like his 
 neighbour, and making no pretence to eat. Once he caught 
 her eye, and she made a little quavering movement as 
 though she wished him to show some further sign, but, 
 withered by his indifference, she relapsed again into her 
 nervous habit of glancing from face to face. 
 
 The man who had been reading the French journal got 
 up and went out, leaving his paper behind him, and Lor- 
 rimer, who had arrived at dessert, picked it from the floor 
 and began to study it, recognising words he knew here 
 and there. He wondered if it would entail a lot of bother 
 if he were to offer the queer, bird-like little creature a 
 liqueur. If she could be got rid of at once, he rather 
 favoured the idea. In any case, she would be someone to 
 talk to. The woman with the bobbed hair and the long 
 nose was detestable, but this other adventuress was quite of 
 a different type. He laid down the paper and looked across
 
 50 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 at her again, and he saw that she was drying her eyes with 
 a crumpled handkerchief. 
 
 Lorrimer hated to see a woman cry. It was one of his 
 most deeply rooted feelings, and he was immediately sorry. 
 He had once been poor and had gone through bad times, 
 and he was there with a pocket stuffed to bursting with 
 notes. One of those might console her. She was to him 
 as an unhappy crossing-sweeper, and he decided to do a 
 magnanimous act. 
 
 Getting up slowly, and without any sign of his purpose, 
 he crossed the floor, and, standing at the little table, he 
 touched the girl's arm. 
 
 "Come over to my table," he said, "and have a liqueur! 
 What is the matter, and why are you crying?" 
 
 The girl started violently, and gave her queer, fright- 
 ened smile, but she made no answer, she only obeyed him 
 very humbly. 
 
 Having ordered her a maraschino, Lorrimer began to 
 talk to her, his hands folded on the table in front of 
 him. 
 
 "Now, look here," he said, "you are playing the fool. I 
 don't know who you are, but this sort of thing isn't your 
 trade." 
 
 Her tears fell unrestrainedly, and she nodded her head, 
 whether accepting or denying his judgments he could not 
 tell. 
 
 "If you have any people, go back to them," he said, 
 "and don't be stoopid. Try anything else that turns up, 
 but, don't you see, my good girl, you're simply asking for 
 trouble." 
 
 "Thank you, thank you," she said in a stifled voice, but 
 the voice was educated and pleasant. 
 
 "If you've got into any kind of hole, and I can help you, 
 I'll do it," he went on, and a really joyful sense of his own 
 power flowed over his spirit. There was something worth 
 while in this adventure of his, and he was getting great 
 value out of it. 
 
 "Tell me something about yourself," he went on, "and
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 51 
 
 I'll help you, as I said. You can trust me; I am always 
 most awfully sorry for anyone who is down." 
 
 Very slowly, and with great difficulty, she began to tell 
 her story, but her mind rambled from point to point and 
 it all took a long time. 
 
 "You are the first person who has been kind to me since 
 I saw Miss Rossiter," she said, breaking off in her lament- 
 able history, and Lorrimer stared at her, flushed, gulped a 
 mouthful of coffee, and was hard put to it not to express 
 his feelings. It was like a miracle, it was a revelation, it 
 was enough to make an atheist believe in God. Cathy was 
 in a state of great trouble of mind about Miss Batten, as 
 he already knew, and here, by the mercy of Providence, 
 he had found her, found her in an obscure restaurant, 
 and had done the right thing. The rewards of virtue were 
 usually remote and took time to pay, but his reward had 
 come with the swiftness of a flash. All the evening he 
 had been thinking of Cathy, and wondering how he might 
 make his way into a closer proximity to her life, and now 
 the means had been provided. . 
 
 He sat back in his chair and looked down, betraying 
 nothing by his eyes. Up to that moment he had thought 
 that a couple of pound notes would be a handsome dona- 
 tion, sufficient to clear his conscience and to make the 
 shadowy woman happy, but now he immediately began to 
 think out a far-reaching scheme. He hardly listened to 
 Miss Batten's account of herself as a would-be weaver, nor 
 to the advice she received from a fellow-worker to cut 
 the concern and make her living by a night-hawk existence, 
 which she depicted in alluring colours. Lorrimer was 
 wondering what would really be the best line to take. His 
 heart was hot within him and he pondered carefully. 
 
 First of all, Miss Batten must be returned to Cathy, like 
 a lost book out of a lending library. Her career as a 
 night-hawk had been totally unsuccessful, and she was 
 penniless. She must be taken to a quiet lodging, and he 
 decided that his own share in the story must come to 
 Cathy through the agency of Miss Batten. She was edu- 
 cated, and possibly, with a little training, could undertake
 
 52 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 a secretaryship. Anyhow, he would, as he expressed it, 
 "put up the bullion" and undertake the entire responsi- 
 bility for her training and keep. His having done the right 
 thing exempted him from all suspicion and once he had 
 preserved Miss Batten from further falls in the mire, he 
 would only be called upon to write cheques. 
 
 Meanwhile Miss Batten watched him with adoring eyes. 
 She had fallen upon evil, evil days since the occasion of 
 the dance, and here was a total stranger who really came 
 up to the standard which she had read of in books, but 
 never encountered in the crude realities of life. She had 
 been laughed at cruelly by one or two men who had seemed 
 inclined to take her at her own valuation, and had been 
 robbed of ten shillings by a possible client, who had in- 
 vited her to supper, and then disappeared, leaving her a 
 shivering mass of misery. 
 
 The whole world was ugly, cruel and heartless, and her 
 heart was like ice when she sought the warmth of the 
 "Voyons" Restaurant with enough money to pay for a 
 cup of coffee. As Cathy had said, she never really changed, 
 and Miss Batten was still the sensitive, easily crushable 
 governess she had always been. When Lorrimer came 
 towards her, she supposed that he was about to make the 
 wretched suggestion that she feared, while she sought it, 
 and his first few words did nothing to reassure her. Only 
 gradually the light dawned in upon her trembling soul, and 
 she found herself pouring forth her whole heart to him 
 as he listened, with his eyes on his plate. 
 
 "You've been a hopeless little idiot," he said, quite kindly. 
 "But I think you have about had your lesson. It's time 
 you turned over a new leaf." 
 
 "But how can I?" 
 
 She began to cry afresh, and her handkerchief having 
 become reduced to a state of sponge-like limpness, Lor- 
 rimer solemnly handed her his own, which was of fine 
 white silk. 
 
 "I intend to see you through," he remarked, "only you 
 will have to promise me that you won't play the fool any 
 more."
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 53 
 
 Miss Batten was ready to promise anything in or out of 
 reason. She would have gone down on her knees and 
 kissed his boots if he would only have permitted it. 
 
 With a terse brevity Lorrimer outlined his plan. He 
 knew of rooms in Bayswater, kept by a respectable woman. 
 On his recommendation she would be taken in there. 
 
 "Tell her that your late landlady got drunk, and that 
 the place was impossible," he said, and Miss Batten com- 
 mitted the suggestion to her memory. 
 
 "You must wash your face before we leave here and 
 try to look a little less dishevelled." 
 
 He got up as he spoke and took down his coat, and 
 Miss Batten flickered away to repair the ravages of her 
 tears. Lorrimer sat down again and smiled. He had never 
 yet felt so satisfied with himself, and he tipped the waiter 
 and paid his bill with the air of a man who is well con- 
 tent. 
 
 As they drove together in a taxi towards Powis Street, 
 he spoke very seriously to his companion. The next day, 
 he told her, she must communicate with Miss Rossiter, who 
 had been very anxious indeed about her. 
 
 "Do you know Miss Rossiter?" she asked breathlessly. 
 
 "Very slightly, but I know Doctor Henstock, and she, 
 too, is worried." 
 
 "Oh, Doctor Henstock," Miss Batten's eagerness died 
 away a little, and she added at once, "Of course she is 
 very kind." 
 
 "I will arrange for you to stay with Mrs. Hack," Lor- 
 rimer said in his strong, masterful way, "and, later on, if 
 there is anything more to be done, you can count upon 
 me to do it." 
 
 There was a long and almost passionate silence upon 
 the part of Miss Batten, and then her small Toice crept 
 out into speech. 
 
 "Why are you so kind to me?" she asked. "It is wonder- 
 ful." 
 
 "I'm always sorry for the under dog," he remarked. 
 "Besides," he struggled to be honest, "I don't do things 
 that I don't want to do."
 
 54 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 Motives are strange things, and Miss Batten, had she 
 been told Lorrimer's motive, would not have believed it. He 
 had, it is true, taken no special glory to himself, and had 
 become frosty and almost affronted by her enthusiasm 
 in the taxi; he had repeatedly told her that he was doing 
 nothing that was either great or wonderful and had asked 
 her, finally, to stop speaking of it. But there it was. 
 Perhaps if we arrive at doing as much for another, the 
 motive may be overlooked in the higher spheres. 
 
 For a long while after his return he sat in a deep seat 
 in the lounge at his hotel, and his eyes were on the future. 
 Cathy and he would have to discuss Miss Batten's fate, and 
 he might count upon a number of meetings on the head of 
 it ; all perfectly natural and legitimate. None of the other 
 men she knew would have the same claim to her ap- 
 proval. Would Lord Twyford have acted as Knight Er- 
 rant? Not he, if Lorrimer was any judge of physiognomy. 
 Twyford was hard and self-centred, and he specialised in 
 a bad manner. Lorrimer called him a "Blighter," and 
 passed on to the memory of the dark, fashionable young 
 man whom he had once seen coming down the steps of 
 Lady Carstairs' house. He suspected that here was an- 
 other foe. You had only to look at that fellow to know 
 that he was a rotter, and he hated him on sight. The 
 man's look had been offensive, and his air of assurance, 
 a challenge. If he had met a rouged-up governess, his 
 attitude towards her would be a foregone conclusion. 
 
 At last Lorrimer went to bed, and he slept the deep 
 sleep of a man whose conscience is quiet, and whose life 
 is an open tribute to the beauty of doing the right thing.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE social world to which Robert and Lilian Amyas be- 
 longed was ringing with the divorce case, and Lilian was 
 receiving the criticism which follows upon publicity. She 
 was condemned or excused according to the minds of 
 those who talked about it, but Robert was an object of 
 universal pity. 
 
 He had been very angry with Lilian, and now the world 
 was crying out against her, and he wished that the world 
 would cease to cry. Robert had demanded revenge, but 
 discovered it to be a two-edged sword, and there was 
 something in his half-cynical, half-dreamer's nature which 
 made revenge appear oddly cruel. His sense of anger 
 against his wife died quite suddenly, and he could only 
 wonder at his lost enthusiasms of rage. 
 
 He was dining at Lady Carstairs' house a week after the 
 reappearance of Miss Batten, and the drawing-room was 
 crowded with guests. Cathy was wearing a shimmering 
 green dress, trimmed with gold and fur, and she looked 
 wonderfully lovely. She was happy, and her gaiety was 
 infectious; even Twyford seemed to be lighted by her 
 radiance, and Robert noticed a new figure in the gath- 
 ering. He thought he had seen the man before, but could 
 not recollect where, and he disliked him quite definitely. 
 The new-comer was Colonel Lorrimer, and Cathy ap- 
 peared to regard him with a kind of special interest. 
 
 There were many large mirrors in Lady Carstairs' draw- 
 ing-room, and Lorrimer was reflected in them all at once, 
 so Amyas thought; as if there was not more than enough 
 of him there already. Cathy could be really very irritating 
 at times with her enthusiasms, and she showed a lack of 
 selective power. From the corner where he sat, looking 
 intensely bored, he regarded Lorrimer with careful scrutiny. 
 
 55
 
 56 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 The man was a materialist, with signs of it everywhere, and 
 yet he was imposing himself upon Cathy. Robert decided 
 that Lorrimer had no special personality, but he was in- 
 tensely solid, and women seemed now and then to evince 
 a passion for solidity. Cathy, he thought, was making far 
 too much of him. The idiot was in love with her, and 
 surely she was above the smallness of wishing for con- 
 quest. He decided to tackle her about it when oppor- 
 tunity arose, and he made his way to Lady Carstairs, who 
 treated him, on account of the divorce case, as though 
 he were ill and should be humoured. When dinner was 
 announced, he found that his place at the long table was 
 next to Cathy, who had been taken in by Colonel Lor- 
 rimer. Amyas was without any lady, as his invitation 
 had been an after-thought, given that morning when he 
 met Lady Carstairs while she was shopping, and he had 
 accepted it rather abstractedly. 
 
 "When are you going to talk to me ?" he asked her, in a 
 piqued voice, for Cathy had been absorbed by Lorrimer. 
 
 "Oh, Robert, I was talking to you," she said, "or at least 
 at you; you could have listened to what I said." 
 
 Amyas raised his eyebrows and made no other reply. He 
 felt unaccountably vexed by her, and, after all, he was 
 an old friend. Cathy was faithful, but she had too many 
 new friends, they jostled the others, and no one likes to be 
 jostled. 
 
 "You are taking yourself seriously," he said, because 
 he wanted her not to return to Lorrimer, who had, as far 
 as he could gather, been telling her that he wished to go 
 and live in the country. Why didn't he, then? He would 
 be better there than here. 
 
 "Why should Miss Rossiter not do so?" Lorrimer asked, 
 and Robert regarded him with a smile. 
 
 "Because it spoils her," he said in his delicate, critical 
 way. "Once people begin to take themselves seriously they 
 do no good in the world." 
 
 Lorrimer said nothing, but this profile suggested that he 
 felt it to be just the idiotic answer he would have ex- 
 pected from Amyas.
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 57 
 
 "Also," Robert continued, "it makes them impersonal. 
 A huge mistake. Further, it leads them into the public 
 Press, if not the Law Courts, because that is the short cut 
 to notoriety." 
 
 He addressed Lorrimer deliberately. "You, I take it, 
 are a perfect monster of common sense?" 
 
 Lorrimer flushed; he was extremely angry, but he only 
 laughed. 
 
 "I expect so," he replied. 
 
 "And you are absolutely wrong," Cathy turned her 
 laughing eyes to Amyas. "Of all the wildest philanthropists 
 alive Colonel Lorrimer is the greatest. If I were to tell 
 
 you " she turned, and laid a finger on Lorrimer'si 
 
 arm. "No, I won't give you away, but if I were to tell 
 you just one little bit of his secret mystery, Robert, you 
 would be literally crushed to the earth with remorse." 
 
 "Then he will end badly," Amyas said more pleasantly. 
 "The only way in which one can hope to deal with life is 
 through a process of complete egotism. Forgive me, Colonel 
 Lorrimer, if I misjudged you." 
 
 "We want to make a new world," Cathy continued, "one 
 in which there is no pomp and circumstance." 
 
 Amyas looked along the table, and watched Lady Car- 
 stairs, who was talking to a Bishop. 
 
 "A two-hours day world," he said, laughing at her. 
 "Shall we ask the Bishop if he really believes that riches 
 are the root of all evil?" 
 
 Cathy turned again to Lorrimer. 
 
 "Robert might listen to you. He's tired of all my argu- 
 ments." 
 
 "When I was out to-day," she went on, "I saw a crowd 
 of people all pushing and struggling for a place, just to 
 watch a Royal carriage go by. They all fought and strug- 
 gled to watch some very ordinary people who are no dif- 
 ferent to anyone else. Why can't they see," she went on 
 emphatically, "that there is no real glory in these things? 
 The same people crowd in the same way to look at a popu- 
 lar criminal, only more of them go in that case. I hate a
 
 58 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 \ 
 
 servile world, and it could not be if only people would think 
 for themselves." 
 
 "And of course you agree with Miss Rossiter?" Amyas 
 suggested, with a hidden touch of malice, as he spoke to 
 Lorrimer. "I warn you that she will ask you to remove 
 all the really exciting events from the day." 
 
 "I agree entirely with Miss Rossiter," Lorrimer said 
 defiantly. If this ass thought that he was a snob he was 
 goirig to show him that he was mistaken. He felt his own 
 origin stir in his blood, and he turned to Cathy with sud- 
 den gentleness. 
 
 She did not care a rap for social distinction, and he had 
 been afraid that she might consider m'm in some way be- 
 neatlj her. A sense of assurance came to him. 
 
 "I am a nobody," he said, and again he met her raised 
 eyes, "so I speak as an outsider. I began life with noth- 
 ing, and all I have I owe to a working man." 
 
 "You start with an advantage," Amyas said drily. "Miss 
 Rossiter makes a cock-shy of the Peerage in general, and 
 crowned heads in particular. She is merely amusing her- 
 self by abusing her own relations, a fault which is quite 
 human. Yet, if she was prepared to leave you a few 
 illusions, you might not be any the worse off because you 
 believed a class, to which you don't belong, to be better than 
 it is." 
 
 He had not meant to say what he had, and he met Cathy's 
 look of reproach, as she got up to follow the line of white 
 shoulders and beautiful dresses out of the large room. He 
 had annoyed and hurt her, and, worse still, he had played 
 into Lorrimer's hand. Lorrimer had scored, and was look- 
 ing as though he knew it. He was even quite dignified, for, 
 though he knew none of the other men present, and was 
 in a slightly awkward situation, he sat there repose fully and 
 appeared not to mind. But Lorrimer had done it too 
 dexterously. He loomed there as a positive danger, and, 
 with Cathy's awful capacity for impulse, who could foretell 
 what would be the next stage of the affair? Amyas de- 
 cided that he would not talk to Lorrimer, but that he would 
 watch him carefully.
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 59 
 
 At the end of the table, Stockton, an elderly Member of 
 Parliament, was talking shop to Twyford, and Twyford 
 was, as usual, quite uninterested. Stockton was a big man, 
 in his way, and powerful; he owned three newspapers and 
 moulded the political views of thousands of men and 
 women he had never seen. Twyford, with his stubborn 
 lack of imagination, was not concerned with the unknown 
 masses, and Stockton was obviously nettled by the lack 
 of enthusiasm he evinced. Stockton had new schemes for 
 every week in the year, and he knew the value of ardour; 
 his large face wore an expression of disgust, and he turned 
 from Twyford. The proprietor of three newspapers felt 
 that it was time that the Twyfords of this world were 
 swept away. In his momentary anger his eye fell upon 
 Lorrimer, who sat there like a large island in an empty 
 sea, and something in his attitude struck Stockton at once. 
 He looked as though he might be thinking, and might quite 
 possibly be thinking sensibly. Lorrimer had the cut of a 
 sensible man and it appealed directly to Stockton, who 
 moved in his chair and spoke to him. 
 
 Again Amyas watched Lorrimer, and tried to think that 
 he gave him an unprejudiced attention. There might be 
 more in him than he fancied more, in fact, than mere 
 bulk, but bulk was often an asset. 
 
 Lorrimer by no means jumped at the remark thrown 
 towards him. He appeared to permit it to come well 
 within range before he responded, and then he replied with 
 a platitude. 
 
 Stockton was interested. He had drawn Lord Twyford 
 a dead blank and he had no further use for him, and now 
 he was fully prepared to turn his attention to Lorrimer. 
 
 Robert turned to talk to the man on his right, and 
 decided that there was a fatality in events which could not 
 be avoided. His head was aching; he wanted to take some 
 of the white tablets in his small bottle. 
 
 Meanwhile there was Cathy, who might have been kinder 
 to him. He felt that he needed a great deal from Cathy, 
 and she was occupied with Lorrimer. Cathy was always 
 occupied with someone, and it made her difficult to get at.
 
 60 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 Before they left the table, Robert heard Stockton giving 1 
 an invitation to Lorrimer to dine with him at the House, 
 and it was obvious that he intended to improve their ac- 
 quaintance. 
 
 When they went into the drawing-room, Amyas had 
 made up his mind to corner Cathy, but so had Twyford, 
 and so, also had Lorrimer, and she sat smiling up at them 
 all. 
 
 "Which of you am I to talk to ?" she asked. "I think it 
 must be you, Robert, you look aspirinish and cross." 
 
 Lorrimer. retired at once ; he seemed quite assured and 
 not in the least disturbed by her decision, and Twyford 
 stood to argue the point. 
 
 "I hardly ever see you," he said, "it is ridiculous, Cathy. 
 I had that wretched woman, Lady Duntlair, giggling at me 
 all through dinner. She looked as if she had drunk too 
 much." 
 
 "Well," Cathy retorted, "if you were a nobody you 
 might have escaped her. It pleases me when you have to 
 suffer for your advantages. Go away and grumble to 
 someone else. I'm riding with you to-morrow morning, 
 and then you can be as grumpy as you please." 
 
 "To-morrow I mayn't want to be grumpy," he said, star- 
 ing at her. 
 
 "You must renounce Cathy and all her works, for the 
 present," Amyas interposed. "I want to find out some- 
 thing which she only can tell me." 
 
 Twyford took no notice of Robert. He had always liked 
 Lilian; now he felt himself to be in arms for her sake. 
 He was intensely direct in his theories, and was scrupulous 
 where friendships were concerned. As for Lorrimer, he 
 hardly thought of him at all ; Amyas was more clearly in 
 the light ; Amyas who had muddled the Lilian business, and 
 who was now free to attempt to entrap Cathy through her 
 ridiculous sympathy. To Twyford, the fact appeared clear, 
 and he went away to lean against the wall and yawn openly, 
 promising himself that the next morning he would tell 
 Cathy what she was in for. You could trust Cathy to stand 
 firm upon a scruple; and to let Robert immediately show
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 61 
 
 that he loved her, before the divorce was a week old, was 
 literally indecent. There was a fine constancy in Twyford, 
 and he stuck to whatever he put his hand to, for he had a 
 latent sense of rigorous fidelity. Cathy must be got out 
 of this over-heated atmosphere and taken to the country. 
 She must stop this craze for talking of the conditions of the 
 poor and the existence of social evils ; if she had a nursery 
 it would cure her and give her an object upon which to 
 spend herself lavishly. Though he was not a psychologist, 
 he felt quite sure that Cathy would never give any man 
 the central place in her life. She would reserve that for 
 a son. 
 
 Cathy turned to Robert, and her face was penitent. 
 
 "I have hurt Twyford," she said regretfully. "I hope 
 you are worth it." 
 
 "Can he be hurt?" Amyas glanced across the room and 
 gave his cold laugh. "If you took a hatchet, perhaps; he 
 isn't exactly a sensitive plant. And that leads me on to 
 your other friend. What awful virtue has he displayed? 
 I find him the reverse of attractive." 
 
 "Colonel Lorrimer?" Cathy grew earnest. "I must tell 
 you, though I suppose it is not really fair. It was he who 
 found Batkins." 
 
 Amyas looked up at the ornate ceiling, which was a 
 mass of gold, blue and brown, and distressed him. 
 
 "Where?" he asked drily. 
 
 "In a restaurant in Soho." 
 
 "Does he usually go about Soho with a landing-net, sav- 
 ing pretty ladies in thin silk stockings and fur coats?" 
 
 Cathy became eager. She had a great deal to say about 
 Lorrimer, and she told the story well. That Amyas was 
 mean and sceptical did not affect her at all. Lorrimer had 
 acted unconsciously, and had shown what manner of man 
 he was. He had been kind and simple throughout. 
 
 "You should hear Batkins talk of him," Cathy went on; 
 "she can't say too much." 
 
 "I don't want to hear her," Robert's voice was weary and 
 fretful; "I don't like all these saintly people. It isn't 
 natural. If we go on at this rate, Cathy, the world will be
 
 62 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 no place for the likes of me. I become nauseated. Besides," 
 he looked at her sideways, "I don't swallow it all. I don't 
 believe that very massive people are ever saints ; it's against 
 the aesthetic tradition. Were he thin," he continued reflec- 
 tively, "I might be persuaded, but he is too large. Look at 
 him now." 
 
 Cathy turned, and let her gaze travel down the room to 
 where Lorrimer was sitting talking to her cousin Otho. 
 They were slightly apart from a larger group, and Otho 
 was telling a story which amused Lorrimer. He was laugh- 
 ing rather too loudly, and he was not looking his best at 
 the moment. 
 
 "Nothing you have told me convinces me," Amyas re- 
 marked, and he was pleased to see that Cathy shrank quite 
 suddenly from her former attitude of admiration. She 
 watched Lorrimer with a look almost approaching to fear 
 on her face, and then she seemed angry, but her momentary 
 irritation passed by like a summer cloud. 
 
 "You are rather like a black-beetle, yourself," she said, 
 "shiny, reserved and empty, Robert. A very smartly turned 
 out black-beetle who is in the right set, and yet you can't 
 imagine anyone finding any kind of fault with you." 
 
 "I want you to be careful," he said, speaking in a dif- 
 ferent voice. "Cathy, I expect my nerves are in a bad 
 way. I have been trying a whole variety of dopes because 
 I couldn't sleep, and it isn't good for the nerves, but I want 
 you not to play around with Lorrimer. He doesn't belong 
 to us, and he isn't of our -kind." 
 
 "Don't be arrogant; that argument is the last I shall 
 listen to," Cathy said rapidly. 
 
 "He may be a divine coalheaver," Amyas went on, not 
 heeding her, "but I don't like him. He is going to be a 
 success. No one wanted him when he came, and he has 
 made at least two friends to-night. He'll do Otho well 
 enough to make pretty certain of him. Stockton, who is 
 always on the look-out for a new man, preferably with 
 money, has also made a note of your friend." 
 
 "What a lot you have to say," Cathy laughed. "And 
 all this advice?"
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 63 
 
 "Oh, can't you see that he is in love with you?" Amyas 
 spoke with a queer touch of passion. "He ought not to be 
 allowed to speak to you." 
 
 "It is extraordinary how unfair you allow yourself to 
 be," she said quietly. 
 
 "Twyford, or any of the others, would never try and 
 take a mean advantage of you, Cathy," Amyas continued, 
 "but this fellow will. If he can haul you in somehow, I 
 feel he will do it. I believe he knew all the time who Miss 
 Batten really was, and it was an investment. He bought 
 her good-will, and he knew what it would be worth to him." 
 He paused for a second. "I'm sorry, I really am, be- 
 cause I'm being so spiteful, and I loathe seriousness of 
 speech; it's all because of that man whom I don't believe 
 in." 
 
 Cathy got up and vanished from him, withdrawing her- 
 self deliberately. She had had enough of Robert in this 
 mood. He sat where she had left him, his shoulders droop- 
 ing and his eyes turned ironically towards Lorrimer, who 
 was still exhibiting a boisterous hilarity in the company 
 of cousin Otho. Her own mind hovered around Lorrimer, 
 and she realised quite clearly that he flourished almost 
 grossly under the encouragement of success. Such was 
 the external judgment, but she recalled Miss Batten's testi- 
 mony. Batkins had described him as the acme of delicacy 
 and consideration. His simplicity, his blunt kindliness, his 
 tact . . . and all this surprised in him in a secret hour, far 
 from witnesses. As she sat down and began to talk to 
 Lady Margaret, she reproved herself harshly. Robert 
 had influenced her for a moment, and she resented the 
 idea. 
 
 Lady Margaret was petulant and feeling ill. She asked, 
 rather pointedly, who "that large, noisy man" was, and 
 again Cathy became Lorrimer's trumpeter, but, before she 
 had explained him, Lady Margaret was obviously bored. 
 She felt, very strongly, that there was every need for a 
 class blockade, and under the stress of strikes, taxes, and a 
 possible incursion of servants who desired to be addressed 
 as "Miss," and alluded to as "the young lady," that a line
 
 64 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 must be drawn taut and strong. Quite clearly she rele- 
 gated Lorrimer to the outside ring, and was fussed, and 
 slightly irritable, since he was there at all. Her kindness 
 was waning as the conditions of life became more trouble- 
 some, and, though she was prepared to patronise to almost 
 any extent, she grew actively hostile when the masses be- 
 gan to talk of "rights." 
 
 "I don't mind having to call a servant 'Miss' if it pleases 
 her," Cathy said. "It's a very easy concession to make. 
 The only reliable standard of so-called gentility is char- 
 acter." 
 
 "Don't talk wild nonsense, Cathy," Lady Margaret re- 
 plied. She saw, with visible stiffening of her back, that 
 Lorrimer was proposing to join them, and she gave him 
 an icy nod, merely admitting his existence, when Cathy 
 introduced him formally. He became awkward at once and 
 looked as though he wished to propitiate Lady Margaret. 
 
 "I think you often talk in a way which is likely to do 
 harm," Lady Margaret went on, ignoring Lorrimer. "In 
 fact, I can't think what we are all coming to." 
 
 She had never really recovered from the Miss Batten 
 episode, and it had soured her. 
 
 "It is not a bad time," Lorrimer remarked; he was feel- 
 ing more secure again, for Cathy had bathed him in a 
 golden glance, full of encouragement. 
 
 "We are asleep," Cathy went on with growing enthusi- 
 asm. "I detest our dull mental sloth, our fatuous ignor- 
 ance. Where has cur imagination gone to, Colonel Lor- 
 rimer ?" 
 
 "What do you mean, Cathy?" Lady Margaret frowned 
 and twitched her eyebrows. "Who is lacking in what? 
 By sloth, I suppose you mean laziness. Servants are all 
 hopelessly lazy" 
 
 Lorrimer glanced from Lady Margaret's eyebrows to 
 Cathy's lighted face, and he spoke at once. He had a 
 good strong voice, and he said something about "doing the 
 right thing" and "playing the game"; he said that he was 
 an optimist, and that, in due time, the world would re- 
 turn to sanity.
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 65 
 
 Lady Margaret looked at him with her peering eyes, and 
 nodded once or twice. Lorrimer was better than she had 
 suspected, and he seemed to be right-minded, though she 
 still disapproved of his outward lack of breeding. 
 
 They were disturbed in the end by Twyford, who acted 
 like a stopper, and put an end to the conference which was 
 already becoming hopelessly involved. 
 
 Twyford, by right of relationship, remained on after the 
 others had left, and Lady Carstairs withdrew discreetly. 
 She wanted Cathy to marry Twyford and get it done. 
 They had been "as good as engaged" for years, but she 
 preferred a regularised footing. She had watched Cathy 
 and Robert Amyas with a slight touch of uneasiness. Of 
 course, Robert Anryas was "the innocent party," even 
 though innocence was a word hardly calculated to suggest his 
 personality; but he had not been a success as a husband. 
 Cathy, with her awful tendency towards sympathy, was 
 quite capable of making the man think she cared and then, 
 she never really did care. How many of these tragedies 
 the recording angel had already registered in Cathy's 
 dossier! Twyford was deplorably slow. He took ages in 
 doing anything, and, worse still, he took far too much for 
 granted. Was he going to stand there staring widely at 
 Cathy, until at length some whim caught her into the 
 wrong sort of marriage? Lady Carstairs melted away, 
 saying to herself that "two was company." Getting Twy- 
 ford up to the point of action was like moving the whole 
 House of Lords single-handed, but she hoped sincerely that 
 to-night would settle it. 
 
 He came to where Cathy was standing, her face a little 
 pale and her eyes tired. The evening had reduced her in 
 an indefinable way, and she was less happy, less gay than 
 usual. Still she smiled as he spoke to her. 
 
 "Cathy," he said, in his quiet, bored way, "I wonder when 
 you intend to let me have a chance to ask you to marry 
 me?" 
 
 "Oh, don't ask me," her voice implored him. "Can't 
 we be friends? I don't want to be married."
 
 66 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "Not >et, but some time. Besides," he coloured a little, 
 "I love you, Cathy." 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "You loved Nora," she said half sadly. "I know you 
 did." 
 
 Twyford looked at the floor and considered her words. 
 
 "I did," he agreed, "but well, you know the story, and 
 it's ended long ago. Can't you believe that I love you ?" 
 
 He came to her, and stood patiently watching her face. 
 
 "I want your friendship," she said, and then, without 
 any warning, she sat down and covered her face with 
 her hands. 
 
 Twyford bent over her, troubled and distressed. She 
 seemed to him to be talking fierce, miserable nonsense, and 
 to be consumed with her longing to do something with her 
 life which would be of use of use of use. He had al- 
 ways regarded her talk as something which really meant 
 very little, and now it appeared that it meant everything to 
 Cathy Rossiter. She was telling him that she had lived far 
 from perils and hardships, and that it was all arranged 
 thus for her at the price of suffering. 
 
 "You'll end by getting into trouble," he said, forgetting 
 himself in his sudden anxiety for her. "Cathy, all this 
 talk of yours is eyewash, and yet I believe you mean it 
 seriously." 
 
 It seemed to Twyford as though Cathy was looking at 
 something which he could not see. "When things are strong 
 enough to be true," she said, "they have to be."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE evolution of Miss Batten continued steadily, and she 
 was rapidly becoming a* capable secretary. She had grown 
 less indistinct in the process, and had a look of maturity 
 she had formerly lacked. In fact, Batkins was developing 
 into a real person, so far as in her lay. She had work 
 which she was doing creditably, she had begun to earn a 
 living wage, and she had an idol; so it may be said that 
 her gods were kind. She saw very little of Lorrimer, but 
 when she did see him he was genial and threw her little 
 words of kindness, as a dog-lover throws bits of cake to 
 a good dog. She wanted to save his life at the risk 
 of her own, to perform some dramatic act of devotion. 
 
 Next to Colonel Lorrimer, Miss Batten's love was given 
 to Cathy Rossiter, and Cathy's interest in her was a help 
 and a joy, like some wonderful luxury, to be indulged in 
 now and then. Sometimes, when her day was over and 
 she lay awake in the little bedroom in Mrs. Hack's house, 
 Miss Batten dreamed that the two people who filled her 
 life with its echo of romance would come to love each 
 other. She was deeply sentimental, and she still dallied 
 with the gorgeous dream of love at second-hand. Inspired 
 by certain indications she had noticed, she became alert 
 and eager, and threw her puny forces on the side of her 
 idol. She guessed his secret, and, in the knowledge of it, 
 she spoke of him to Cathy with eternal adulation. 
 
 But if Cathy was kind to Batkins, out of a wide heart, 
 Monica Henstock was kinder still, and her kindness took 
 a strictly practical form. 
 
 Six months' training had made Miss Batten into a quali- 
 fied secretary, and, though she had still much to learn, 
 Monica decided that she was quite sufficiently skilled to 
 take up the duty of answering her professional cor- 
 
 67
 
 68 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 respondence, seeing people and arranging interviews, and 
 generally making herself of use in the small house with 
 the brass plate on the door. Thus, Miss Batten was re- 
 moved from Bayswater and inhabited an upper bedroom 
 under the roof of Monica Henstock. She admired Dr. 
 Henstock but felt slightly afraid of her. At times, her 
 sword-like directness of speech alarmed Miss Batten, as 
 did her quite off-hand and natural allusions to the ex- 
 perience which the ex-governess had put away from her. 
 
 The strange part of the whole arrangement was that 
 somehow, and quite unexpectedly, Miss Batten found her- 
 self in the very centre of a ring, composed of Monica, 
 Cathy and Lorrimer. 
 
 Her life was a busy one and there was not very much 
 time for thought, but occasionally she felt that Monica 
 really did not either like or want her very much. It was 
 another act of kindness, perhaps? The world had turned 
 so fiercely kind ever since . . . she stopped abruptly, for she 
 did not wish to recall the Restaurant "Voyons." The room 
 where she sat was warm and comfortable and her own 
 little bedroom opened off it. Outside, there was a narrow 
 landing, and from there you could, by looking downwards 
 like the "Blessed Damozel," see the hall below. 
 
 Opposite to Batkins, on the wall, there was fastened a 
 large poster, encircled by the W.S.P.U. colours. It de- 
 picted a woman blowing a trumpet and waving a flag, 
 upon which was written, in old English lettering, the great 
 word "Liberty." All this was now vieux jeu and the days 
 of battle were over, but the word attracted Miss Batten, 
 and frequently inspired her to get up and look over the 
 banisters outside. 
 
 She began with a firmly outlined idea of Dr. Henstock's 
 great contempt towards men, and it was only very gradu- 
 ally she began to realise that there was certainly one ex- 
 ception to the rule. If Lorrimer was expected, Monica 
 would use any subterfuge to avoid being absent, and the sick 
 might call for her, and anxious friends and relations ring 
 up in vain. Miss Batten, whose conscience was tender, be- 
 came aware that there was a strain of ruthlessness in Moni-
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 69 
 
 ca, which showed under stress of strong feeling. One day, 
 when Dr. Henstock had been in a communicative mood, 
 and had spoken to Batkins as though she regarded her as 
 a friend, Miss Batten had all but confided the great ro- 
 mance to what she imagined to be sympathetic ears. But, 
 luckily, she had stopped short. Some instinct struck her 
 dumb, just in time, and she sat in the firelight and listened 
 spellbound to Monica's views on the furnishing of Lor- 
 rimer's flat. She had furnished it. That very day the 
 whole toil had been completed, and Monica could not en- 
 tirely veil her triumphant joy. 
 
 "Cathy Rossiter has taken him up," she added, "but he 
 can't have thought very much of her taste." Dr. Henstock 
 paused. "Did you ever hear her say what she thought of 
 Colonel Lorrimer?" 
 
 Miss Batten burst into eulogy, her ears tingling, and with 
 a feeling as though she had a frightened mouse inside her, 
 instead of a heart. Monica was not pleased. She took 
 up a book and began to read it firmly. It was at that point 
 that Batkins suddenly became illuminated. She saw that 
 Monica was a woman whose mind is made up. Dr. Hen- 
 stock had decided to marry Colonel Lorrimer, and, such 
 being the case, where was the wonderful romance, which 
 connected itself entirely with Cathy, likely to disappear to? 
 
 She looked at Monica with new eyes, and saw the strength 
 in her brow and the formation of her nose. Dr. Henstock, 
 for all her fragility, had a "passionate nostril." She also 
 noted the mouth, which Monica used freely in grimace, and 
 she trembled. She loved Lorrimer with a purely imper- 
 sonal love, as one loves someone who is limitlessly wiser, 
 greater and kinder than oneself. Cathy was her ideal 
 woman, and Cathy's urgent, impulsive talk always intoxi- 
 cated Batkins pleasantly. It thrilled her to hear Cathy 
 talk red Republicanism, while she looked like a queen. 
 
 If Monica Henstock had vowed in her heart to marry 
 Lorrimer, what possible chance had he of escape? 
 
 Monica put down the book, closing it, instead of laying 
 it open astride her knee, because she was thoughtful about 
 bindings and respected books, treating them carefully.
 
 70 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "People should always marry in their own class," Monica 
 said, and Batkins bowed silently in assent. "You have 
 heard Miss Rossiter talk of equality, but she is quite the 
 last person living who knows what is meant by the word. 
 If a man marries above him, socially, it puts him at a dis- 
 advantage ; if a woman marries beneath her, it's always 
 taken as an evidence of coarseness." 
 
 "But," objected Miss Batten, "if two people love each 
 other. . . ." 
 
 Dr. Henstock shrugged her shoulders. She had written 
 a treatise on the subject of married love, which emphatically 
 stated that it was all a matter of animal instinct. 
 
 Monica crossed her well-shod feet one over the other, 
 and Miss Batten noticed that she was wearing expensive 
 silk stockings. "If marriage is to be a reasonably suc- 
 cessful affair, it should be based upon similarity of origin 
 as well as of taste." 
 
 Miss Batten's mind wandered. She was beginning to 
 grow inwardly restless, when the distant sound of an elec- 
 tric bell made Monica change as by enchantment. She 
 faltered in the middle of a phrase and lost the thread 
 of her discourse; her pale skin flushed and she made a 
 jerky movement with her hands. 
 
 "If this should be Colonel Lorrimer, you need not stay," 
 she remarked almost nervously, and at once Miss Batten 
 arose to go. She had to believe, on evidence, that Dr. 
 Henstock was kind to her and wanted her society, but her 
 own instinct suggested that another motive was mixed in 
 with altruism. Cathy's kindness was as different as two 
 things, calling themselves by the same name, well could be, 
 and Batkins picked up a notebook and a pencil and with- 
 drew herself humbly. 
 
 In the hall she encountered Lorrimer, who was taking 
 off his overcoat. It was a racy-looking coat, and the soft 
 hat he wore had a sporting suggestion. He looked happy, 
 and his thick figure barred her path. There was a smell of 
 Harris tweed cigars, and frosty air in the small space, and 
 Lorrimer had brought them there. Miss Batten's heart 
 leaped, and she touched his outheld hand, feeling almost
 
 as though she would drop at his feet. There were times 
 when this vast human being literally charged upon her and 
 overcame her in his power. 
 
 He made some quite ordinary remark, and told her that 
 she looked pale, suggested that Dr. Henstock was over- 
 working her, and, as she felt that this was meant as a 
 joke, she gave a weak little laugh. He was going to talk 
 to Dr. Henstock like a father . . . how little he really knew 
 of relationships. . . . He was not going to have her turned 
 into a slave, because, what would Miss Rossiter say? Had 
 she seen Miss Rossiter lately? 
 
 Miss Batten summoned up a great courage and spoke. 
 
 "I think Miss Rossiter has been busy," she said. "I 
 took two calls from her lately, as Dr. Henstock was out. 
 Each time Miss Rossiter said that she wanted Dr. Hen- 
 stock to go with her to a meeting at the Progress Club." 
 
 Lorrimer bit the side of his forefinger and looked down, 
 looked sideways, an'd then looked at Miss Batten. 
 
 "Did she go?" he asked, nodding towards the drawing- 
 room. 
 
 Miss Batten shook her head, and made a silent "No" 
 with her lips. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Dr. Henstock objects." Batkins looked at him im- 
 ploringly. She would be in disgrace for keeping him in the 
 hall, yet still he blocked the way. "She does not improve," 
 she added in her meek voice, and Lorrimer made himself 
 comparatively smaller and permitted her to pass. 
 
 She went up the staircase and looked down from the 
 upper landing. Lorrimer was still there. He was think- 
 ing, with his hands in his coat pockets, and he was not 
 satisfied. From her vantage ground Miss Batten watched 
 him open the drawing-room door and go in, she heard the 
 raised voice of Monica giving him welcome as though he 
 were the last person she expected to see, and then the 
 door closed, and Miss Batten had perforce to retire into her 
 own room, where the fire needed attention. 
 
 As she blew the little flames and nursed them into 
 strength, her pale, insignificant face was troubled and dis-
 
 72 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 tressed, and her thin hands shook and trembled. It would 
 be awful if Monica intervened awful, awful, and again 
 awful. 
 
 When Lorrimer had accepted Monica's welcome, he sat 
 down and stretched out his legs, tie had a great many 
 things to tell her. It is not enough to be successful, one 
 must also have an audience, and Monica was a thoroughly 
 trustworthy listener. She was as much interested in Lor- 
 rimer as he was in himself. 
 
 A second before she had been madly angry, and sat in 
 her chair white and tense. After all, she had her own 
 deeply rooted disbelief in man, and she knew that Batkins 
 had transgressed. In a second she was suspicious of them 
 both, and felt that, for all she knew, there might be some 
 hidden attraction in her secretary. She had trembled on 
 the very edge of a scene, and it took all her powers of com- 
 mand to control her own sudden emotion. The delayed 
 entrance of Lorrimer altered everything in a flash, and she 
 knelt before him in spirit, very much as Miss Batten had 
 done. 
 
 He had been thinking of Cathy as he stood outside the 
 door, but, when he saw Monica, he thought of himself 
 again. Things had been happening, things of the very 
 greatest interest, and he demanded her attention at once. 
 
 He had lunched with Stockton, dined with him, and had 
 met a number of his colleagues. It was flattering enough, 
 but what followed was even more so. He had been invited 
 to stay for a week-end with Culworth Jesson, who was 
 organiser in chief of the Progressive Party. He waited 
 for Monica's enthusiastic applause to die down and went on 
 retrospectively. He knew that they were "soundin' " him, 
 and he was careful to give nothing away. 
 
 There had been no ladies in the party at Fratton, Cul- 
 worth Jesson's huge country place. Women played a very 
 small part in the busy lives of these men whose game was 
 the ruling of Empire and whose playground was the map 
 of Europe. Lorrimer had adopted one or two new man- 
 nerisms and added several new words to his limited vo- 
 cabulary. Monica listened and was happy. He had grown
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 73 
 
 very much more sure of himself, and he no longer regarded 
 Monica with his old touch of schoolboy awe; and yet she 
 was wonderfully necessary to his life. Cathy listened and 
 was interested, but she was, of necessity, not impressed by 
 his successes. She did not know how very successful he 
 really was. 
 
 Lorrimer looked at Monica's eyes and thick, red hair. 
 She was lacking in some special charm, but she had splendid 
 qualities, and as he looked he felt a kind of fleeting sor- 
 row to know that she could not now awaken the thrills and 
 trembles which are part of the mystery of love. 
 
 "Stockton told me," he said, lighting a cigarette, "that 
 Jesson is anxious to get men who are not professional poli- 
 ticians into the Progressive Party. There is to be a by- 
 election down in Buckinghamshire, the Kingslade con- 
 stituency, and, as I have been in treaty with Lennard and 
 Moreton for Kingslade Park, it is quite possible," he 
 paused, and tried to speak as though it was a merely ordi- 
 nary matter, "that they may ask me to stand." 
 
 Monica held out her hands to him and he took them, 
 squeezed them hard and laid them carefully back on her 
 knees. She was tender, now; inexhaustibly interested in 
 his interests, glad as a mother, and tremulously proud and 
 elated. 
 
 Lorrimer talked on. 
 
 "It is only a possibility," he said, suddenly remembering 
 that he had no guarantee for any assertion, "and, of course, 
 absolutely confidential." 
 
 "Does Cathy know?" she asked, and she covered up the 
 sharp little edge which was hidden in the question with an 
 added sweetness of voice. She felt that she must hear 
 from him whether he had made her his first confidence or 
 not. 
 
 "I have told no one but you," ^Lorrimer replied, and 
 it seemed to Monica that the whole world became radiant. 
 
 "I shouldn't say anything." Monica brushed a strand 
 of silk off her neat skirt. "Cathy is an angel, but she isn't 
 always safe. She might let it all out to Twyford, or Gor- 
 don Sutton, that unspeakable idiot; they will certainly have
 
 74 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 a man of their own for Kingslade. Have you really bought 
 Kingslade Park?" 
 
 "I shall buy it," Lorrimer leaned back comfortably. He 
 did like Monica. Why was marriage so difficult a prob- 
 lem, and why couldn't he feel that she was all he wanted? 
 She had a way of making Cathy less impressive when she 
 spoke of her, and yet Cathy herself refuted this lessening 
 every time he saw her. 
 
 Kingslade was a large, imposing-looking house, standing 
 in the centre of a compact estate, and, though Lorrimer 
 might have become the owner of a more pretentious dwelling, 
 there wag, a great deal of solid effect connected with its 
 possessorship. He passed on with a rather elephantine 
 rapidity from the question of Kingslade, and returned 
 to his possible nomination as a Progressive candidate. 
 
 "Don't think that I meant that Cathy isn't to be trusted," 
 Monica said, with a sudden, gentle little drop in her voice, 
 "only, you know as well as I do, that she gets so very 
 enthusiastic it makes her forget that one can't speak of 
 everything without reserve." 
 
 "At present it is a secret," Lorrimer said, and he looked 
 rather gloomy. 
 
 He disliked the idea of a woman being over-communica- 
 tive; his own sisters "told" upon all occasions. Their 
 latest friends were always informed of everything, and they 
 showed letters and shared confidences freely. Surely Cathy 
 was not capable of the same error in taste. 
 
 "Have you seen Miss Rossiter lately?" he asked; he 
 was certainly not going to discuss her, even with Monica. 
 
 "Not very." Monica fumbled under the table and re- 
 turned to the green silk tie which she intended for Jack. 
 "I had to indulge myself in plain speech, and Cath was 
 hurt." 
 
 Her hands were quite cool, and she knew that the emo- 
 tional point had been passed and left behind for the 'time 
 being. Lorrimer was too much occupied with himself to 
 drift into the misty regions where she had waited for him 
 in vain. She knitted rapidly.
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 75 
 
 ''She is getting swept into the Danielli lot. Perhaps you 
 don't know who I mean?" 
 
 "Never heard of them." 
 
 "Danielli is a wild, good-looking Republican. The sort 
 of man who talks about the 'March Revolution,' or 'Bloody 
 Friday/ and dates everything with a cataclysm. He is 
 mixed up with all the strikes, and in with the extreme 
 Labour Group. Where Cathy happened on the creature I 
 don't know. All I do know is that she ought to be pre- 
 vented. She has joined the Progress Club and talks all the 
 jargon. 'Soviets,' 'Workmen's Deputies,' 'Federations,' " 
 she gave a quick laugh. "She is calling for the Deluge, 
 poor Cath, dressed in white chiffon and without the least 
 idea of what it feels like to be drenched to the skin." 
 
 "And this fellow this Danielli?" Lorrimer was stiff 
 and angry and spoke with a touch of heat. 
 
 "Some kind of mongrel agitator. Cathy was down at 
 Hoxton with the 'Pure Milk' gang; I'm in with them my- 
 self and have acted on their committee. Danielli, who is 
 always on the look-out for discontented crowds, came down 
 there, or this is Cathy's account of it, with Mrs. Greena- 
 way." 
 
 "Who's she?" Lorrimer demanded shortly. 
 
 He thought that the whole thing was most annoying. No 
 one, not even Cathy, can afford to be alluded to as "One 
 of that crowd!" 
 
 "She is sub-editor of The Future. Clever," Monica 
 stopped and counted her stitches, "but can't talk of any- 
 thing but shop stewards. Cathy, as usual, embraced her as 
 a sister." 
 
 Monica laughed indulgently and glanced at Lorrimer. 
 He was leaning over his knees, and his face was heavy 
 and dulL 
 
 "Do you think that these friendships of hers are a 
 danger?" he asked slowly. It was as though the idea 
 troubled him profoundly. 
 
 "She will get over them." Monica put down her knit- 
 ting, and, in doing so, gave Lorrimer a sense of relief.
 
 76 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 ''When she marries Twyford she will have other things to 
 think about." 
 
 "Oh, yes," Lorrimer agreed. 
 
 "Only I think we should combine to prevent her going 
 too far. Cathy permits herself the wildest liberties." 
 
 Monica looked at the fire; there had been a time, when 
 she was fighting for the enfranchisement of women, when 
 she too had used rather extreme language. 
 
 "Danielli is one of these lunatics," she went on, "who 
 looks the part. Tall, thin, eager and voluble. Cathy said 
 that he spoke like a torrent ; I suggested a burst water- 
 pipe. He is a vegetarian and a teetotaller, and gets his sen- 
 sations out of words and, probably, women. I thought 
 that he looked like a civilised performing tiger." 
 
 "Why the devil don't they put him in the Zoo?" Lor- 
 rimer said, getting to his feet. "I'm very sorry, Monica, 
 and I agree that it's time Miss Rossiter's friends did some- 
 thing. What's Twyford thinking about, if the fella' is 
 really engaged to her?" 
 
 "Himself," replied Monica laconically. 
 
 "Well, there's that other blighter who is always there, 
 Amyas." 
 
 Monica laughed spontaneously. 
 
 "Robert Amyas ! What would you expect him to do ? 
 He is anaemic and poetic; one condition working on the 
 other. I should like to write him a prescription, but as for 
 his doing anything, he will only make Cathy more deter- 
 mined than ever." 
 
 "They are a wretched, useless collection of idiots," Lor- 
 rimer said in his haste. "I don't wonder she is so fed up." 
 
 The whole pleasant sense of great things coming to him 
 had been disturbed by this talk of Cathy. She really was 
 going too far and her dignity would become imperilled. He 
 bestrode the hearthrug and frowned down at his boots. 
 
 "I don't think it is the moment for you to stand out," 
 he said at last. "You are the best of friends, Monica, and 
 if the girl wants sensible advice you can give it." 
 
 "I tell you I have. Oceans of it."
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 77 
 
 "Look how well you managed all the business about 
 Miss Batten." 
 
 Monica shook her head. 
 
 "Oh, that was nothing to speak of. I never mix up 
 things, as you know, Jack. Until Batkins strayed from the 
 path of virtue Cathy was rather bored with her, but her 
 love for sinners made her wildly enthusiastic the moment 
 she thought that she was dealing with a potential prostitute. 
 If Twyford had any sense, and wanted to bring things to 
 a head, all he need do is to get himself arrested on a charge 
 of murder. Cathy lacks a proper sense of proportion, and 
 she demands that anyone who wants her shall be suffer- 
 ing from some social eclipse. It is all very well, but it 
 annoys me. I am her greatest friend and I see the danger 
 to her." 
 
 "Then, for God's sake, do something." 
 
 Lorrimer's feeling broke into his voice, and Monica 
 pressed her body against the back of her chair, much as a 
 patient under the hands of a dentist draws away from a 
 fiery sting of pain. Gaps there might be between her and 
 Lorrimer, but gaps may be bridged across, and she saved 
 herself with a fierce effort. 
 
 "Of course I will," she said, and then she got up and 
 held out her hand. "I have to turn you out, Jack ; it's time 
 I got myself ready for rather a ticklish operation I am 
 due to perform to-night. Come soon again, and be sure 
 to tell me if you hear anything more of Jesson and the 
 Kingslade election." 
 
 Lorrimer held her hand for a second and went away. 
 She seemed wonderfully level and calm at that moment, 
 and what she had said about Cathy was, in a measure, true. 
 There was a hint, no more than that, of emotionalism in 
 Cathy's enthusiasms, and she did not really sift and weigh 
 her own principles. She was governed by impulse and her 
 love of individuals. The distant idea of this unwashed 
 Danielli was sickening, and Lorrimer bought a copy of 
 The Future as he passed a paper shop, in case there should 
 be some account of the man in its pages. He was not dis- 
 appointed, and he studied the* blurred print which showed
 
 78 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 a gaunt-looking man with high cheek-bones and deep-set 
 eyes. Danielli had been born in a jail and educated in a 
 reformatory; he had been a stoker, a scavenger, a field 
 labourer, and drifted into Europe ; from Europe he drifted 
 back to England, by a long and circuitous path, and all 
 the time he had gathered in a rancorous class hatred which 
 had its outlet in impassioned impeachments of Capitalists. 
 Lorrimer crumpled up the paper, as he sat by the fire in 
 the smoking-room of his flat, and consigned Danielli and all 
 his works to Hades. When it came to Cathy taking a hand 
 in such absurd bellowings it was time that Danielli should 
 be exterminated. 
 
 He heard the flap of his letter-box registering the fact 
 that the postman had come. The post interest, strong in 
 every human heart, leaped up at once in Lorrimer, and he 
 did not wait for his man to collect the envelopes from the 
 box, but went himself. 
 
 There were some bills, but bills had no terrors for him; 
 there was a letter from Lennard and Moreton, concluding 
 the sale of the Kingslade estate, and there was a short 
 line from Jesson's secretary, saying that Mr. Jesson would 
 like to make an appointment with Colonel Lorrimer during 
 the week, and mentioning two particular days when it 
 would be possible. As well as this there was a long let- 
 ter from his mother, who had never grasped the fact that 
 her son was grown up, and who knew nothing about Kings- 
 lade. You could not ask Mrs. Lorrimer to govern at Kings- 
 lade Park and if not his mother, who then? 
 
 Was it to be Monica, with her attractive looks and her 
 repulsive habit of talking of lancets and thermometers, and 
 calling a sore throat or a cut finger by some awful medical 
 name. A woman who could identify every gland and vein 
 in the whole clothed-over human body? Kingslade, where 
 the Sandowns had revelled in ignorance of the real names 
 of their bones ? Kingslade, which had been the stage scene 
 of a sensational romance, and where thousands had been 
 lost and won in a night's play? It would be utterly in- 
 artistic to put either Mrs. Lorrimer, portly and common 
 and full of a deadly assurance, now that she had a large
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 79 
 
 balance at the bank, or Monica Henstock, at the head of 
 the historic table, round which even crowned heads had 
 once gathered. 
 
 Cathy, without or even with her Daniellis, Cathy, with 
 her way of coming into a room, and her wonderful, eager 
 face, all alight like sunshine, would be the real soul of 
 Kingslade. If Twyford meant to marry her he had better 
 look sharp about it. Lorrimer turned to the letter from 
 Jesson's secretary ; it was coming, he knew that quite well. 
 Without anyone to push him, without a friend in London, 
 except a few old retired Colonels whom he had known as 
 a subaltern, he had made his conquering way to recogni- 
 tion and future success.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 CATHY ROSSITER was in a state of considerable excitement 
 -as she stood in Lady Carstairs' room. Lady Carstairs was 
 sitting before her looking-glass, dressed in a wonderful gar- 
 ment of grey watered silk, inset with embroidered medal- 
 lions. A chain of diamonds lay around her neck, glittering 
 in the light as she breathed or moved. She wore a small 
 patch of lace on her head, to cover a thin parting, and 
 long, pear-shaped pearls hung at her large ears, inducing 
 people to look at what they might otherwise have avoided. 
 
 Cathy had not changed for dinner, and was evidently 
 going out as soon as it was over, for she carried a velvet 
 cap in her hand and a wide, turquoise-blue scarf ; her white 
 silk blouse was open at the neck, and Lady Carstairs re- 
 marked that her niece would return with a cold. 
 
 "If, indeed, you get nothing worse, Cathy. I do so dis- 
 like this new craze of yours. Why will you go to these 
 places ?" 
 
 "It's quite a nice place, Aunt Amy," Cathy replied with 
 her invariable good humour, and she wandered to the 
 dressing-table. "The Progress Club is very clean. Mrs. 
 Greenaway chose all the wall-papers." She kissed her 
 aunt's nose, and, taking up a wad of cotton-wool, began to 
 powder her chin. "We're all Puritans there, and you bring 
 your own powder." 
 
 Lady Carstairs shook her head. 
 
 "The Times spoke of Danielli ; it seems that he is prob- 
 ably a Jew." 
 
 "Well, if he is ?" Cathy pulled up a chair and sat down. 
 "So was Christ." 
 
 Lady Carstairs looked desperately affronted. "Hush! 
 Cathy," she said in a tone of horror; it was quite evident 
 j that she felt something blasphemous had been said. 
 
 80
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 8r 
 
 Cathy reflected that if you don't keep God out of your 
 conversation you make everyone dreadfully self-conscious 
 even bishops. 
 
 Lady Carstairs coughed, and took up a brooch from her 
 tray of trinkets. It was a very beautiful ornament and was 
 one of the Carstairs' heirlooms. When Elizabeth married 
 she would have it to wear on her wedding gown. It lay in 
 her hand for a second, and she looked at it, though her 
 thoughts were busy with Cathy. 
 
 "I feel sure that you ought not to expose your throat," 
 said Lady Carstairs, and she bent forward, and, putting the 
 brooch, which was a heavy emerald surrounded by dia- 
 monds, into Cathy's blouse, she fastened the folds of silk 
 across and patted her on the cheek. "Take care of that, 
 dear," she said affectionately, "and where did you leave 
 Mrs. ? I can't recall her name." 
 
 "Janey Greenaway," Cathy said, arranging a wandering 
 lock of hair; "I left her in my room with a packet of 
 gaspers." 
 
 "A what?" 
 
 "Gaspers," Cathy laughed; "fags, aunt. Janey smokes 
 gaspers all day and even in her dreams. She won't do it at 
 dinner, here, because I warned her not to, but usually she 
 does. When I was staying in her flat off Paradise Cause- 
 way down in Poplar, she cooked breakfast with one in 
 her mouth. Wasn't that clever?" 
 
 Lady Carstairs sighed deeply. 
 
 "I suppose she has short hair," she said, as though she 
 added one more damning fact to an already overwhelming 
 mountain of evidence. 
 
 "To here." Cathy indicated her ear lobes and laughed 
 again. "She is very plain, I suppose, but she is alive." 
 
 "What does Twyford say to all this ?" 
 
 Lady Carstairs got up and showed signs of being ready 
 to descend to dinner. 
 
 "He says that Oh, never mind him, dearest, he is 
 
 always saying the same things." 
 
 She took her aunt's arm and they walked out of the
 
 82 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 large room together. Cathy loved Lady Carstairs, and yet 
 she could not resist the temptation to tease her. 
 
 "Why don't you marry him?" 
 
 They were at the head of the staircase when Lady Car- 
 stairs asked the question suddenly, and Cathy turned her 
 violet blue eyes to her face with a kind of mute reproach. 
 
 "I don't want to," she said, her lightness forsaking her 
 quite suddenly. "We couldn't go on being friends and 
 there wouldn't be anything else for us to be. I think he 
 understands that." 
 
 "But, my dear, you are getting on." Lady Carstairs, 
 having decided upon plain speech, and undertaken it in the 
 passage, was under self-determined difficulties, for she 
 feared to be overheard and had to modulate her tones care- 
 fully. "I mean that you are always charming, but it is 
 wiser to marry before thirty. You are twenty-nine, Cathy, 
 and " 
 
 "I'm very hungry, darling, and Janey and I have to be 
 at Hammersmith by 8.30. We'll talk all this over another 
 time." 
 
 She rushed her aunt down the wide staircase, and they 
 found Mrs. Greenaway in the hall, looking at the portraits 
 which hung there, with a hard, contemptuous gaze. 
 
 "It always occurs to me," she said, addressing Lady 
 Carstairs, "that to get yourself painted is one of the most 
 ridiculously egotistical acts of an amazingly self-satisfied 
 class. Look at your own family portraits, Lady Carstairs ; 
 if I may say so, they merely go to prove that, in the past, 
 your ancestors looked greedy and respectable. This man, 
 for instance," she indicated a bishop, whose puffy cheeks 
 bulged out over a white choker, and whose hand rested on an 
 open book. "Does he look as though he was hungering 
 and thirsting after righteousness, or as if he really was 
 pure in heart? The lines around his mouth are clear proof 
 of sensuality." 
 
 Cathy caught her by the shoulders and turned her from 
 the picture. 
 
 "Leave them alone," she said, "they are all dead, rest 
 their souls."
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 83 
 
 "You are speaking of a remarkably good man," Lady 
 Carstairs said, with the utmost politeness; "a man who 
 gave his life for the good of others. My great uncle, Bishop 
 Footner." 
 
 "Of course, if he died for his people," Jane Greenaway 
 said in a more mollified voice, "I don't so much object to 
 him." 
 
 "He passed away in his bed," Lady Carstairs said re- 
 servedly, as Mrs. Greenaway studied the pattern of birds 
 of paradise on her soup plate. 
 
 Dinner went through very awkwardly, and, at the end, 
 Cousin Otho appeared, spick and span and bearing a ticket 
 for a box at the Carnival, where a musical comedy was in 
 the height of its popularity. He had thought to capture 
 Cathy; Lorrimer had said he would turn up. 
 
 "And what in the world is taking you to Hammersmith?"' 
 Otho asked. 
 
 "If you would come too, it might teach you some sense," 
 said Janey Greenaway, who, by special permission wrung 
 from Lady Carstairs, was smoking a gasper. 
 
 "I don't want to be taught sense," he retorted, "I learned 
 it long ago, dear lady; unless, of course, you are going to 
 give me special lessons." 
 
 "Come, Janey," Cathy got up and snatched at her hat 
 and muffler, "we must not be late." 
 
 "And my box at the Carnival?" Otho demanded. 
 
 "I expect you can find someone else." 
 
 It was Mrs. Greenaway's answer, and she put a world of 
 meaning into it. Otho and his white shirt front irritated 
 her. She hated his well-bred, drawling voice and his in- 
 sincerity. She hated his bad manners, though her own 
 were far worse, and she wished that he could hear Danielli 
 talking about the leisured classes. 
 
 "Hurry, hurry," said Cathy, who was thinking only of 
 the lecture. 
 
 "Danielli doesn't speak until after Osterov has finished," 1 
 Mrs. Greenaway said, tying on her own scarf. 
 
 "And what is Comrade Osterov going to talk of ?" Otho 
 looked at her maliciously.
 
 84 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "The hygiene of the mind," she replied, and shut her 
 strong, ugly mouth with a kind of snap. 
 
 Cathy kissed her aunt and stood for a little, in spite of 
 her eagerness to be gone, sparring with Otho, and when 
 she and Mrs. Greenaway went out into the February night 
 and the falling snow, Lady Carstairs looked at her nephew 
 and sighed. 
 
 "I do not like this Mrs. Greenaway," she said, "she was 
 really most rude about poor Uncle Brabazon. I don't know 
 what the world is coming to, Otho. Cathy has picked up 
 the strangest manner of talking." She flushed, and glanced 
 nervously at Otho, who sat down at the table. "I hardly like 
 to speak of it, but she asked me just now if I loved God." 
 
 Otho fiddled with a wine glass, a beautiful purple thing 
 with white stars cut over the fine, clear colour beneath. 
 
 "I'm awfully sorry," he said, and then he took out his 
 cigarette case and obtained permission to smoke. "To think 
 of Cathy getting bitten by that kind of microbe. The 
 truth is, Aunt Amy, Cathy must marry." 
 
 "But she told me she will not marry Twyford." 
 
 "He isn't the only man in the world." 
 
 "Robert Amyas would be a disaster. Ever since he 
 divorced that unfortunate Lilian, Cathy has been sorry for 
 him, and he is often here." 
 
 Lady Carstairs fell deeper and deeper into the slough 
 of despond. 
 
 "I have an idea," Otho remarked after a moment of 
 silence, "that Lorrimer is in love with Cathy." 
 
 Lady Carstairs screwed up her mouth; she was not en- 
 thusiastic. 
 
 "Very bourgeois," she said in her cold, un-vibrant voice ; 
 "quite common." 
 
 "Lots of money, and not a bad sort. I thought Cathy 
 seemed to like him. She was very enthusiastic over the 
 great Batten affair." 
 
 "Utterly out of the question." Again, Lady Carstairs 
 looked as though she had taken a dose of quinine. "If 
 Cathy was a poor girl, without money of her own, I might 
 think differently, but she is entirely independent, and Twy-
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 85 
 
 ford has been in love with her for years. She is sure to 
 marry him." 
 
 Otho got up and said good night. He had put in a 
 word for Colonel Lorrimer, and, having done so, there 
 was nothing to detain him. 
 
 Cathy was not thinking of her matrimonial prospects as 
 she and Mrs. Greenaway arrived at the Progress Club in 
 Hammersmith. She was warmed and thrilled, despite the 
 falling snow and the difficulty of getting anywhere, and her 
 cheeks were flushed with pleasurable anticipation. It seemed 
 to her that she had really found a group of people who all 
 held her own views; views which she had expressed since 
 she was sixteen, and for expressing which she had more 
 than once been dismissed from her father's table. She 
 was not really alone in feeling that the world was wretch- 
 edly badly organised, and that there must be something 
 hopelessly wrong in a place where some people owned four 
 or five large houses while others were crowded into dirty 
 tenement dwellings. A world where a week's loss of work 
 meant starvation, and where this dread haunted the huge 
 majority. There was no fairness in the rules by which 
 rich men protected themselves, and ground the poor, who 
 could not fight even for the common decencies and com- 
 forts of life. She had seen her own class brooding like a 
 huge vampire over the seething pot below; never thinking 
 of the pain and suffering of the needy and over-burdened 
 worker. They only desired to play and to eat expensive 
 food, to spend ridiculous sums on clothes, and to enter- 
 tain perpetually. Through them, the whole trend of the 
 world was turned towards display and away from sim- 
 plicity. The Court, with its state and its demand for a 
 blind trust in kings, was a survival, like the Lord Mayor's 
 Show, but those of her own house were prepared to bow 
 with false reverence and keep up the paste-board erection 
 eternally. Not content with the imposition of earthly mon- 
 archs, the Church, hand-in-hand with the State, established 
 a God who was as narrow-minded and ignorant as the 
 most limited of conventional rulers.
 
 86 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 Now she had actually found that she had countless up- 
 holders, and that a democratic awakening, which she seemed 
 to perceive dimly, was flooding the whole earth, and Cathy 
 believed that the people who gathered in the Progress Club 
 were inspired by a very simple faith indeed. 
 
 The room where the meeting was being held was not 
 very large. It was, in fact, two rooms, one opening off 
 the other, and there was no formality about the gathering. 
 As there were not nearly chairs enough, people sat on the 
 floor, or on the flat tops of the bookcases round the walls ; 
 and they were all very young. One or two of the women 
 obviously came from Cathy's own class, but for the most 
 part their origin was indistinct, and many were foreigners. 
 One woman, with a thick, black plait of hair down her 
 back, was dressed in a curious patchwork garment, daz- 
 zling in colour and futurist of design. She was smoking 
 a short pipe, and appeared to be engrossed in Osterov's 
 address, which was drawing to a close. The men were dis- 
 tressing to Cathy. Why was it that no normal looking 
 man, decently dressed, ever came there? A few were 
 dandies, but they got the wrong suggestion, and wore in- 
 cipient whiskers and over-brilliant ties. Some were pale, 
 earnest men, taking life very seriously, who were mostly 
 conscientious objectors. Not shirkers; you could tell that, 
 but really and certainly convinced that they had been 
 obliged to let other men take the risks of war on their 
 behalf. One of them made a place for Cathy and found 
 her a chair, which she shared with Janey Greenaway. If 
 you put Cathy into hell, some man would immediately be 
 certain to find her a chair to sit on. 
 
 Osterov finished his speech and sat down. There was 
 no raised dais, only a small table with a carafe and a glass 
 of water standing on it, and the room was thick with ciga- 
 rette smoke. Just in front of where Cathy sat, two girls, one 
 who looked about twenty-two, and the other possibly a 
 little older, were discussing venereal disease. They seemed 
 to have read everything about it, and the delicate looking 
 girl, the younger of the two, was saying that, when the plea 
 of contamination was established in a divorce case, the man
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 87 
 
 or woman charged with the offence should be liable under 
 criminal law. 
 
 "I have read all the N.C.C.V.D. literature," the older girl 
 said, in a calm, rather weary voice. "It is time that women 
 did something about it. Do you know that every fourth 
 man in the British Army is infected?" 
 
 "I should have put the figure higher," the pale girl replied, 
 fixing a gold hoop earring more securely. 
 
 She looked as though she should have been at a dance, 
 thinking of the partners on her programme, but she ap- 
 peared to Cathy as a monster of terrible wisdom; some- 
 thing like Monica in her bad moods, only Monica was a 
 doctor, and she had to know these horrors. 
 
 Silence fell almost at once, as Danielli got up and stood 
 smiling down the room. He was strong, and his eyes were 
 clear; more humorous really than defiant, and he was not 
 very tall. Near him, and sitting in an easy attitude, there 
 was another man. Lanky, and loosely built, with a narrow 
 face, fair hair and deep, smouldering blue eyes. He was 
 hopelessly untidy, and he wore his clothes carelessly, yet, 
 in some way, he was quite obviously different to the others. 
 
 "Who is the man with a suggestion of Pan about him?" 
 Cathy asked in a whisper. 
 
 "Major Barlow," Janey Greenaway answered. "He was 
 a soldier once, but of course he wouldn't fight in the war. 
 You wouldn't guess that he was born with every sort of 
 disadvantage. Harrow, Cambridge, all that tosh. They 
 sent him to prison " 
 
 "Hush," said a voice near them, and Janey nodded ami- 
 ably to the woman with the black plait of hair and the pipe. 
 
 Danielli looked down the room again and caught Cathy's 
 eye. He made no actual sign of recognition, but one knew 
 that he was pleased to see her there. 
 
 People who expected impassioned oratory from Danielli, 
 and went to the Progress Club to hear him talk heroics, were 
 likely to be disappointed. He did indulge himself in wild 
 speeches, but only when he had a suitable audience. The 
 listeners sitting on the floor, on seats, and crowded along 
 the walls, were intellectuals, and did not require kerosene
 
 88 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 oil to make them flame. He made very few gestures, and 
 hardly ever raised his voice above his normal tone, which 
 was always sonorous rather than loud, and he avoided catch 
 words, just as Osterov, who had finished speaking, indulged 
 freely in them, and as Barlow, who spoke later, could not 
 open his mouth without uttering some well-worn phrase, 
 such as "the piping times of peace." 
 
 Gradually Cathy felt herself rising to the crest of a wave 
 of feeling that swung through the room, and she saw Dani- 
 elli as the Hebrews of old saw Moses. 
 
 He came from the table where he had stood, and when 
 he had spoken with one and another he made his way to 
 where Cathy and Mrs. Greenaway were sitting, and gave 
 Cathy his right and Mrs. Greenaway his left hand, and pull- 
 ing a cushion towards him and sat down at their feet. He 
 seemed to slide into a wonderfully intimate attitude both of 
 body and mind, and Cathy wondered if he were really a 
 "dark stranger," like the star which any day might rush out 
 of space, driven upon a huge celestial adventure, breaking up 
 the ordered routine of civilisation. He had preached a doc- 
 trine which ended the world for those of her class, and 
 she had listened, knowing that they were all to be destroyed. 
 Danielli was the "dark stranger," and already his attrac- 
 tion was beginning to drag the earth from its old, steady 
 course. She looked at the top of his dark head. It was so 
 odd, so bizarre, in a way, to have him sitting there, all but 
 leaning against her knee, and talking now and then in his 
 persuasive voice. 
 
 "Are the men really backing up the shop stewards ?" Mrs. 
 Greenaway asked, in her clear, incisive tones. 
 
 "You may always trust an engineer," Danielli said, and 
 he talked rapidly of skilled time rates, and the report of a 
 Workers' Committee which had just come in, and then Bar- 
 low got up and began to speak. 
 
 He was a convert, and, like all converts, was more ex- 
 treme than anyone else, and he began with the Public 
 Schools system and carried the sword onwards through the 
 Universities and the Services. What he really wanted to
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 89 
 
 do about it was not very clear, but he was intensely earnest, 
 and felt that his own education had been no good. 
 
 Cathy became intensely interested at once; she felt that 
 Barlow knew his subject, and she applauded with the crowd, 
 and, once or twice, entirely on her own. 
 
 "Why don't you speak yourself, when Barlow has done ?" 
 Danielli said in a whisper. "You'd be splendid on a plat- 
 form." 
 
 "I should lose my wits at once," she said, smiling down at 
 his raised face; "I'm far too tangled, I get everything in a 
 mix up." 
 
 She paused, and felt as though she had proclaimed her- 
 self a coward, and Barlow, who was prepared to go on 
 for any length of time, began to attack the Churches. 
 
 "Will you come and help us down in Labury Road?" 
 Danielli asked. "The men on the Qth Division of the Elec- 
 tricians' Association are out, and there is a desperate lot to 
 do. We are trying to keep the strike stiff, but we want help. 
 Women are always the trouble," he smiled his familiar, 
 friendly smile, "you always ask for security. Won't you 
 come and talk to them?" 
 
 "When I get a passport and am able to go to Berlin, I 
 shall tell the German workman that, in England, we are 
 their brothers, for we are determined that the people shall 
 rule the world," said Barlow violently to the audience. 
 
 "What could I do?" Cathy bent down, and the faint 
 violet scent she used floated towards Danielli. "Are they 
 hungry and in want ?" 
 
 "When are the poor anything else?" he said. "Perhaps 
 if you saw the actual conditions you might become entirely 
 one with us." 
 
 Cathy hesitated. It was not that she had the smallest 
 doubt of her own beliefs, but she felt suddenly that Lady 
 Carstairs would be horribly upset. It was stupid and ridicu- 
 lous to think of that at such a moment, but it caused her to 
 pause, and Danielli to look at her searchingly. 
 
 "I don't ask, nor do any of us, for charity," he said; 
 "don't fancy that I meant cheques or donations." 
 
 "We always want funds," Mrs. Greenaway interposed.
 
 9 o CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "Cathy Rossiter is going to help us that way and every 
 
 other way." 
 
 Barlow had come to an end of what he had to say, and 
 the crowd in the room broke up into groups, but Danielli 
 did not stir. He wanted to talk to Cathy. 
 
 "Labury Road isn't far away," he said, "and, unless you 
 are in a hurry to get back, we might go down there and 
 look around us. What do you say, Janey ?" 
 
 Mrs. Greenaway agreed at once. She was used to being 
 out and about at all hours, and Barlow joined them, and 
 immediately said that he would come too, though he looked 
 at Cathy distrustfully. 
 
 "You aren't one of us," he said, "I don't know that you 
 ought to be here at all. Why have you come?" 
 
 "Don't try to snub me, Major Barlow," she said quickly. 
 "I am a human being just as much as you are." 
 
 "Come on then," he said authoritatively, "and look at 
 your brothers and sisters. I doubt if you'll care very much 
 for the family party." 
 
 Cathy's subsequent recollections of her visit to Labury 
 Road were vivid and terrible. She saw what Danielli wished 
 her to see, and she stood to witness the protest of people 
 who were hungry, cold and wretched. Here was the real 
 England, the inarticulate mass, dark, submerged, and strug- 
 gling; their hoarse voices crying in the wilderness of dark 
 insanitary houses, and their lives made ugly and brutal 
 through lack of leisure and lack of hope. She saw crowds 
 and crowds of faces, and the faces haunted her imagina- 
 tion. 
 
 "This is not a very glorious dwelling, is it, Miss Rossiter ?" 
 Danielli said, as they stood on the filthy, broken steps of 
 a battered, dreary house. "Yet the wretched creatures who 
 are packed inside it are deadly afraid of losing its shelter." 
 
 "What can I do?" Cathy asked desperately. She was 
 moved beyond expression, and thought of her own luxury 
 and ease with something akin to repulsion. 
 
 Mrs. Greenaway and Barlow were already inside the 
 house, talking excitedly to a small group of men.
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 91 
 
 "They have lived like sewer rats for generations," Dani- 
 clli went on; "their one form of relaxation drink, their 
 morals filthy, and their children meagre, wretched little 
 parodies of the children you meet in the Park." 
 
 Cathy felt in her bag. There was no money in it except 
 a few shillings, and she moved to the door and just glanced 
 within. 
 
 "Don't go in," Danielli said firmly. "Mrs. Greenaway is 
 itsed to this kind of thing ; but there is a dead baby on the 
 table, and it might give you rather a shock." 
 
 "But why do they not put it somewhere else?" she asked. 
 
 "There is nowhere else," he said shortly. 
 
 "What can I do?" Cathy asked again, and she felt as 
 though none of the wild things Barlow had said were ex- 
 aggerated, not if you went and looked at the facts. 
 
 "Do?" Danielli smiled. He stood in the dim shaft of 
 light from the open doorway, and the noise and smell that 
 came through from within surrounded him intangibly. A 
 policeman on the farther side of the street turned his bull's- 
 eye lantern upon them, its wide ray falling upon Cathy 
 Rossiter. 
 
 "Emerson wrote a great deal of nonsense," he said, mov- 
 ing a little so that Cathy was less under observation, "but 
 at least he said this. 'Have you leisure, power, property, 
 friends ? You shall be the asylum and patron of every new 
 thought, every improved opinion which proceeds from hon- 
 est seeking. The highest compliment man ever receives 
 from heaven is the sending to him its disguised and dis- 
 credited angels.' These are the angels," he pointed to the 
 gaunt house, "well disguised and finely discredited by the 
 respectable. There is no other advice I can give you." 
 
 The policeman crossed the street and spoke to Danielli. 
 He appeared to know him well and to like him, and then he 
 asked Cathy who she was, and noted her address with 
 obvious astonishment. 
 
 "They are in a bad way," he remarked as he moved off; 
 "the Government will break the back of this strike." 
 
 "Will you take this?" Cathy seized upon the brooch at
 
 92 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 her neck. "I don't know that I ought to give it you, but 
 it's very valuable, and I have nothing else. . . ." 
 
 He took it without enthusiasm, and said that he would 
 see that the proceeds of its sale should go towards helping 
 the children; and then Janey and Barlow joined them, and 
 Barlow talked furiously as they walked through the slush 
 and snow of Labury Road. 
 
 Cathy had tasted reality, and it stunned her senses; as 
 she made her way home she could think of nothing else. 
 She parted from Danielli and Barlow at the Tube Station, 
 and Janey went back to the Progress Club, because she was 
 always more than usually active at night. 
 
 Her nerves were tingling and she was raised to a pitch of 
 wild enthusiasm as she opened the door with her latchkey. 
 It was long after midnight, and everyone would be in bed. 
 To her surprise, she saw, when she came in, that the light 
 in the smoking-room was still turned on, and she closed the 
 entrance door softly and walked across the hall. If some 
 one died in this spacious house, there would be place and 
 decency for death, she thought, and she pushed the door 
 open, thinking that Rayner, the butler, must have forgotten 
 to extinguish all the lights. 
 
 The fire had died down, but the room was warm, and the 
 soft, thick carpet made her coming quite noiseless. At first 
 Cathy thought that the room was empty, but, when she came 
 round the screen, she saw that there was a visitor, lying 
 asleep on the sofa, and she recognised with a start that it 
 was Robert Amyas. 
 
 The humour of the situation struck her, relieving a little 
 of the ugly tension of her mind, and she came towards him, 
 intending to awaken him with a start. Really Robert was 
 growing very casual, to say the least of it, and he deserved 
 to be frightened. But, when she touched his shoulder, he 
 did not stir, and for a moment a feeling of fear overtook 
 her. She had tasted reality, and reality can be a thing of 
 dread. For one second, she thought that she had returned 
 to find Robert dead in Lady Carstairs' comfortable smok- 
 ing-room.
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 93 
 
 He stirred uneasily but did not wake, and Cathy shook 
 him violently. "Robert," she said, "don't be aggravating. 
 Wake up at once." 
 
 Having tried every conceivable method by which she could 
 recall him to his senses, Cathy gave it up as hopeless, and 
 sat down, looking at his thin, petulant face and his open 
 mouth. She thought it was possible that Robert was drunk, 
 and the idea shocked her, but she also felt it to be more 
 likely that he was drugged, and that did not seem so bad; 
 though why, when it was certainly very much the more 
 pernicious habit of the two, Cathy could not have explained. 
 Perhaps if he knew that he snored when he drugged him- 
 self, he would relinquish the habit, she thought, as she 
 watched him. 
 
 Just a little way away from him lay the Hammersmith 
 slum, where people laid out their dead on the same table 
 at which they ate their meals ; and Robert, surfeited with the 
 gifts of life, was driven to a chemist's shop to find another 
 sensation for his feeble days. Cathy felt a sudden rage of 
 anger sweep over her like a storm. Robert had been abus- 
 ing Danielli only the day before; throwing cheap jibes at 
 him and calling him a pro-German agitator. She bent down, 
 and, setting her teeth, she took Amyas by the shoulders and 
 shook him, and she saw Robert's eyes open, and he stared 
 up at her, blindly at first, and then with slowly recovered 
 recognition. 
 
 "Cathy," he said, sitting up, his hair disordered and his 
 coat collar pulled up around his neck, for Cathy had not 
 been gentle. 
 
 To allow oneself the physical satisfaction of an act which 
 came close to chastisement, was rather overwhelming once 
 it was done, and she regarded him a little awkwardly. 
 
 "I've been asleep," he said in a dull voice. "I said I'd 
 sit up and wait for you. I must have fallen asleep." 
 
 His hands were hanging limply between his knees, and 
 he shivered as though he felt very cold. 
 
 "Asleep," Cathy's voice was full of scorn. "You were 
 drugged. It's no use lying to me, Robert." 
 
 Amyas made no reply for a moment, and then he ad-
 
 94 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 justed his coat collar and tie, and smoothed his hair with 
 his hands. 
 
 "Don't be so down on me," he said, looking up at her, his 
 pierrot face drawn and white, and his eyes dark with a 
 bruised look around the lids. "I can't sleep naturally. . . . 
 It hardly matters what I do." 
 
 Cathy drew herself up, she was still on fire from her re- 
 cent experiences. 
 
 "Have you nothing better to do?" she asked. "Is the 
 world made just for your pleasure ? Oh, Robert, you sicken 
 me ; you call yourself a man, I suppose, and you live like a 
 parasite." 
 
 "Don't be cruel," he said, and he got up and stood 
 wretchedly looking at her. "I've gone through a bad time." 
 
 "I don't want to be cruel," she retorted, and then she 
 felt that, after all, she was talking to Robert, and Robert 
 was only a nebulous fiction of a creature, so she softened 
 a little. 
 
 "If you could have seen yourself if you could have heard 
 yourself snore!" 
 
 He laughed quite suddenly, almost a boyish laugh, and he 
 held out his hands. 
 
 "I'll do penance, Cathy, I really will. I'd like to make 
 you think better of me. You've been drinking, yourself 
 words, of course, but that's as bad as anything else. I'll go 
 now, only do let me do something that will please you." 
 
 "You made me shake you," she said obstinately. "I 
 have to forgive you for that as well." 
 
 "I'll go to one of your meetings; I'll join the Salvation 
 Army, I'll be earnest and mean all I say. Come, Cathy, be 
 a Christian ; you ought to live up to your principles." 
 
 He pressed his hands to his forehead and looked around 
 him as though his dreams still called him back, behind the 
 curtains of sleep. 
 
 "Good night," she said, shortly. "I suppose you can let 
 yourself out?" 
 
 Amyas pulled on his overcoat, which was lying on a chair, 
 and held open the door to let her pass. 
 
 "But you will forgive me ?" he asked.
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 95 
 
 Cathy stood in the hall considering. After all, her for- 
 giveness meant very little, as she saw it, and she pondered 
 for a time before she replied. 
 
 "I can forgive you," she said slowly. "But some day, 
 you may find it quite impossible to forgive yourself." 
 
 "Myself?" he repeated the word. "Oh, I'm used to 
 myself."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 COUSIN OTHO was in a state of astonishment and dismay. 
 He was an extremely kind-hearted, well-meaning young 
 man, and he had a strong sense of family ties. Cathy was 
 beautiful, gracious, and now she was causing him acute 
 distress. He did not mind what people said; a talker is 
 always a talker; Cathy had talked for years and done very 
 little. If it pleased her to say all kinds of wild things it 
 did no real harm. Now, Cathy had gone further. "God be 
 with the old days," Otho said in his heart, when he re- 
 membered how deeply they had all disapproved of Cathy's 
 affection for Monica Henstock. Monica, who had done 
 ten days in Holloway. What would they all not give now, 
 to feel that Monica could still exercise an influence. But 
 Danielli came from nowhere, and that was against him. He 
 was a wild man, with nothing to lose by his wretched cru- 
 sade against Capital; Barlow, on the other hand, was de- 
 cently connected, and disgraced not only his household but 
 his school and his whole training. It was kinder to sup- 
 pose that the man was mad. Then there was Janey Green- 
 away. . . . Otho could hardly find polite words in which 
 to express his sentiments towards her. She was a female 
 hooligan, and her codes, moral and political, were simply 
 disastrous. What did matter, and what continued to mat- 
 ter, was Danielli's wretched influence, and the haunting fear 
 that Danielli might really intend to marry Cathy Rossiter. 
 
 It behoved the whole family to make a desperate effort, 
 and yet, to permit any sign of desperation to appear would 
 be fatal. In her distress of mind, Lady Carstairs had said 
 that "even Robert Amyas would be better. Robert is at 
 least a gentleman and not a strike leader." 
 
 Otho's friendship with Lorrimer had prospered, until at 
 last it came to a stage when they both believed in it; and 
 
 96
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 97 
 
 very often Cousin Otho made his way to the flat, inwardly 
 criticising Monica's barbarous taste, and spoke of subjects 
 close to his heart. Lorrimer was not as easily available as 
 he had once been, for Stockton had become a pivot in his 
 life, and the Kingslade election was soon to take place. 
 Lorrimer was chosen by the Progressive Party as their 
 nominee, and, what with the business of getting Kingslade 
 Park into order, and making friends in his future constitu- 
 ency, Colonel Lorrimer was no longer at a loose end. But 
 in all this Otho had been of invaluable service to him. 
 
 He walked into Lorrimer's dining-room in the flat one 
 bright spring morning, when the trees were in bud and the 
 earth was warm under a strong April sun. The dining- 
 room was dark, and always looked cold in spite of its red 
 walls, and Lorrimer was sitting at his breakfast table, glanc- 
 ing through letters, and looking rather dull and heavy. He 
 was getting what he wanted almost everything he wanted, 
 but he was neither settled nor happy. He had seen very 
 little of Cathy during the past month, and yet he could not 
 stop thinking of her. Kingslade Park literally cried aloud 
 for her, and she and no other was the fitting mistress for 
 the beautiful old house. But how did one capture Cathy? 
 Take out a butterfly net and rush madly after her as she 
 sailed away on her gauzy wings? Sing under her window 
 o' nights like a troubadour? He caught sight of his face 
 in a glass that hung on the wall opposite io where he sat, 
 and noticed that he looked older. He was growing heavy- 
 looking, and his hair was turning a little grey. When he 
 shaved in the morning an ugly time with Lorrimer the 
 stubble on his chin was no longer mouse brown to match 
 his hair. 
 
 Otho's arrival made a pleasant break. Lorrimer always 
 felt better when he had seen Otho. He had begun by buy- 
 ing him with dinners and the use of one of his cars, and in 
 the end Otho really liked Lorrimer. If this was so with 
 Otho, why should not Cathy learn that there was something 
 kind and fond, something protective and benignant in the 
 heart and soul of Jack Lorrimer? 
 
 Otho had already breakfasted, but he was willing to drink
 
 9 8 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 a cup of hot coffee ; he considered that the coffee was good, 
 and after a time he began to unpack his troubles. 
 
 "It's getting dam' serious about Cathy," he said, and 
 Lorrimer appreciated the compliment. Otho would not dis- 
 cuss Cathy with anyone except a close and trusted friend. 
 
 "Why?" he asked laconically. 
 
 "Well, there's this wretched fellow, Danielli. I've told 
 you before that I thought the swine ought to be shot, but 
 now it's all going beyond everything. She is leaving Caven- 
 dish Square." 
 
 "No!" 
 
 Lorrimer's flat denial of such a possibility was wrung 
 from him in utter dismay. 
 
 "But it's yes," Otto said grimly. "I was there last night 
 went to see Aunt Amy, she rang me up, poor old dear, 
 she is in an awful state. To begin with, Cathy gave this 
 sweep a brooch which is an heirloom ; the trustees may kick 
 tip the hell of a row, and Cathy actually can't be got to 
 think of it seriously." 
 
 "She gave him an heirloom?" Lorrimer's face expressed 
 the greatest concern, and he pushed away his plate and 
 stared out of the window angrily. 
 
 "Precisely." Otho tapped his fingers noiselessly on the 
 table-cloth. "We don't want it to be known about. Eliza- 
 beth is the loser, and, as she says she doesn't care a flitter, 
 and that Cathy can do as she likes, it will be tided over. 
 It's not so much the beastly brooch that has made us all 
 very anxious, it's the hopeless attitude of Cathy herself." 
 
 "What is her attitude?" Lorrimer asked, pushing two 
 fingers inside his collar, as though it had suddenly become 
 very tight. 
 
 "She won't hear the smallest criticism of the man, and 
 she says she is tired of having done nothing but talk." 
 
 Otho leaned forward and spoke again, adding weight to 
 his words by swaying his forefinger in the air. 
 
 "Danielli is engineering a big general strike, and he has 
 discovered that Cathy has persuasive qualities." 
 
 "Damn his skin." Lorrimer got up and began to pace the 
 floor restlessly.
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 99 
 
 "He has induced her to agree to go and stay in Mrs. 
 Greenaway's flat in Hammersmith, and perhaps you don't 
 realise what kind of woman 'Janey' really is?" 
 
 "I've heard Miss Rossiter talk of her." 
 
 "It's common report that she is Barlow's mistress one 
 of them, I ought to say, for he has several, and it's hardly 
 the place for Cathy. This Greenaway woman works up the 
 wives and the female population, and gets them to back 
 their men." 
 
 Lorrimer stood and looked at Otho, frowning and irri- 
 tated. 
 
 "Does she know of this business between Barlow and her 
 friend?" 
 
 Otho stirred his coffee and nodded. 
 
 "Oh, yes, Janey, whatever her other faults may be, is 
 quite honest; and Cathy accepted the situation. When I 
 spoke to her, as best I could, she only reminded me that she 
 and Aunt Amy were dining that night with Veronica Damer, 
 and that there was no real difference between Veronica and 
 Hubert Ogilvie, and Barlow and Janey, except that Veronica 
 and Hubert told lies and the others did not. You can't get 
 her to see things sensibly. She retorts at once out of the 
 Bible or throws a Society scandal at you. . . ." 
 
 He made a desperate gesture with his hands. 
 
 "And they have worked on her feelings and induced her 
 to go and help them? It r s simply damnable and ought to 
 be stopped." 
 
 "Oh, 'ought to be stopped,' of course it ought. But who 
 is to stop it ?" Otho's voice was irritable and cross. "Twy- 
 ford is away, though I believe that Aunt Amy has written 
 to him, and even if he were here I don't fancy he could do 
 much." 
 
 There was a silence between the two men, and Lorrimer 
 lighted a cigar. He was wondering if he could venture to 
 suggest that he might make an attempt on his own account. 
 
 "If she goes there, it's always possible," Otho went on, 
 "that Danielli may persuade her to live with him. Shock- 
 ing, of course," he looked at Lorrimer's horrified face, "but 
 they discount matrimonial relationships. Until the divorce
 
 ioo CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 laws are made equal, and taxation separate, they won't any 
 of them marry, so I'm told, and I suppose that Danielli 
 would keep to his principles. The danger is that he hypno- 
 tises the girl." 
 
 "But it must be prevented." Lorrimer could think of 
 nothing else to say. 
 
 "Agreed, man, agreed." Otho was losing his temper a 
 little. "But how? Is there any argument you can think 
 of that is likely to be of use? If there is, for God's sake, 
 come and argue. She doesn't go until to-morrow." 
 
 "Certainly I will try," Lorrimer said slowly. He was 
 perfectly sure that Gathy ought to be rescued out of her 
 madness, but he was far from certain that he knew what to 
 say. 
 
 "One great point in your favour," Otho said, having 
 thought for a minute, "is that she doesn't suspect you. I'll 
 be quite frank, Lorrimer, so that you may know how you 
 stand. You see " he paused a little awkwardly. 
 
 "Go on," Lorrimer said bluntly; "don't be in the least 
 squeamish about my feelings, if that's the trouble." 
 
 "Well, Aunt Amy likes you very much, but she is one of 
 that ridiculous group called 'the old school.' She places a 
 lot of weight upon having known people's grandfathers. As 
 she didn't happen to have heard of yours, she regards you 
 rather as a mushroom. You represent the pushful, suc- 
 cessful man from nowhere. . . . You're sure you don't 
 mind?" 
 
 Lorrimer was conscious of a cold intensity of dislike 
 towards Lady Carstairs welling up in his heart, but he as- 
 sured Otho that he was not in the least ruffled by what he 
 said. 
 
 "All this is hugely in your favour with Cathy. She can't 
 accuse you of belonging to the ring, and being one of the 
 people who forgive everything that happens in their own 
 set the idle, greedy rich. Cathy scraps the Progressive 
 Party, it's true, because of Danielli, who loathes them, but 
 at heart she believes altogether in you." 
 
 Lorrimer sat down and looked a little less affronted in 
 his dignity.
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 101 
 
 "Does she," he looked away from Otho, "does she like 
 the brute? I mean, do you really fancy that she is going 
 to give herself away over him ?" 
 
 Otho got up and began to look at the sporting prints of 
 the moonlight riders which Monica had caused to be hung 
 around the walls. 
 
 "How can one know what a woman thinks? Cathy has 
 never loved anyone. She loves everybody. She thinks 
 Danielli is a kind of prophet ; he influences her, and it may 
 lead on to surrender." 
 
 Colonel Lorrimer coughed, and sat back in his chair. He 
 had leapt to a sudden resolve, so wild and so tremendous 
 that it staggered him by its weight. He would fight Danielli, 
 the strike leader, and he intended to use any means which 
 lay at his disposal to conquer him. The main thing was to 
 save Cathy before her reputation suffered, and to do this 
 there was a struggle ahead of him. He rubbed his hands 
 together, for they were cold, and he glanced at the letters 
 on the table. 
 
 "I'll do my best," he said, and there was a ring of as- 
 surance in his voice. "All Miss Rossiter wants is to be 
 actively interested in living reforms." 
 
 Otho laughed and got up to go. He was amused, and 
 he took no trouble to hide his amusement. 
 
 "Don't try any electioneering touch with Cathy," he said 
 warningly. "She has a most unfortunate sense of humour, 
 even though she is able to swallow Danielli and all his gods." 
 He took up his hat which he had thrown on a chair. "Where 
 is Dr. Henstock? She might be able to innoculate Cathy 
 with something that would kill the germ. I don't think they 
 meet very often now." 
 
 "Dr. Henstock is fearfully overworked," Lorrimer said 
 guardedly; "she would, I know, do anything in the world 
 for Miss Rossiter." 
 
 "When they hadn't the vote, it kept them amused," Otho 
 said, from the door. "What a pity they ever got it." 
 
 Lorrimer laughed, his throaty laugh, and agreed. Women 
 should be kept in their right place, and their right place was
 
 102 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "the home." He decided to go and see Cathy late that after- 
 noon, and his nerves tingled at the prospect. 
 
 Cathy had had a visit from Lilian Hinton, and as she was 
 now married to Anthony, Lady Carstairs made no formal 
 objection to her coming to the house. She said that "by- 
 gones should be bygones," and even greeted Lilian almost 
 as though nothing very unusual had happened since they 
 last met. When the divorce proceedings were pending she 
 had refused to know her. At the time when her adherence 
 might possibly have been of some help to Lilian, she had 
 turned away her face, and only when the second marriage 
 was an accomplished fact could she be brought to mention 
 her name; but when they met, Lilian having come to see 
 Cathy, Lady Carstairs accepted her with a kind of subtle 
 lowering of the temperature; not enough to induce a wintry 
 frost, but sufficient to make itself felt. 
 
 During tea Lady Carstairs had remained present, and 
 when Lilian, who was looking unusually striking, began to 
 ask Cathy what her plans were, she knew at once that Lady 
 Carstairs was metaphorically on the rack. 
 
 "My plans ?" Cathy leaned back, and reviewed the room 
 with a slow smile. "I feel that it's rather hard on Aunt 
 Amy, Lil, but you must know, I suppose?" 
 
 Lilian glanced at Aunt Amy's face. It was perfectly 
 composed, but there was ice in it; and, laughing inwardly, 
 she shook her head, and said that she was not going to let 
 Cathy off. 
 
 "I am going to live in Engine Road, Hammersmith," 
 Cathy said. 
 
 "Hammersmith?" Lilian said the word incredulously, 
 and Lady Carstairs only raised her eyebrows slightly. 
 
 "A friend of mine, Janey Greenaway, has a flat there. 
 You must meet Janey, Lil, she is a gorgeous person." 
 
 "A little more tea, Lilian ?" Lady Carstairs asked politely, 
 and Lilian accepted this peace offering. It was the first 
 time Aunt Amy had called her by her Christian name, until 
 then. 
 
 "Well, go on, Cath. A woman called Janey Green-
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 103 
 
 away " She broke off. "Not the rather celebrated 
 
 Mrs. Greenaway, 'The People's Jane'?" 
 
 "Yes, that's the very one," Cathy was full of animation 
 at once. "Some wretched journalist called her that, and, 
 instead of being angry, she took it on, and signs it to all her 
 letters to the Press. I love the way Janey gets back on her 
 adversaries." 
 
 Lilian was looking at Cathy with sudden attention. Her 
 smile had died out and her eyes were serious ; a change 
 had made itself evident in her manner, and she spoke at 
 once. 
 
 "Oh, Cath'y, not that crowd. I have heard all sorts of 
 things about them. Anthony had to come in contact with 
 Danielli over some big contract for his works, which couldn't 
 be carried through, and couldn't be shipped, and was hope- 
 lessly hung up through the man. Anthony said that there 
 was literally nothing bad enough for him. He is a paid 
 agitator." 
 
 Lady Carstairs thawed suddenly, for she had found an 
 ally where she least expected it. 
 
 "I am so glad to hear you say all this," she said, "and am 
 glad to think that your husband agrees with me." 
 
 "But, Lil," Cathy said quickly, "you don't know the con- 
 ditions. If you will come down with me and see the state 
 of affairs along Labury Road, you will change all those 
 views. I have been working down there, trying to help 
 the women and children." 
 
 "Working at what?" Lilian asked. "Not helping them 
 to stand out over this ridiculous demand for a six-hour day ? 
 Cathy, don't be so blind. Anthony is one of the most lib- 
 eral employers in the Protectorate, and he is starting works 
 over here now; but he says that, on the conditions which 
 Danielli demands, there would be no profits and no earthly 
 security. All that will be done is, that the workmen will be 
 left, a hopeless rabble of unemployed, with half the facto- 
 ries in England closed down for good." 
 
 "But look at what they had," Cathy flushed slightly; 
 "they were living on a starvation wage, they were housed 
 worse than pigs, for you must house pigs decently, and the
 
 io 4 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 owners are able to live in comfort, and can 'loll,' as dear old 
 Granny used to say." 
 
 Cathy was obviously hurt and disappointed by the atti- 
 tude of her friend. Lilian had dared the conventions 
 grandly, but she was wonderfully narrow when it came to 
 a question of strikes. 
 
 Lady Carstairs got up ; she had feared that Lilian's visit 
 would only turn out to be a further disaster, for she felt 
 that Lilian, having come out on the wrong side of the Di- 
 vorce Courts, as it were, would certainly be a red Republi- 
 can, anxious to see the Constitution overthrown, and an 
 open admirer of Danielli, who had such deplorable views 
 upon marriage. Now it seemed that, whatever her faults 
 might be, Lilian was to be trusted, and even Anthony, her 
 partner in crime, held all the right views. They were mar- 
 ried, and Robert was, after all, rather an unsatisfactory 
 husband . . . perhaps she had been a little over-strict, 
 though she could not abate a jot of her conviction that Lil- 
 ian should have remained with Robert. All these thoughts 
 floated through her mind, as she explained that she had to 
 attend a meeting of Church workers. 
 
 "We are out of the fashion," she said, "and I know that 
 none of Cathy's friends approve of us, but I dare say we 
 shall still survive, even after the revolution." 
 
 She kissed Lilian quite affectionately, and asked her to 
 come again, adding, with a sigh of mental effort, that she 
 must bring Mr. Hinton. 
 
 "Dear Aunt Amy, she is so cross just now," Cathy said 
 when the door had closed. "After all, Lil, you also do not 
 approve, but what in the world do you take exception to? 
 If I said I was going to New York, no one would be even 
 surprised, so it's not the fact of my going away for a month. 
 If I said I wanted to become a Grey Lady, and undertake 
 good works in the slums, you might be astonished, but you 
 couldn't object. I am not going to spout on a platform, I'm 
 not going to scrub floors ; I'm merely going to do odd jobs, 
 and see where I can be of real use to a whole lot of tragic 
 people who are putting up a splendid fight. Even if you 
 don't agree with them, you might admit that much."
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 105 
 
 Lilian considered her reply; she was perfectly sure of 
 what she felt and thought. 
 
 "I don't like common people out of their place," she said 
 firmly. "The People's Jane is a vulgarian, and she can't 
 help jarring on you. Then there is the story about her and 
 Barlow. Don't fancy that I am sitting up and judging her, 
 but it's rather squalid." 
 
 "Because they live in Hammersmith?" 
 
 "Yes, I expect that adds to it. Danielli is not to be 
 trusted, and you, Cath, you to be in the thick of that group. 
 Do show some sense of the general fitness of things." 
 
 Cathy got up and walked to the fire and stood, leaning 
 her arm on the mantelpiece, looking down at the blaze. 
 
 "I can't tell you how little all you say affects me," she 
 replied. "Perhaps you remember how little you cared your- 
 self for what people said when you went out to war. In 
 my case the question isn't personal, it merely arises 
 through the fact that I hold unpopular views. You have 
 never seen Danielli, never spoken to Janey, and it's so unlike 
 you to be unjust." 
 
 Lilian looked down, and again her distress became evi- 
 dent. 
 
 "I so hate to think of you exiled like that. It's a class 
 war, Cathy, and you belong to us. Even the people you 
 befriend won't understand you, and they will turn against 
 you." 
 
 "If one were to mind what people said, one wouldn't get 
 up in the morning," Cathy said impatiently. "Surely, Lil, 
 you of all people " 
 
 "Oh, I know I'm disappointing you, I know you think 
 me a Pharisee, because I criticise the Greenaway menage. 
 Cathy, you are taking a step which is positively dangerous." 
 
 Cathy made a hopeless gesture with her hands. 
 
 "Anyone else to say these things but you, Lil. I can't 
 believe my ears." 
 
 Lilian got up and put her arm through Cathy's. 
 
 "I know that you think me a broken reed," she said gently, 
 "but, Cath, I only broke a social convention. You are out
 
 io6 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 to join in with people who have nothing to do with your 
 life, and besides, this Danielli is such a cad." 
 
 Cathy swept round suddenly and looked at her friend. 
 
 "What are you afraid of ?" she asked. "That I shall live 
 with Danielli ? Affront my little world to screaming point ?" 
 
 She held Lilian's hands in hers, and they looked very 
 steadfastly in each other's eyes, trying to read into the hid- 
 den thoughts behind their silence ; and it was upon this pic- 
 ture that Twyford looked, as he opened the door, standing 
 watching the two women. 
 
 Twyford was up from the country, and had come in a 
 hurry. He was wearing a disgraceful old shooting coat 
 which had gone at the elbows, and he brought in with him 
 a feeling of forgotten things. He was pleased to see Lilian, 
 and had been her faithful friend when winds were contrary. 
 No one dared to discuss his friends with him, and this in 
 itself is a high compliment. 
 
 Lilian turned to Twyford. She felt that there was some- 
 thing hopeful in his arrival and that she could leave with a 
 feeling of satisfaction. One always came back to Twyford, 
 insensibly, partly because he never changed. 
 
 He saw her to the door, and when he went back to the 
 drawing-room Twyford found Cathy sitting on the white 
 rug in front of the fire, for, though it was April, the weather 
 was cold and unforgiving. The room was full of flowers, 
 and the faint scent of mimosa floated in the air like a beau- 
 tiful thought. 
 
 She was looking a little depressed and did not smile at 
 him. 
 
 "I suppose, as you've come in that disgraceful old coat, 
 that Aunt Amy sent you an S.O.S., and you are here to pre- 
 vent my going to Hammersmith, if you can." Twyford 
 was one of the only people towards whom Cathy was fre- 
 quently irritable and unreasonable. "You are all making 
 such a ridiculous fuss. Why, when Lilian decided to go o'ff 
 with Anthony, there was hardly more chatter." 
 
 "Anyhow, I didn't chatter," he sat down near her ; "give 
 me credit for that. I never believe in interference, and I'm 
 only here to find out why you want to go."
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 107 
 
 "Because I want to do something worth while." 
 
 "And it's got to be done down in Labury Road? Isn't 
 there anywhere else, Cathy?" 
 
 "No, there isn't," she said truculently. 
 
 "What's wrong with us all?" Twyford asked, and then 
 the flood gates opened, and Cathy began to quote Danielli. 
 
 She gave him no chance to speak, nor did he attempt to 
 interrupt her. Nowhere in all her world could Cathy dis- 
 cover simplicity and honest faith. The people had decided 
 to cast out the false gods, and the people were right. You 
 could not compromise. 
 
 Twyford looked at the fire, and it was some time before 
 he spoke. 
 
 "I don't think you give traditions much of a chance, 
 Cathy," he said, "and I'm not going to wrestle with you in 
 argument. You're far better at that kind of game than I 
 am. You say, 'let the people rule,' and I suppose they are 
 going to have a shot at it. I hope they enjoy the job." 
 
 Cathy smiled suddenly. Twyford was really amusing 
 when he talked on abstract propositions. 
 
 "Still, there's one bad hole in your argument," he went 
 on. "Danielli, if he became President of the British Re- 
 public, would live in a big house and have a car; he simply 
 couldn't help himself. I'm not blaming him ; only it's a bit 
 thick that he should object to me because I could own a car 
 which I don't." It was a long speech for Twyford, but 
 he had not entirely concluded what he had to say. "To 
 get your Republic on its legs there's a lot of shooting to be 
 done first, and, if you had been in Russia, as I was when the 
 ball started, you'd wonder if it was worth it." 
 
 "It was worth it to France, and surely America is justified 
 of her War of Independence?" 
 
 Twyford shrugged his shoulders. She hated the idea of 
 physical cruelty, and, though he said so very little, she felt 
 that he was thinking of many things which he had seen, and 
 his thought touched her with a queer sense of apprehension ; 
 but Twyford was no diplomatist, and he did not know his 
 advantage over her. She was just Cathy to him, Cathy, who 
 was behaving like a naughty child who has picked up a
 
 108 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 bomb as a plaything and refuses to hand it over to the bid- 
 ding of authority. He leant forward, putting his hand on 
 her shoulder. 
 
 "I am all that you most object to," he said; "that is, in 
 theory. I was a dunce at Eton, and I didn't take my degree 
 at Oxford, but I can be trusted, Cathy, and I think it's time 
 you said that you would marry me." 
 
 Cathy recoiled from him and sprang to her feet. He had 
 made a hopeless blunder and he knew it directly it was ir- 
 revocable, but spoken words cannot be recalled. 
 
 "I shall make one alteration in my plans," she said ; "in- 
 stead of leaving to-morrow, I shall go at once," and, with- 
 out waiting to hear what he had to say, she left the room. 
 
 At six o'clock Colonel Lorrimer presented himself at 
 Lady Carstairs' house and asked for Miss Rossiter, only to 
 receive the information that she had gone away, and that 
 her address was 16, Engine Street, Hammersmith. As he 
 stood at the door, he saw Twyford cross the hall, but he 
 took no notice of Lorrimer, though he must have seen him. 
 So Twyford had had an innings and failed. He turned 
 away stiffly and walked along the square by the railings 
 of the garden.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE flat in Engine Road was at the top of a gaunt house, 
 with interminable flights of stairs leading to the eyrie of 
 Janey Greenaway. All sorts and conditions of men and 
 women lived on the other landings, and the atmosphere of 
 the whole place was that of disorder. Janey, at the top, 
 escaped from a greater part of the noise, and was sole 
 possessor of the whole landing. Her sitting-room was in 
 the centre, and two small bedrooms opened off it; opposite 
 to the door of the sitting-room, and across the landing, was 
 Barlow's lair, where he collected piles of daily papers and 
 answered an enormous correspondence. There was a tiny 
 kitchen at the furthest end of the landing, and a bathroom, 
 which was not often used, and in which both taps ran re- 
 lentlessly cold and chill. 
 
 The sitting-room overlooked the tops of a group of weary 
 trees, and gave a distant view of the river. The windows 
 were thick with dust, but the interior of the room was com- 
 paratively tidy, for Janey liked to see things in their right 
 places. On the mantelpiece there were a number of photo- 
 graphs of various members of the group, and the walls were 
 adorned with posters and manifestoes instead of pictures. 
 The writing-table was piled up with papers, and the carpet 
 was shabby and dull from the wear and tear of the passing 
 of many feet. Janey's taste was not aesthetic, and her furni- 
 ture was solid rather than beautiful, but the main disad- 
 vantage of the flat lay in the fact that it insisted upon close 
 quarters. Pack people sufficiently tight, and unless they are 
 very unusual, it makes for irritation. You could say any- 
 thing you liked in Janey's flat, and express the most ex- 
 treme opinions without reserve. Everything was open to 
 discussion, and Janey herself invited debate. She had not 
 expected Cathy the evening she arrived, but it made no 
 difference. 
 
 109
 
 no CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 Janey was going out and did not expect to be back until 
 the small hours, and went her untrammelled way cheer- 
 fully. 
 
 To Cathy, the experience was sufficiently new to be inter- 
 esting. She was interested in her tiny box of a room, with 
 a poster over her bed, on which the words stared at her 
 blackly in capitals, "British Socialist Party. Hands off 
 Russia," and another over the wash-hand-stand, "Free the 
 Prisoners. Work for the release of 1,800 political prison- 
 ers." On every side she was exhorted to be up and doing, 
 and she blamed herself for thinking how hard it would be 
 to contain her possessions in one small chest of drawers. 
 From down below perpetual sounds came up to her and re- 
 minded her that she was in the heart of life. Not shut away 
 into the seclusion and privacy of her aunt's house any longer, 
 but sheer in the whirlpool itself. 
 
 She was tired and she certainly missed the ordered com- 
 fort of Aunt Amy's house, but her heart was light and she 
 sang to herself as she washed up the plates in the pantry 
 sink. 
 
 When Cathy had nearly finished washing up, she heard a 
 footstep in the kitchen, and Barlow stood in the door look- 
 ing at her. He took off his hat and smiled, and Cathy re- 
 sponded at once. She did not like Barlow, but felt that she 
 must manage to swallow him, both for Janey's sake and 
 because he was a comrade in the world's adventure. 
 
 "Too late to be of use," he said, "but in time to talk. I 
 have a free hour. Janey gone out ?" 
 
 Cathy replied that Mrs. Greenaway was not likely to be 
 in before midnight, and she followed him, as he walked with 
 hunched shoulders to the sitting-room and turned on the 
 gas fire and the strong incandescent light over the table. 
 She never allowed herself to think very much of Janey's 
 romance ; it seemed out of place, and, as romances go, there 
 was so very little illusion about it. They seemed like wild 
 birds rocking upon an upper branch in a storm, and with a 
 bare, bleak world around them. Barlow was often rude 
 and abrupt to Janey, and there were times when Mrs. 
 Greenaway appeared to be on edge and very irritable
 
 CATHY ROSSITER in 
 
 towards Barlow, but it never occurred to Cathy to doubt 
 the high principles or the sincerity of either. Barlow's 
 spare bent figure and look of aged youth was painful in a 
 way. He had done six months in jail and his face had a 
 set, scraped look. His hair was cropped to the skin, and 
 his "Pan-like effect" made all the rest of him bizarre and 
 alarming. 
 
 For a little while Barlow talked of the strike, laughing to 
 himself and rubbing his chin with his knuckles. He had 
 adopted a violence of speech, the more to repudiate his 
 training, and Cathy felt odd thrills of astonishment as he 
 used the language of the working man. He sat huddled 
 deep in the most comfortable chair, with his legs crossed 
 and his knees up to his chin, and all the time he watched her 
 with his half-mystic, half-malevolent eyes. 
 
 "I'm glad you've come," he said," it will do you a heap of 
 good. The first time I saw you you were wearing a hat, 
 rather a neat kind of hat, but it hid your hair." 
 
 Cathy looked at him, and then looked away quickly. She 
 became certain that she did not care for Major Barlow. 
 
 "You are wonderfully beautiful," he said at last ; "far 
 too beautiful, because you make us all think of you most 
 for that. Danielli knows it." He laughed again and hugged 
 himself. "I loved you at once." 
 
 Cathy got up and looked towards the door of her room. 
 If Barlow intended to be offensive she had a remedy, she 
 could go to bed. But she had reckoned without full knowl- 
 edge of the actual conditions of Janey's flat, and Barlow, 
 who saw what she intended to do, spoke quickly. 
 
 "The door doesn't shut, so if you do go to bed it doesn't 
 cut communications. Sit down and talk. What are you 
 frightened of? I'm not the first man, married or single, 
 who has said he loved you, not by dozens. Don't play the 
 prude." 
 
 Cathy subsided into her chair. Here was a dilemma, and 
 it must be met sensibly. After all, there was no use in say- 
 ing, "Unhand me, villain." She had wanted free speech, 
 and if it was more than she had bargained for, she still 
 had no real right to complain. The worst of it was that
 
 ii2 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 she did not know what to do. Her class barriers were a 
 fearful disadvantage, for any girl of the people would have 
 been able to settle Barlow inside five minutes. 
 
 "I think you're talking nonsense," she said, trying not to 
 speak frigidly, in case he should laugh at her. 
 
 "I wasn't thinking of you," he replied, "only of myself. 
 I've loved a lot of women. Before I took up with Janey I 
 was living with Esme Jacobs, a dark little Jew girl." 
 
 He lighted an American cigarette and looked reflectively 
 at the narrow spiral of smoke. 
 
 "It doesn't interest me in the least," Cathy said, flushing 
 to the roots of her hair, "and besides, I consider that if 
 you love anyone you ought to have the common decency to 
 be faithful." 
 
 "Oh, that's what you think, is it?" He appeared neither 
 nettled nor concerned, merely astonished. "I should have 
 thought that you might have discovered that inspiration re- 
 quires change." He laughed again, his odd, chuckling 
 laugh, and went on. "Since first I saw you I have felt that 
 you could be of great help to me, but of course you'd have 
 to live with me. You can't know a woman at all unless you 
 have lived with her." 
 
 "And do you propose that I shall be one of your harem, 
 or what is your idea ?" Cathy felt her temper rising wildly. 
 
 "There, there," he said, and he patted her arm. "I con- 
 stantly forget that you aren't half educated. If you agree, 
 and you probably will in time, you could trust me implicitly." 
 
 Cathy looked around her in dismay. Would Janey never 
 come in, would no one come ? She felt absurdly frightened 
 of Barlow, and she began to remember that one read things 
 in the daily papers about what men sometimes did. She 
 reminded herself that Barlow was originally from her own 
 world, and she gathered courage again. 
 
 "Surely, Major Barlow," she said, "you still remember 
 how to treat women decently? I hate to take you at your 
 own word." 
 
 "Why not?" He leaned forward, gaunt and large, and 
 put his thin face close to hers. "I have been a convict, and
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 113 
 
 I have worked as a day labourer. I've got away from the 
 flim-flams, Cathy, and your voice is sweet ah, sweet." 
 
 He took hold of her hand and began to kiss her wrist with 
 dry, hungry kisses. 
 
 Forcing herself free from him, she stood against the 
 table. Barlow did not get up, he only watched her with the 
 same curiously concentrated interest. 
 
 "You are beautiful," he said again, with great sincerity, 
 "and I suppose I've been forcing the pace. Still, you will 
 have to forgive me, you aren't half educated, and you stifle 
 every natural impulse because you've been shackled by silly 
 traditions. Let yourself be the woman God meant you to 
 be." 
 
 What Cathy would have said she did not know. She was 
 only aware of footsteps on the bare boards of the passage. 
 Someone was coming to the rescue, and, whoever it was, 
 she was more than thankful to him. She adjusted her 
 looks, with the life-long habit of hiding a scene, and when 
 he heard a knock on the door, Barlow sank back and began 
 to nurse his knees again. He, too, looked as though noth- 
 ing the least unusual had occurred. 
 
 "Come in," Cathy said, and her voice sounded steady and 
 normal. She even wondered at herself and her own calm. 
 
 There was a pause before the door opened, and she had 
 crossed the room, fearing that whoever it was who knocked 
 might go away, and opening the door, found herself face 
 to face with Colonel Lorrimer. 
 
 Lorrimer had known Cathy pleased to see him on many 
 occasions; he had also known occasions when she hardly 
 realised that he was there at all, but just when he dreaded 
 that she might meet him with anger, he saw her whole face 
 break into joyful recognition. 
 
 "You," she said, "you, Colonel Lorrimer. I am glad to 
 see you." 
 
 She brought him in and introduced him to Barlow, who 
 did not get up but nodded over his shoulder, and Lorrimer 
 took off his gloves and looked around him. Barlow noted 
 his look and hated him for it. 
 
 The position was intensely difficult, and Barlow did noth-
 
 ii 4 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 ing to lessen the tension, nor did he make the least effort 
 to leave them together, even though Lorrimer remarked 
 pointedly that he had a message from Lady Carstairs. The 
 message was an invention of his own. He had not put on 
 evening dress, but wore a dark suit, and his prosperity 
 clashed and warred with the lean figure of Barlow, heaped 
 and untidy and not even particularly clean. 
 
 "Are you stayin' here long?" he asked, looking at Cathy 
 with his dull eyes. "I only heard to-day that you thought 
 of taking a kind of holiday, what?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, I am having a holiday." Cathy laughed. "I 
 wish you would come and help us ; there is a great deal to 
 do." 
 
 "Not in your line," Barlow remarked from behind an 
 evening paper which he had produced from his pocket. 
 
 "And why not in my line ?" Lorrimer's tone was deliber- 
 ately provocative. 
 
 "I'd better not say." Barlow laid the paper over his 
 knees and laughed. "Already I have affronted Cathy Ros- 
 siter by telling her the truth, and I can't suppose that you 
 would care for it any more than she did." 
 
 Lorrimer turned his back upon Barlow and began to 
 talk to Cathy in a slightly lowered voice. 
 
 "I'm awfully sorry you have to be away just now," he 
 said, "for my own sake. I'm standing for Kingslade and 
 am full of all sorts of ideas." He heard Barlow's stifled 
 sound of mockery. "I want to get hold of a whole heap of 
 information that I can't come by. Jesson has allowed me an 
 open programme, and I can work along the widest lines." 
 
 "God ! How long are you all going to talk that kind of 
 bilge ?" Barlow said from his chair. "Until the millennium, 
 I suppose? Good houses, good wages, cheap food. You 
 and your lot have been shoving that bloody clap-trap down 
 the neck of the working man since Cain killed Abel." 
 
 "I felt that you would be able to help me tremendously," 
 Lorrimer said, entirely disregarding the interruption, "only 
 I suppose I'm too late. I expect that Monica will lend a 
 hand, she is very dependable." 
 
 "Dear old Mug. I haven't seen her for ages." Cathy's
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 115 
 
 voice sounded regretful, and she looked at Lorrimer pite- 
 ously. She saw, ahead of her, a month of torture. Bar- 
 low always in the flat, and, indeed, there by right of part 
 ownership, and Janey gradually awakening into shrewish 
 jealousy. She had caught a fleeting glimpse of the human 
 side of Janey one night when Barlow had taken a delegate 
 from the Women's Bus Conductors' Union home, after a 
 meeting where she had spoken with fiery eloquence; her 
 uniform and her piquante face making ample amends for 
 her cockney voice and an absence of aspirates. Janey had 
 let go for about five minutes, and Cathy always strove to 
 forget the revelation. Women of all classes were the same 
 in this respect, she had told herself, only that Janey was 
 honest enough to say what she thought. The idea of the 
 same honesty being brought into play in her own case was 
 disquieting and hopelessly awkward. Barlow cared nothing 
 for anyone's feelings, and he had certainly marked her for 
 his own. Lorrimer had not even hinted at her giving up 
 her work; he did not seem to expect it. All that appeared 
 was that he was intensely sorry to miss her help, and 
 Monica would do very well instead. The flat grew close 
 and airless, and Cathy remembered, with shrinkings of the 
 soul, that Janey went away quite often to stump the manu- 
 facturing towns, and, with Janey away, she would be all 
 alone with Barlow. If he desired to engineer it, he could 
 arrange for Janey to go and carry the fiery cross through 
 rural England, and have her at his mercy, or put her in the 
 position of one who would go back to her people feeling 
 that she had fought for nothing besides, there was Danielli,. 
 and he wanted her. 
 
 Lorrimer had run rather short of conversation, but he 
 showed no sign of moving, and Cathy prayed that he would 
 stay. She offered him tea, for it was the only thing there 
 was to offer, and Barlow drank it strong and black at all 
 hours. 
 
 "So Mug will take a holiday and go electioneering," she 
 said, with an effort at gaiety. "I shall make her tell me all 
 about it." 
 
 Her hands trembled a little and she looked, so Lorrimer
 
 n6 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 felt, unprotected and quite ridiculously out of place. In his 
 eyes Barlow appeared like a gargoyle, sticking out his long 
 neck and following her with his passionate look. It was 
 hateful, damnable, quite intolerable, and somehow or other 
 it must be ended at once. He had left his car in Hammer- 
 smith Broadway, and he wanted to bring her away in it im- 
 mediately. He also desired to break Barlow's neck and 
 throw him down the dirty staircase, but he felt that he must 
 walk warily, and that all he dared do to show his feelings 
 was to continue in his remote attitude, ignoring Barlow so 
 far as he was able. He looked at his teacup and glanced 
 again around the room, with its wild posters decorating 
 the walls, and the cold, ungracious light of the gas making 
 even Cathy look hard of outline and a little angular, because 
 of the deep shadows it threw. To see her in such a place 
 was simply tragic, and to think of her remaining on in the 
 company of a man who talked like a navvy was out of the 
 question. 
 
 "When does Mrs. Greenaway usually er toddle home ?" 
 he asked, trying to play up to Cathy's effort at lightness. 
 
 "Any old hour," Barlow replied. "She may not come 
 back to-night." 
 
 "Oh," replied Lorrimer stiffly, and he crumbled a soft 
 biscuit. 
 
 "You couldn't spare me an hour or two to-morrow?" he 
 said tentatively, "or is all your day quite full? If you 
 could, I can run you and Monica down with me in the car, 
 and still get you back in plenty of time for stiffenin' the 
 strike." 
 
 Try as he would, his voice betrayed animosity, but Cathy 
 did not resent it. 
 
 "Certainly," she said, "it's quite easy. I am really free 
 all the early part of the day." 
 
 She glanced at Barlow with a quick look of apprehen- 
 sion, and Lorrimer saw that already she was a little afraid 
 of him, and he cursed him again. 
 
 "Of course, I don't know that I shall be returned. It's 
 likely to be a stiff fight. There's Colebrook, a Labour Can-
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 117 
 
 didate, and possibly Elmsford, in the Conservative interest, 
 only he may stand down. I'm a kind of experiment " 
 
 "Of course you'll get in," Cathy said enthusiastically. 
 
 "Yes, of course," added Barlow. "Votes at, say, eight 
 and sixpence a head, and a war-cry of 'Out with the Hun, 
 and England for the English.' Accept my congratulations 
 in advance." 
 
 Lorrimer glanced at his watch. It was nearly midnight, 
 and his chauffeur would be in a foul temper at the long 
 delay, but he had grown to a feeling of independence 
 towards chauffeurs since his early days, and if the man 
 showed temper he would sack him. Certainly he would not 
 apologise. 
 
 "It's getting late," he said, and looked at Cathy, waiting 
 for her to tell him what she wished him to do. 
 
 She was abstracted and distressed, and she plunged into a 
 fresh conversation, though she looked dreadfully tired and 
 weary, and obviously should have been in bed. Was she 
 afraid of Barlow, he wondered? He had a beastly reputa- 
 tion where women were concerned, and Lorrimer sat on. 
 
 "To-morrow, then, at eleven," he said; "that's fixed." 
 
 And a few minutes later Janey Greenaway came in and 
 sat down at the table. She wanted tea, quantities of tea; 
 and, feeling that Cathy was now protected from having to 
 be alone with Barlow, Colonel Lorrimer took his departure, 
 and Cathy withdrew to her bedroom. 
 
 As she lay awake, the door ajar because it wouldn't shut, 
 she heard Janey's clear, incisive tones, and Barlow's low 
 mumble continuing interminably. Cathy hadn't made her 
 bed very well, but she was too weary to notice that, and at 
 last she fell asleep. 
 
 In the morning Janey set her to clear away the debris of 
 the over-night meal and lay the table. Cathy had a little hot 
 water from the kettle in which to wash, and she felt out of 
 sorts and still sleepy. Janey was just as full of energy and 
 vitality as ever, and she smoked her "gaspers" while she 
 cooked at the gas stove with untroubled indifference. 
 
 It was during breakfast that she announced to Cathy that 
 she might have to go to Manchester. There was urgent
 
 n8 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 need of workers among the hands at a large cotten factory, 
 who had accepted terms which clashed with Danielli's views, 
 and they must be brought into line. 
 
 "You'll be all right here," she said. "George won't be in 
 the way, and you can go to the Progress Club if you feel 
 dull." 
 
 Cathy fiddled with her toast and looked at Janey, who 
 evidently guessed nothing as to how matters now stood be- 
 tween her and Major Barlow. 
 
 "I think I can't," she said doubtfully. "Don't regard me 
 as a fool, Janey dear, but I'd far rather leave, and come 
 back to you when your Manchester trip is over. I'm not a 
 bit used to being alone and running a man, as it were." She 
 smiled a perplexed little smile. "I see how idiotic I look, 
 "but I want your help, Janey. Without you I fizzle out." 
 
 Mrs. Greenaway looked at her with her sharp, black eyes. 
 
 "You ought to learn independence," she said firmly. 
 ""Everyone should be independent. It is the fault of your 
 wretched upbringing, Cathy. I don't mind what I eat, or 
 where I sleep. You are at the mercy of the hot bath habit 
 and a special bed. I don't blame you, I only say that it's 
 time you conquered it." 
 
 "I am going to Kingslade this morning," Cathy explained. 
 "Colonel Lorrimer, the man who was here last night, came 
 to ask me to go down with him and an old friend, Monica 
 Henstock; he is standing for the election there, as a Pro- 
 gressive." 
 
 "Progressives !" Janey's scorn was limitless. "They are 
 about as progressive as a four-wheeler. If there is any 
 progress about them it works backwards. Surely you don't 
 mean to show on their side? If you do, Cathy, I warn you 
 that Danielli won't like it. We aren't out to mix with any- 
 one else; what we stand for is the International idea, and 
 the Progressives, if they have an idea, are all jingoes; in 
 other words, they intend to keep up a huge army and all the 
 class barriers firm." 
 
 "Surely I am hardly of sufficient importance," Cathy said. 
 "No, Janey, I couldn't offer up my liberty of action. I can 
 do very little either for Danielli or for Colonel Lorrimer,
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 119 
 
 but I feel that it is of real use to combine for the best 
 points in the Progressive programme." 
 
 "Very well," Janey got up and began to collect the plates, 
 "do as you like about it. I only tell you that you can't serve 
 God and mammon. You are too fond of compromise, Cathy, 
 and it will be the ruin of your life before you have finished." 
 
 Cathy assented, but she made no offer to change her plans, 
 and, with a guilty rising of her spirits, she packed her bag 
 and left it ready, while she joined Janey again, and Barlow; 
 came in. He looked more gaunt than ever, and his queer, 
 deep-set eyes were mocking and angry. 
 
 "So you have decided to cut and run?" he asked rudely. 
 
 "I'm coming back when Janey's stunt is over." 
 
 Barlow laughed, and his laugh was not pleasant. 
 
 "From the first," he said, "I guessed you'd have cold feet. 
 You are flesh and bone of the ruling class, and there's noth- 
 ing so vulgar as guts in your make-up." 
 
 "Don't be a beast, George," Janey flared up in defence of 
 her friend. 
 
 "Miss Rossiter is one of those people who can only swal- 
 low the truth in homoeopathic doses," he said, sitting down to 
 the one place left at the table and helping himself to tea. 
 "I entirely agree that she is right to leave us, but I want her 
 to think honestly." 
 
 Cathy felt her ears tingling, and she hated Barlow as he 
 sat there, unshaved and indifferent. 
 
 "Very well," she said suddenly, "if we are going to abuse 
 each other, my chief reason for going away is that I won't 
 remain here with you." 
 
 "That's better," he said, nodding at her. "I like the sound 
 of that. You're learning a little." 
 
 "Let her do what she likes," said Janey, who did not ap- 
 pear to care very much. 
 
 She was fond of Cathy, but she realised that an extra 
 person in the flat was likely to make trouble, and she felt 
 sure that Barlow was attracted by the magic of her friend. 
 She had asked her to come there because Danielli said that 
 she might be useful, but even Danielli had his doubts. 
 
 "Your fat friend will get in for Kingslade. It is a rotten
 
 120 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 place, servile and cringing," Barlow went on. "The people 
 have been taught by the parson to 'order themselves lowly 
 and reverently to all their betters/ and they will vote as 
 they are told to, or those who profess scruples will make 
 their eight and sixpence." He was eating with a careless, 
 rapid violence, and drinking noisily. 
 
 He took no more notice of her, and began to read The 
 Call, while he stirred his tea, slopping it over into the 
 saucer; nor did he speak to her again when she had put 
 on her hat and came back to the room carrying her suit- 
 case. He sat there unconcerned, and absorbed in his paper, 
 until a chauffeur in a smart livery came up the staircase 
 and stood in the doorway. His orders were, he said, to call 
 for Miss Rossiter and then return to Colonel Lorrimer's flat, 
 where he and Dr. Henstock would be waiting. Barlow 
 glanced up at the servant and gave his odd, grinning smile. 
 
 "By gosh," he said ; "I thought that you were a thing of 
 the past." 
 
 The chauffeur glanced at Cathy and took up her suit-case. 
 Janey had gone and the situation appeared to puzzle him. 
 
 "I'm not above doing honest work," he said truculently, 
 "if that's what you mean." 
 
 Cathy looked at Barlow. If she was ever really to re- 
 turn to this strange world, she ought to try and part with 
 him in a more or less friendly spirit. 
 
 "Good-bye," she said, softening, as was her wont. 
 
 "Oh, run along," he said brutally ; "soft sawder is no use 
 to me. But one of these days, when you do really wake 
 up, we may meet again." 
 
 He began to read his paper, and Cathy left him, and sped 
 down the staircase to where the large car was attracting a 
 great deal of attention in the street. 
 
 She sat in the car, her eyes on a bunch of expensive car- 
 nations set in a cut-glass vase over a looking-glass, and 
 tears came into her eyes. She was miserably disappointed 
 in herself, and she felt that every accusation which Barlow 
 had thrown at her was intrinsically true. She had not got 
 the grit of Janey, or the firm steadfastness of Monica ; she 
 saw that Danielli was right; but personal discomfort and
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 121 
 
 the attentions of Barlow, which she should be able to tackle, 
 had discouraged her at the outset. She had not stood the 
 test, and she was discredited in her own eyes. 
 
 The drive to Kingslade was delightful, and the village 
 looked as though it had been designed by an artist. Pointed 
 roofs and gabled houses, a market square surrounded by 
 trees in their spring green; an old Cathedral, drowsy and 
 mellowed by time, and a Close, where the shadows lay over 
 a stretch of old turf, and, at the end of the wide street, the 
 imposing wrought-iron gates of Kingslade Park. A neat old 
 woman came out and curtsied to them as she opened the 
 gates, and both Monica and Cathy exclaimed at the beauty 
 of the view within. Kingslade Park was a perfect house, 
 standing on a rise over a clear lake, wooded on one side, 
 and the outline of tower and turret stood up against the 
 stainless blue of the sky. It would be easy, so Cathy 
 thought, to keep oneself unspotted from the world in such 
 an environment, and she walked through the house, looking 
 at room after room, entranced by the spirit of the place. 
 She had come there direct from Engine Road, and she felt 
 that it represented shelter and peace. 
 
 While he showed them round the house, and, later on, in 
 the wonderful gardens, Lorrimer talked of his plans. He 
 wanted "betterment," the word cropped up perpetually, and 
 he leaned upon it heavily. Conditions in the village were by 
 no means as admirable as they appeared. There was a great 
 deal to be done. He wanted to set up a technical school, 
 and he wanted there was no end to what he wanted. Life 
 was good, life was beautiful, and here in the village there 
 was scope enough and to spare. They all seemed to be in 
 perfect accord and unison, and after lunch Lorrimer dis- 
 covered that the lodge-keeper's daughter was down with a 
 sore throat. Monica became professional at once, and it 
 was suggested that she should be run down in the car to 
 have a look at the patient. 
 
 When she had gone and they were alone, Lorrimer took 
 Cathy into the library. She was unusually silent, and he 
 stood a little way off watching her.
 
 122 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "I'm glad you like it all," he said slowly. 
 
 "Like it? It's a heavenly place. And then, you are 
 going to do so much." 
 
 Cathy sat down at the writing-table, and suddenly and 
 without warning, she began to cry. 
 
 "I feel such a failure," she said; "all my fine talk, and 
 the way I have bullied Aunt Amy and all of them. . . . 
 Janey saw that I was no real use, and I feel as if I had sat 
 down in a puddle." 
 
 Lorrimer advanced towards her. How long would 
 Monica be absent, he wondered. He should have given the 
 chauffeur an injunction to delay, only that it would hardly 
 have been in keeping with his dignity. 
 
 "It was only through you, and the thought of you," he 
 said, "that I have begun to do anything. I may do some- 
 thing alone, but if yes, if " he bent over her and put 
 
 his hands on her shoulders. 
 
 She raised her face and looked up at him, listening, and 
 not angry. 
 
 "I am a nobody," he said, "and I hardly dare to suggest 
 it to you, but, with you as my wife, all my dreams would 
 come true." 
 
 Cathy propped her chin on her folded hands. She was 
 thinking, and he knew that it meant he had lost nothing any- 
 how, and might even have gained his heart's desire. 
 
 "You want me to marry you?" she said. "But I don't 
 think I love you. I love your ideals and all you are going 
 to do, but the real you I know so little." 
 
 Lorrimer stood silent, with bent head, and Cathy recalled 
 the Batten incident, and, somehow, as she again remembered 
 Barlow, she made up her mind at once. 
 
 "I will marry you," she said, and she put her hands in his. 
 
 "Perhaps we had better not tell Monica until your people 
 know," he said, as the sound of the car coming up the ave- 
 nue warned them of her return. 
 
 In his heart he was well aware that there was a bad time 
 ahead for Monica. He had been with her a great deal of 
 late, and he had grown close to her. That did not matter 
 now, because Cathy was his own, but it would be a pity if
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 123 
 
 Monica were to be on edge and angry during the drive 
 back. He owed it to her to break the news softly, and 
 surely the best way to do this is to write. 
 
 "I'd have that hall coloured differently," Monica said, as 
 they took a last look round. "A few palms will be a great 
 improvement."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 LADY CARSTAIRS' joy at the swift return of the Prodigal was 
 unbounded. She was astounded and delighted at once, and 
 when Cathy went to her room and left her aunt with Lorri- 
 mer, she said again and again, "How did you persuade her? 
 It is the last thing I expected." 
 
 Lorrimer, intensely self-conscious and inwardly bursting 
 with pride, spoke humbly, and inferred that he had thought 
 it best to go to Hammersmith the night before, "in case she 
 wasn't having a good time." 
 
 "I am sure you did something very clever," Lady Car- 
 stairs repeated at intervals, "and I need not say how grate- 
 ful I am/' 
 
 Then the moment for disclosure arrived, and Lorrimer's 
 throat grew dry. It was difficult to get over the intangible 
 ledge which divided him from Cathy's aunt. She had been 
 saying "Well done, thou good and faithful servant," and 
 he had to inform her that he was about to become her 
 nephew-in-law. 
 
 "We went to Kingslade," he said as an opening. 
 
 "A charming place. I felt so deeply for Sandown when 
 it had to be sold. It seemed as though yet another land- 
 mark had been swept away. Ah well, after all their loss is 
 your gain." 
 
 It was not exactly encouraging, but Lorrimer waded on. 
 
 "While we were there," he said abruptly, "I asked your 
 niece to marry me, Lady Carstairs, and she has accepted 
 me." 
 
 Lady Carstairs was silent, and her silence was terrible. 
 She loved Cathy deeply, and she admired Twyford from 
 her heart. To see them married was one of the hopes of 
 her years, and though she considered Lorrimer, "a good 
 man," she felt him almost as far beneath her as Cutler, 
 
 124
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 125 
 
 who had been in her service for twenty years. The blow 
 could not be disguised, and she made no attempt to disguise 
 it. 
 
 "I wonder if Cathy has given due thought to her reply," 
 she said, compressing her lips. "She is alarmingly impul- 
 sive, Colonel Lorrimer, and you would do well not to count! 
 upon too much. You have seen what happened yesterday. 
 Only yesterday afternoon she was quite sure that Providence 
 meant her to remain in Hammersmith." 
 
 "I think she meant what she said," he replied obstinately. 
 
 "You will understand," Lady Carstairs continued, "that 
 for a long time, though there is no actual engagement, we 
 have taken it for granted that Lord Twyford and she would 
 marry." 
 
 "Surely Cathy herself is the best judge." 
 
 Lorrimer was getting angry, with the slow, solemn anger 
 of a heavy man. 
 
 "Pardon me," Lady Carstairs was more and more polite ; 
 "I feel she is not; not at this moment. She is upset and 
 over-excited. I do not hint that you took any advantage 
 of her, please understand that, Colonel Lorrimer, but she 
 must be given time to reflect." She got up and held out her 
 hand, and Lorrimer found himself being dismissed. "I 
 cannot say that I should like the marriage. Not that I think 
 that you are to blame. You are a good man, and I fully 
 respect you. It is as well," she coughed drily, "that you 
 should know that I do object most definitely, and that I 
 shall use any influence I have to show Cathy what a mistake 
 it would all be." 
 
 Lorrimer stuck out his elbows, and talked in a special 
 voice which he only used when he had been intensely af- 
 fronted. 
 
 "Thank you," he said, with acid formality, addressing 
 her as though she were a constituent, "I shall not count upon 
 your support." 
 
 He might possibly have said more, only that Robert 
 Amyas came in, and Lady Carstairs greeted him affection- 
 ately. 
 
 "Am I disturbing you?" he asked in his drawling way.
 
 126 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "Not in the least, Robert; Colonel Lorrimer is going," 
 and Lady Carstairs bowed very stiffly in his direction as he 
 left the room. 
 
 He felt he had been hounded out, and his anger was great, 
 but he consoled himself by going to Spinks and buying a 
 very expensive ring, which he sent by special messenger to 
 the house in Cavendish Square. 
 
 "You look as though Lorrimer had been boring you, 
 Aunt Amy," Robert said, sitting down in a deep chair. 
 
 He was not really related, but being so frequently at the 
 house he had adopted Lady Carstairs as an aunt when he 
 was still at school. 
 
 "So he has," she said. She was wondering whether she 
 should tell Amyas of this fresh disaster. Really Cathy was 
 becoming more and more of a problem. 
 
 "I hate the brute," Robert spoke frankly. "Can't he be 
 got rid of ?" 
 
 "He has just brought Cathy back," Lady Carstairs said 
 faintly. 
 
 Amyas sat up, openly disquieted. 
 
 "Brought her out of Danielli's lions' den ? My dear Aunt 
 Amy, it's black magic. When I last saw Cathy she was 
 babbling of dead people on the sideboard, and the regenera- 
 tion of the slums. What argument did he use ?" 
 
 "It's worse than that, Robert," Lady Carstairs said miser- 
 ably, "far worse. She has come back engaged to him." 
 
 Something seemed to happen to Amyas. He altered 
 under Aunt Amy's eyes, and his face looked very nearly 
 strong. 
 
 "How damnable," he said, staring at the floor. 
 
 "I haven't seen Cathy yet. I fear there will be a great 
 deal of trouble. Twyford is in London, but he isn't ever 
 able to manage her. I will send for him, of course; he ought 
 to know." 
 
 "Twyford is a good fellow one wouldn't mind if it were 
 he," Amyas said, as though answering some question he had 
 put to himself. "Look here, Aunt Amy, I've been in love 
 with Cathy for a long time ; even before Lilian hooked it,
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 127 
 
 I suppose. Of course I know that she has no use for me, 
 and she is right ; but I'm not abusing Lorrimer out of spite. 
 I know the man is a sham. If he marries Cathy he will 
 show himself sooner or later, and the worst of him is that 
 he is a pious fraud. The kind of blighter who persuades 
 himself that he's righteous. If Cathy marries him," he got 
 up and stood before Lady Carstairs, "God only knows what 
 will come out of it. I have felt this coming." 
 
 Robert was so sincere in his speech that he added a thou- 
 sandfold to Lady Carstairs' sense of doom. She looked 
 white and scared and her pale eyes were full of alarm. 
 
 "Cathy is so headstrong," she said helplessly, "so self- 
 willed." 
 
 "She isn't in love with Lorrimer; that's one blessing," 
 Amyas said. "She can't be; no woman could. It is, as 
 you say, impulse, and he has taken a dog's advantage of 
 her." 
 
 "Hush!" said Lady Carstairs quickly, and turned to the 
 door as Cathy came in. 
 
 Cathy looked so much herself, so normal and so natural, 
 that she felt reassured. It was not possible that she really 
 meant to ally herself with this rich, coarse-grained man, 
 who was neither of the people nor of her own kind. 
 
 "Has Jack gone?" she asked carelessly, holding out one 
 finger to Robert and laughing at him as she did so. "Rob- 
 ert, what a face ! Take it off at once." 
 
 "Colonel Lorrimer left some time ago," her aunt replied. 
 "I see you have changed, Cathy. I think I will go and get 
 ready for dinner. We could have it a little earlier than 
 usual." 
 
 When her aunt had gone Cathy turned to Amyas. 
 
 "I'm going to be married, Robert," she said. "I sup- 
 pose that Jack broke the awful news to Aunt Amy, and 
 that she then passed it on to you ?" 
 
 "She did tell me." 
 
 He sat down on the arm of her chair and looked at her. 
 
 "We've been friends for a long time," he said, "and it 
 gives me a right to speak out. You've always spoken out 
 where I am concerned."
 
 128 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "Speak out," Cathy said, looking up at him. "I have had 
 a heap of plain speech lately and I'm growing used to it." 
 
 "I think this idea of yours is simply atrocious." Amyas 
 got up and stood irresolutely between the fire-place and the 
 chair where Cathy was sitting. "It is wrong, Cath; the 
 kind of thing which sets one's teeth on edge. Lorrimer is 
 an outsider ; oh, I know he covers it up as best he can, but 
 the man is a bounder." 
 
 "You aren't extraordinarily tactful," she said idly. "I 
 should hardly describe you as a diplomatist." 
 
 "I don't want to be diplomatic. If I were, you'd know 
 jolly well that I was humbugging you. Cut it, Cathy, end 
 it now." 
 
 Cathy said nothing for a minute or two, and then she 
 spoke very quietly. 
 
 "I know that I have not thought it over very much," she 
 said, "but that doesn't matter. It came as a real inspira- 
 tion. Uprightness, cleanheartedness, good faith are not so 
 easy to find; and, Robert, when you think of your own 
 record, aren't you a little ashamed of yourself?" 
 
 Amyas breathed hard and said nothing. 
 
 "You have a certain pride in finer class distinctions," she 
 went on. "Of what use is it all, and what is it worth if 
 there is neither truth nor goodness in it? If Colonel Lorri- 
 mer feels that you and I and the rest of us have an inheri- 
 tance, as a birthright which money cannot buy, he is wrong, 
 and his faith in us misleads him. You ask me to hurt him 
 and break my word. I can't believe that you are so petty 
 and so small-minded." 
 
 "It is not only that." Amyas collected himself quickly. 
 "I can't really explain my reasons. They are like your own, 
 a matter of inspiration. From the first I felt that Lorrimer 
 was out to marry you, and that he would manage it very 
 well. He has done so, and oh, Cathy," he came to her and 
 caught her hands, his face strained and earnest, "I don't 
 trust him with you. He'll do something, later on, which 
 will bring you trouble. If it were Twyford I shouldn't talk 
 like this, but I can't trust Lorrimer." 
 
 "It's no use arguing with you." Cathy smiled quickly
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 129 
 
 and shook her head at him. "You will see how well it will 
 work." 
 
 Amyas said nothing further, and Cutler brought in a 
 small box on a tray which he handed to Cathy, who flushed 
 suddenly as she looked at the address. She made no at- 
 tempt to open the parcel, and, signing her name in the book, 
 she leaned back in her chair and was lost in thought. She 
 hardly appeared to know when Amyas left, and Lady Car- 
 stairs found her still sitting with the unopened parcel be- 
 tween her hands. 
 
 "I have had rather an unpleasant interview with Colonel 
 Lorrimer," she said, when dinner was over and they were 
 alone in the library, where they usually sat when no guests 
 were expected. "You understand, Cathy, that I feel this 
 new move of yours very much. Twyford has always been 
 very dear to me, and I feel that, in casting him aside, you 
 are making an irrevocable mistake." 
 
 "I knew you would say that." Cathy fiddled with the 
 large ring on her ringer, which cast stony and baleful gleams 
 towards Aunt Amy, or so Aunt Amy felt. "You will get 
 used to the idea, and, in the end, you will feel how very 
 dependable and strong Jack Lorrimer is." 
 
 "You won't do anything in a hurry," Lady Carstairs said 
 pleadingly. "Cathy darling, with all your charm, and loving 
 you as I do, I know your greatest weakness. You lack 
 balance." 
 
 Cathy put her arms round her aunt and sat at her feet. 
 
 "I know I do, and you can't find that fault with Jack. 
 He is as steady as the Dover cliffs or St. Paul's Cathedral. 
 What I lack, he makes up a thousandfold. I think I shall 
 be very safe with him, dearest. I don't pretend that I'm 
 wildly in love, I never have been ; and so I can judge clearly. 
 I have given him my word." 
 
 "Even if you have, you gave Twyford an understanding." 
 
 "I never did," Cathy leaned back on her knees and put her 
 hands over those of Lady Carstairs; "it was you, and all 
 the rest of you, who built up that fiction. I wrote to Twy- 
 ford directly I came back and told him what I intend to 
 do."
 
 i 3 o CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 Lady Carstairs sighed deeply. Twyford might put up a 
 fight, but it was more likely that he would just go away. 
 There was nothing to be said. No one could stop the mar- 
 riage if Cathy had determined upon it, and Lady Carstairs 
 had no further objections to put forward, but she did say 
 one thing more. 
 
 "What will poor Monica Henstock do? I feel sure that 
 she had every reason to expect that Colonel Lorrimer in- 
 tended to marry her. You and she used to be such friends." 
 
 "Muggins?" Cathy looked startled. "Oh, Aunt Amy, 
 you are quite wrong. Mug and Jack are old friends, noth- 
 ing more, and I think she will be very glad." 
 
 "Do you, indeed ?" Lady Carstairs shut her mouth firmly. 
 
 So the affair raged and rang, chiefly out of Cathy's hear- 
 ing. Twyford went away and did not try to see her before 
 leaving. He sent her a wedding present and left it af that, 
 and Amyas hung about, depressed and heavy-eyed. He 
 looked wretchedly dissipated and sulked like a schoolboy. 
 Lilian, who came to Cathy to discuss affairs, was not very 
 enthusiastic. She was able to see flaws in Lorrimer, and she 
 was a tried and trusted friend of Twyford's. He had seen 
 her before he left London, but he had said nothing at all 
 about Lorrimer. She respected him from her heart, and she 
 doubted the wisdom of Cathy's sudden choice. She had 
 also been to see Monica, and Monica had, as she told An- 
 thony upon her return, received her with open hostility, and 
 had been in a savage temper. 
 
 "Monica is really in love with Jack Lorrimer," Lilian said, 
 "and she is positively dangerous. If Cathy was ill, and she 
 were to be called in, I think she'd poison her." 
 
 Everything seemed to point to turmoil, and Cathy was 
 buffeted for her faith, but the more she was buffeted the 
 more determined she became. She would believe none of 
 the stories she heard. Twyford would get over it, Monica 
 had written her a sweet and affectionate note, in which she 
 had spoken of "her Jack" and "her Cathy," and as for Miss 
 Batten, she was in the seventh heaven of abstract delight. 
 
 The wedding was to take place in June, but Cathy was
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 131 
 
 too much employed in fencing and fighting to think very 
 definitely of what lay beyond. They had all done their best 
 to spoil things, and Janey Greenaway had come to say 
 that she was hopelessly disappointed in Cathy. She had 
 said so with her usual honesty, and on every side Cathy 
 was met with the same steady attack. A fight stimulated 
 her, and she was also busy with Lorrimer's election. 
 
 In spite of her avowed friendship, Monica seemed to have 
 dropped out, and was too busy to lend her support, but she 
 relinquished Miss Batten, who had now become secretary 
 to Lorrimer himself. 
 
 Everything seemed jumbled and hurried. The election 
 took place a week before her wedding, and Cathy went once 
 or twice to hear Lorrimer speak. He appeared to go down 
 with his hearers, and had made a foundation-stone of the 
 word "Betterment." As Cathy sat in the packed school- 
 house, where he addressed his constituents, she experienced 
 a strange little qualm once or twice. Lorrimer, on his feet, 
 was just a little like Lorrimer as he had appeared to Aunt 
 Amy and Robert, and even though he became a little flur- 
 ried by questions hurled at him from various corners of 
 the room, he carried through quite well. 
 
 The gardener from Kingslade sat well in the front and 
 asked questions also, with a slightly suspicious readiness, 
 arising out of the fact that he had been given a list before- 
 hand, and put them at intervals in a good, loud voice, and 
 at the end, when Lady Colebrook, who was in the chair, 
 asked for a show of hands, there was hardly one which 
 was not raised immediately in response. 
 
 Cathy was motoring back to London after tea, and the 
 country looked fair and beautiful in the June sunlight. The 
 walls of Kingslade were decorated with posters, all giving 
 reasons why the constituents should vote for Lorrimer. 
 
 "Vote for Lorrimer and Good Housing." "Vote for 
 Lorrimer and a Living Wage." There were others also. 
 "Vote for Lorrimer who went over the Top for you," sur- 
 rounded by a variety of patterns composed out of green 
 and buff, which were his colours. 
 
 Major Hammersly, J.P., whose father had been an auc-
 
 i 3 2 CATKY ROSSITER 
 
 tioneer, was Lorrimer's right-hand man, and Cathy reflected, 
 as she sped through the wonderful glory of the evening, 
 that she did not like Major Hammersly. He was a short, 
 dark man, with a fluid, eager voice and heavy lidded eyes, 
 and he seemed to know too much about everything. She 
 remarked upon him to Otho, who was staying at Kingslade, 
 and was the only member of the family who entirely ap- 
 proved of Cathy's engagement. 
 
 "He is damned useful, Cath," he said; "there have to be 
 Hammerslys in all political stunts. He does the dirty 
 work." 
 
 "I hate the idea of there being dirty work," she said, and 
 her eyes were distressed. 
 
 In her short experience of Danielli's method there had 
 been a great deal of abusive speech, but "dirty work," as 
 such, was not needed. Hammersly had discovered that 
 Trent, the Tory candidate, had once seduced a village girl, 
 and he made the most of it. He had also discovered that 
 the Labour candidate had been mixed up in a contract 
 scandal, and had made a good thing out of the tax-payers. 
 
 "And what has Hammersly done himself?" Cathy asked. 
 
 "What hasn't he done would be nearer it," Otho said with 
 his easy cynicism. "It's best not to inquire. The old father 
 was really a money-lender, and the son is climbing. . . . 
 Lorrimer likes him," he added, after a hardly perceptible 
 pause. 
 
 Cathy was not unhappy as she sat in the car, but she was 
 conscious of a feeling of malaise. She was very sure of 
 Lorrimer's love for her, and it rested her; encircling her 
 like a shadow on a hot, feverish day. In return for all he 
 was prepared to give, she wanted to be just the Cathy he 
 expected her to be. The prospect seemed a very happy and 
 untroubled one, and yet, somewhere behind it all, there was 
 a tiny, lurking shadow. She explained it to herself simply 
 enough. Changes are always touched with some sense of 
 loss. She was leaving her old life so soon, and those of her 
 household who had loved her well for years were not con- 
 tent. 
 
 "I feel as if I was not myself," she said to Otho before
 
 ROSSITER 133 
 
 she left. "I'm some one new. I've been taking things too 
 seriously. An election and a marriage, one on the top of 
 the other, is a weighty business, and I rather want to run 
 away and pull my hair down and make daisy-chains." 
 
 Her cousin regarded her with a smile and began to whistle 
 softly. He whistled extremely well, and he performed two 
 bars of "My true love hath my heart." 
 
 "I'm rather glad I'm not going to marry you," he said; 
 "not that this is meant in an uncomplimentary way. But 
 does Lorrimer know how many people he proposes to wed? 
 The Cathy who is an earnest Christian, the other who is a 
 pagan, the next who loves dancing, and the one who wants 
 to sell all her goods and give to the poor ? The Cathy who 
 is an imperialist and the other who is a republican? As 
 for all the rest, the hidden Cathys, who must in due time 
 become known to her husband, what will he do with them 
 all? It looks as though only a polygamist could deal with 
 you." 
 
 When the votes were counted, Lorrimer's name headed 
 the poll by a good margin, and he came full of triumph to 
 tell Cathy the news. It was what he had wanted so badly. 
 He wanted to stand definitely upon his own feet before she 
 became his wife, and to feel that he offered her something 
 in the way of a recognised position. Several thousand of 
 his fellow countrymen and women had put a cross beside 
 his name on their voting papers, and he had confidence in 
 himself at last. He had never allowed anyone else to guess 
 the tremors he had suffered, or the strain it had all been on 
 him. Otho had not the least idea of how much Lorrimer 
 had leant upon him, and probably Major Hammer sly was 
 about the only person who had seen through the implied 
 indifference of Lorrimer's manner. 
 
 From where Lorrimer stood, he felt as though the battle 
 was won, and he rested on the complete satisfaction of that 
 knowledge. 
 
 Cathy was delighted, though not surprised. She never 
 had any misgivings about anything, but she was always able 
 to rejoice gloriously. Even Lady Carstairs seemed less 
 frigid, and appeared to think that, if Lorrimer could sue-
 
 i 3 4 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 ceed in winning an election, he must be considerably more 
 able than she fancied; for she still had an almost supersti- 
 tious faith in the two letters M.P. It all happened at an 
 entirely fortuitous moment, and the arrangements for the 
 wedding, which had dragged heavily, began to move with 
 a sudden verve and animation. 
 
 Lorrimer had decided, long before, to bribe the brides- 
 maids heavily, and he doubled the sum he intended to pay 
 for the pendants which were to be his gift. With regard to 
 Cathy, he had to be careful ; if she was given anything very 
 expensive, it was quite likely that she would return it, so 
 he chose her present almost prayerfully. 
 
 One thought alone bothered him perpetually. Monica 
 Henstock had behaved wonderfully well, written a perfectly 
 expressed reply to his letter, and had been friendly and 
 kind when they met some days later. But she was hurt, 
 hurt to the soul, and Lorrimer minded it a great deal more 
 than he fancied that he would. He would never marry 
 Monica now, and they would go on being "pals," but the 
 change was there, haggard and spectral. Cathy was all in 
 all to him, but he had been and probably was still all in 
 all to Monica. He put her away from his thoughts, but, as 
 a kind of peace-offering, he ordered quantities of flowers 
 to be sent to her twice a week, until she herself wrote a 
 short line asking him to transfer the order to the Children's 
 Hospital of Mercy.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 MARRIAGE, that blindfold adventure, was embarked upon 
 by Cathy in a doubting spirit, but her doubts and her mis- 
 givings had vanished by the end of six months. Her rest- 
 lessness had gone, and she knew a contentment of mind 
 which had never been hers before. Lorrimer seemed to 
 understand her through some instinct, and, contrary to all 
 prognostications, Cathy was entirely happy. Her life was 
 full of interest, and she seemed to have developed into a 
 far stronger and more definite woman than the Cathy of 
 other days had promised to be. 
 
 Kingslade Park was beautiful, and the setting suited her 
 to perfection, and yet the beauty and grace with which she 
 was surrounded did not weigh upon her conscience. Life 
 seemed to have declared that her path was to be a path of 
 peace, and she had the satisfaction of hearing every day 
 and every hour of the day, from either Lorrimer or Bat- 
 kins, how much she helped everything onwards. It was al- 
 most an ideal menage, and the house was a headquarters for 
 Progressives, who gathered there to discuss their plans 
 and schemes for the future. 
 
 A further change had taken place in the early Autumn, 
 and Cathy awaited the arrival of a son with wild enthusi- 
 asm. Of course it would be a son, and she and Lorrimer 
 talked together over all that they would do, to build for 
 him, and start him with the right ideas. Monica had re- 
 turned again, and was frequently at Kingslade when her 
 work permitted, and there was literally nothing amiss in a 
 best of all possible worlds. Lady Carstairs, whose original 
 attitude towards Lorrimer had been about as encouraging 
 as a north wind on a snowy day. altered gradually, until it 
 became evident that she both admired and liked him; in 
 fact, the sole adversary that he now had was Robert Amyas.
 
 136 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 There were, of course, little things very little things 
 which affected Cathy in her state of health. Her dislike for 
 Hammersly was one, and could not be controlled. If he 
 came into the room she left it, and she was entirely at a loss 
 to understand why her husband appeared to enjoy his so- 
 ciety. Hammersly made no effort to placate her after the 
 first month or two, and merely effaced himself, but he stuck 
 like a limpet, and there was no doubt that he was really 
 Lorrimer's chosen friend. 
 
 Hammersly only laughed his deep, amused laugh, and 
 said that he admired Mrs. Lorrimer enormously, through 
 a telescope; but the general atmosphere of the house was 
 that of unity. 
 
 February came in cold and bleak, and the lake in front 
 of Kingslade Park was frozen. Bitter days succeeded one 
 another, and Cathy grew petulant and irritable. She hated 
 being shut up in the house, and Lorrimer fussed over her 
 too much. Her room looked out over the lake, and its 
 warmth and the gay hot-house flowers which were placed 
 in tall vases ceased to please her eyes. Everything in the 
 room had been chosen with attention and care; the deep 
 sofa where she had been sitting was covered with silk, purple 
 and gold, and the violet carpet was soft under her feet. 
 Outside, the day was clear, with the cold, diamond clearness 
 of east winds, and the white world shone with aching purity 
 under the frigid sunlight. The trees stood clear and distinct, 
 their tiniest branches rigid in the frost, and the ivy along 
 the window-ledge was crusted over with sparkles. The 
 world outside called to Cathy, and she longed impatiently 
 to respond to its call. Lorrimer had begged of her not 
 to go out ; he was desperately anxious about her just now. 
 Gradually, and unknown to himself, he was using less tact 
 with Cathy than he had at first. Not that he ever took 
 anything for granted, but, insensibly, he had become the 
 possessor of the woman he loved. She told him that she 
 wanted to go out, and he said that she was to remain within 
 doors. Monica was expected at the week-end, and he felt 
 safe the moment she put her foot over the threshold. But 
 it was necessary that he should definitely assert himself.
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 137 
 
 "Where are you going, Jack?" Cathy asked him, as he 
 stood, buttoned up to the chin, in a thick frieze coat, his fur 
 gloves in his hands. 
 
 "I have to go to Haslemere," he replied; "Hammersly is 
 coming with me. I want to see Rawnsley. There is a lot 
 of yapping among the day labourers just now." 
 
 Cathy had been reading a letter, and she tore it up and 
 made it into paper pellets which she began to throw at 
 Lorrimer. 
 
 "I'm not nearly as good a shot as I used to be," she re- 
 marked, "I've missed you twice, fat man, and that is bad 
 shooting." 
 
 "Will you be sensible ?" he asked a little irritably. "Give 
 me your word that you won't go out. It's as slippery as 
 glass, and it might be very dangerous." 
 
 "Why are you taking Major Hammersly? I don't like 
 him." 
 
 Cathy was in a provocative mood, and she played idly with 
 the fur trimming on her dress. "He should be in a pawn- 
 shop, Jack, grinding the faces of the poor. Send him away, 
 back to Jerusalem." 
 
 "Don't be so unfair," Lorrimer replied with a hint of 
 retort. "I owe a great deal to Hammersly. He was in- 
 valuable at the election. Trent ran me close enough as it 
 was." 
 
 "Oh, I remember." Cathy leaned back and looked at 
 the fire. "Hammersly discovered a scandal. I like him 
 none the better for it, if that is your reason." 
 
 Lorrimer came behind her and put his hands on her 
 shoulders, bending down, while she looked up at his face. 
 
 "Are you going to promise me to stay in to-day?" 
 
 "How funny your face looks upside down," Cathy 
 laughed. "Two chins, Jack you are putting on weight, 
 and your mouth when first I saw you I didn't like your 
 mouth your nose looks too small from this end of you. It 
 gets the perspective wrong, and you aren't yourself." 
 
 He pulled himself up at once, and stared through the 
 window. 
 
 "If you have nothing else to say," he replied, "let us
 
 138 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 leave it at that, but you know what I feel," and he swung 
 out of the room, closing the door behind him. 
 
 "Jack," she called after him, repentant at once, but he 
 did not hear her, and a few minutes later she saw the car 
 going down the cleared space along the avenue, with Lorri- 
 mer and Hammersly sitting together in the back, and the 
 hood down. They were laughing and talking with the close 
 intimacy of two men who are very good friends. 
 
 Something in the picture she had seen aggravated Cathy. 
 Hammersly was intrinsically "wrong," and Lorrimer did not 
 seem to be aware of it. Twyford would not have endured 
 Hammersly for five minutes, and Robert Amyas would pos- 
 sibly have endured him and even have been entertained by 
 his Rabelaisian stories, but he would have known exactly 
 the man he really was. Lorrimer knew his wife's opinion 
 of his friend, but, even so, he made him perpetually wel- 
 come at Kingslade. 
 
 She turned to the door which led to her bedroom, and, 
 ringing for her maid, Cathy dressed quickly in a thick fur 
 coat and cap, and went down the staircase and out into the 
 clear, ringing world outside. She had no special purpose 
 in her walk; what she wanted was air, and any sense of 
 being locked in made her miserable. A sheltered walk led 
 through a shrubbery and out into the village, and she chose 
 this path as being preferable to the avenue, feeling her re- 
 cent depression lifted from her as she went slowly under 
 the lace-like tracery of the overhead branches. Kingslade 
 Park stood only a very short way out of the village, and 
 the gates actually opened on to the street. A wall sur- 
 rounded the demesne, and Cathy had the key of a small ' 
 entrance at the end of the shrubbery. Through this door 
 you came out on to the main road, and a little footpath, 
 higher than the road, ran for some miles south of Kingslade. 
 
 Having walked for about a quarter of a mile, Cathy began 
 to wonder if she ought to turn back. She was feeling tired, 
 and already her first joy in the clearness of the day was less 
 intense. The road was lonely, and there was no one in sight 
 except the distant figure of a man, walking rapidly, and 
 swinging a stick as he went ; he was only a tiny figure at a
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 139 
 
 long distance off, and Cathy turned to retrace the path to 
 the shrubbery gate just as he came in sight. Then Cathy's 
 foot slipped on the melted snow, turning under her, and she 
 slid helplessly down the bank, which was steep at that point, 
 with a sick feeling of pain. Her foot was in agony, and she 
 could not stir, but lay there in a piled heap of soft furs, her 
 face white and her lips parted. An overwhelming sense of 
 dread assailed her as she lay there. Was life always like 
 this? One did something, quite a natural thing to do it 
 might be, and the result was out of all proportion to the act. 
 What had she done, not only to herself, but to the child of 
 whom she was guardian? The pain she suffered was too 
 acute to let her think clearly, and all that she was then 
 aware of was the sound of footsteps running over the snow. 
 She opened her eyes and looked up as a man bent over 
 her, and she recognised Barlow. He knelt beside her, his 
 face full of alarm and consideration for her, and raised 
 her gently. 
 
 "Don't make the least effort," he said quietly; "just lean 
 on me, Mrs. Lorrimer." 
 
 "I believe I've sprained my ankle," she said as she strug- 
 gled to rise, and Barlow could feel that she was trembling 
 violently. 
 
 He said nothing, but, putting his arm round her, gave her 
 the support of his lean, wiry strength. 
 
 "I shouldn't try to talk. How far is it to the house?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "Not very far, at least it usen't to be," she said with a 
 pathetic effort at her old way of saying things ; "only now 
 it's miles and miles." 
 
 Still holding her in his arms, he looked at her, and thought 
 rapidly. 
 
 "If I leave you here and get a carriage it will take time. 
 I think I'd better carry you as far as I can." 
 
 Cathy was taken with another shivering fit. 
 
 "Don't go away," she said desperately. "But you can't 
 carry me. I'll see how I get on." 
 
 Very slowly they made their way forward, each step 
 paved with pain for Cathy; and Barlow looked up and
 
 i 4 o CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 down the road praying that some conveyance would come 
 in sight; but the roads were heavy with deep snow and no 
 one was about. It seemed as though an eternity passed 
 before they gained the side door, and Barlow cleaned the 
 snow off a rustic seat in the shrubbery and put her on it, 
 sitting on his coat. He wore no overcoat, and did not ap- 
 pear to feel the cold, as he stood in his shirt-sleeves and 
 talked to her as though he was admonishing a child. 
 
 "I shan't be gone ten minutes, and I'll bring something to 
 take you to the house," he said firmly. "Try not to faint 
 while I'm gone." 
 
 "You are good to me," she said helplessly; "I won't 
 faint." 
 
 The situation was bizarre and almost grotesque, when 
 she remembered how they had parted, and Barlow nodded 
 at her encouragingly and began to run towards the house. 
 
 The sight of a very unusual looking man, in his shirt- 
 sleeves, caused a stir in the stable quarters of Kingslade 
 Park, and Barlow gave his orders with fierce abruptness. 
 
 "Have you anything you can take down the shrubbery 
 path?" he asked. "Mrs. Lorrimer has sprained her ankle 
 and can't walk. Look alive, man," he spoke to the head 
 gcoom, "and get going. She may have fainted." 
 
 There was something, a small governess cart and a pony, 
 used by Miss Batten, that could be brought at once, and, 
 without waiting to hear further, Barlow turned away again 
 and ran back to where he had left Cathy sitting on the seat 
 near the gate. She seemed very ill, he thought, and he 
 could only hold her hands and try to encourage her to bear 
 the pain a little longer, and at last the pony trap arrived, 
 and, with the help of the groom, Barlow lifted her in. He 
 forgot his coat, which lay on the seat, and walked beside the 
 governess cart, his mind greatly troubled. 
 
 "Is Colonel Lorrimer in the house?" he asked the groom, 
 who replied that he was away ; and Barlow muttered under 
 his breath. There seemed to be no head of affairs anywhere, 
 and the servants were all hopelessly scared and useless. 
 When Cathy was brought in, Barlow carried her up to her 
 room, and, followed by the maid, helped to lay her on the
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 141 
 
 sofa by the fire. She was slightly delirious, he thought, and 
 he asked for the name of the nearest doctor. 
 
 "Dr. Henstock always comes if there is illness," the maid 
 said in an agitated whisper. "Perhaps Mrs. Watney, the 
 housekeeper, knows of someone in the place." 
 
 "Send for her," said Barlow briefly. 
 
 Mrs. Watney came in response to the summons, and 
 wrung her hands desperately over Cathy's prostrate form. 
 
 "It will be the death of her," she said, "the death of 
 her." 
 
 "Don't be such a bloody fool," Barlow said roughly. 
 "Where is the nearest doctor?" 
 
 "There is Dr. Townley, in the market-square," Mrs. 
 Watney replied in affronted tones. She had begun to wonder 
 who this man, who looked like a gentlemanly tramp, could 
 be. "He hadn't even a coat to his back," she said, when 
 describing the interview later. 
 
 "Send one of the men, and tell him to take a trap and 
 bring back a doctor. If he doesn't come back with one 
 inside an hour I'll break his ruddy neck." 
 
 Barlow walked out of the room and paced the corridor. 
 He saw the danger ahead of Cathy, and he could hear her 
 moaning, and talking in wild sentences, as her trouble be- 
 came more acute. It seemed as though the doctor would 
 never come, and at last Barlow went downstairs and stood 
 on the steps. 
 
 Someone was coming at last, and in a car. His hopes 
 were raised at once. Perhaps the doctor had been starting 
 out, and had wasted no time; but as the car came nearer 
 it disclosed the fact that Colonel Lorrimer himself was 
 returning home. 
 
 Lorrimer's surprise and annoyance at seeing Barlow on 
 the steps was unbounded. He looked wild, and he had not 
 the smallest right to be there, but he shouted at Lorrimer 
 directly he came within ear-shot. 
 
 "Turn the car round and fetch the doctor," he said. 
 "Your wife is ill, and there isn't anyone here with as much 
 -as a head on their shoulders."
 
 142 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 Lorrimer paid no attention; he got out and came up 
 the steps, his face flushed and his manner affronted. 
 
 "What the hell are you doing here?" he said, and he 
 made a slight movement with his arm. 
 
 "I tell you, man, your wife is ill. Can't you forget your- 
 self for a minute ? I found her in the road with a sprained 
 ankle, and now it's likely to be worse than that." 
 
 "You must have frightened her." Lorrimer caught Bar- 
 low by the shoulder. "Get out." 
 
 Barlow extricated himself quickly and laughed. 
 
 "Not now, though I'll hammer you yet, Lorrimer; not 
 now. At present it is a question of time. Are you going 
 or am I?" 
 
 Lorrimer hesitated for a second. The choice was abomin- 
 ably difficult. Cathy was ill, how ill he could only guess, 
 and, for some perfectly unaccountable reason, Barlow ap- 
 peared to be in command. If he went, he left Barlow in this 
 strange attitude of possession, and, if he sent him off in the 
 ear, it made things equally uncomfortable. 
 
 "As you don't seem to know what you mean to do, I'm 
 going," Barlow said, solving the problem himself and climb- 
 ing into the front seat of the car, while he wrapped a rug, 
 which had been thrown over the cushions, around his 
 shoulders. "Drive to the nearest doctor," he said sharply, 
 turning to the chauffeur, who had watched the whole scene 
 with impenetrable indifference, and who now prepared to 
 do his bidding silently, while Lorrimer walked into the 
 house. 
 
 Lorrimer was furiously angry, behind a fairly well as- 
 sumed appearance of control, and he passed through a ring 
 of servants, who scurried away at his approach, with the 
 exception of Mrs. Watney, who bowed, and stood with 
 folded hands to give her report. She had been called a 
 "bloody fool" by an unknown man in his shirt-sleeves, and 
 it affected her very much more than anything else, colour- 
 ing her whole story. There was no real account of what 
 had happened. Mrs. Lorrimer had gone out soon after 
 Lorrimer left, and the next thing the household became 
 aware of was that Mrs. Lorrimer was ill, and had come back
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 143 
 
 with the unknown man "or perhaps I ought to call him 
 'gentleman,' " Mrs. Watney said with acid emphasis. She 
 did not say in so many words that she blamed Barlow for 
 the whole trouble, but she conveyed the impression that 
 she felt something very terrible had occurred, and that 
 Barlow was certainly responsible. 
 
 "She must have had an awful fright," she repeated, 
 "and now we must only 'ope and pray." 
 
 However, she had done more than hope and pray, and 
 had sent another emissary to Kingslade with a telegram to 
 be dispatched to Monica Henstock, asking her to come at 
 once. 
 
 Lorrimer heard her out, and went up the staircase. The 
 whole thing was a desperate shock to him, and he felt dimly 
 that everything was at stake. His child, his wife, both 
 were in imminent danger, and through Cathy's own folly. 
 What, in God's name, could excuse such foolhardiness upon 
 her part, and how had Barlow come into the story? He 
 remembered that Barlow had worried Cathy; she admitted 
 it to him once, when he had asked her about her visit to 
 Hammersmith, and . . . He stood outside the door and 
 listened to the ceaseless moaning from within. It was awful, 
 and the sweat gathered on his forehead. He couldn't think 
 of Barlow now, for Cathy was in danger she might even 
 slip away into the far off land of shadows and be lost to 
 him for ever. If Barlow was accountable in any way for 
 this, he felt that he would kill him. 
 
 If only Monica were there, she would know what to 
 do ; that thought bore him company as he sat beside Cathy's 
 bed and looked at her marred, anguished face. If only 
 someone would come. He began to long for the sound of 
 Barlow's voice again ; Barlow would be sure to get hold of 
 a doctor ; he would compel any doctor to come with him, if 
 he had to do it by main force. 
 
 Time dragged intolerably, and Mrs. Watney begged of 
 him to go away, for he seemed to make Cathy worse, and 
 so he left her reluctantly; and as he sat in the library, his 
 eyes on the clock, he heard the sound of the car returning 
 up the avenue.
 
 i 4 4 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 Barlow, draped about in a fox-skin rug, came into the 
 room, dragging a man by the arm. It was not Doctor Town- 
 ley, but an obscure little general practitioner from a poor 
 quarter of the village. A wretched little creature with a 
 battered face and a highly suspicious appearance of having 
 drunk a great deal of gin in his life-time. 
 
 "I've brought Doctor " Barlow turned to the man, 
 
 "What's your name ?" 
 
 "Luke," replied the doctor jerkily, "Thomas Luke." 
 
 "Well, he's the best I could get, and he knows more than 
 that ass of a housekeeper. Bring him up,'' 
 
 Lorrimer obeyed, and led Dr. Luke away. He felt no 
 sort of confidence in him, but, as Barlow had said, he was 
 better than no one. 
 
 Barlow threw the rug on to the ground and walked into 
 the hall. No one was about, and he saw that the car was 
 still waiting. He walked down the steps and spoke to the 
 chauffeur. 
 
 "I'm off," he said, "but I shall be staying at the Kings- 
 lade Arms. If you are anything of a good fellow, you might 
 call in there to-night and ask for me. I want to know what 
 has happened," he jerked his head towards the house. "You 
 understand? Ask for George Barlow." 
 
 "Righto," said the chauffeur briefly; "I suppose I'll wait 
 to take back the gin cask we've just left?" 
 
 "You'll be told what to do." Barlow rubbed his arms, 
 for the wind was wintry and cold. 
 
 "I'll lend you a coat," added the chauffeur; "there's one 
 inside the garage door if you like to borrow it" 
 
 "Thanks," Barlow said, with a nod; "my own is in the 
 shrubbery. Mrs. Lorrimer was sitting on it," and he 
 walked rapidly away. 
 
 The chauffeur watched him in silent astonishment. He 
 had taken off his coat for Mrs. Lorrimer to sit on ; a funny 
 kind of game on a February day, and a queer sort of 
 lunatic for Mrs. Lorrimer (whom he always alluded to as 
 "Moddam") to sit out of doors with. He felt that he 
 would drop in at the "Arms" just to have another look
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 at Barlow, whom he fully suspected of being a gentle- 
 man, in spite of appearances. 
 
 It was late before Monica arrived, and by the time she 
 got to Kingslade Park the village nurse and Doctor Luke, 
 between them, had managed to pull Cathy through the deep 
 waters. Only Cathy; for the small life which was to have 
 meant so much never even flickered in this gusty world, 
 where no one can tell why it is that some live and others die. 
 
 Monica and the London nurse made a strange contrast 
 to Doctor Luke, with his blazing, red ace, and the fat, 
 rather sly-looking woman who was his colleague, but it was 
 they who had saved Cathy's life. Lorrimer sat in the 
 library and pretended to read, but when Monica came down- 
 stairs and they went into the dining-room to eat a belated 
 dinner, he let himself go. 
 
 Until his hopes were dashed to the ground he had not 
 known how much he had counted upon the child, and he 
 could not dissociate his overwhelming disappointment from 
 Cathy's deliberate disobedience of his express wishes. 
 
 "I told her not to go out," he said again and again to 
 Monica, as they sat at their tcte-a-tete meal ; for Miss Bat- 
 ten had her own rooms and did not join the family, and 
 at that moment she was sobbing on her bed. Memory 
 had attacked her with spear and sword, and she felt stricken 
 to the earth. 
 
 "Cathy is hopelessly careless," Monica said, frowning. 
 "There is no use expecting reasonable conduct from her." 
 
 "She nearly killed herself as well," Lorrimer went on, 
 his hands shaking as he poured himself out a glass of port. 
 "How is she?" 
 
 "Frightfully weak. It will be a long time before she is 
 better." 
 
 "Has she said what happened ?" he asked. 
 
 Monica looked at Lorrimer guardedly. She had come to 
 a kind of "second blooming" in the matter of looks, and 
 she seemed very serene and handsome in the shaded light. 
 
 "Not yet," she said, flickering her eyelids. "I know 
 nothing of the facts. Doctor Luke what a dreadful per-
 
 i 4 6 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 son he is, Jack! told me that a friend of yours had 
 fetched him here in a wild state of excitement." 
 
 "A friend. Good God!" Lorrimer gave a short laugh. 
 ''It was that fellow Barlow. Cathy met him, I don't know 
 where, nor do I know whether she intended to do so. I 
 know nothing." 
 
 "George Barlow? Oh!" Monica gave a great deal of 
 emphasis to the word. 
 
 "When I got back he was on the steps," Lorrimer said, 
 and his rage sounded in his voice as he told Doctor Hen- 
 stock the story. 
 
 For some time Monica was silent, and her silence affected 
 Lorrimer and made him restless. 
 
 "Why don't you speak?" he said at last. 
 
 "I was thinking of what you told me," she replied cau- 
 tiously. "You must not expect Cathy to be quite like 
 other people. You see, Jack" she leaned forward a little, 
 and some of their old intimacy returned quite suddenly 
 *'I know Cathy very much longer, and, in some ways, 
 better than you do. She has always had a fancy for ex- 
 tremists, and she has a way of making her own actions 
 appear justifiable to herself. Do you remember how very 
 lightly she took the question of giving that emerald and 
 diamond brooch to Danielli? It was not hers, but she 
 gave it without so much as a thought." 
 
 "I remember," Lorrimer said grimly; "she has an elastic 
 conscience in some things." 
 
 He was furious with his wife, for he would never have 
 admitted this otherwise, even to Muggins. 
 
 "Barlow is a man who has a remarkable reputation for 
 his persuasive powers where women are concerned," Monica 
 went on evenly. "You must not be too hard on Cathy, she 
 is full of imagination and can be worked upon. He may 
 easily have persuaded her that she ought to see him. I 
 can't blame her, for she saw it as a very natural thing to do." 
 
 "Natural to tell me nothing about it?" Lorrimer looked 
 down, his face set and sulky. "You surely don't defend 
 her there?" 
 
 "I don't know." She stared at the fire. "Cathy has
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 147 
 
 always believed in the absolute right of individual choice. 
 She is an individual, that is certain. When you married 
 her, Jack," the tiniest little ice edge touched her voice as she 
 spoke, "you knew, or you should have known, that you 
 were accepting her reservations as well as her gifts." She 
 got up and glanced at her watch. "I shall have to get 
 back to-night, and you had better arrange for Doctor Town- 
 ley to come in the morning" she paused "or perhaps, if 
 you will send the car for me, I can manage the case myself." 
 
 "Of course I'll send the car" ; he was anxious and nervous 
 at once. "She will be better with you, Monica, and when 
 she is able to listen to a little sense, you will show her how 
 criminally selfish she has been over this." 
 
 Monica pulled on her coat, which was lying on a chair, 
 and held out her hand. 
 
 "Don't make too much of it," she said helpfully. "In any 
 case, Cathy will be out of any chance of getting into scrapes 
 for some time to come." 
 
 "Weren't you to have taken your holiday?" he asked, 
 still holding her hand. "Would it be very selfish of me to 
 ask you to come here for the time? I want you so badly 
 just now." 
 
 "Come here?" Monica looked around her and smiled, 
 as though some fleeting memory amused her ironically. "I 
 had meant to go to Switzerland." 
 
 And then her eyes returned to his face. All the things 
 which had never been said between them seemed to hold 
 'them both silent, and at last she broke the uncanny spell 
 and spoke in her cheerful, professional tones. 
 
 "I will come for a week, and see how she gets on," she 
 said. "Cathy is a spoilt child and wants a scolding; but 
 you are to blame, you have let her have her own way 
 always." 
 
 "How do you stop a woman doing what she wants?" he 
 asked desperately, and Monica smiled again but said nothing. 
 
 When she had gone, Lorrimer forgot all about her. He 
 thought of his ruined hopes and of Cathy's wretched du- 
 plicity in the case of Barlow, and at last he rang the bell 
 and sent for Mrs. Watney.
 
 i 4 8 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "I only know what I told you, sir," the housekeeper said, 
 pursing up her lips dubiously. "The yard men know noth- 
 ing more, except Jakes." 
 
 "What does Jakes know?" Lorrimer asked, biting the 
 side of his forefinger and looking at the table. 
 
 "The gentleman told him that he and Mrs. Lorrimer had 
 been sitting on his coat, on a seat in the shrubbery. She 
 took the key with her, and, I suppose, admitted him by the 
 side gate." Mrs. Watney spoke ponderously. "Consider- 
 ing the weather and the state of Mrs. Lorrimer's 'ealth " 
 
 "You may go, Mrs. Watney," Lorrimer said ferociously, 
 and he sat for a long time alone in the empty dining-room. 
 
 Cathy had made a rendezvous with Barlow, that was 
 only too evident now, and had sat in the woods with him. 
 The servants were talking, and Lorrimer did not give a 
 thought to the fact that his own conduct was adding fuel 
 to the fire. He did not suppose for a second that Cathy 
 was encouraging Barlow, but she was hopelessly reckless, 
 and had not the faintest idea of how these acts were ex- 
 plained by others. She had struck him a cruel blow, and 
 had put her own life in danger, merely because she liked 
 to play at anarchy with a man of Barlow's type. The dis- 
 loyalty of it was, in itself, an offence, for Barlow was there 
 to work up trouble among the day labourers. Hammersly, 
 who knew the people well, said that the agitation was en- 
 gineered by the Danielli crowd. 
 
 He was still thinking of his wrongs when Hammersly was 
 shown in, and Lorrimer greeted him with a sense of relief. 
 He asked for Mrs. Lorrimer, and sipped at a glass of port, 
 his large, liquid eyes devoid of any special expression. Still 
 Lorrimer said nothing. 
 
 "I hear that Barlow is in our midst," Hammersly re- 
 marked idly. "He is calling a meeting of day labourers 
 to-morrow to draw up a strike programme. What a pes- 
 tilential nuisance the fellow is." 
 
 Lorrimer lighted a cigar and looked angrily at the match 
 he held. 
 
 "Where is the blighter ?" he asked. 
 
 "At the Kingslade Arms. I looked in on my way here.
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 149 
 
 By the way, he appears to be on friendly terms with Jakes ; 
 they were sitting together in the room behind the bar. I 
 didn't know that he was bitten by the Danielli microbe." 
 
 "Jakes ? He'd better look out or he'll get the sack." 
 
 "Gently, man, gently." Hammersly laughed his musical 
 laugh. "If you throw him out because of his political 
 opinions you'll have dissatisfaction among the men here. 
 They are very touchy these times." 
 
 "Were they talking the usual slush?" Lorrimer asked 
 sharply. He was sure that Hammersly, who knew every- 
 thing, knew more than he had said. 
 
 "Not so far as I could gather. In fact, Jakes was telling 
 Barlow that Mrs. Lorrimer is, happily, out of immediate 
 danger." 
 
 A flush rose to Lorrimer's hair and he clenched his fists 
 suddenly in an uncontrollable access of anger. 
 
 "I think I'll clear out," Hammersly said, finishing his 
 port and getting up from his chair. "I shall get news of 
 Barlow's activities to-morrow, but there is trouble ahead. 
 Wherever that man comes he brings trouble." He glanced 
 obliquely at Lorrimer as he spoke. "Hopelessly untrust- 
 worthy in some respects ; you understand me ?" 
 
 "Oh, I understand you," Lorrimer replied, with a sneer 
 at some indistinct object of anger, and he hardly answered 
 Hammersly's friendly good night, or his hopes for Cathy's- 
 swift recovery to health.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 As the days went by and Monica established herself at 
 Kingslade Park, Lor rimer began to evolve a course of ac- 
 tion. He did not know how far Doctor Henstock influenced 
 him in this respect. She told him that Cathy was not in a 
 fit state to discuss anything, and that if he was a wise man 
 he would let the Barlow controversy drop. 
 
 The only time he alluded to it Cathy had been up in arms, 
 and had said that she felt that she had been very unfair to 
 George Barlow in the past, and would hear no word against 
 him. Lorrimer had been foolish enough to touch upon the 
 question when she was a little better, and had spoken of the 
 trouble Barlow had caused in Kingslade. That evening, 
 Cathy had a relapse, so Monica said, and for some days 
 Lorrimer was forbidden to see his wife. Monica was as 
 firm as a rock, and when Lady Carstairs came to see her 
 niece, she was given five minutes alone with her, and 
 warned to be very careful of what she said. 
 
 "Cathy is always excitable," Monica explained, with her 
 sweet, rather wistful smile ; "we know her, dear Lady Car- 
 stairs, and I need not tell you that, if she is upset now, 
 even by the smallest thing, it may be extremely dangerous 
 for her." 
 
 "But surely the trouble is over, Monica ?" Lady Carstairs 
 said sorrowfully. "Poor Jack, I do feel for him. He looks 
 wretched. Still, there are many happy days ahead for them, 
 as I told him. Florence Woodstock began with two mis- 
 adventures, and they now have six dear little boys and 
 girls." 
 
 "I have no fears for her physically," Monica said, stand- 
 ing by the window in the library, looking out over a bed 
 of purple crocuses all in gorgeous blossom. 
 
 "You mean?" Lady Carstairs looked at the back of Dr. 
 Henstock's head. 
 
 150
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 151 
 
 "Her mental energy has always been over active. It is 
 of the greatest necessity that she should rest." 
 
 "Yes, indeed," Lady Carstairs sighed profoundly. "I 
 can see that" She blew her nose and coughed doubtfully. 
 "If you felt that I should excite her " 
 
 "Not that," Monica turned quickly and smiled again; 
 "only, when you do see her, will you make it a point to 
 agree with whatever she says?" 
 
 "I see, I see," Lady Carstairs agreed. "How really provi- 
 dential that you are able to be here, Monica. It is noble 
 of you to sacrifice your holiday. Jack told me of it." 
 
 She went up to Cathy's room, where the nurse was sitting 
 sewing by the wide windows, and Cathy herself was lying 
 on the sofa listlessly looking out at the sky. When she saw 
 her aunt she raised herself on her arm, and greeted her with 
 almost passionate enthusiasm. 
 
 "Nurse, you can go," she said, looking over Lady Car- 
 stairs' shoulder at the white-capped woman in the window ; 
 and the nurse got up and hesitated. 
 
 "Yes, you can go," added Lady Carstairs; "I shall not 
 stay long, and I will call you the moment I leave." 
 
 At that, the nurse withdrew into the bedroom and closed 
 the door. 
 
 "Aunt Amy, Aunt Amy, I'm not ill," Cathy said, holding 
 Lady Carstairs' hands; "I really am not. I'm sure that I 
 could be down and about, only for this ridiculous fuss. 
 Just because I'm Cathy, I'm kept lying on my back." 
 
 "Patience, darling, patience," said Lady Carstairs. "Re- 
 member how anxious poor dear Jack feels. He looks 
 wretched." 
 
 "Jack?" Cathy's tone was aggressive; "I've tried to 
 make him understand, and he simply won't. He says that 
 Muggins knows best, and he has that jailor of a nurse sit- 
 ting there. It's enough to drive me off my head." 
 
 "Lie back, dear," Lady Carstairs said in a voice of alarm, 
 for Cathy had got to her feet and was walking about the 
 room. "If you don't, I really must call the nurse. I am 
 only here because I promised you would be good." 
 
 "I'll be good." Cathy came back to her and lay down
 
 152 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 again. "Tell me about everyone. How is Robert? Have 
 you seen Twyford?" 
 
 "Robert is very faithful," Lady Carstairs said kindly; 
 "he came yesterday and sent you his love. I think he has 
 improved, and Twyford well, he is the same as ever." 
 
 "Did he ask for me? I'm not allowed to read even 
 letters." 
 
 "I'm sure whatever Monica says is best" ; Lady Carstairs 
 patted Cathy's hand. "You look wonderfully well, dearest." 
 
 "I am well," Cathy broke out again; "that is the ridicu- 
 lous part of it. Why won't they let me come down or see 
 people ?" 
 
 "Twyford is thinking of selling the London property," 
 Aunt Amy said, seeking to turn the conversation to safer 
 channels. "He has some idea of starting a School of 
 Forestry for poor young men." 
 
 "My idea," Cathy clapped her hands delightedly. "But 
 to think that at last Twyford is really going to do it." Her 
 eyes were bright and she looked wonderfully vivid and beau- 
 tiful, her hair in disorder and her embroidered dressing- 
 gown pulled round her. "I'll write to Robert to-day. When 
 Mug comes up to lecture me, I'll make her give me pens and 
 paper, and I'll write to Twyford also." 
 
 "If Monica consents," added Lady Carstairs guardedly. 
 "I am sure she will, only you must not excite yourself." 
 
 Cathy laughed. "Excite myself? Darling, if you only 
 knew what my days are like you wouldn't accuse me of 
 that. I mayn't read or write, I mayn't see people, I am fed 
 on all the things I like least. What else has been happening 
 in the world ? Of course, a daily paper is out of the ques- 
 tion." 
 
 Lady Carstairs reflected. 
 
 "There have been one or two very unpleasant murders," 
 she said, and then she felt as though that was not alto- 
 gether a suitable subject. 
 
 "Oh, tell me about them," Cathy said; "why did they 
 do it?" 
 
 "And strikes," Lady Carstairs held up her hands ; "strikes 
 everywhere, Cathy. Thank goodness the authorities have
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 153 
 
 at last imprisoned Danielli, but Barlow is still at large. I 
 would not speak of this, only that I know that you changed 
 your mind about these people. Jack converted you." 
 
 Cathy fiddled with a gold tassel on one of her cushions. 
 "I think I misjudged Major Barlow," she said. "He isn't 
 nearly as bad as people say. . . ." 
 
 The door of the bedroom opened imperceptibly, and the 
 nurse stood with a watch in her hand. 
 
 "It is time for Mrs. Lorrimer's tonic, my lady," she said, 
 in a dry, expressionless voice ; "if you will excuse me." 
 
 Lady Carstairs got up at once, and kissed her niece. 
 
 "Patience, Cathy," she said again. "You are looking far 
 better than I expected." 
 
 "Oh, must you go?" Cathy implored, but she implored 
 in vain, for Lady Carstairs caught a silent signal from the 
 nurse, and made her way quietly from the room. 
 
 "I think Cathy looks very well," she said to Monica, who 
 met her in the hall. 
 
 "Will you come into the library for a second?" Monica 
 suggested, and Lady Carstairs went in, feeling strangely 
 disturbed in mind. 
 
 "Did she speak of George Barlow?" Monica asked, and 
 she put the question keenly, holding Lady Carstairs' eyes. 
 
 "She did mention him," Lady Carstairs replied, "but only 
 just as I was leaving. Ought I to have avoided the sub- 
 ject?" 
 
 Monica looked at her strong, well-shaped hands. 
 
 "We heard the story from outside sources," she said 
 slowly, "and I have asked Jack not to question Cathy, nor 
 have I questioned her myself in the matter. All we know 
 is that she met Barlow in the shrubbery," she glanced up 
 and smiled, "so like Cathy, isn't it? And then she must 
 have sprained her ankle and had a fall. The fall was re- 
 sponsible for the trouble, and you know that there is a very 
 close connection between mental and physical conditions. 
 While Cathy was delirious, she constantly called to George 
 Barlow and asked him not to leave her. It was the first 
 we knew of any fresh communications between her and 
 Jane Greenaway's friends."
 
 i 5 4 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 Lady Carstairs was profoundly shocked. 
 
 "Oh dear," she said; "how unfortunate." 
 
 "I have avoided the subject," Monica went on firmly r 
 "and, as I said, I have advised Jack to avoid it. Cathy is 
 excitable, and she needs quiet. The difficulty of keeping 
 her quiet is simply absurd; you can't dream, dear Lady Car- 
 stairs, how she has to be watched." 
 
 "But a few books or a letter now and then," Lady Car- 
 stairs put in her plea in a hesitating voice. "Would it not 
 be well to allow her some outlet for all her energy ? I know 
 that when I had a rest cure, I felt wretchedly ill after it ; 
 and for Cathy it is torture. Monica, are you sure that it is 
 wise ?" 
 
 Doctor Henstock regarded Lady Carstairs with a steady, 
 frigid look. 
 
 "You must allow me to know what is best for any of my 
 patients," she said formally. "When Cathy is well enough 
 to spend her mental energy again in her usual lavish way, 
 she shall do so, but not until then." She thought for a 
 second, and went on in a more friendly voice, "Women of 
 Cathy's imaginative temperament are subject to special 
 dangers; at present, I believe that Cathy's mind is now 
 turning towards the Danielli group, and they are dangerous 
 for her. She lives in a world divided between dreams and 
 realities, and at present the dream preponderates." 
 
 "But you could say that of almost anyone," Lady Car- 
 stairs objected; "I don't quite see that it applies to Cathy 
 alone." She was slightly irritated by Monica's superiority. 
 "You yourself, dear Monica, once thought very differently ; 
 when you were fighting for the vote, you did not regard 
 that as a phantasy. You even went to prison." 
 
 "I fought on a clear issue"; Monica got to her feet and 
 the platform manner became immediately evident. "Cathy 
 is not ever entirely convinced, because people and person- 
 alities obstruct her view. Jane Greenaway and George Bar- 
 low, most unfortunately, also influence her; she has no 
 special sense of the value of their work, or its destructive 
 force. For Jack's sake, she must wake from her dreams,
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 155 
 
 and to arrive at that she needs quiet which I intend her 
 to have." 
 
 "It seems to me" Lady Carstairs rose and held out her 
 hand "that you are trying to make Cathy into something 
 she has never been. I doubt if you will succeed." 
 
 Monica saw Lady Carstairs to the door, and watched her 
 departure silently, and, when she had gone, she went to look 
 for Lorimer, who was in the stables. He greeted her with 
 a cheery shout from the darkness of a loose box, and, 
 joining him in the gloom, she informed him of Lady Car- 
 stairs' desire to interfere. 
 
 "She positively tried to lay down the law to me," she 
 said, "but I don't stand that sort of thing." 
 
 Lorrimer looked at her admiringly. There was a great 
 deal in Monica for a man to admire, and he felt always that 
 he and she were fundamentally allied. All the others had 
 known different beginnings, but he and Monica had funny 
 little memories in common, memories which cropped up like 
 daisies in the spring grasses. For a second, as she stood 
 close to him, and he held "Rainy Day" by the head-stall, 
 he was tremendously moved by an unexpected impulse, and 
 her hand lay on the grey neck of the hunter. Without paus- 
 ing to consider what he was doing, and only acting swiftly, 
 as though carried upon burning wings of fire, he put his 
 hand over hers, and life tingled and beat through them both 
 in the silence. 
 
 It was Monica who recovered the situation, and she did 
 it very deftly indeed. She pressed his hand in friendly 
 fashion and picked up the dropped thread of her story. 
 
 "I found that Cathy had spoken of George Barlow, but 
 told her aunt very little," she said, and her voice was a 
 little uneven. "I am sure, Jack, that you must not ask for 
 any particulars yet. Cathy is the soul of candour, really, 
 and she will tell you herself later on." 
 
 "I'm going to motor over to see Jesson ; he is staying at 
 the Dacre Willoughby's," Lorrimer said, without making 
 any reference to her allusion to Cathy. "Come with me, 
 the air will do you good. I've taken your holiday from 
 you, Monica, and you must let me make it up to you a bit."
 
 156 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "I might spare the time. There's that pathological 
 treatise, you know," she said, considering ; "but it's a temp- 
 tation. Yes, Jack, I will come." 
 
 She did not wait, though he wanted to detain her, and he 
 came out into the sunny yard, with its neat rows of white 
 doors, to watch her walk to the house, and as he watched 
 her his face altered and he looked depressed and dissatis- 
 fied. Later on, he went up to Cathy's room, and found her 
 lying on the sofa. She welcomed him gladly, and began at 
 once to ask if he couldn't do anything with Monica's awful 
 conscience. 
 
 "She is literally nursing me into morbidity," Cathy said. 
 "I want to come out and play. It's been pretty bad, Jack, 
 the disappointment and all." 
 
 He thought of his own disappointment and her disobedi- 
 ence, and said nothing for a little, watching her changing 
 eyes, and thinking that certainly he had a very beautiful 
 wife. Why was it that, at times, her lack of some of Mon- 
 ica's sterling qualities was so abominably difficult to en- 
 dure ? Cathy was a child, Monica frequently told him that, 
 and Monica was a woman. 
 
 "You did what I asked you not to do, once," he said, 
 frowning, "and I needn't speak of that now, Cathy. If 
 Monica feels it is for your good to rest, you can't be sur- 
 prised that I second her." 
 
 Cathy said nothing more. She had a box of patience 
 cards, which relaxation was permitted to her, and she swept 
 them on to the floor. 
 
 "Why did you do that?" he asked, and stooping to pick 
 up the cards. 
 
 "Don't deprive me of my one employment," she said, 
 holding out her hands ; "I do it twenty times a day." 
 
 And then, when he looked up at her, he saw that her clear 
 eyes were full of tears. He was repentant at once, and took 
 her in his arms. 
 
 "What can I do?" he said. "What can I do?" 
 
 "Send away the nurse. I don't mind the night-nurse be- 
 cause I'm asleep, but the sight of those cuffs and that cap, 
 and the stories of people's insides, which is all I ever hear.
 
 CATHY ROSSITER i 57 
 
 make me frantic. Let me have Batkins to sit here instead, 
 she isn't busy in the afternoons." 
 
 "I'll ask Monica," he agreed; "I'm sure she won't ob- 
 ject." 
 
 Cathy looked mutinous. "Monica, Monica the Almighty," 
 she said, and then she laughed. "I really feel as though 
 I ought to be saying my prayers to her. I do hope God isn't 
 like Monica." 
 
 Lorrimer looked at her reprovingly, but he renewed his 
 promise that Batkins should replace Nurse Binns during 
 the afternoons. 
 
 When Monica first began to realise that Jack was the man 
 she used to know and love, and that his old self had not 
 really been absorbed in Lorrimer, the M.P. for Kingslade, 
 and husband of Cathy Rossiter, the revelation was tremen- 
 dous. She tried to forget it, to put it away, and to keep it 
 out of sight when they were together, but the joy in her 
 heart could not be disregarded and ignored. She was happy, 
 and she came to a compromise with herself, she who de- 
 spised compromise. Cathy had fascinated Lorrimer, hypno- 
 tised him, and thrown her wonderful net of glamour over 
 his judgments. She had been above him by right of birth, 
 and he was only on the threshold of his own career. Cathy 
 had certainly helped him, and had brought him into the 
 inner circle of things without effort. But behind all that 
 there was Jack Lorrimer as Monica had known him; the 
 Jack of old days, who had cherished an unspoken love for 
 the girl in the villa opposite. Lad's love, of course, and not 
 to be set beside the mature love of a man of forty : so the 
 world judges these things. Now they were together, Monica 
 and Lorrimer, and Cathy was in disgrace. The contrast 
 between the two women was marked quite definitely, and 
 Monica was closely and strongly in sympathy with all Lorri- 
 mer's plans and schemes. In the evenings, when she and 
 Lorrimer sat in the quiet of the library, he felt her modera- 
 tion to be intensely soothing, and he never found himself 
 swept into heated argument, such as Cathy was inclined to 
 provoke. Cathy was like the sea ; wide, wonderful and full
 
 i 5 8 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 of life, and Monica was like a river upon which he drifted, 
 borne where he wished to go by a steady, reliable current 
 which did not vary. They had neither of them a thought of 
 disloyalty to Cathy, but the fundamental attraction of like 
 to like was stronger than they guessed. At what point ex- 
 actly his friendship for her began to take on a different 
 guise, Lorrimer did not know. He was not in the habit of 
 facing things, and he certainly did not wish to question 
 himself as to this. He only knew that, as things were, he 
 was unusually happy, and they both agreed that Cathy 
 would soon be better, but that, for her own sake, she must 
 remain a prisoner for some time longer. 
 
 It was Hammersly who first realised exactly what was 
 going on, and he came to Kingslade more frequently than 
 before. Monica appreciated him, he saw to that, and he 
 thought with a smile of Cathy's open dislike. Mrs. Lorrimer 
 had chosen to make him her enemy, and he brooded at times 
 on the possibility of squaring their account. 
 
 "Lorrimer will go far," he remarked to Monica as she 
 gave him tea one afternoon when Jack was away in London ; 
 "at least, he would if it were not for his wife." 
 
 Hammersly was sitting by the window, looking extremely 
 well content, and bringing his usual effect of cleverness and 
 self-satisfaction into his smallest movement. "I know she 
 is a friend of yours, Doctor Henstock, but, even so, I will 
 be quite frank. She will ruin his career." 
 
 "I don't agree," Monica said at once. "She is a clever 
 and very charming woman." 
 
 "Hopelessly unbalanced," he replied, stirring his tea re- 
 flectively, "and just the type of woman who can't be trusted. 
 She is hand in glove with Barlow and the Danielli crowd, 
 and she has influence enough over Lorrimer to make him 
 suspect in his own party. These days everything is dug 
 up and questions are asked. Only last week," he smoothed 
 his thick, dark hair, "I met Jesson, quite by accident, at 
 the house of a mutual friend, and he spoke to me of Lorri- 
 mer. He then asked me," Hammersly grew emphatic, 
 "whether it was true that Mrs. Lorrimer was in touch with 
 the Bolshevik crowd. I said that she was not naturally
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 159 
 
 it wasn't for me to give the show away and he looked at 
 me, and remarked that he must be sure of that." 
 
 "A great deal of it is talk with Cathy," Monica said, after 
 a slight pause. "Perhaps if she understood that she might 
 damage Jack's prospects " 
 
 Hammersly shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "Since she has been ill, I have got Lorrimer to come on 
 to two committees which he wouldn't have touched had she 
 been there to prevent it. His marriage was the mistake of 
 his life." 
 
 Monica flushed suddenly. She had felt this very often 
 herself, and to hear it said by Hammersly seemed to 
 strengthen her belief. 
 
 "Oh, well, I suppose no one can have it every way," Ham- 
 mersly remarked with a laugh, "only she won't make him 
 happy. Can't you give her a hint to drop Barlow, at least ? 
 The whole county knows about her having met him in the 
 Park." 
 
 "Not at present," Monica compressed her lips; "she is 
 still very excitable." 
 
 Hammersly watched her and placed his cup on the tea- 
 table. 
 
 "Mental exuberance, or something worse?" he enquired. 
 
 "Only a matter of time," Monica said slowly. "She will 
 soon be able to come down and be about again." 
 
 "And you will hate me if I say, 'more's the pity.' " He 
 got up and prepared to go. "Yet, if you want to do the 
 best thing you can for Lorrimer, let him have a chance of 
 being himself. So long as his wife is at his elbow, none 
 of us know what her influence may force him into." He 
 laughed. "Of all the unreasonable women I have known, 
 and I have known many, Mrs. Lorrimer is quite the wildest. 
 Thrones must fall at her nod, and the whole complicated 
 system of ownership is to be swept away. Ah, well, I sup- 
 pose her fine eyes make up for her lack of judgment." 
 
 Monica thought for a long time after Hammersly had 
 gone, and then she went up to see Cathy. Spring had called 
 the daffodils into flower, and the garden below Cathy's win- 
 dow was gay and bright, but Cathy herself was weary and
 
 160 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 restless. Her life had always been a life of action, coloured 
 by impulses which were warm and rich and chivalrous, and 
 she looked at Monica with a sidelong glance; she seemed 
 too weary to lift her eyelids. Her mind had been running 
 in a close groove of pain, and she fiddled with her patience 
 cards. She was evidently irritable and out of sorts, and 
 her voice was touched with temper. 
 
 "How long, O Lord, how long?" she asked, and yawned. 
 
 "Very soon now, if you are a good child." Monica gave 
 her an infinitesimal kiss on the cheek. 
 
 Cathy pulled at her Venetian red dress, and tore a bit of 
 the trimming with impatient fingers. She rested, as she 
 had been resting when Monica came in, with her neck droop- 
 ing, and her eyes cast down. 
 
 "Prison is dull," she said, laughing without mirth, and 
 Monica began to talk quickly. She told Cathy all the news 
 and was cheerful and common-place, but Cathy did not re- 
 spond. She seemed to have given in to circumstances which 
 overpowered her, and only raised her eyebrows, and let the 
 talk drift by almost unnoticed. 
 
 "Can't Batkins take her turn as my jailor?" she said; 
 "I asked Jack, but nothing has been done." 
 
 "Of course she can," Monica agreed heartily. "Look 
 here, Cath, don't be so difficult about it. Soon you will be 
 quite well, if you go on as you have been going. Only, if 
 you relapse into this new phase, I can promise nothing." 
 
 Cathy looked up steadily and watched Monica. 
 
 "I am well," she said, "only I'm tired of saying so. Only 
 don't trouble to stay up here, I'd rather be alone." 
 
 "To-morrow Batkins will come and cheer you up," 
 Monica said in friendly tones. "Buck up, Cathy. I had 
 one case where my patient was months in her room after 
 just the same kind of indiscretion." 
 
 Cathy made no reply, and Monica went out of the room. 
 She was not expecting Lorrimer back before dusk, and she 
 was thinking madly of him. At the end of a week Cathy 
 must be free, and her freedom would put an end to the 
 feast v/hich she had been enjoying in secret. There were 
 times when Monica's cup of joy was brimming over, but it
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 161 
 
 might only be drunk of in hasty snatches, unacknowledged 
 even to herself. Now, it was as though she had set the 
 term to her own joy, a joy which would vanish as com- 
 pletely as though it had never existed for her. It had come 
 to her unsought, and, so far, not one word or act had passed 
 between her and Lorrimer which could be called into ques- 
 tion. Her heart was beating wildly as she descended the 
 stairs, and every human impulse she had cried out in her 
 for her right to be loved. She had none of the bewilder- fc 
 ing romance of Cathy; she was clean cut, not illusive, and 
 she loved Jack from her heart. All that she had lost came 
 upon her, and, going into the library, she sat down in his 
 chair and buried her face in her arms. 
 
 She raised her head suddenly and listened, and before 
 she could recover herself Lorrimer came quickly into the 
 room. He caught her abandonment, her hopeless submis- 
 sion to fate and the whole sense of her distress, long before 
 she had power to draw the curtain and hide away from him, 
 and in a moment she was experiencing the strong clasp of 
 his arms. 
 
 "What is wrong, Monica?" he said in a low voice; "I 
 was able to get back sooner than I thought. Tell me what 
 is wrong." 
 
 Some power infinitely stronger than anything that Monica 
 had known drew their faces together, and their lips met. 
 It was only for a second, and Lorrimer started away. 
 
 "My God," he said, "I never meant you to know," and 
 as he said it, he realised that he himself had not known. 
 He had grown to think of her constantly, to depend 
 upon her judgments, but he had not dreamed that he would 
 let himself break through like this, and he was abashed 
 and ashamed. 
 
 "Let us forget this," Monica said quickly; "it has not 
 really happened, Jack. You only wanted to be kind to an 
 old friend." 
 
 Yes, that was it. That explained it. One could cover 
 it up quite well, really, and he looked at her again. It was 
 true that he felt smitten by the realisation that, from the 
 first. Monica had really been his own. Her face was dead'
 
 162 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 white and her eyes were on fire, but she kept a wonderful 
 hold upon herself. She might have been praying silently, 
 and her quietude held him up. 
 
 "Cathy is better," she said, rallying her forces; "I think 
 she will soon be able to be with you again." 
 
 Lorrimer bent his head, accepting the fact, and Monica 
 went on, "For the little time that is left let us have our 
 friendship, Jack. It means so much." 
 
 It seemed possible to both of them, and they said no more 
 of it. 
 
 Cathy was not sleeping well. Nurse Binns came to re- 
 port upon the fact, and said that she needed a narcotic. All 
 the night before Mrs. Lorrimer had paced her room, roam- 
 ing about with flushed cheeks, and obviously miserable and 
 wretched. Monica, who was dressing for dinner, was im- 
 mediately ready for the emergency, and she gave the nurse 
 a small tube of tabloids with short directions as to how much 
 should be used. Nurse Binns stood by the dressing-table, 
 formal and stiff, and remarked that her patient objected to 
 drugs. 
 
 "I shall have to give it to her in a cup of hot milk," she 
 said. "Do you really think, Doctor Henstock, that Mrs. 
 Lorrimer is any better ? I don't mean physically, of course, 
 but she talks very wildly. She ordered me out of the room 
 twice," went on Nurse Binns vindictively; "I do my best 
 to interest her, and it's a thankless task; I hear that I am 
 to be relieved in the afternoons by Miss Batten?" 
 
 "Yes," Monica said absently. "In any case, Mrs. Lorri- 
 mer will be allowed out of her room next week." 
 
 Nurse Binns looked gloomy, and made no reply, but, as 
 she went to the door, she spoke again. 
 
 "Miss Batten can control Mrs. Lorrimer, I suppose ? She 
 is very self-willed." 
 
 "She will be all right," Monica replied in the same me- 
 chanical voice, and she seemed not to take any special notice 
 of what Nurse Binns had said. 
 
 At dinner, she spoke again of Cathy, and she told Lorri- 
 mer that she was not entirely happy about her. They were
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 163 
 
 sitting over dessert, and there was a strange, new feeling 
 between them which they both tried to forget. 
 
 "Nurse Binns has attended a number of mental cases," 
 she said, "and she feels that Cathy is unbalanced. She 
 seems to regard her condition as slightly anxious " 
 
 "What do you mean?" Lorrimer spoke like a man who 
 waked suddenly from sleep. "I don't understand." 
 
 "Nothing," Monica said quickly. "It is only that Cathy 
 talks so wildly at times." 
 
 "She always says whatever she thinks," he replied. 
 
 He seemed driven and unhappy, and the conversation fell 
 again into a throbbing abyss of silence. 
 
 "If Cathy is still over-excitable at the end of a week, I 
 think a change will be the best thing for her," Monica talked 
 again suddenly. "A rest cure is excellent, and might do 
 just what we want." 
 
 Lorrimer rose from the table and opened one of the long 
 windows. The night was a soft spring night, full of scent 
 and beauty, and a low moon spread dark shadows across 
 the lawn beyond the windows. 
 
 "Shall we go out?" he asked. "We could sit in the big 
 conservatory and have coffee there. I have to go and dic- 
 tate some letters to Miss Batten presently, but not yet." 
 
 They crossed the grass, the house standing in its dignity 
 and pride behind them, and went along a wide, paved ter- 
 race towards the large conservatory, where the perfume of 
 flowers was rich and sweet. In a well-like space in the 
 centre of the winter garden there were a few low chairs and 
 a table, and an electric lamp with a gorgeous crimson and 
 black shade threw a very faint radiance around them. 
 Monica sat in the temperate warmth of the soft atmosphere 
 and breathed the summer scented air of the lofty conserva- 
 tory with a sense of ecstasy. They might have shared all 
 the joy of pleasures and palaces, if it were not for Cathy ; 
 Cathy who professed to scorn the soft things of life. 
 
 Lorrimer forgot about Miss Batten, and the letters re- 
 mained unanswered that night ; but she heard him come in 
 with Monica long after she herself had gone to bed.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE idea of being cheered and even excited by the prospect 
 of having Batkins to eit in the room with her, was so real 
 and at the same time so ridiculous to Cathy that she laughed 
 at herself. She had slept quite well, and when Lorrimer 
 came to see her in the morning, she made fun of him, and 
 began to tease him about Muggins. 
 
 "I believe you keep me here so as to have a clear way 
 with Mug," she said. "What in the world do you talk 
 about?" 
 
 "Monica gave up her holiday to take care of you," he 
 replied a little frostily; "I must make it up to her, Cathy. 
 I'm taking her up with me to-day for the debate. We may 
 be late back." 
 
 "I'm so bored," Cathy went on; "I want someone to 
 amuse me.- I'd love to see Robert again. Can't he come 
 and sit on a footstool and kiss my feet, or something harm- 
 less like that, if he promised not to speak?" 
 
 "Amyas?" Lorrimer's voice was unmistakably disapprov- 
 ing, but he checked himself directly and spoke pleasantly. 
 "Later on, Cathy, later on. You really do feel better?" 
 
 "Better? I loathe the word, I'm well, Jack." She began 
 to talk quickly. "Why shouldn't I be allowed to sit in the 
 garden? I walk about my room " 
 
 "You ought not to," he said, "and if you do, you are 
 only taking chances which you have no right to take. If you 
 do this again, what am I to think?" 
 
 Cathy shook her head. "Don't scold," she said, turning 
 away from him. "I have enough to bear without that." 
 
 "And I?" He tried to curb his temper, but it seemed 
 that the effort went beyond him. "Have I nothing to bear 
 and to forgive? You forget things quickly." 
 
 He waited for her to answer, but she made no reply, and 
 
 164
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 165 
 
 at last he went away. What was the use of these inter- 
 views? They only made for growing strife. 
 
 Batkins, in a serge coat and skirt and a neat tie, came to 
 relieve Nurse Binns at three o'clock, and she found Cathy 
 at the window. Mrs. Lorrimer was wearing a thin silk 
 gown of peacock blue, with green and gold embroidery over 
 the arms and along the hem. Her joy at seeing Batkins was 
 unbounded, and Cathy told her that she felt as though life 
 had become real again. 
 
 "I've often wondered if the Cathy they keep here under 
 lock and key is really Cathy Rossiter," she said. "Such a 
 queer, cross Cathy, Batkins. I tried to fight with Jack to- 
 day, and when I saw him going away with old Muggins I 
 very nearly cried. Muggins has been a saint, and Jack an 
 angel, and I get absolutely rabid with them both. As for 
 Binns I think Binns is the devil. She says things that she 
 knows will rise me, and I rise like a trout to a may-fly." 
 
 It was delightful in Cathy's room, and she and Miss 
 Batten drank tea together at four o'clock, and chatted and 
 gossiped in the stream of yellow sunlight which flooded in 
 through the open window. 
 
 "Life is so queer," Cathy said, her eyes growing dreamy. 
 "Sometimes it seems to me that one lives in the past, and 
 that the roses and summer days of three years back are far 
 more real than the living things one looks at now. Am I 
 my real self, Batkins ? Just the me you used to know ?" 
 
 "Of course you are," Miss Batten assured her, "only that 
 you grow more lovely," she added shyly. 
 
 She looked down and flushed slightly, because Batkins 
 had a sensitive conscience, for she no longer wondered 
 whether it was her fancy, or whether she had really sur- 
 prised a look in Lorrimer's eyes when he spoke to Monica 
 which alarmed her profoundly. 
 
 "I think," she went on cautiously, "that it will be a very 
 good thing when you come down again." 
 
 Cathy looked at her and her eyes were a little puzzled. 
 
 "He isn't lonely," she said, half questioning Miss Batten. 
 "Muggins keeps Jack from being dull, and Major Ham- 
 mersly. I do dislike that man, Batkins ; Beelzebub Junior.'*
 
 166 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "Doctor Henstock will have to leave here soon," Miss 
 Batten remarked, and again she became self-conscious. 
 
 "What are you driving at, Bat?" Cathy laughed and 
 held up a finger at her. "Do you suspect Mug of the notion 
 of cutting me out ? Let her try." 
 
 "I owe a great deal to Doctor Henstock," Miss Batten 
 said painfully, "but I have never cared for her. When I 
 was acting as her secretary," she spoke primly, "1 felt 
 
 that " she stopped abruptly. "I was not at home there, 
 
 and perhaps I am a little prejudiced." 
 
 Cathy's attention wandered. She was pleased to hear 
 Batkins straying on from one subject to another, but her 
 interest lessened. Perhaps Mug was really in love with 
 Jack. There had been the day when she first met him ; the 
 cake and the box of cigarettes. There had been many other 
 days when Lorrimer had been there, and Mug had no one 
 else to go and see her. How stupid she had been not to 
 realise that she had taken away Mug's one great friend. 
 Well, if it were so, Muggins had behaved wonderfully, but 
 the subject needed thinking over. Anyhow, at present she 
 must be happy, for Jack seemed to be doing all he could to 
 make up to her for the loss of her holiday. 
 
 The grounds looked very inviting in the soft sunlight, and 
 the early spring flowers played in the light wind. A dis- 
 tant row of firs showed a soft, fluffy green against the sky, 
 it was not a time to think of the crowds who eat their 
 bread with tears, it was a day in which to believe in angels. 
 From where she sat she could catch a glimpse of the broad, 
 red avenue, leading on to the gates a long way out of sight ; 
 the fine, imposing gates of Kingslade Park, where heraldic 
 beasts pranced and upheld emblazoned shields. Cathy's 
 attention wandered again, and she longed to go out under 
 the sky; she wanted to sail before the wind on a blue sea, 
 to run until she was tired, in a hidden valley, warm and 
 sweet, she wanted to throw herself on the grass and smell 
 the violets, and she, a real woman, who had come out of 
 eternity, sat, like an old lady, at a window and did nothing. 
 
 Miss Batten talked on ; and Cathy began to feel as though 
 she were waiting for something to happen. What was it?
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 167 
 
 Some snatch of joy, like the forgotten refrain of a song, 
 coming to her out of space? She leaned on the window 
 ledge and looked down at the path below, and as she did 
 so she felt a thrill of mischievous pleasure. It was true of 
 Cathy that she always liked all men, with a very few excep- 
 tions, and when she saw George Barlow standing staring 
 up at the house, she forgot that she had ever actively dis- 
 liked him. He caught sight of her at once and waved his 
 hand. 
 
 "Come down," he said, "I want to talk to you." 
 
 It was highly characteristic of Barlow to demand the 
 impossible with complete nonchalance. Cathy shook her 
 head, and said, "No." 
 
 "Only a minute," he said again. "Don't be cowardly." 
 
 Cathy reflected, and she felt Batkins tug at her gown like 
 a faithful terrier. 
 
 "It is someone I know," she turned and spoke to Miss 
 Batten, and saw her scared face of alarm. 
 
 After all, she was a free woman, and if she chose to go 
 downstairs no one could prevent it. Moreover, if she really 
 asserted herself, she might convince Muggins that restraint 
 is not the best cure for some natures. The whole affarr 
 presented itself to her in the guise of an adventure, and she 
 became intrigued by the mere fascination of so glorious a 
 break in the endless monotony of her days. Cathy did not 
 know anything of what popular report had said as to her 
 former meeting with Barlow, and both Jack and Monica had 
 been intensely guarded on the subject when she had tried 
 to speak of it to either of them. Monica was off in London, 
 Binns wouldn't know, and Batkins could be trusted. Cer- 
 tainly, Cathy had every intention of going. 
 
 "Don't make any fuss, Batkins," she said. "I won't be 
 gone two seconds." 
 
 Miss Batten threw herself between Cathy and the door. 
 "You must not go," she implored ; "I am here to take care 
 of you, and I will take care of you. Colonel Lorrimer 
 trusted me." She was trembling, but she stood her ground. 
 "It is not fair, Miss Rossiter," she relapsed to the old name 
 in her confusion.
 
 1 68 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "I'll tell them it was my fault. If I am miles better to- 
 morrow, as I shall be, and after Muggins has admitted that 
 I am, I shall tell her, and you can't be blamed. Here, Bat- 
 kins, let me out." Cathy was alive with excitement, and 
 she caught Miss Batten by the wrists. "Now, Batkins, 
 now," she said, pulling her from the door, "I won't be five 
 minutes. I shall slip down the back staircase, and there is 
 no one about, and when I come back I'll apologise." 
 
 Miss Batten was small and fragile, and there was no 
 strength in her tiny wrists, and Cathy hardly knew how 
 strong she was. The whole adventure became worth a 
 struggle. It hardly took more than a second for her to 
 open the door of her room and go down the staircase, though 
 the stairs were more difficult than she had imagined they 
 would be, and as she went out into the garden she saw Bar- 
 low still waiting there. 
 
 "I've come here partly as a protest," Cathy said, laugh- 
 ing, "partly because the sunshine got into my head, and 
 mostly because I have gradually come to a point where I 
 was bound to flare up into revolution." 
 
 "Then you choose a very suitable person to meet," Bar- 
 low said, with his chuckling laugh. "Are you really con- 
 tent with Lorrimer's bread and milk diet? Aren't you a bit 
 bored? You know that he is going against Disestablish- 
 ment of the Church and the Majority Report of the Di- 
 vorce Commission? Oh, he hasn't told you that? They 
 are only very minor questions, but I fancied they stood for 
 Lorrimer's bravest piece of daring." 
 
 They had walked along the gravel path, and stood by a 
 bed of irises in full blossom. 
 
 Cathy stared at Barlow. "I don't understand," she said. 
 "Jack wanted equal laws for men and women, and he felt 
 that there was no special justification for one Church to be 
 paramount. You are really telling me the truth?" 
 
 "Certainly." Barlow fumbled in his pocket and took out 
 a paper, in which two paragraphs were marked in blue 
 pencil; "you can read it for yourself. I came here," he 
 added, when she handed him back the paper silently, "to 
 ,find out whether you still took any interest in Janey's work
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 169 
 
 and ours, and because Jakes, your husband's chauffeur, told 
 me you were nothing better than a prisoner in the house." 
 
 "Jakes shouldn't have said anything of the kind," Cathy 
 spoke quickly, "I am being taken too much care of, that is 
 all." 
 
 She seemed to feel suddenly as though she had no real 
 right to be out there in the gay, wind-swept garden. She 
 looked uneasily at Barlow and glanced towards the house ; 
 the window of the room belonging to Nurse Binns was open, 
 and Nurse Binns herself was standing there watching them. 
 In spite of herself, Cathy felt her spirit quail, and she 
 turned to Barlow. 
 
 "I've been caught red-handed," she said, "and I feel as 
 if I was ten years old, when I was at the mercy of Signor- 
 ina's temper. I'm going back." 
 
 "No, you're not," he objected. "I have a great deal more 
 to tell you yet, and where is your independence of spirit?" 
 
 "You haven't been shut up for two months," she said. 
 
 "Yes, I have," he retorted. "I did three months once, and 
 at another time I had a six months' Government rest cure, 
 with hard labour." 
 
 He had suffered for his convictions, you could not ever 
 escape from that, but Nurse Binns was watching her, her 
 eyes like gimlets boring holes in Cathy's armour of courage. 
 
 "Give Janey my love," she said, "and tell her that I am 
 not a renegade. With regard to what you have said about 
 Jack, I simply can't understand it." 
 
 She began to retrace her steps, Barlow walking close to 
 her, and holding her to support her slightly, for she was 
 obviously tired with the unusual excitement. 
 
 "I think I can explain it," he said. "The Progressive 
 Party," he gave a snort of contemptuous laughter, "are 
 simply a pack of Tories on the make. They have been 
 bought, Mrs. Lorrimer. If they vote alongside of the 
 Government they swamp us. Lorrimer is likely to be angled 
 for, but before he is worth the bait he has to prove his 
 conversion." 
 
 "Jack couldn't do a thing like that," Cathy said hotly;
 
 1 70 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "it is a mistake, I know it is." She held out her hand and 
 Barlow took it in both of his. 
 
 "I haven't upset you?" he asked anxiously, "I do hope 
 I haven't. You're looking much stronger." 
 
 Nurse Binns was standing in the doorway, hard of eye 
 and impenetrable of demeanour. 
 
 "I had no orders from Doctor Henstock saying that you 
 were to go out, Mrs. Lorrimer," she said, in a voice which 
 sounded as harsh and hard as her starched cuffs. "I sup- 
 pose that Miss Batten was told that you might walk?" 
 
 "Good-bye, Major Barlow." Cathy turned from him and 
 faced Nurse Binns. "I came out entirely on my own re- 
 sponsibility, and I do not require you. Miss Batten is in 
 my room." 
 
 She passed her without glancing back, and went up the 
 staircase. Her interview with Barlow had made her forget 
 the joke of it all, and she looked serious enough when she 
 re-entered her room. Batkins was sitting by the window, 
 her eyes red and her mouth quivering; she had evidently 
 been sobbing quietly, in her usual submissive way, putting 
 up no fight at all. Cathy heard the footsteps of Nurse Binns 
 in the corridor, and she shut the door at once, locking it in 
 her face. 
 
 "I don't require you," she replied to the repeated knock- 
 ing on the further side. 
 
 "Oh, Batkins, I am a ruthless wretch," she said, putting 
 her arms around the little governess. "But I am glad I 
 went out, because I find that there are all sorts of lies being 
 circulated about Jack. There!" She held Miss Batten at 
 arm's length. "There is nothing to cry about. It's done 
 me all the good in the world." 
 
 "Doctor Henstock will be furious," Miss Batten said 
 plaintively, "and that terrible Nurse Binns. Did you hear 
 how she shook the door handle? It makes me so fright- 
 ened." 
 
 "They won't eat us," Cathy said easily. "I'm not a child. 
 I shall have Binns sent away, she is positively impertinent. 
 Courage, Batkins did I hurt your wrists ? I believe I did !" 
 
 "That is nothing," Miss Batten pulled down her sleeves,
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 171 
 
 "only when Doctor Henstock comes. . . . I'm afraid of 
 her." 
 
 "I'll tackle them all," Cathy laughed. "Leave them to 
 me." 
 
 It was very late when Lorrimer and Monica came back; 
 they had dined at the House, and Jack had made one of his 
 short, hesitating speeches, which even Monica could hardly 
 regard as oratory. During the drive down Jack had held 
 Monica's hands in his, and he had kissed her passionately. 
 They had not got beyond the discovery of one another, and 
 the future was hardly real to them in the urgency of the 
 living present. If Lorrimer had been forced to say what 
 he thought, he would have admitted that he had not really 
 thought yet. Nothing would come of it, in the sense of a 
 break with Cathy, no one would ever know ; he and Monica 
 would remain friends outwardly, even if they were lovers 
 behind the screen of friendship. Not for worlds, and not 
 for any passionate desire, would he wreck his own life with 
 its prospects, and he would not harm Monica. Vaguely out- 
 lined, this was the summing up of his feelings. Many public 
 men had found themselves in the same difficult position, and 
 appearances had been preserved inviolate. Even with the 
 happiness it brought, he was conscious of distress and anger 
 against himself. Still, how could it be helped ? 
 
 They were met in the hall by Nurse Binns, and the fact 
 of her being there at so late an hour was disturbing. She 
 looked at Monica, and asked if she might speak to her at 
 once. Something had happened, she said, which needed 
 immediate attention, and when Lorrimer asked her if she 
 could speak openly if he was also present, she agreed with 
 a sour smile. 
 
 "Certainly, Colonel Lorrimer," she said, and they went 
 together into the dining-room, where the table was laid and 
 a late supper prepared. 
 
 Nurse Binns stood, and Monica sat ; Lorrimer took up his 
 place by the mantelpiece, over which a portrait of Cathy 
 hung, smiling and full of her wayward charm. 
 
 Nurse Binns spoke in hard, direct tones, and informed
 
 1 72 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 Doctor Henstock that, during the time when Miss Batten 
 had taken charge of Mrs. Lorrimer, a very unpleasant in- 
 cident had occurred. Miss Batten would tell Nurse Binns 
 nothing whatever; but, either with or without her consent, 
 Mrs. Lorrimer had left her room and gone into the garden. 
 
 Monica flushed and frowned; she was accustomed to 
 obedience from her patients, and she was angry with Cathy. 
 
 "She will certainly have a relapse," she remarked, and 
 told Nurse Binns to continue her report. 
 
 Clearing her throat sharply, Nurse Binns went on with 
 her story. She had seen from her window the figure of a 
 stranger in the garden; a man who walked rapidly, and 
 then stood under Mrs. Lorrimer's window and appeared to 
 be speaking to her. A little later, Mrs. Lorrimer came into 
 the garden. Her hair had tumbled down, and she looked 
 wild and excited. For some time she walked about arm-in- 
 arm with the strange man, who gave her a paper or a book, 
 and, at last, Nurse Binns could bear it no longer, and came 
 down the staircase to call Mrs. Lorrimer back to a sense 
 of duty. 
 
 "That is to say, if it was possible," she added bitterly. 
 
 "Either," she said in conclusion, "I must ask to be re- 
 leased from my duty here, or I must have proper control. 
 I am fully convinced that, without supervision, Mrs. Lorri- 
 mer will become a danger to herself." 
 
 Monica looked at Nurse Binns and then at Lorrimer, 
 whose face was set and angry. He had felt considerably 
 ashamed of himself when he thought of Cathy, and Cathy's 
 trust in him, and it re-established himself in his own esteem 
 to believe that Cathy had deliberately deceived him. He 
 had a right to be an angry man rather than a penitent, and 
 he made an exclamation of disgust as he turned away, look- 
 ing into the fireless grate. Somewhere in his heart a red 
 anger towards her and Barlow began to smoulder, and yet 
 he could not discuss that with Nurse Binns in the room. 
 
 Directly his back was turned Cathy had begun again, and 
 it looked as though she had arranged the meeting with Bar- 
 low to coincide with the afternoon when Miss Batten was in 
 charge of her. Miss Batten's lack of loyalty hit him like a
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 173 
 
 blow, and he felt that there, at least, he could assert his 
 power. The poor, weak creature was very much at his 
 mercy, and she should be made to pay. Monica was talking 
 to Nurse Binns in steady, measured tones, asking questions 
 and forcing Nurse Binns to admissions which, it appeared, 
 she had not made before. 
 
 Nurse Binns stuck to her guns and became more definite. 
 Lorrimer heard her say that she regarded Cathy as a mental 
 case, and that the truth of her convictions would certainly 
 be justified if Mrs. Lorrimer was given any liberty. 
 
 "She should, in my opinion, be under temporary re- 
 straint," she said ; "she is capable of violent action. I have 
 no authority, and I can't be held responsible." 
 
 At last she left the room, and they were alone. Lorrimer 
 turned and flickered his eyelids, looking sideways at Monica. 
 He was distressed and agitated, and the confidence with 
 which Nurse Binns had asserted her belief that Cathy was 
 out of her reason was both hideous and alarming to him. 
 
 "What do you make of it?" he asked, as he sat down. 
 
 "I hardly like to say," Monica's face was pale and she 
 looked strangely at Lorrimer. "How can I say it, Jack? 
 In the case of mental disorder it is so difficult for a doctor 
 to be sure of anything, and we are used to Cathy's ways." 
 
 "That nurse suggested that she is mad," he said bluntly. 
 "Can you not tell me what you think?" 
 
 "Cathy has always been excitable," Monica avoided look- 
 ing at him, "but it is ridiculous to say that she is mad. 
 There are enormous differences between the conditions. . . . 
 I have felt that a complete rest would secure her return to a 
 more normal state of mind. Yet she goes dead against 
 us." She paused again. "I think we had better get Miss 
 Batten down and find out the truth from her."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 WHEN Batkins received a summons to go down to the din- 
 ing-room, her knees trembled, and she felt as though she had 
 pulses beating in every vein of her small body. If she 
 could see Lorrimer alone, she told herself, it would all be 
 quite easy to explain, but there was something about Monica 
 which made explanations very difficult, unless they coincided 
 with her own views. 
 
 She looked scared and frightened as she stood in the 
 doorway. Lorrimer was looking into the fire, and Monica, 
 who had been standing close to him, turned, as Miss Bat- 
 ten's fluttering knock sounded, and smiled at her with an 
 entirely un-encouraging smile. She looked towards Lorri- 
 mer for his usual kindly word, but he neither turned nor 
 spoke. 
 
 "Sit down, Miss Batten," Monica said in her professional 
 tone. "We must get at the truth of what has happened this 
 afternoon. Nurse Binns reports that you allowed Mrs. 
 Lorrimer to go out." She toyed with a pencil as she spoke. 
 "I need not tell you that it was taking a very grave re- 
 sponsibility upon yourself." She raised her eyes and looked 
 at Miss Batten firmly. "Did you not try to interfere with 
 this sudden impulse?" 
 
 "Mrs. Lorrimer wanted to go out," Batkins said lamely. 
 "The day was so fine that I thought " 
 
 Monica made a stifled sound of contempt, and Miss Bat- 
 ten's nerves jumped violently. 
 
 "Mrs. Lorrimer saw a friend of hers in the garden?" 
 
 "Yes," Batkins' voice sounded thin and reluctant. 
 
 "Knowing the danger, you agreed to let her go out ?" 
 
 Miss Batten looked helplessly around her. She seemed 
 to be compassed about with invisible foes, and she wished 
 desperately that Lorrimer would turn and speak. He would 
 be kind and he would understand. 
 
 174
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 175 
 
 "I did reason with her," she admitted, and her eyes grew 
 vague. 
 
 "You should have stood between her and the door," Doc- 
 tor Henstock said impatiently. "Really, Miss Batten, you 
 seem to be quite incapable of understanding what responsi- 
 bility means." 
 
 Batkins flushed painfully, and she fiddled with the lace 
 edge of a small mat, which lay, island-like, on the polished 
 table. To suffer for Cathy was in itself a kind of glory, 
 only that it put one, somehow, at odds with everything, 
 Lorrimer included. She had made no reply to Monica, when 
 Lorrimer moved heavily and turned towards her. "I am 
 sure you did what you could," he said, and his voice was 
 intensely unhappy. 
 
 He stood behind Doctor Henstock's chair and put his 
 hand on it ; yet, so far, Batkins did not entirely regard them 
 as allies. She looked up gratefully, and spoke with less con- 
 straint. 
 
 "Indeed I did, Colonel Lorrimer, only you know how 
 hard it is to refuse Mrs. Lorrimer anything. For a little 
 we were quite undisturbed, and then a friend some one 
 she knew " 
 
 "A fellow called Barlow," Lorrimer said, and he looked 
 down at Monica as he spoke. 
 
 "He came and called to Mrs. Lorrimer, and she felt that 
 she would like to speak to him. There was no harm in it, 
 I thought " 
 
 She broke off again. It was difficult to let Lorrimer 
 think that she had done nothing to guard his treasure from 
 harm or danger. 
 
 "I am sure that you are not telling us everything," Lorri- 
 mer raised his eyes dully. "Could you not be more frank ?" 
 
 "Yes, I think a little more regard to facts would help," 
 Monica said shortly. "And, in any case, Miss Batten, it is 
 no use. I shall get the facts from Mrs. Lorrimer in the 
 morning." 
 
 "Are you trying to hide something?" Lorimer asked in 
 the same dull, disgusted voice. 
 
 "I did try to stop her," Batkins grew desperate. Cathy
 
 176 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 would tell the story, that was certain. Tell it, too, with ail 
 the vivid exaggeration of a good raconteuse. It was better 
 that these two who fronted her should have the facts as 
 they were. "Perhaps," she went on, rallying her courage, 
 "Nurse Binns made too much of it all. I know she was 
 angry because I took her place to-day. I ran to the door, 
 and Mrs. Lorrimer said that she was twice as strong as I 
 am, even though she was an invalid, and she just lifted me 
 out of the way. It was a joke . . . the whole thing was 
 only a piece of fun, Colonel Lorrimer, and we laughed all 
 the time." 
 
 Miss Batten clasped and unclasped her hands, and looked 
 the picture of misery. The "joke" was a thing of the past. 
 
 "Thank you, I don't think I need keep you any longer," 
 Monica said frigidly, and Miss Batten rose to her feet, a 
 wave of hysterical emotion sweeping over her. 
 
 "I can't go, feeling that I haven't convinced you," she 
 said, ignoring Monica and speaking directly to Lorrimer; 
 '"it isn't fair to Mrs. Lorrimer. Don't listen to anyone." 
 She breathed hard, and her eyes filled with tears. "Don't 
 let them persuade you that there was something wrong in 
 what Mrs. Lorrimer did. They will make trouble between 
 you and her and " 
 
 Monica crossed the floor, and took her by the arm, lead- 
 ing her to the door. She was still outwardly kind, but Miss 
 Batten felt that she was inwardly royally angry with her. 
 
 "You have said more than you meant to," she said, and 
 then the hand which held Miss Batten's thin arm tightened 
 its grasp. The sleeve, which was a short one, had been 
 pulled upwards by the guiding hand of Doctor Henstock, 
 and her glance had fallen on the exposed wrist. She did 
 not let Miss Batten go, and speaking over her shoulder in 
 the same level tone, she addressed Lorrimer. 
 
 "Jack, come here for a moment, will you? Both wrists, 
 please, Miss Batten ; it is no use trying to hide them." 
 
 The least thing bruises me," Batkins spoke urgently; 
 "I shall have a bruised arm in the morning where you held 
 me just now; anything does it " 
 
 "Look there and there," Monica went on, indifferent to
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 177 
 
 Miss Batten's repeated assertions. "I think that is pretty 
 conclusive." 
 
 Lorrimer stood sulkily looking at the faint blue marks, 
 and said nothing, either good or bad; Monica patted Miss 
 Batten on the shoulder. 
 
 "I thought you were more to be trusted than you wanted 
 us to believe," she said, with sudden friendliness; and at 
 that Batkins burst into unrestrained sobbing and left the 
 room with bowed head. 
 
 When she had gone, Monica went back to her chair and 
 took up her heavy silver pencil. She made some vague 
 designs on the mat in front of her, and looked preoccupied 
 and troubled. 
 
 "It is worse than I thought," she said at last, without 
 looking up at Lorrimer, who was pacing the room slowly, 
 his head bent and his eyes on the floor. "It looks to me, 
 now, as though Nurse Binns had hardly exaggerated." 
 
 Lorrimer came to a standstill before her. 
 
 "For God's sake, explain it," he said. "Has she actually 
 allowed herself to attack this wretched creature?" 
 
 "Of course, Miss Batten may bruise very easily," Monica 
 said, ignoring his demand. 
 
 "That is not the point. Do you believe that Cathy is so 
 madly keen on this blackguard Barlow that she allows her- 
 self to oh, it's preposterous!" 
 
 Monica got up impulsively and laid her hand on his arm. 
 
 "Don't make any rash judgments," she said persuasively. 
 "Cathy is incapable of such an act, unless she was not really 
 and truly herself. To begin with, she is absolutely 
 straight " 
 
 "Yet this is the second time she has shown that so long 
 as she gets to Barlow she will risk anything. She killed my 
 love for her that other time, and now she has murdered my 
 confidence." He shook off Monica's hand. "You'll stick 
 up for her, and you are trying to explain it by calling it 
 'nerves/ Nerves be damned !" He flung away, back to his 
 angry pacing. "It's the eternal excuse. If she goes on like 
 this the thing is bound to be known. Only yesterday Ham- 
 mersly warned me that there were rumours about, and that
 
 178 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 people had got hold of something. My wife mixed up in a 
 scandal with Barlow. God! it's enough to make the devils 
 laugh." 
 
 He was in one of his melodramatic moods, and Monica 
 knew that she must let him rage through it to the end. 
 
 "Why did I ever marry her ?" he went on. "Why did I ? 
 How many decent fellows have asked themselves that ques- 
 tion at the end of a couple of years ?" 
 
 "I tell you Cathy is not to blame. You don't understand," 
 Monica said persistently, and then he weakened suddenly 
 and knelt beside her. 
 
 "Why didn't I marry you?" he asked. "Was I mad?" 
 
 "You were in love," she said, the strain of the interview 
 showing in her eyes, "and Cathy dazzled you. It was hardly 
 strange. Beside her, I am a very ordinary kind of woman." 
 
 "And now, where are we?" 
 
 He put his hands on hers, and they felt hot and dry. 
 
 "We must not think of that," she said, "it does no good. 
 The real question is what we can do for Cathy. Promise 
 me that you won't say anything to her about all this. Leave 
 it to me." 
 
 He got up clumsily, and put his hands in his pockets. 
 
 "I'll do my best," he said, "but, after all, I am only human. 
 You see, we don't agree as to the conditions that exist." 
 
 "I don't mean to argue it over with you again," Monica 
 said, taking up her coat. "If you are right, knowing Cathy 
 as I do, she will tell you that she cares for Barlow and in- 
 tends to go to him. She doesn't care a rap for public opin- 
 ion. If I am right, and it is nerves, and Cathy isn't really 
 herself, there will be some other indication in the course 
 of a day or two." 
 
 She left him in the dining-room and walked wearily up 
 the wide staircase to bed. 
 
 Cathy awoke with a fine sense of exhilaration. She lay 
 cuddled up against her pillows, and the idea of yet another 
 day in captivity appeared monstrous and absurd. What use 
 was it to be alive unless one did some living? She thought 
 of Jack, and decided that he must really be cajoled into
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 179 
 
 common sense. She intended to tell him the whole episode 
 of the previous day, and to prove by plain facts that her 
 outing had only done her good. The door opened softly, 
 and Nurse Binns came gliding into the room. 
 
 "I don't want you," Cathy said, sitting up. "There is 
 no use our wasting time on polite fictions, nurse. I shall 
 get up now, as soon as you are gone, and you need not come 
 back. Flora will bring me my breakfast, and after that I 
 shall see Colonel Lorrimer." 
 
 Nurse Binns appeared to consider for a moment. 
 
 "If you prefer that I should remain in the sitting-room 
 while you dress ?" she said, with something approaching an 
 effort at conciliation. 
 
 "I do prefer it." Cathy clasped her hands round her 
 knees. "I'm sure, if I met you anywhere else, Nurse Binns, 
 I should like you, but, as my own special prison warder, I 
 can't say I do." 
 
 Nurse Binns withdrew silently, and Cathy slid out of bed. 
 There were no hairpins anywhere to be found, so she twisted 
 up her thick plaits and tied them with a gold ribbon. It 
 was hateful to be everlastingly shadowed by these people, 
 who belonged to death rather than life, and who all knew 
 so much about corpses. 
 
 To her relief, her sitting-room was empty, and her break- 
 fast had been laid for her on a table near the window. 
 There were no letters, of course, and no paper. Time stood 
 still, and a wall of silence divided her from the interests of 
 the day's beginning. 
 
 With nothing to read and nothing to do, the time is apt 
 to drag, and Cathy sat down on her wide sofa and began to 
 pull the heavy silk cord off one of the many large cushions. 
 She felt that it would be rather amusing to empty the con- 
 tents over Monica, if she ripped the whole side open. Mug 
 would be so angry, and would look so unlike herself with 
 feathers all over her head. 
 
 At last she heard the key turn, and Nurse Binns opened 
 the door for Flora, one of the upper housemaids, to clear 
 away Mrs. Lorrimer's breakfast. 
 
 "I wish I was you, Flora," Cathy said, putting her feet
 
 i8o CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 up on the sofa. "How is everyone this morning? How is 
 Miss Batten?" 
 
 Flora replied that Miss Batten was going away, and the 
 news startled Cathy into astonished speech. 
 
 "But going away ? Surely not. Where to ?" 
 
 Flora knew nothing whatever of Miss Batten's plans. All 
 she had heard came to her through Jakes, the chauffeur. He 
 had been told that he was to take Miss Batten to the ten- 
 twenty to London, and she was at that moment packing her 
 things. 
 
 "Tell her to come to me at once," Cathy said; "I must 
 see her." 
 
 Flora disappeared, her round face full of wonder and 
 distress. There was a general feeling in the servants' hall 
 at Kingslade that Mrs. Lorrimer was being badly treated. 
 Servants always adored Cathy and disliked Monica, and 
 they resented some touch of proprietorship in Doctor Hen- 
 stock's manner. The whole situation was charged with mys- 
 tery, and now the sudden departure of Miss Batten added to 
 the growing impression of unrest. 
 
 Left alone, Cathy began to walk about the room. For 
 the first time since she had been convalescent she began 
 to feel a queer touch of alarm. She felt as though power 
 was slipping from her, and she concluded at once that Bat- 
 kins was being evicted because of her own action the pre- 
 vious afternoon. She would stop it, it was too abominably 
 unjust. Directly Flora had left the room the key had been 
 turned in the door, and Cathy concluded that Nurse Binns 
 was now on guard outside. 
 
 She watched the clock anxiously. There had been plenty 
 of time for Batkins to have come, and yet she did not come. 
 After about half an hour had dragged through, the door 
 was unlocked again and Lorrimer came in. His face looked 
 drawn and heavy and his eyes were cold. He did not kiss 
 her, and stood at the window, and Cathy remained by the 
 sofa, watching him. She felt desperately sorry for him, 
 seeing him so troubled, and her anger died away. 
 
 "Jack," she said, "what is the matter? Do let us clear 
 up this horrible mystery. Why is Miss Batten leaving?"
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 181 
 
 "I think we had better not discuss it," he said, speaking 
 carefully. "You are not to excite yourself." 
 
 Cathy laughed. It was so ridiculous to deal with her in 
 that way, but she did not lose her temper. 
 
 "Can't we have free speech?" she said, coming to him 
 and putting her hands on his shoulders. "Is Batkins being 
 sacrificed to Monica? I know Mug is probably very angry 
 with her, yet none of it was her fault. Open the door and 
 let us go down together, and I'll explain everything." 
 
 Lorrimer took her hands and held them hard. She always 
 put a kind of spell upon him, and it was torture to think 
 that she was utterly false. He did not intend to speak of 
 Barlow, but his wounded self-esteem hurt desperately. 
 Cathy was playing with him, cajoling him, laughing at the 
 weak fool in her heart. She was not suffering from nerves, 
 that was merely the usual feminine fiction produced by one 
 woman to shelter another. Even though Monica loved him, 
 she was true to the free-masonry of her sex, and she sought 
 excuses for Cathy. 
 
 "I was a bad child," Cathy went on ; "I broke rules and 
 ran into the garden. Bat held the bridge like Horatius, and 
 was most gallant, but I simply pulled her out of the way." 
 Her face was full of laughter at the recollection. "I believe 
 I bruised her wrists, but I had to go out. . . ." 
 
 "Oh, had to?" Lorrimer dropped her hands and stood 
 unfesponsively beside her. 
 
 "Yes, because Major Barlow said he must speak to me." 
 Cathy ceased to smile, arid her eyes grew earnest. "Do you 
 know that they are saying hateful things of you, Jack? I 
 see no papers up here, and it was news to me." 
 
 "It doesn't interest me particularly," he said drily. "No 
 doubt you have found your own way of excusing yourself."" 
 
 She drew back, and her sensitive face flushed. Jack was 
 trying to be downright rude to her, and she walked from 
 him and sat down on the sofa. Yet this was not the moment 
 for paltry personal dispute, and again she caught back her 
 sense of proportion. 
 
 "I think it is better to know things," she said thought-
 
 1 82 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 fully. "People say you have gone back on your pledges; 
 that you are dishonest." 
 
 It was not easy to say it, but Cathy felt the truth must 
 be stated in blunt, ugly terms. 
 
 Lorrimer's face grew a dusky red, and he looked at her 
 with unveiled hostility. 
 
 "Anything I have done will bear daylight," he said, rais- 
 ing his voice slightly ; and then he remembered that, where 
 Monica was concerned, this was hardly the fact. The know- 
 ledge stung him and added to his anger. If he had strayed 
 from the way of honest dealing, who was Cathy to reproach 
 him? "Understand," he went on more rapidly, "I have 
 so far kept from saying anything likely to upset you, as 
 Monica says your nerves are in a bad state, but there are 
 things which will have to be said between us, sooner or 
 later." 
 
 "Why not now?" Cathy asked quietly. 
 
 "Your nerves," he replied, and the word sounded like a 
 taunt. 
 
 "We seem to have got into a strange place," she said in 
 the same quiet voice. "Is this really us, Jack?" 
 
 "I have considered you in everything," he continued, 
 working himself up into a dull passion of anger. "When 
 you threw away all our hopes, so that you could creep out 
 the instant my back was turned to meet Barlow, I did not 
 reproach you." 
 
 Cathy's eyes grew wide and she stared at him blindly. 
 
 "So that is what you thought ?" she said, in a voice hardly 
 above a whisper. 
 
 "I tried to be patient with you, and I tried to believe that 
 it was all some damnable mistake. Now, again, you have 
 done the same thing. Barlow comes whistling to you under 
 the window and you run, like a dog to its -master. The poor 
 creature who was in charge of you, even by your own ac- 
 count, tried to keep you back, and you used your hands to 
 make your way clear. God ! it's a pretty affair altogether. 
 As you are concerned about the truth of my political views 
 and interested in my career, you had better know that it is a 
 common report that you are trafficking with the Danielli
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 183 
 
 crowd. That is a little thing to me," he turned away; "it 
 is all the rest that is so vile." 
 
 Cathy had listened without moving from where she sat 
 If Lorrimer had hit her across the face she could not have 
 felt more hopelessly astonished and affronted. For weeks 
 he had cherished these feelings, and he had believed her to 
 be leagued with Barlow against him. Worse than this, he 
 had actually accused her of the most vulgar and sordid in- 
 trigue. She felt a sudden touch of giddiness and put her 
 hands over her face. 
 
 "I don't wonder that you are ashamed," he said savagely. 
 
 He had exploded the fiction of "nerves," and, having let 
 himself go, he felt like continuing to punish her. There was 
 a joy in it, too, for she was obviously crushed and beaten, 
 and he felt a renewal of self-esteem. 
 
 Cathy removed her hands and stood up. 
 
 "Is it any use my saying that all you have said is untrue ?" 
 she said, looping the torn cord of the cushion round her 
 fingers. "I don't know that it is. There are times when 
 even to defend oneself seems impossible. If you really 
 believe all you say, it ends things. That is how it looks to 
 me." 
 
 "Ends things?" Lorrimer laughed. "Ends them? Not 
 quite that. You happen to be my wife." 
 
 "I don't feel as if I am." Cathy gave a ghost of a smile. 
 "No, I really am Cathy Rossiter still, except that you have 
 been able to speak to me as you would hardly have dared 
 to speak to her." 
 
 "I thought you might not altogether appreciate the truth, 
 though you professed to be so fond of it," he said roughly. 
 "Anyhow, we know how we stand." 
 
 Cathy said nothing. She had not denied any of the 
 charges he had made. He saw that she was going to speak 
 again, and he waited, half hoping that she might plead. In 
 the end, if she pleaded, he would bring himself to forgive- 
 ness, but there were all those bitter words lying like an 
 ocean between them. 
 
 "How much longer do I remain a prisoner?" she asked, 
 and he stared at her with his heavy eyes.
 
 1 84 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "I asked you how much longer I am to remain a priso- 
 ner ?" she repeated. "As you admit that I am well in health, 
 am I here under lock and key to prevent my meeting Major 
 Barlow?" 
 
 "I have nothing to say to it," he looked towards the door, 
 "Monica considers it necessary." 
 
 "And does Monica hold your views on the other ques- 
 tion?" 
 
 "No, she doesn't." He spoke as though he was uttering 
 
 a threat. "She is " He was going to say "too honest 
 
 herself," and his memories smote him. 
 
 Monica had admitted that she loved him, admitted it first 
 with slow, painful tears. There was nothing light and easy 
 in their poor, belated romance. Set beside Cathy's treach- 
 ery, it was pure as snow. 
 
 "Then, if you will send Monica to me, I shall tell her 
 that I am leaving here with Miss Batten. Surely Miss Bat- 
 ten's departure can be delayed a little?" 
 
 When Lorrimer came in the door had not been locked, 
 and, as Cathy spoke, it opened and Monica herself appeared 
 in the doorway, and she glanced at Lorrimer. There was 
 no doubt that she summed up the situation at once, and 
 she signed to him to leave. 
 
 "Muggins," Cathy's voice was charged with feeling, 
 "Muggins." 
 
 Lorrimer looked back from the door, and saw Cathy hold 
 out both her hands to her friend.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 LORRIMER watched the car take Miss Batten down the drive, 
 and wandered wretchedly about his smoking-room waiting 
 for Monica to reappear. He was likely to be in for a row 
 with Doctor Henstock, and yet, given that the plea of 
 nerves was an excuse, he felt he had been moderate. 
 
 At last Monica came. She came very quietly, and her 
 face was grave. 
 
 "I have done what I can to quiet her," she said, "but 
 you have upset the work of weeks. She wanted to break 
 away at once, and you must see for yourself that it would 
 only mean disaster. If there was that sort of scandal about 
 you oh, Jack, it must not be." She was cruelly anxious 
 and her anxiety became catching. "Her people are very 
 powerful, and then, if, as well as her people, you had the 
 Danielli group saying that you had driven her out, it would 
 ruin you." 
 
 "I don't believe there is anything the matter with her," 
 he said doggedly. 
 
 The truth of her words had taken effect, and Lorrimer 
 became more subdued in manner. 
 
 "I told her that she might go in two days from now," 
 Monica went on, "and, as I know Cathy, it will take you all 
 your time to persuade her out of her resolution. She wanted 
 to wire to Robert Amyas, and I have the wire here, but, of 
 course, shall not send it." 
 
 She handed the telegraph form to Lorrimer, who tore it 
 in fragments, and then threw it into the waste-paper basket. 
 
 "I know it was dreadfully hard for you," she said, "but 
 you blundered hopelessly. It isn't the least use your seeing 
 her again to-day. To-morrow she may be better." 
 
 Lorrimer sat down heavily ; he was profoundly distressed. 
 
 "She denied nothing," he said. 
 
 185
 
 1 86 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "Did you expect her to? I don't believe in the idea you 
 have got hold of," Monica replied; "Cathy is not like that. 
 She gets all sorts of notions into her head, and she has al- 
 ways been lacking in balance." 
 
 "If she is locked into her room she can't very well meet 
 Barlow or Amyas," Lorrimer said, and there was a sound 
 of satisfaction in his voice. 
 
 "You can't keep her locked up for ever, and I have prom- 
 ised her that in two days she will be free." Monica frowned 
 slightly. "Of course, if Nurse Binns is right, Cathy may 
 
 easily show some definite sign of " She stopped on the 
 
 word, and went on smoothly. "We need hardly fear that, 
 however. What you must do you must, Jack is to make 
 your peace with Cathy, and take her away for a bit." She 
 looked plain and unhappy as she spoke. "It will be best 
 for both of you in the long run." 
 
 Lorrimer took up his hat from the table. 
 
 "I shall clear out to London until to-morrow," he said, 
 squaring his elbows. "It's not much good my hangin' round 
 here. If I have to come to apologise for speaking the truth, 
 I suppose I shall have to, but I must be in the House to- 
 night." 
 
 They parted very formally, and Monica watched him go, 
 through cold, troubled tears. He was so infinitely dear to 
 her, and now, Cathy and he together were wrecking life 
 and reputation with ruthless disregard for both. Her own 
 nerves were on edge, and she stood in a very difficult situa- 
 tion towards both the man she loved and the woman who 
 believed her to be her friend. 
 
 The day dragged through comfortlessly, and at tea-time, 
 when she had again told Cathy that her term of imprison- 
 ment was surely drawing to its close, she went downstairs 
 and sat in the wide drawing-room by the open window, 
 where tea was laid out on a small table. 
 
 Why could not she and Jack be happy together, and let 
 Cathy go ? Open the window and allow the bird of strange 
 plumage to escape? 
 
 If only Cathy could really fly away and depart as though 
 she had never existed! Her own desire for flight was
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 187 
 
 strong, but Monica, even if she longed for it, was bound 
 to do all she could to counter any such act. Her position 
 was certainly a cruel one, and she thought over what Nurse 
 Binns had said of Cathy's mental state. But there was noth- 
 ing to go upon there. Monica sighed as she stirred her tea. 
 
 You could always have described Cathy as eccentric, but 
 that was part of her charm. Plenty of people were eccen- 
 tric, but there was nothing tangible to go upon. Again 
 Monica sighed. She was permitting herself to think 
 thoughts which she well knew to be futile and dangerous. 
 
 She was interrupted in her musings by the arrival of 
 Hammersly. He came in upon her from the garden, and 
 stood smiling at her through the long window, dressed in 
 his town clothes, and wearing a flower in his buttonhole. 
 Hammersly was always slightly scented, and a delicate 
 aroma of verbena was wafted towards Doctor Henstock. 
 
 "Am I intruding?" he asked in his liquid, pleasant voice. 
 "I saw Lorrimer in London, and, being rather worried about 
 him, I felt I must come to you." 
 
 The implied compliment made Monica flush slightly, and 
 she asked Hammersly to come in and have some tea. 
 
 He settled himself in an easy chair, and Monica began to 
 feel that there was something wonderfully persuasive about 
 the man. He had come upon her at a moment when she 
 was rinding herself too weak to battle with the complexities 
 of life. 
 
 "And how is the interesting invalid?" he asked, "Jack 
 Lorrimer's disaster." 
 
 "Oh, I think she is getting on," Monica said composedly. 
 "Besides, you know that I don't allow you to call her 
 that." 
 
 "Yet I do call her that," he replied, and he laughed his 
 wonderfully worldly laugh which seemed to place heaven 
 and hell at a long distance from the green planet. "Let us 
 be honest with each other, Doctor Henstock. We both know 
 perfectly well that Lorrimer won't go an inch not one 
 inch," he measured it on his little finger, "if his wife can 
 stop him. I positively dread her return to health and 
 sanity, if she may ever be regarded as really sane."
 
 1 88 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "I am afraid there has been trouble," Monica said, after 
 a pause. 
 
 To relieve her mind by talking things over with Ham- 
 mersly was a temptation too strong to be resisted. 
 
 "So I gathered," he said, nodding. "I hear that friend 
 Barlow has been on the war-path. I am not a Puritan," 
 he smiled again, "but Barlow sticks in my throat. It is 
 hardly astonishing that Lorrimer kicks. I'd kick myself, 
 if I were in his place." 
 
 "Cathy means nothing by it," Monica said, but without 
 heart. 
 
 She was always defending Cathy, and she was growing 
 to wonder whether she was right or wrong. Women were 
 secretive towards one another in these matters, and, quite 
 possibly, Cathy might really go further in her friendships 
 with men than she admitted. 
 
 Hammersly waved his hand, and replaced his cup on 
 the table. 
 
 "I admit your greater knowledge of Mrs. Lorrimer, but I 
 do not admit any mistake, from the world's angle. Seen 
 from the common, vulgar standpoint, Mrs. Lorrimer's phil- 
 anderings have only one explanation, and that is the least 
 pleasant one for her husband. Servants talk, my dear Doc- 
 tor Henstock, and though no well-bred person listens to 
 what servants say, there are a quantity of ill-bred people 
 out and about, who are not so particular. It is all over 
 Kingslade at this moment that Barlow was trespassing in 
 the garden, and that Mrs. Lorrimer was out and met him 
 there. There are other details, embroideries no doubt, 
 added to this. The young and romantic under-gardener is 
 responsible for them." 
 
 Monica drew a deep breath. She was genuinely worried, 
 and she saw her fears arise like an armed force. 
 
 "What can be done ?" she asked desperately. 
 
 Hammersly shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "There was a row, wasn't there?" he asked. 
 
 "Unfortunately." 
 
 "Mrs. Lorrimer is hopelessly undependable," he said mus-
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 189 
 
 ingly. "If she has a grievance against Lorrimer she will 
 stick to it. What was your advice?" 
 
 "Peace, peace at any price," said Monica. 
 
 Hammersly looked at her steadily. He had a great deal 
 of power in his eyes, which were never shifty but always 
 direct, even when he was lying. 
 
 "Do you not know the ultimate result of 'Peace at any 
 price'?" he asked. "It spells bankruptcy. Any price is 
 prohibitive. You did not advise well, Doctor Henstock." 
 
 "There is the danger to Jack's reputation," she said, plac- 
 ing her own points before him as they came. "Among the 
 people he must count on working with, the fact of any kind 
 of scandal connected with Cathy would be simply damning." 
 
 "Agreed," said Hammersly briefly. 
 
 "Then, as one knows certainly as I know in my pro- 
 fessional capacity there are times when most married 
 people come to a point that runs close to disaster. If it is 
 fended off, it very often works out all right." 
 
 "With the average woman, yes, but Mrs. Lorrimer " 
 
 Hammersly made a quick, expressive gesture with his flex- 
 ible hands. "I think myself that no amount of patching 
 will make your peace a durable one. How far did you get, 
 in any case?" 
 
 "I got Jack to agree to making an apology, and I quieted 
 her by promising that there is to be an end of my treatment 
 in two days. I am simply giving up the case." 
 
 "Then there's not much done just yet?" 
 
 Monica bowed her head dejectedly. 
 
 "It is a bad predicament," he said, after a pause. "I 
 don't know how you may regard friendships, Doctor Hen- 
 stock, but I feel that my own adherence is towards Lorri- 
 mer. Beyond being a thoroughly good fellow, he is a man 
 who can go a long way, provided he has guidance. Since 
 Mrs. Lorrimer's influence has lessened, his chances have 
 grown appreciably." 
 
 "Well, they are married, and there is no way out." 
 
 Monica's words were heavy with finality. 
 
 "There generally is a way," Hammersly narrowed his
 
 i 9 o CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 eyes; "I don't exactly see it in this connection, yet it must 
 be there. Am I keeping you?" 
 
 "No," Monica said, and she spoke eagerly. She did not 
 want Hammersly to leave. He was comforting to her in 
 her miserable mood of depression. 
 
 "Keep her where she is, Doctor Henstock. Muzzle her, 
 do anything you can, only don't clear out just when it's all 
 so important." 
 
 "I have promised to let her do as she likes in two days, 
 and I can't go back on it," Monica said firmly. "I told you 
 already that I shall give up the case. My own holiday" 
 she laughed mirthlessly "if one can call it such a thing, is 
 over, and I have to go back to my work then, anyhow." 
 
 "Couldn't you get a few days longer?" 
 
 "If it were a case of life and death, but only in such a 
 case." 
 
 Hammersly got up and stood looking out into the garden. 
 
 "In every event of life there is always the gambling 
 chance," he said, jingling some loose money in his pockets. 
 "I've backed Lorrimer, and I don't intend to let him down." 
 
 Monica turned her head sharply. 
 
 "Do you accuse me of letting him down?" she asked. 
 
 "Not at all, only I want you to see the thing as a whole, 
 not in bits. If, for instance, there is any chance of your 
 being able to use any influence over Mrs. Lorrimer, I think 
 you should use it and use it ruthlessly." He turned and 
 faced her again. "I always imagine, though she is your 
 friend, that Lorrimer has also a claim upon you." 
 
 "I knew him ages ago," Monica said, and she dropped 
 her eyes. There was something a little too definite about 
 Hammersly's eyes and it did not please her. "We were old 
 friends, and it was at my house that he first met Cathy." 
 
 "Then his mortgage is a long-standing one." Hammersly 
 smiled at her bent head. "All I want you to bear in mind 
 now is, that you must not let any sense of bias make you 
 deliberately act for her when you might best befriend him." 
 
 "Bias? I don't follow you." 
 
 Monica's voice was lowered, and she did not look up. 
 
 "Any feeling that because he is a man and she is a woman,
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 191 
 
 you must assist the weaker of the two. Mrs. Lorrimer is 
 not really weak, and she has a world full of allies. She has 
 only to go out and smile at people, and she knocks them 
 over like ninepins. Lorrimer has none of her arts, and he 
 is an exceptionally lonely human creature." 
 
 "You seem to place so much responsibility on my shoul- 
 ders," Monica looked up at last. "It isn't fair to me. I 
 am in a most difficult situation as it is." 
 
 "I wish I could help you," he said, and his voice sounded 
 admirably sincere. "If ever I can, you know that you may 
 count upon me to the utmost. Words are easy, we both 
 know that, but I mean all I say." 
 
 He left her, taking her hand and holding it for a second, 
 and Monica leaned back in her chair, alone once more with 
 her thoughts. 
 
 Hammersly wanted time, but she could not give it. She 
 was pledged to Cathy, unless, of course, something entirely 
 unforeseen occurred. Cathy was to be free of her minis- 
 trations and was fully prepared to go back to Lady Carstairs 
 pending some kind of legal separation from Lorrimer. 
 Time ! How could one make time ? Cathy had raged glori- 
 ously before she had finished. That Lorrimer had coupled 
 her name with that of Barlow was in itself an unforgivable 
 affront; and, blameless as she was, to be accused by the 
 man she had fully trusted, was to be swept clear away from 
 the safe harbour where she had anchored. 
 
 Hammersly had been so persistent. He seemed to regard 
 Monica as a kind of all-powerful being who might intervene 
 to help. She sat with her hands palms upwards on her 
 knees, in an attitude of defeat towards the cumulative forces 
 ranged against her. 
 
 Alone in her own room, Cathy had passed through all the 
 circles which lead to the dry, arid places where no com- 
 fort can be found. She had not cried, but her eyes were 
 strained and lacked their usual light. The one feeling which 
 dominated every other sensation was that of amazement 
 mixed with dismay. Life had spoilt her quite consistently, 
 and she had never before come face to face with the cruelty 
 of the individual. Her freedom had been curtailed, it was
 
 1 92 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 true, but she knew that Monica had acted for her own 
 good. Muggins had been extraordinarily kind that very 
 morning, and had comforted her. She had been fair, also, 
 and when Cathy told her that she would bear no more of 
 the tedious treatment which Doctor Henstock felt to be 
 necessary, instead of taking offence, Monica was quite sym- 
 pathetic, and had explained to Cathy that, if ill came of it, 
 she must inevitably feel greatly to blame. Muggins had 
 been like the old Muggins of long ago, and had told Cathy 
 quietly that she was ready to accept defeat quite reasonably. 
 All she asked in return was that Cathy should finish the 
 present course of treatment, a matter of two days only. 
 Monica was to summon Doctor Carthew from London to see 
 her patient when she herself gave up the case. Doctor 
 Carthew was an extremely popular physician, who advised 
 people to do as they liked, and Muggins made a wry face, 
 and remarked that all Cathy need do was to look her best 
 and appear cheerful. 
 
 "Put on your glad rags, Cath, and hypnotise Carthew. 
 He will let you have your own way, and I am absolved, 
 though I still firmly believe " 
 
 Cathy had put her hand over Monica's mouth and stopped 
 further argument on the subject. 
 
 All this was splendid, so far as Cathy was concerned, and 
 had there been the wonderful old world to go into but the 
 old world had fallen to pieces and there were those hot, red 
 memories of anger to traverse, and the recollection of Lorri- 
 mer's words and the look in Lorrimer's eyes. He had di- 
 vested himself of all illusion, and Cathy sat crouched in the 
 corner of the sofa, thinking it all over. She would go back 
 to the old friends, the men and women she knew, who had 
 loved her so faithfully. Twyford, with his steady, depend- 
 able sincerity, a man who knew what people really were, and 
 who did not need to be told things. He would not so much 
 as ask a question of Cathy. Either he believed in people 
 and concluded that the reasons they had for their actions 
 were valid ones, or he didn't believe in them at any time. 
 Robert Amyas, with his weaknesses, obvious and clear 
 ^enough, but with his fastidious nature and his quick com-
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 193 
 
 prehension. She longed to be home again, and to escape 
 from the battered sense of having been outraged and at- 
 tacked, plastered with mud and affronted beyond bearing. 
 
 Monica had spoken of Lorrimer's career, and though she 
 had done so out of a good heart, Cathy grew rigid at the 
 word. It was this perpetual desire to climb which she hated 
 more than anything else, and the argument was useless in 
 her case. Lorrimer's career was more to him than his 
 honesty; he had spoken himself of the possibility of her 
 doing him political damage, and Cathy, who was never very 
 fair at any time, was less so than usual towards her hus- 
 band's aspirations. He was veering with every wind, and 
 trimming his sails carefully. That alone would have made 
 things difficult between them. Added to this, there was his 
 other action unbelievably gross in her eyes. 
 
 It was desperately important that she should look well 
 when Doctor Carthew came to see her, and as dusk began 
 to draw fine veils over the evening sky Cathy grew anxious 
 about herself. If Doctor Carthew gave her even a day 
 longer of incarceration she felt she might do almost any- 
 thing. Tear her sheets up and let herself out by the window. 
 Anything at all so that she could escape. The longing to 
 be away, out of Kingslade and anywhere else, strengthened 
 with the ticking of the clock. Janey Greenaway's flat would 
 be Paradise by comparison, and Janey would not be a foe. 
 She would give her tea to drink, and treat the whole matter 
 as being merely one of the ordinary events of life. The 
 "Danielli crowd" lived a cinema existence normally, and 
 nothing was strange or amazing to them. Still, it would 
 be better to go away without having to resort to such 
 methods. 
 
 Opening the door of communication between her sitting- 
 room and bedroom, she went in and sat down before her 
 dressing-table. Her nail scissors were removed, and her 
 food had been sent to her that day without any knife on 
 the tray. Nurse Binns had told her that it was to "save her 
 effort," and Cathy, under the stress of other emotions, had 
 forgotten to speak of it to Monica. 
 
 2v ta* dimness of the room her own reflection looked
 
 i 9 4 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 ghostly and wistful, and the whole full sense of trouble and 
 isolation swept across her, making her eyelids smart with 
 unshed tears. Where was poor Batkins, she thought. She 
 must find her directly she got back to London, and do some- 
 thing to help her. Batkins was being held responsible for 
 what had been no earthly fault of hers. 
 
 It became too dark to see very well, and she turned on 
 the light over the mirror and again caught sight of her own 
 face. She was showing the wear and tear of the emotional 
 day only too plainly, for Cathy had the type of face which 
 "pities itself," and already she was very pale, and there 
 were heavy lines around her eyes. 
 
 "I shall look a holy show if I don't sleep," she thought 
 desperately, and the palms of her hands grew moist. She 
 was afraid to think of any possibility of failure, and she 
 got up and walked to her bed. Nurse Binns had been into 
 her room a little while before, and Cathy saw a thermometer 
 and a small glass tube lying on the gorgeous silk quilt. Nurse 
 Binns had evidently forgotten some of the hateful parapher- 
 nalia of her calling, and Cathy took up the tube and looked 
 at it carefully. It was full of flat, white tablets, one upon 
 another, and there was a wad of cotton- wool and a small 
 cork in the top. On a slip of paper gummed on the side 
 she read the printed words, "To be taken when sleep is re- 
 quired," and nothing further. Opening the tube she let the 
 waferlike contents fall into the palm of her hand. These 
 simple little things would make her sleep, and if she could 
 sleep she need fear nothing. The question was, how many 
 she could safely take ? Cathy was reckless towards quanti- 
 ties, and her lack of mental exactitude made her indifferent 
 to risk. If she took only enough to make her wake at mid- 
 night she would be an even more wretched Cathy next day. 
 She poured herself out a glass of water. Nurse Binns would 
 be upon her at any minute, and she had not time for long 
 consideration. Would three do ? She swallowed them down 
 quickly. Then, if they didn't ? A noise in the corridor made 
 her start and sent her heart beating rapidly. Better take 
 five, and be on the right side. She gulped down a mouthful
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 195 
 
 of water. It was done now, anyhow, and she need not fear 
 the dragging eternity of the night hours. 
 
 Walking to the window, she dropped the small tube into 
 a bed of irises below, and, as she did so, Nurse Binns came 
 into the room, hastened her footsteps, and caught her by 
 both arms. 
 
 Cathy drew back, and, shaking free, regarded Nurse 
 Binns with a look of astonishment. 
 
 "What do you think you are doing?" she asked. "Are 
 you mad?" 
 
 "I thought for a moment that you might fall," Nurse 
 Binns replied, and they stood facing one another. 
 
 "Only two more days," Cathy said to herself, "and it 
 must not be more than that." 
 
 It quieted her, and she gave herself up to the inevitable 
 and deadly process of being washed and brushed and put 
 to bed before nine o'clock.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 LORRIMER was staying at his club, and on the whole he was 
 feeling considerably better. 
 
 It was true that he had been brooding angrily for weeks, 
 and nursing his wrath against Cathy, but the actual quar- 
 rel when thought had burst into speech was sharp and sud- 
 den. It was even possible to forget it, and Lorrimer had 
 dined a few friends very successfully the previous night. 
 He was on quite good terms with himself when he went 
 to bed, but the morning brought with it a recall to the dreary 
 facts which faced him. He was actively disturbed at the 
 prospect of any open break between them, and it made him 
 nervous and jumpy. Any normally-minded woman made 
 nothing of a row, and it was ridiculous of Cathy to get on 
 stilts and talk of clearing out. The awkward part of the 
 problem was that Monica seemed so certain Cathy actually 
 meant all she said. 
 
 As he ate his breakfast he came to the conclusion that he 
 could not afford a public scandal, and he humped his heavy 
 shoulders and decided to climb down. The previous night 
 Barlow and some malcontents had tried to make a noise in 
 the House, Barlow and the usual following of shrieking 
 women, but they had been ejected, and that had done Lorri- 
 mer quite a lot of good. He had not a forgiving disposi- 
 tion, and he owed Barlow one, a debt he fully intended to 
 pay. 
 
 Lorrimer had finished breakfast, and was reading fhe 
 paper when he heard one of the pages who lived a sprite- 
 like existence of highly sophisticated energy at his club, 
 calling his name, and he turned and signed to the carrot- 
 headed urchin, telling him at the same time not to make so 
 much noise. He was wanted on the telephone, and getting 
 up, he walked through the hall and into one of the boxes 
 
 196
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 197 
 
 in a vestibule at the back. He had no premonition of any 
 sort as he lifted the receiver and grunted the usual curt 
 "Hullo"; but his face altered* quickly, and his hand began 
 to shake. Monica was speaking, and she talked rapidly. 
 Cathy, the wild, reckless woman he had married, had at- 
 tempted to take her life, and very nearly succeeded. The 
 broken sentences came to him, and a cockney voice broke 
 in, asking him some perfectly inconsequent question. Nurse 
 Binns had found her at the window the evening before, and 
 had just stopped her throwing herself out. Had she ad- 
 ministered the usual opiate Cathy would now be dead. 
 
 Lorrimer listened like a man bemused. It was so ut- 
 terly unexpected, for, of all things, Cathy loved life, and 
 for her to choose quite suddenly to end it was wholly in- 
 comprehensible. 
 
 Monica assured him that there was now no danger. She 
 had saved the situation, and though still drugged and half 
 asleep, Cathy had been dragged back from the black abyss. 
 He was to lose no time in coming, as there must be an im- 
 mediate consultation, and absolute secrecy. 
 
 "We can't let it get into the Police Courts," she had said 
 before she rang off, and Lorrimer wondered what in the 
 world she could mean by that. 
 
 A taxi would run him down to Kingslade inside an hour, 
 but Lorrimer was still unable to grapple with the new turn 
 of events. To take deliberately an over-dose of a powerful 
 narcotic seemed like the act of a mad woman, and Lorrimer's 
 own determination to live as long as possible made him 
 shrink from the idea. He could not tell what he felt. Re- 
 lief that Cathy had failed in her wretched attempt, and a 
 dim conviction that it somehow put her away into an un- 
 known region where the sane could not penetrate. Slowly, 
 very slowly, the truth began to dawn upon the darkness 
 which had at first closed over him. Cathy was losing her 
 hold upon the ordered way of life, and he had been dam- 
 nably hard on her. Insanity is a vague term, and yet, if 
 she were not wholly sane, it explained things, and, in a 
 way, exonerated her. Then, again, what was a man to do ? 
 Ought he to tell Lady Carstairs and ask if there were any
 
 i 9 8 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 strain in the family to account for it? Not a very easy 
 question to put to Cathy's aunt. He thought of how people 
 would speak of it, and point him out. "That's Lorrimer, the 
 fellow who married a mad woman," and then, what in the 
 world did one do? God! it was awful. 
 
 The whole house was still in confusion when he arrived, 
 and Hammersly met him with unspoken sympathy. Lorri- 
 mer looked at him questioningly, he wanted to know what 
 he thought, but Hammersly kept his thoughts to himself. 
 
 "It was touch and go," he said; "and, by the way, Lorri- 
 mer, none of the servants know. They think it was a heart 
 attack. It's just as well to keep the thing quiet." 
 
 By mid-day Cathy was over the crisis, and Monica came 
 downstairs looking terribly worn and weary. She told 
 Lorrimer to go up and see Cathy, but warned him to be very 
 gentle with her. She had said, and stuck to it, that she 
 wanted to sleep. 
 
 "You must agree with her," Monica said in a tired voice. 
 "On no account excite her. She can't be left alone now, 
 even for a moment." 
 
 Lorrimer left the room, and Hammersly poured out a 
 glass of liqueur brandy and gave it to Doctor Henstock. 
 
 "It's time we had a talk," he remarked as she drank a 
 little and he saw the colour return to her face. 
 
 "Her story is that she knew she would not sleep, and 
 that she just took a good, stiff dose, so as to be on the safe 
 side." 
 
 "Ah, that is what she would be likely to say," Hammersly 
 replied. "It's a Police Court case, as I told you. Poor old 
 Lorrimer, I hadn't the heart to speak of it to him." 
 
 "It can be hushed up," Monica tapped her fingers on the 
 table; "there is no need for that. No one knows anything 
 except ourselves, and she is over it now." 
 
 "And aware that she has run things rather fine?" 
 
 "No. She took it quite calmly, and I don't know. . . . 
 After all, it may be just as she says." 
 
 "What does she talk of now ?" 
 
 "The same thing. She is longing to get away."
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 199 
 
 Hammersly whistled softly to himself, and reflected for a 
 moment. 
 
 "Will there be an amicable interview up there, this time ?" 
 he nodded his head towards the door. "Can Lorrimer gain 
 time?" 
 
 Monica pressed her hand to her face, and he felt that 
 she was near to tears. 
 
 "Come," he said, firmly. "We spoke quite honestly yes- 
 terday, let us have the courage to be honest again. If you 
 allow her freedom and she attempts to take her life again, 
 with success, how will you stand? Regard her as an ordi- 
 nary case. What would be your duty?" 
 
 "I believe," Monica rallied herself and spoke more in 
 her usual way, "that anyone who deliberately attempts 
 suicide is temporarily insane." 
 
 "And you do not credit the theory that this was a de- 
 liberate attempt?" 
 
 "I can't I can't," Monica said desperately. "You don't 
 know how fearfully difficult it is for me." 
 
 "Yet I think I do know." He sat down near her and 
 watched her closely. "Surely you have some sense of what 
 is due to Lorrimer. Personally, I regard this sudden frenzy 
 on the part of Mrs. Lorrimer as the one well-chosen act of 
 her life. She has done it in the nick of time." 
 
 "How can that be?" Monica folded her hands one over 
 the other. 
 
 "Because it gets her into safe keeping. In these days 
 there is no hardship connected with mental treatment. Of 
 course I haven't the smallest right to suggest, but if it was 
 the case of my own sister seeing I have no wife I would 
 act immediately." 
 
 He glanced up, as Lorrimer came back and stood in the 
 doorway. 
 
 "She admits nothing," he said, closing the door carefully. 
 "It's beyond me, Monica. I thought she would at least be 
 sorry, but she can't understand what she has done, or the 
 gravity of it." 
 
 "Did you make it up?"
 
 200 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 Monica raised her eyes, and Lorrimer looked at her des- 
 perately, i 
 
 "Nothing is altered," he said, and he sat down at the 
 table. "It's all hopeless. She wants to go back to Lady 
 Carstairs, after you and the London fellow have had your 
 consultation to-morrow, and she sticks to that. I asked her 
 if she knew what she was doing when she took the stuff, 
 and she said she only wanted a good night's sleep." He 
 sighed heavily. "Nurse Binns said that Cathy was certainly 
 going to throw herself out of the window, and she just 
 caught her in time." He glanced around him suddenly. 
 "Can't you tell me the truth ? Drop pretences, Monica, for 
 God's sake, and let me have it." 
 
 Monica hesitated, and Hammersly spoke, his rich, deep 
 voice sounding in the room. 
 
 "It would be best," he said. "I know that Doctor Hen- 
 stock, very naturally, feels the utmost disinclination to ad- 
 mit what is only too clear. Mrs. Lorrimer is a danger to 
 herself." 
 
 "She is mad, then?" 
 
 Lorrimer spoke to Monica. 
 
 "I ought to get another opinion," Monica said, bending 
 forward a little ; "Jack, it's all so close to me " 
 
 He put his hand on her shoulder, and they did not speak 
 for a second, and then Monica looked away. 
 
 "It need only be temporary," she said, "and though it is 
 the hardest thing I have ever had to do, it might be for the 
 best." 
 
 "Would she be cured in an one of those places ?" 
 
 "Certainly she would." 
 
 "If nothing is done she will fight to get out and go to 
 Lady Carstairs. I told you, didn't I ?" he passed his hand 
 over his forehead "that she was as keen as ever on that? 
 She talked also of a legal separation. If she was under 
 supervision she might get over all this " 
 
 Hammersly coughed a discreet cough, and spoke again. 
 
 "The main thing is to do the best for Mrs. Lorrimer, who 
 is in no state to choose for herself. As it has happened, no 
 one need know anything whatever. Luke, the doctor who
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 201 
 
 was called in at the time Mrs. Lorrimer acted so wildly 
 before, can be trusted to keep quiet." They both watched 
 him attentively as though receiving orders. "For certifica- 
 tion, you need the opinion of two doctors who have not met 
 in consultation, and an order signed by a J.P. That part 
 of it I can do, and, if you petition, the whole business can 
 be carried through without the smallest hitch." 
 
 "I have always thought it such a tremendous responsi- 
 bility," Monica said, murmuring the words to herself. 
 
 "When she is well, she comes back, and there is no one, 
 except ourselves, who knows a thing about it," Hammersly 
 said. "Surely that is preferable to allowing her freedom 
 when we know what she is capable of doing even when she 
 is closely guarded." He got up and looked at his watch. 
 "I must be off," he said, turning to Lorrimer, "and don't 
 regard me as an interfering idiot, mixing myself up in what 
 is none of my business; but I was here early, and I saw 
 Doctor Henstock at that time." 
 
 "Come back and dine here," Lorrimer said as he left; 
 "it will have given one a little time to think it over." 
 
 They were alone now, and Lorrimer put his arms on the 
 table and stared dully before him. 
 
 "Hammersly is right," he said at last. "It's the only 
 thing to do with her." 
 
 Monica came to him, and pressed her hands over his 
 burning forehead. 
 
 "Jack, it's the knowledge that I care so for you which 
 makes me hesitate. I don't want much out of life, now, and 
 what I want would be easy, if Cathy were away. But 
 Cathy away, with her own people, and making havoc of all 
 your great chances is a solution I can't accept. This other 
 plan seems too much like taking what one wants, because 
 one wants it, and I've always tried to play the game." Her 
 face quivered, but she controlled herself with an effort. 
 
 "Let us try to be clear," he said, and he took her hands 
 in his. "If we put ourselves out of it we can get at it better. 
 Are these places all right? She would be comfortable and 
 well looked after, and all that?" He got up with a violent 
 gesture and paced the floor. "I can't feel that she is now
 
 202 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 anything to me. Poor soul, poor wretched soul, and yet 
 she speaks and looks the same. Still; to try and kill her- 
 self " 
 
 "If she really did try," Monica said slowly. 
 
 "Well, Nurse Binns swears to it, and " he stood be- 
 fore her and searched her face with his eyes, "God! what 
 a relief it would be to have this nightmare over." 
 
 Monica walked to her chair and sat down, clasping the 
 carved arms with tense hands. 
 
 "Then let us have it so," she said. 
 
 After dinner the same evening, they sat again in the 
 smoking-room, and Lorrimer had left the period of doubt, 
 hesitation and sentiment behind him. Monica, too, had re- 
 turned to her quiet, determined attitude towards life. Some- 
 thing definite had been arrived at by all three, though Ham- 
 mersly could never have been said to have wavered from 
 his own original decision. He sat by the table, and Lorrimer 
 and Monica were in the shadow. 
 
 "I can get the necessary formalities arranged at once," 
 he said, looking at Lorrimer. "If Mrs. Lorrimer were in 
 a fit state to be trusted with the facts of her own case she 
 might be registered as a voluntary boarder." 
 
 "That is impossible," Monica disposed of the suggestion. 
 "The only way to avoid a very dangerous recurrence of 
 some mental attack is to guard her from the smallest sus- 
 picion of what has to be done. She must believe that she 
 is being taken to London, and my suggestion is that she 
 should be motored over to Welldon Grange." 
 
 "How far is it?" 
 
 Lorrimer's voice broke in, and he moved in his chair. 
 
 "About fifteen miles," Hammersly replied. "It is a fine 
 place, standing in huge grounds." 
 
 "I know Doctor Chapman," Monica spoke again, "and I 
 had a talk with him over the telephone this afternoon. He 
 is a most sympathetic and clever man. If he finds that 
 Cathy is really only suffering from hysteria he won't keep 
 her a day." 
 
 Silence fell again for a moment or two, and Hammersly
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 203 
 
 lifted his tumbler of whisky and soda, and drank thought- 
 fully. 
 
 "Luke will be here in the morning," he said, "at ten 
 o'clock. How do you propose to explain him, and account 
 for the fact that the other doctor has not come ?" 
 
 "That will be done," Monica said reservedly. 
 
 She had her own idea on the subject, and she did not 
 care to discuss it. 
 
 "He will certify, I suppose?" Lorrimer asked. 
 
 "Of course no one can say that he will, for certain." 
 Hammersly's words sounded doubtful, but neither Monica 
 nor Lorrimer took any special notice of them. "All that is 
 required is the evidence that he will want from Nurse Binns. 
 He and Doctor Henstock will each certify the patient inde- 
 pendently. My own part in the business does not make it 
 necessary for me to see Mrs. Lorrimer." 
 
 "By God!" Lorrimer said, with sudden violence, "it is 
 easy enough in all conscience. Is that the law?" 
 
 Hammersly nodded. "That is the law. It is loose, as 
 you see. For instance, if, for reasons of your own, you 
 wanted to lock up your wife, and not only your wife, but 
 anyone who was your dependent, you could do so. It is 
 because we all have such faith in the medical profession," 
 he bowed towards Monica, "that such a law can stand." 
 
 The subject seemed suddenly to grow intensely unpleas- 
 ant to his hearers, and Hammersly spoke of Welldon Grange 
 and the many cures which had been made there. 
 
 Two words were avoided by all three the word "asylum" 
 and the word "lunatic"; it was as though, by calling the 
 madhouse another name, they were lessening the doomed 
 sound, and making it all normal and even attractive. The 
 inmates were "patients," and the mysterious process called 
 "mental treatment" was spoken of between them, but they 
 never once spoke of Cathy as being insane. 
 
 Monica went into Cathy's room late that night, and 
 found that she was still awake. 
 
 "Mug, Mug, you darling, I am feeling quite well," Cathy 
 held out her white arms and clasped them round her friend's
 
 204 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 shoulders; "I am so repentant, really, and it was a silly 
 thing to do, but it's all right, and you were splendid." 
 
 "Try and sleep," Monica said, smoothing back her hair ; 
 "I have a surprise for you, to-morrow." 
 
 "Tell me now," Cathy said persuasively; "I hate to be 
 told bits and bats and, talking of Bats, I must get Batkins' 
 address ; she is on my mind." 
 
 "Very well, then," Monica sat up and disentangled her- 
 self from Cathy's clasp; "I am having in old Luke, you re- 
 member the man who came that other time." 
 
 Cathy shuddered, and stared at Monica in astonishment. 
 
 "But why Luke? Mug, I don't like him. He smelt of 
 gin or rum or something nasty." 
 
 "I am thinking of letting you go to-morrow," Monica 
 said, "and Luke will do as well as anyone else, in the cir- 
 cumstances." 
 
 "You know best," Cathy agreed. "And I really go back 
 to-morrow ? Can I ring up Aunt Amy after breakfast ?" 
 
 Monica said nothing for a moment or two, and then she 
 spoke. 
 
 "I think you had better leave everything to me," she said 
 at last; "my plan is that you should be motored out for a 
 good blow of fresh air first, and have lunch out." 
 
 Cathy caught her hands and held them. 
 
 "You aren't fooling me?" she said. "You aren't engi- 
 neering some kind of unexpected honeymoon for me and 
 Jack? It's no good, Mug. I saw him to-day, and I felt 
 that I simply couldn't do otherwise than I have already de- 
 cided. Promise me that you aren't up to anything." 
 
 Monica got up from the bed suddenly and walked to the 
 window. The stars outside looked very distant and cold, 
 even though the night was warm. Below, in the garden, 
 she saw the red glow of Lorrimer's cigar, and heard the 
 crunch of the gravel under his pacing feet. His words came 
 back to her, "God! what a relief it would be," and she 
 thought of Cathy, who was lying against her pillows, Cathy 
 who intended to wreck all Lorrimer's great future. 
 
 "I am not thinking of anything of the kind," she said.
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 205 
 
 "I wish, indeed, that it were possible, Cath. If it were, I 
 would work heaven and earth to bring it about." 
 
 "I must get right away," Cathy said; "I am hungry for 
 liberty and my own people. I suppose that somewhere, deep 
 down and often forgotten, one loves one's own best. Jack 
 and I are strangers, but it took time to realise it." 
 
 "Don't begin to think of it now," Monica said in a voice 
 of warning. "Oh, Cathy, you never realise how hard you 
 are upon others." 
 
 Cathy looked at Monica's back, for she did not turn. 
 
 "Am I?" she said in a wondering voice. "I suppose I 
 am. But it was an accident with those tabloids, Mug. That 
 was really all." 
 
 For a moment Doctor Henstock seemed as though she 
 was going to speak passionately, but she held herself in, and 
 she did not again approach the bed where Cathy lay. 
 
 "Whatever happens in the future," she said, "remember 
 that I have acted for the best, and it has not been easy." 
 
 She walked to the door as she spoke, and though Cathy 
 called to her she did not turn, but went out, closing it be- 
 hind her. 
 
 Next morning Cathy was interviewed by Doctor Luke, 
 and Monica did not make her usual early visit to her rx)m. 
 Doctor Luke appeared to be more than usually nerve-ridden 
 and shaky, and he did very little more than ask Cathy for 
 her ethical views on the question of suicide. Cathy, in wild 
 spirits and with a touch of mischief in her heart, told him 
 that it depended upon whether your spiritual faith was 
 greater than your desire to go on with life, once it had 
 become unendurable. 
 
 "Like everything else," she said, leaning back against the 
 big cushions of her sofa, "it is a question of motive. I don't 
 believe, Doctor Luke, that anything really matters except 
 that. Do you remember the case of the 'very gallant gentle- 
 man' who went out into the endless wastes of snow so that 
 he might not be a burden upon his friends? It was surely 
 a noble death."
 
 206 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 Doctor Luke blew his nose and shuffled his feet on the 
 floor. 
 
 "Suicide is always a most serious crime," he said; "you 
 can't get away from that." 
 
 "I don't want to," Cathy objected. "I am only saying, 
 since you asked me, that I firmly believe there are times 
 when it can be as fine an act as martyrdom." 
 
 She could not think why the wretched little creature 
 harped so persistently on the subject, and she was relieved 
 when at length he rose and said "good-bye" to her. She 
 never wanted to see him again. 
 
 At last Monica came, and Cathy, with her eyes full of 
 gladness, called to her through the door. 
 
 "It is a glorious day," she said, "and even if it is wicked 
 and cruel of me, Mug, I am happy again, in bits. Where is 
 Jack?" 
 
 "Jack went away after breakfast," Monica said, no light 
 in her own eyes. "You can get up now, Cathy, and I've told 
 Nurse Binns to pack your clothes." 
 
 "She isn't coming on our joy-ride? Oh, no, Muggins, I 
 should hate it if she were." 
 
 "She is not coming," Monica replied. 
 
 "Doctor Luke is meditating suicide," Cathy said as sne 
 came from her room, dressed, a little later. "He talked of 
 nothing else. I should imagine that the best place for him is 
 a lunatic asylum." 
 
 Monica was bending over a box, and she said nothing. 
 
 "I was remembering some lines out of a book I used to 
 love," Cathy went out, "and they thrilled me when I woke. 
 I don't remember the connection, but they are gorgeous 
 lines : 
 
 "John York, John York, -where art thou gone, John York? 
 King of. my heart, King of my heart, I am out on the trail of thy 
 bugles." 
 
 She stood at the wide window with its stone balcony full 
 of flowers and held out her arms to the world. "I am like 
 the Prodigal, I was dead and am alive again, though I
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 207 
 
 wasn't lost, and so haven't to be found. But oh, it's a won- 
 derful thing to be happy, and until you have been a prisoner 
 you never know the wild joy of getting free again." She 
 turned back to the room. "Freedom is worth more than 
 anything else, and it's no wonder that men die to get it. 
 Where are we going first ? Did you ring up Aunt Amy, and 
 what did the old darling say?" 
 
 "I thought we would go to High Matcham," Monica said, 
 avoiding the second question. "There is a very fine old 
 place not far from the village," she watched Cathy to see 
 if the name conveyed anything to her, "a place called Well- 
 don Grange." 
 
 "I don't like granges," Cathy laughed, "they sound eerie 
 and suggest rats and vipers, but I'll go anywhere you like, 
 Mug, you've been so good to me so good to me, Mug, 
 dear." 
 
 "The car is ready, I expect," Monica said, looking at her 
 watch, and then the doors were opened and the confusion of 
 departure made its way over the threshold. 
 
 "One should always turn round three times before leaving 
 a house, so my old nurse told me," Cathy said as she stood 
 in the hall, and she whirled round rapidly. "I am in a 
 foolish mood. Don't look so cross, Nurse Binns, you've 
 got me off your hands at last." 
 
 She waved her good-bye to the servants, who were gath- 
 ered in curious, suspicious groups in the hall and on the 
 steps, and as she leant back in the car, Cathy's blue eyes 
 saluted the fair summer sky. 
 
 They swept round by the lake and out of sight of the 
 upper windows last of all, and on through the gates, and 
 Cathy squeezed Monica's arm. Mug was dreadfully down 
 on her luck and wanted cheering. Poor Mug had borne all 
 the burden and heat of the day, and had said a hundred 
 times that at some remote age, such as fifty, Cathy would 
 live to regret her defiance of medical discipline. But who 
 cares what will happen at fifty? Certainly Cathy did not 
 care a rap. She was happier than she had been for ages, 
 though her whole married life seemed now to have con-
 
 208 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 traded and become just those wretched weeks and weeks 
 of bondage in two rooms. 
 
 "John York, John York, where art thou gone, John York?" 
 she quoted again, with the wild, inconsequent reply: 
 
 "King of my heart. King of my heart, I am out on the trail of thy 
 bugles." 
 
 "How far is it to your nasty, ratty old Grange?" she 
 asked. "I almost wish I had said good-bye to Jack." 
 
 "Not a long run," Monica replied; "we shall get there 
 quite soon enough." 
 
 And then she relapsed into silence, but there was neither 
 rest nor peace in her reticence.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 ROBERT AMYAS had learned a great deal in the year which 
 followed upon Cathy Rossiter's marriage with Lorrimer. 
 Every one seemed to like Lorrimer when they came to know 
 him better, and Lady Catherine, who might be counted upon 
 as a "last ditcher," had become warm in her praises of 
 Cathy's husband. Robert found no one to agree with him, 
 and yet he had never felt himself able to accept the general 
 verdict upon a man whom he instinctively mistrusted. 
 
 Cathy was gone from among them, to a great degree, and 
 Robert realised that he found life hopelessly dull and fla- 
 vourless without her. She had been like spring-time, and a 
 year devoid of the season of springing hopes is a dull year. 
 One went on, of course, because, whatever happens, people 
 must go on somehow, and Robert discovered that he was 
 able to put up some kind of fight against his own specially 
 besetting sins. He was working quite hard, for him, and 
 had begun to write up forgotten pages of history. 
 
 Everyone else seemed to be happy, that was the dis- 
 couraging part of it. Cathy was happy, so was Lilian, 
 though he did not ever meet her, but he heard things that 
 put it beyond doubt. Twyford was living a roving life and 
 seldom or never in London. Amyas felt himself to be the 
 odd man out ; a disconsolate condition at the age of thirty- 
 two. He had moved from his old quarters and taken rooms 
 in Jermyn Street, and at times he called on Lady Carstairs, 
 regarding his visits there as a penitent might regard an iron 
 bracelet which made him wince, when he sat and smiled and 
 listened to her praises of Lorrimer, and her account of the 
 golden happiness which was Cathy's. To hear of her was 
 his main motive in these visits, and he had gone very fre- 
 quently at the time when Cathy was ill. The vague stories 
 which were in circulation with regard to Cathy and Barlow 
 
 209
 
 210 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 had not reached him, and it was only after a long time that 
 rumour made its way into his club, where he heard a fellow 
 member tell a friend that Mrs. Lorrimer had been "at her 
 old games again." It annoyed him acutely to hear her 
 spoken of in such terms, but he listened with smooth in- 
 difference. 
 
 "I had it from a bounder called Hammersly, who is very 
 thick with Lorrimer. He said that there had been a down- 
 right row over it. Barlow you know the man went down 
 to Kingslade and hung about there." 
 
 "And what happened ?" asked the man to whom he spoke. 
 "These days, it's usually shooting; so it takes a bit of nerve 
 to go hanging around other men's wives. No jury will hang 
 a husband now; it's against their principles." 
 
 "Not any shooting, as far as I know," the club gossip 
 continued, "but there's something up." He turned, and 
 recognised Amyas. "You know the Lorrimers, Robert; 
 what's this story about? Hammersly said very little, but I 
 suppose you know the facts?" 
 
 "No one ever knows any facts," Amyas said, with a 
 bored smile ; "they are the things which people invent. There 
 is no story, and no scandal. Hammersly, or whatever his 
 name is, was having you on, old boy." 
 
 "Having me on? Not he. He had just been peace-mak- 
 ing, so he said, and he also said peace was a damned hard 
 thing to make, when you consider how easy it is to go to 
 war." 
 
 The conversation stuck in Robert's mind and he could 
 not forget it. He cursed Barlow steadily and carefully, and 
 decided that he would go round to see Aunt Amy and find 
 out from her whether she had any suspicions on the sub- 
 ject. 
 
 Lady Carstairs knew nothing of any scandals. Amyas 
 discovered that much without difficulty; because if there 
 had been, Aunt Amy would immediately have begun to ex- 
 plain it away. She would have said, "Cathy is again inter- 
 esting herself in politics, and those Socialist people are 
 doing their best to get hold of her." She would have told 
 Robert Amyas that Lorrimer had "very properly" objected
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 211 
 
 to their manoeuvres, and she would have alluded to Bar- 
 low as "that unfortunate and misguided young man, whose 
 father was one of my oldest friends." Lady Carstairs fre- 
 quently reminded Amyas of a bee that repaired breaks and 
 cracks in the comb with busy diligence. She seemed quite 
 satisfied about everything, but was feeling her own banish- 
 ment from Cathy more than she chose to admit. 
 
 "When she is better I want to take her away," she said, 
 her kind, weary eyes looking pale and washed out. "I want 
 to go abroad for a little, Robert, and I felt that if only 
 Cathy would come with me it would be indeed a pleasant 
 change." 
 
 "Why can't Cathy see her friends?" he asked. "She 
 might be in Siberia." 
 
 "Monica Henstock is in charge of her. I don't really feel 
 any confidence in women doctors, but I suppose she is quite 
 reliable." 
 
 "I suppose so," Amyas agreed, "but it must be rather 
 hard on Cathy." 
 
 He left Lady Carstairs with a dull feeling of dissatisfac- 
 tion. If anything was "up" it would be kept from her, and 
 yet Cathy might want her friends. To allow Cathy to get 
 mixed up in some wayward and futile affair with George 
 Barlow was so like what Amyas expected Lorrimer to do. 
 Heavy, stupid, and without comprehension, the man was a 
 positive danger to his wife. 
 
 He wandered into the park and sat down under the 
 shadow of a tree. Had Lorrimer really caged that wild 
 bird ? Perhaps at that very moment she was beating against 
 the gilded wires, aching for her old wild freedom. He 
 watched the riders going by, and saw Twyf ord coming along 
 at a walk, mounted on a powerful bay. Twyford looked 
 bored and gloomy, and, though they had never been friends, 
 Amyas got up and leaned on the rails, hailing him with up- 
 lifted stick. 
 
 Twyford pulled up and did not appear astonished; he 
 never evinced surprise. 
 
 "I've been to see Lady Carstairs," Amyas said, the light 
 catching his hazel eyes. "I went there to find out whether
 
 212 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 she had any news of Cathy Rossiter," he had always re- 
 fused to use her new name. "Now I want to know whether 
 you have heard from her?" 
 
 Twyford shook his head. "No," he said, "I never hear." 
 
 "Can't you go and see her ?" Robert remarked carelessly. 
 "1 would, only, for some reason, Lorrimer objects to me, 
 and it is not possible. I ask, because there are stories about, 
 and she may want her friends." 
 
 "She is quite happy," Twyford said, his strong, dark face 
 with his square chin set and combative. "If you know any- 
 thing to the contrary, it is a surprise to me." 
 
 "You believe in letting things alone?" Amyas shrugged 
 his shoulders; "I expect you're right." 
 
 "I don't see that either you or I can do anything" ; Twy- 
 ford tightened the reins, and Amyas nodded as he cantered 
 off. 
 
 "No thoroughfare" in that direction either. Amyas 
 lighted a cigarette and sat down again. 
 
 Barlow was butting in, and Barlow had a dirty reputa- 
 tion. He was successful with women, no doubt about it, 
 and here were a crowd of people a crowd of two, anyhow, 
 himself and Twyford who were bound upon the wheel of 
 good form and unable to act. Meanwhile, what was going 
 on at Kingslade? 
 
 Amyas reviewed the situation with unwonted simplicity 
 and direction of thought. He had fallen slowly in love with 
 Cathy, and gradually the power she exercised over him had 
 become omnipotent. For her sake he had fought himself, 
 and had conquered the slow, crawling monopoly of the drug 
 habit. Formerly he had dallied with fastidious vices, and 
 Lilian's influence had never acted, except as a spur to make 
 him continue to do so with steady deliberation. Cathy, who 
 had nothing to say to him except in the way of friendship, 
 had exorcised devils, and he had painfully set his house in 
 order. He made no secret of the fact that he loved her, 
 and if she were really happy with Lorrimer it was left for 
 him to make that the basis for his own poor content. If 
 she were not happy, the situation assumed other features, 
 and he was prepared to do anything to be of use to her.
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 213 
 
 In a way, the situation was ridiculous. If he chose to 
 take a taxi, he could get down to Kingslade and Lorrimer 
 would hardly be able to order him out of the house. He 
 would not need to copy the example of Barlow, for in- 
 stance, and he wondered why so simple a solution had not 
 presented itself to him at once. 
 
 Having made up his mind, he walked out under the 
 arched gateway into Piccadilly and hailed a passing taxi. 
 The hour was still early, and, if Cathy was well enough to 
 see him, he could spend some time at Kingslade. 
 
 He looked around him with interest as he passed through 
 the village, and he admired the high gates and the wrapt 
 seclusion of the park. The lake reflected the clear sky, and 
 the garden was a blaze of colour and scent. As the taxi 
 turned up the sweep of the drive, he admitted that Lorrimer 
 had certainly achieved the right setting for his wife, and 
 the dignity of the old house threw its spell upon him. 
 
 The front door was closed, and Robert instructed the 
 taxi-driver to wait, as he rang the bell. So this was where 
 Cathy lived, and perhaps the room with the closed windows, 
 facing south and looking out over a garden of flowering 
 plants, was hers. 
 
 The man who opened the door in response to the second 
 ringing of the bell, looked startled, and his manner was on 
 the defensive. He told Amyas that he could not see Mrs. 
 Lorrimer, and Robert stood looking into the wide hall 
 behind him wondering what his next move should be. He 
 decided, at once, to ask no questions. The manservant 
 would certainly lie to him, even if he knew more than he 
 admitted, and Amyas asked politely whether Colonel Lorri- 
 mer was at home. He thought that the man looked slightly 
 more at his ease, and he was informed that Colonel Lorri- 
 mer had gone away that morning, and would not be back 
 for some days. 
 
 "I am singularly unfortunate," Amyas said, in his bored, 
 sophisticated voice. "I wonder if I could have some tea 
 before I go back?" 
 
 With the air of an irate Prime Minister who finds him-
 
 214 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 self in a corner, the manservant admitted Amyas, and 
 showed him into the large drawing-room. It was a dead 
 room, so Robert felt, and had not been really lived in for 
 some considerable time. You might search in vain for 
 traces of Cathy here. He sat down by the window and 
 waited, taking the very chair where Monica had sat the 
 previous day, and he looked out over the sunlit lawn, won- 
 dering at himself a little. Lorrimer was away, that was 
 one blessing, and perhaps the fates would be kind. He 
 opened the window and stood outside. Above him ran 
 the stone balcony which made a terrace outside the upper 
 windows, and he began to whistle softly. Underneath the 
 deep shade of the balcony there were a few chairs set at 
 intervals, and the morning's paper lay on the tesselated floor. 
 Amyas picked it up and walked into the sunlight. He looked 
 upwards at the house again, and he saw the windows of the 
 room above thrown open. A maid with a white cap ap- 
 peared, and tied the curtains upon the inner side into loops, 
 and shook a duster over the balustrade. Amyas hailed her, 
 on a sudden impulse. 
 
 "How is Mrs. Lorrimer to-day?" he asked, and the girl 
 stood and looked down at him. 
 
 "Better," she said, speaking down to him; "she left here 
 this morning." 
 
 Amyas nodded, and the sound of the tinkle of china in- 
 formed him that his grudging tea was being prepared within. 
 He walked back into the drawing-room and sat down again, 
 and a minute later the hostile manservant reappeared carry- 
 ing a heavy silver tray. Cathy was gone. Yet Lady Car- 
 stairs certainly knew nothing of any projected move, and 
 the man who had answered the door had not admitted that 
 his mistress had left the house. 
 
 Amyas poured himself out a cup of tea. A happy woman 
 never wants intruding friends. Friendship is the need of 
 those who are at odds with life, and probably the Barlow 
 episode had ended in reconciliation, stronger than ever, as 
 he thought of the careful method by which Lorrimer would 
 act. He was good at that kind of thing, and he played his 
 cards, not like a gambler, but like a sharper. He finished
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 215 
 
 his tea, eating nothing, out of some personal feeling toward 
 breaking the bread of a foe, and began to think of the home- 
 ward journey. There was certainly nothing to detain him, 
 any longer at Kingslade. 
 
 He looked out of the drawing-room window again, and 
 closed it, and, as he did so, he saw two men crossing the 
 grass in earnest conversation. One was a man with a heavy, 
 clever face and dark eyes, and the other a poor, seedy- 
 looking individual in shabby clothing ; Amyas watched them. 
 from behind the thin lace of the blind. Probably the 
 wealthy-looking bounder was a constituent, but who the 
 other might be he could not guess. The dark, heavy-fea- 
 tured man was thoroughly at home in the place, and pointed 
 to the seats along the verandah. 
 
 They came nearer, and up the steps, and Amyas drew 
 back a little. Their evident intention was to sit just outside 
 his window, and he had no desire to overhear their con- 
 versation. He heard the squeal of the chairs being pulled 
 over the flags, and a momentary silence between the two 
 was broken by the deep tones of the well-dressed, offensive- 
 looking man. 
 
 "It is too late, Luke. You can't go back now. In any 
 case, Mrs. Lorrimer is gone," he said, and Amyas stood 
 rigid. 
 
 He had no earthly right to listen to what was evidently a 
 private conversation, and, against that, his sense of dismay 
 that anyone who looked like the creature who was addressed 
 as "Luke," could be even remotely interested in Cathy, made 
 him eager to hear more. 
 
 "It's on my mind, Hammersly, it's on my mind." 
 
 "Well, spit it off your chest then," Hammersly replied 
 with a coarse laugh. "You weren't so damned particular 
 in other cases cases, mind you, which are a great deal more 
 serious in the eyes of the law." 
 
 "I came back to see that woman doctor," the other voice 
 went on. "I felt such pity for the poor lady. I don't want 
 to have any hand in it. If it is the case, another doctor 
 would do as well. There's Townley, in his big house " 
 
 "Townley has a wife with a tongue, and the whole object
 
 216 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 of getting you was to keep things quiet." Hammer sly spoke 
 impatiently. "If you talk, you know what you will get." 
 
 "I was rushed into it," Luke's tones quavered and broke. 
 "Is it true that I am too late ?" 
 
 "God's truth." Amyas heard Hammersly move, as 
 though to end the interview. "She is there by this, and 
 you can do nothing. You acted on conviction and evi- 
 dence," he spoke in a heavy, impressive voice "you were 
 paid for your job, and " 
 
 "I'd like to see Colonel Lorrimer." 
 
 "Well, you can't. He has gone to London, and Kings- 
 lade is to be closed " 
 
 Amyas turned quickly, he had heard footsteps outside the 
 door, and he walked to meet them. The broken conversa- 
 tion had filled him with a wild desire to act, and yet he was 
 as hopelessly mystified as a man well could be. He reached 
 the drawing-room door just as it was opened by the man- 
 servant, and passed out into the hall, picking up his soft 
 grey hat and stick. 
 
 "I think I will take a turn round the garden before I 
 leave," he remarked, as he proffered a tip to the gloomy- 
 looking servant. "You have splendid roses here ?" 
 
 "So I am informed, sir," the man admitted with reluc- 
 tance, and Amyas walked down the steps. 
 
 "I shall not be much longer now," he said to the driver 
 of the taxi, who was employing his time reading the paper. 
 
 Hammersly and his strange companion had come to the 
 house by the back, so they were likely to be still unaware 
 of any intruder, and Amyas followed a gravel path which 
 led him round to the south side of the house, overlooking 
 the gardens and the turn of the drive. As he walked along 
 the gravel, his footsteps sounding loud and giving due warn- 
 ing of his approach, he saw Hammersly and Luke move 
 beyond the line of shadow; they had moved away, then, 
 before the coming of the manservant had disturbed their 
 conference. Hammersly looked round, and rapidly con- 
 cluded whatever parting words he had to say; nodding to 
 Luke, he came at once towards Amyas with a genial smile. 
 
 "Can I be of any service to you?" he asked amiably.
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 217 
 
 "Colonel and Mrs. Lorrimer are both away, and, as I am 
 rather a persona grata here, I am sure I may offer you a 
 drink." 
 
 "You are very kind," Amyas said, "but I shall not trouble 
 you. I have had some tea. A wholly reluctant footman, 
 who suspected me of designs on the spoons, provided me 
 with all I wanted. I ought to have 'phoned to say I was 
 coming, but it didn't occur to me at the time." 
 
 "It's a nice run from Town," Hammersly said affably, 
 "and a charming place." 
 
 "Is Lorrimer away for long?" Amyas asked, looking 
 over the sweeping view with half-closed eyes. "I thought 
 they were here for the summer. Doctor Henstock said 
 something of the kind." 
 
 "Ah, you know Doctor Henstock? A clever, able 
 woman." 
 
 "I've known her for years," Robert said, smiling sleepily ; 
 "she has all the virtues. Is she also away ? But I suppose 
 she is?" 
 
 "They made some plan in a hurry," Hammersly said, of- 
 fering his cigar case to Amyas, who shook his head. "You 
 won't smoke? No? Seriously, Mrs. Lorrimer has given 
 them all a lot of uneasiness lately, and Doctor Henstock 
 felt that the only thing for her was a change." They began 
 to pace the rose-bordered path together. "What they finally 
 determined to do I can't tell you. I only know that, when 
 I was dining here last night, the idea then was to take a 
 motor trip less fatiguing than anything else." 
 
 "And Mrs. Lorrimer was no better?" 
 
 "No better," Hammersly echoed. "Poor lady." 
 
 "No doubt Lady Carstairs will hear from her," Amyas 
 said, swallowing his desire to be rude to the man at his 
 side. 
 
 "No doubt," Hammersly agreed cordially. "Are you 
 sure you won't come in and have a drink ? Or perhaps you 
 would come to my own house?" 
 
 "I have to get back, or I should be delighted." 
 
 Hammersly had walked him round the house, and they
 
 2i 8 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 now stood in the bay of the avenue, and Robert signed to 
 his taxi-driver. "I think I'll be getting along," he said, and 
 Hammersly, with the air of a host on his own doorstep, sped 
 the parting guest. 
 
 As he watched the taxi depart, he pondered for a moment. 
 
 "What in hell did that over-dressed ass want, poking 
 about down here?" he thought, and then he went into the 
 house. 
 
 Amyas had sufficient food for reflection as he drove 
 through the purple shadows. Kingslade looked like the very 
 heart of peace and quietude, and the park lay behind him 
 deep in the glory of the low evening light. Hammersly 
 behaved as though the place belonged to him. The idea 
 was preposterous. A drunken publican would be more in 
 the picture than this scented, affluent, glib city man, who 
 talked familiarly of "the poor, dear lady." Amyas moved 
 uncomfortably on the hard cushions of his hired convey- 
 ance. Bad as Hammersly was, Luke was even worse, but 
 Luke had come there to undo some act of which he had re- 
 pented himself. 
 
 "Any other doctor would have done as well." "It's on my 
 mind, Hammersly, it's on my mind." What was on his 
 mind? 
 
 Robert Amyas tried to comfort his vague fears. He 
 knew Monica Henstock, and that was sufficient guarantee 
 that Cathy was duly safeguarded and cared for. Monica's 
 integrity couldn't be questioned. Amyas did not care for 
 Monica, but he fully appreciated her steady value. Monica 
 had been at Kingslade all along, and now, if Cathy had 
 left the place, was she still with her? 
 
 The more he thought of it the more convinced Amyas 
 became that Cathy and Lorrimer had not made up the 
 quarrel; he was completely dissatisfied. Luke had spoken 
 as a man speaks when he is driven and desperate, and he 
 had not the look of a sensitive person who is temperament- 
 ally subject to fits of remorse; and the point of Hammer- 
 sly 's gibe had been plain enough. How was it that Lorri-
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 219 
 
 mer had allowed such a creature to be called into his house, 
 and why had Monica Henstock agreed to consult with him ? 
 He was a drink-sodden remnant from the world's refuse 
 heap, and what had he to do with Cathy Rossiter?
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 ROBERT sat for a time smoking when he got back to his 
 own rooms, his eyes on the tall candles set in a heavy silver 
 candlestick, and after a time he decided what he would do. 
 Getting up, he walked to the telephone on his writing-table 
 and, ringing up the exchange, he waited, a faint smile on 
 his face. He had not spoken to Lilian since she left him, 
 and it seemed odd to turn to her just then. 
 
 Presently he began to speak. "Hullo, are you 2659 May- 
 fair?" and Lilian's voice replied from the distance. "Hullo 
 It's you, Lilian, is it?" He could hear the faint gasp of 
 surprise "Robert speaking. Have you seen anything of 
 your friend, Doctor Henstock, lately?" Still obviously 
 astonished, Lilian's clear voice informed him that Monica 
 was at Kingslade with Cathy Rossiter. "Could you see 
 her?" Amyas said, "I want to know something which she 
 can tell me." 
 
 "Is it urgent? Shall I ring her up now? I have the 
 number." 
 
 "She isn't there. It's rather difficult to explain like this, 
 but I am anxious to see her, or for you to see her." 
 
 Lilian made no reply for a minute, and then she seemed 
 to have made up her mind. 
 
 "Are you worried, Robert? You sound unlike yourself." 
 
 "I want to know something," he reiterated. 
 
 "How would it be if you if I came and saw you? I'm 
 pretty sure you wouldn't have rung me up for nothing." 
 
 "I am glad you suggested it," he said; "I believe if we 
 talk it over together it will be best." 
 
 Amyas hung up the receiver, and walked away from his 
 writing-table. It was strange to think of meeting Lilian 
 again, and yet it was highly characteristic of her to suggest 
 it. Lilian was a good sportsman; and had a definite and 
 defiant good will towards men. Once the hopeless situa- 
 
 220
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 221 
 
 tion between them had been cleared up, it was possible 
 certainly it was possible for them to be friends. Robert 
 had come to the conclusion that the happiest of mortals 
 has not many friends, even though men live by friendship. 
 Lilian was soundly poised on her own convictions. Had 
 she been selfish? Well, if she had, he had also shown the 
 same fault; and Lilian had at least found happiness. Life 
 had intensified for both of them, and now he turned to 
 her with the tribute of trust. 
 
 He waited for her with a quickened beating of his heart, 
 and when she came into the room they shook hands quite 
 naturally. It was creditable, somehow, and they both knew 
 it, and rose to the slightly dramatic sense of the meeting. 
 
 "You will sit down," Amyas said, "and will you smoke, 
 Lilian ? It helps people to talk things through." 
 
 "We aren't going to talk of ourselves ?" she asked. "But 
 I would like to think that you are. not unhappy, Robert." 
 
 "I am not a subject for tears," he said in his light way. 
 He sat down and drummed his long fingers on the table. "I 
 am becoming melodramatic," he said, as she watched him 
 with her clear, keen eyes, deep-set and clever. 
 
 She was beautifully dressed, and the cloak of Venetian 
 embroidery and fur which had wrapped her, lay in heavy 
 folds round her as she sat in a low chair. 
 
 "Melodramatic? You?" she asked with a laugh. "It 
 sounds rather unexpected." 
 
 "Tell me," he said, with a sudden change of feeling, "have 
 you been true to your friends? Where are your friends, 
 and what are they doing?" 
 
 "I haven't seen much of Cathy since her marriage." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "I hardly know why. I suppose we both had other in- 
 terests." 
 
 Lilian was evidently facing his question truthfully in the 
 secret places of her own thought. 
 
 "And Monica Henstock? What of her? She used to 
 be with you very often." 
 
 "I don't like Monica as much as I did," Lilian made the 
 admission quite frankly. "She disappoints me."
 
 222 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 Amyas broke away from generalities. "Could you get in 
 touch with her again? I must tell you what happened to- 
 day, and why I ask you all this." 
 
 He began his story again, and Lilian listened attentively. 
 When he had finished, she waited some time before she 
 spoke. 
 
 "It is absolutely inexplicable as it stands," she said, clasp- 
 ing her hands and looking at Amyas steadily. "Cathy is 
 'there,' wherever that may be, now, and I take it Monica 
 is with her. If she is, it gives one a sense of safety; that 
 and the fact that Lorrimer, even though it was a most un- 
 likely kind of marriage, adores her. I have never once 
 doubted that he did." 
 
 "And I have never believed in him," Amyas said slowly. 
 
 "What we must do is to find out where Cathy is, and I 
 will go to her," Lilian said eagerly. "She can't be far away. 
 Suppose, for instance, that her nerves were upset or that 
 she wanted different treatment, she may be in London." 
 She looked up at the clock. "It isn't ten yet, and possibly 
 Monica may have left her somewhere, if my idea is right, 
 and be back at her own house again." She got up and 
 walked to the writing-table. "I'll ring her up now, Robert, 
 and put an end to this queer feeling of mystery." 
 
 Amyas began to walk slowly round the room, his hands 
 in his pockets, and he conquered his impatience as Lilian 
 rang up Doctor Henstock's number. 
 
 "It seems as though the house were empty," she said, 
 over her shoulder, "I get no answer." 
 
 "Try again," he said, with subdued impatience, and after 
 a moment he heard Lilian speak quickly. 
 
 "Is that you, Muggins ? I've been ringing for ages. Oh, 
 you are only just back. Well, I want to see you soon." 
 
 She listened for a little, and, covering the speaking-tube 
 with her hand, she signed to Robert to come to her, and 
 talked in a low voice. 
 
 "Monica says that she can make no engagements. Her 
 voice sounds dreadfully tired." 
 
 "Don't tell her too much." 
 
 "Trust me," Lilian nodded at him. "Lunch to-morrow?
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 223 
 
 Out of the question. But why? When did you leave 
 Cathy?" Again a pause cut short the monologue. "Then 
 you saw her to-day ? Dear old Cath ; I'm going to see her 
 if I have to bring a ladder. Oh, you've given up the case ? 
 Tell me more about it. Is she at Kingslade ? I asked you 
 if she is still at Kingslade?" Again she covered the tube 
 with her hands and whispered to Robert. "Monica says that 
 Cathy has been sent to a quiet little place where she is to 
 be kept in a rest cure for a bit. She is all right, really, but 
 it was decided that she should have a change." 
 
 "Ask for the address," Robert said, speaking in low 
 tones. 
 
 "Can't I have Cathy's address?" Lilian spoke again. 
 "But why not? Surely I may be trusted." She frowned 
 and her voice grew impatient. "Colonel Lorrimer wants no 
 one to interfere ? My dear Mug, is it likely that I should ? 
 I only want to know where she is. Can't you tell me any- 
 thing? No one is to know? Nonsense, you don't suppose 
 that Lady Carstairs will be satisfied with that, or any of 
 
 us? Muggins, Muggins " She turned again "Robert, 
 
 she has rung off." 
 
 They stared at each other blankly, and Robert took Lilian 
 by her arm. 
 
 "We must get the address," he said, and he looked at her 
 searchingly. "We have a right to know where Cathy is." 
 
 "We have no right," Lilian said distractedly, "but we 
 shall find out. I'll see Muggins and force her to speak." 
 
 But even as she spoke, a helpless feeling overtook her. 
 Monica was not the kind of woman who could be argued 
 with, once her own mind was made up. 
 
 "What have they done with her?" Amyas asked again. 
 "Let us try and get the thing clear." He told her the frag- 
 mentary story of Barlow which he had heard at the club, 
 and he returned again to his own instinctive mistrust of 
 Lorrimer. "The one thing to hold on by was that Monica 
 had Cathy in her charge, and now that is ended it makes 
 it damnable." 
 
 "I think we are' exaggerating," Lilian said, with a return 
 to the common-sense view of the situation. "Cathy is a
 
 224 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 handful, and not the type of woman it is easy to coerce. If 
 she was meeting Barlow against Jack Lorrimer's wishes, he 
 would never be able to stop it. She will give them all the 
 slip. She is wonderfully resourceful and no rest cure can 
 contain her long. I suppose we shall have to wait until we 
 hear from her." 
 
 "I'll tell you what you can do," Amyas said, as Lilian put 
 on her wrap. "You can go to Aunt Amy to-morrow, and 
 tell her that she must see Lorrimer. You need say nothing 
 to alarm her, and only tell her that you rang up Monica, and 
 heard from her that she wasn't looking after Cathy any 
 more. Ask Aunt Amy for Cathy's address, and if she 
 hasn't got it make her feel that Lorrimer must tell her." 
 
 "I'll do that early to-morrow," Lilian agreed, "and I'll 
 let you know." She looked at him for a moment. "I hope 
 there's nothing to worry about, Robert, and perhaps there 
 is not." 
 
 "Perhaps not," he agreed, but there was very little heart 
 in his voice. 
 
 The next morning, Lilian went early to see Lady Car- 
 stairs, and found her writing letters in the big drawing- 
 room. She had by this time nearly forgotten that Lilian 
 was an offender, and she greeted her with all her old cor- 
 diality. 
 
 "My dear Lilian, it is ages since I saw you. I seem very 
 remote now, and the house is quiet since all the young 
 people left." 
 
 Lilian gradually brought the conversation round to the 
 subject of Cathy. 
 
 "I had heard nothing of Monica for so long that I rang 
 her up last night," she said. 
 
 "But, dear child, Monica is at Kingslade. She is a most 
 efficient doctor, I am told. I hope it is the case; Cathy's 
 illness has lasted very much longer than we expected. I 
 have never been able to believe in women doctors, but when 
 I suggested to Jack that he should call in Sir Roderick Ray- 
 mond, he said that Monica would object. I saw his point, 
 but I was not altogether satisfied." 
 
 "Monica has come back to London, and has given up the
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 225 
 
 case," Lilian said cheerfully. "Now is your chance, Aunt 
 Amy." 
 
 "You surprise me." Lady Carstairs looked slightly 
 alarmed. "That is a sudden move, and I was not consulted." 
 
 "I only know what Monica told me. She said that 'they' 
 whoever 'they' are had felt that Cathy wanted different 
 treatment, and so she is now having a rest cure." 
 
 There was a slight pause, and Lady Carstairs was evi- 
 dently affronted. 
 
 "It is very odd that Jack told me nothing of it," she said. 
 "I should have been told. Perhaps he is coming to see me 
 himself." 
 
 "Of course he is," Lilian agreed. "Why not ask him? 
 He must be dreadfully worried about her, and that has put 
 everything else out of his mind. It was a very happy 
 marriage." 
 
 "Wonderfully so," said Lady Carstairs. "I was against 
 it, as you know. I believe in marriages which include more 
 points of unity, but I was wrong, and Jack is admirable." 
 
 She fiddled nervously with her papers, and looked at 
 Lilian. 
 
 "Of course, between ourselves, Lilian, I knew that Cathy 
 needed not only a man of strong character, but one who 
 would understand her impulses. The loss of the dear little 
 baby was a dreadful blow, but that is over now, and I felt 
 that all would be well." 
 
 "It would be kind to send for Jack," Lilian suggested, 
 "and we all of us want to know where Cathy is." 
 
 "Yes," Aunt Amy said, "I can't bear to think we are in 
 ignorance. Perhaps if I wrote a line to Kingslade he might 
 come up to-day. Poor, dear Jack, how wretched for him." 
 
 "Monica said he was in London," Lilian replied hastily; 
 "at least I seem to remember that I heard her say so. 
 Wouldn't it be better to write to the House or ring him up 
 there?" 
 
 "I will write," Lady Carstairs said, with a return to 
 placidity. "No doubt they had first-rate advice. I must 
 find out from Jack what was said. A rest cure is often a 
 very excellent thing, and Mary Gregson frequently speaks
 
 226 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 of her own weeks in Sir Roderick's Nursing Home as a 
 kind of heaven on earth." 
 
 "Mary Gregson's whole life is a rest cure. She isn't like 
 Cathy." 
 
 "Yet I am sure it must be a relief to have nothing to do." 
 Lady Carstairs smiled. "I shall see Jack about it." 
 
 Lilian got up, and stood undecided for a moment or two. 
 "Will you let me know what you hear?" she asked. "I 
 have been feeling lately that we have all seen so little of 
 Cathy. I dare say that Jack Lorrimer is a paragon, but 
 he has robbed Cathy's friends of her to an outrageous ex- 
 tent." 
 
 Lady Carstairs did not agree, but she did not say much. 
 A married woman was, in her eyes, the chattel of her hus- 
 band. Women who were here, there and everywhere, were 
 not to be admired, and she had an axiom that "East or West, 
 Home was best." Lilian was a modern, and had behaved 
 with the terrible disregard of the modern wife. She had 
 not regarded a husband as a permanent and established fact, 
 and perhaps Robert was to blame in some degree. You 
 might explain the case by taking Amyas into consideration ; 
 but Lorrimer, solid, steady and changeless, was not the 
 man to permit his wife any ridiculous liberty of action. If 
 Lorrimer thought that Cathy needed a rest cure, he was 
 sure to have good reason for being convinced of its neces- 
 sity. He should have told Lady Carstairs, but above and 
 before all, he was Cathy's husband, and he was strictly 
 within his rights. 
 
 Lady Carstairs picked up her pen, and wrote in her well- 
 formed hand, inviting him to see her. She used tact, and 
 said that "a mutual friend" had heard from Monica that 
 she was no longer "taking care of dear Cathy." Lady Car- 
 stairs expressed herself as anxious to know who now was 
 in charge of her niece, and she signed herself "Yours affec- 
 tionately." 
 
 When Lorrimer received the letter, he was sitting on the 
 terrace of the House of Commons, taking a solitary tea. 
 He felt hostile towards the world, and Aunt Amy's letter in 
 no way lessened his hostility. They were interfering al-
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 227 
 
 ready, these people, and wanting to know what was no con- 
 cern of theirs.- Hammersly had come up from Kingslade 
 that morning, and warned Lorrimer that he must think out 
 some story which would satisfy the curiosity of relatives 
 and gossips; busy people where other folks' affairs were 
 concerned. Now, Lady Carstairs had it from "a mutual 
 friend" that Monica was back, and that she had given up 
 the case. It was absolutely maddening. He tore the letter 
 up and flung it over the parapet, but it did not absolve him 
 from action. He would have to go and see the old tyrant. 
 She was sugary enough now, since he had made his way in 
 the world, but there were memories which sprang to life 
 as he thought of her and prodded him into a recurrence of 
 his old antagonism towards her. In all the world there was 
 only one person he really trusted, and that was Monica 
 Henstock. He had not dared to go to see her, because of 
 the things which she might have to say. What of that 
 "joy-ride" with the unsuspecting Cathy? How had it ended? 
 Had Doctor Chapman, with his special instinct for dealing 
 with the insane, been able to make her accept the situation 
 quietly? All these things he would have to learn from 
 Monica before they could put the hideous subject away 
 and forget it finally and for ever. He hated facing un- 
 pleasant truths, and even though he needed Monica sorely, 
 he had put off making any plan to see her until the facts 
 were less vivid and, possibly, less poignant. He thought 
 again of Lady Carstairs ; she who was "affectionately his." 
 How would she feel if he went to her and blurted out the 
 truth: "Your niece is mad. She is locked up in an asylum, 
 because, if she were not there, she would outrage decency. 
 She lied to me about a man who is every woman's lover 
 and boasts of it ; she attacked a wretched creature who tried 
 to hold the door, and then attempted to take her own life." 
 No one was to know where Cathy was, and, for a time at 
 least, no one was to hear that she had lost her reason. Dirty 
 linen was to be washed somewhere well out of sight, and 
 until Doctor Chapman reported upon Cathy, the ugly story 
 must be kept secret. 
 
 He got up wearily. If he was to lie successfully he must
 
 228 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 do so unhesitatingly, and rout the faction who would be up 
 in arms on the first hint of the truth. He nodded to one 
 or two men whom he knew, and as he passed, one of his 
 own party glanced after him. 
 
 "If Lorrimer hadn't got money, I doubt if he'd be worth 
 powder and shot," he said to a friend. 
 
 "And Hammersly, as well as money," added the friend. 
 "Lorrimer does what he's told, but the brains aren't his. 
 He's a 'ghost/ though he doesn't look like one."
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 LORRIMER sat before Lady Carstairs and stirred a belated 
 and chilly cup of tea. He found his way full of pit-falls, 
 and he had plunged into rather than skated around them. 
 
 "May I not hear all particulars?" Lady Carstairs asked. 
 
 "Doctor Henstock called in a local man," Lorrimer ex- 
 plained, "a fella' called Luke. He had been attending Cathy 
 before; that other time " 
 
 He winced, and Lady Carstairs held out a soothing hand. 
 
 "Yes, yes," she said, "I remember." 
 
 "They had a consultation, and both agreed that, so long 
 as Cathy was at Kingslade, she was not sufficiently er 
 quiet." 
 
 "Not in her beautiful home?" Aunt Amy's eyebrows 
 went upwards. "I thought, the day I went to see her, that 
 nothing could well be more peaceful and delightful." 
 
 "I am sorry to say," Lorrimer sat up stiffly ; a confidence 
 of some kind must be made, and this was the moment for it, 
 "that Cathy had begun to give a great deal of trouble." He 
 paused, and plunged again. "You remember her friendship 
 with the Danielli crowd?" 
 
 Lady Carstairs nodded silently. She was not likely to 
 forget the episode of the diamond brooch. 
 
 "They were determined not to let her drift, I suppose. 
 Anyhow, Barlow found his way down to Kingslade and 
 saw her." 
 
 "Dear me, dear me," Aunt Amy's hands shook nervously. 
 "I am dreadfully grieved to hear this from you, Jack." 
 
 He bowed his head silently, and then spoke again. 
 
 "As it is not possible to keep an eternal watch over any- 
 one of Cathy's age, and Doctor Henstock felt she could not 
 continue the strain of it all, it was settled that Cathy should 
 have a rest cure." 
 
 229
 
 230 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "Very right," Lady Carstairs agreed; "I am sure you 
 were well advised. But you must let me know what doctor 
 is now in charge of her and where she is. You really must." 
 
 Lorrimer moistened his dry lips and stared at the carpet. 
 
 "It seems to me," he said, "that in my position, when I 
 have all the responsibility to bear, I have also the right to 
 decide whether anyone should know whether even you, 
 Lady Carstairs, should know more than I have told you." 
 
 "What possible harm could it do?" She was growing 
 agitated and rather irritable. "I have asked you to let my 
 own doctor see Cathy, but you refused this. Do not think 
 that I shall press the question. I should not dream of try- 
 ing to see her." 
 
 "Quite so," Lorrimer agreed absently. What a nuisance 
 the woman was. 
 
 "Then you will give me her present address ?" 
 
 "I can't do that," there was stubborn finality in his tone. 
 "At present the only people who know it are myself, Doctor 
 Henstock, and two others. The er establishment where 
 Cathy is receiving treatment is above question a place where 
 she will be well looked after." 
 
 Lady Carstairs thought for a moment. She had suddenly 
 begun to dislike Lorrimer again. He had married Cathy, it 
 was true, and he had heretofore behaved admirably. Now, 
 all of a sudden, she was keenly aware of the claims of re- 
 lationship, and also aware of the fact that she regarded 
 Lorrimer as someone outside that circle. 
 
 "Cathy was in the position of a daughter to me," she 
 said, trying to speak persuasively; "it alters things, as you 
 will admit. I stood in the place of her mother. If I were 
 her mother you could not refuse to let me know where my 
 own child is, and I feel that it is due to me to know." 
 
 "I can't tell you," he replied stolidly. "In a few weeks' 
 time I may have to tell you, but at present it is wiser, for 
 Cathy's sake, that you should know nothing." 
 
 The slow, surging anger of age swept over Aunt Amy, 
 and she looked at Lorrimer, her eyes icy. 
 
 "I will make no secret of my feelings," she said coldly. 
 "You put me on one side at a time when I fully expected
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 231 
 
 your consideration and confidence. That you give me 
 neither does not lessen my own sense of responsibility." 
 
 "I'm sorry," he said, in the same hostile tone. 
 
 "I feel, further, that you are hiding a great deal." 
 
 "If I am, I can assure you that I do so for your own 
 sake and Cathy's, far more than mine." He, too, was angry, 
 and he had not Lady Carstairs' self-command. Very soon 
 they would be at open war, and yet he had come there to 
 smooth things over. "May I remind you, Lady Carstairs, 
 that Cathy is my wife, and that I cannot allow you or any- 
 one else to advise me as to what is best for her." 
 
 "Yes, yes," Aunt Amy drew her silk shawl around her 
 shoulders. "I am aware of all that. I am not suggesting 
 interference, but this mystery, this baffling attitude of re- 
 fusal " 
 
 "Take it from me, that it is better so." 
 
 She meditated carefully over what he had said, and then 
 she spoke again. 
 
 "I should be very reluctant to adopt any course of action 
 which would make you feel that I do not entirely trust 
 you," she said. "It takes two to make a quarrel, Jack, but, 
 at the same time, I cannot permit you to leave me in the 
 dark. If you decline to tell me where my niece now is, I 
 shall be forced to try and discover for myself. I could not 
 do this without due warning." 
 
 "And so you have warned me or is it a threat, Lady 
 Carstairs ?" 
 
 "Threat ? What can you mean ?" She was alarmed, and 
 looked at him nervously. 
 
 "I mean that, when outside people begin to speak of 
 finding out for themselves what is purely a personal matter 
 between me and my wife, I regard it as a threat." 
 
 The bully in him began to get the upper hand, and he 
 remembered how Lady Carstairs had spoken when he an- 
 nounced his engagement to Cathy. She had desired to 
 hinder the marriage, and now he wished to God that she 
 had succeeded, but as she had not, he intended to let her 
 realise that her place was an insignificant one, and that she 
 was to stay in it.
 
 232 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "You regarded the marriage as a mistake," he went on, 
 with an unfriendly smile. "Possibly, because you knew 
 Cathy better than I did then." 
 
 "If you understand her," Lady Carstairs broke in, with 
 a vague movement of her hands. "If only you understand 
 her." 
 
 "It is impossible to discuss it," he replied briefly. 
 
 "I begin to agree with you. I do not wish to discuss 
 what is only a vague generality. You ask me to accept 
 the decision of a doctor whom I have never heard of, and 
 who, so far as I can recall the facts, was originally brought 
 in because no one else could be found, and you wish me 
 to be content." Lady Carstairs rose superbly and held out 
 her hand. "I am not content, and I shall see Monica Hen- 
 stock." 
 
 Lorrimer barely touched her fingers with his. He was 
 going to break with Cathy's people, and, when they learned 
 that she was mad, perhaps they might feel ashamed of 
 themselves. At present, they did not know, but some time 
 they would have to. 
 
 "You can see Doctor Henstock," he said, fiddling with a 
 ring on his little finger. "She will tell you nothing more 
 than I have." 
 
 "Still, I shall see her." 
 
 "Do, if you like." 
 
 He shrugged his heavy shoulders, and Lady Carstairs 
 looked at him closely. "I am very far from satisfied," she 
 said, and Lorrimer checked himself in the act of replying 
 that he was in the same boat, and that it was considerably 
 worse for him than for her. He hated her at that moment, 
 and his suppressed feeling of indignity and anger showed 
 in every line of his body. They had snubbed him and made 
 him cringe in the old days, but those days were done. 
 
 Lady Carstairs watched him go, and knew that they had 
 parted in enmity. Something had altered Lorrimer, and he 
 was obviously suffering from outraged feelings. She sat 
 down and collected her thoughts. Cathy was as wild as a 
 wood bird, and she could easily find, in this Lorrimer who 
 had presented himself that day to Lady Carstairs' aston-
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 233 
 
 ished eyes, an impossible husband. She felt that there was 
 a great deal behind his allusion to Barlow, and with in- 
 creasing nervousness she wondered if Cathy could have been 
 indiscreet. That Cathy could ever act dishonourably was 
 impossible and unthinkable, but she might have done some- 
 thing that inspired a man like Lorrimer with suspicion. 
 Robert Amyas said that Lorrimer was like a policeman, 
 and would inevitably act as one. Had he, then, decided 
 that Cathy should be removed and locked up, merely be- 
 cause he suffered from jealous rage? During their inter- 
 view there had been times when he looked like a driven bull. 
 Lady Carstairs put her handkerchief to her eyes, and 
 dried two weak tears. It was all desperately sad, and she 
 feared the hidden side of the story. It would be better to 
 see Monica and find out what she had to say. 
 
 Monica was at home when Lady Carstairs arrived at her 
 house the following day, and she came into the room with 
 no abatement of her professional calm. She looked tired, 
 and rather older than when they had last met, but she was 
 deeply entrenched behind her defences. Lorrimer had 
 rung her up and warned her what to expect, and she was 
 prepared in advance. He was coming to see her that night, 
 and already she was counting the hours. She had borne the 
 brunt of the horror of the situation for his sake, and now 
 she was going to let him off any description of it. An in- 
 stinct deep within her warned her that she should take this 
 line. Lorrimer needed peace, and if she added to his dis- 
 tress, the power which she exercised over him might weaken 
 and vanish. For his sake she had done what she would 
 otherwise never have contemplated, and the price was 
 ghastly. There was no getting away from it, the payment 
 had been overwhelming. Yet, was it entirely for his sake? 
 Was there not a promise of years of untroubled unity for 
 them beyond this present time of torture and distress? 
 
 Lady Carstairs had come to find out where Cathy was, 
 and, true to her principle, Monica intended her to know 
 nothing. She was Cathy's friend in spite of all, she still 
 held to that and if Doctor Chapman, who had received a
 
 234 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 cheque for three months' treatment in advance, considered 
 Cathy cured at the end of that time, she would be able to 
 return to her friends without anyone knowing that the 
 stigma of lunacy had been attached to her. It would be 
 easy to tell the truth easy, even though there would be 
 a furious burst of indignation to greet it; and it had been 
 a mistake to call in Doctor Luke. Monica saw that error 
 clearly. They should have had someone well known to 
 Lady Carstairs. She stopped abruptly, for she did not care 
 to ask herself why Doctor Luke had been selected by Ham- 
 mersly. Cathy had attempted to take her life, and almost 
 any doctor would agree that it was the act of a woman 
 either temporarily or permanently insane. Cathy had tried 
 to kill herself. She had, she had, she had. There lay the 
 righteousness of the decision which they had come to. It 
 had nothing to say to Barlow, nothing to say to Cathy's de- 
 termination to leave Lorrimer and wreck his career. Doctor 
 Chapman made no bones about it. People who left their 
 husbands or wives were not accounted lunatics, and all the 
 rest was beside the point. Lorrimer's own longing for an 
 end to the strain, the relations between him and Monica 
 herself, all these would have availed them nothing; it was 
 Cathy's act that made it necessary to take the step. Doctor 
 Chapman had known nothing of the side issues, and he 
 was satisfied. 
 
 She went into the old drawing-room, and greeted Lady 
 Carstairs with friendly warmth, and spoke at once of 
 Cathy. 
 
 "Dear Lady Carstairs, -I can guess what brought you 
 here. In fact, I was going to see you myself to-day." 
 
 "Then you will hide nothing you will tell me? Monica, 
 I place all my trust in you." 
 
 They sat on an angular sofa, hand in hand, and Monica 
 talked with her tired energy. She gave Lady Carstairs a 
 long and technical account of Cathy's illness, impressing 
 upon her the need for care and quiet, and then she explained 
 that Cathy had objected to the nurse. Cathy had broken 
 bounds. This entailed a reference to Miss Batten, and 
 Lady Carstairs shook her head.
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 235 
 
 "Not trustworthy, I fear we had evidence of that al- 
 ready." 
 
 "In the end," Monica swerved off to the abstract, "I 
 felt that I could do no more. Acting on my firm convic- 
 tion, I advised a change of treatment, and this could only be 
 done by a specialist." 
 
 "Of course, of course. I quite see all that." 
 
 "You are not going to be angry with me because, for a 
 time, Cathy has to be hidden away from everyone." 
 
 "I cannot see the need for it," Lady Carstairs was in- 
 tensely grieved, but she seemed tractable, "but I suppose I 
 shall have to submit. She is happy? Monica, I need not 
 tell you how dear Cathy has always been to me, and I felt 
 yesterday that things were gravely wrong between her and 
 Jack. It may have been only my imagination I hope it 
 was." 
 
 Monica looked out through the window at the view of a 
 neighbouring wall, and seemed in no hurry to reply. 
 
 "There are times when Cathy can be bewildering," she 
 said at last. "She was a little well headstrong." 
 
 Aunt Amy sighed. She, too, had suffered from Cathy's 
 whims. 
 
 'Then you assure me that she is happy now. You saw 
 her in this nursing home and were completely satisfied?" 
 
 "I consider the doctor in charge one of the ablest men 
 in England," Monica replied. 
 
 She was one of those people who never tell lies, and, 
 though the lie in its full essence was implied to Lady Car- 
 stairs, Doctor Henstock's conscience was clear. She had 
 not said that Cathy was "happy." 
 
 And so the interview drew to its weary close and left 
 Monica with a sense of power. She had been able to re- 
 assure Lady Carstairs, and no one else was likely to do 
 more than talk. If Cathy's aunt, who might feel herself in 
 a position to take some action, could be kept quiet, it was 
 not likely that the others would continue a vague agitation. 
 She had scotched Aunt Amy's project of going to see Doctor 
 Luke, and it was a comfort to know that Hammersly was 
 arranging that he should be taken as a ship's doctor on a
 
 236 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 line of which he was a director. Lorrimer had given her 
 this information over the telephone. Luke was a wretched, 
 drink-sodden creature, and not a colleague you might well 
 produce to Lady Carstairs. Kingslade was to be closed for 
 a time, and the servants, who knew nothing, were to be 
 discharged. Jack thought of going back to his flat, and, 
 after a little, the outside world would forget to wonder. 
 She wished that she felt happy herself ; happy and lighter 
 of heart. Her own romance was about to come to fulfil- 
 ment, and yet it gave her no real joy. There were so many 
 things one wanted to forget utterly, and Monica had a strain 
 of rugged fidelity in her nature. It had held her faithful 
 to Lorrimer when he pushed her aside, and it was still there 
 in the case of Cathy. Cathy had supplanted her, had cast 
 her glamour over Jack Lorrimer and robbed her friend, but 
 none the less, Monica could not put her wholly away. 
 Monica was doomed to bear a spear in her heart. She 
 looked at the clock and counted the hours again until he 
 should come, and she might escape from the thrall of those 
 awful, reproachful memories; memories she might in no 
 way lessen by asking the man she loved to bear the burden 
 with her.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 CATHY had been very gay as she and Monica raced along 
 the glorious roads in the comfortable car. 
 
 "I felt as if I was never going to be amused again as 
 long as I lived," Cathy said. "I had lost every sense of the 
 seasons, and the Kingslade roses didn't really smell sweet." 
 Her eyes were full of light, and she poked Monica in the 
 ribs. "You're as solemn as an owl. I do wish you hadn't 
 such an active conscience." 
 
 "I begin to agree with you," Monica said reservedly, and 
 Cathy looked out over the wide landscape towards the ever 
 receding mystery of the horizon. She became silent, and 
 she thought of the future with a sudden sense of chill. 
 She thought of Lorrimer and tried to recall her old feeling 
 of confidence. She had taken her marriage on trust and it 
 had been happy if not ecstatic. So long as they walked to- 
 gether agreed, things were well for them, but it takes a 
 deeper unity to stand the strain of diverging ideals, or sun- 
 dering doubts. Cathy was fundamentally a proud woman, 
 and though she would not have admitted it even to herself, 
 she was aware of a small and nagging sensation of anger, 
 since Lorrimer had selected such a man as Barlow with 
 whom to couple her name. He believed her capable of per- 
 mitting George Barlow to add her to his list of conquests. 
 
 She could not see ahead of her into the darkness of the 
 future, and yet she desired to be generous. She was won- 
 dering how it would be best to reassure her aunt, and how 
 she could explain the break between herself and her husband. 
 Her health would be sufficient excuse for the outside world. 
 And then she swung away from it all. She was to be free 
 again, and return to the days when she had been an all too 
 happy Cathy Rossiter. Dear days, more precious than she 
 had guessed at the time. She would make Jack go back also. 
 
 237
 
 238 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 As a punishment, he must show her that his political opin- 
 ions were not tainted with a desire for personal success, 
 and he must get rid of Hammersly. She knew that Ham- 
 mersly was perpetually at Kingslade, and he was far too 
 clever for Jack. If he were evicted, and Lorrimer caught 
 back into the golden web which had been shot through with 
 the colours of dreams, they might forget about George Bar- 
 low and find comfort again. It would never be quite the 
 same, and there would be rents and tears to be mended, 
 but the fabric was strong enough to bear a new piece in 
 the old garment. Where shall one find the whole ideal? 
 Perfect lover, perfect husband, perfect friend? Not in 
 this world. Like the rest of mankind, Cathy would have 
 to make the best of it. The air had revived her and 
 brought a touch of colour into her cheeks, and the far sky 
 was blue, traced over with faint nebulous clouds, filmy and 
 fine. 
 
 But there was a doubt in her mind, and the doubt had 
 the features and look of Lorrimer himself as he had stood 
 there impeaching her, accusing her of hopeless vulgarity, 
 and telling her plainly that she was a wanton, at the beck 
 and call of a blackguard. If you hide a thing well you 
 only hide it. It remains there, behind the curtain. Some 
 day the hangings which cover it may be withdrawn again, 
 and once more the ugly past stares out at you, no less true 
 and menacing than it originally was. She pictured to her- 
 self the comfort of going back to Aunt Amy. Places we 
 have known and loved, as well as people, have a way of 
 tendering a welcome to returned wanderers, and Cathy 
 ached for the lost surroundings of her life. Life was now 
 devoid of love and contentment, and even more utterly de- 
 void of its first essential, liberty. 
 
 The car was taking them along a wide road, sheltered 
 by tall trees in deep leaf, and flickering splashes of sun- 
 light lit the green shade. On the right, there ran a high 
 wall encircling a demesne of some importance, and Cathy 
 shook free of her thoughts and spoke again. 
 
 "I hate these barricades, Mug. Seclusion is all very well, 
 but it seems so grudging to enclose oneself in walls of that
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 239 
 
 size, uid, look, they have spikes and glass along the top. 
 What curmudgeons the owners must be." 
 
 Monica's eyes had become tense, and she stiffened her 
 body, but she made no reply, and after a minute the car 
 approached the high entrance gates to the demesne, which 
 opened automatically at their coming as though they were 
 expected, revealing a wide, well-kept sweep of gravel drive. 
 
 "We are going in?" Cathy leaned forward. "It's like 
 enchantment. What a funny place, Muggins. Is this your 
 Grange? Have you brought me to some fairy place where 
 we shall be waited upon by bodiless hands, like the prince 
 in the old story?" 
 
 "It is the Grange," Monica said, in a voice which sounded 
 slightly breathless and unsteady. "It is a beautiful place." 
 
 Cathy reflected for a moment. "Somewhere about here 
 there is a lunatic asylum. I remember having heard of it. 
 Don't let us go near it, Mug; the very idea of it haunts one. 
 I can't remember what I heard," she thought again. "Yes, 
 I do. It was Cecile Sheridan who spoke of it. She came 
 there to sing to the poor, doomed creatures, and, as the 
 day was hot, she tried to open a window, and it only opened 
 four inches. It gave one an idea of the place, which I 
 never forgot." 
 
 "Don't think of it now," Monica said hurriedly; "don't, 
 Cathy." She gripped Cathy's hand with nervous fingers. 
 "You may blame me dreadfully later on," she said, speak- 
 ing as though impelled to utter the words ; "but always try 
 to remember that I acted for the best." 
 
 "We've said all that, Mug," Cathy tried to reassure her. 
 "I shan't think of it again. Is this the house? I suppose 
 we shall lunch in the grounds. Why, there are quite a lot 
 of people out there on the grass. They are watching a 
 cricket match." She broke off and would have taken the 
 speaking tube, "Jakes is taking us to the house ; I suppose 
 he doesn't understand." 
 
 "I have to stop here and see someone; a Doctor Chap- 
 man," Monica said, taking Cathy by the wrist.^ "I may not 
 be long, but you had better come in and wait." 
 
 "Well, don't be long. And who is Dr. Chapman?" Cathy
 
 240 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 looked at Monica, and suddenly she spoke with great fee 
 ing. "Mug, this is the asylum, and you have not told me 
 Why couldn't you come some other day? I hate the idea 
 of the place and I don't think I can come in and wait. 
 Leave me in the car, and do hurry. Let us get away from 
 here." 
 
 "That is sheer nerves," Monica said, but she avoided 
 Cathy's wide-eyed stare of horror. "What possible harm 
 could it do you to wait in the house? I told you I should 
 not be long." 
 
 "Promise me that we shall go away at once," Cathy said, 
 and a shiver caught her. "It makes we wretched. Perhaps 
 there are people here who are as % sane as you or I. Janey 
 Greenaway said that the Lunacy Laws were iniquitous, and 
 that they should be reformed. She told me that you could 
 be shut in without even knowing who it was who had you 
 sent there." 
 
 "There are heaps of safeguards," Monica said abruptly. 
 "There are the Commissioners in Lunacy who visit these 
 places and see the patients. No one is kept here without 
 reason, and Doctor Chapman is wonderfully clever and 
 very kind." 
 
 "What an awful thing it is to be a doctor," Cathy laughed 
 in spite of herself. "No one but a doctor would dream of 
 motoring through a place like this on a summer day. I do 
 think that you are blunted." 
 
 The car drew up before a flight of stone steps, and the 
 great house towered up before them. It was a fine, spacious 
 building, and the trailing creepers which clothed it swayed 
 scented blossoms to the warm air. There was no sign of 
 age or decay about it; prosperity was its master note, and 
 cheerfulness was insistent in the shining brass, the flower- 
 ing window boxes, and the polished gleam of rows and rows 
 of windows. It looked like an expensive hydro, and Cathy 
 saw a nurse in blue uniform flit past the open door. She 
 was interested in spite of herself, and a tinge of curiosity 
 coloured her repugnance when Doctor Chapman came down 
 the steps and welcomed his colleague. 
 
 Doctor Chapman was a man of about forty, with an
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 241 
 
 easy manner and strong, hard eyes. He was dressed in a 
 light suit, and he looked intensely and emphatically sane. 
 His rather florid good looks irritated Cathy slightly, yet she 
 responded when she was introduced, because she saw in 
 him a man with unusual knowledge of secret things, and 
 she wondered if she could ask him if Janey's stories were 
 founded on fact. The "Danielli crowd" were credulous in 
 some ways, and Cathy herself had a firm conviction that the 
 evidence of men or women who might have been insane was 
 hardly the basis for unqualified belief. 
 
 Doctor Chapman stood bare-headed in the sunshine, and 
 Monica introduced her friend. Cathy held out her hand 
 and smiled. 
 
 "I don't think I want to come in," she said ; "my imagina- 
 tion may play tricks with me if I do." 
 
 "You need not fear anything," Doctor Chapman replied. 
 "Perhaps you have been reading 'Valentine Vox' or 'Hard 
 Cash' ? We have left those days far behind us, Mrs. Lorri- 
 mer." 
 
 He helped her out of the car and Cathy looked around 
 her. 
 
 "It is all too dreadfully cheerful," she said, "and too 
 normal. Ordinary houses have raggy bits and aren't so 
 frightfully bland." She turned again to Monica and began 
 to walk up the steps. "If you and Doctor Chapman stay 
 too long, I shall get into the car and make Jakes take me 
 to the gate. Oh! that gate of yours," she spoke to the 
 doctor who had been watching her with an indulgent smile, 
 "it is uncanny." 
 
 "Nothing uncanny here," he said, as they stood in the 
 wide gloom of the hall, and, opening a door into a small 
 boudoir, he led Cathy through, with the same excessive 
 politeness. 
 
 "Sit and rest," he said, and Cathy turned again to Mon- 
 ica. 
 
 "Mug, I don't like staying here, I'll wait outside." She 
 could not tell why fear had sprung upon her, and she held 
 out her hands, but Monica said nothing, and Doctor Chap-
 
 242 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 man smiled again at her and waved Doctor Henstock out, 
 closing the door behind him. 
 
 Cathy sat down in a deep, comfortable chair, and looked 
 around her. The room was papered with a gay design of 
 birds in green branches. Not wild birds, but birds who had, 
 she thought, something fundamentally wrong with them. 
 Cathy decided that she did not like them in the least. The 
 window was a little open, and she did not attempt to try 
 whether the sash could be raised. Cecile had told her about 
 those very windows, and the idea was in itself a shudder. 
 Why had Mug been so stupid as to bring her there at all? 
 It was enough to spoil the whole pleasure of the day. If 
 she really believed in all this bunkum about "nerves," it 
 was the last place she should have selected. Cathy looked 
 around her again. A clock ticked on the mantelpiece, and 
 quiet was everywhere. The inmates were evidently out, 
 or they kept extremely quiet, and then, as though to con- 
 tradict her thoughts, a distant scream rent the air, tearing 
 the silence to tatters. It was not repeated, but it froze the 
 soul of Cathy Rossiter. She sprang to her feet. Why should 
 she stay in this false, smug sitting-room, which pretended 
 that it was a place of rest, when, in reality, it was an an- 
 nexe to a hidden house of torment. The car was outside, 
 waiting at the foot of the steps, and she could stay there, 
 if Monica was going to be longer she had been long enough 
 already. Cathy felt she could not bear to hear a repetition 
 of that awful scream. She ran to the door, and to her sur- 
 prise she discovered that there was no handle on the inner 
 side, so that she was virtually a prisoner. A hot wave of 
 discomfort swept over her, and she stood undecided what 
 to do. 
 
 Probably Monica had been induced to go and see some 
 specially horrible case, that would account for the delay. 
 Doors in lunatic asylums were different to any other doors, 
 and there was nothing in all this to make her heart beat 
 fast and painfully, but there was the sensation of being 
 caged in, which might not be reasoned with. The room 
 was full of sunlight, and the window would only open to 
 the regulation four inches, top and bottom. Cathy tried
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 243 
 
 it and found this to be the case. She told herself that she 
 must keep quiet. There is always some wild power under- 
 neath steady surface control which can break out, even in 
 the most normal of human beings, and Cathy battled against 
 her own desire for violent action. She was no prisoner. 
 She was only waiting until Muggins had finished her long, 
 drawn-out confabulation with the asylum doctor. There 
 was nothing at all to distress her; one must grip tight to 
 facts. The wave of fear passed and receded and she sat 
 down again. 
 
 To-morrow she would be able to tell the story and laugh 
 at it, because of her own panic. 
 
 Still the time ticked on, with irritating monotony. The 
 scream had not been repeated, and Cathy began to wonder 
 if she had imagined it. 
 
 But it isn't pleasant to sit in a room which you cannot 
 leave, and Cathy's imagination began to play her tricks. 
 She recalled a scene in "J ust ^ ce /' a scene which had bitten 
 into her memory. It had all been acted in dumb show. In- 
 stead of a gay boudoir, the surroundings were those of a 
 prison cell, and she saw the tortured figure of the solitary 
 man, pacing the narrow space. The window was high over 
 his head, and he had lifted his hands so that he could touch 
 the stone sill below the bars, and, far away, there had been 
 the sound of others, in a like case, beating against their 
 closed doors. The struggle had been desperate ; and at last, 
 overpowered by the agony of his desire to escape, he, too, 
 had thrown himself against the door and beaten upon it, cry- 
 ing wildly. 
 
 Here, all around her, there was mystery; uncanny and 
 vile, and she stared through the window at the sleepy, softly- 
 shaped clouds, brooding gently over this mad place, where 
 emotions were unrestrained and rabid. She knew that she 
 was frightened by the atmosphere of the place, and she 
 began to wonder whether one of these poor, sad creatures 
 might break in upon her. The idea of it turned her cold, 
 and she got up and went to the door. 
 
 It was positively unkind of Muggins to keep her there so 
 long. Muggins, who made a ridiculous fuss about her
 
 244 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 health, was now ignoring the strain she put on Cathy's 
 nerves. Now, it was over half an hour since she had been 
 waved into the room with that full, sweeping gesture by 
 Doctor Chapman, and there was not a sound or sign from 
 outside. There was no bell in the room, and Cathy knocked 
 on the panels of the door. If anyone, one of the nurses, 
 or an attendant going down the corridor heard her, they 
 cmight come to her rescue. The desire to get out was 
 growing overpoweringly strong, and, from knocking gently, 
 Cathy began to hammer with her fists. She was not in any 
 way out of control, but she was angry. Muggins had been 
 utterly inconsiderate, and, if she did raise a commotion, 
 she hardly cared. The place, with its soulless cheerfulness, 
 was as odious to her as a charnel house, and she struck at 
 the door, bruising her hands with the force she used. But 
 no one answered her, no one had heard, perhaps? Or was 
 it that such sounds were all too common to be regarded? 
 
 The immediate surroundings walled even her own 
 thoughts, and she sat down once more and tried to imagine 
 what it would be like to be back with Aunt Amy again. 
 Robert Amyas would come and see her at once. Robert, 
 with his queer, ironic laugh and his faultless taste in clothes. 
 His mind was full of surprises, and Cathy felt that it would 
 be exciting and stimulating to have him to talk to again. 
 Ten more minutes had dragged by. What would Jack think 
 of his impeccable Monica's conduct? If he knew that she 
 had taken her to an asylum and left her locked up in a 
 hateful room with scores of ridiculous birds all up the wall 
 he would be angry. 
 
 It was a blessed thing to be a man, and have a man's 
 strength. Lorrimer could have broken the lock with a kick, 
 and flung the polite and vivacious Doctor Chapman down his 
 own front steps, but a woman could do nothing. There was 
 no way of telling what one could do. People knew they 
 should tuck up their legs in a railroad accident, and, if the 
 chimney went on fire, you got wet sacking from somewhere 
 and stopped the draught. For all the ordinary disasters 
 Of life there was some simple principle by which you acted
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 245 
 
 at once, but when you found yourself in a room with no 
 way to get out of it, what did you do ? 
 
 Cathy 'sprang to her feet again and hammered at the 
 door, and then, pressing her mouth to the crack, she called : 
 
 "Let me out, please. Let me out." 
 
 Her words reached Monica, who was crossing the hall 
 with Doctor Chapman, and she stood still. 
 
 "It's Cathy," she said in a low, rapid voice; "she is 
 frightened." 
 
 Doctor Chapman glanced over his shoulder and signed to 
 an attendant to remain in readiness, and went on talking to 
 Doctor Henstock. 
 
 "She has no idea of the condition she is in, and already, 
 you see, she is showing hysterical symptoms. If she were 
 normal again, dear lady, as you have more or less suggested 
 she might be, she would not be making all that noise. How- 
 ever, we are well used to these outbursts, and in a day or 
 two I can report to you and Colonel Lorrimer whether she 
 is really sufficiently insane to make it necessary for her to 
 remain here." 
 
 Monica stood transfixed, for the beating upon the door 
 became suddenly urgent. Cathy had heard voices. 
 
 "She is my greatest friend," she said, catching Doctor 
 Chapman by the sleeve, "I can't say what this has cost me." 
 
 "Be assured that you have acted for the best," he replied 
 kindly. He was sorry for her, but time had made him well 
 accustomed to poignant scenes with relatives. People came 
 secretly, and they were ashamed to be there. Lunacy was 
 not a disease like any other, but was a dreadful stigma, a 
 blot upon a family record. Something which must be 
 hushed up, because it was unnatural and hideous. There 
 was frequently fear, mixed in with the other feelings he was 
 accustomed to see unveiled, and, as Monica was no rela- 
 tion to Cathy, he thought her a sympathetic and affection- 
 ate woman, and he wished to send her away reassured. 
 
 "You must not see her again," he said firmly. "If she 
 feels that you are responsible for her detention here, she 
 might become violent. I think you have acted with the 
 greatest tact and forethought, and, after all," he patted
 
 246 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 her hand, "it is by no means a hopeless case. It may con- 
 ceivably be a short term of treatment for her." 
 
 Monica looked up at him. "Good-bye," she said slowly. 
 "I hope all will be well. Do you think," she looked at him 
 desperately again, "that she will ever forgive me?" 
 
 "When she r^urns to her full sanity," he nodded, and 
 smiled. "She will then realise all she owes to you, Doctor 
 Henstock." 
 
 He saw her into the car, and Jakes looked curiously at 
 her. 
 
 "Drive me to the station," she said, as Doctor Chapman 
 folded the rug about her knees. 
 
 "And to come back for " 
 
 "You are to drive Doctor Henstock to the station," Doctoi 
 Chapman said firmly, and the car started as he stood in the 
 gay sunlight watching his colleague's departure. He then 
 turned towards the house again, with no abatement of his 
 cheerful manner, and spoke to the female attendant who 
 was waiting in the hall. 
 
 "The patient seems excitable," he said, polishing his 
 glasses. "She will be placed in the Infirmary Ward for the 
 present." And then he turned the handle and walked into 
 the sitting-room.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 AT his coming Cathy fell back, and stood divided in mind 
 whether to be angry at having been kept there so long, or 
 whether, now that it was over, only to laugh at it all. She 
 was so instantly relieved by the sight of Doctor Chapman 
 that she chose the easier course, and smiled, her quick, lavish 
 smile. She looked tossed and untidy but very beautiful, 
 and Doctor Chapman was aware that life is full of cruelty. 
 This radiant woman, who had all the world could offer of 
 happiness and hope, was more pathetic than any obscure 
 lunatic who spat and jibbered and shouted blasphemies. Yet 
 there it was. She had tried to take her life and she was 
 mad. He had not studied the subject for years without 
 knowing, if the hidden seed of insanity was once to come 
 to growth, that very little divided Cathy from these others, 
 though at the moment she looked as fair as the day beyond 
 the windows. 
 
 "I thought you were never coming," she said, looking for 
 Monica over his shoulder. "I suppose when you get two 
 doctors talking they are as bad as golfers, or two men who 
 once served in the same division in France. I banged on 
 your door, Doctor Chapman," she nursed her hands rue- 
 fully ; "what a perfectly hateful thing it is to feel shut in." 
 
 Doctor Chapman looked at her steadily. 
 
 "Will you come with me now?" he said, and something 
 in the way he spoke startled her slightly. 
 
 "Where to?" she asked. "Is Doctor Henstock waiting?" 
 
 "Doctor Henstock has gone," he said quietly. 
 
 "Gone. But I don't really understand you." She looked 
 from his face to the composed face of the attendant. "She 
 cannot have gone away and left me here? How soon will 
 she be back?" 
 
 "She is not coming back." He advanced a few steps and 
 
 247
 
 248 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 put a cool, firm hand on her wrist. "Ask no questions, Mrs. 
 Lorrimer; do not excite yourself in any way. What has 
 been done is for your own good." 
 
 Cathy stared at him and shook her head. What was the 
 matter with the man? 
 
 "I have to go to London," she said, in her usual gracious, 
 easy way. "Perhaps my friend did not explain this. Why 
 she should have left me here I can't think, but as she has, 
 can you send some one to order me a taxi, or something 
 to take me to the station?" 
 
 "Sit down a moment," Doctor Chapman said. He was a 
 master of tact and discretion, so long as either could be 
 used, and he was doing what he could to soften the blow. 
 
 "I think I won't sit down," Cathy objected; "I really 
 am in a hurry." 
 
 She was sorely angered by Monica's inexplicable conduct, 
 but she felt she should not visit it upon the innocent Doctor 
 Chapman's head. 
 
 "You are not leaving here," he went on. "Be calm, Mrs. 
 Lorrimer, please be calm. Doctor Henstock, in conjunc- 
 tion with another doctor, decided that treatment was neces- 
 sary for you which you can only have in a mental hospital, 
 such as this." 
 
 Cathy flickered her eyelids and grasped the back of a 
 chair with her hands. He had told her something, this suave 
 and determined looking man, but the meaning of his words 
 still escaped her. She only looked at him and grew very 
 pale. 
 
 "They agreed that poor, battered Doctor Luke and 
 Monica that I was ill? In what way?" Light was dawn- 
 ing upon her slowly. "You don't mean, Doctor Chapman 
 you can't mean, that they decided that I am mad?" She 
 watched him with wide, terrified eyes. "Oh no, it's ridicu- 
 lous." She rallied herself again. "And besides, Monica is 
 my friend, she is open as the day, she could not have be- 
 trayed me." 
 
 "I must remind you," he said gravely, "that you attempted 
 to take your life." 
 
 "That is untrue." Cathy drew herself up. "Will you
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 249 
 
 please let me use the telephone. I must speak to my hus- 
 band at once and tell him to come here, if you will not per- 
 mit me to leave." 
 
 "Colonel Lorrimer will do nothing," Doctor Chapman 
 replied. "It is with his full consent more than that, that 
 you are here." 
 
 "Jack believes me to be insane?" 
 
 Doctor Chapman took her hands and pushed her gently 
 into a chair ; she was trembling violently and he thought she 
 might fall. 
 
 "Beyond the act of murder, there is nothing which is so 
 great an outrage upon the law of God and man, as suicide," 
 he said, holding her with his eyes. "It is an offence against 
 the law, and one for which you could be tried in a public 
 court You disregarded the law, Mrs. Lorrimer, and both 
 your husband and your friend have taken the gentlest means 
 in their power to protect you from the result of your own 
 act." 
 
 "Muggins and Jack," Cathy looked blindly before her, 
 and her hands moved vaguely. "So that is it ? They took 
 the 'gentlest' way." 
 
 "They did." Doctor Chapman repeated his assertion. 
 
 "That overdose was a mistake," Cathy did not look at 
 him, she seemed to be talking more to herself. "No one 
 ever really doubted that except Nurse Binns, and then they 
 sent for Doctor Luke. What did he do?" She put her 
 hands over her face. "Let me think, please. Doctor Luke 
 came and talked to me about suicide, but he didn't accuse 
 me. That would have put me on my guard, perhaps. Jack 
 went away. I suppose it's easier to go than to have the 
 courage to see a human being sent to hell." She laughed 
 suddenly. "It took my friend, Doctor Henstock's nerve to 
 stand the sight of so much treachery." She looked up again, 
 and her eyes were haggard. "What are you really telling 
 me ?" she asked. "I can't understand you. You see, I have 
 only just come to know that two people I believed in are 
 traitors." 
 
 "Don't excite yourself," he said, in a warning voice. 
 "Remember that a nervous breakdown leaves you very
 
 250 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 weak. For the present, you are in my charge. You will be 
 very happy here. The length of time it may be necessary 
 for you to remain here depends largely on yourself." 
 
 "How so, if I am a mad womaii ?" 
 
 "Your nerves will gradually become rested, and you will 
 return to a normal sense of life," he went on kindly. 
 
 Cathy looked wildly around her. The dark flood of con- 
 prehension was drowning her in its inrushing tide. 
 
 "Oh, is it true ?" she rocked herself in her chair. "Is it 
 true? What have I ever done to either of them that they 
 should treat me so ? I would have gone away, I was to have 
 gone, and if only they had been fair to me. . . . But to do 
 this to do this. . . ." 
 
 "Soon you will regard it very differently," he said, putting 
 his hand on her shoulder, and signing to the attendant. "I 
 want you to go with Mrs. Ridge. It is not all as unusual 
 as you imagine." 
 
 "Is it not?" Cathy looked at him with strange eyes. 
 "Not really unusual? To be lied to, cajoled, and betrayed? 
 Are there others here who have suffered so?" 
 
 "We are not an unhappy little community," he said, tak- 
 ing her arms and raising her to her feet, "but any defiance 
 of discipline, or any sign of violence has to be dealt with 
 dealt with." He could feel how terribly she trembled. "I 
 assure you again, Mrs. Lorrimer, that much depends upon 
 yourself. Mrs. Ridge will now take you to your room, and 
 you must do as you are told." He smiled reassuringly. 
 
 "Don't let me see mad people," Cathy grasped the lapels 
 of his coat, "I could not bear it." 
 
 She clung to him, and he put his hands upon hers and 
 released himself quietly. The attendant, Mrs. Ridge, was 
 watching her with a careful, measuring eye. She was a 
 large, heavily-built woman with arms like a blacksmith. 
 
 "Quietly," he said. "Quietly, Mrs. Lorrimer. You must 
 take life very easily for the present. Think of yourself." 
 
 Cathy drew away, and she laughed wildly again. 
 
 "Of myself? I have a great deal else to think of. The 
 world has changed within five minutes, Doctor Chapman. 
 Five minutes ago I believed in two people who were closest
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 251 
 
 to me, and now I see them for what they really are. They 
 have taken my freedom, and it would have been a cleaner 
 thing to take my life. You call me mad, and . . . they 
 have done this to me." 
 
 "Take Mrs. Lorrimer away," Doctor Chapman said in 
 his unruffled voice, smooth as sealing-wax; "she needs at- 
 tention." 
 
 Walking like a woman in a dream, Cathy followed the 
 attendant out of the room, every detail of which was eter- 
 nally stamped upon her mind. 
 
 "Please call me Miss Rossiter," she said, suddenly awak- 
 ing to life again. "I shall never again call myself by any 
 other name," and Mrs. Ridge did not press the point. 
 
 She was conducted through endless corridors, where no 
 one seemed to be about except a few attendants, and she 
 heard Mrs. Ridge speak to one of these, and tell her that 
 she was to be her "special." A number of doors were un- 
 locked as they passed, and shut automatically, and at last 
 they reached a wide ward, from which a number of cubicles 
 opened, and Cathy was shown into one and told that for the 
 present she was to remain there. 
 
 She gazed around her and sat down on a small bed. The 
 first spic and span effect of the place was no longer evident, 
 and the room was dingy and bare. One window which 
 could only be opened two inches, with heavy shutters, over- 
 looked a garden. A few things which had been packed into 
 her small dressing-bag were arranged upon the mean dress- 
 ing-table, and again there was no handle on the inner 
 side of the door. The room was incredibly stuffy and 
 close, and Cathy got up from the bed and walked to the 
 window. She was still too numb to think of anything but 
 Jack and Monica, and the thought of her own condition 
 hardly touched her. They had put her here ; she who be- 
 lieved in them, and they were outside and free. By means 
 unknown to her, the thing had been done, and she was a 
 captive. She had played into their hands, and with secret 
 satisfaction, they had watched her give herself away. At 
 that hour, it came to her clearly and without shadow of 
 doubt, that Monica desired to be rid of Lorrimer's wife,
 
 252 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 and that he had consented. Her face grew ravaged with 
 the agony of her thoughts. They had met and discussed 
 the chances, called in a poor paid ally who could be trusted 
 to do as he was bidden, and in this secret way they had 
 snatched their liberty, their vile right to be free of her. 
 Thoughts pursued one another through her brain. She 
 had told Monica that she would get a separation from Jack. 
 Surely that should have satisfied their rapacity? Yet no, 
 there was Lorrimer's career ! Respectability must be main- 
 tained at all costs. Bigamists, men who murdered their 
 wives, so that they could remarry; all the suffocated, 
 wretched people who "kept up appearances" were the sacri- 
 fice exacted by the dreadful god who went clad in a black 
 coat and was punctilious as to the observance of Sunday. 
 Yes, and respectability had its victims in lunatic asylums. 
 A lunatic usually defies respectability and the respectable, 
 arid so once you are in, you don't get out. She was the 
 burnt-offering. Again she stared around her and tried to 
 realise where she was. A woman in a black dress and 
 white cuffs opened the door which Cathy had closed when 
 she came up, ICfJked at her inquisitively and retired, leav- 
 ing the door wide open and fixing a catch so as to prevent 
 its being shut. 
 
 Cathy had been standing with her back to the window, 
 and she turned and leaned her arms on the sash. If only 
 she could forget for even five minutes and come back to 
 herself. Monica had kissed her several times that day, 
 the Judas kiss of betrayal. Monica, who had known her 
 and her ways for years, could not really believe her to be 
 mad. Her eyes traversed the garden, and a cold stab of dis- 
 gust struck her suddenly and outside things regained their 
 power once more. She was hearing sounds again and seeing 
 what lay around her, in horrible proximity. In the sunny 
 garden, under the flowering trees, a number of people were 
 collected, and it was at these that Cathy looked with 
 strained, horrified eyes. The patients were out, and they 
 presented a ghastly picture. 
 
 For the most part they were old women, respectably clad 
 in dingy garments of antiquated fashion, and they moved.
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 253 
 
 not in any orderly manner, but in erratic darts and rushes 
 and gathered into knots, and dispersed again. One woman, 
 who gabbled and made faces continually, had her own face 
 half covered by a black bandage. She was the victim of some 
 revolting skin disease, which made her seamed face hideous, 
 apart from the madness in her eyes. She saw Cathy at the 
 window and waved and nodded to her, but what she said 
 Cathy could not hear. With a touch of aloof disdain, the 
 attendants watched the group of patients, speaking sharply 
 now and then, and talking to each other. To-and-fro they 
 moved about aimlessly, and there was never a moment 
 when they were still. Among the others, there was one 
 young girl of about nineteen, who looked frightened and 
 lost, like some bewildered child who had strayed into a 
 place of the damned. 
 
 Did Monica know that she was to consort with this 
 wretched herd ? Cathy asked the question, and the response 
 came quickly. Monica knew perfectly well. She also 
 knew the effect it might have upon Cathy. She threw her- 
 self on her knees on the floor and covered her face with 
 her arms. Was there any use in praying to God to keep 
 her sane? 
 
 Her name was called from the door, and Cathy raised her 
 head. "Please speak to me as Miss Rossiter," she said, and 
 the attendant smiled and said that she would, certainly, if 
 she wished it. She seemed a kindly and well-disposed girl, 
 with the same huge build as Mrs. Ridge, and she asked 
 Cathy if she would like a bath. 
 
 "Not now," Cathy said miserably, "I take my bath in 
 the morning. Do go away. I have so much to think about." 
 
 "Oh, come and have a bath after your long drive," the 
 girl repeated, with a touch of homely familiarity. "It will 
 do you good ; take your thoughts off other things." 
 
 Cathy sighed and rose to her feet. There was some truth 
 in what the attendant said, and she followed her quietly. 
 
 She was taken to a bath-room at the end of the ward, 
 which held about twenty baths, and the attendant explained 
 that she must not leave her, but would help her to undress. 
 As she let down Cathy's long, thick hair, she admired it
 
 254 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 profusely, and plaited it into a chaplet which she bound 
 round her head. 
 
 "You do look nice," she said encouragingly. "If you 
 weren't so sad. Cheer up a bit; the doctors like bright 
 faces." 
 
 "Then they don't often go to watch that astonishing 
 parade outside my window," Cathy said. "You don't really 
 believe that I am like those others?" 
 
 "Oh, they're old people," the girl replied, pulling off 
 Cathy's stockings. "Don't take them to heart. You 
 couldn't have them prancing about all over the place, could 
 you, now ? Probably you'll be sent to Ward I soon." 
 
 "My God!" Cathy pressed her hands over her heart. 
 "How long shall I be here in this part of the asylum ?" 
 
 The girl was quite ready to give Cathy any information 
 she could, and from her she learned that Dr. Chapman was 
 the superintendent, and lived in a house in the grounds, only 
 coming into the wards occasionally. Otherwise, Doctor 
 Bracy, the resident doctor, looked after the women patients. 
 
 "What sort of treatment does one get ?" Cathy asked halt- 
 ingly. "What do they do to all of them?" 
 
 "Do? Why, nothing. You can't do anything," the girl 
 replied. "There now," she pulled aside a curtain, "get off 
 your things and have your bath." 
 
 "Then it is a prison, not a hospital," Cathy said, looking 
 at the girl. "If nothing is done, it amounts to that." 
 
 "I don't know anything about it. Get into your bath, 
 like a good soul." 
 
 "But must you stay?" Cathy said. "Surely I can have 
 my bath without witnesses? Can't you go outside the 
 door?" 
 
 Another attendant arrived as she spoke, a tall woman 
 with a cold face and narrow eyes. She was carrying a 
 notebook and a pencil. 
 
 "I must make my report," she said briefly. "Have you 
 any marks or scars?" 
 
 "I refuse to undress myself," Cathy said, drawing back 
 against the wall. 
 
 Her eyes flamed with anger, and she stood there defiantly.
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 255 
 
 "I do not want to use force," the new attendant said. 
 "But I warn you that, if necessary, force will be used." 
 
 They took her clothes from her, and Cathy stood before 
 them feeling that the last rag of decency had been swept 
 away. Her white skin was devoid of blemish, but she felt 
 that never again would she be clear of the touch of those 
 searching hands. At last she broke out into speech. 
 
 "It is not you who do this to me," she said, her eyes 
 filled with tears as she spoke. "They were too cowardly, 
 those who sent me here; but it is they who have stripped 
 me of everything." 
 
 "Now, get into your bath," the woman with the close set 
 eyes said briefly. "I did not expect scars. It was a drug 
 case." 
 
 She dropped her notebook, which was hung by a steel 
 chain to her waist, and turned away, neither interested nor 
 moved by her task. 
 
 Cathy slid into the warm water and sat looking at the 
 girl, who seemed intensely sorry for her, and was leaving. 
 
 "You need not go," she said in a fiat voice. "That is 
 over. It's been done, and for you to go now is not neces- 
 sary." A sob caught her voice, and the girl held up an ad- 
 monishing finger. "Don't cry, whatever you do," she said ; 
 "you can be kept for ever in the infirmary if you are hys- 
 terical. It's lovely in Ward I, and you'll be as happy as a 
 queen once you get there." 
 
 Cathy breathed with difficulty, and fought down her sobs. 
 It was no use to cry, no use worse, far worse than useless. 
 In utter silence she got out of her bath, and came through 
 the curtains where her clothes had been folded when she 
 took them off. They were gone, and a nightgown, taken 
 from her bag, was lying over the chair. 
 
 "Am I to go to bed?" she said, "but it's quite early. 
 Why can I not dress and go out?" 
 
 "Not until the resident doctor has made his report. If 
 he thinks fit, you may go out to-morrow." 
 
 She wrapped Cathy in her silk dressing-gown, and, tak- 
 ing her by the arm, led her back to the stifling little room 
 which overlooked the airing court, as it was called.
 
 256 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "I'll bring you some soup," the attendant said, and she 
 helped Cathy into the small bed as she spoke, when a loud 
 knocking was heard on the window. 
 
 "What is that, oh what is that ?" Cathy asked desperately. 
 
 "Go away." The attendant, whose name, Cathy found 
 later, was Agnes, walked to the window and waved her 
 hand. "Don't come here making noises. It's only one of 
 the patients," she said, "you can't keep them off. They 
 want to be in bed all the time, and they're envying you." 
 
 Cathy hid her face in the pillow. She was an object of 
 envy "at that moment. What depth of torture it suggested 
 to think such a thing possible. 
 
 But again she was disturbed by the return of the atten- 
 dant, who was carrying something that looked like an of- 
 ficial paper. 
 
 "What is it for?" Cathy asked stupidly, as she took it in 
 her hands ; "I don't understand." 
 
 Agnes looked at her with a suggestion of pity. 
 
 "If you want to see a magistrate, you must fill up this 
 form," she explained. 
 
 Cathy raised her startled eyes. "A magistrate! Why 
 should I want to see one?" 
 
 The attendant was kind, and began to explain as though 
 she were speaking to a child. 
 
 "It's like this," she said patiently. "If you have an idea 
 that you're not satisfied, the law is that you can tell a magis- 
 trate all you feel about it, and if he agrees, why, out you 
 go. There now." 
 
 Cathy stared at Agnes; she was gradually beginning to 
 understand that she was a bringer of good tidings. 
 
 After all, it was simple enough, and certainly Agnes was 
 not fooling her; she looked too honest for that. 
 
 "Then I can really do this ?" she said with growing cour- 
 age. "Oh, Agnes, you have made me happy. Of course I 
 will sign it, and I know what I have to say to him." 
 
 She took the pen from the attendant's hand, and signed 
 her name in the place indicated, and Agnes folded up the 
 paper and nodded encouragement, as she went out through 
 the open door.
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 257 
 
 Again she was left alone, and Cathy tried to think of 
 something other than Jack and Monica. She must think, 
 she told herself, because, unless one did, there was no way 
 by which one could make any plan. The urgent necessity 
 was to see the nearest magistrate and get out of the horror- 
 stricken place before her sanity was destroyed; if she could 
 think only of the cruel wrong which had been done to her, 
 she would have neither the courage nor the wit to face the 
 far more pressing question. She must cease to go over the 
 events which had led her to this home of lost souls, and 
 strive to see some way by which she could escape. The 
 two who had sent her there were in the open world where 
 people went by along the streets, and where you were not 
 stripped naked and then pushed into a prison cell, doomed 
 to the stupid, aimless, so-called "treatment," which, it ap- 
 peared, meant only detention ; being held away, among men 
 and women of diseased mind. The sunlight was falling 
 on the smoke-grimed trees of Lady Carstairs' garden and 
 thi water splashing in the leaden fountain, just as it had 
 years ago, those ages and seons back, when Cathy Rossiter 
 u?ed to sit there. Just as it would to-morrow and the next 
 day, and the day after, when Cathy was slipping away from 
 ckan, sane things, and falling into the black abyss of name- 
 less terror. 
 
 Again the knocking was repeated at the window, and a 
 face was pressed against the class. A dull, witless face, 
 devoid of any gleam of intelligence, and Cathy heard a 
 querulous, wailing voice crying to her to let her in and 
 lev her sleep. Did anyone really sleep in this inferno ? 
 
 Cathy sat up in bed with both hands to her heart. She 
 had only been there a little over two hours, but what had 
 become of time? She fell on her arms again and buried 
 her face. If she cried, there was the threat of endless 
 torture in the infirmary. Again and again she climbed the 
 mountain of misery which walled her in, and tried to grasp 
 at any hope or comfort, but her world had slipped into 
 chaos ; she was lost in the sudden, impenetrable darkness 
 of it all. 
 
 The weary day dragged on to evening, and the hot blaze
 
 258 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 of sunlight shifted from her window until the room became 
 dark, and Cathy did not stir nor weep. There was a house- 
 doctor who would visit her sometime, and she must placate 
 him. In other days she had exercised a kind of right di- 
 vine over the men she met, and she felt that if there had 
 been any reality in her power, she must use it afresh, use 
 it as she had never wittingly done, because in that man's 
 hands lay the keys of life or death for her. Lorrimer and 
 Monica were probably together by now, and they would 
 have a story ready to satisfy Lady Carstairs. "Cathy is 
 mad. We had to lock her up." And then word would go 
 round gradually, until people all knew that she was mad, 
 and no one would ever again credit anything she had to 
 say. Lady Carstairs might be heartbroken, but she would 
 believe the lie who was there who would not? Cathy's 
 fingers pressed hard against her temples. Twyford? He 
 would surely not accept it as a fact. Robert ? She thought 
 of him with a sudden rush of something closely akin to 
 love. Robert, if all the rest of the world threw the word 
 at her like a stone, would stand by her. He had a great 
 pity somewhere under his superficial, cynical way, and he 
 could be trusted if only he knew where she was. Amyas 
 had known what Lorrimer was from the first, he had 
 caught sight of the beast in him, so discreetly and carefully 
 hidden away from all the rest. It helped her a little to 
 think of him, and she turned towards the memories of the 
 past, holding them to her with tender hands. 
 
 But the quiet was soon broken, and the patients began to 
 troop in for dinner. The girl Cathy had seen from the 
 window, stood at the door, rolling her eyes wildly, as a line 
 of wretched creatures passed on, singing or bawling, and 
 snatching at each other. The girl came to Cathy's bed. 
 
 "Why are you here?" she said, and sat down on Cathy's 
 bed. She was carrying large knitting pins, and she worked 
 violently. "What did you do? Did you try to murder 
 anybody?" Cathy shrank away terrified by her close prox- 
 imity and the wild eyes. 
 
 "You have a kind face ; I don't think you are bad." 
 
 "Now, Miss Hepworth, be careful," her attendant spoke
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 259 
 
 sharply from the door, and the girl cowered down at once. 
 
 "I was only asking her what she did. We've all done 
 something, Maggy, or we wouldn't be here." 
 
 "Let her stay," Cathy said, seized with a sudden pity 
 which conquered her fear as she saw her being pulled 
 away. "She will do me no harm." 
 
 But the woman only took her visitor by the arm and 
 pulled her out, leaving the door wide open. 
 
 The girl addressed as Miss Hepworth, broke into violent 
 sobbing, and Cathy saw her go down the open ward, which 
 was now crowded with inmates. 
 
 The sight that Cathy saw was an awful one, and the air 
 was full of uncouth noises, as one old patient farther down 
 the ward was being forcibly fed. At eight o'clock lights 
 were turned on, and Cathy had finished her own meal. A 
 sense of defeat overtook Cathy, and she lay quite still, con- 
 scious that a rage of fever was throbbing in her veins. 
 Somehow the minutes dragged past, and the hour came 
 when the patients had to be got to bed. There was one 
 patient in a straight- jacket, who was allotted the bed next 
 to that of the weeping girl, and old, withered women were 
 undressed like children, to an accompaniment of frequent 
 slappings. They broke into scolding or tears, they pleaded 
 desperately with their wardresses, and at times they turned 
 fierce and screamed and cursed. "Ye filthy bitch" was one 
 of the less violent terms they chose, and yet they had all 
 once been decent people. 
 
 It was as though Cathy had been taken and shown a cham- 
 ber in hell. The utter indecency, the obscenity and the 
 filthiness of it all rose rank and vile, and still she lay trans- 
 fixed, watching, always watching. At last the house-doctor 
 came. He was a short man, with a heavy red face and 
 humorous eyes. Cathy watched him eagerly as he went up 
 the ward, and cast a casual glance around him. He looked 
 as though, outside the Asylum, he might be a kind, good- 
 natured, unintelligent type of man. He had obviously no 
 imagination, and he received the abuse with which some 
 of the patients greeted him with cheerful indifference. 
 Others were slavish and fawning and appeared to desire
 
 26o CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 to curry favour by telling tales and abasing themselves to 
 him. He was very quick about his business, and what he 
 could possibly have learned as to the state of any individual 
 case Cathy could not imagine. 
 
 When he came to the door of her cubicle he smiled, and 
 said, "Well, and how are we?" and Cathy gathered her 
 resources for an effort. 
 
 "Can't I be given a room away from here?" she asked, 
 leaning on her arm and looking up at him with her wonder- 
 ful eyes. "They are rather noisy, Doctor Bracy, and I 
 don't sleep very well." 
 
 "Now, now; now, now," he put his hands in the pockets 
 of his sporting coat. "Don't begin by finding fault. It's a 
 mistake." 
 
 "Would you like to have to sleep here ?" she asked. 
 
 "They will sleep," he nodded his head towards the ward. 
 "The night won't be noisy. Now let me have a look at 
 you." The attendant with the notebook had joined him. 
 Cathy tried not to tremble as he felt her pulse. 
 
 "How do you know whether I am mad or not?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "Now, now, my lady," he almost winked at her, "I 
 thought that question would come." 
 
 "Yes, but how?" 
 
 "I could show you patients here," he went on, "as sane 
 as I am myself, so long as you don't hit on one subject. 
 They have their weak link you have yours." 
 
 "But I did not wish to kill myself. The overdose was 
 sheer accident." 
 
 Doctor Bracy began to hum a rag-time tune, and he ma'de 
 no reply. 
 
 Cathy saw that he intended to leave her, and she spoke 
 again. 
 
 "I must sleep," she said desperately. 
 
 "Well, so you will. It's early yet, and you are probably 
 accustomed to different hours." 
 
 "Can't you give me something to make sure?" 
 
 He looked at her blandly and seemed secretly amused. 
 
 "Mrs. Lorrimer, I may as well tell you, as you asked
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 261 
 
 me for an instance to prove that you are insane ; what you 
 have said is substantial proof. A desire for sleep is a 
 symptom well known to the medical world." 
 
 Cathy clasped her hands on her knees. 
 
 "Then every one is mad," she said, and she felt that she 
 must break into helpless tears. "Either I was always a 
 lunatic, and should have been treated as one, or I am sane. 
 How am I to keep sane in this vile, terrifying place ? Look 
 at those women," she pointed to the ward where a patient 
 was fighting with one of the wardresses. "Am I to see these 
 sights and hear these sounds until my own self-respect gives 
 way, and I, too, scream and say filthy things? Oh, no, 
 Doctor Bracy, no ; don't let this happen to me." She flung 
 herself half out of her bed and grasped his hands. 
 
 "I am sorry for you," he said, not unkindly, and he put 
 her back in her wretched bed again. "I think at the end of 
 a week, if you behave yourself, you may be moved into 
 Ward I." 
 
 "I am allowed to see a magistrate," she said, falling back 
 upon the hope held out to her by the law. "Can I do this 
 at once?" 
 
 "You can, certainly," he agreed, "as soon as you are a 
 little better." 
 
 ' He left her without further comment, and the door was 
 closed, and Cathy was once more a prisoner. The night 
 and darkness were before her, and her dread of both 
 doubled once she was alone.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 AFTER a time the ward grew comparatively quiet, and the 
 sounds trailed off into silence. Cathy herself slept in a 
 few exhausted snatches, troubled with terrifying dreams. 
 Sleep had no blessing to bring to such a place, and when she 
 awoke, dripping with perspiration and conscious of wild 
 alarm, the dense darkness was full of menace to her. The 
 realisation that she was in a mad-house with no hope of es- 
 cape drove out all other thoughts. 
 
 She sprang out of bed, but the door was securely fastened, 
 and whatever noise it was which had awakened her, began 
 again. After a moment, she located the sound. It was 
 coming from what were possibly the padded cells, at the 
 farther side of the court-yard where she had seen the 
 drifting herd of lunatics that afternoon. A voice, so loud 
 that it hardly appeared human, was shouting to the night, 
 and crying persistently, "Mary, Mother of God." 
 
 Cathy hammered on the door ; she could not be left alone 
 with this new torture. It seemed to her as though the cry- 
 ing came storming through the world, a lonely voice echoing 
 and echoing onwards as she remembered she had been told 
 that sound echoed endlessly and never really ceased. Was 
 it the voice of one woman or the voice of all the wretched 
 souls gathered under that fell roof, weeping its fantastic 
 griefs to the skies? She put her hands over her ears and 
 crouched down on the floor, but she could not shut out the 
 sound. Was it never going to cease? It stopped quite 
 suddenly, and the relief was inexpressible. She felt it might 
 be over, and thinking again of how much depended upon 
 her getting some sleep, she went back to her bed and lay 
 down, but not to rest, for once more the cry rang out, 
 farther off, it seemed, as though the woman had been moved 
 away from the first point, but the shriek was wilder and 
 
 262
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 263 
 
 less controlled, though more distant. Again the pause was 
 repeated, and again the crying followed the silence, from a 
 still more distant place. The uncertainty and the mental 
 picture of the wild creature being dragged from place to 
 place gripped her heart, and Cathy threw herself out of 
 her bed. How could she sleep in such a place as this? 
 
 Again and again she hammered on the door, and then at 
 last she lay exhausted by the window. No one was coming 
 to her, and she must bear it all alone ; alone in a place where 
 sins of some nameless kind were conceived in the distorted 
 minds of the inmates. The misery of her own state drove 
 her mind away from the sound for a time, and she knelt, 
 leaning forward on her hands, staring at the windowed 
 square of dim light. Madness was having its carousal, and 
 the driven sense of desperation increased in its strength. 
 What if she were never to get out? She had seen a man 
 pacing alone on the grass beyond the house ; pacing and 
 pacing, as though he were trying to keep his body from 
 some wild outburst. His face was a fine one, but she had 
 shrunk before the shadow in his eyes. One of the ward- 
 resses told her that he was a "life case" that was all. 
 Oh, the interminable woe and terror of the words. Sitting 
 back on her heels, she covered her face with her hands. 
 The woman's throat must be like a throat of brass, and 
 Cathy wondered if it was the woman she had seen being 
 dragged along the floor by four wardresses. She had 
 turned her face from the sight as they passed, and felt a 
 sensation of faintness. 
 
 A new phase of the night began to develop. Quite close 
 to her only a few doors away, she judged someone began 
 to talk excitedly, almost as though she was talking in her 
 sleep. A few broken words at first were all that reached 
 Cathy, and then, with gathering vehemence, a torrent of 
 speech followed, spoken with the wild delirium of sheer 
 madness. 
 
 Life had prepared her for no experience such as this. 
 It had come upon her like an earthquake shock on a fair 
 summer day. Her room became like a ward in hell, and she 
 felt along the walls with groping hands. She knew that she
 
 264 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 must fix her mind upon something tangible, and she sat 
 down upon the edge of the bed, and forced herself to listen. 
 
 "I'll stay everywhere," the voice bawled imperatively. 
 "Now what else can I muddle up? I said everything that 
 speaks its mind. There was something else I might have 
 kept secret. If I'd only known." This was how the 
 wretched creature thought then? Broken scraps of words, 
 but spoken in continuous and abrupt jerks. "Didn't he tell 
 everybody that they were not to look back? Of course he 
 did! Now, try to say that. Go on, I say, go on and try. 
 . . . Any woman who ever marries, any woman who doesn't 
 marry must acknowledge her mother first. Not her father 
 I never said her father, never, never. . . . Now then, 
 what did I first remember? Because I've forgotten. I 
 must have been spoken to upside down. If you said both 
 my hands you were wrong, they can't both be alike. They 
 are never always the same." Not for one instant did the 
 stricken creature rest. "I always speak the truth," she 
 shouted combatively, "the honest truth. He didn't know 
 that when he married me. But then, I have told you before. 
 I was married wrong. I mean, I married the wrong man. 
 Somehow or other I found out that if they want a girl they 
 ask for. . . . What do you think?" there was the least 
 pause "a clean handkerchief ! Go on ! Go on ! Go on ! 
 Yes, yes, yes," the voice towered up to a scream. "Never 
 mind about me. Haven't I yelled it enough ? Go on, I say. 
 No, I won't shut up. Go on for ever, Charles. How did 
 he know it ? Shut up, Thomas, or whatever you like, shut 
 up, Thomas. You told me so yourself. Course, you did." 
 
 Cathy felt as though the room was swimming, and she 
 sank down on her bed, but still the pitiful tones cried on. 
 
 "I knew I'd married the wrong man. That makes just 
 the difference. Oh no, no," again the wild scream, "it was 
 not right. I thought it was. I thought it was, that was all. 
 I caught him in the very act, and then when I caught him. 
 ... I knew him. Now then, do you want the reason first 
 or the cause? The reason or the cause, I say? Do you 
 hear?" The voice tore the night ferociously. "No, you 
 needn't swear. You needn't swear anything. If you want
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 265 
 
 to know my age, if you really want to ... of course I 
 shan't say it. It might be thirty-two, and it might be forty- 
 six." She laughed wildly. "I always say I was born in 
 '76, and then I can't count it. One, two, three, four, five, 
 six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Ten, I must remember that. 
 That's most important; and yet . . ." There was a 
 second's pause, and Cathy heard low moaning close to her, 
 without realising that she was herself making the sound, 
 and at once the voice clamoured afresh. "No, do shut up. 
 I'll tell you, straight, it's the most stupid book you ever 
 read in all your life ... I told you that day I would 
 promise you everything" to what far away day of sanity 
 did the words refer? Closed now for ever, and wiped out, 
 except for this fleeting glimpse, distorted and awry. "And 
 I did it. I did it because he wanted it so badly. Frightfully 
 badly. Am I to say I will be quiet for ever?" She seemed 
 to plead out of a pit of blackness. "For ever, and for 
 everybody's sake?" Wild crying punctuated the flood of 
 words. "For everybody's sake in the house? For every- 
 body's house? You wait. Go on, I don't think I've done 
 the last thing yet. Put me there if you dare." The in- 
 ference was clear, she was going over the old ground, and 
 her imaginary companions were telling her that she was 
 mad. Well, they at least had been kinder than Monica and 
 Jack, they had warned her where she was going. "Will you 
 lay me down twice?" the voice shouted in terrified alarm, 
 and then spoke angrily. "Can't you stand on your own 
 legs, stupid? I'll swear it, on my honour to the last the 
 last the last. On my honour. Oh, you make me laugh." 
 
 The laugh which followed made Cathy crouch down 
 again and hide her head in the pillow, but nothing she could 
 do shut out the sound. The voice was so flexible and so 
 dramatic, and it ranged from high to low, giving the most 
 searching emphasis of all that was said or shouted. 
 
 "I'll not tell him such a thing! Did I ever say that any- 
 body hurt ? No, I swear I never said anything of the sort. 
 I said. . . . Ah! I said. . . . Now isn't there a single 
 woman who can understand me ? He said it almost with his
 
 266 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 dying breath. . . ." She lowered her voice to a mysterious 
 whisper "She's got the habit!" 
 
 It was endless, incoherent, and the broken sentences were 
 never finished. Unable to stifle the words, Cathy began to 
 think against the sound, mingled with other maniacal cry- 
 ing, wandering through the night, and her thoughts dwelt 
 upon Monica and Lorrimer. They had betrayed her into 
 this awful captivity, and could they really know, even 
 dimly, what it was like. Her hands were dry and burning, 
 and she felt as though some illness was coming upon her, 
 and that thought, too, added to her distress. To be ill in 
 such a place was like a nightmare of devils. She had once 
 slept in a room in the house of a friend which had affected 
 her hatefully. There was something horrid in it which she 
 had not understood. She felt as though there were spiders 
 and rats and dead men's bones hidden there. . . . God! 
 was she already beginning to think like the woman who 
 never once ceased to shout and cry? Now she would 
 never be able to leave, never again, perhaps ; for if they had 
 put her there at all, why should they let her out? Monica 
 loved Jack, and he had raged at his wife she was his wife ! 
 because he hated her. 
 
 Cathy saw him again vividly in the dark, and heard his 
 angry voice accusing her. He had said that she had done 
 some dirty thing. The wheels of her thoughts hastened to 
 racing pace, and she began to talk to herself so that she 
 could follow the direction of her mind, and then, quite sud- 
 denly, she exercised a fierce effort of control and held her 
 hands over her mouth. "Let me not be mad, not mad, sweet 
 Heaven," she gasped the words which floated to her from 
 some still place in her fevered brain. They wanted her to 
 be mad, to gape and grimace with the wretched lunatics 
 who had accepted the "Holiday of the Beast." Someone 
 had described war by that strong, expressive term, and war 
 was in itself like madness. There were so many other 
 memories which joined and leagued with the terrors. The 
 memory of a trapped rat a thing she had tried to forget. 
 She was like that herself, and, as she thought of it with 
 shuddering, her imagination showed her her own face on
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 267 
 
 the lacerated, struggling body. No, she must never think 
 like this; it was to give in and to leave the way easy for 
 them. . . . She knew she must think of something that she 
 had partly forgotten, must make a definite effort of memory. 
 
 The pain of thought was unendurable, but she was not 
 angry; she felt sure that she was not angry. Was there 
 any hope or peace in such a condition as hers? If she 
 prayed, would God listen? The woman still continued her 
 never-ending monologue. 
 
 It seemed to Cathy that the force of her own terror was 
 modulating slightly, and that the waves of fire beat less 
 furiously upon her heart. Courage, courage, nothing else 
 mattered. She must not let herself be afraid of the mad 
 people, and, far more than that, she must not be afraid of 
 herself. I am Cathy Rossiter, she thought carefully, and 
 I am in no way different to what I ever was. Being here is 
 some awful test put upon me which I have to bear. Jack 
 and Monica have done this to me, but no one can do any- 
 thing to me really. I am myself and there is really no 
 wall between me and the mercy of God. All this must be 
 endured and as it has come to me, I shall have to bear it. 
 
 The voice was raging again. "I never said her father. 
 If you say I did, you lie. No, there are no leaves at all 
 on the trees. I can see perfectly well. Everything is alike. 
 If they say that there is any difference, they are humbug- 
 ging you, fooling you. Don't believe them No, no, no " 
 
 And then, in the twinkling of an eye, her mood changed, 
 and she began to sing. She had a very beautiful voice, 
 well trained, and with a magnificent range and power, and 
 she began to sing, "Mine eyes have seen the Glory," the 
 great battle hymn of the American Republic, with its swing- 
 ing, marching rhythm. 
 
 Cathy sat transfixed, clasping her shaking body with her 
 arms, and the voice soared up in a kind of ecstasy. The 
 mad woman was evoking new powers, and they came at 
 her bidding, turning the asylum into a clean place, and 
 robbing death in life of its victory. Even passion had been 
 cast aside in this moment ; Cathy's own soul was lifted as 
 though light had come to her, and she lay back listening en-
 
 268 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 tranced to the voice that had before added so unspeakably 
 to the misery of the conditions. 
 
 "He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat, 
 He is sifting out the hearts of men before His Judgment seat. 
 O, be swift, my soul, to answer Him, be jubilant, my feet, 
 Our God is marching on." 
 
 Thus it was that brave men went out to meet the "Holiday 
 of the Beast," and thus it was that even the wretched, duped 
 prisoner in a house of pain might rise to meet the sentence 
 passed upon her. 
 
 The voice was very soft now, singing as though to croon 
 a child to sleep, and Cathy could hardly catch the words : 
 
 "In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea 
 With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me." 
 
 Soft as the gentle touch of dawn, the music flowed from 
 the cell, and whispered in Cathy's listening ears: 
 
 "As He died to make men holy, let us die to set men free 
 While God is marching on." 
 
 When she had ceased, complete silence followed. The 
 wild paroxysm, so strangely ended, was spent, and Cathy, 
 who was worn out and at the end of her own physical re- 
 sources, fell back on her poor pillow, and lay there quietly. 
 Victory had come, the first great victory of the spirit.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 As the weeks dragged into months, and nothing further 
 was heard of Cathy, Robert Amyas grew more and more 
 uneasy about her. Lady Carstairs had submitted to Monica 
 Henstock's verdict, and was doing nothing further; she 
 had also been alarmed by Lorrimer's bullying outburst, and 
 she had feared to make some indefinite trouble between him 
 and Cathy. 
 
 Everything ended in a cul de sac, and meantime the weeks 
 were passing and nothing further was known of Lorrimer's 
 wife. Lilian was dissatisfied, but she, too, had admitted 
 the hopeless impossibility of forcing either Jack or Monica 
 to speak. People were leaving London, and the season was 
 wearing to its close, but Amyas gave up any idea of going 
 away. He was too restless and wretched, and he was 
 haunted by the idea that Cathy might suddenly call upon 
 him in some way; ring him up, write or telegraph, and if 
 she did, she must not be disappointed. But Cathy was mute 
 as the dead, and, wherever she was, she did nothing at all 
 to let her friends know. It was during the first week in 
 August, when the weather had become suddenly stifling and 
 sultry, that Amyas decided to go down to Kew Gardens and 
 pretend that he was in the country. He always loved Kew, 
 and there was a wild corner where he could sit on the grass 
 and think. He was under a perpetual obligation to think, 
 these days, and his thoughts never varied. 
 
 He walked across the bridge, and was slowly coming to 
 the great gates, when he noticed a figure in the crowd of 
 people all drifting in the same direction; someone whom 
 he vaguely remembered. She bobbed up and down, a few 
 yards in advance of him, and Amyas had a good memory 
 for the way in which people walked. Where was it that 
 he had seen that small, insignificant creature, who was so 
 
 269
 
 270 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 like everyone else? And then, in a flash, he recalled her. 
 It was the ex-governess who had created a scandal. What 
 else did he recall about her? He thought for a moment. 
 Lorrimer had befriended her, and she had been devoted to 
 Cathy ; she was living at Kingslade, and it was she who had 
 been in charge of Cathy Lady Carstairs had it straight 
 from Doctor Henstock when she broke bounds. His pulses 
 quickened perceptibly, and he hurried on. Here was a liv- 
 ing witness of some, at least, of the secret drama, simple 
 or sinister, which had been enacted at Kingslade, and, catch- 
 ing up with Batten, he lifted his hat. 
 
 "I am Amyas," he said, "a friend of Miss Rossiter's, and 
 I am sure I recognise you, Miss ?" 
 
 "Batten," the girl said, blushing furiously, and looking 
 at him with startled eyes. "I remember Mrs. Lorrimer 
 speaking of you often very often." 
 
 Then there was balm in Gilead. Cathy had not quite 
 forgotten all her old friends. 
 
 "I am very glad to have met you like this," he said 
 simply, "and, if you are not busy, won't you come and 
 have tea with me somewhere? I want to talk about her. 
 It's a long time since I saw her, and now she has gone 
 away." 
 
 "Oh! I did not know," Miss Batten said, starting vio- 
 lently. 
 
 How jumpy the poor girl was, he thought. She had evi- 
 dently never recovered from her debacle. Amyas walked 
 along beside her. Jumpy or not jumpy, he was not going 
 to let her go. She was Lorrimer's secretary, and she, at 
 least, would have some idea of where they had hidden 
 Cathy. If he had to bully her, buy her, or use force, if 
 persuasion was not sufficient, he would have it out of Miss 
 Batten. 
 
 "Are you going back to Kingslade to-night ?" he asked. 
 
 "Oh no, I am not. I am never going back," she said, in 
 the same nervous way. 
 
 Amyas made no reply. He was intensely astonished and 
 also direly disappointed, but he wished Miss Batten not to 
 feel more alarmed than was absolutely necessary. Even if
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 271 
 
 she was no longer at Kingslade she would know a great 
 deal, if she trusted him enough to speak at all frankly. 
 
 "Here is a tea place," he said, indicating a house in the 
 old crescent, and opening the gate. "You did say you 
 would come and have tea. I am rather a lonely person." 
 
 "I live at Richmond," Miss Batten explained as she 
 obeyed him without any show of enthusiasm, "and I am on 
 my way there. I have to leave a parcel at a shop, that 
 was what took me to Kew." 
 
 Amyas led her through a narrow passage into a garden, 
 divided up by screens of wooden trellis covered with creep- 
 ers. He was determined not to rush Miss Batten. She was 
 just as likely as not to get up and run off unless you an- 
 chored her to a cup of tea and a wedge of cake. Once that 
 was done, she would stay where she was, but he felt he 
 must walk delicately and not alarm her. He ordered tea, 
 and while they waited, he lighted a cigarette. 
 
 "Then you are working for Colonel Lorrimer in London, 
 now?" 
 
 She fiddled with the string of the parcel and appeared 
 distressed. 
 
 "I am not, Mr. Amyas. Did you not know that I left 
 Kingslade? I am afraid I left in disgrace." She gave a 
 bird-like glance at him, penitent and shy, and he folded his 
 arms on the small table. 
 
 "I heard very little. Miss Batten, I shall speak quite 
 openly to you, because, unless I do, it's no use my talking 
 at all. Tell me anything you can about Miss Rossiter. I 
 am honestly worried and wretched about her." 
 
 "I don't know." Miss Batten broke off as the waiter 
 came back with a tray and put it on the table before her. 
 When he had gone, she took up the broken thread. "I feel 
 that I ought not to say anything. Colonel Lorrimer was 
 led and deceived ; I know it could never have been his fault." 
 Her voice grew incoherent, and she seemed as though she 
 might begin to cry. 
 
 "Miss Rossiter had been ill for a long time," Amyas said, 
 capturing the teapot, as Miss Batten made no effort to deal
 
 272 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 with the crowded tray. "I told you that I was anxious 
 about her. Will you tell me where she is ?" 
 
 "At Kingslade," Batkins said decidedly. "I left there 
 in a hurry, and I was not allowed to see her. Flora, one of 
 the housemaids, brought me a message, but Doctor Hen- 
 stock met me in the corridor and would not let me go into 
 Mrs. Lorrimer's room. I was dreadfully unhappy, both at 
 having to leave and because I could not see her." She 
 drank from the thick, white cup, and her hands shook 
 nervously. 
 
 "Will you let me ask you why you left?" Amyas said. 
 
 "I was in charge of Miss Rossiter," Miss Batten said, 
 relapsing into the more familiar form of Cathy's name. 
 "We sat together talking. Oh, how well I remember it, for 
 it was the last happy day I had. Major Barlow came under 
 the window, and she wanted to talk to him. It was my duty 
 to prevent her, but you know her way ; she only laughed at 
 
 me, and we began to " she searched for a suitable word 
 
 "well to rag, I suppose; and she pulled me out of the 
 way. It was only fun, and we both enjoyed it really we 
 did, Mr. Amyas." 
 
 "Yes," Amyas said, helping himself to a slab of bread 
 and butter, "I understand." 
 
 "I never dreamed of trouble," she was speaking with 
 feverish earnestness. "She was only gone a few minutes, 
 and it did not do her any harm. I am sure that for anyone 
 like Miss Rossiter to be shut up in a room and never let 
 out, is worse than an illness. Of course Doctor Henstock 
 knew what was best, but it was very hard on dear Miss 
 Rossiter." 
 
 "Then tell me what happened afterwards," Amyas said 
 thoughtfully. He felt that he was coming upon some fact 
 which was going to corroborate his own instinctive belief 
 that Cathy was the victim of a plot. 
 
 "Nurse Binns, the nurse in charge, a hateful woman, 
 came and made herself dreadfully disagreeable, and Miss 
 Rossiter locked her out. I ought to have told you that 
 Colonel Lorrimer and Doctor Henstock had gone up to
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 273 
 
 London, and were dining there. They came back late, and 
 Nurse Binns was waiting for them." 
 
 Amyas gave up the pretence of eating, and lighted a cigar- 
 ette. "She made trouble, I take it?" 
 
 "She did," Miss Batten nodded emphatically. "I was 
 sent for, when Nurse Binns had had her innings, Mr. 
 Amyas, and Doctor Henstock cross-questioned me. She put 
 everything wrong." 
 
 "How do you mean?" 
 
 "I mean that she made out a kind of case. Whatever I 
 said, she turned it round and made it look as though I was 
 lying and hiding the facts." Miss Batten's mild eyes grew 
 angry. "She is absolutely false, and I suppose she thought 
 I did not see her real motive." 
 
 "Doctor Henstock is something of a diplomatist ?" Amyas 
 said lightly. He was feeling intensely excited, but he be- 
 trayed nothing in either voice or look. Miss Batten was 
 growing less and less reserved, and he watched her with 
 interested eyes. 
 
 "I hardly dare say it, even to you," Batkins said, lower- 
 ing her voice to a discreet whisper. "But I guessed, long 
 ago, before Colonel Lorrimer married Miss Rossiter, that 
 Doctor Henstock wanted him for herself. She never liked 
 me, and I was her secretary for some months. During that 
 time I learnt what a cruel, calculating woman she really is. 
 The marriage was a blow to her, Mr. Amyas, and she never 
 forgives." 
 
 "Miss Rossiter had no idea of all this?" 
 
 "Not a shadow. She believes in everyone, and she 
 thought Doctor Henstock her best friend. I was telling 
 you that they sent for me, and, when I got into the room, 
 Colonel Lorrimer looked fearfully upset and did not speak. 
 In fact, he spoke very little all the time. I am so sorry for 
 
 him " She blew her nose violently. "After Doctor 
 
 Henstock had tried to prove that Mrs. Lorrimer was unfit 
 to be left in my charge or at least, that I was not fit to 
 take care of her, I was leaving the room and she caught 
 sight of my wrists. I bruise at a touch," she held out her 
 thin arms to him and showed him some faint marks.
 
 274 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "That is from the buckle of my wrist watch, and this, from 
 a knock I gave myself opening a window. You see how 
 little it takes to mark me." 
 
 Amyas studied the bruises and nodded silently, as Miss 
 Batten went on. 
 
 "I had marks, but then, I have them every day of my 
 life; Doctor Henstock showed them to Colonel Lorrimer 
 and I know that he thought something awful had happened." 
 
 "But you explained, I suppose ? You told him the truth ?" 
 
 Miss Batten moved uncomfortably in her chair. 
 
 "Please tell me the whole of it," he urged, and she 
 fumbled again with the parcel on her knees. 
 
 "I have to wander a great deal from the point," she said, 
 "and, also, I may seem to be saying things against Colonel 
 Lorrimer. I wouldn't do that for worlds." 
 
 "You need not think I will misunderstand him," Amyas 
 said, with a twist of his mouth ; "you have nothing to fear 
 as to that. I know what I think of him." 
 
 Miss Batten smiled, and appeared reassured. 
 
 "Ever since Doctor Henstock's arrival at Kingslade, she 
 had been I hardly like to say it but I do believe that she 
 had been tempting him." 
 
 Her choice of expression sounded so quaint to Amyas, 
 that he smiled in spite of himself. The idea of Monica 
 dangling like the forbidden fruit before the eyes of Lorri- 
 mer, was humorous to a degree. 
 
 "She thought he would have married her, and I may be 
 saying something very wrong, but I know that she began to 
 make him admire her very much." Again Miss Batten 
 paused, and seemed to struggle with her memories. 
 
 "All the truth," Amyas said, touching her arm with his 
 hand. "Out with it." 
 
 "I never spied on them," she recoiled nervously. "Don't 
 credit me with such baseness; but I used to sit in the big 
 conservatory in the evenings, when it was dinner time, and 
 I left a book there one evening, just before all this hap- 
 pened. It was a very interesting book called 'The Chink 
 in the Armour,' and I felt I could not sleep without know- 
 ing how it ended. That was what brought me back there
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 275 
 
 quite late. Usually," she explained, with her eager breath- 
 lessness accentuated at every word, "no one came there, 
 and I found the door open and went in. I knew that I had 
 no right to have come no right to have seen what I did 
 see," she turned her head away. 
 
 "And what did you see?" he asked. 
 
 "He was holding her in his arms, and her face was lifted 
 to his oh, the treachery of that woman, Mr. Amyas ! How 
 could she treat her friend so, and poor Colonel Lorri- 
 mer " 
 
 "Might have had some scruples himself, I should have 
 thought," Amyas interposed drily. 
 
 "No, you can't blame him," Miss Batten was on the of- 
 fensive at once. "She had been following him day in and 
 day out, and all the time she was calling Miss Rossiter 'darl- 
 ing/ and making this fuss about her health." 
 
 "Then you knew pretty well what to expect?" Amyas 
 asked. 
 
 "I knew that when she showed him my wrists, she was 
 really trying to make him believe that Miss Rossiter wasn't 
 herself, and that she got queer attacks, either that or I 
 hardly like to speak it she wanted to see Mr. Barlow so 
 much that she had used force." 
 
 "But he could not have believed it," Amyas waved his 
 hand. "Impossible, Miss Batten, unless he wished to." 
 
 "Nurse Binns had been saying in the servants' hall that 
 Mrs. Lorrimer was as mad as a bee," Batkins said ; "I know 
 that, for it was repeated to me. I don't think that Doctor 
 Henstock agreed with her, but by that time I believed 
 nothing she seemed to be doing. She was deep, and kept 
 her ideas to herself." 
 
 Amyas thought for a moment. The story was far worse 
 than what he had expected, and he felt an increasing anx- 
 iety to know further particulars. Miss Batten was speak- 
 ing again ; her face wan and distressed, and her sandy hair 
 hanging like whiskers on either side of her thin cheeks. 
 She told him that she had gained courage at the last and 
 had spoken to Colonel Lorrimer, begging him to listen to 
 nothing that anyone said but to go to Cathy and get the
 
 276 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 whole substance of the story direct from her. In the 
 morning she had been given a note; quite a kind letter, en- 
 closing a substantial cheque, in which Colonel Lorrimer in- 
 formed her that he wished her to leave Kingslade at once. 
 He made no reference to the scene of the previous night, 
 and she was helpless before a clear dismissal. While she 
 was packing, she was brought the message by Flora, who 
 said that "something was up" about Mrs. Lorrimer, and 
 that she had overheard Doctor Henstock telling Colonel 
 Lorrimer that she was 'phoning to some doctor in London. 
 
 "There was no talk of Miss Rossiter leaving when I went 
 away," Miss Batten said sadly, ending her recital dismally. 
 "I wrote to her, but she did not answer, and I thought it 
 likely the letter was destroyed. Where is she? please tell 
 me that, Mr. Amyas. I lie awake at night, thinking of her 
 so cut off and friendless. Doctor Henstock had got be- 
 tween her and all her old friends and would not hear of 
 her seeing any of them, and she had made ill-feeling be- 
 tween her and the Colonel. He had changed completely, 
 and he was often in a temper with everyone. Only Major 
 Hammersly and Doctor Henstock could manage him, and 
 they played on his feelings." 
 
 "Who is Hammersly?" Amyas said, resting his chin on 
 his hands. "Tell me anything you can of him." 
 
 "Well, he is a big man in those parts," Miss Batten said, 
 pushing her cup away. "A J.P. and a landowner. Nothing 
 like so big as Colonel Lorrimer, but of importance. I heard 
 from the housekeeper that he isn't liked over well, but he 
 gained great influence over the Colonel; they were always 
 together, and Miss Rossiter called him 'Beelzebub Junior.' 
 She said he ought to go about with a swarm of flies round 
 his head, and she would hardly speak to him. I think that 
 this made a great deal of trouble as well as all the rest." 
 She sighed, and her tired face looked pinched and anxious. 
 
 Amyas said nothing; he was thinking carefully of what 
 he had been told. At last he spoke again. 
 
 "None of us know where she is now," he said, and Miss 
 Batten started in alarmed surprise; "not even Lady Car- 
 stairs. When you left Kingslade, about a day or two later,
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 277 
 
 Miss Rossiter was taken away to a nursing home, and since 
 then there has been absolute silence." 
 
 "But Doctor Henstock knows and the Colonel." 
 
 "Neither of them will say." He leaned forward on his 
 arm and spoke very earnestly. "This does not satisfy me, 
 Miss Batten, and I want to ask you to help me to find her." 
 
 "If I can. But how can I ? I passed the Colonel in the 
 street one day, and, though he saw me, he walked on and 
 
 took no notice " her voice quavered painfully; "and 
 
 Doctor Henstock hates me. She never liked me, and having 
 me at her house was only one of her traps. She did it to 
 please Colonel Lorrimer. How could I find out ? Oh dear, 
 oh dear," she wrung her poor, weak hands desperately, "to 
 think of Miss Rossiter away from everyone. She won't 
 be able to bear it, 1 know she won't." 
 
 "You know the servants at Kingslade," Amyas said, "and 
 some of them may be there still. What sort of man is the 
 chauffeur? He may have some knowledge of where they 
 all went. Could you not go down there I'll take you 
 myself and wait for you and see if there is anything to 
 be learnt? I must go, in any case, to see a man called 
 Luke." 
 
 "The doctor? Such a dreadful person. But he only 
 came the day Miss Rossiter nearly died." Batkins covered 
 her face with her hands at the memory. "I don't recall that 
 he ever again came into the house." 
 
 "Yes he did," Amyas said. "He was called in for a con- 
 sultation of some blackguardly kind, and he has got to 
 answer for it." 
 
 "If I can be of any use, and not appear to be going against 
 the Colonel," she said, agreeing limply. "I can get to-mor- 
 row afternoon off." 
 
 Amyas looked at his watch. It was still early in the 
 afternoon, and time had suddenly become of huge value. 
 
 "We will go now," he said. "There is a garage round the 
 corner, and I can get a car to run us down. You will be 
 back in plenty of time." 
 
 He threw tact to the winds, and began to hustle Miss 
 Batten with relentless haste. What she had told him had
 
 278 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 filled his mind with real alarm. Monica and Lorrimer were 
 leagued for very obvious reasons. Their ugly, unromantic 
 love story was taking a course which threatened Cathy, and 
 months had already gone by. Presently, when he had done 
 what he could to find out where Cathy was, down at Kings- 
 lade, he intended to make inquiries about Monica and Lorri- 
 mer. For their peace of mind, Cathy had been walled up 
 in impenetrable silence ; and where had they thought fit to 
 place her? Cathy, who lived only in liberty. He was almost 
 as jumpy as Miss Batten herself before the car started, and 
 during the journey neither of them spoke. 
 
 It took some time to find the battered lodgings where 
 Doctor Luke lived, and Robert sent Miss Batten onwards 
 to Kingslade Park in the car, arranging to meet her in an 
 hour at the gates. 
 
 The lodgings Doctor Luke occupied were over a public- 
 house, but the barman knew nothing of his late lodger. All 
 he could tell Amyas was, that, through the influence of 
 Major Hammersly, Luke had got a wholly unexpected job 
 as a ship's doctor, and had packed his bag and disappeared. 
 He left no address, as he never received letters, only bills, 
 which he did not want, and the barman, who was tempera- 
 mentally inquisitive, thought that Amyas was up to some- 
 thing, if he wanted Doctor Luke at all. 
 
 "He wasn't a doctor for class cases," he remarked; "not 
 by any means, sir. We were all surprised when he was 
 sent for to Kingslade Park. Besides, he hadn't even voted 
 for Lorrimer at the elections. He was a seedy chap, Luke, 
 and it all seemed a bit on the queer side." 
 
 Robert was aware that the barman would have talked for 
 any length of time, but there was little to be gained by 
 continuing the conversation, and at last he turned away. 
 Luke had gone, it was true, but why had Hammersly in- 
 terested himself in the scallywag doctor? It had been 
 worth his while to make interest for the scoundrel, so that 
 he should be out of the place, and Amyas thought of the 
 conversation he had overheard, and the evident remorse of 
 the creature. How dark and dirty it was all becoming under 
 the costly and specious exterior. What had they done with
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 279 
 
 Cathy, this relentless crew? Where was she now, eating 
 her heart out in some unknown place? It maddened him 
 to think of it, and he walked quickly to the gates of Kings- 
 lade Park. The car was still waiting, and Miss Batten had 
 not returned. Getting in, he sat down and began to think. 
 Heretofore he had only been unhappy, and now he was 
 honestly alarmed. What had been a motiveless and un- 
 accountable action on the part of Lorrimer, began to take 
 definite shape. If you got hold of a reason why Cathy 
 should be put quietly out of the picture, it made a big differ- 
 ence to the whole case. From Miss Batten he had learnt 
 that Doctor Henstock had the strongest motive known to 
 woman for her part in the play, and, if so, Lorrimer also 
 had a sufficient reason for seeking to be rid of his wife. 
 They wanted to feel safe, for Lorrimer was a "rising man." 
 Hammersly had an axe to grind, and was a person of local 
 importance, and Doctor Luke was only a shady trader in 
 illicit drugs, possibly worse in any event, a man who had 
 to be got out of the way. All this was as clear as daylight, 
 but it did not yet explain the mystery. So far as Amyas 
 knew, if it was necessary to put Cathy in a nursing home, 
 there was no reason for so much intrigue. She might have 
 been taken there on any pretext, and Monica's advice had 
 been that she should go. Why, then, all this intricate and 
 complex business with Luke? 
 
 He could make nothing of it, and sat with his hat over 
 his eyes watching the avenue for the return of Miss Batten.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 SHE came at last, with her light, hopping walk hurried 
 almost to a run, and Robert opened the door of the car for 
 her. 
 
 "I have been a long time," she said apologetically, "but 
 it took ages to find anyone. They are all gone, except the 
 Scotch gardener, and one or two of the stable men." 
 
 "Then, the chauffeur isn't there?" Amyas was keenly 
 disappointed. 
 
 "We can do nothing by staying here," Miss Batten said, 
 "but I did find out something which I will tell you." 
 
 He leaned forward and directed the driver to take them 
 back to London. 
 
 "Well?" he asked impatiently, "What did you hear?" 
 
 Miss Batten looked at him sidewaySj and her mouth 
 trembled. 
 
 "It isn't first-hand," she said with a touch of caution. 
 "I have been saying this over and over again to myself. 
 To bring such a grave charge against the Colonel " 
 
 "For God's sake say what you have heard. I don't want 
 to seem unfriendly, Miss Batten, but I have been waiting 
 over an hour, and waiting is always demoralising." 
 
 "I will tell you just what happened," she said, in no way 
 resenting his slight heat of manner. "The house was closed 
 and there was no one there, so I went into the garden and 
 found McGregor in the grape-house. He is a nice, kind 
 man, Mr. Amyas, very superior indeed. I asked him 
 for news of the family, and he told me that he knew noth- 
 ing. Major Hammersly goes there every few days to look 
 around, and McGregor said that he appeared to be more 
 master than the Colonel himself. Of Mrs. Lorrimer he 
 knew nothing." 
 
 "Don't call her by that name," Robert said suddenly. 
 
 280
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 28 r 
 
 "She was Miss Rossiter to both of us first. We can drop 
 that fiction by this time and continue to call her Miss 
 Rossiter." 
 
 "I told McGregor," Miss Batten resumed, "that I was 
 anxious to write to her or to hear news of her, and that, 
 as he probably knew, I had been sent away in disgrace." 
 She got out her crumpled pocket-handkerchief and put it 
 to her pale eyes. "I can't say how kindly McGregor spoke. 
 He is one of nature's gentlemen, Mr. Amyas, and he showed 
 it. He asked me to come, to the garden house, where his 
 wife lives, and sit down; there had been a great deal of 
 talk, and he never repeated things himself. He said that 
 he never mixed himself up in other folks' business. What 
 was being said had nothing to do with him." 
 
 Amyas possessed his soul in patience and listened. Miss 
 Batten wandered in her talk and was unnecessarily prolific 
 as to detail; he submitted to the inevitable. Miss Batten 
 had followed the worthy gardener to his house, and there 
 she had found Mrs. McGregor talking to Mattingly, the 
 head groom, who was still in charge of the stables. As 
 soon as she had spoken of Mrs. Lorrimer, Mattingly be- 
 came communicative, and repeated a very strange story 
 told him by Jakes. 
 
 If there had been some vague scandal in the servants' 
 quarters, relating to Cathy and the amazing George Bar- 
 low, it was almost forgotten in the later and far more 
 dramatic events which followed. Jakes had been told to 
 drive to Welldon Grange, which was situated on the out- 
 skirts of the village of High Stanford, fifteen miles at least 
 from Kingslade. He was a stranger to those parts, and 
 had to look up the route on the map before they started, and 
 the name of Welldon Grange conveyed nothing at all to 
 him. Mrs. Lorrimer and Doctor Henstock left Kingslade 
 at the hour named by Colonel Lorrimer, and Mrs. Lorrimer 
 appeared unusually gay and happy. She had luggage with 
 her, and so had Doctor Henstock. Following the roads he 
 had marked on the map, Jakes found his way to the gates 
 of the Grange, when, to his surprise, they opened automati- 
 cally. Mattingly said that the chauffeur told him that he
 
 282 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 thought it the queerest thing he had ever known. Having 
 arrived at the house, Doctor Henstock got out and was met 
 by a gentleman who appeared to expect them. Mrs. Lorri- 
 mer had objected to leaving the car, and he heard Doctor 
 Henstock say that she would only have to wait a few 
 minutes. In the end, she was persuaded to go up the steps, 
 and had disappeared from sight. 
 
 Jakes, left alone in the car, had begun to look around 
 him, and he had caught sight of a good looking nurse at a 
 window. He was, so Mattingly told Miss Batten, "always 
 a terror for the ladies," and he had shown his appreciation 
 of the nurse by some means entirely his own. With his 
 usual success in these affairs, the nurse had responded, 
 and a little later she walked out of the house and stood 
 on the far side of the car, where she could not be seen 
 from the windows, and where a harmless flirtation might 
 be carried on undisturbed. When they had philandered 
 for a minute or two, Jakes felt a desire to satisfy his curi- 
 osity, and he asked the girl what sort of place it was, and 
 who lived in it. She had told him he was "a proper simple- 
 ton." 
 
 "Why, it's a lunatic asylum," she said. "Didn't you 
 know that ? Everyone in there is mad." 
 
 Jakes had stared at her blankly. He had left "Moddom" 
 and Doctor Henstock at a madhouse, and they were staying 
 a long time. 
 
 "Was your lady one of the fighting sort, or one of the 
 crying sort? Some are as dumb as the dead, and others 
 will scream for hours," the girl remarked. 
 
 Jakes replied, not without warmth, that "Moddom" was 
 not mad, she was the finest lady in the three Kingdoms. 
 He also expressed a wish to leave Miss Henstock as a per- 
 manent inmate, as he, with the other servants at Kingslade, 
 hated the sight of the lady doctor. 
 
 "You can have her as a gift," he said, "and if you'll take 
 my advice, you'll straight- jacket her right off." 
 
 "Yet, for all that, your lady is a loony," the girl retorted, 
 "I heard the Governor Doctor Chapman saying she was 
 expected."
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 283 
 
 The news was so sudden and so ugly to Jakes, that he 
 had only just time to see that Doctor Henstock was return- 
 ing, and to regain his seat in the car, while the nurse ran 
 off. Mrs. Lorrimer's luggage had been taken out of the 
 car, and Jakes had been given orders to drive Doctor Hen- 
 stock to the nearest station, which was quite a short run. 
 At the station she had spoken to him, and said that, if he 
 had any idea of the nature of the nursing home in which 
 Mrs. Lorrimer had been left, he was to keep it to himself. 
 "We are all devoted to your mistress," she said, "and I feel 
 sure that you would not injure her in any way. At present 
 you can serve her best by saying nothing at all." She had 
 given him a very moderate tip and he watched her get 
 into the train for London. 
 
 For a long time Jakes had kept a still tongue. He was 
 in London with Colonel Lorrimer, and Kingslade knew him 
 no more, until one night, quite late, he returned to collect 
 his belongings. He had had a row with the Colonel and was 
 sacked for impertinence. In his anger he spoke to Mat- 
 tingly, and said at the same time that a lawsuit should be 
 taken against Colonel Lorrimer and Doctor Henstock. They 
 had, between them, shut "Moddom" up in a madhouse, and 
 the thought of it tormented his mind. He himself was 
 leaving for Canada, and before he left he wanted to feel 
 that someone knew the facts, in case questions ever arose. 
 They had talked it all over, Mattingly, Jakes, and the Mc- 
 Gregors, but they did not know what to do. Jakes was off 
 for the Colonies, but the others had good places and a 
 reasonably good master, so that it seemed impossible to go 
 against him. It was no affair of theirs, and they had de- 
 cided to keep the matter quiet. They regarded Miss Batten 
 as a friend, and were ready to confide in her, but she felt 
 that they would not tell anyone else the alarming facts. 
 
 When she had come to the conclusion of her story, she 
 leaned back, faint and trembling in the car, her eyes strained 
 and wild. 
 
 "It nearly killed me," she said in a suffocated voice. 
 "Oh, Mr. Amyas, do you suppose that Colonel Lorrimer 
 was a party to such an act as that?"
 
 284 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 Amyas was gripping his hands on his stick and staring 
 before him. Cathy in a madhouse. Cathy, who had been 
 surrounded by a wealth of adoration and love such as was 
 the lot of few. If he had heard that she had been sold 
 into indecent slavery he could not have suffered a wilder 
 sense of rage and wrong. Her husband and her trusted 
 friend had used her simple faith in them to lead her uncon- 
 sciously to the pit which they had digged. She had been 
 months now in this licensed prison, and he sat bereft of 
 speech as the truth flooded over him. 
 
 He recalled again the conversation between Luke and 
 Hammersly ; Luke had come back that day to try and recall 
 his action, vile enough in all conscience, but clean as com- 
 pared to the treachery of Monica and Lorrimer. He had 
 been called in, because he was under the thumb of Ham- 
 mersly; yet, even so, some late glimmering of remorse had 
 caught him, and he desired to undo the foul work to which 
 he had lent his hand. These specious, respectable people 
 who had decided that Cathy was in the way, had played 
 the game well, but not well enough; and what was one to 
 do? 
 
 Amyas patted Miss Batten's hands, and spoke at last. 
 
 "You have done splendidly," he said. "God knows, if 
 it was not that I had met you, she might be there for 
 ever." 
 
 "But you don't think that he knows," she said desperately. 
 "He can't know. Doctor Henstock has lied to him, she has 
 told him that it is a nursing home and he only knows that." 
 
 "Make no mistake, Miss Batten," Robert spoke savagely, 
 "Colonel Lorrimer hasn't any doubts at all. Without his 
 full consent it would not have been possible. The man is 
 as dishonoured as the woman." 
 
 "Oh no, oh no," Batkins sobbed unrestrainedly. "Don't 
 tell me that." 
 
 "It matters very little what I say," Amyas said, he was 
 feeling dreadfully tired. "You have found out where she 
 is, and that is everything." 
 
 When he got back to his rooms he sat for a long time 
 thinking. He wanted advice, and immediate action was im-
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 285 
 
 perative. Now that he knew the truth, he was armed, and 
 he decided that his first step must be to see Lorrimer and 
 give himself the pleasure of telling him what he thought 
 of him. 
 
 Taking the telephone book from the table, he looked up 
 his address. Lorrimer still had his flat in St. James's Court, 
 and Amyas decided to go there after he had dined. All 
 through the meal he thought of Cathy. God! How awful 
 it was. He knew nothing of lunatic asylums, but even the 
 best must be tainted by the presence of the inmates. She 
 might not be subjected to harsh treatment in these civi- 
 lised days such a thought was impossible but she was un- 
 der the closest restraint, at best, and the others with her 
 might be an abiding nightmare. How had they been able 
 to do it all so easily? Amyas had an idea that it was diffi- 
 cult to get lunatics certified. There was so much mystery 
 about it all that he wondered if it were legally possible for 
 Monica and Doctor Luke to pass sentence upon Cathy 
 Rossiter, and no one be able to protect her or interfere. 
 She had evidently been taken to the asylum without the 
 smallest idea of the nature of her destination. If you 
 judged Cathy by the ordinary standards, she was certainly 
 unusual, and some might call her eccentric ; but there were 
 no ordinary standards for such as she. How had they dared 
 to lay their sacrilegious hands upon her? His anger deep- 
 ened and grew as he thought of it. Lorrimer had married 
 her, taken her away from them all, and, when he grew 
 tired of her he had stooped to something suspiciously akin 
 to crime. 
 
 He finished eating and told his man to call a taxi. If 
 luck favoured him he might catch Lorrimer at the flat. 
 
 When he arrived he was told by Lorrimer's servant that 
 his master was still at dinner, and that he was alone, and 
 Amyas was shown into a smoking-room to wait. The room 
 was comfortably furnished and there was the lingering 
 smell of good cigars. Everything was costly, heavy and 
 ugly, and prosperity was written large upon all. Nowhere 
 wag there the smallest trace of Cathy. The photographs 
 on the tables and along the mantelpiece were those of
 
 286 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 Lorrimer's own people, and one snapshot of Monica, which 
 showed her smiling and gay. It cost Robert an effort not 
 to take it from its leather case and tear it to atoms. If 
 he hated Lorrimer, he hated Doctor Henstock with double 
 violence. The servant reappeared after a few moments, 
 carrying a tray set with glasses, a decanter of whisky and 
 a syphon. He told Amyas that Colonel Lorrimer was just 
 coming, and as he retired discreetly, Robert heard the ad- 
 vancing footsteps of his host. 
 
 Lorrimer was evidently astonished at both the hour of 
 Robert's visit and the fact that he had come at all. He 
 adopted a slightly haughty air ("like an affronted butcher," 
 was Robert's summing up), and he squared his elbows and 
 spoke in a carefully modulated voice. 
 
 "How deydo, Amyas?" he said condescendingly; "won't 
 you sit down?" 
 
 "No, I won't," Amyas replied, standing with his hands in 
 his coat pockets. 
 
 Lorrimer, who was inwardly commenting upon his fe- 
 brile, foppish appearance, at once looked away. 
 
 "Well if you won't . . ." he said, and he seated him- 
 self, lighting a cigar and throwing his case on the table. 
 "Will you smoke?" 
 
 "No," Amyas said again, and Lorrimer picked a paper 
 from the floor, speaking over it. 
 
 "Then, if you won't sit down or smoke, perhaps you will 
 not mind if I read the paper?" he said rudely. 
 
 "On what grounds have you put Miss Rossiter into a 
 lunatic asylum?" Amyas said. He was there to be direct 
 and not to beat about the bush. 
 
 "I suppose that you are referring to my wife," Lorrimer 
 laid down the paper and stared at Robert with hostile eyes. 
 
 "Unfortunately most unfortunately, I am." 
 
 "What the devil has it got to do with you?" 
 
 "I learnt to-day," Amyas said, speaking quietly, "that for 
 months past she has been an inmate of a place called 
 Welldon Grange." 
 
 Lorrimer shrugged his shoulders. "I don't ask you how 
 you gained this information," he said bitterly, "but, since
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 287 
 
 you have, it is the case. Now you can get out go and 
 spread it round London." 
 
 Amyas flushed, but he held himself in check. 
 
 "You and Doctor Henstock have hidden the fact from 
 Lady Carstairs. She asked you to be frank with her, and 
 you refused. What you have to do now, is to state the 
 grounds upon which Doctor Henstock and a drunken swine 
 called Luke have acted." 
 
 Lorrimer's eyes flickered and his face twitched. 
 
 "I decline to wash my dirty linen in public," he said 
 slowly. 
 
 "As one of Miss Rossiter's oldest friends, I came here 
 to give you a chance," Robert said. He loathed the man 
 as he watched him, but he did not intend to lose his self- 
 control. "If you do not intend to make any explanation, 
 other means will be used." 
 
 "I have heard that threat before," Lorrimer said, with 
 the suggestion of a sneer. "You call yourself one of my 
 wife's oldest friends. Perhaps she might not thank you 
 for your interference." 
 
 "Let us keep to the point," Amyas said quietly ; "I want 
 the facts if there are any." 
 
 Lorrimer looked at him with speculative eyes. After all, 
 since the truth was out, he might permit himself the satis- 
 faction of clearing his own character. Amyas was in love 
 with Cathy in his contemptible way, and there would be a 
 distinct sense of pleasure in letting go. But he intended 
 to do it more or less artistically. 
 
 "I think I will tell you," he said, with a short laugh. "Do 
 you suppose that Doctor Henstock or I acted without 
 reason? Come, come now, Amyas, we are reasonable 
 human beings. My wife was, as you know, very seriously 
 ill through her own act chiefly, and she had a long treat- 
 ment from Doctor Henstock." 
 
 "I know all that," Amyas said impatiently. 
 
 "It is not exactly pleasant for me, as she is my wife," 
 he leaned heavily upon the word, "to admit that she was 
 carrying on what I must describe as rather a vulgar affair 
 with Barlow," he just glanced at Amyas to see if the shot
 
 288 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 had told, but gained nothing by his watchfulness. "I only 
 refer to this to let you understand that she was worked 
 up over excited and behaving rather oddly." 
 
 "You need not trouble with excuses," Robert said curtly, 
 "and you can go on to the important part of the story." 
 
 "As you will," Lorrimer waved his hand as though dis- 
 posing of the subject. He was showing Amyas that he had 
 put himself beyond the prejudice of jealous passion. Noth- 
 ing could be more composed than Lorrimer's whole manner ; 
 later on he would let Amyas have it in the neck. 
 
 "Passing over that episode," he continued, in the same 
 remote and rather condescending tones, "I must next tell 
 you that my wife attacked Miss Batten, my secretary. She," 
 he winced, and roughed his eyebrows with his fingers, bow- 
 ing his head, for, even though he enjoyed hitting Amyas, 
 it was hideous to speak of, "she was not sane at the time, 
 I believe, though I did not know it then. What followed 
 was very much more serious. She tried to take her own 
 life with an overdose of a powerful drug, and it became 
 evident that she might repeat the attempt." 
 
 There was a moment's silence between the two men, and 
 Lorrimer lifted himself in his chair and looked ferociously 
 at Amyas. 
 
 "For her sake I have hidden the fact that I am married 
 to a suicidal lunatic, for her sake I have kept the thing 
 quiet; but you have gone prying into what is no concern 
 of yours, and I'll damned well let you know that this is to 
 be the end of it. She is certified, and is in safe keeping. 
 If you go to Welldon Grange you will find out nothing 
 further, and the doctor will not let you see her. You're a 
 damned sight too much interested in my affairs, and now 
 you can clear out of this." 
 
 "Don't lose your head," Amyas said easily. "You are 
 quite a reasonably good liar, Lorrimer, but you fail, be- 
 cause I know that one of your assertions is untrue. I don't 
 believe that Miss Rossiter tried to kill herself, and I don't 
 believe that she is mad. Why, if your conscience is so ad- 
 mirably clean, did you call in Doctor Luke ? What was your 
 friend, Doctor Henstock, thinking of, not to have a better
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 289 
 
 prop than that on which to hang your virtuous conclusions ? 
 You were all in too great a hurry, and I know, beyond 
 any doubt, that Luke was not convinced, and that he was 
 anxious to blot out his own share in your dirty work." 
 
 Lorrimer sprang to his feet in a towering passion of 
 rage. 
 
 "Do you dare to accuse me of shutting my wife up in 
 an asylum for some reason of my own? Good God, it's 
 beyond endurance." 
 
 Amyas nodded, and walked to the door. 
 
 "I came here prepared to hear very much what you have 
 told me," he said. "At present, I shall only tell Lady 
 Carstairs, and those who are closely concerned." He 
 turned at the door and looked at Lorrimer, who bestrode 
 the hearth-rug, debating with himself whether or not he 
 should kick Amyas out. "It's your affair no longer. You've 
 given her months of hell, and you've got to pay for that." 
 
 Lorrimer sat down again after Amyas had closed the 
 door. He was stirred to the depths, and his face was heavy 
 with anger. As he saw it, he was innocent, and he had 
 nothing to fear from any amount of cackling people ; but he 
 dreaded the voice of public opinion. People some people 
 at any rate might accuse him, and you could not silence 
 a scandal once it was alive and active. Why had Monica 
 always made such a point of secrecy? If they had given 
 the facts out from the first it would have saved all sus- 
 picion, and suspicion is an ugly thing to tackle if it creeps 
 into the Press. Monica had said that "if Cathy ever re- 
 covered" no one must have it to say of her that she had 
 once been mad. It was her wonderful loyalty which had 
 jeopardised the situation or was it because she had never 
 really felt quite satisfied as to the validity of her own de- 
 cision? Monica had not given him any clue whatever to 
 this point. The months had brought about a closer unity 
 between them. Without her he would have been intensely 
 alone, and he needed a woman. The wild birds, the 
 women who must otherwise have filled the gap, would have 
 had no real place in his life. He had loved Cathy, but that 
 was over; he was only angry with her now. There was
 
 290 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 nothing exciting, nothing inspiring about his liaison with 
 Monica ; it was more like a secret marriage, and there were 
 all the level elements of the holy estate in their inter- 
 course. 
 
 To open any question about Cathy was, quite conceivably, 
 to risk the discovery of the relations between himself and 
 Monica, and that must never be. He thought very tenderly 
 of Monica. She was hard and definite to all the rest of the 
 world, but to him she was gentleness itself. If Amyas was 
 out to poke and pry, he might discover things which Lorri- 
 mer had no intention of allowing anyone to know. Ham- 
 mersly more than suspected, but he was a man of the world 
 and could be trusted implicitly ; his valet also knew, but he 
 was not likely to talk ; Jakes, the chauffeur, who had been 
 very insolent in manner and might possibly have discovered 
 some damning fact, was in Canada. 
 
 He bowed his head on his clasped hands, his elbows on 
 the arms of his chair, and looked as though he might be 
 praying. Let them do what they liked about Cathy. She 
 was a certified lunatic, and the law was upon his side. In 
 a way, it was a relief to publish his wrong. Lorrimer was 
 pleased, in a sense, at that, so that the yapping crowd fol- 
 lowed the line and, in their heat and excitement, knew 
 nothing of the secret which was precious to his soul. He 
 got up at last and rang up Doctor Henstock. In trouble 
 or in victory alike, he always returned to Monica.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 WEARY as he was, Amyas did not go back to his own rooms. 
 He intended to see Lilian, and to do that he would have 
 to go to her house. Hinton might be there, and there had 
 been all that dreary business between them, but surely that 
 might be left to rest in peace at last. Amyas cast a fleeting 
 thought backwards and recalled his own former self; and 
 he felt as he did so, that there was not very much of the 
 t>ld Robert left. He was glad too, in a way, to be able to 
 feel quite honestly that his love for Cathy had been of 
 later growth. It involved a tiny scruple, because Cathy 
 demanded something righteous, whether in love or friend- 
 ship. When he realised that she meant everything to him, 
 he had done with Lilian or she had done with him, and he 
 had begun to slip down the descent to Avernus. Cathy had 
 made him realise where he was bound for ; not by preach- 
 ing, but by some far stronger power. She was so wholly 
 good herself, that to love her was to touch the hem of a 
 healing garment. For her sake, Robert had sloughed his 
 former way of life, and his strength had grown slowly 
 with the fight. There was no promise of reward anywhere, 
 but reward had no place in the scheme. Amyas had climbed 
 to a height where love loses sight of self and thinks only 
 of the Beloved. It was easy, now, to toss the conventions 
 aside and walk up the steps of the house where Lilian 
 lived. They both would do anything for Cathy, and Robert 
 knew that Lilian was as straight as a line. 
 
 He found her alone, and she was honestly glad to see 
 him, though at once she realised that he had bad news to 
 tell her, and when he sat down she at once asked for Cathy. 
 
 "I feel sure you have news of her at last," she said, and 
 her eyes clouded. "Robert, she is not seriously ill?" 
 
 He looked back at her and spoke steadily. 
 
 291
 
 292 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 As Lilian listened to his story her face grew very white, 
 and she flung out her hands impulsively. 
 
 "No, Robert, no. It can't be. Monica and Jack to have 
 done this? But it is impossible." 
 
 "It is not impossible; they have done it." 
 
 Amyas gave her an account of his recent interview with 
 Lorrimer, and Lilian seemed to be thinking rapidly. 
 
 "They have kept everything so quiet," she said, "I don't 
 believe that anyone has the smallest idea. I always knew 
 that Muggins was in love with Jack, but that was a passive 
 condition or so I judged. We all liked Mug, and I find 
 it so hard to believe that she could be utterly different to 
 what one imagined. Jack Lorrimer was always a puzzle to 
 me, because I never understood what it was Cathy found 
 in him. But he seemed so devoted to her, and one hoped 
 that it might work out quite splendidly." 
 
 "Well, it hasn't," Amyas said laconically. "He hates 
 her, judging by the way he spoke. He is totally devoid of 
 either feeling or imagination, and he only knows that he is 
 free of her and that he has been let in. I always knew the 
 man was a rotter, always." 
 
 "Yes, you did know it," Lilian admitted. "The next thing 
 to do is to get her out of this awful place at once." Her 
 face grew very serious. "Has it struck you that so long a 
 time under such circumstances may have done Cathy in- 
 calculable harm?" She flinched, and went on quickly. 
 "Don't let us think of it, Robert. We must act at once." 
 
 "That is why I came," he said simply; "I'm too rabid to 
 think clearly. What ought we to do?" 
 
 "I think, in common fairness, I ought to go to Muggins 
 and tell her that we know. If she is playing the game, she 
 must help us, by telling us all she can. I'll go to her first 
 thing in the morning." 
 
 "And after that. Given that she is not going to help?" 
 
 "We'd better have advice. There is sure to be a legal 
 complication. Any sort of patched up business that in- 
 cludes certification may mean that there is a law in exis- 
 tence for dealing with the question."
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 293 
 
 "Will you come with me to Dobree, when you have seen 
 Doctor Henstock?" he asked, "or do you mind?" 
 
 "Mind? Robert, don't be idiotic." She flushed slightly. 
 "We have forgotten all that." 
 
 "I can't believe that Doctor Henstock will help," he said, 
 as he got up to leave. "She and Lorrimer are tarred with 
 the same damned brush. Still, since you think it necessary, 
 you must try." 
 
 Lilian sat thinking after Amyas had left her. The news 
 of Cathy's fate had come like a thunderclap, and she could 
 hardly believe it. Cathy had always been wayward, and her 
 great zest for life had made her vehement when she ought 
 to have been calm. Cathy cared for everything, she was no 
 half-hearted believer; her friends went surrounded with 
 haloes, and her ideals were gloriously impossible. Now she 
 had come to a place of fear and terror, and not one of all 
 those who loved her was near to be of help. As she stood 
 with her elbows on the mantelpiece, and her face set and 
 firm, Lilian swore that she would not fail her friend. 
 
 In the morning she rang up Doctor Henstock, and said 
 that she wanted to see her urgently; Monica listened with 
 a curious look in her eyes. This was the second move in 
 the attack begun the previous night. Lady Carstairs was 
 likely to be the next. They wanted the truth. Let them 
 have it ; there was no use postponing the interview. Lilian 
 had a determination which could not be evaded, and it was 
 better to appear ready and even anxious to give the details. 
 Monica looked stronger and happier than she had been, and 
 she had left most of her scruples behind her. There was 
 something very definite to fight for now, for if Cathy were 
 to regain her freedom Monica's whole happiness was likely 
 to tumble to bits. She had steered her difficult course well, 
 and had spared Jack everything. He, in response to her 
 manipulation of the difficult part, had never felt that he 
 need avoid her, and now they had most of what they 
 wanted. Cathy had succeeded in standing between Monica 
 and open admission; had robbed her of Lorrimer's name 
 and the right to live at Kingslade as his wife; but life is a 
 series of compromises, and Monica made the best of it.
 
 294 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 He was hers now and he would never desire to change. Let 
 Cathy's people rage like the heathen, they could not assault 
 the secure position in which she stood. She knew how the 
 land lay, and Cathy had been certified. Doctor Chapman's 
 reports had been bad. There was ample reason for close 
 supervision. Cathy was out of her mind, she had tried to 
 escape from Welldon Grange, and that, in itself, was sheer 
 proof of lunacy. At first, Monica had told herself that 
 Cathy would recover and come back; she wished to think 
 this, and it comforted her, but now she felt differently, and 
 she knew that her secret desire was that Cathy should not 
 ever return. It takes time to strangle a conscience, and 
 Monica had stifled hers slowly. She had got past gener- 
 osity. 
 
 When Lilian arrived, she met her with great cordiality, 
 and sat down beside her on the sofa. Her room was far 
 more comfortable than in the old days, and Lilian smelt the 
 faint reek of cigar smoke. Lorrimer and evidently de- 
 manded easier chairs, for there were several now, and the 
 flowers in the vases were expensive, not at all the kind 
 which Monica's natural parsimony would have supplied. 
 
 "I've come about Cathy," Lilian said, putting her hands 
 on Monica's shoulders. "Why did you do this, Mug?" 
 
 "Need you ask me that ?" Monica said, meeting her eyes. 
 "It's far worse than you can dream, Lil. Oh, my dear, life 
 is extraordinarily cruel." 
 
 She talked quickly and freely. Cathy had shown a whole 
 array of tendencies; she had been unbalanced and hysteri- 
 cal and had tried to take her life. 
 
 "I don't believe it," Lilian said, disengaging herself from 
 Monica's hands and getting up. She sat down on a seat 
 a little way off, for the close proximity of Monica was 
 distasteful to her. 
 
 "You don't believe what I say?" Monica's tone was full 
 of reproach. "Surely, Lilian, you don't mean that you 
 accuse me of putting my greatest friend into a lunatic 
 asylum? What a dreadful thing to say." She paused, be- 
 tween anger and distress. 
 
 "No, I don't believe it," Lilian repeated. "Cathy was al-
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 295 
 
 ways wild, but that is quite different. As for the Barlow 
 libel, Barlow himself has denied it. Cathy never went to 
 meet him, in the first place. He found her on the road, 
 and he brought her back to the house. The second time he 
 went to Kingslade, it was to warn her that Colonel Lorri- 
 mer was being openly accused of political dishonesty, and, 
 as far as I can gather," Lilian spoke in the same tone, "it 
 is true." 
 
 Monica buckled on her armour, and prepared to fight. 
 
 "Then you are ready to accept George Barlow's asser- 
 tion," she shrugged her shoulders, "and you accuse me of 
 lying. I hardly see that I can do anything more." 
 
 "Then," continued Lilian, "you said that Cathy had gone 
 for Miss Batten ; fought with her like a fish-wife. My dear 
 Monica, tell that to someone else. Miss Batten has queered 
 your pitch hopelessly. She suffers, as you who are yourself 
 a doctor ought to know, from some inherited weakness that 
 makes her bruise or bleed at any trifling touch. Cathy and 
 she were quite happy together, and there was not the remot- 
 est suggestion that Cathy lost her head. You have chosen 
 to put your own construction on the whole affair." 
 
 "Be careful," Monica said, walking to the writing-table, 
 "I do not allow anyone to bring accusations of this nature 
 against me." 
 
 "That's all very well," Lilian said, with a hint of retort 
 in her voice. "You are to say what you choose about Cathy, 
 and, directly I prove to you that you are making a mistake, 
 you stand on your professional dignity. As to Cathy having 
 tried to kill herself, I know nothing of the facts, but I do 
 know that it is the last thing she would do " 
 
 "If she were sane," Monica interposed. 
 
 "Why should she take her life? She was, so she be- 
 lieved, going back to London. You admitted that yourself, 
 and she was happy when she left Kingslade with you; the 
 chauffeur told that fact, and he can be got back from Can- 
 ada to prove it. How do you know that the nurse did not 
 make a mistake as to the amount Cathy could take of the 
 drug? In any case, if she had been living a normal life, it 
 would not have been necessary. You cut her off from us
 
 296 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 all, and then, without thinking of consulting Lady Carstairs, 
 or telling a single soul, you and Colonel Lorrimer get her 
 buried alive in a madhouse." 
 
 "You talk as though it were easy," Monica said. Her 
 heart was beating fast, and she was in a cold rage of anger. 
 "It is necessary to have the opinion of two doctors who 
 have not met or discussed the case together, and, further, a 
 J.P. has to sign the petition. If the Lunacy Laws are ever 
 altered, it will be to make them more easy than they stand 
 at present. And now, Lilian, as you have relieved your 
 mind, and accused me of professional treachery and dis- 
 loyalty to my greatest friend, perhaps you will go away." 
 
 "Have you no pity for Cathy ?" Lilian got up and looked 
 at Doctor Henstock. "Have you ever been to see her?" 
 
 "Doctor Chapman, who thinks very seriously of her case, 
 will not permit her to see anyone whom she has known for- 
 merly," Monica said. "No doubt you will say that he is 
 paid to keep her there, and that he is also in the plot." She 
 threw an angry look at her guest. "Your taste for melo- 
 drama is carrying you away a little, and, as you came here 
 to abuse me in my own house, I shall be glad if you will 
 leave." 
 
 "How could you do it," Lilian said ; "how could you have 
 the heart to do it? She loved you better than any of the 
 rest of us did, Muggins. You don't suppose that she ever 
 guessed what was plain enough to me. . . ." 
 
 "You have said more than enough already." Monica got 
 up quickly, and held out her hand to stop the words she 
 knew to be coming. 
 
 "You took her there yourself," Lilian went on in the same 
 accusing voice. "Led her, like that awful Bull in one of 
 Kipling's books, who was trained to bring the others to the 
 abattoir. I was your friend, but now I would rather take 
 the hand of a murderer." She had worked herself up into 
 a passion of reproach. "I suppose I ought to be sorry for 
 you, because it can't be pleasant to know that you are a 
 traitor." 
 
 She left the house with its new air of prosperity, its deep
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 297 
 
 chairs, and its scent of stale smoke and flowers, and went on 
 to where Amyas lived in Jermyn Street. 
 
 "I saw her," she said, still a little breathless, "and, Robert, 
 I told her what I thought of her. She lied to me, and tried 
 to palm off all the same old story about Cathy and Barlow, 
 her attack upon Batkins, and her attempt to take her life. I 
 am convinced that she and Lorrimer are combined together, 
 peacefully and contentedly, and that it is all in their in- 
 terests to keep Cathy a prisoner. Surely it is not possible ? 
 We ought to lose no time now, and we must get the facts 
 from Dobree." 
 
 "Yes, for God's sake let us lose no time," Robert said, 
 and, taking her arm, they went together into the street and 
 got into the waiting car. Was it really odd that he should 
 be driving beside the woman who had once been his wife? 
 It seemed perfectly natural to both of them. 
 
 Dobree's office was in the City, and down a narrow street 
 where his rooms were located upon the second floor of a 
 dark, gaunt house. His desk stood huge and imposing in 
 the centre of a fine Turkey carpet, and he sat in a revolving 
 chair attending to a pile of folded papers. When Amyas 
 and Lilian came in, his face registered the full extreme of 
 surprise. He was an old friend, and had acted for Amyas 
 in the divorce proceedings, and now the two who had been 
 so unequally yoked were standing before him, and Lilian 
 had her hand on Robert's arm. He rose at once, and shook 
 hands with them, not attempting to hide his surprise. 
 
 "We've, come here," Lilian said, "to consult you, Mr. 
 Dobree." 
 
 Dobree crossed his legs. "Am I to say that I am sorry, 
 or that I am glad ?" he asked in tones of perplexity. 
 
 "It has nothing to do with us," Robert said. "What we 
 have to say concerns Miss Rossiter. You remember her; 
 she married a swine called Lorrimer." 
 
 "My dear Robert," Dobree spoke pacifically; "you mean 
 Lorrimer, the Member for Kingslade? A very sound fel- 
 low. He has changed his views of late, and I approve of 
 him."
 
 298 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "He has shut her up in an asylum," Amyas said abruptly. 
 "How can she be got out ?" 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Dobree," Lilian spoke earnestly, "she has been 
 there for months ; we none of us knew, and she is no more 
 mad than I am." 
 
 Dobree put his hands flat on the blotting paper before 
 him, and began to ask questions. How lately had either 
 Robert or Lilian seen Mrs. Lorrimer? Who was the peti- 
 tioner? What doctors had been called in to certify the 
 patient, and upon what grounds was the petition based? 
 
 All these questions having been answered, Dobree looked 
 at Amyas, and shook his head. 
 
 "Legally," he said, "there is no sort of hope. You ad- 
 mit that, since Mrs. Lorrimer's marriage, you have not 
 seen her, neither has Mrs. Hinton. The doctor, Doctor 
 Henstock, who felt it necessary to act, was in charge of her 
 for a long time, and the evidence of the second doctor ac- 
 corded with hers." 
 
 "Even if we know that the man is a blackguard?" 
 
 "You have to prove that, and, anyhow, he had all the 
 necessary qualifications. There is no proof of any sort that 
 Lorrimer wanted to get rid of his wife, and his friendship 
 with Doctor Henstock was shared by Mrs. Lorrimer. The 
 nurse and Doctor Henstock both say that Mrs. Lorrimer 
 tried to take her life, and, in the eyes of the medical pro- 
 fession, that is regarded as a full proof of temporary in- 
 sanity." 
 
 "But you don't believe that she is mad ?" Lilian asked. 
 
 "My dear Mrs. Hinton," Dobree shook his head, "who 
 am I to say whether she is or not? You have put the case 
 in its best light, because you yourself are not convinced, 
 but no one else will believe you." He swung round a little 
 in his chair. "The fact is, Lorrimer petitioned, because the 
 case was represented to him as urgent. It often is so. I 
 cannot agree that he did this out of malice, because there 
 is not a vestige of evidence to prove it. The doctor in 
 charge of the asylum would have released Mrs. Lorrimer 
 at once, had she not shown further symptoms of insanity. 
 If he is satisfied that she has recovered, the rest is easy, but
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 299 
 
 it will rest upon his decision what you can do for the un- 
 happy lady." 
 
 "Then a'ny man can get two doctors to swear that his 
 wife is mad, and there is no appeal after that?" Amyas said. 
 "If that is the law, it's likely that there are more cases than 
 one. I can't believe it, Dobree." 
 
 "Get two doctors," Dobree repeated. "At this moment 
 I have a client with a mad wife, and in the length and 
 breadth of London he can't get two doctors to certify. 
 She is as sane as a judge once they arrive. In this 
 case, you can't prove a thing. If Lor rimer himself wants 
 to act, it is very doubtful that she would be released. Cer- 
 tainly not, unless the asylum doctor was satisfied." 
 
 "And Cathy may stay there for ever?" Lilian's clear 
 voice broke and she put out her hands, groping vaguely. 
 
 "Closed in, shut away from us all, and none of us able 
 to comfort her?" 
 
 Dobree nodded silently. He was sorry for Lilian's dis- 
 tress, but he had no consolation to administer. He felt that 
 sentiment had outrun her judgment, and he ought to cau- 
 tion them both, before they left. 
 
 "To attempt in any way to aid Mrs. Lorrimer to escape 
 would merely mean disaster," he said emphatically. "In 
 these days we are dealing with establishments where the 
 care and protection of the lunatics is assured. Welldon 
 Grange, you said? It is a beautifully situated place, and 
 most costly. Lorrimer has not spared his own pocket. 
 Whatever Mrs. Lorrimer may lack, she has certainly every 
 possible comfort around her, and, after all," he spoke re- 
 assuringly, "she may become cured." 
 
 Lilian got up quickly. "She was never mad," she said 
 defiantly. "Is it nothing at all that we know that Colonel 
 Lorrimer and Doctor Henstock wanted her out of the 
 way?" 
 
 "All that has to be proved," Dobree said; "and even if 
 you did prove it up to the hilt, it does not do away with the 
 certification. Doctor Chapman, a man far above all possi- 
 bility of suspicion, has found it necessary to retain her 
 there. That in itself is an answer. If Lorrimer lived openly
 
 300 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 with some woman, it would not clear his wife of the sad 
 accusation against her sanity." 
 
 Lilian turned to Amyas. 
 
 "Robert," she said, "what shall we do ?" 
 
 "We shall get her out," he replied. "Don't you worry, 
 Lil." He turned to Dobree. "Dobree, old boy, I daresay 
 you are right, but, even if Lorrimer is clean in the courts of 
 law, he isn't in the court of honour, if there is such a place. 
 You haven't helped very much," he smiled at his old friend. 
 "Was there ever a lawyer yet who didn't tell his client to let 
 things be?" 
 
 Dobree took Robert's hand. "I don't w r ant you to be in 
 the Police Courts for trespass," he said cheerfully. "It's 
 no good. Leave it alone, and try not to exaggerate." 
 
 "The law is merciless," Lilian said. "In the end there 
 will be a huge revolt, Mr. Dobree, and people will make new 
 ones. I suppose you will have a Commission and a Report, 
 and then, after a hundred years, you will get a move on." 
 
 "Mrs. Lorrimer can write to her petitioner, or to any 
 Secretary of State," Dobree explained. "The Commission- 
 ers visit the place, and she has full liberty to see them alone. 
 Do you really believe that they could be influenced ? There, 
 at least, we can get away from the suggestion of collusion." 
 
 "I don't feel that it matters much," Amyas said. "The 
 law protects Lorrimer all round, one merely has to ignore 
 it." 
 
 "I'm very sorry," Dobree said, standing at the top of the 
 staircase, "but I can do nothing for you, nothing at all."
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 FOR a time Cathy was kept in bed, and her windows faced 
 the padded rooms, or if not the padded rooms, some place oi 
 close detention from whence there came constant sounds oi 
 maniacal patients wailing or shrieking; at night there was 
 not any relief, even for a few minutes, from the incessant 
 noise. 
 
 If a blessed pause did come, Cathy lay waiting for the 
 next outburst, in tense anticipation, and the effect of her 
 sleeplessness told upon her rapidly. And all through the 
 daylight hours she was the victim of constant interruption 
 from imbecile patients, who came and pressed their faces 
 to the glass of the window, or wandered into her room, 
 to be dragged away, fighting or crying, by their attendants. 
 
 What did it all mean? She lay with hidden face and 
 put the question to herself over and over again. Was she 
 there because the surroundings were calculated to drive 
 her mad, and was that why she was kept there? All the 
 sordid misery of the days piled its load upon her, and she 
 felt, at times, as though she must go down under the un- 
 bearable weight. Only that she believed that there was hope 
 ahead of her, she would have given up the battle, and loosed 
 the flood gates of her own despair. 
 
 She strove to keep her mind from the thought of Lorri- 
 mer and Monica, and she stuffed her ears to deaden sound, 
 and compose the red whirl of her mind. The stark reality 
 of horror oppressed her, and the awful dread of any panic 
 in her own soul was like some constant menace. There 
 were hours when she felt as though she were enfolded by 
 the waves of some burning sea, and, weak and helpless, she 
 lay under the scourge of her memories and her terror. 
 
 In the most tragic moments of any experience, it is true 
 that the subject who suffers is capable of getting away from 
 
 301
 
 302 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 the external facts. Cathy, swept by the fire waves, was 
 visited by spells of deep calm, when the reality of her own 
 lot faded away, and became misty and vague. The woman 
 who suffered so cruelly was not Cathy, and she was then 
 able to stand outside herself and pity the poor, broken crea- 
 ture who fought to keep sane. If ever the Cathy on the 
 bed, and the Cathy who was still free, should become 
 merged and mingled in a wild paroxysm, she knew dimly 
 that all would be over for her, and that the gates of doom 
 would never open to let her out. She would then crave for 
 their shelter in the way which she had heard that patients 
 frequently craved for it, and might beg and pray to remain 
 where she was the last state of the damned. Body and 
 soul seemed to be no longer one, and the fight continued 
 mercilessly. There was some awful temptation in these 
 hours, and it had a hideous humour to it which caught her 
 and forced her to stifle a desire to laugh. To let herself go, 
 go sheer to maniacal joys, the savage desires, the shameless- 
 ness of the naked state that spat its challenge to decency. 
 There was some wicked lure in the thought, sly and en- 
 gaging, something which intrigued the senses. Again and 
 again she flung the foul thing from her, and prayed des- 
 perately for strength. Somewhere, amid all the turmoil and 
 the anguish, there was that clean thing which men call 
 courage ; something divine in its power. 
 
 "It depends largely upon yourself how long you stay." 
 Were they testing her, trying her strength ? She recalled 
 stories of the saints which dealt with inexplicable spiritual 
 temptations they had to bear. Her whole mind was still 
 centred upon the hope promised in the interview with the 
 magistrate, and she clung to it desperately, watching for it, 
 and continually asking why he had not come. She put all 
 her faith in the thought, and, as she struggled, the intensity 
 of the strain grew less. She was gaining control each day, 
 and her faith in herself was now unshadowed, so that the 
 worst dread was a thing of the past. She could not be 
 driven mad. They had done their worst, and now they 
 could not deprive her of her reward. What did it matter 
 if she was aged by years, or if she would never again be
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 303 
 
 the old, light-hearted Cathy Rossiter? She had fought a 
 good fight, and she had conquered. Eight days, Doctor 
 Bracy had said, and she had endured the time without losing 
 her reason. 
 
 At the end of eight days the magistrate had not yet come, 
 but her spirits rose, as she realised that her period of pro- 
 bation was ended, and she welcomed her attendant with a 
 gay smile. 
 
 "Tell me that I have been good," she said ; "I really feel 
 that I have. But to-day it is over." 
 
 The attendant was carrying an armful of her clothes, and 
 she put them on the chair beside her bed. 
 
 "Yes, yes," she said, "you've been good. Go on being 
 good, and you won't find it so difficult." 
 
 "Are Doctor Bracy and the magistrate coming to see 
 me?" Cathy asked. 
 
 "Later on they will see you. You're to get up now, and 
 you can go out into the grounds." 
 
 Cathy felt as though the gates of hell had opened, and 
 that she was close to her freedom once again. 
 
 It surprised her to see that all her clothes had been 
 stamped with the asylum stamp, but it would have taken a 
 great deal more than that to damp her spirits. Cathy had 
 a strong strain of resistance in her nature, and her cour- 
 age was of a durable quality. At the thought of release, 
 she was able to forget the horrors of the past week. She 
 dressed with the help of the attendant, and was brought 
 through the long corridors, and through Ward II, where a 
 group of witless people stared at her, and one woman ran 
 after her, and begged her to listen to her story. The doors 
 which opened into Ward I were eventually reached, and 
 the effect of the place struck her again. Compared with 
 the dingy surroundings of the infirmary ward, the place she 
 now found herself in was little short of gorgeous. In the 
 passages and vestibules there were comfortable sofas, and 
 tables spread with papers. Two large airy drawing-rooms 
 were at the disposal of the patients, and she heard the 
 click of billiard balls coming from behind another door. 
 She was shown into a cheerful bedroom, entirely different
 
 304 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 to her former cell. The dining-hall was, so she learnt, in 
 another part of the house. Agnes began to arrange her 
 clothes in the wardrobe. 
 
 "Don't do that," Cathy said gaily; "it's waste of time, 
 Agnes. I leave here to-day, as soon as I have seen the 
 magistrate." 
 
 The attendant shook her head. "I don't like to disap- 
 point you," she said sympathetically, "but, if I were you, 
 I would not count on it. They may want you a bit longer." 
 
 Cathy's spirits fell. She sat down on the edge of her 
 bed, and her heart beat painfully. It was discouraging, but 
 she refused to believe it. Surely they must know that she 
 was not mad. She had endured the sickening horror of the 
 infirmary ward without complaint, she had obeyed orders 
 and had given no trouble. All this must tell in her favour, 
 and she cast off her momentary distress. 
 
 "I am sure it is all right," she said. "Let me have my 
 hat. It's so long since I was out in the fresh air." 
 
 Agnes gave her a wide garden hat, and looked at her 
 with unveiled admiration as she put it on. Outside the 
 door the servants sang or whistled at their task, and a bell 
 was rung somewhere in the building. 
 
 "That is for the walk," Agnes explained. "I'm 'on you,' 
 as we call it, and it's time to go out." 
 
 "I don't think I shall go," Cathy said, hesitating at the 
 door. "Will the others all be there ? I don't want to walk 
 with them, please, Agnes." 
 
 "Time for your walk, ladies," a voice was speaking au- 
 thoritatively along the passage, and Cathy heard a scuffle of 
 feet and the confused murmur of voices, some loud and 
 some low, but all confused and jumbled into an ugly, in- 
 coherent sound. 
 
 "No, I'm not going," she said, and she took off her hat. 
 "I'll wait here. Will you go and tell Doctor Bracy that I 
 am ready to see him?" 
 
 Agnes picked up the hat again and held it out to Cathy. 
 
 "Now, don't give trouble. You only got out of the in- 
 firmary a few minutes ago. Do you want to be sent to
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 305 
 
 Ward II ? The place you came through ? I thought not," 
 as Cathy shrank away and shuddered. 
 
 "But, you see, I'm not a patient any longer," she said 
 persuasively. "It isn't as if I had anything to say to the 
 rules." 
 
 "Until I am told that you are free I must do my duty." 
 
 Cathy submitted to the inevitable. The idea of a walk in 
 the company of a whole band of lunatics was alarming 
 enough, but at any rate it could not be as bad as the awful, 
 sordid indecency of her past experience. She was to be 
 ordered about and directed until the last moment, and fear 
 of jeopardising her chances of escape made her obey. 
 
 She walked through the hall, the attendant behind her, 
 and was hurried onwards to join the procession of people 
 now winding its way along a wide path through the grounds. 
 For a moment she stood and looked back at it. Outwardly, 
 it was picturesque; an old, red-brick house, very large and 
 covered with creepers. At the back there was another wing > 
 and that part of the house looked desolate and ill cared for. 
 Cathy concluded that it was there the cheap wards were 
 situated, where poor lunatics, whose people were unable to 
 afford the luxury of the house itself, were hidden away. 
 What sort of state was theirs, she wondered pitifully? It 
 was like some dreadful, secret place for penitents, where the 
 hours of the day were divided as though in the house of a 
 perverted religious order. They were physically isolated 
 from the world, and the waving trees and the wide glorious 
 sky overhead accentuated the contrast. 
 
 The poor waifs of circumstance drifted on in their walk, 
 and Cathy lingered behind, watching them. Just in front 
 of her, there was a woman with white hair, who looked 
 as though her life might have been a good, useful one, but 
 some break in the tissues of her brain had doomed her to 
 the eventless idleness of the asylum. Some event, too 
 strong in its demands, must have overtaken and crushed 
 so many of the patients. Some were grotesquely clothed. 
 One woman, who hurried on as though she was pursued by 
 a whip lash, wore an expensive dress, flung on in absolute 
 disorder, her silk stockings were in holes, and her shoes
 
 306 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 trodden down at the heel. Her hat, decorated with a huge 
 feather, was pinned on the back of her head, and as she 
 walked she gave vent to sighs and groans or rude laughter, 
 and seemed to be unaware that she was not alone. Many 
 were quiet and orderly, and these, she supposed, had spent 
 years there. They knew all the rules as well as the ward- 
 resses, and they knew exactly how to behave, until some 
 crisis caught them, when they suffered the penalty of degra- 
 dation to the infirmary or the padded cell. Surely, in all 
 God's world, there was no sadder place than this? People 
 who were unmanageable anywhere else were made to learn 
 to be manageable here. The high w r alls closed them in, and, 
 if there was no special unkindness, there was the indiffer- 
 ence of paid service, wholly devoid of love. The wretched 
 conclave, of which she was one, was chiefly composed of 
 the weak of intellect and the strong of passion ; waste flot- 
 sam of the world of twilight minds. She had been told 
 again and again by her attendants that the Grange was a 
 happy place for lunatics. Lunatics were not like other folk. 
 But, in Cathy's eyes, it was the most heart-breaking sight 
 she had ever witnessed. These people were caricatures, 
 ghosts of themselves, and the disaster of sane men and 
 women of sensitive mind finding themselves so placed was 
 hideous to consider. She was leaving those aisles of tor- 
 ment that day, and she had pity and to spare for the rest. 
 Again she watched the strange line of which she made 
 the last. Here and there she was struck by the sight of the 
 survival of lost dignity, the touch of some wan grace which 
 had once made its owner distinctive and charming; the in- 
 describable signs of birth and breeding, unconquered yet by 
 the passing days. But it was not only the external sight of 
 her companions which touched Cathy to the depth of her 
 soul. The faces she saw were strange, and, with only a 
 few exceptions, bondage had marked them with its image 
 and superscription. From all manner of varied beginnings, 
 and with differing conditions and differing life stories be- 
 hind them, they were caught and grouped together at last. 
 They were out for exercise, not for anything else, and 
 Cathy walked on beside a woman who shuffled as though
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 307 
 
 hopelessly weary already. Units of the army of the mad. 
 She became hypnotised by the sight of the crowd ahead of 
 her. They were coerced into exercise, and they showed it 
 by their walk, as they rushed in urgent bursts of activity, 
 or slouched and dragged, like unwilling children on the way 
 to school. They progressed in no kind of order, and each 
 one bore a burden, to the sound of steady footsteps. The 
 incorrigible lunatic was not among them, and the quiet 
 ones were terribly pacific ; there were others also, shy and 
 furtive, who snatched at one another and giggled inanely. 
 Cathy lifted her eyes to the sky; she still had hope, and 
 the comrades in her misfortune had only despair. As she 
 walked along, she was spoken to suddenly by a slight young 
 woman with clear grey eyes. 
 
 "You are a newcomer," she said, and her voice was sym- 
 pathetic. "I am afraid it is all very hard for you to bear." 
 
 "I expect to leave to-day," Cathy said, smiling at her. 
 "My being here at all is a mistake." 
 
 "Then, let me warn you that it is a very dangerous mis- 
 take," the woman with the grey eyes spoke again. "I am 
 also a victim of the same kind. Be very careful what you 
 say to Doctor Bracy." 
 
 She talked on, explaining to Cathy that her best chance 
 lay in being quiet. She herself had come there to go 
 through a rest cure after a bad nervous breakdown, and had 
 been assured that she would be practically at liberty. The 
 facts were far otherwise. Her uncle had petitioned for 
 her certification, and, after a time in the infirmary ward, 
 she had been informed that she was mad. She told Cathy 
 that her name was Veronica Trench. "Once the stigma 
 of lunacy is branded upon any living soul, you will find, 
 as I have found, that no one will listen to you," she said. 
 
 "But the magistrate whom I am to see?" Cathy asked 
 faintly. She felt unnerved and shaken. 
 
 "They are all the same ; you and I are outcasts." 
 
 "I am to see Doctor Bracy when I get in," Cathy said 
 anxiously. 
 
 "The visits of the doctors are only a farce," Miss Trench 
 said, with evident reluctance. "It is no use for me to give
 
 3 o8 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 you false hopes. They make no effort to speak privately to 
 any patient, and I shall be surprised if you get two minutes 
 with him. You will want all your courage," she added, and 
 Cathy gripped her hand silently. 
 
 The walk terminated at last, and they were gathered 
 again in the vestibule, as it was time for lunch. Every- 
 where there were the voices of attendants calling to their 
 patients or to one another, and again they were herded 
 into line. A woman with a flushed face and liquid eyes 
 caught Cathy round the waist and addressed her as "Darl- 
 ing." "Why can't I be happy?" she moaned, and began 
 to roll her head wildly, until her attendant pounced upon 
 her and restored her to order. Once again doors were 
 locked and unlocked, and the procession passed through 
 Ward II, the patients driven along by the warders and 
 wardresses, for there were now a number of men added 
 to the crowd. At the end of one of the passages there was 
 a huge mirror which reflected the throng, and Cathy caught 
 sight of her own picture in its length. Was it really she? 
 Was this Cathy Rossiter? She averted her look at once 
 and hurried on with bent head. 
 
 The dining-hall was a large, lofty room, hung with good 
 pictures, and in the centre a long table was laid. Some of 
 the patients rushed to their places, and began to seize the 
 slices of bread already lying there. The woman in the 
 gorgeous clothes, whose hands were dirty and covered with 
 rings, ate ravenously and talked with her mouth stuffed to 
 ( overflowing. 
 
 Swept by a fit of revulsion too strong to conquer, Cathy 
 pushed back her chair. "Let me go, let me go," she said 
 desperately, and Agnes came to her side and replaced her 
 at once. 
 
 "No noise there," a voice of command spoke sternly, and 
 Cathy felt that the people around the table all cowered at 
 the sound. 
 
 "It is impossible for me to stay here," she repeated. 
 "Where is Doctor Bracy? I must see him at once." 
 
 "I'll have to report you if you go on like this," Agnes 
 said, tightening her grasp. "Sit down and keep quiet."
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 309 
 
 Cathy looked about her uncertainly, and then she caught 
 the eye of Veronica Trench. Everyone was looking at her, 
 and the woman with the large hat seemed as though she 
 might break out into some show of violence, for she ham- 
 mered the table with her clenched fists. 
 
 They had subdued her, and she sat down again, but she 
 could eat nothing, and though Agnes spoke to her sharply, 
 she made no reply. Once again the memory of Lor rimer 
 and Monica was awake within her. They had brought her 
 to this, and they had placed her here. Still she held on to 
 her only hope, the visit from the magistrate. She would 
 surely be away from it all in a few hours now, and there 
 was nothing which could be accounted mad in desiring to 
 leave such company. 
 
 After lunch, the inmates of the Grange who were on 
 parole went off into the village, and the others, who were 
 accounted sane enough to enjoy a moderate freedom, sat 
 on the lawn. Cathy found her friend, and took courage as 
 she placed herself beside her. Doctor Bracy had not come, 
 and the time was dragging on. 
 
 "It will make me very late," Cathy said, "not that any- 
 thing matters once I get out." 
 
 "Build upon nothing," Miss Trench said emphatically; 
 "only, above all things, keep from any outburst. I have 
 asked them to let me sit beside you at meals; that will be 
 better for us both." 
 
 In the end, Doctor Bracy did come, and he strolled up 
 to where Cathy was sitting. 
 
 "Well, and how are we?" he asked genially. "I am 
 going to suggest that you should do some gardening, Mrs. 
 Lorrimer." 
 
 Cathy tried to smile up at him. "But I am going away, 
 once I have seen the magistrate," she said. "You promised 
 me that, Doctor Bracy." 
 
 "I promised you ? Oh, no, I think not. You are out of 
 the infirmary, you have a nice room, and you will be very 
 comfortable here." 
 
 She looked around her, and back at his red, good-tem- 
 pered face.
 
 3 io CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "What do you mean?" she asked. 
 
 "You're likely to be here for a little longer," he said. 
 "Now, I must be off. How are you, Miss Trench? Get- 
 ting over it, eh?" 
 
 "I am waiting," Veronica Trench said quietly. 
 
 "But you don't mean that you consider me mad?" Cathy 
 asked. She had got up from her chair, and she caught his 
 arm, for he seemed as though he had no intention of re- 
 maining there. 
 
 "I warn you," he said, "that your chance of leaving here 
 depends largely upon yourself. Don't excite yourself, Mrs. 
 Lorrimer, it does no good." 
 
 "Then you say that I am insane ?" The colour had flown 
 from her face and she was deathly white. 
 
 "You have been certified, it's a fact," he said briefly, and 
 Cathy made no further attempt to stay him now. 
 
 For a day or two Cathy worked frantically in the garden, 
 hoping to exhaust herself sufficiently to induce sleep, but 
 her thoughts gave her no rest, and her eyes looked haunted. 
 She had still one hope left in the Pandora's box, and she 
 could not let herself doubt its certainty. The weather kept 
 gloriously fine, so that she was able to be out of doors 
 all day, and Dr. Bracy, who now and then hovered near 
 her, told her not to think of herself, but to take an interest 
 in games, or in the work upon which she was employed. 
 Other patients condoled with her, telling her that anyone 
 who was sent out to garden, was invariably kept there for 
 a long period ; it was regarded by them all as a bad sign, but 
 Cathy tried to close her ears. 
 
 She had been weeding in a violet bed one afternoon, and 
 cutting the long straggly runners with considerable skill and 
 knowledge, under close observation all the time, when Agnes 
 was called by one of the house servants, and to her sur- 
 prise Cathy was informed that there was a visitor to see 
 her. She lifted her flushed face and stared incredulously, 
 and for one moment she thought that it was perhaps Aunt 
 Amy. Aunt Amy might come to her, even if she believed 
 her mad ; and that thought was followed rapidly by another. 
 "What if it were Monica." If it were, she would plead
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 311 
 
 with her, and pray her to use all her power to get her re- 
 lease. She threw aside her leather gloves and went towards 
 the house, and as she crossed the hall where many of the 
 patients were sitting in the deep, comfortable chairs, talking 
 together, she noticed that they whispered and looked at 
 her with queer inquisitive glances, as though they too were 
 interested. 
 
 When she was shown into a small, dark room down a 
 passage, and rather away from the reception rooms of the 
 house, her heart was beating violently, and to her surprise 
 she saw a stranger sitting at a table. He was an elderly 
 man with a beard and loose, grey clothes, and he looked at 
 her rather awkwardly as he rose to his feet, and Cathy 
 stood silently watching him. 
 
 "I am Pratt," he said, and he avoided her eyes. "Charles 
 Pratt, Justice of the Peace. You sent me a communica- 
 tion " 
 
 Cathy clasped her hands together, and a wave of joy 
 swept her, and she advanced impetuously. 
 
 "You are the magistrate, and you have come at last." 
 She made an impulsive movement with her hands, and then 
 realised with a touch of dismay that he was falling back a 
 step. With all his look of bad-tempered dignity, he was 
 anything but comfortable in her presence. 
 
 "Yes, yes," he said, and he seemed to be trying to speak 
 soothingly. "What is your complaint? What have you to 
 say?" 
 
 Cathy sat down and gripped the arms of her chair with 
 tense hands. She must be careful careful. 
 
 "I'm here through a dreadful mistake," she said. 
 
 Mr. Pratt seated himself, and rubbed his spectacles with 
 a silk handkerchief; he seemed to take her statement for 
 granted, but he spoke quite kindly. 
 
 "My dear lady, I want the details," he glanced at her 
 again. 
 
 "I have been accused of trying to take my life," she said 
 earnestly, leaning forward and looking at him with her 
 wide clear eyes. "Yes, of suicide."
 
 3 i2 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 She read horror in his glance, and translated it into sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 "Dreadful," he said emphatically. "Perfectly dreadful. 
 Do you not know that such an act, besides being a sin, is 
 also a felony? You might have to appear in the Police 
 Courts." He looked intensely affronted. "You probably 
 are not aware of this?" 
 
 Cathy frowned a little, and began again. 
 
 "I never did try to take my life," she said gathering her 
 courage once more. "I want to make you understand that 
 the doctor who certified me was mistaken. . . ." 
 
 "Doctors," corrected Mr. Pratt. "There must be two." 
 
 Cathy drew a deep breath. What was her case worth, 
 now she had come to state it ? Yet this man held her whole 
 future between his hands, and compared to the irritable 
 frigidity of Mr. Pratt, Dr. Bracy appeared almost an ally. 
 She could see that Mr. Pratt was angry because he had 
 been sent for, and she began to tell herself that she must 
 try some other method with him. 
 
 "A man like you," she began again, "will easily under- 
 stand that some circumstances are impossible to explain. 
 I could not speak of myself to the people here, but there 
 was trouble," she paused, and looked down, it was so hard 
 to speak of this, but perhaps there was some hope that the 
 grey man who looked at her sideways and looked away 
 again, might be pitiful. 
 
 "Trouble, of what nature?" 
 
 "My husband and I had a difference of opinion, and the 
 woman who certified me my greatest friend, I believed 
 wanted me out of the way. I did take an overdose of a 
 sleeping draught, but that I can explain I thought it harm- 
 less. The following day I was perfectly well, and without 
 the smallest idea of what was arranged, I was taken from 
 home, and brought here." Her voice faltered. "I can 
 hardly give you any idea of what I felt." 
 
 "Very sad indeed," Mr. Pratt remarked. "Dreadfully 
 sad. But on the other hand, imagine what it would be for a 
 lady like you to appear in a police court." He was ob- 
 viously horrified at the thought and he repeated it again,
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 313 
 
 while Cathy felt her hope die down, and then recover once 
 more. 
 
 "Could I be tried for it ?" she asked, her whole face light- 
 ing at once. "If so, why has- this not been done? Even if I 
 were convicted, I should not care. . . ." 
 
 Mr. Pratt raised a protesting hand. "I can only give 
 you five minutes more," he said, laying his watch on the 
 table, "and I must ask you to reconsider your words. You 
 would have been sent to prison instead of to this really 
 delightful place, and think of the disgrace. Besides, you 
 have no idea of what it would be like." 
 
 "I never tried to take my life," she said helplessly, "and 
 I was trapped." 
 
 Mr.. Pratt shook his head. "I know nothing of that," he 
 said firmly, "but I regard suicide as a very grave and terrible 
 act, and though I am extremely sorry for you, I can only 
 say that I have not received a shred of real evidence to 
 prove that you are innocent of this attempt. Please do 
 not misunderstand me, Mrs " he glanced at the paper, 
 "Mrs. Lorrimer, I know that I have your word, but I also 
 have the word of the doctors who thought otherwise." 
 
 He got up and took a soft hat from the table, replacing 
 his watch in his pocket, and Cathy ran between him and the 
 door. "You can't mean that you will do nothing?" she said, 
 holding her arms out to bar his passage, and then she saw 
 his face change. He was afraid of her once more, and he 
 walked quickly to the bell and rang it violently. Agnes 
 came in response to the summons, and Mr. Pratt wished 
 Cathy good evening, and with a renewal of his former dig- 
 nity, left the room, as she stood watching him with re- 
 proachful eyes. 
 
 Agnes touched her arm, but Cathy did not stir, an over- 
 powering sense of faintness seized her, and before the at- 
 tendant could catch her in her arms, she fell heavily on to 
 the floor. Her last hope had vanished with the grey, self- 
 satisfied man, who looked always a little angry with every- 
 one he met.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 As the months passed slowly by, Cathy lost all hope. No 
 answer had come to any of the letters she wrote to Monica 
 or Lorrimer, and she felt that she had nowhere to turn. 
 The magistrate, Mr. Pratt, had done nothing, and an appeal 
 she made to the Commissioners had been left to gather the 
 dust in some pigeon hole in an official desk. As Monica 
 and Lorrimer appeared to her to be the only people who 
 could help her, she refrained from writing to her aunt or 
 any of her old friends. A new sense of dread had come 
 over her, and because she knew that she expressed herself 
 wildly, she feared that, were she to write to them, they 
 might attribute all she said to delusions. Monica and Jack 
 knew otherwise, and if they had any pity, they might accord 
 her the peace of oblivion which she had demanded of them. 
 The papers had informed her that Lorrimer was now a 
 Baronet and had received signal honours, and from that 
 time onwards Doctor Bracy addressed her as "Lady Lorri- 
 mer," and seemed to be impressed by her title. 
 
 From Cathy's standpoint, the crowning touch had been 
 placed upon the huge erection of shams and false protests, 
 for it bade her recall the times when Lorrimer had talked 
 with heat upon all these subjects, and had sworn to her 
 that his own pride would forbid him to accept any such 
 tinsel crown. In an interview described by an enthusiastic 
 journalist in an evening paper, Cathy read that her husband, 
 the erstwhile pioneer of simplicity and plain ways, had 
 described himself as "overcome by the proof of confidence 
 and appreciation of his services" which was so signally 
 bestowed upon him ; and she wondered if there was any- 
 thing real about him anywhere ? 
 
 Veronica Trench had seen Cathy through the tempest 
 of recollection which followed upon the news, and did her 
 
 314
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 315 
 
 best to quiet and console her. She also begged her to make 
 no objection to using Lorrimer's name, and to drop the de- 
 termined attitude she had taken up when she refused to 
 answer unless spoken to as "Miss Rossiter." "Can't you 
 understand," she said earnestly, "that in an asylum, every- 
 thing is attributed to the same cause ?" 
 
 Winter had worn through, and spring had come back to 
 the world when Veronica Trench left Welldon Grange, 
 and Cathy was abandoned to a more complete loneliness 
 than before. She realised that there was no actual un- 
 kindness in the hearts of the men and women who were 
 the officials of the place, and she had no complaint to make 
 of ill treatment. It was the system which they obeyed that 
 lay over the inmates like a blight. There was no hope, no 
 help, nothing to look forward to, and lying awake at night, 
 Cathy began to think of the possibility of escape. In her 
 haphazard way, she gave no special attention to detail. If 
 luck favoured her she could trust to it once she got out 
 into the road; the road that ran free beyond the asylum 
 gates. Always she thought of the road, and it promised 
 her the way of escape, if she could only get there. Cathy 
 was incapable of detail at the best of times, and her months 
 of incarceration during which she was living entirely under 
 rule, had deprived her of the quickness of wit which such 
 a venture demanded. Her attendant, Agnes, was a kindly 
 girl, but Cathy did not dare to give her the smallest hint 
 of her design. It would not, she felt, be fair to involve 
 anyone else, and she had always believed in facing life 
 without dragging others into the melee. For this reason 
 also, she had declined to be put on "parole," as she could 
 not break her pledged word; but the thought of escape 
 lured her eternally, and she thought of little else. 
 
 Agnes was a voracious reader of novels, and Cathy de- 
 cided to make the attempt one day when her attendant was 
 completely absorbed in her book. They usually sat in a 
 distant part of the grounds, because Cathy felt better when 
 she was well out of the way of her fellow patients. 
 
 As they walked to the seat in a bower of spring lilac not 
 far from the gates, Cathy had leaped suddenly to the urgent
 
 316 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 moment of action. Agnes carried a work-basket, and in it 
 there was a small pair of scissors which Cathy fingered 
 carelessly as she pretended to sew. Her white underskirt 
 was narrow, and she must manage to cut off the frill so 
 that her movements should be unhampered and free. 
 
 "Aggy, what are they doing now?" she asked slipping 
 the scissors into her pocket. "I love the way you take them 
 all so seriously, these people in books. Do you see that 
 lemon azalea ? It is flowering weeks too soon, and I'm going 
 to look at it." She got up, a queer tremor in her nerves, 
 and wandered away slowly, her white dress shining in the 
 sunlight, and her graceful walk calling up a look of ad- 
 miration in the lifted eyes of Agnes the wardress. She 
 should have followed Lady Lorrimer, but the lure of the 
 book was strong and she sat reading steadily. 
 
 After a few minutes she looked up again, and though she 
 could see the lemon azalea, there was no sign of her charge, 
 and she felt annoyed, though by no means alarmed. In her 
 secret heart Agnes hardly credited the fact that Lady Lorri- 
 mer was mad, but she knew very well that madness conies 
 and goes in many cases, and that her patient might not be 
 as sane as she appeared. Still, she was not troubled. She 
 believed that Cathy had wandered on, like a white butterfly, 
 and that she would return. She had only half a dozen pages 
 to read to finish the book, so she read on and closed it with 
 a sigh of envy. Books nearly always finished happily, and 
 life, as displayed before her eyes, was not a happy place. 
 
 After searching the paths and coppice, and in the shrub- 
 bery, Agnes grew thoroughly alarmed, and when she called 
 up some of the warders, they added to her fears. A suicidal 
 lunatic is hopelessly untrustworthy, and there might be 
 grave danger to Lady Lorrimer, in being so long alone. 
 High or low there was no trace of her in the immediate 
 neighbourhood, and Agnes discovered, with a cry of alarm, 
 that her scissors were missing. She was frightened, and 
 the whole state of affairs grew ominous. Search of a more 
 thorough kind became necessary, and the alarm was given, 
 and by sundown Cathy was discovered hiding close to the 
 gates. She had crouched down in the heart of a deep privet,
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 317 
 
 her hair was loose and her hat gone. As the searchers fol- 
 lowed her, she had run distractedly from place to place, 
 wherever the bushes gave cover, and she had cut her petti- 
 coat into strips and her lace dress was ragged and torn. 
 
 The dreadful excitement of the chase had been too much 
 for her, and when they came upon her she fought violently 
 against her captors. Weeping hopelessly, she stood at bay 
 while they sought to persuade and pacify her. She saw 
 herself surrounded, and their very desire to reassure her 
 increased her sense of despair, until her control broke; 
 and when Agnes tried to take her gently by the wrists, Cathy 
 struck out blindly. Then it was that the rush came, and she 
 was overpowered and beaten to her knees. They had done 
 their best not to hurt her, but she realised that they all now 
 regarded her as dangerously mad ; the sorrowful look in the 
 eyes of Agnes alone would have told her that. She lay 
 sobbing, face downwards on the grass, until they carried 
 her away. 
 
 The long piece of cambric torn from her petticoat was 
 lying on the ground, and Agnes took the scissors from her 
 silently. Cathy's liberty, such as it had been, was ended, 
 and her fate looked black enough to cause her attendant 
 nurse real sorrow for her. 
 
 It was a hopeless, wretched affair from beginning to end, 
 and the odds were entirely against Cathy Rossiter. 
 
 From the comparative peace and the real comfort of her 
 late surroundings, Cathy found herself led moaning feebly 
 through the dreary wilderness of Ward III, situated on 
 the farthest side of the asylum ; a place she had never seen 
 before. It was here that the incorrigible lunatics were 
 kept away, and the decree was that Cathy now belonged to 
 this company since, once again, she had attempted to take 
 her life. The cambric was strong enough of texture for 
 her to have strangled herself, and the theft of the scissors 
 added to the case against her. 
 
 As she looked dully around her, she realised that the 
 sights and sounds were not as terrible to her as her first 
 experience; she had grown used to horror, but she could 
 not believe nor understand when she found that her desti-
 
 318 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 nation was the padded cell. This was the dark shadow 
 which haunted the bravest mind, and Veronica had warned 
 her never to do anything which was likely to make her way 
 lie there. She had done it now, and leaning on the arm 
 of the wardress, devoid of strength and bereft of courage, 
 she could do nothing but cry helplessly and plead in vain. 
 
 The cell was small, seven feet long by four feet wide, and 
 over her head there was one tiny window, too high to reach 
 with her hands. A memory of something remembered long 
 ago came back to her, and she recalled how she had sat in 
 the waiting-room with the gay chintz curtains, and thought 
 of the prisoner in "Justice" who had held up his hands to 
 the light. At last she, too, had come to this, the lowest pit 
 of the inferno, where faith and hope were slain. She 
 ceased to cry, and a dull stupor overtook her. If she sent 
 for Doctor Bracy he would be sorry for her, but explain 
 that it was her own fault. In the same way Doctor Chap- 
 man would not be unkind, but he would believe that his in- 
 exorable "system" was the one and only way for the in- 
 sane. 
 
 At last the door opened, making a clear square of light 
 in the blackness, and two wardresses came in, both strangers 
 to her. They took no notice of her when she cried for 
 Agnes, and asked that she should be sent to her, but strip- 
 ping her quickly, with the competence of long habit, they 
 continued a conversation about their own affairs. One of 
 them, she gathered, as they turned and held her hands out 
 of the way, was shortly to be married, and was exuberantly 
 happy at the prospect. 
 
 They treated her like a child in disgrace, and clad her 
 finally in a coarse chemise, which the elder wardress of 
 the two told her she could not tear or fashion into a rope; 
 therefore, as there was nothing about for her to do herself 
 a mischief, she would be safe enough. 
 
 They laid her bedding on the floor. A mattress covered 
 with ticking and a coarse ticking sheet, and the door was 
 shut behind them. The happy wardress and the sour one 
 were both indifferent to her state, and Cathy gripped her 
 arms until she felt the blood come through. It was as
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 319 
 
 though, quite suddenly, a fearful and strange idea was 
 present to her mind. What if it was true? What if this 
 that all the rest believed of her were really the case, and she 
 was mad? The fancy jeered at her and defied her, and 
 she clasped her hands on her aching head. Doctor 
 Chapman, Doctor Bracy, the wardresses and the silent 
 world which left her to her fate, agreed about it. 
 She alone refused to believe it, but she was losing her cour- 
 age, and the thought that she had drifted to the waste places 
 where the wanderers roamed in their misery, became op- 
 pressive and awful. She was mad then ? Even though she 
 knew that she had never tried to take her life ? Yet if she 
 could now find the means to end it all, she knew that she 
 might use them. 
 
 At evening Cathy was called out of her cell, like an ani- 
 mal out of its cage, to eat her food at a table opposite her 
 door, but the change brought no relief. Around her there 
 was confusion and strife, and the inmates of Ward III gave 
 the wardresses as much as they could do to keep them in 
 check. The devils danced here with utter shamelessness, 
 and Cathy closed her eyes and pushed away her plate. She 
 looked like a woman out of the Middle Ages, who had been 
 accused of sorcery, sitting in her wretched garment, with 
 her long hair in two great plaits, her eyes pitiful and haggard 
 in her beautiful, care-worn face. From the end of the pas- 
 sage a woman had been watching her, mouthing and grin- 
 ning, and suddenly, with the swiftness of an arrow, she 
 flung herself upon Cathy and emptied over her shoulders 
 a jug of water that stood near her, and then fell to thrash- 
 ing her with a towel. 
 
 Under the attack, Cathy did not stir, she lay forward over 
 the small table and submitted mutely, until the wardresses 
 pulled the woman off and stifled her shout of triumph. The 
 last thing had indeed happened now, and Cathy broke into 
 prayer. Mad people often prayed, and she knew that she 
 was repeating phrases she had heard the others use. What 
 did it matter? Nothing mattered any more, for she had 
 admitted to herself that she was mad. Let them do what
 
 320 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 they liked to her since the hour of doom had struck so 
 irrevocably. 
 
 And so the days and nights dragged by, and Cathy fought 
 no more. Where had she gone ? She often wondered dimly 
 and repeated the words she had loved: 
 
 "John York, John York, where have you gone, John York? 
 King of my heart, King of my heart, I am out on the trail of thy 
 bugles" 
 
 and when she had said it a dozen times it made her laugh in 
 her black cell of horror, laugh until she felt quite weak 
 from the effort. Doctor Chapman came and lectured her, in 
 his kind and God-fearing way, upon the crime of suicide, 
 and she told him, in a fit of revolt, that she had done it all 
 intentionally. 
 
 "You want me to admit I am mad? I admit it. I'm as 
 mad as Ophelia, or Hamlet; as mad as anyone who has ever 
 thought things out and told the truth, as mad as a March 
 hare, Doctor Chapman." 
 
 He had said, "Hush, hush, dear lady," over and over 
 again and gone away sorrowful. 
 
 The circle of her thoughts had changed ; she did not care 
 any longer ; nor did it seem to matter when they released her 
 again, and she was passed through the various stages, back 
 to Agnes and her old room, and by then summer had come 
 and the days were gloriously fine and bright once more. 
 She was so gentle and quiet that Doctor Bracy missed her 
 former fire, and rallied her often. 
 
 "Don't be so peaceable, Lady Lorrimer," he said. "Let's 
 have a good argument. It always clears the air." But 
 Cathy would not be induced to argue. 
 
 "You all say I am mad," she said, "and now I suppose 
 I am. I don't much care." 
 
 When the Commissioners went their rounds she hardly 
 spoke to them. They would not believe her, and it was use- 
 lass waste of energy. She would never get out, and youth, 
 withering so quickly, would turn to dull age, and age wear 
 itself out to death, while the days went on in their awful 
 menotony. Only in the little chapel in the grounds did
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 321 
 
 Cathy ever regain some touch of the winged sense of being 
 lifted up above the cruelty of life, and there, on her knees, 
 she tried to conquer her passionate resentment against 
 Lorrimer and Monica. If she could put that away, she 
 knew that she would have achieved a great moral victory. 
 Her body was caught in the trap, but that was the least part 
 of her martyrdom if she could truly say, "My soul is es- 
 caped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler." 
 
 She believed that her friends counted her as dead to 
 them ; they had probably - accepted the story everyone 
 accepts such stories without question, and she did not blame 
 them. In truth she was dead, and there was no great and 
 glorious resurrection for her. She had changed in the sense 
 of impaired beauty ; there was deep sadness in her blue eyes, 
 which had formerly laughed at life, and a certain steadfast 
 tensity about her mouth. She seemed to seek perpetually 
 for something beyond what she was looking at, and people 
 pointed her out and whispered together about her. 
 
 Agnes, now her devoted attendant, believed her to be a 
 saint, and frequently said so. The soul within was shining 
 very clearly as Cathy trod the upward way, paved with 
 pain and heavy with grief, but when Doctor Chapman spoke 
 to her of her mental state, and said that he was growing 
 hopeful, she received his encouragement listlessly and only 
 shook her head. 
 
 "It hardly matters now," she said, and her voice was for- 
 lorn and weary. "I would like to be free, but it is too late." 
 
 "Oh, no, Lady Lorrimer, don't get that idea into your 
 head," he said encouragingly. "There is such a thing as 
 morbidity; I don't wish to have to report of you that you 
 are in the least morbid." 
 
 Cathy smiled suddenly and looked at him. 
 
 "You have different names for everything here," she 
 said. "If one attempts to escape, one is incorrigibly insane; 
 if one defends oneself, it is another proof of lunacy ; and if 
 one becomes patient, it means that you are morbid." 
 
 "Keep cheerful," he said, and he looked at her sympa- 
 thetically, for he was really sorry for Lady Lorrimer, and 
 he had gone so far as to hint that it would be perfectly safe
 
 322 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 for her husband to visit her. His hint had been ignored, 
 and it distressed him. According to the law, Lorrimer or 
 some qualified person should come, but no one came. There 
 was such a hopeless prejudice against the insane, and he 
 supposed Sir John Lorrimer to be affected by it. He ex- 
 cused himself in a letter, and expressed his desire that the 
 asylum doctor should make quite sure that Lady Lorrimer 
 was completely recovered before she was released. Doctor 
 Chapman pondered over the letter and put it away. Once 
 she was cured, he wished to be done with the case, and, if 
 her husband had used any urgency, he was prepared to let 
 her go at any time. Lorrimer had chosen, however, to let 
 the decision rest wholly and entirely with him. If Lady 
 Lorrimer were showing signs of becoming morbid, she 
 might spend another year at the Grange, and his own in- 
 terests were sufficiently involved to make him regard this 
 as quite possible. Agnes, the attendant, frequently said that 
 her charge was entirely sane, except for her natural care- 
 lessness about her clothes, and her frequent desire to pray 
 alone in the chapel in the grounds. Religious mania might 
 be taking the place of suicidal mania, and time alone could 
 tell to what direction Cathy's inherent weakness might tend. 
 Others had friends who came to see them ; but Cathy seemed 
 strangely friendless. Her aunt, Lady Carstairs, had not 
 written to her, and Doctor Chapman felt angered at the at- 
 titude of these people, who cast out their own flesh and 
 blood and renounced her, because they regarded insanity 
 as more damaging than actual crime. He became more 
 actively attentive to her, for, somewhere in his heart, he 
 was not altogether satisfied.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 IT took Robert Amyas some days of careful thought before 
 he could formulate any definite plan. He intended to see 
 Cathy and to get into Welldon Grange. He had thought 
 of writing to Doctor Chapman, asking for an appointment 
 to discuss the case of some imaginary relative whom he 
 proposed to place under lock and key; but he gave up the 
 idea, as he fancied that he might only get as far as the con- 
 sulting-room. He wanted to investigate the whole place, 
 and then he thought of something which promised a better 
 chance. 
 
 Robert had been a poet of the minor order, and at times 
 he had done a little journalism. He was well known to sev- 
 eral editors, and it occurred to him that, if he visited Well- 
 don Grange with a reporter's notebook in his hand and an 
 introduction from a well-known weekly paper, he could 
 take nearly a whole day in the asylum, and ask as many 
 questions as he pleased. Doctors had a universal desire to 
 propitiate the Press, and he was pretty sure to be received 
 with welcome. He went to the office of The Open Gate, a 
 paper which prided itself on its strong modern tone, and 
 walked into the editor's comfortable room. 
 
 "I want a job, Alfred," he said, in his tired, unenthusi- 
 astic way, "I've begun to take an interest in lunatic asylums. , 
 It seems to me that so many people I know should be inside, 
 that I have become curious to find out what these places 
 are really like." 
 
 Alfred Reves laughed. He was a lean man, and he sat 
 in his shirt-sleeves, for the day was oppressively hot. 
 
 "I'll take two thousand words from you, Bob," he said, 
 blinking his tired eyes ; "Hanwell, I suppose ?" 
 
 "Hanwell be damned. I want a fashionable resort, some- 
 where where you can meet dukes and duchesses if they 
 
 323
 
 3 2 4 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 evef go mad? Tell me about Welldon Grange, for in- 
 stance that is where all the Park Lane lunatics congregate, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 He fixed the matter up quickly, and came out into the 
 street again. The initial part of the business had been easy 
 enough. The next step was to go to the place itself, and 
 Amyas took the first train to the little country station. He 
 looked about him with keen interest as he walked along the 
 narrow footpath outside the high walls. Cathy was in there, 
 and within the next few hours he would have seen and 
 spoken to her. He felt a fear grip him lest she should be 
 dreadfully changed, but he tried to think of nothing except 
 that he was to explain to her that he was there to help her to 
 escape. If there was no other way, it must be done by brib- 
 ery, and if Cathy were once free, he had planned a way by 
 which he could hide her from recapture. All he needed was 
 twelve hours' start. The plan was not difficult, once Cathy 
 was out of the asylum. Lilian and he would meet her, and 
 be waiting for her in a car. They would take her across to 
 Ireland that night. By morning, Cathy would be out of 
 England, and Robert had already put his shooting-box, on 
 the border of County Limerick, in order. It was a tiny 
 little place, whither he very seldom went, standing in the 
 heart of a huge, rambling domain in the foot-hills of the 
 blue mountains of Slieve Na Mon. For years he had never 
 gone near it; it was a wild spot where no one ever came, 
 and the one-storied house, standing on a plateau over a 
 rushing, brown river, was comfortable and promised great 
 rest and quiet. Miles of rhododendrons spread over the ra- 
 vines, and there was the eternal sound of flowing water in 
 the air. At every season of the year it was beautiful, but 
 its remoteness had formerly made no kind of appeal to 
 Robert's sophistication. At last "Parteen," as the house 
 was called, was to be of definite use to him, and when he 
 and Lilian had decided that it was, above all else, the place 
 for Cathy, they had immediately arranged with Miss Batten 
 that she was to go there in advance. Beyond a wire herald- 
 ing their coming, they could give her no word of how things 
 went with them, but she was to have everything prepared,
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 325 
 
 and was to take care of Cathy when Lilian had to return to 
 London. So far, they had not told Lady Carstairs anything. 
 They both felt that it was best for her to be spared the 
 knowledge until she could also be told that Cathy was free. 
 
 All this was planned, and Amyas felt that, as there was 
 money enough for a sufficiently large bribe, he could count 
 upon one of the attendants to take it, but until he saw Cathy 
 he could not tell how far her dreadful confinement had made 
 her helpless, even when help was near. If Lorrimer was 
 prepared to fight to get her sent back, he would have to 
 reckon with a publicity which might not be altogether to his 
 taste. Amyas thought of him with a rage of scorn. The 
 man was a hopeless coward, and he was now well in the 
 lime-light. Probably he would never raise the question, 
 but he and Doctor Henstock would at least have to face a 
 certain amount of plain speech. 
 
 As he considered the subject, he came to the entrance 
 gates and went in. He had not advised Doctor Chapman of 
 his coming, but a short distance within the grounds he met 
 a square-built man with a panama on the back of his head, 
 who hailed him and asked what his business was. 
 
 Robert lifted his hat and explained himself. 
 
 "The Open Gate, oh yes, a very admirable paper. I hope 
 you are going to give us a good show," Doctor Bracy said, 
 introducing himself. "I am the house doctor. You will 
 see how well the patients are cared for." 
 
 Amyas was struck at once by the grounds, they were so 
 righteously and rigidly well kept, and afar he saw groups 
 of people sitting in chairs along the sunny lawn. It was 
 his business to be polite, and he remarked upon the flower- 
 ing shrubs, and the spic and span effect of the place. 
 
 "Quite a little Utopia for the insane," he said, searching 
 with scrutinising eyes the paths which converged from the 
 main avenue. 
 
 He was brought into the Grange and conducted through 
 the central part of the house, where he saw many of the 
 patients, and at once two or three of them ran to him and 
 wished to make him listen to their story. There was doom
 
 326 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 in the air, and he listened', making notes, to Doctor Bracy's 
 sing-song tones. 
 
 "I will not bring you to the infirmary or the 'Incorrigibles' 
 ward. You must be acclimatised to stand that experience," 
 he said, when Robert had seen the billiard-room and the 
 recreation-room. "We are having a band this afternoon to 
 amuse the patients, and, perhaps, if you will lunch with me, 
 you might like to sit and listen, and see us all, at home, as 
 it were." 
 
 "But this is not my idea of an asylum," Robert said, smil- 
 ing and looking at Doctor Bracy, who was inwardly thinking 
 that he looked over-worked and by no means strong. The 
 type of man who, sooner or later, gets a nervous breakdown 
 and not infrequently becomes a temporary inmate of such 
 places as Welldon Grange. "Where are the chains arid 
 manacles, and where is a padded cell ? I don't feel that I am 
 living up to my professional high-water mark unless I can 
 see something of the kind." 
 
 "The padded cell is only used when patients become en- 
 tirely unmanageable," Doctor Bracy explained. "It is the 
 last resort. The lot of a house doctor is by no means easy," 
 he went on, as he led Robert by an outside passage, avoid- 
 ing Wards II and III, to the courtyard at the back. "One 
 is permitted no likes or dislikes, and at times it is very 
 trying to have to appear harsh but there it is ! I get abused 
 morning, noon and night, and I have been attacked with 
 violence more than once. We had a very sad case only 
 yesterday. A man of really brilliant capacity, who was, 
 unfortunately, a dipsomaniac, had so far recovered that he 
 had been a week on 'parole.' He was allowed to go to the 
 village, and his discharge was ready. Just to give you an 
 idea of how little any lunatic may be trusted, he went off 
 as usual, and did not return. When the warders found him, 
 he was mad drunk and had stripped himself of his clothes. 
 He was shouting and singing, and they were forced to over- 
 power him in the end. To-day, he is lying in the hospital 
 with a fractured jaw, and one of the warders has a broken 
 leg." Doctor Bracy mopped his face with a red silk hand- 
 kerchief, and Amyas said nothing. The man had been
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 327 
 
 regarded as cured, and he might have sat next to Cathy at 
 meals. The idea was sickening and he drew a quick breath 
 of horror ; but he only made a note in his reporter's book and 
 said nothing. 
 
 "There is a padded cell," Doctor Bracy said, with the air 
 of a showman, and a group of wardresses scuttled away as 
 he glanced at them. Someone quite near was moaning 
 persistently, and Amyas went into the gloom behind the 
 door and stood there, while Doctor Bracy closed it. 
 
 Surely they had never put Cathy in such a place ? Amyas, 
 who never prayed, said something like a prayer at that 
 moment, and then Doctor Bracy threw the door open 
 again. 
 
 "The walls, as you see, are so constructed that no pa- 
 tient can dash out his brains in an access of frenzy," he said, 
 in the same cheerful voice. "It is necessary detention, but 
 there is no real hardship attached, unless in the strait- jacket 
 cases, and they must be protected against themselves. For 
 instance, a woman in a frenzy will tear her arms raw or 
 pull out her hair to make a case against a wardress. It 
 sounds harsh, I know, but a short-sighted lunatic, for ex- 
 ample, cannot be permitted her glasses, as she may try to 
 swallow them or clothing fine enough to tear. We have 
 to be watchful as to those details, and there is a reason for 
 everything." 
 
 "If I were to be shut up in that hole for a day, I should 
 have a reckoning with some one," Amyas said grimly. 
 
 "Ah, but then you are compos mentis, and it is quite 
 different," Doctor Bracy replied airily. 
 
 As Doctor Chapman was away for the day, Doctor Bracy 
 entertained Robert in his own rooms. He was quite ready 
 to talk openly, and he told Robert story after story of 
 cases which had come under his care. 
 
 "The old complaint that there is no treatment is quite 
 unfounded," he said. "It is literally impossible to do more 
 than we do here." 
 
 "And do you ever, by chance, get a really sane person 
 shut up here ?" Amyas asked ; he had been very silent most 
 of the time.
 
 328 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 / 
 
 "We have almost always the certification of two doctors, 
 but if the case is uncertified and becomes what we call an 
 'urgent/ we can ourselves certify at once. You can't ne- 
 glect a lunatic, or allow him to be at large." 
 
 "And are there no mistakes made ? For instance, has no 
 one ever bribed two doctors to certify? It seems rather 
 easy, looked at from the outside." 
 
 "No fear! Too risky." Doctor Bracy sucked his tooth- 
 pick. "Insanity is the slyest thing in the world, and I am 
 thinking now of one special case ; the case of a really charm- 
 ing lady." 
 
 Amyas moved a little and looked out of the window. 
 
 "She had tried to take her life; sufficient evidence to 
 show that there was something very wrong." 
 
 "Isn't it rather a matter of opinion?" Amyas said idly. 
 
 "There are no two opinions on the subject. She had 
 certainly attempted suicide. 
 
 "I noticed a few symptoms when I visited her the eve- 
 ning of her arrival; one of the doctors who had certified 
 her insane brought her here, and had deemed it best to tell 
 her nothing. Now, I am all for honesty, Mr. Amyas, and I 
 don't like deceit. At the time I felt that the poor lady 
 was ill-used; and the shock of realisation was necessarily 
 acute. She was cared for in the infirmary, as she had not 
 entirely recovered from a long illness, and there were times 
 when I was nearly not quite, but very nearly convinced 
 that there had been some mistake in her case." 
 
 "Did you let her out?" Amyas asked suddenly. Could it 
 be possible that he was hunting a cold line, and that Monica 
 had put Cathy into some other hell, where there was no 
 possible hope of escape? 
 
 "Luckily we did not," Doctor Bracy said. "Caution has 
 to be our watchword here. I discussed the matter with 
 Chapman, and we both agreed to wait. The results proved 
 us to be right, for within a few months of comparative 
 liberty, the patient tried again to destroy herself. She stole 
 a pair of scissors from the work-basket of her wardress, and 
 managed to get away into the bushes. When found, she
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 329 
 
 had cut a strip of cambric from her petticoat, and was 
 evidently just about to strangle herself." His face looked 
 sad at the recollection. 
 
 "My God," Amyas said slowly. 'And what did you do 
 then ?" 
 
 Doctor Bracy fiddled with his glass and sighed. "She 
 was under the discipline of the Incorrigible ward for three 
 weeks, and, while there, the reports all showed that her 
 sanity had given way hopelessly. At the end of that time 
 she became quiet, and now she is one of our best patients. 
 If you like, I will introduce you to her this afternoon. She 
 seems oddly cut off. Of course, I cannot tell you her name, 
 as everything here is very confidential, but she may do so 
 herself. Yes," he spoke reflectively, "Chapman remarked 
 to me only yesterday that she was isolated, and he felt quite 
 strongly about it. She must have had many friends, and 
 there is her husband, who has not even troubled to fulfil the 
 undertaking that he will see her did I say she was mar- 
 ried? No? It is this rooted convention, which makes the 
 sane shrink away from their unhappy relatives, until, as in 
 her case, they add desolation to the difficulties with which we 
 have to contend. I believe that she might be almost re- 
 garded as cured, only that there is marked hesitation on 
 the part of the petitioner to take any action. It is all very 
 sad, very sad." 
 
 "Perhaps I might cheer her up/' Amyas said, not raising 
 his eyes. "But the padded room. It's pretty ghastly." 
 
 "Believe me, it was necessary," Doctor Bracy said firmly ; 
 "and, at the end of the time, she was perfectly docile, she 
 even admits now that she knows her brain to be affected." 
 
 Amyas felt as though Doctor Bracy, with his genial smile, 
 had suddenly struck him in the face, but he struggled to 
 hide his feelings. He must show nothing outwardly, and 
 his heart sank like lead. Tortured, driven and forsaken, 
 Cathy had bowed to the rod, and now they had forced the 
 lie upon her and made her accept it. She herself admit- 
 ted that she was mad, and, if so, it looked indeed as though 
 he had come there far too late.
 
 330 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 Cathy was feeling more than usually hopeless and de- 
 pressed that soft, August day. Old longings came upon 
 her, and when she was told that the band of a neighbouring 
 regiment was to play in the grounds, she only wished to 
 remain indoors. 
 
 "Don't ask me to listen to music, Agnes," she said, "it is 
 too full of memories, and I have to hush them to sleep. 
 When they awake they make me wretched." 
 
 "Come out, it will do you good," Agnes replied. "And, 
 besides, I'd like to be out myself." She knew by now 
 that she could manage Cathy by personal appeal. "Put on 
 a pretty hat and make yourself look nice. I always say 
 that none of the beauties in the papers are half as nice as 
 you." 
 
 Cathy looked at her own reflection in the mirror with an 
 unsmiling regard. She was stamped with the marks of 
 mental suffering, and there were heavy lines around her 
 eyes. She had no pride in herself. It mattered nothing 
 what she looked like, but Agnes was ridiculously proud of 
 her, and, to please the girl, Cathy put on a straw hat with 
 a blue scarf around it it was one she had bought in the 
 days when these things counted and mattered. Her dress 
 was tumbled and tossed, and she would not change it, but 
 she put on a string of cheap beads which were a gift from 
 Agnes to herself. 
 
 "Now, Agnes, now; can't I do as I am? If the people 
 who come in to hear the band think I am nothing but a 
 bundle of rags, what does it matter?" She laughed. "That 
 is one of the only advantages of being mad. It explains 
 everything." 
 
 "Don't talk of it," Agnes said; "here is your parasol. 
 Now, if you had a nice pair of gloves . . ." 
 
 "I'll do as I am," Cathy said; "don't try me too far. 
 I hope there won't be strangers about," she drew close to 
 Agnes; "I don't like strangers, Aggy Baggy, you know I 
 don't, they stare and stare until they are nothing but eyes." 
 
 "They are only admiring you." 
 
 "Well, I wish they wouldn't; I begin to think that I am 
 growing cloth ears like poor Miss Lucy Clarke. Did you
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 331 
 
 hear her at lunch? She asked that new man, with a face 
 like Othello, to tell her if her ears were really made of 
 red flannel." 
 
 Agnes opened the door and Cathy went out and down 
 the steps. The scene was gay enough, except for the num- 
 bers of warders and wardresses, and the queer faded look 
 of most of the women's clothes. Just then everyone was 
 "behaving nicely," but they all knew that at any moment 
 someone might burst into cries or tears, and one elderly 
 gentleman in a bath-chair was already wailing pitifully, be- 
 moaning his lot to the indifferent crowd. 
 
 "Let me have a chair well away ' from the rest," Cathy 
 said, grasping the arm of Agnes in sudden alarm. "I don't 
 want to see new people." 
 
 "Stay where you are and I'll get you one," Agnes replied 
 and she was carrying the chair across the smooth lawn when 
 Doctor Bracy intercepted her. He was with a young-look- 
 ing man who had a note-book in his hand. 
 
 "Ah, I see that our friend has come out," Doctor Bracy 
 said pleasantly; "that's good, that's good. How is she 
 to-day, Agnes?" 
 
 Agnes replied that she was very well, and she noticed that 
 the young man stared as though transfixed to where Cathy 
 was standing, gazing at the distant trees. The attendant 
 felt pleased. Her patient was a genuine beauty, in spite 
 of the fact that she looked worn and thin, and the stranger 
 was offering his tribute of unspoken praise. 
 
 "We are just going to have a little talk," Doctor Bracy 
 said, relieving Agnes of the chair. "Mr. Amyas is anxious 
 to meet some of our patients.. Come along," he added to 
 Robert, "or perhaps you will wait a moment while I go 
 first." 
 
 Amyas watched Doctor Bracy go up to Cathy and touch 
 her arm. She started, as though awakened from sleep ; she 
 had been listening to the music with wrapt intensity; and 
 after a few minutes' conversation Cathy sat down, pulling 
 the chair round so that her back was to the throng. 
 
 "She says she will speak to you," Doctor Bracy hurried 
 back, and was clutched at as he passed by a man who was
 
 332 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 wearing a knotted silk handkerchief on his head, instead of 
 a hat. "Now, Mr. Coppley, no trouble, please." He turned 
 to Robert. "She wants to meet you alone. I suggested an 
 introduction, but she was firm, and it seems quite right to 
 humour her. If you will go up to where she is sitting, 
 there is a seat beside her where you can sit as long as you 
 like." 
 
 "Must the wardress be in attendance?" 
 
 "Nominally, but not in fact. Agnes, you will be within 
 call in case you are needed." 
 
 Amyas walked across the grass. If Cathy's life in the 
 asylum was at times as unreal as a dream to her, Robert felt 
 at that moment that he, too, was the victim of some wild 
 delusion. Cathy, the real, living Cathy, was close to him, 
 sitting in a chair with her parasol over her head. How 
 often he had seen her in just the same graceful attitude, 
 and now it was as though only he and she were real and 
 the crowd of mad men and women were part of some ridicu- 
 lous nightmare. Could he not go and put his hands on her 
 shoulders and watch her glad surprise? Then the grey 
 wave of fact raced up and wiped out the memories. Catfiy 
 had suffered in the terrible living coffin of the padded room, 
 and, it might be, that, when she turned her head, there would 
 be no recognition in her eyes. 
 
 He walked slowly, and coming round her chair he stood 
 before her. Doctor Bracy and Agnes were both watching 
 him, and it mattered so much what he should do and how 
 he did it. He dug his stick into the mossy turf and leaned 
 down, for she had not raised her head. Thank God, the 
 band was playing a march, and the noise of it made it im- 
 possible to overhear anything. 
 
 "Cathy," he said, "Cathy!" 
 
 She looked up at him, startled, shaken, even terrified. 
 
 "Be very careful," he said, "don't let them notice any- 
 thing. I have come here to help you to get away." 
 
 Her eyes softened and changed and then filled with tears. 
 
 "But perhaps you don't understand, Robert," she said. 
 "You see, you dear, kind Robert, I am mad."
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 HE sat down beside her, and signed to Doctor Bracy that 
 they could be left alone, and then he leaned forward and 
 looked at her steadily, his own face reflecting the sorrow of 
 hers. 
 
 "I dare not take your hands," she said. "You do not 
 know the power of the conventions until you come here. If 
 I did, Aggy would try and sweep me off but I am really 
 holding them, Robert, and I don't want ever to let them go 
 again." 
 
 "Listen, Cathy," he said, speaking very quietly. "I am 
 going to take you away." 
 
 "Take me away?" her voice was full of astonishment. 
 "But not now that you know what has happened?" 
 
 "Nothing has happened; you are yourself, unchanged, 
 Cathy, unchanged." 
 
 She shook her head. "That is not so, I have seen too 
 much and suffered too much. I know they never meant to 
 be cruel, but they believed me mad. . . ." She hesitated 
 and lowered her eyes. "You see, Monica had . . ." 
 
 "I know all about that," Amyas said vehemently. "We 
 won't speak either one or other of two names." 
 
 She raised her eyes again and a wistful smile touched 
 her mouth. 
 
 "It's wonderful to see you, Robert, and now that you 
 have come here, will you come again often? It will make 
 it even bearable to have that to count upon." 
 
 Amyas reflected for a moment. He had intended to tell 
 her the broad outlines of the plan of escape, but now he 
 decided against this. Cathy was not equal to any such tense 
 strain as it would place upon her, and he could perhaps do 
 it all himself, with the help of Lilian. He had found Doctor 
 Bracy more sympathetic than he had hoped for, and Lilian 
 could probably manoeuvre the situation. Unless the pe- 
 
 333
 
 334 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 titioner acted, there was very little chance of the asylum 
 officials taking any steps to bring her back. 
 
 Amyas dug his stick into the ground again, at the thought 
 of Lorrimer. Yes, it was very much better that Cathy 
 should know nothing, and he must talk to her now and 
 reassure her. 
 
 "How do you think I got here?" he asked. "I am sup- 
 posed to be a journalist, Cathy, one of the damned, and 
 I was shown over the Grange by Doctor Bracy. I don't 
 dislike the man, he has good points." 
 
 Cathy looked around her and looked back at Robert. 
 "You know that I came here without any idea of why I was 
 being brought, and they keep on telling me that I tried to 
 kill myself. Robert, Robert, isn't it silly? I, who loved 
 every day of my life, and I have always been a cannibal in 
 that way. But I suppose they are right . . ." she wavered 
 again. 
 
 "I went to tea with Aunt Amy last week," Robert said ; 
 "she talks of nothing but you, and she does not know where 
 you are." 
 
 Cathy frowned slightly as though perplexed. "Didn't 
 they give it out? Do you mean that it has all been kept a 
 secret ?" 
 
 "Yes, until Miss Batten and I discovered the facts." 
 
 "Batkins, poor darling Batkins. They sent her away. 
 Th*y wanted to get rid of her. Where is she; can't she 
 come and see me?" Cathy's cheeks took a shade of their 
 old delicate pink, and she looked animated and almost gay. 
 "I shall have a series of parties," she said; "a funny place 
 to give them, but, still, I shall give them. Lilian shall come, 
 and Twyf ord he hasn't forgotten me ?" She looked doubt- 
 fully at Amyas. "Can you picture him here? Aunt Amy 
 must come to me at once, for even if I am out of my mind 
 I don't feel any different. How I should love to see Lilian. 
 Are you and she friends again ?" 
 
 "Yes, why not, after all?" 
 
 He leaned back carelessly and smoked, his eyes on the 
 bright glitter of the brass instruments of the band. Cathy
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 335 
 
 must be led to talk of outside things, and here was a sub- 
 ject. 
 
 "It was merely a case of misdirected energy. Lilian and 
 I were meant to be friends, and we most unwisely got 
 married. She found out the mistake and admitted it, 
 whereas I was such a conventional sort of cove, Cathy, 
 though I prided myself upon my individuality, that I was a 
 fool at that time. Once we were both free we got sane 
 again, and when the peed cropped up, a propos of your own 
 self, we found that we had a long standing friendship be- 
 hind us. We are friends, the best of friends, and it has 
 made things square. Hinton is a good fellow, which is 
 more than I ever was or will be; and was I, or she for 
 that matter, to forgo a sound, reliable slice of comfort, 
 merely because blatant idiots raise their eyebrows and say 
 beastly things?" 
 
 "Oh, Robert, I am so glad," Cathy said. "What a won- 
 derful day this is for me. I can't believe it yet. Go on 
 talking ; just talk of the things we used to know about, and 
 let us forget." 
 
 He talked on steadily. There was a great deal to say, and 
 Amyas sought for any trifling subject which would amuse 
 her. To test her a little, he spoke of George Barlow. "Janey 
 Greenaway is in the lock-up," he said, "she called the Prime 
 Minister names outside the House, and the police nabbed 
 her. I heard that Barlow insisted on making an extremely 
 witty speech at Bow Street when he went to bail her out, 
 but the authorities won't let her go." 
 
 "Poor Janey," Cathy moved her hands vaguely. "I hate 
 to think of her locked up, Robert. You know that I ended 
 by realising that people were unfair to Barlow? He was 
 very kind to me that day when I fell on the road, and the 
 other time that I saw him, he only wanted to warn me 
 about Jack." 
 
 "I know everything, Cathy, there is no need to explain," 
 Amyas said decisively. "Now what other gossip have I? 
 The hat of the moment is worn with a chin-strap, and 
 women go to dances without any backs to their evening 
 dresses. Does that interest you?"
 
 336 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "Frightfully," Cathy laughed back at him. "Bring me 
 one when you come again, Robert dear." 
 
 "Anything else?" he asked. "What shall I bring you, 
 Cathy? Flowers, books ... is there anything you want?" 
 
 "You bring me better things than any of those," she 
 said, her eyes wet, "you brought me a bit of the old days." 
 She pressed her hands over her heart. "I am. often broken 
 by it all. For it has been very dark at times; even you 
 cannot know how dark." 
 
 "I can guess at it," he said in a low voice. 
 
 "There really is such a thing as delirium," she said, striv- 
 ing to explain; "the most woeful and awful thing. It 
 gathers against me slowly, and all the things of the spirit 
 seem to be tumbled into a black night." 
 
 The cadence of melancholy in her voice reached him like 
 a whisper, and he longed to take her in his arms and hold 
 her close until she could tell him that she was rested. 
 
 He had loved Cathy when she was as glorious as the 
 lilies of the field, but now that she was dimmed of beauty 
 and broken in spirit, he loved her with a love so wide and 
 vast that it ached in him because of its very greatness. 
 She had changed considerably, but the alteration had not 
 really impaired her beauty in his eyes, she had turned from 
 the sordid sights around her, and looked steadfastly towards 
 another world. Alas ! he thought, that she had nothing here 
 to claim her. With a wonderful patience she had accepted 
 the heart-breaking existence, dead idleness, hopeless dawns 
 and unalleviated sorrow. Cathy had been waiting when he 
 found her, and the only thing she waited for was death. 
 
 Doctor Bracy joined them a few minutes later, and 
 Robert had warned Cathy not to admit that they had 
 known one another before ; the fact that they had a mutual 
 friend would account for their long talk, and he watched 
 her carefully to see whether she was able to keep up the 
 pretence. 
 
 "Doctor Bracy," she said, smiling at him, "I owe you a 
 ''thank you' because you have done a good deed to-day. 
 Mr. Amyas and I have a friend in common, and he will tell 
 lier to come and see me."
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 337 
 
 "That's right, that's right," Doctor Bracy dragged up a 
 chair and sat down. He was pleased to see her looking so 
 well, and felt sure that Amyas had been favourably im- 
 pressed. 
 
 "One forgets," Cathy went on, "that the world is full of 
 accidents, and a nice accident is a help." She looked wist- 
 ful again. "Only here, one can't expect to hear voices call- 
 ing one to pack up and go to the ends of the earth. Where 
 are the ends, Doctor Bracy, or is this one of them?" 
 
 He shook his head and looked significantly at Amyas. 
 How could he tell that Cathy had always talked like that ? 
 
 "I am not a geographical expert," he said, uneasily; 
 "perhaps you are right." 
 
 "And yet," Cathy looked towards Amyas, "one never 
 really does see the shadow of the. coming event. I did not 
 see it. Or do you think I did, when I remembered : 
 
 "'John York, John York, where have you gone, John York?'" 
 "I can complete the quotation," Amyas said: 
 
 " 'King of my heart, King of my heart, I am out on the trail of thy 
 bugles! 
 
 You see, I also read my Gilbert Parker." 
 
 Doctor Bracy regarded them both with some astonish- 
 ment, but they evidently understood one another quite well. 
 
 At last Amyas got up and held Cathy's hand for a second. 
 
 "I will give your message to Mrs. Hinton," Le said. ^"The 
 external world does exist," he smiled, his tired face lighting 
 suddenly. "There are policemen and perambulators, just 
 the same as ever, and it goes on as usual. She will be so 
 glad to hear of you." 
 
 Cathy grew suddenly anxious and she caught his hand 
 again. "Let her come soon," she said, with a touch of en- 
 treaty in her voice. "I've been so long shut away from 
 everybody." 
 
 Doctor Bracy accompanied Amyas to the edge of the 
 grass plot. "I am sure it did her a great deal of good," he 
 said, "and I shall be glad for her to see another friend. We 
 do all we can, but sometimes outside people can help."
 
 338 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "Mrs. Hinton is sure to come soon," Amyas said. "She 
 is devoted to Miss Rossiter." 
 
 "Ah, I see you have humoured her as to her name," 
 Doctor Bracy smiled. "It is only a small thing, but it sug- 
 gests derangement. Poor Lady Lorrimer . . ." he stopped 
 and put a finger on Robert's sleeve. "Tell me, is there any- 
 thing wrong between her and Sir John? It seems odd to 
 : us that he should not come here, though by law, he should 
 ] be compelled to visit her. Of course I never gossip about 
 patients, but it is odd very odd." 
 
 "I know nothing of Sir John Lorrimer," Robert replied, 
 "except that he is the personification of the bourgeoisie. A 
 bishop with the domestic views of a Pasha." 
 
 "Oh dear me," Doctor Bracy said in tones of perplexity, 
 "I fancied that he was immensely respected." 
 
 "So he is," Amyas said shortly, "by all the people who do 
 not know him, Doctor Bracy." 
 
 "Well, he never comes here," Doctor Bracy replied, in 
 the same perplexed voice; "though I know Chapman went 
 so far as to remind him of his responsibility. Good-bye, 
 Mr. Amyas, and send me a copy of the paper. I hope you 
 have nothing but good to say of us." 
 
 In Lilian's boudoir, Robert poured out his story. He 
 raged as he paced the small room, as she had never believed 
 he could have raged, and he gave her a quick summary of 
 his experiences of the day. 
 
 "They have nearly driven her mad," he said, standing 
 before her, "and it is no thanks either to Lorrimer or that 
 woman, that she isn't a shrieking lunatic. The very fact 
 of her being able to stand it proves her sanity. But oh, my 
 God, Lil, to see her there " 
 
 "What can we do now?" Lilian asked, her eyes bright 
 and her chin set. "Let me do something, Robert, whatever 
 it is." 
 
 "There's plenty for you to do, but the original plan has 
 to be altered." He sat down and became quiet again. "I 
 did not dare to burden Cathy with the suspense of a night 
 of strain, she can be told nothing until we get her out.
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 339 
 
 Down there, the doctors are beginning to suspect that 
 Lorrimer isn't keen on having her out ; and I thought Bracy 
 quite a decent fellow, so long as he wasn't treating one as a 
 lunatic. He is naturally kindly in his way, and might be 
 managed. You have to do the managing, old girl." 
 
 "To-morrow?" 
 
 "Yes, with the least delay possible. You must go there 
 and ask to see her, and get Bracy to let her drive with you. 
 Don't let him have any suspicion at all." 
 
 Lilian smiled. "I think I can do that," she said, nodding 
 at Amyas. "I am to induce the doctor to let her come out 
 with me, and then I just whisk her off, and at night we cross 
 to Ireland. You will come too, won't you?" 
 
 "I shall wait for you in the car, and then we shall motor 
 to Chester and catch the night mail. She will be frightfully 
 tired, but the main thing is to get her out." 
 
 The hours dragged for her and Amyas until they were 
 able to start off again to Welldon Grange, and Lilian, soberly 
 clad, and quiet of manner, presented herself at the gates. 
 She had left Robert at the hotel which the village boasted, 
 and was to return there to pick him up. The large car, 
 Lilian's dignified air of command and her cold, strong 
 manner, impressed Doctor Chapman favourably. 
 
 "I rushed down here at once, or I should have called and 
 brought Doctor Henstock with me," Lilian said in her 
 perfect manner. 
 
 "I hear that she spent rather a restless night," Doctor 
 Chapman said, placing his finger tips one against the other. 
 "It might have been best had you waited a week or two. 
 Yet, since you are here, you must not be disappointed." 
 
 "I was going to suggest," Lilian said, and she was glad 
 that Doctor Chapman did not know that her heart was beat- 
 ing in a furious scurry of excitement, "that .a little drive 
 with me might be good for her. Lady Lorrimer has lived 
 an open air life, and if we drove quietly along the roads 
 for an hour or so, it would amuse her." 
 
 Doctor Chapman looked searchingly at Lilian. Was it 
 just possible that he doubted her good faith? He looked 
 at her well gloved hands, her dark dress, plain and expen-
 
 340 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 sive, and the string of pearls around her throat. Mentally 
 he visualised the big car and the impressively respectable 
 chauffeur. Mrs. Hinton was not the kind of woman who 
 expected refusal, and he looked at her again. The string of 
 pearls decided him, though he could not have explained why. 
 
 "Very likely it would be a nice change," he said quite 
 readily, once he had made up his mind. "Then, if you will 
 follow me, I will bring you to the drawing-room. I think 
 Lady Lorrimer is probably there, if she is not in our little 
 chapel." 
 
 Lilian followed him demurely. She enjoyed the sense of 
 intrigue to the full, and she knew that it was her person- 
 ality which had vanquished any doubts Doctor Chapman 
 might have felt, nor did the knowledge distress her in the 
 least. She said afterwards that she would have let him kiss 
 her, had he been that sort of man. The price is nothing 
 when the result is beyond price. 
 
 Looking around her with pained eyes, she took in the 
 surroundings which had been Cathy's for so long now, and 
 her pity broke loose in her, but she walked as though she 
 was indifferent to it all. 
 
 Cathy was sitting in the ornate drawing-room, and a big, 
 blousy-looking woman crouched down by the side of her 
 chair, talking with wild incoherence of her own lot. She 
 was accusing a whole range of people whom she held re- 
 sponsible, and when she saw Lilian she shouted to her to 
 go away. 
 
 "We don't want you, we don't want you. Go away 
 you are mad," she cried, waving her hands, but as her eyes 
 met those of Doctor Chapman she faltered, and hid like a 
 child, behind Cathy's chair, peering out from the side. 
 
 At the sight of Lilian, Cathy got up and came to her with 
 out-held hands, and they neither of them spoke as Lilian 
 folded her close to her heart. She only made low sounds 
 of comfort, as she stroked the bowed head with tender 
 hands, and then Doctor Chapman spoke, and at his voice 
 Cathy lifted her head. 
 
 "Let me rest here," she said. "Don't tell me that I must 
 not excite myself. Feel my pulse, Doctor Chapman, it is
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 341 
 
 not beating fast. You see it is so long since I have had 
 anywhere to rest myself like this." 
 
 Lilian lifted Cathy's face, her hand under her chin. 
 
 "Robert brought me news of you," she said, smiling at 
 the heavy eyes raised to hers, "and Doctor Chapman says 
 you may come out with me for a little in the car/ 
 
 Cathy shook her head. "I would rather see you here in 
 some room where we may be alone. I should be afraid if 
 I went out." 
 
 For a second Lilian nearly panicked, but she stood her 
 ground and spoke encouragingly. 
 
 "I am just as fond of fresh air as ever, and I am sure 
 it will do you good," she said, and she turned towards 
 Doctor Chapman. "Can't you persuade her?" 
 
 Appealed to directly, Doctor Chapman smiled, and spoke 
 in his deep, suave tones, and Lilian watched Cathy, who 
 fixed her eyes on him like a dutiful and frightened child. 
 
 "If you say that I am to go I will go," she said, and then 
 she turned eagerly to Lilian. "Once, I thought of nothing 
 but getting away from here. That was before I believed^ 
 but now that they all say I am mad, the idea of outside 
 places frightens me. Lil, if you had come two months ago 
 I would have begged you to take me away with you." 
 
 "Be quite calm," Doctor Chapman kept a steady eye on 
 his patient; "I give Mrs. Hinton full permission to take you 
 for a drive outside the grounds." 
 
 "Without anyone else? Without Agnes even?" 
 
 "Alone with your friend," he replied. 
 
 Cathy had shown so much reluctance that he felt the 
 concession to be a harmless one, and he accepted Mrs. Hin- 
 ton's charming smile of gratitude with a pleasant sense of 
 satisfaction. 
 
 "Perhaps you will lunch at my house," he said, as Cathy 
 went away to put on her hat. "It would give my wife great 
 pleasure to meet you." 
 
 "May I leave it open?" Lilian said mendaciously. "I 
 ought to get back early, but so much depends upon Lady 
 Lorrimer." 
 
 "Certainly, certainly," Doctor Chapman agreed, and he
 
 342 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 went to the door with them, folding a rug round Cathy's 
 knees as he had folded the rug once before around Doctor 
 Henstock. He watched them go, they were driving very 
 slowly, and Lilian appeared to be talking quietly to Cathy. 
 Everything promised well. Mrs. Hinton would realise that 
 doctors of asylums were not ogres, and even Cathy herself 
 had proved this fact. Had she not been entirely reluctant 
 to leave, even for a short drive ? True, a few weeks before, 
 she would have considered such a chance an opening for 
 escape; she had altered wonderfully, and psychologist 
 though he professed to be, Doctor Chapman regarded the 
 change as a personal tribute. He admired Mrs. Hinton im- 
 mensely ; her great sanity struck him at once, and he went 
 to his house and described her to his wife, not omitting to 
 mention the fact that she was wearing a string of pearls 
 which must be worth over a thousand pounds.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 SIR JOHN LORRIMER had affairs of State to occupy his mind. 
 He was a member of nearly a dozen select committees, and 
 his name was constantly before the public. Without know- 
 ing exactly when it occurred, he found that he had virtually 
 left the Progressive Party, who were never at any time 
 either specially progressive or independent, and was acting 
 in union with the older Conservatives. Any man may alter 
 his mind it is the privilege of the free, and Lorrimer now 
 generally found himself on the same platform as Bishops 
 and high Tories. The only point which made his new posi- 
 tion a little difficult, was his secret connection with Monica 
 Henstock. He could not do withput Monica, and they both 
 believed that their union was as sacred as any marriage. All 
 this was very well, and he could have ignored the unlikely 
 chance of discovery, except for the fact that he was now 
 committed to taking a prominent part in a campaign to pre- 
 serve the sanctity of the home. He had a stock speech, in 
 which he argued eloquently that any lessening of the strin- 
 gency of the divorce laws would cause ninety per cent, of 
 the happily married subjects in the British Isles to rush 
 violently into expensive legislation, and moral anarchy 
 would supervene. Homes hitherto of unimpeachable "sanc- 
 tity" would collapse, and divorce must eat like canker 
 through the fair land of England. It was, therefore, agi- 
 tating to realise now and then, that, if a few facts of his 
 private life became known, his whole career must go down 
 dishonourably into the mud. People had talked of Cathy's 
 disappearance, and had wondered over it. Many stories had 
 been fabricated to account for the fact that Lorrimer was 
 wifeless, and it was generally assumed that Cathy had done 
 something disgraceful. She had been widely spoken of as 
 a beautiful woman, and very little else was known of her. 
 
 343
 
 344 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 Hammersly was believed to be in possession of the real 
 facts, and he was significantly silent. He admitted once, 
 however, under a more than usually persistent cross-exami- 
 nation at his club, that there was something far from credit- 
 able to Lady Lorrimer in the background. 
 
 Monica attracted no notice whatever. She had an air of 
 severity that would have deceived the most suspicious, and 
 whenever Lorrimer was seen with her in public, which was 
 not often, she only added to the atmosphere of quiet recti- 
 tude with which he was surrounded. Other women he 
 avoided, he had grown to hate them, and often he was sulky 
 and irritable to Monica herself. 
 
 Deep down in his heart he was eternally contrasting his 
 life, successful as it now was, with the golden burst of 
 summer when he and Cathy had been happy together. He 
 had ceased to love her, he said so frequently to himself, and 
 he had put Monica in her place in all except the open avowal 
 of her, but he was dissatisfied and restless. Cathy was hope- 
 lessly mad, and had again attempted to take her life ; he did 
 not wish to see her. When he received a letter from Doctor 
 Chapman telling him that his obligation was pressing to 
 visit the Grange, he had torn it to fragments and lost his 
 temper with Perrin, his valet, who had not been guilty of 
 any offence. 
 
 There was an unspoken pact of silence between him and 
 Monica on the subject, and he had never asked her a single 
 question about Cathy, or what had happened the day she 
 brought her there. 
 
 Usually he went to see Monica in the evenings, and they- 
 were arranging a prospective holiday. 
 
 They managed their affairs very carefully; Monica was 
 to go to Swanage a week in advance of Lorrimer and take 
 a room at the hotel. Later on, he was to appear, and Perrin 
 was an adept at arrangements of this kind, so that outwardly 
 there was no cause for suspicion. They did not even dare 
 to laugh at the fact that their mutual appearance of intense 
 respectability was an invaluable safeguard, and though there 
 were moments when they both quailed, and when a knock 
 on the door of Lorrimer's bedroom made them shake like
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 345 
 
 convicted criminals, they had never in fact been even sus- 
 pect. 
 
 Again, the heavier burden fell upon Monica. She had 
 none of Lorrimer's indifference to everything except detec- 
 tion, and she suffered desperately while she submitted to the 
 inevitable. 
 
 It was a wild, blowy evening, and the hot spell had al- 
 tered into the cold of a shrewish summer's day. Lorrimer 
 was to take Monica out to dinner, and then they would 
 return to his flat. He bought some flowers from a battered- 
 looking woman at a street corner, and walked onwards with 
 them in his hand. After all, Monica was his only real 
 friend. He was beginning to suspect Hammersly, who had 
 shown a hardihood and even insolence of manner to him 
 more than once, since he had declined to recommend him 
 for a job. In the end he had recommended him and Ham- 
 mersly was drawing a good salary for a thoroughly idle 
 berth to which he had no claim, but there had been a humili- 
 ating interview which stripped away any illusions Lorrimer 
 might otherwise have preserved. 
 
 Once he had been friendly towards the world, but he was 
 so no longer. He hummed to himself as he went along, a 
 bad sign with him; he had a resounding voice when he 
 spoke, but, if he raised it into song, it became thin and flat. 
 He thought on with steadily growing irritation. He had 
 seen Amyas once, who cut him dead, and Twyford had 
 done the same quite publicly. Before he left the flat he had 
 received a very curious note from Lady Carstairs, address- 
 ing him no longer as "Jack," and informing him stiffly that 
 she wished him to understand from her that their acquaint- 
 ance was at an end. They were out after him like a pack 
 of hounds, and he hated them. What fault of his was it 
 that his wife was a lunatic? He had every right to round 
 on old Lady Carstairs and accuse her of having known that 
 there was lunacy in the family. That point had never been 
 cleared up, and he frequently dwelt upon it. His laurels did 
 not please him, for he was worried and slandered. Ham- 
 mersly had been damned impertinent and had almost threat-
 
 346 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 ened him; had been on the point of dragging Monica into 
 the controversy. The man was a cad, Lorrimer reflected; 
 Cathy was right when she declined to have anything to do 
 with him. Anyhow, his dirty mouth was stopped now, and 
 he had got his blackmail, but where in such a world did 
 one find a reliable friend? The men he worked with and 
 for showed no real interest in him, and he had outgrown 
 his early pleasure in being on speaking terms with the 
 Great. He wanted to marry Monica, and yet to make 
 lunacy a cause for divorce was one of the proposals which 
 he was pledged to fight. It was nearly funny, if one con- 
 sidered it. A revised divorce law might possibly free him 
 from a mad wife, but on principle he must forgo that chance 
 of liberty. It was just like everything else, he thought, all 
 was dust and ashes. 
 
 He was not exactly in a lover's mood as he kissed Monica 
 and sat down, placing the flowers on a table, but when he 
 looked at her he thought she appeared worried and pale. 
 
 "I've had my conge from Lady Carstairs," he said, with 
 a flat laugh. "Wretched old fool, I suppose she thinks I 
 shall make a fuss." 
 
 Monica sat down and shaded her face with her hands. 
 
 "Jack, I have had two letters from Doctor Chapman. He 
 feels, I am sure, that we are neglecting Cathy. I believe it 
 will be necessary to go there." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because it creates a feeling of suspicion. I hate to talk 
 of it at all, but it seems to me that something must be done. 
 In any case," she looked up at him, "the others are sure 
 to go there now, and how shall we look?" 
 
 Lorrimer bit the side of his finger and thought it over. 
 
 "Then perhaps you had better go," he said slowly. 
 
 "I ?" Monica stared at him blankly. "I go there ? Don't 
 you see that it is impossible ? I have borne a great deal for 
 you, Jack, but I can't be expected to stand everything." 
 
 "Why shouldn't you go?" he said. "You took her there 
 and you are a doctor. Besides, you told me that it was 
 perfectly all right, and that she would settle down quite 
 soon. She might be glad to see you."
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 347 
 
 Monica continued her fixed stare. In a way, she herself 
 was responsible for his stupidity. In her effort to do noth- 
 ing which would make him shrink from her in those early 
 days, she had lied freely enough, so he was not to blame, but 
 the time was over between them when there was further 
 need for lies. 
 
 "I did not see her," she explained, speaking rapidly, "but 
 I heard her. She was beating on a locked door and calling 
 to me. Whatever happened later well, you must realise 
 that she still holds me responsible for having her locked up, 
 and it is even possible that she thinks you do not know." 
 
 "Heard her beating on a locked door," he said vaguely. 
 ""You did not tell me that. My God! Yet. I suppose she 
 Jias shaken down all right?" 
 
 "Doctor Chapman thinks that she is very much better, 
 so much better, in fact, that she may be discharged quite 
 soon." 
 
 They looked away from each other, and both of them 
 were silent. They had succeeded in forgetting about Cathy, 
 and now what were they going to do? 
 
 Lorrimer got up and stood on the hearthrug, his hands in 
 his pockets, staring at the ground. 
 
 "If she is released she will go to her aunt, but it would 
 be stupid to take risks. Can't you write to this fellow, Chap- 
 man, and say that he must be absolutely sure that she is 
 cured? It hardly matters to me, as she won't be coming 
 back to Kingslade in a hurry, but for her own sake one 
 , must be sure." 
 
 "Will you go down and see her? There is the legal obli- 
 gation, in any case," Monica asked, and her voice faltered 
 slightly. She was still afraid of Cathy even a marred and 
 broken Cathy who might pluck Lorrimer from her at the 
 eleventh hour. He would feel regret and distress, and she 
 had defended him from both ; but even this must be risked. 
 
 "Damn the legal obligation. If I go, it may only make 
 her worse," he said cautiously. "How would it be if I were 
 to write a private letter to the asylum doctor to tell him 
 that there was trouble between us before she went mad? 
 If he understands this he won't be likely to want me there
 
 348 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 only it doesn't get rid of the difficulty where you are con- 
 cerned." 
 
 Monica's mouth tightened; she was bitterly angry with 
 him. 
 
 "You are hopelessly selfish," she said in a low, hurt voice ; 
 "and I have borne everything for you." 
 
 "You have said that twice," he replied; he felt in the 
 mood to quarrel with her. He wanted to assert himself 
 over someone anyone ; Monica was his slave, and so far 
 he had never lashed her. "What is there which you have 
 done that you want to remind me of?" 
 
 "Cathy was my friend and I loved her," Monica said in a 
 stifled voice. "Have you forgotten that?" 
 
 "She was also my wife, and I did not marry her without 
 having loved her deeply," Lorrimer's voice was grave and 
 pompous. "It did not alter the fact that she was a lunatic 
 and had to be put away." 
 
 Monica got to her feet and caught him by the arm. 
 
 "I certified her because you said you wanted an end to 
 the strain. Cathy may have been unbalanced at the time, 
 and she was certainly very ill, but I never believed her to 
 be mad." The truth was out now, and Lorrimer looked at 
 her, his face a ghastly white. 
 
 "Then you made me party to a fraud? You tell me now, 
 that you did not believe her mad," he put her grasping hands 
 from him. "Why have you told me? If you kept silence 
 then, in common decency you might have continued to do 
 so." 
 
 "I loved you, Jack, I loved you," Monica said hopelessly. 
 "Can't you understand ?" 
 
 He sat down again, like an angry god, who has been given 
 an undesired offering. "I must admit that your method of 
 showing it strikes me as strange. You told me that Cathy 
 was mad, and what about Luke? He seemed to have no 
 doubts." 
 
 Monica averted her face. "He was prepared. It's no 
 use saying that you did not guess that from the first. Ham- 
 mersly had a hold on him, and he was ready to agree."
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 349 
 
 The affronted virtue in Lorrimer's face was tremendous 
 at that moment, but he kept silence for a time. 
 
 "The asylum doctors decided that she was mad." There 
 was consolation in that thought, and Monica should have 
 left it to him, but in the storm of her own hurt feelings 
 she faced him again. 
 
 "Let us be done with pretence," she said, with a sweeping 
 gesture of her arm. "They had only the facts to go upon 
 which were given them by us." 
 
 "By you and Luke, surely. I had nothing to say to it." 
 
 "As you will. Anyhow, they had it to go upon that Cathy 
 had dangerous suicidal tendencies. Whether her second 
 attempt was a real one we shall never know. She may have 
 been driven to it by the circumstances in which she found 
 herself." 
 
 "My God," Lorrimer said, and his voice was rough and 
 strained. "If all this ever comes out, it will be nearly hope- 
 less for me to stand clear. Monica, you are raving. Come 
 to your senses and speak like a reasonable being. We have 
 the testimony of the doctors to protect us. There is no 
 getting behind that." 
 
 "The only thing to do is to keep Cathy there," she said, 
 returning quietly to her old place and taking up her knitting 
 with hands which shook slightly. "I believe they must 
 do so unless the petitioner acts, and they make a good thing 
 out of it, but I want you to know, Jack, what it has all cost 
 me. There are times when I would give everything to have 
 Cathy out again. I dream of her, and I keep on thinking of 
 her. It spoils all my happiness." 
 
 "And so you decided that it should also spoil mine," "he 
 said, looking revengefully at the bunch of flowers. "You 
 have made me feel like a criminal. I came here to discuss 
 plans for the fortnight at Swanage, and what sort of heart 
 can I have for it now ? I think you might have considered 
 me before you chose to speak." 
 
 "If I cannot speak as I feel to you, now, what use is any- 
 thing?" Monica said wearily. "I can get away on Saturday, 
 and when do you come?" 
 
 "About the middle of next week," he said, but he had no
 
 350 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 thoughts for any plans. "What do you think the Carstairs' 
 gang will find out, if they do go to the Grange?" 
 
 "Cathy is sure to tell them everything she knows why 
 should she not? Doctor Chapman is extremely tactful, but 
 he may say that he expected you to go there, and that you 
 did not go." 
 
 Lorrimer was obviously agitated and he moved restlessly 
 in his chair. 
 
 "He has committed himself to the fact of her insanity," 
 he remarked, "so that there is no chance of his saying that 
 there was a mistake what?" 
 
 "None," Monica said, listlessly. 
 
 She was wondering why it was that she loved Jack Lorri- 
 mer so faithfully. He had married Cathy, and it presup- 
 posed that he had once loved her. Yet now, when he knew 
 everything that Monica could tell him, he only thought of 
 how it would all affect him, and had hardly given Cathy a 
 thought. Day by day, Monica had spent hours of misery 
 when the memories of Cathy haunted her, and she had suf- 
 fered acutely. 
 
 She could not honestly wish Cathy to be released, because 
 the other bond was fixed and firm, but she was spared noth- 
 ing of the mental torture which her own treachery had 
 brought upon her. 
 
 "You should have been honest with me," Lorrimer said, 
 waking from his troubled thoughts. "That was where you 
 made a bad mistake. You let me down." 
 
 Honest with him! Monica very nearly laughed. She 
 recalled how Lorrimer had hedged and baulked and shown 
 a keen dislike for the very mention of the word "asylum." 
 In all real fact, he had made it plain to her that he wished 
 to know nothing. He must be innocent ; he had to be pre- 
 served blameless in his own eyes. Now he was again pre- 
 pared to claim that he was a dupe, and again he must be 
 wrapped about in some comforting fiction. She wondered 
 vaguely whether, if their own relations ever became public, 
 he would rage and storm, and repeat the old accusation, 
 "The woman beguiled me." And yet he looked secure and 
 strong, and people trusted him. She loved him still, and
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 351 
 
 would continue to love him, because she was fundamentally 
 faithful, but she was bereft of her last illusion. 
 
 At the end of the interview they parted coldly, and Lorri- 
 mer dwelt heavily upon the necessity of caution. 
 
 "For God's sake let us be careful," he said broodingly. 
 "I can't have talk, it's a bit too risky with all this in the 
 background." 
 
 "I will be careful," Monica said humbly. She had no 
 fight in her, and his decrees were her law.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 LORRIMER decided to walk home to his flat. He wanted 
 physical exercise, and his mind was full of thorns. He 
 regarded himself as outraged by the very woman whom he 
 trusted, and he began to wonder if it would be possible to 
 continue this now agitating liaison. It was hardly worth 
 the strain it imposed, and he was angry with Monica. But 
 the main question of importance was his own case. He 
 assured himself that he had not the smallest suspicion that 
 Monica had acted except upon principle, and that he would 
 have stoutly refused to permit such a course of conduct 
 had he guessed it. Somehow or other he bolstered up his 
 sagging self-respect, and began to think more comfortably 
 of the whole affair. Separated from Monica, he stood very 
 well indeed. No husband can go dead against the fiat of 
 two doctors, and he remembered how he had refused to 
 believe that Cathy had so much as an attack of nerves. 
 At the time, he attributed the fiction to Monica's feminine 
 desire to account for Cathy's straying fancies. So far so 
 good. His conscience was perfectly clear. If he had really 
 said that he "wished the strain ended," it was a perfectly 
 reasonable wish and one which anyone might have uttered 
 in good faith. Monica had misunderstood him com- 
 pletely. 
 
 Hammersly had turned against him, and, so long as he 
 continued his relations with Monica, would most certainly 
 continue to use his power of blackmail. Hammersly was not 
 fastidious, to say the least of it. Between them both the 
 position was difficult. He became suddenly anxious about 
 the proposed trip with Monica. He might be playing into 
 Hammersly's hands. How did he know that he was not 
 being watched? Perrin, his valet, might be a spy. His 
 nerves jumped at the thought, and he strode on frowning 
 
 352
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 353 
 
 and agitated. It would be better, possibly, to cut out the 
 plan and have done with it. In any case, a week alone with 
 Monica would only mean constant recriminations. He 
 thought of former weeks with her, and cursed himself 
 savagely. At one time they had been reckless, and sailed 
 perilously close to the wind. There was an entry in a book 
 at a little out-of-the-way hotel at Shanklin which would 
 damn him completely. He had not been so well known then, 
 and his leap into publicity had come rather suddenly to him. 
 Now people recognised him, because his photograph was 
 known through the breadth and length of England. There 
 were piles of a brochure, of which he was the supposed 
 author, and which had his portrait on the cover, on railway 
 bookstalls, with an inviting legend "Please take one" in- 
 scribed above them. People always took what they could 
 get for nothing, and he stared righteously at thousands of 
 idle readers from the shining front page. Caution attacked 
 him like winter frost, and, before he got in, he decided to 
 write to Monica and tell her that, for a time, they must 
 not meet. As for the trip to Swanage, it was out of the 
 question. 
 
 All this had nothing to say directly to what Monica had 
 told him, but the reaction was clear in its source, and he 
 began to think of Cathy and Doctor Chapman. Perhaps, 
 after all, it would be better to go to Welldon Grange and 
 see her. He could tell her that he had always known that 
 there was nothing wrong, but that he had been helpless. He 
 was wondering now whether it might not be better to change 
 his whole attitude, go down to the asylum, and prevail upon 
 Cathy to forgive him, the innocent party to the fact, and 
 bring her back to Kingslade. That would be a facer for the 
 Carstairs' clique, and it would be a thoroughly good score. 
 Monica had "let him down," out of her own mouth she had 
 condemned herself, and she had never before told him or as 
 much as hinted at the ugly story of Cathy beating upon the 
 locked door. God ! what a world it was. 
 
 He turned into St. James's Court and went up to his flat, 
 where Perrin was still up and waiting for him. There was 
 a telegram on the table, and his valet informed him that he
 
 had been rung up by a gentleman who would not leave any 
 message, and shortly afterwards the telegram had come. 
 
 He took the yellow envelope between his fingers. It was 
 bulky, and the message it contained must be a long one. As 
 he did so he looked at the flap, and then at Perrin's narrow, 
 sharp-featured face. Lorrimer paused for a second. The 
 flap had been tampered with, and he was suddenly angry 
 with a burst of passionate resentment. 
 
 "You have opened this," he said, as the envelope yawned 
 unresisting in his hands. "Don't deny it." 
 
 Perrin did deny it. He was outraged by the suggestion, 
 for he had his own personal pride, and Lorrimer's statement 
 was followed by a sharp altercation, which ended in Perrin's 
 leaving the room far from mollified by a belated retraction 
 on the part of his master, who had remembered suddenly 
 that he could not dismiss his servant. 
 
 The telegram was from Doctor Chapman, and told him 
 that Lady Lorrimer had disappeared. He asked Sir John 
 to come at once, as there was no time to be lost, and added 
 that Mrs. Hinton had gone away with his wife. 
 
 Lorrimer sat down at the table and tried to think. He 
 was too late now, and the Carstairs' gang had outmanoeuvred 
 him. They had acted at once, and Cathy was free, free to 
 tell the whole of her world that her husband had connived 
 at a sordid plan to shut her up eternally in the doomed se- 
 clusion of a madhouse. He was innocent ; that was the main 
 thing, and, if it became necessary, Monica must give her 
 testimony to the fact. She had kept him in ignorance, and 
 had used her own medical knowledge to blind his better 
 judgment. As well as that he harked back again had 
 not Doctor Chapman reported his wife dangerously mad? 
 
 ' Cathy was out of the place, liberated by the woman who 
 had shown the sense to cut loose from Amyas ; and to take 
 any definite steps would mean fierce collision with Cathy's 
 allies. The idea of it made no appeal to Lorrimer. If he 
 acted it would bring about conflict. Suppose he let the 
 matter drop? If he told Doctor Chapman that he, person- 
 ally, declined action, Cathy would be unmolested and, 
 possibly, grateful. To clear himself with her, and prevent
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 355 
 
 her from saying anything, Monica must be got to make a 
 statement. She had been ready enough to tell him, and 
 if she was so conscientious, she might well tell Cathy. He 
 knew very well that Cathy was incapable of rancour or re- 
 venge, whatever the rest of them might feel, and she repre- 
 sented his one hope for peace. Monica put the onus of her 
 own act upon him, saying that it had arisen out of her love 
 of him, and that was an admission she must not make 
 public, even if she wished to. On every side he was hemmed 
 in and helpless. He swore under his breath, and, taking a 
 sheet of paper, wrote in his large, scrawling hand that he 
 would not go to Welldon Grange, and that he would be 
 obliged to Doctor Chapman if he took no steps at all. One 
 great advantage about refusing to take any steps would be, 
 that he could never be obliged to retrace them. 
 
 Having disposed of Doctor Chapman he had to consider 
 what he meant to say to Monica. He began the letter with 
 a term of endearment which mocked him as he wrote it. 
 He said he had been thinking things over, and that he had 
 come to the conclusion that they must part for a time. Cathy 
 was free, freed by Lilian Hinton, and he did not know where 
 she was, nor how circumstances were likely to shape. He 
 had not been responsible for her incarceration at the Grange, 
 and he put it to Monica that, as Cathy was at liberty, she 
 should admit that she herself had acted without full con- 
 sideration. "You were plain enough with me to-night," he 
 wrote, "but that is no use, nor is your reason the one 
 you gave me one which you can safely refer to; but in 
 justice to Cathy, now that there is likely to be too much 
 talk, can't you explain that you acted too precipitately, and 
 that you must see her, and reconsider your former conclu- 
 sion as to the state of her health ?" 
 
 He ended by saying that he was her "loving Jack," and he 
 posted the letter himself before he went to bed. Monica 
 would get it in the morning, and so be able to act before 
 much harm had been done. 
 
 Lorrimer slept very little that night, and he knew that he 
 must placate Perrin before he left the house, but Perrin did 
 not appear, and the housemaid looked after him at break-
 
 356 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 fast; a skittish girl with large eyes, who had amused him 
 more than once when he was in a gala mood. He was in no 
 gala mood as he drank his coffee, and the absence of Perrin 
 was depressing. 
 
 The need for action was upon him, and very soon he 
 went out. Cathy was probably with Lady Carstairs, and 
 the right thing to do was to present himself there without 
 delay. He could tell Cathy's aunt how he had heard the 
 news with intense relief. He could tell her, quietly and 
 without any hesitation, that Monica had admitted to him 
 that her own decision now appeared doubtful to her, and he 
 would urge Lady Carstairs to see Monica herself. It did 
 not seem to him that this was in any sense a betrayal of 
 Monica, and it was no use her trying to push him under 
 the yoke of full responsibility. 
 
 When he came to the steps of Lady Carstairs' house he 
 had prepared his speech, and when the butler, who looked 
 at him with surprise, said that he was not sure whether her 
 Ladyship was disengaged or not, and left him in the big 
 drawing-room, Lorrimer was quite composed and even 
 cheerful. 
 
 After a few minutes the manservant reappeared, and 
 asked whether Sir John could send a message as Lady Car- 
 stairs was unable to see him. It was a rebuff, but he had 
 expected it, and he wrote on a card, "In connection with C. 
 Very urgent," and sat down again to wait. He was quite 
 sure that Aunt Amy would never refuse that bait. 
 
 Nor did she, for she came into the room soon afterwards, 
 and, though her manner was icily stiff, he had forced the 
 position. 
 
 "Yes?" Lady Carstairs said, and she did not sit down. 
 
 "Is Cathy here?" he asked, and his voice shook in spite 
 of himself. 
 
 "Hen:? What do you mean? You know where she is." 
 
 "Lady Carstairs, you misunderstand the situation," he 
 said, dropping his gloves and then stooping to pick them 
 up. "Only last night I was informed of a fact which has 
 driven me nearly off my head." 
 
 Lady Carstairs showed no concern. She was waiting
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 357 
 
 with the courteous patience of the generation to which she 
 belonged, and he was trying her considerably. 
 
 "Two facts, I should say. Though, coming in the order in 
 which they did, I was relieved beyond speech to hear that 
 Mrs. Hinton had taken Cathy away from Welldon Grange." 
 
 "The asylum," Lady Carstairs' voice faltered in spite of 
 herself. "Lilian has helped Cathy to escape?" The news 
 was so sudden and so grateful to Aunt Amy that she felt 
 her knees give, and she sat down, her eyes still upon Lorri- 
 mer. 
 
 "Give me this chance," he said appealingly ; "I had it last 
 night from Doctor Henstock that she had doubts all the 
 time as to the reality of Cathy's er attack. It was cruelly 
 unfair to me, and I am placed in a position " 
 
 "Unfair to you?" Lady Carstairs was rigid. "What 
 right had your friend, Doctor Henstock, to find out at this 
 hour, that she had made an irreparable mistake?" 
 
 "Will you see her, and let her tell you herself ?" 
 
 Lady Carstairs considered for a moment. 
 
 "I refuse to see her. She has behaved shamefully. Now 
 you are telling me are you not ?" she looked a little vague, 
 "that you are wronged in some way." She got up again 
 and rang the bell. "No doubt you will find those who will 
 listen to you, but, speaking for myself, your part is already 
 quite clear. I have nothing more to say, except that I am 
 grateful for the news of Cathy's release. She is not here, 
 nor do I know where she is." 
 
 Lorrimer was dumbfounded. Lady Carstairs was having 
 him shown out, and he had been able to say none of the 
 things which he wished to say to her. She was hopelessly 
 prejudiced, and apparently cared nothing that he had been 
 let down by Monica Henstock. 
 
 He had no special purpose before him when he left the 
 house, and he walked into the park and sat down on a chair 
 under a tree. If people will not listen to your reasons it is 
 waste of time to talk to them, and his thoughts wandered 
 to Monica. It was certainly hard upon her now, horribly 
 hard. Why did things turn out so damnably? Yet he felt 
 sure that she would clear him, she was very honest, and
 
 358 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 she had never lied to man or woman. His sense of discom- 
 fort deepened, and he wondered where Cathy really was. 
 Where had they taken her, and was she well or ill? He 
 had heard stories of asylums which came back to him now, 
 though he could not believe that moderately sane people 
 were herded in with raving lunatics. The idea was tor- 
 menting, and he got up from his chair, and walked to his 
 club, where he ordered himself a stiff drink.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 THE drive 1 down the wide avenue, the pause at the gates, 
 and the moment when the car sailed quietly clear of Well- 
 don Grange, were moments of sheer bliss to Lilian Hinton. 
 The chauffeur had orders to take them to the hotel, and 
 there Lilian and Cathy got out. The car was then closed, 
 and was driven slowly back past the gates, and in a cir- 
 cuitous route around the confluent roads, and, before lunch 
 time, the chauffeur delivered a note from Mrs. Hinton, 
 saying that she had kept Cathy to lunch in a village some 
 miles away, and might not return at the expected time. She 
 also said that Cathy was enjoying the change immensely, 
 and that there was no need for anxiety. 
 
 Meantime, Cathy, Lilian and Robert were tearing at top- 
 speed along by-roads and unfrequented ways, and the dis- 
 tance grew with each minute. 
 
 Cathy had been startled at first, and had shown signs of 
 nervousness when they arrived at the hotel. She was so 
 glad to see Robert again that the unexpectedness of it all 
 made her forget herself, and when he told her that he had 
 a picnic-basket in his car, and that he intended to race her 
 and Lilian miles away, she was like an excited and happy 
 child at the prospect. She and Lilian sat in the back of the 
 car and Robert drove. His chauffeur was not with them, 
 so that there was all the blessedness of absolute intimacy 
 around her. 
 
 "I haven't driven in a car, since . . . that time," she said, 
 and Lilian slipped her arm inside that of her friend. ''I 
 thought I was going back to Aunt Amy." 
 
 Lilian squeezed her arm affectionately. 
 
 "Does it upset you to talk of it now?" she asked; "if it 
 does, Cathy, don't think about it. When a thing is over, it 
 is done with." 
 
 359
 
 360 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "Ah, but it isn't over," Cathy's face grew shadowed; "I 
 have to go back." She breathed quickly. "Lil, I felt f righf- 
 ened to leave, but now I am frightened to return. You see 
 what a pulp my nerves are in." 
 
 Lilian could feel that she was beginning to tremble, and 
 she put her hands over Cathy's firmly. 
 
 "You are never going back," she said; "Robert and I are 
 taking you away for good." 
 
 Cathy's body grew suddenly limp, and she leaned back. 
 It was as though a stone had been rolled away from the 
 door of her living grave, and it took time to realise what 
 was happening. Lilian watched her with alarm ; she was as 
 white as a ghost. Perhaps she had been precipitate, and she 
 Watched the colour return slowly to Cathy's pale cheeks. 
 
 "Do you believe that I am not mad?" she asked eagerly. 
 "Lil, do you really believe that ?" 
 
 "I don't believe you ever tried to kill yourself," Lilian 
 said. 
 
 "I was very ill after a time I had in the padded cell. . . ." 
 she wavered, and hid her face on Lilian's shoulder. "After 
 that, I thought they might be right. Aggy believed it, and 
 Doctor Bracy. You see, darling," she explained, "in an 
 asylum, if you are quick and excitable, as I always am, it 
 damns you, possibly even more than if you are quiet that 
 is, 'morbid.' Everything is a sign of insanity, and I used to 
 wonder if I was developing tricks or habits. The faintest 
 twitching of a muscle, or some way of jigging your foot if 
 you sit with your knees crossed. Lots of men back from 
 France couldn't keep their feet still, I had noticed that, and 
 you see these things growing day by day on people who have 
 weak nerves. I start now, like a criminal, if I hear a door 
 bang, but I don't wink, or tug at my ears, or bite my nails." 
 
 "Don't, Cathy, don't," Lilian said in a stifled voice. "You 
 never were mad, and you aren't mad now. Don't talk of 
 it." 
 
 Cathy looked down at their locked hands. 
 
 "They had me put there on purpose?" 
 
 "They had," Lilian's voice was low and intense. She
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 361 
 
 could never bring herself to think of Lorrimer or Monica 
 without a sick feeling of physical repulsion. 
 
 For a long time Cathy said nothing. Just then she wanted 
 to look neither forward nor back, but to give herself up 
 to the wonder of the swift motion, the free, glad sunlight, 
 and the knowledge that she was not ever to return. It was 
 like the passing out of a life of continuous pain into a 
 region of the blessed, where nothing need be said, but the 
 slow, healing waves of peace might lap her weary soul; 
 and then, quite suddenly, she slept, and dreamed of wide 
 waters and quiet gardens where everything was well with 
 her again. 
 
 She was awakened by the car coming to a standstill in a 
 bowery green lane, where Robert got out and found a fallen 
 tree where they could sit and eat their luncheon. Cathy felt 
 as though she was only half conscious of what was happen- 
 ing. She sat on the ivy-grown tree and Robert and Lilian 
 looked after her, though neither of them talked much, and 
 Cathy looked around her every few minutes and seemed to 
 be telling herself that she was free. But before the basket 
 was packed, another mood had come upon her, and she 
 began to grow nervous. 
 
 "Robert, we ought not to have stopped," she said ; "what 
 if they send after me ? If they were to bring me back now," 
 she rose to her feet in wild alarm. "Let us hurry, Lil, oh, 
 tny dear, let us hurry. I feel as though they might be close 
 to us somewhere." 
 
 Lilian comforted her, and again the car started.. 
 
 "Are we going to London?" Cathy asked anxiously; "I 
 don't think I should feel safe there. Monica is in London, 
 and she and he will hunt me, if I am there. Lil, Lil, hide 
 me in a place they won't think of. I can't go back, and I 
 can't see Monica or Jack." Tears were streaming down her 
 face as she spoke. "Don't let them find me again." 
 
 "We are going over to Ireland," Lilian said, quieting her 
 with her cool, steady hands, "to Parteen, which belongs to 
 Robert. It is miles from everywhere, and Batkins is there." 
 
 "They might have let me go to Aunt Amy," Cathy's eyes 
 W ere pathetic in their misery. "I had a bad row with Jack.
 
 362 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 Did you know that? I said I would go away, and if we 
 separated I would not ever say anything . . . but I suppose 
 they wanted freedom." 
 
 Lilian made an inarticulate sound of disgust. 
 
 "I don't understand even now," Cathy went on. "After 
 all, Lil, I was clearing out, and that gave them almost as 
 much as they could hope to have, even with me in an 
 asylum." 
 
 "I can't talk of them," Lilian said again ; "I suppose they 
 weighed the pros and cons, and there was Sir John's great 
 career. Rather unfortunately, from his point of view, he is 
 now mixed up with the Church and State people. The hypo- 
 crites who have to be careful about the outside of the cup 
 and platter, and so on." 
 
 "Are they together ? I mean openly ?" Cathy asked. 
 
 "Openly? When was there anything open about either 
 of them? Not likely. They take great care of that." 
 
 "And Hammersly? Is he still in power? He and Mug- 
 gins were tremendously friendly." 
 
 "So I imagined, but I know nothing of the man, except 
 that he got a job which Anthony told me he had not the 
 smallest claim to have. The price of his dirty work, I 
 expect, for Lorrimer was credited with having done the 
 wire pulling." 
 
 "They seem all of them a long way off, now/' Cathy said, 
 resting her head on the cushions of the car. "I wish I 
 weren't in their way, Lil, it seems stupid, doesn't it? To 
 me they are all part of a ghastly dream which just now I 
 know to be a dream, but I also know that there must be 
 times when it will grow real; and I shall need all the help , 
 I can get." 
 
 "You will never need anything which we shall not give 
 you," Lilian said, smiling at her; "rest your mind on that 
 thought, Cath." 
 
 The night mail thundered and swept on its way to Angle- 
 sey, taking the three fugitives through the dark, sleeping 
 country. The mail steamer, with the lights shining in the 
 rigging and making clear, yellow avenues from the port
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 363 
 
 holes, was waiting to take them out to face the stiff seas 
 outside the harbour. It seemed to Cathy that, until she felt 
 the motion of the ship and heard the hoarse, long-drawn hoot 
 of departure, she had not even begun to recognise herself 
 as a free agent. She would not go down to her cabin, but 
 sat on deck with Robert, wrapped in a thick coat of his 
 which he had brought for her, the wind stinging her face, 
 and the waves racing under the broken reflections of a high- 
 riding moon. 
 
 Life was being poured back into her veins, and at times 
 the joy she experienced hurt like pain, it was so overwhelm- 
 ing, and she could not restrain her tears. 
 
 "Don't cry, Cathy, don't cry," Amyas said, and he patted 
 her arm. "It's all over now." 
 
 "Don't you know that I'm crying for joy?" she said, and 
 he watched her smile at him, the moonlight lighting her 
 face. "It's awfully unusual to cry for joy, Robert, but then 
 everything is unusual, and it fits in with the rest. I thought 
 I was never going to be happy again, and now I am so 
 happy that I feel as if really and truly I might go mad at 
 last." 
 
 "Don't ever say that word again," he said. "How do you 
 think Lilian is? It's funny that she and I should be run- 
 ning away together with the full consent of Hinton." 
 
 "And I am here, as chaperon," Cathy a3ded. 
 
 "I hadn't thought of you like that," he said. "You're 
 not demure enough, Cathy," he pulled himself up short. 
 "You know I've missed you a great deal." 
 
 "And I, haven't I missed you?" she said. "You know I 
 have. Let us try and quarrel a little, for the sake of old 
 times." 
 
 She looked so worn and so tragic, as she turned in her 
 old, wilful way to him, that Amyas could hardly bear the 
 sense of contrast which the recollection brought with it. 
 
 "I'll quarrel as much as you like, when you are fit again," 
 he said, and Cathy put a cold hand from under the coat, and 
 let it lie in his. 
 
 "Robert, are you you?' she asked him. 
 
 Why, oh why did she look so fragile, so visionary, so
 
 364 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 much as though only a hand's span divided her from the 
 silence beyond this world, as impenetrable as a hundred 
 stone walls? He was torn with a new fear. Cathy might 
 leave them now, and go away to the "Perhaps" or the 
 "Forever," or whatever name you chose to give the place 
 which can only be imagined. "I'm rather like the Happy 
 Hypocrite," he said. "I put on a mask to improve my 
 appearance, by now I may really be quite decent looking." 
 
 Cathy smiled. "You are still mon ami Pierrot." 
 
 She said nothing for a time, and then she spoke again. 
 
 "I have reckoned up my own futility," she said at last. 
 "I fell in love with an imaginary clean sweep, and sweeps 
 can't ever be clean, any kind of sweep." 
 
 "Sweeps are usually pretty sweepish all through," Amyas 
 agreed. "Don't worry about them, Cath. You're on your 
 way to Ireland where no one bothers about such things. 
 We will light our fires in the open, if you like it best, and 
 have no chimneys." 
 
 She was very tired now, and he settled her cushions for 
 her and sat by her as she lay back with closed eyes. 
 
 "Do you remember how I once found you asleep on the 
 sofa?" she asked, raising her lids. "I told you that, if you 
 knew that you snored, you wouldn't take those beastly 
 things." 
 
 "I gave them up after that," he was pleased to tell her 
 this. "I couldn't go on snoring on people's sofas. Vanity 
 is a much safer thing to appeal to than virtue." 
 
 Her eyes closed again. "If I snore, don't wake me," she 
 said, "but my nose isn't that shape. That is one of the 
 advantages of having my kind of nose." 
 
 "Hush-a-bye, baby," Robert said, in his drawling, sophis- 
 ticated voice, which always suggested mountains of money 
 and endless leisure. But his eyes felt hot and strained, 
 and they filled with tears.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 ROBERT crossed back to England the following night, leav- 
 ing Lilian and Miss Batten in charge of Cathy. She was 
 suffering from reaction, and he was still dreadfully anx- 
 ious about her, but he believed in the healing process 
 which lay in the quiet of Parteen. The mountains, the 
 heather-clothed uplands and the silence, combined with the 
 flowing of quiet waters, all made for untold peace. 
 
 It was going to take a long time for Cathy to arrive at 
 recovery, and the awful horror of her experience would 
 fade out very slowly, until the active torture of her mem- 
 ories grew dim and the pain of her recollections waned into 
 forgetfulness. He had been very reluctant to leave, but he 
 decided that he must go to London. Lady Carstairs had to 
 be told, and Lilian could not remain long away. Aunt Amy 
 was to be summoned with a capable nurse who wore no uni- 
 form, and Cathy could gradually be brought back to life. 
 Her vitality had failed suddenly, and he left her lying in 
 her bed, close to the open window which faced the ravine 
 below the house. Parteen had melancholy moods when 
 giant mists came down the mountains and folded the miles 
 of black fir-trees and tangle of rhododendrons in a thick, 
 damp veil, but even then it was a place of peace, and Amyas 
 was glad that Cathy should first see it under a shining sky. 
 A wind, as soft as silk, "Shelley's West Wind" Cathy called 
 it, was coming through the open window. She had only 
 spoken very little. 
 
 "There are other flowers growing in the grasses and the 
 heather besides those we can see," she said ; "little flowers 
 of hope, Robert, and when I am stronger I can go out and 
 pick some of them to keep always." 
 
 "Will you give me one when you do?" he isked her 
 slowly. 
 
 365
 
 366 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "Yes, I will," she smiled her flitting, ghostly little smile. 
 
 "Take care of her, Lilian," he said, as he stood ready to 
 depart. "I'm so dreadfully anxious all the time." 
 
 Lilian squeezed his hand hard. "It has made you dif- 
 ferent." 
 
 "She won't ever care," he said, rocking a little on his 
 long legs, with his old indifferent manner. 
 
 "I don't know," Lilian's eyes grew speculative. 
 
 "I'm not really thinking of myself," he said, half apolo- 
 getically. "Nothing matters, except that she should get 
 well. By the way, I intend to settle my account with Lorri- 
 mer." 
 
 "She must get rid of him," Lilian said emphatically. "Go 
 to him and force him to tell the truth. Don't spare them, 
 Robert, for my sake, even ; let it be fire and slaughter." 
 
 He drove away on a ramshackle side-car down the deep 
 sandy avenue which wound up ,and down hill through two 
 miles of wild demesne, the brown trout stream bearing him 
 company along the left bank. The rhododendrons were in 
 full flower, and ranged from the palest pink to soft rose- 
 crimson, and from royal purple to the sad, soft colour of 
 palest mauve. Cathy would live on the feast of colour, 
 and the place was gorgeously wild. No smooth lawns, no 
 trimmed hedges to recall the asylum grounds. God had 
 planted Parteen, much as He might have planted the origi- 
 nal Eden, and man had done nothing to spoil it. The larches 
 and firs, the birches and the stunted oaks, were the home of 
 innumerable wild birds, and beyond and over all, the Slieve 
 Na Mon mountains guarded the secret place like a great 
 wall; blue, grey and purple, they brooded over the place 
 below. 
 
 From the lagt turn in the long avenue Amyas looked back 
 to the white house on the distant plateau, and raised his hat 
 in salute. Cathy was safe there, he thanked God for that, 
 and as Amyas had only rarely thanked God for anything, it 
 may have been that his gratitude was noted in some spiritual 
 sphere. 
 
 He travelled up to Dublin and caught the night mail to 
 Holyhead, and the early morning found him in the noise
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 367 
 
 and confusion of London again. When he had slept for an 
 hour and finished his breakfast, he went at once to see Lady 
 Carstairs, and told her the incidents of the escape. 
 
 "Sir John Lorrimer has been here," she said, when he 
 had finished. "I saw him, because he sent me a message to 
 say that his business was urgent and concerned Cathy. He 
 actually dared to imply that he had been wronged and de- 
 ceived." 
 
 Lady Carstairs looked very majestic and angry as she 
 spoke. 
 
 "Who by?" Amyas asked. "Whom does he accuse of 
 his own sins? I did not expect he would admit to them, 
 Aunt Amy, but it is quite interesting to hear who is held 
 responsible." 
 
 "Monica Henstock," she said, with a shrug of her shoul- 
 ders. "He actually suggested that I should see the woman 
 myself." 
 
 Amyas whistled under his breath. "So he wants to do 
 her in now, does he?" 
 
 Amyas got up and walked to the window, thinking care- 
 fully. 
 
 "On the whole," Amyas said, coming back to his chair, 
 "I think that I had better see Doctor Henstock. Whatever 
 she may have to say, it ought to be enlightening." 
 
 "Robert, one question," Lady Carstairs hesitated pain- 
 fully, "Is her mind affected? After such a terrible time 
 this might so easily have happened, for darling Cathy was 
 always a little different to most people." 
 
 He lowered his eyes. "It has marked her for life. She 
 won't ever be as she once was, and only we who knew her 
 before will see the old Cathy again." 
 
 Lady Carstairs, stern disciplinarian of the old regime, 
 covered her face with her hands and cried. 
 
 "My poor child, my poor, poor Cathy," she said. 
 
 "She will always be the same to us," he said in a low 
 voice, and Aunt Amy looked up, recovering herself. 
 
 "You are a good man, Robert," she said, "though I had 
 not thought it. I must be honest, and though I always liked
 
 368 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 you very much, I never admired your qualities. Will you 
 forgive me?" 
 
 "I can forgive you," he said with a smile of amusement. 
 
 "Cathy who wanted to reform the whole world," Lady 
 Carstairs said sadly. "Ah, dear me." 
 
 "Well, she has reformed me, I suppose. That wasn't 
 altogether easy, but it may encourage her, when she is well 
 enough to want to begin all over again." 
 
 He left her after a little more talk of plans and went 
 straight to the house of Monica Henstock, with its demure 
 door and well-polished brass. Doctor Henstock was inter- 
 viewing a patient, and Amyas had to wait in a room off the 
 hall, where he turned the pages of various journals and 
 tried not to watch the clock all the time. 
 
 At length Miss Batten's successor came, and told him 
 that Doctor Henstock could give him five minutes, and he 
 found her with her watch on the table, and the expression 
 of her face anything but encouraging. 
 
 She seemed immensely surprised that he had come to 
 her, and asked him to sit down in a chair facing the window. 
 
 "Don't trouble to look for symptoms," he said easily, "I 
 am not ill, Doctor Henstock. I came here to ask you a few 
 questions." 
 
 Monica took off her glasses. Of late her sight had begun 
 to trouble her a little and she was wearing pince-nez. 
 
 "What is it that you want to know ?" she said, and Robert, 
 for all his anger, felt a touch of pity. Monica was wither- 
 ing rather than fading, and she looked as though she had 
 troubles of her own. 
 
 "It appears," he said, and he spoke without rancour, 
 ^'that Sir John Lorrimer visited Lady Carstairs and re- 
 ferred her to you for full information about Miss Rossiter. 
 Were you certain when you, rather precipitately, shut her 
 up in an asylum ?" He began to hate her again suddenly. 
 
 His words took immediate effect, and Monica flushed, and 
 began to touch the boxes and notebooks on her table ner- 
 vously. 
 
 "I certified Cathy with great reluctance," she said. "You 
 -will believe that, Mr. Amyas ?"
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 369 
 
 "I will try to believe it." 
 
 "In cases of the kind, it is often a very urgent matter. 
 If one waits for further corroboration it may mean disaster 
 to the patient " 
 
 Amyas interrupted her very politely. "Did you definitely 
 believe Miss Rossiter to be mad?" 
 
 "There were times when I was convinced," Monica said, 
 and her voice sounded tired and exhausted. "But the pain 
 it all cost me has frequently dragged me back and back 
 over the events previous to Cathy's certification. I am 
 only human, and I loved her devotedly." 
 
 Her manner was so sincere that Amyas stared at her in 
 wonder. Had the woman allowed herself to be deceived, 
 and was she really speaking quite frankly ? 
 
 "Did your love for her take any practical form?" he 
 asked, angry with himself for the touch of pity he had felt. 
 "Did you, for instance, go to the asylum and see her there ?"" 
 
 Monica shook her head silently. 
 
 "Miss Rossiter is free again, and her friends are anxious 
 to clear her finally and fully from the accusation of in- 
 sanity." He drew his chair closer to the table, and, as she - 
 did not reply, he went on. "If you and the wretched crea- 
 ture, Luke, who was your accomplice will make an honest 
 statement that you both admit you were wrong, and that the 
 facts with which you furnished the asylum doctors were a 
 fabrication, I fully believe that they will see that their own 
 error arose from your mis-statement. You cannot give 
 her back her health or happiness, you can never undo the 
 ghastly wrong you have done to her, but at least that very 
 small amount of reparation lies in your power." 
 
 Monica was ashy white, and all her self-assurance had 
 vanished suddenly. She seemed to be driven by many 
 thoughts the trend of which Amyas could not guess. 
 
 "You ask me to what was it?" she faltered. 
 
 "To make what reparation lies in your power, and to 
 get Doctor Chapman to rescind his own judgment," Robert 
 said fiercely. "Whether she will ever recover her health, 
 God knows. In any case," he went on more quietly, "Sir 
 John Lorrimer is anxious to be cleared, if that is an added
 
 370 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 argument. He has told Lady Carstairs that you misled 
 him." 
 
 "Not that, not that," Monica's voice broke out like a cry 
 into the room; it was as though some intolerable weight 
 had been added to the burden she carried. 
 
 "Yes, he has," Amyas repeated the words. "If you are 
 not prepared to act honestly for her sake, you may see your 
 way to doing what he wishes." 
 
 Monica got up, and, pressing her hands over her eyes, 
 walked blindly to the fire-place and stood with her back to 
 Amyas. After a time she spoke, and her voice was tre- 
 mulous and overcharged with strong feeling. 
 
 "I am not being fairly treated," she said. "What I said 
 to Sir John was spoken under a sense of great trouble of 
 mind. My mind has been very much troubled about it 
 all. 
 
 "So I should suppose," Amyas replied. 
 
 "If, however, it will be of advantage to Cathy, I will do 
 what you wish. I will make a report for the asylum doctors 
 and they must decide for themselves. Also, I should like 
 to say that Sir John is quite clear. He had to act upon 
 the advice I gave him. There is no blame whatever at- 
 tached to him." 
 
 Amyas looked at her back, and saw that her bowed shoul- 
 ders heaved slightly. 
 
 "There is nothing I can say," he said as he got up and 
 prepared to leave, "except that I pity anyone who puts an 
 ounce of trust in Colonel Lorrimer's good faith." 
 
 She made no effort to reply, and she did not speak to him 
 again as he left. What a queer mixture she was, he thought. 
 She had admitted to having acted without telling Lorrimer, 
 and she persuaded him that his wife was mad. It was a 
 cynical business at best, but she and Lorrimer should eat 
 their lies, every damned one of them. Until he had seen 
 Lorrimer, he felt that no real rest lay anywhere, and he 
 went back to his rooms again, intending to choose the same 
 hour as that of his last visit, in the hope of catching the 
 Member for Kingslade before he had gone out ; and it was 
 with some surprise that he found a man waiting to see him,
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 37I 
 
 who informed him that he was Sir John Lorrimer's valet, 
 and that he had something important to say. 
 
 "Well, say it to someone else," he said rudely; "I don't 
 want you here." 
 
 The man did not stir. "It will be worth your while," he 
 said stoically. 
 
 Amyas wavered, and flung open the door of his room. 
 "Go in," he said ; "you're for auction, I suppose ?" 
 "Precisely, sir," the man replied respectfully. 
 
 It was nearly ten o'clock when Robert Amyas stood before 
 the door of Lorrimer's flat, and was admitted by a hesitat- 
 ing maidservant. Sir John was in, she said, and had not 
 gone to bed, but she was not sure if he wished to receive 
 visitors. Amyas assured her that she need not make further 
 inquiries, as Sir John expected him, and he walked in and 
 put down his hat on a carved rug box near the door. The 
 girl, evidently a new hand at admitting guests, had for- 
 gotten to ask Amyas his name, and showed him silently to 
 the smoking-room, where Lorrimer was sitting at a roll- 
 topped desk writing letters. 
 
 He looked round in surprise, and when he saw who his 
 visitor was he immediately became hostile. There was dis- 
 composure behind the heavy face and the large majesty of 
 Sir John's demeanour, and he only made a vague attempt to 
 rise as he recognised his guest. 
 
 "You choose strange hours for your visits," he said, re- 
 membering carefully that he was in the right, and that there 
 was nothing against him. "Anything I can do for you ?" 
 
 The question pleased him as he asked it. It reduced 
 Amyas to the position of a suitor who comes to ask for 
 favours, and Lorrimer felt that he had begun well. 
 
 "If you like to put it that way," Robert replied. "I don't 
 particularly want to sit down, but, as there is a good deal 
 to say, it may be as well." 
 
 He pulled up a chair as he spoke. Lorrimer was going 
 to try bullying methods, that was perfectly clear, and Amyas 
 decided not to give him a start.
 
 372 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 'This morning," he continued, "I went to see Doctor 
 Henstock.'" 
 
 "Oh?" Lorrimer's tone was guarded. They had done 
 as he wished, eventually, and he was not displeased. It was 
 a great consolation at that moment to feel so sure of Moni- 
 ca's integrity. 
 
 "She cleared you of all complicity in the matter of Miss 
 Rossiter's fraudulent certification," Robert said quite ami- 
 ably. "In fact she agrees to take the onus upon her own 
 shoulders. Doctor Luke is expected in Liverpool next week, 
 and we are arranging now for a special inquiry into Miss 
 Rossiter's case. The result will be that she will be cleared 
 of the accusation made against her sanity. You realise, of 
 course, that this ruins Doctor Henstock professionally?" 
 
 Lorrimer did not relish the information, but his attitude 
 remained self-possessed. 
 
 "I am very anxious that my wife should be cleared," he 
 said ponderously. "It is a most imp6rtant point. You say 
 that you have arranged for a special inquiry. I am much 
 obliged. I will approach the Commissioners at once." 
 
 "I think not," Robert's voice was intensely quiet. "It 
 will be done without reference to you." 
 
 The sense of something behind Robert's words struck 
 Lorrimer very unpleasantly, but he spoke without heat. 
 
 "I can't allow that, Amyas; I admit that the conditions 
 are difficult. For instance, I am at present ignorant of 
 where my wife actually is. When I discover this, I shall 
 go to her." 
 
 "I think not," Amyas said again. 
 
 "It hardly matters what you think," Lorrimer's tones 
 grew angry. "When my wife realises that the whole thing 
 was a monstrous mistake, and that I was in no way party 
 to the error, she will not thank you for your present atti- 
 tude." 
 
 "You are satisfied that Doctor Henstock should be held 
 entirely responsible ?" 
 
 "Certainly," Lorrimer became aggrieved; "I don't see 
 "how it can be otherwise. She took that responsibility when 
 she led me to believe Cathy was mad."
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 373 
 
 Amyas drew a deep breath, and looked round the room 
 as though it suffocated him. The natural stolidity and ob- 
 tuseness of Lorrimer was helping him, but Robert promised 
 himself that he would make him change his front before 
 he had done. 
 
 "You have no protective feeling towards Doctor Hen- 
 stock?" he asked. "No desire at all to shelter her in any 
 way from the racket?" 
 
 "My good fellow," Lorrimer said irritably, "what are 
 you driving at? Doctor Henstock was Cathy's medical 
 adviser, and I was at the mercy of her judgments. You 
 speak as though I put up a job. There was no job about it. 
 Miss Henstock acted precipitately. Anyhow, / am, after 
 my wife, the most injured person. How would you like to 
 be in my place ?" 
 
 "I should hate it," Amyas agreed almost cordially. "I 
 only asked these questions so that I should know how far 
 you were disposed to sacrifice Doctor Henstock so that you 
 might escape your share of blame." 
 
 Lorrimer hummed, and moved in his chair. It would be 
 almost worth it to kick Amyas out. 
 
 "Blame, sacrifice? What are you talking of?" he said. 
 "I don't understand a word of it. My wife is now at liberty, 
 thanks to Mrs. Hinton," he gave a sideways smile that he 
 felt would draw Amyas ; "probably in a few weeks she will 
 be back at Kingslade. No one knows where she has been, 
 and, though I quite agree to the inquiry, it seems unneces- 
 sary in a way. Of course it will be private? If so, how 
 does Doctor Henstock suffer ? Who is to know ?" 
 
 "People have a way of finding things out," Amyas re- 
 plied, and he got up, his thin, dark face alight with feeling 
 and his bored manner entirely in abeyance for the moment. 
 "As for Miss Rossiter's return to Kingslade, she will never 
 do that. You nearly killed her." He put his hands on the 
 table and leaned forward. "You will have your freedom in 
 any case." 
 
 Sir John Lorrimer's hands grew cold and damp, and he 
 felt for his pocket-handkerchief. Alarms were awake in 
 him.
 
 374 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "What are you talking of?" he demanded, and Amyas 
 looked at him with limitless scorn in his eyes. 
 
 "It hardly seems worth while my telling you what I 
 think of you," he said; "you will get all you need of public 
 abuse presently, except that your worst crime can, for ob- 
 vious reasons, not be made known." He watched Lorrimer 
 rise heavily to his feet. "Perhaps, even after the divorce, 
 Doctor Henstock will still care to marry you. She sold her 
 friend, so it isn't easy for me to judge." 
 
 "After the divorce? Look here, Amyas, someone has 
 been libelling me. I must have this out." 
 
 "No one has been libelling you. I have the facts quite 
 definitely. Your own people will advise you, I suppose. If 
 you defend the action, so much the more for the Sunday 
 papers to report upon." 
 
 "It's a lie," Lorrimer shouted, "a damned lie," and Amyas 
 turned to the door and opened it. 
 
 "I always knew you were a swine," he said, "always. I 
 don't think you are any more of one than I fully expected 
 you to be," and he left Lorrimer alone with his thoughts. 
 
 Stupid, blind and cowardly, he had thrown away every- 
 thing, and for what ? He had no luck. Plenty of men lived 
 lives beside which his relations with Monica had been al- 
 most ideal, and they never got caught out. Hammersly had 
 once said to him that he was running into danger that was 
 before the break and that it was a bad mistake of judg- 
 ment to have such a connection with a woman in his own 
 class. "If it ever does come to light, it's taken seriously," 
 he had said; "with the others, no one gives it a thought." 
 
 And Monica, what would she think? Their united pub- 
 licity was going to send the whole structure of his career to 
 the ground. He wondered if he had the courage to face it. 
 Any love he had felt for Monica was lost in the whirlwind 
 of dismay. Cathy had been his, Cathy with her rainbow of 
 mystery; he felt now that he had loved her with the one 
 real love of his life, and he had been fooled by Monica, who 
 had played her hand with the recklessness of passion. God ! 
 what a business, what a hopeless, murky business! He 
 grew more and more sorry for himself. Was he to be tied
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 375 
 
 for life to Monica Henstock, a bitter, disappointed woman, 
 whose career had meant as much to her as his own had 
 ever meant to him. Monica would marry him, she had 
 meant to do that always. Now she would be able to do it, 
 and he supposed that he should have to "do the right thing." 
 They could hate each other into old age, and throw mutual 
 recriminations at one another across the dreadful gulf which 
 separated them. 
 
 Perrin was the offender, of course. Perrin had heard 
 him and Amyas quarrelling, and had known where to carry 
 his dirty wares. Lorrimer sat down and put his hands over 
 his face, and never, in his bitter hour, did he think either of 
 Cathy's sufferings, nor of what his own conduct must look 
 like in the eyes of Monica Henstock ; Monica, who had once 
 been honest. 
 
 At length he went to the telephone. Monica had a tele- 
 phone beside her bed, so that she could be called up at any 
 hour, as she frequently was, and he began to speak. He 
 told her that Amyas had been there, and he heard her voice, 
 strained and wretched, saying that she had done all she 
 could. 
 
 "I took all the blame. That was what you wanted me to 
 do, wasn't it?" 
 
 "They are arranging an inquiry, and all the evidence will 
 be gone into," he said. "But what really matters is that 
 they have found out." 
 
 In his mind he pictured Monica sitting up in her bed, the 
 receiver in her hands, and her eyes wild and staring. She 
 did not answer at once, and he spoke again. "I tell you, 
 it's known now. Perrin has given the whole show away." 
 
 "Jack ! It must be stopped. For your sake most of all, 
 but for mine also. I can't stand a case of the kind. It 
 must be stopped." 
 
 What a fool she was, bleating like a sheep that "it must 
 be stopped," and talking of herself of course and her 
 twopenny-halfpenny career as a doctor. 
 
 "I shall be ruined," he said tersely. "If you hadn't let 
 me down over Cathy this need not have been. It's pretty
 
 376 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 stiff, but it's going to come off. All the Carstairs gang are 
 in full cry." 
 
 "Jack," her tones were pleading, as though she begged 
 of him to leave her at least one illusion. 
 
 "I am going to Paris to-morrow," he said, "and after 
 that I shall not see you until it is over. What's the use ? . . . 
 I'm going to do the right thing, so don't get hysterical." He 
 listened, but no reply came. "I shall put you right," he 
 said again, in the same savage voice, and again he listened, 
 but there was complete silence. Monica had rung off ! He 
 put down the receiver roughly. She hadn't even an ounce 
 of gratitude, and, instead of saying that she felt he was 
 behaving well, she was entirely silent.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 Two years had made their slow circle of the seasons, and 
 Cathy had returned to life again. She bore about her the 
 faint traces of long suffering now past, and, though the 
 shadow lay behind her, she was still close enough to it to 
 have lost the wild freshness of the old years. In the spring, 
 following upon her release, she had been well enough to 
 be brought to London, and had been eager to get the di- 
 vorce proceedings against her husband carried through. If 
 Jack and Monica could be happy together, so much the 
 better, and she did not wish to stand between them for one 
 unnecessary hour. She had taken the whole thing very 
 quietly; the quality of mercy was never strained in Cathy's 
 nature. The day when the case was heard had been trying, 
 and though she only had to appear in the witness-box for a 
 few minutes, so that the hotel proprietor of the "Travellers' 
 Rest" might swear that she was not the lady described in his 
 books as Lorrimer's wife, it had been a severe strain upon 
 her shaken nerves and health, and for some time after she 
 had been very ill. The inquiry into her own case had been 
 carried through successfully, and thus, late in the day, the 
 stigma was removed. 
 
 In the end, Monica Henstock had been held gravely re- 
 sponsible, and, even before the divorce case had made the 
 world agog with talk, she was virtually discredited, and 
 rumours got about which left her with a choice to resign 
 her official appointments, or be required to tender her 
 resignation. 
 
 Of all this Cathy knew very little. She had an invincible 
 sense of pity for everyone, and she believed that she was 
 making Jack and Monica happy at last. 
 
 She was back in the house in Cavendish Square, during 
 the winter, and her old life re-formed around her quietly. 
 
 377
 
 378 CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 Twyford was back again, and his plans for the School of 
 Forestry had materialised; he was going to be married, at 
 last, and he came to tell Cathy. 
 
 "It isn't that I can change to you," he said. "I'm not 
 likely to change, nor is it that I do not love her, I shouldn't 
 have asked her to be my wife otherwise, but there must be 
 different degrees of love, I suppose," and Cathy sat resting 
 her hands in his, intensely happy because, at last, he was 
 content. 
 
 "You are the best friend who ever lived," she said, "and 
 I hope that she will make you go to a decent tailor." 
 
 "And what about yourself?" he retorted. "You are as 
 untidy as ever, Cathy, and I'm sure you are pinned to- 
 gether." 
 
 The poor, faded old jokes were dreadfully dear in their 
 way to both of them. 
 
 Robert Amyas, alone, was incomprehensible to Cathy. 
 He hardly ever came to see her, and, when the papers got 
 hold of the fact that Sir John Lorrimer, late Member for 
 Kingslade, had been married to Doctor Monica Henstock, 
 Amyas went to Italy, and never so much as wrote Cathy a 
 line. His silence hurt her, and she missed him more and 
 more as the days went by. 
 
 She had lovea Parteen, as a soul newly released out of 
 anguish may love heaven, and she wished to go back there 
 again, but, with Robert away and enveloped in silence, how 
 was she to go? Cathy wondered whether he still cared 
 for Lilian, with a touch of romantic, self-sacrificing fidelity ; 
 it would be like Robert, if he did. 
 
 In the May following upon Lorrimer's marriage, Cathy 
 was well again, and she received a letter from Robert, sug- 
 gesting that she, Lady Carstairs, Miss Batten and he should 
 all picnic for a month at Parteen. Cathy was gay at the 
 thought, and Lady Carstairs consented, though she detested 
 the journey and hated the country, but she seemed anxious 
 to go, and she kissed Cathy with a touch of emotion. 
 
 Parteen was awakening to the glory of the full spring, 
 and the trees were fluttering tiny banners of the tenderest 
 green. The white rhododendrons were in flower, and the
 
 CATHY ROSSITER 379 
 
 mountains stood strong and encircling around the little 
 world of peace. 
 
 Cathy, her aunt, and the faithful Batkins arrived a week 
 before the coming of Amyas, and the day he was expected 
 he found Cathy in the avenue, sitting on a low stone bridge 
 which spanned the racing brown waters below. Her hands 
 were full of wild flowers, and she wore no hat; directly 
 he saw her, he got off the car and sent it onwards to the 
 house. 
 
 "Well, Cathy," he said. "Well?" and he held her hands, 
 looking at her raised face, and as he could not think of any- 
 thing else to say, he said "Well" again. 
 
 "How many wells make a river?" she asked, laughing at 
 him. "Did you ever hear that before, Robert? I'm well, 
 and you're well, and everything's well, isn't it?" She 
 glanced at the glory that surrounded them on every side. 
 
 "It's very odd that I cannot think of anything else to 
 say," he remarked, as he sat down beside her. "But I can't. 
 Shall I begin all over again ? Well, Cathy ?" 
 
 "Oh, stop talking about wells," she said. "What do you 
 mean by having gone away for a year and only remembered 
 me at Christmas ? I don't like to be remembered only once 
 in twelve months." 
 
 "I thought it best," he said slowly, looking at the prim- 
 rose silk of his socks. "Do you like my socks, Cathy?" 
 
 "Stop making conversation," she said again. "You've 
 been away a year, and, during that year, we have both 
 been growing 'a day older and a day worse,' as Norrie Barry 
 at the lodge says. Three hundred and sixty-five times 
 older and worse, Robert, and you come back and ask me 
 if I like the colour of your socks. I don't like it, I think 
 they are hopelessly vulgar." 
 
 "Cathy," he spoke doubtfully ; "I don't know if you know 
 what you are asking me to say. Now, mind you, I am not 
 responsible if you don't like it. First of all, you make 
 wretched puns, and then you accuse me of being vulgarly 
 dressed, or at least my feet are vulgarly dressed, and you 
 expect me to sparkle with epigrams." 
 
 "No, I don't," she said, and she turned her head away.
 
 3 8o CATHY ROSSITER 
 
 "You aren't expecting what I am going to tell you any- 
 how," he said triumphantly. "Cathy, I'm going to be 
 married. At least, I hope so." 
 
 She did not stir, nor did she speak for a moment, and 
 when at last she did, so much of the happiness had died out 
 of her voice that it hardly sounded like Cathy. 
 
 "You and Twyford," she said, still with averted head. 
 "I feel like a grandmother. But I'm very glad, Robert." 
 She turned, and put her hands in his. 
 
 "Don't you want to know who she is?" he asked. "She 
 doesn't know herself yet and the biggest surprise is still to 
 come. You see, Cath, she may refuse me." 
 
 "I don't see why she should," Cathy said slowly, and 
 then she raised her swimming eyes, and her whole face 
 flooded with colour, and she pulled her hands away. 
 
 "You have guessed," he said, suddenly catching her into 
 his arms. "What is it to be ? Cathy Cathy Well, Cathy ?" 
 
 TME END
 
 A ooo 
 
 129 268