Ill l.fl 
 
 . I 
 

 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES
 
 THE NOVELS OF 
 
 ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY 
 
 Popular Edition. 
 Crown Sz'o. Blue cloth, gilt. Price 35-. 6d. each. 
 
 NELLIE'S MEMORIES. 
 
 WEE WIFIE. 
 
 BARBARA HEATHCOTE'S TRIAL. 
 
 ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT. 
 
 WOOED AND MARRIED. 
 
 HERIOT'S CHOICE. 
 
 QUEENIE'S WHIM. 
 
 MARY ST. JOHN. 
 
 NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS. 
 
 FOR LILIAS. 
 
 UNCLE MAX. 
 
 OXLY THE GOVERXESS. 
 
 LOVER OR FRIEND? 
 
 BASIL LYXDHURST. 
 
 SIR GODFREY'S GRAND-DAUGHTERS. 
 
 THE OLD, OLD STORY. 
 
 THE MISTRESS OF BRAE FARM. 
 
 MRS. ROMXFY and 'BUT MEN MUST WORK. 
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES. 
 
 RUE WITH A DIFFERENCE. 
 
 HERB OF GRACE. 
 
 AT THE MOORIXCS. 
 
 me n wav or l'A'i E. 
 
 \ PASSAGE PERILOUS. 
 
 I ilK HOUSEHOLD OF PETER. 
 
 Crown Svo. 6s. each. 
 
 NO FRIEND LIKE A SISTER. 
 THE ANGEL OK FORGIVENESS. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd., LONDON.
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S 
 LIVES 
 
 BY 
 
 ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' NELLIE'S MEMORIES,' ETC. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 
 
 1907
 
 ;. Transferred to Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1902. 
 Reprinted 1902, 1007.
 
 4415 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 HOW I CAME TO SANDILANDS, 
 
 644222 
 
 PAGE 
 
 II 
 
 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 i. The Vicar of Sandilands, .... 21 
 
 11. An Old Maid's Story, .... 39 
 
 in. Miss Patience Goes Home, 59
 
 VI 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 III 
 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 i. The Mistress of Kingsdene, 
 
 ii. Naboth's Vineyard, 
 hi. A Little Rift, .... 
 iv. Penelope's Web, . 
 
 v. Transformation, . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 83 
 
 103 
 124 
 142 
 159 
 
 IV 
 
 A WOMAN'S FAITH 
 
 1. A Stranger at the Hen and Chickens, 
 11. The Wild Man of the Woods, 
 
 179 
 195 
 
 V 
 
 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 1. Nance Reed's Daughter, 215 
 
 11. A Dumb Devil, .... . . 231 
 
 in. How the Devil was Cast Out, . . . 249
 
 CONTENTS vii 
 
 VI 
 
 THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 PAGE 
 
 i. A Red Tam-o'-Shanter, ... . 273 
 
 11. An Ugly Heroine, ...... 294 
 
 in. Jack's Victory, ....... 314 
 
 VII 
 
 THE AFTERMATH, 337
 
 HOW I CAME TO SANDILANDS
 
 HOW I CAME TO SANDILANDS 
 
 As we journey on in life we are conscious of 
 sudden strong sympathies which draw us almost 
 irresistibly out of our narrow grooves and impel 
 us in some contrary direction. 
 
 Sometimes it is a book that appeals to us ; 
 some glowing thought newly coined in a regal 
 mint, which seems stamped ineffaceably on our 
 memory ; some truth, like the Syrian arrow of 
 old, drawn at a venture, which pierces through 
 our armour ; or it may be the clear human eyes 
 of some stranger, whom we meet on the edge of 
 a crowd, and who speaks to us kindly in passing ; 
 we travel on, and yet that brief encounter has 
 made our life richer. 
 
 Or, again, it may be some place that attracts us 
 with irresistible force ; some little spot of earth 
 which seems fairer to us than other places ; it has 
 homely features that make us remember our 
 childhood, a subtle fragrance of far-off days that 
 seems to pervade and hallow it. This was how I
 
 4 HOW I CAME TO SANDILANDS 
 
 felt when I first saw Sandilands ; when the scent of 
 the firs, and the warmth of the sunset, and the sweet 
 chiming of the church-bells seemed to blend to- 
 gether, as I sat at the window of the inn, a dusty, 
 weary traveller, a little battered and jaded with a 
 forty years' wandering in the wilderness of life. 
 
 I had come to Sandilands for one night ; some 
 one had mentioned it to me carelessly. ' It is a 
 pretty village,' he had said, 'and there is a view 
 that is worth seeing, and if you are fond of sketch- 
 ing you might stay a few hours on your way from 
 Brentwood ; my wife always says that Sandilands 
 reminds her of the happy valley where Rasselas 
 and his brothers lived.' 
 
 One has not quite forgotten one's school-days 
 at forty, and I still nourish a secret penchant for 
 Dr. Johnson's old romance ; for I agree with 
 Alphonso of Aragon, ' Old wood to burn, old 
 wine to drink, old friends to trust, old authors to 
 read.' I was in the mood to take advice, and so 
 one June evening I found myself at Sandilands. 
 I had come for one night ; I remained ten years ; 
 until every house held a friend for me ; and when 
 the children smiled back at me on their way to 
 school, there was not one I had not held in my 
 arms on the day of their baptism. 
 
 ' The little lady up at Fir Cottage' was what 
 they called me, but those who knew me best and 
 had grown to love me were more apt to say ' the
 
 HOW I CAME TO SANDILANDS 5 
 
 little Sister.' I think, if I remember rightly, the 
 name originated with the Vicar. I had asked 
 him to witness some paper and had just signed 
 my name, Clare Merrick. ' Oh,' he said, looking 
 at me blankly, ' Patience told me that your name 
 was Catherine.' 
 
 'No, I belong to the poor Clares,' I returned. 
 The little joke would have fallen flat with any 
 one but the Vicar, but of course he knew all 
 about St. Francis of Assisi, so his eyes only 
 twinkled slightly as he took the pen. 
 
 'The little Sister would be sorely missed in 
 Sandilands,' he said in the genial way that 
 belonged to him, for though he spoke little his 
 silence seemed to hold a perpetual benison. 
 
 'Even the poor Clares had their work cut out 
 for them.' I had said it a little bitterly, but the 
 Vicar's smile, and the kindly gleam in his grey 
 eyes as he looked down at me seemed to heal up 
 the old sore. 
 
 Many a long year before a girl had strayed 
 by mistake into an Eden not intended for her. 
 Through a grievous mistake she had believed 
 herself beloved, and it had seemed to her for a 
 few short days as though the heavens were not 
 too large to contain her bliss. She had so 
 hungered and thirsted for love, she had known 
 such lonely hours and so many disappointments, 
 and when a voice said, ' Come up higher,' it
 
 6 HOW I CAME TO SANDILANDS 
 
 seemed to her as though the music of the spheres 
 were sounding in her ears. 
 
 And so — ah, poor Clare ! — this girl gazed in at 
 the open door and saw the roses of Eden grow- 
 ing ; roses red with passion and white with purity, 
 and she stretched out her hand, the foolish child, 
 but the cruel thorns only pierced her palm. ' Not 
 for you — never for you ' — and then there was a 
 laugh, and the gate clanged in her face, and the care- 
 less footsteps passed on. Was it a mistake ? Had 
 she only dreamed it ? Alas, there are some dreams 
 so bitter that they haunt even our waking hours. 
 
 This was how the little Sister strayed into 
 Sandilands, a mere waif and stray of humanity, 
 not rich in this world's goods, and yet not poor, 
 with sufficient to keep herself and help others. 
 
 The cottage where I lived was perched high 
 above the village, and was owned by a young 
 widow, at least every one in Sandilands said 
 Bessie Martin was a widow, though she always 
 refused to own herself one, and her children still 
 prayed for their poor father at sea. 
 
 She was a tall buxom young woman with a 
 soft drawl in her voice that seemed to appeal to 
 one's sympathy, and she had pleasant homely 
 ways. I had fallen in love with her when I had 
 first seen her in her grey sun-bonnet drawing 
 water at the little well with her two blue-eyed 
 boys beside her ; and as I walked up the steep
 
 HOW I CAME TO SANDILANDS 7 
 
 zigzag path past the little garden plots, each with 
 its clean-littered pigsty, and saw Fir Cottage 
 with the honeysuckle festooning the rude wooden 
 veranda, and the smooth little grassplot shut in 
 with a thick laurel hedge, I felt I had reached a 
 haven of refuge. 
 
 It was so still and tranquil. A little lane led 
 into the fir woods that covered the crest of the 
 hill behind the cottage ; everywhere their soft 
 blue-blackness seemed to close in the horizon. 
 Standing by the laurel hedge one looked down 
 over the roofs of other cottages at the tiny 
 village green, the quiet inn, and the house adjoin- 
 ing, and the beautiful church with its lichgate and 
 grand background of firs ; a long road stretched 
 dimly into the distance ; Kingsdene, the big house 
 on the opposite hill, loomed in stately seclusion 
 above the village ; everywhere steep white roads 
 seemed to wind through the fir woods ; the inn 
 closed the view, but beyond, as I knew well, lay 
 the valley with its pleasant homesteads. From 
 Fir Cottage the Vicarage was not visible ; it stood 
 a little lower down the road, a grey roomy house 
 with a comfortable bay-windowed drawing-room 
 opening on to a tennis-lawn. 
 
 That was the best of Sandilands ; it had its 
 reserves and surprises, you could not see it all at 
 once. That long road, for example, that led past 
 the white gates of Kingsdene, would take you to
 
 8 HOW I CAME TO SANDILANDS 
 
 the principal shop, Crampton's Stores, as they 
 called it, and the big well, and the ' Silverdale 
 Tavern,' and so on, to the Post Office and Audley 
 End, with its score of trim cottages, each standing 
 pleasantly in its own garden ground. 
 
 I remember one afternoon an old friend, one of 
 the few I possess, came to spend a long summer's 
 day with me in my sylvan retreat. 
 
 In youth one's heart is a little callous and 
 elastic. Friends are plentiful, if lovers are scarce, 
 and grow on every bush ; but as one grows old, 
 how one yearns for the faces that smiled on us 
 when we were young ! for those comrades who 
 stood by us when the fight opened, before we 
 had grown jaded and weary and dazed with the 
 din and the rush of life ! 
 
 Is it not Longfellow who says, ' How good it is, 
 the hand of an old friend'? — so it was always a 
 red-letter day when Florence Mortimer could 
 spare a few hours from her hospital work to run 
 down to Sandilands. 
 
 It was on a September day when she paid her 
 first visit, and I was glad and proud to see how 
 much she was struck with the place. She was by 
 no means an enthusiastic person, she had seen too 
 much of the grim realities of life to keep the fresh- 
 ness of her youthful illusions ; nevertheless for 
 the first half-hour her conversation was quite 
 staccato with enthusiasm.
 
 HOW I CAME TO SANDILANDS 9 
 
 Now it was the warm resinous breath of the 
 firs that charmed her, or the sweetness of the 
 honeysuckle porch. 
 
 ' No wonder you wrote such charming descrip- 
 tions, Clare. I had no idea Surrey was so lovely. 
 Sandilands — I never heard of the place before ; 
 how many inhabitants do you say there are ? Six 
 or seven hundred ? Dear me, I cannot see more 
 than seven or eight houses. Talk of a lodge in a 
 garden of cucumbers — there seems nothing but a 
 church, an inn, and fir woods. To be sure, there 
 is that big house opposite — it looks quite a 
 mansion : a palatial residence, that is what they 
 would call it in the papers.' 
 
 Then again, ' I like those steep white roads 
 winding through the dark woods, they must look 
 like silver ladders in the moonlight. But they are 
 hard to climb ; look how slowly that old man 
 with his bundle of brushwood seems to be creep- 
 ing on like an overladen ant ! ' 
 
 'That is my favourite walk, Flo ; it leads to that 
 wonderful view, Sandy Point, of which I told you.' 
 
 1 Oh, to be sure ! I remember your description ; 
 you have the pen of a ready writer. No ! don't 
 thank me for the compliment, it was Sister Acci- 
 dent who said that. But, Clare, you did not say 
 half enough about the beauty of your church ; 
 who would expect to see anything so grand in 
 a village? It looks like a great white ark, set
 
 io HOW I CAME TO SANDILANDS 
 
 against all that blackness, and there is the dove, 
 only minus the olive branch, flying out of the 
 porch.' But it was only one of the fantail pigeons 
 from the Inn. 
 
 Mrs. Martin brought out the little tea-table 
 presently, and as we sat in our big beehive chairs 
 under the shade of a sycamore I would not have 
 exchanged my summer parlour for the grandest 
 apartments in Windsor Castle, and I am sure 
 Florence agreed with me. She grew a little 
 thoughtful presently, as though the shadow of 
 some memory had crossed the sunlight — these 
 cross lights, these sudden alternations of shadows 
 and sunshine are so common in life. 
 
 ' I am so glad you have found this little haven 
 of rest,' she said at last, rather wistfully ; ' it just 
 suits you somehow ; of course you have not been 
 here long enough to make many friends, but I 
 know your social proclivities. Before long you 
 will be acquainted with every one in Sandilands.' 
 And Florence was right. 
 
 But her next speech made me smile a little. 
 
 'Do you think people are quite so unhappy in 
 the country? Oh, of course, there is always 
 sickness and death and bad times, but,' in rather 
 a pathetic tone, 'it must be easier for people to 
 be good — there must be fewer temptations.' 
 
 'Perhaps so,' I returned; 'but human nature is 
 often its own tempter. When I have lived here a
 
 HOW I CAME TO SANDILANDS n 
 
 little longer I daresay I shall be able to answer 
 your question better ; for I shall know more about 
 my neighbours' troubles. No doubt Sandilands 
 has its saints and its sinners, its comedies and its 
 tragedies ; but it has one advantage, there is 
 room to breathe, and there is no hoarse, jarring 
 sound of traffic to deaden the birds' music. Now 
 if we are to walk to Sandy Point it is time for us 
 to start.' And this closed the conversation. 
 
 Fir Cottage had been built by Bessie Martin's 
 father, and the old couple had lived in it until 
 their death. When Will Martin started on his 
 last disastrous voyage Bessie and her two boys 
 came back to live in the old home. Little Ben 
 was only an infant then, and David a sturdy, 
 rosy-cheeked urchin of three. Her father had 
 had his first paralytic seizure, and her mother 
 was growing old and feeble, and needed a 
 daughter's care. Bessie's hands were full in 
 those days, but she was strong and willing, and 
 no work came amiss to her. 'Our Bessie has 
 been a blessing to us from the hour I brought her 
 into the world,' her mother would say, 'and I 
 shall tell Will so when I meet him up yonder.' 
 But Bessie always shook her head and turned 
 away in silence when her mother made these 
 speeches. 
 
 'Mother and dad always would have it that 
 Will was dead,' she said once to me, 'but I shall
 
 i2 HOW I CAME TO SANDILANDS 
 
 never bring myself to believe it. I am lonesome 
 enough without that, and one of these days, please 
 God, Will will come back to me. Often and 
 often my Davie has said to me when he has seen 
 me a bit down and out of heart, " Don't be 
 unhappy, mammie. I am going to pray hard 
 to-night that dad may come home to-morrow," 
 and then he would shut his eves so tiedit, and I 
 could see him gripping his little hands together, 
 "and please, dear Lord," he would say, "do let 
 dad come back to us quick, for poor mammie is 
 fretting so, and Benjy and me can't comfort her 
 nohow." Times upon times I have heard him say 
 that, the darling.' 
 
 Bessie Martin was rather reserved by nature, 
 and it was not easy for her to give her confidence. 
 She came of a good old north-country stock, and 
 now and then she would use some phrase that she 
 had certainly not learnt in Surrey. ' Ay, we 
 must bide the bitterment' — that was a favourite 
 expression with her ; and now and then, ' Hurry 
 means worry, we must just summer and winter 
 it and keep quiet.' 
 
 I heard most of Bessie's sad history from old 
 Mrs. Martin, down at the long white cottage at 
 the bottom of our path. She was a good old 
 soul, a little garrulous at times, but wonderfully 
 kind-hearted, and she was never weary of singing 
 Bessie's praises.
 
 HOW I CAME TO SANDILANDS 13 
 
 1 She was a good daughter, a better never lived,' 
 she would say. 'When Will Martin first came 
 down here courting, I remember she would 
 promise him nothing till the old people had 
 given their blessing ; and yet Will was as fine- 
 looking a young fellow as you would see on a 
 summer's day, and he had the light heart of the 
 sailor. Bessie was a sonsie lass too — not to say 
 handsome — but buxom and well set up ; and 
 then she had a way with her; you felt you could 
 trust her through thick and thin. Not that she 
 was ever much of a talker ; it was Will who had 
 the soft wily tongue, but then they suited each 
 other down to the ground, and he was just foolish 
 about her. Poor dear fellow, he was a sort of 
 cousin of mine, that 's how he first came to 
 Sandilands. But maybe I am wearying you ' 
 — but I hastened to assure her to the contrary, 
 and that nothing interested me like stories in 
 real life, and then she went on contentedly. 
 
 ' Will's mother was alive then. She was a 
 sickly sort of body and very peevish, but being a 
 widow-woman, nothing would satisfy Will but 
 they must make their home with her. Bessie 
 never liked London, and she found her mother-in- 
 law uncommonly trying. But she did her duty 
 by her, and I have heard Will say that she died 
 with her hand in Bessie's. 
 
 'Ben was only three months old then. It was
 
 i 4 HOW I CAME TO SANDILANDS 
 
 just before Will got his berth on the ArethuscL 
 Bessie was a little low and weak just then, from 
 her long nursing, and it was Will who proposed 
 that she should take the two boys with her to 
 Sandilands. 
 
 '" I shall know where to find you," he said that 
 last morning. " I took my sweetheart from Fir 
 Cottage, and it is there I will look for my wife 
 and chicks when I come back." Poor Will ! 
 Those were his very words, and before six weeks 
 were over the Arctluisa had struck against a reef 
 and sunk with every soul on board.' And then 
 she told the few particulars that were gleaned of 
 the ill-fated vessel. 
 
 ' But Bessie will not believe that her husband 
 is dead,' I observed, when Mrs. Martin had stopped 
 to take her breath. 
 
 'No, she is a bit perverse on that point. I 
 have heard her mother argue with her until 
 Bessie would fling her apron over her head and 
 have a good cry. But for all that she would 
 never own her mother was right. " If Will were 
 dead I should feel it, somehow," she has said to 
 me more than once, for being Will's cousin we 
 were always the best of friends. "Do you 
 suppose, Martha, that my Will would be lying 
 face downwards at the bottom of the ocean, and 1 
 should not know it in my heart? In my dreams 
 he is just his old living self; sometimes I can
 
 HOW I CAME TO SANDILANDS 15 
 
 hear his voice quite plainly. But what is the 
 use of talking ? — one must just bide the bitter- 
 ment," and then she would sigh a little heavily 
 and go back to the cottage.' 
 
 How strange it was in the face of all that 
 evidence that Bessie Martin should still maintain 
 her husband was alive ! I had heard about the 
 Arethusa; she had struck against an unsuspected 
 coral reef, but to the best of my knowledge there 
 had been no survivors to tell the tale. 
 
 By an odd coincidence Mrs. Martin's words 
 were corroborated that very evening. 
 
 I had gone into the kitchen to give some order 
 and as usual found Bessie sitting at the open door 
 knitting, with David learning his lessons beside 
 her. Ben was in his cot fast asleep. It was 
 Bessie's rest-hour ; all day long from earliest 
 daybreak she had been busily engaged in house 
 and garden. More than once I had noticed that 
 the blue and grey socks she was knitting were 
 too large for David. 
 
 ' Are you making those for a friend ? ' I asked 
 a little curiously, but to my surprise a sudden 
 blush crossed her face. 
 
 ' Yes, Miss Merrick, they are for a friend surely 
 — for my best friend I might say, for they are for 
 Will. That is his chest,' pointing to a handsome 
 Spanish mahogany chest of drawers that I had 
 often admired. 'Will will find all his things
 
 1 6 HOW I CAME TO SANDILANDS 
 
 ready for him'; and then with a sudden impulse 
 she rose and opened one drawer after another 
 and showed me the neat piles of flannel shirts, 
 knitted socks, and daintily stitched cuffs. All 
 these five years, while people called her a widow, 
 she had spent her rest-hours in working for the 
 husband she believed to be alive. 
 
 I think the tears in my eyes touched her ; she 
 was not used to this sort of silent sympathy, for 
 she said slowly in that soft drawl of hers, ' The 
 neighbours think I am just doited, though no one, 
 not even Martha, has seen what I have shown 
 you just now ; — but it keeps me happy and 
 prevents me from brooding. Oh, I have my bad 
 times,' she continued in a low voice, so that David 
 could not hear her, 'when I am just moithered to 
 know what my poor lad is doing, for he is wander- 
 ing over the face of the earth somewhere. Some- 
 times I fear he is shut up in some place from 
 which he cannot get out. It was through David 
 reading Robinson Crusoe that I got that into my 
 head, but it is my favourite book, too. Some- 
 times at night I wake up all in a shiver, and 
 think how lonesome Will must find it on some 
 desert island with nothing but wild creatures 
 round him, and how he must sicken for a sight 
 of me and the children. But then, when trouble 
 comes we just must bear it, and as long as 
 I feel that the same world holds us both i
 
 HOW I CAME TO SANDILANDS 17 
 
 have no cause to despair'; but as she turned 
 away there was a sad yearning look in her grey 
 eyes that told of many an hour of heart-break. 
 
 1 Are there any limits to a woman's love and 
 faith ? ' I thought, as I went back to my room ; 
 but there was a sudden weight at my heart as I 
 sat alone by the fireside. 
 
 The tragedies of life are sometimes less sad 
 than its comedies, and in my secret soul that 
 night I envied Bessie Martin. She had not asked 
 for bread and received a stone, and her youth had 
 not been nourished on empty husks ; love had 
 crowned her with its highest honours : the sacred 
 privileges of wife and mother had been bestowed 
 upon her, and what widowhood could deprive her 
 of the happy past ! 'As long as I feel that the 
 same world holds us both I have no cause to 
 despair,' she had said, but I would have added 
 more than that. For when one's beloved has 
 entered one of the many mansions, it is as 
 though familiar hands were making a new home 
 ready for us, and when our call comes, surely 
 the face we most loved will welcome us upon 
 the threshold ! 
 
 B
 
 II 
 
 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE
 
 THE VICAR OF SANDILANDS 
 
 WHEN the Rev. Evelyn Wentworth first came to 
 Sandilands the new church was being built, and 
 services were held in the little Iron room behind 
 the schools. 
 
 The Vicar took a great deal of interest in the 
 work : every morning he would leave his beloved 
 books and stand for an hour at a time watching 
 the bricklayers and the stone-masons, and later 
 on the decorators, with such a fixed and absorbed 
 attention that Job Longman, who was a bit of 
 a wag, suggested to Silas Stubbs that the parson 
 must be thinking of changing his trade ; but after 
 a time they got used to his silent presence among 
 them, and would go on chattering and whistling 
 over their work as though he were .not there. 
 
 The Vicar of Sandilands was a grand-looking 
 man of about forty. In his youth he must have 
 been extremely handsome : his features were 
 finely cut, and there was an aristocratic air about 
 him ; and he carried his head nobly ; but it could 
 
 21
 
 22 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 not be denied that for the first year or two the 
 younger and poorer members of his flock were 
 greatly in awe of him. 
 
 ' How are folks to pass the time of day and 
 grumble comfortably at the weather when the 
 Vicar is holding his head high and saying, " Ah, 
 just so, my good friend," in that aggravating way 
 of his?' and Susan Stukeley gave a vicious dab 
 at her youngest boy's cap as she spoke : ' Where 
 are your manners, you good-for-nought ? don't 
 you see the lady is sitting in father's chair? But 
 there, dear heart, we can't all be blessed with a 
 taking manner ; and if the Vicar is high Miss 
 Patience has a deal of affability, though to be 
 sure, poor soul, she is as deaf as a post' 
 
 Perhaps the Vicar was a little too stately and 
 silent to suit the tastes of the simple flock to 
 whom he was called to minister, but they grew to 
 understand him better in time ; and though per- 
 haps it might be true that he kept his eloquence 
 for the pulpit and for those talks by the study 
 fire, when his friend Cornish came down to the 
 Vicarage, yet there never was a time when he 
 refused to smile at a little child, or that the veriest 
 cur on the village green would not try to lick his 
 hand, and children and dogs know when a person 
 is to be trusted. 
 
 People marvelled at first that a man like Mr. 
 Wcntworth should be content to bury himself in
 
 THE VICAR OF SANDILANDS 2 
 
 j 
 
 a quiet Surrey village ; and there was a great 
 deal of idle gossip and conjecture, especially 
 among the women-folk. 
 
 Mr. Wentworth was such a striking-looking 
 man, they would say ; it was so strange that he 
 had never married ; he had private means too, 
 for there was actually a man-servant at the Vicar- 
 age : a dark, quiet man, almost as reserved as his 
 master, who had been his scout at Oxford ; and 
 then Miss Patience always sat down to dinner 
 every night in a silk or satin gown. , 
 
 Miss Batesby, who lived in a small house at 
 the end of the valley and who knew everything 
 about her neighbours, had soon found out all 
 that there was to know about the new Vicar, and 
 had retailed her choice modicums of knowledge 
 in strict confidence to at least half a dozen inti- 
 mate friends. 
 
 Mr. Wentworth was a fellow of Magdalen, and 
 still retained his rooms, overlooking the deer 
 park and Addison's Walk ; he was a great book- 
 worm and was engaged in writing some Ecclesi- 
 astical History ; that very odd-looking man who 
 came down so often to the Vicarage was a famous 
 Greek scholar and held some professorship ; he 
 was a fellow of Oriel ; they had been at Eton 
 together, and had rowed in the same boat. No 
 one knew how Miss Batesby gleaned all her 
 information, but as her conversation consisted
 
 24 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 mainly of questions, people who disliked a per- 
 petual catechism would try to rid themselves of 
 this form of torment by telling her all they knew 
 and sometimes a little more. Now and then 
 her facts were sometimes garbled and distorted, 
 but in the main she generally kept pretty closely 
 to the truth ; as when she stated that Miss 
 Patience was ten years older than her brother 
 and had only kept his house since they came to 
 Sandilands. 
 
 It was true the Vicar's celibacy baffled her, but 
 after a time she hinted darkly that though he had 
 never married he had certainly been engaged, 
 and that the lady had jilted him, 'and they do 
 say,' continued Miss Batesby in that stagey 
 whisper that she affected, ' that it was the dis- 
 appointment that drove him to his books — at one 
 time there was a talk of his going to a big 
 Liverpool parish. Oh, you need not look sur- 
 prised, it was Mr. Saunders who told me that the 
 living was offered him and he had accepted it, 
 and then all at once he changed his mind and 
 went abroad. I think he was ill or out of health, 
 for Miss Patience spent one winter with him at 
 Cairo, and then when they returned he settled to 
 come to Sandilands ; because it was quiet and 
 retired, and he could do his work ; and then Miss 
 Patience gave up her house — she had a pretty 
 house in Kensington — and came here with him.'
 
 THE VICAR OF SANDILANDS 25 
 
 There could be no doubt that Miss Patience ruled 
 well and wisely over her brother's household, and 
 that as far as creature-comforts were concerned 
 Mr. Wentworth lacked nothing that womanly 
 tenderness or thought could devise. Nothing 
 was ever out of order at the Vicarage ; the meals 
 were always cooked to perfection. Barry, the 
 ci-devant scout, who acted as butler and valet and 
 confidential servant, was never remiss in his 
 duties, and not only the tennis-lawn was rolled 
 every day, but even the shrubbery-walks were 
 kept free from dead leaves ; everything in house 
 and garden bearing the same stamp of Miss 
 Patience's exquisite sense of order. 
 
 Even the Vicar's study, that sanctum sanctorum, 
 was not free from her supervision and delicate 
 manipulation ; no other hand being permitted to 
 dust and rearrange the piles of MSS. on the 
 writing-table, or to restore the books heaped in 
 wild confusion round his chair to their rightful 
 position on the shelves. 
 
 'You are a privileged person, Miss Wentworth,' 
 Mr. Cornish would say as he saw her busy with 
 her feather dusting-brush; 'Wentworth must 
 have developed uncommon amiableness of late 
 years, or you have learnt how to manage him. 
 Now it is more than my scout's life is worth to 
 touch a thing on my table.' But Miss Patience, 
 who had only heard half this sentence, shook her
 
 26 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 head with her soft shy smile and went on with 
 her labour of love. 
 
 There was no need for her to learn to manage 
 him, who had been his little mother since her 
 own dying mother had confided him to her care ; 
 she had only been thirteen then, and Evelyn a 
 fine sturdy boy of three, but never could Patience 
 Wentworth forget that sudden rush of maternal 
 tenderness that filled her girlish bosom as she 
 received that sacred charge. 
 
 'Take care of dear little Evelyn, if you love 
 me, Patience ; be a mother to him in my place.' 
 How plainly she could hear the weak pleading 
 tones, and how she had answered in a voice half- 
 choked with sobs — 
 
 ' Do not be afraid, mammie darling, I will never 
 leave him or father either.' And as long as they 
 needed her Patience kept her word. 
 
 ' If Evelyn does not marry I shall take care of 
 his house for him,' she would say, after her 
 father's death. 'I am only waiting until he 
 makes up his mind what to do,' and so, when the 
 living of Sandilands came to him, she quietly 
 gave up her pretty house and went down with 
 him to the Vicarage. 
 
 ' It beats me how Mr. Wentworth can put up 
 with a companion like Miss Patience,' Miss 
 Batesby would say sometimes ; 'a week of such 
 evenings would drive me wild. She was always
 
 THE VICAR OF SANDILANDS 27 
 
 a little deaf, even when she was young ; they say 
 it was the result of scarlet-fever, but now she 
 hears hardly anything unless people scream at 
 her. The Todhunters were dining at the Vicarage 
 last evening,' she continued, 'you know they are 
 always asked when Mr. Cornish is staying there, 
 and Mrs. Todhunter was only saying how sad it 
 was. No one said half a dozen words to Miss 
 Patience at dinner, only the Vicar, and Mr. 
 Cornish gave her a nod now and then ; but she 
 looked as contented and serene as possible, and 
 just talked herself in her quiet, subdued voice, 
 saying pleasant little things to first one and then 
 the other, as though to assure them that she did 
 not feel a bit left out in the cold ; and all the 
 time Mrs. Todhunter said she was looking like a 
 picture in her grey satin and little cap of old 
 point lace.' 
 
 Perhaps it was owing to her increasing deafness 
 and her delicate state of health, but certainly 
 Miss Patience looked older than she really was, 
 and long before she was fifty she had grown into 
 old-fashioned elderly ways. 
 
 Though her hair was soft and abundant, and 
 only faintly streaked with grey, nothing would 
 induce Miss Patience to discard her caps ; her 
 gowns too, although they were always rich in 
 materials, were certainly not cut in the prevailing 
 fashion. There was an oid-world touch about
 
 28 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 her, something that reminded one of the rose 
 pourri in the big jars that stood on either side of 
 the fireplace in her drawing-room, a far-off fra- 
 grance of a girlhood that had grown old and that 
 yet was eternally young ; of a life that had been 
 lived for others, and that had never known the 
 ordinary vicissitudes of a woman's experience, 
 and which had left her at fifty-three a simple 
 maidenly gentlewoman. 
 
 'Patience is the oldest and the youngest woman 
 I know,' her brother said once ; ' in knowledge of 
 the world she is a perfect infant. I have heard 
 her say the most outrageous things in perfectly 
 good faith ; she has made my hair rise on more 
 than one occasion, and yet I have never known 
 her to be fooled by the most wily of scamps ; it 
 must be instinct. What is it, Cornish ? for as far 
 as knowledge of evil is concerned, she is a divinely 
 inspired idiot.' 
 
 Mr. Cornish only shrugged his shoulders — he 
 was filling his favourite old meerschaum with 
 some choice tobacco, which always was put ready 
 for him in a special corner by Miss Patience's 
 own hand. It was a delicate and engrossing 
 occupation, and an assenting grunt was all he 
 could vouchsafe in answer to his friend's remark, 
 but Mr. Wentworth seemed quite satisfied. 
 
 The study was certainly the best apartment in 
 the Vicarage. It was a large, well-proportioned
 
 THE VICAR OF SANDILANDS 29 
 
 room, with a wide bay-window ; and in winter or 
 summer no shutters or blinds were ever allowed 
 to shut out the night landscape. 
 
 To Miss Patience the outside darkness was a 
 dreary and forlorn prospect that gave her an 
 inward shudder every time she crossed the thres- 
 hold ; in her opinion it would have been better to 
 have drawn the warm-toned crimson curtains, 
 but Mr. Wentworth insisted on having his own 
 way. 
 
 ' You may coddle yourself as much as you like 
 in the drawing-room,' he would say; 'but I like 
 the feeling that I have plenty of space and air' ; 
 and on moonlight nights he would pace the room, 
 now and then pausing to enjoy the wonderful 
 contrast — the silvery track that lay across the 
 tennis-lawn, and the weird blackness of the skele- 
 ton firs, stretching their bare leafless branches ; 
 each grim form standing out clear and distinct in 
 the soft white light. All the available wall space, 
 with the exception of the fireplace and window, 
 was filled from ceiling to floor with book-shelves. 
 Many of the books were valuable — rare old edi- 
 tions that he had collected from time to time — 
 and more than once Mr. Cornish had been heard 
 to say that he never felt more tempted to break 
 the Tenth Commandment than when he entered 
 Wentworth's study. A knee-hole writing-table 
 and some remarkably comfortable easy-chairs
 
 3 o THE IDYLLS OF A VICAR ACE 
 
 comprised the rest of the furniture. On the 
 carved over-mantel stood an exquisite Parian 
 bust of Clyde, and some silver cups, evidently 
 relics of school-days. 
 
 Douglas Cornish was a complete contrast to 
 his friend ; he was two or three years older than 
 the Vicar, but most people would have thought 
 that there was a greater difference of age between 
 them. 
 
 He was a tall man, and years of study had 
 given him a slight stoop, but at times when he 
 was animated and interested he would straighten 
 himself and lift up his head, and one would note 
 with surprise that he was as well-proportioned as 
 the Vicar. 
 
 His hair had grown thin about the temples, 
 and this gave the impression of baldness ; and he 
 had a curious habit of partially closing his eyes 
 as he talked and then opening them at unexpected 
 moments. Mr. Wentworth used to call it ' spring- 
 ing the mine,' and sometimes it had a startling 
 effect on people, for the dark eyes were as keen 
 and steady as a hawk's, and yet with a benignant 
 gleam in them. 
 
 The friendship between the two men had dated 
 from early boyhood ; they had lived with the 
 same dame at Eton, and had fagged for the same 
 red-haired heir to ducal honours. 
 
 At Oxford their rooms had been on the same
 
 THE VICAR OF SANDILANDS 31 
 
 staircase, and they had rowed in the eights to- 
 gether ; and when one became fellow of Magdalen 
 and the other fellow of Oriel and a college tutor 
 their sympathy and similarity of tastes seemed 
 to increase, and though, with the mauvaise honte 
 of Englishmen neither would have owned the 
 fact, each had grown indispensable to the other. 
 When the Vicar had secured some fine old first 
 edition that he had long coveted he always 
 telegraphed his success to Oriel, and as often as 
 not the return telegram would be, 'Delighted, 
 expect me by usual train to-morrow to dine and 
 sleep.' 
 
 ' I knew that would fetch him,' the Vicar would 
 say to himself, rubbing his hands with glee ; ' now 
 we shall have a glorious night of it'; and then 
 Barry would be summoned and told that the blue 
 room was to be got ready for Mr. Cornish, and 
 there would be a long and patient debate with 
 his sister over the menu. 
 
 No one in Sandilands would have recognised 
 their silent and stately Vicar if they could have 
 listened to him as he and his friend talked on the 
 subjects so dear to both. 
 
 Now it was some difficulty that he had en- 
 countered in his work ; some conflicting statements 
 that he needed to be sifted and verified ; and 
 in which his friend could give him valuable help ; 
 at other times it was he who listened with interest
 
 32 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 while Cornish descanted on Greek tragedies or 
 on the success of some favourite pupil, politics, 
 social economy, Greek hexameters, ethics, German 
 philosophy and myths — nothing came amiss to 
 them. At times they would have rare arguments, 
 in which they would grow hot and pugnacious, 
 and neither would yield by a hair's-breadth ; at 
 such moments the Vicar seemed to grow taller 
 as he paced to and fro on the study floor, but 
 Douglas Cornish never laid down his meerschaum, 
 and his eyes would be nearly closed as he uttered 
 some brief trenchant sentence that seemed, like 
 the sword of Hercules, ready to cut the knot. 
 
 ' You are wrong, Wentworth — you have for- 
 gotten we have the clear testimony of Paulinus ' ; 
 and then the blue gleam of his hawk's eyes would 
 flash at his opponent and he would walk to the 
 bookcase and take down the book and show him 
 the passage he needed ; at such times the victory 
 was generally with Cornish. 
 
 But it was not always that they argued on 
 deep and abstruse subjects ; sometimes Barry, 
 polishing his silver and glass in his little pantry 
 close by, would hear a clear boyish laugh suddenly 
 ring out across the passage : they were in the 
 playing-fields again, or in the procession of boats 
 on the glorious fourth of June ; the eternal boy- 
 hood which lingers in every manly breast had 
 waked to sudden life.
 
 THE VICAR OF SANDILANDS 33 
 
 Or they were indulging in reminiscences of 
 their youth, delightful and memorable events of 
 their undergraduate days — that never-to-be-for- 
 gotten hour when Oxford won the boat race ; 
 that day of days when they had pulled together 
 up the long course from Putney Bridge to Mort- 
 lake, while the frantic crowd cheered them from 
 the towing-path ; and the steamers in their wake 
 churned the placid river into troubled waves ; 
 and the grey towers of old Fulham Church stood 
 out grandly in the March sunlight ; the days 
 before the new stone bridge was built, when the 
 old toll-house was still in existence, and the old- 
 fashioned inn by the river was painted blue in 
 honour of both Universities. 
 
 Sometimes Miss Patience, passing down the 
 passage carrying her silver candlestick, would 
 stop outside the study door as the sound would 
 reach even her dim ears, and a faint roseleaf flush 
 would come to her pale cheeks. 
 
 ' That was Evelyn laughing,' she would say to 
 herself, 'but I am sure Mr. Cornish was laughing 
 too — how happy they seem ! ' and then a wist- 
 ful smile would come to her lips, and there would 
 be a look in the soft eyes that spoke of some 
 secret sadness. 
 
 Chief, the Vicar's handsome collie, always lay 
 stretched out upon the rug before the fire, with 
 his nose upon his paws and his bright eyes fixed 
 
 C
 
 34 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 on his master ; only if he laughed a little too 
 hilariously to suit the dog's fastidious instinct, 
 Chief would rise and stalk slowly to the window 
 and stand on his hind legs looking out on the 
 darkness. 
 
 ' Chief is ashamed of his master ; look at his 
 contemptuous attitude, Cornish — is it not a perfect 
 study of canine grace? Come back, old fellow, 
 don't be sulky, and I will promise not to do it 
 any more ' ; and then the Vicar would take the 
 glossy head between his knees and look down 
 into the loving deep eyes of his favourite. ' Chief, 
 you are right, and we are old fools, but it was 
 something to have lived such days ; we drank a 
 good draught of the pure elixir, and we drank it 
 deep, though we little thought then it had to last 
 us our life'; and then the Vicar sighed and 
 relapsed into silence. 
 
 Perhaps it was transmission of thought, or some 
 sudden beat of the wave-sympathy between him 
 and his sister, for Miss Patience's little velvet 
 slippers had only just pattered along the passage 
 when the Vicar said a little abruptly, ' Cornish, I 
 saw you were observing my sister rather narrowly 
 at dinner ; do you think that she is looking as well 
 as usual ? ' Mr. Wentworth spoke in a hesitating 
 manner, and there was a distinct note of anxiety 
 in his voice. 
 
 'What makes you ask me that?' returned his
 
 THE VICAR OF SANDILANDS 35 
 
 friend with equal abruptness, and any one who 
 knew the man would have seen that he was 
 desirous to fence with the question. 
 
 1 Well, it was Miss Batesby who put it in my 
 head,' replied the Vicar slowly. ' She stayed 
 behind at the district meeting with her usual list 
 of grievances, and then she said that several 
 people had remarked to her on my sister's fragile 
 appearance, and that she feared that she was 
 losing strength perceptibly.' 
 
 ' Humph ! the aggrieved parishioner, Miss 
 Batesby ; that is the plump little woman with 
 prominent eyes, who is generally loafing round 
 the vestry door after week-day services, and who 
 has a finger in every pie in Sandilands ; don't 
 heed her, Wentworth — when I want reliable infor- 
 mation I should certainly not apply to Miss 
 Batesby.' 
 
 ' Oh, she is not a bad little person,' returned 
 the Vicar quickly ; ' she is good-natured and kind- 
 hearted, and Patience is her prime favourite ; 
 but Cornish, you have not answered my ques- 
 tion.' 
 
 ' Miss Wentworth is certainly a little thinner,' 
 replied the other, ' but I see no other difference. 
 I was marvelling at her cheerfulness and placidity 
 at dinner ; she could hear nothing of our conver- 
 sation, but there was no trace of irritation or im- 
 patience in her manner. By the by, Wentworth,
 
 36 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 I have been meaning to tell you something all 
 the evening, but I have found no opportunity. I 
 saw Miss Brett yesterday.' 
 
 The Vicar had been pacing the room after his 
 usual fashion while he talked ; ' his evening 
 prowls,' as he called them, had already worn the 
 carpet almost threadbare. He had reached the 
 window as his friend completed his sentence, and 
 for a few seconds his attitude was almost statu- 
 esque in its rigidity, then he wheeled slowly 
 round and came towards the fire. 
 
 ' All right, go on, old fellow, I am listening ' ; 
 and he dropped into his easy chair as though he 
 had grown suddenly weary. 
 
 There was a quick, comprehensive flasn, and 
 then Mr. Cornish's half-closed eyes were directed 
 to the blazing pine-log. 
 
 ' I was at the Metropolitan Station at Baker 
 Street early in the afternoon ; my word, Went- 
 worth, I think Charon's boat would be preferable 
 to and decidedly more sanitary than those infernal 
 tunnels, pregnant with sulphurous odours — but I 
 will spare you a regular British tirade. Just 
 before the train came in, I saw a tall woman in a 
 peculiar garb, that I seemed to recognise, come 
 swiftly towards me ; you know her grand walk, 
 and the way she holds her head ' — here there was 
 a slight, almost imperceptible contraction of the 
 Vicar's brow. ' Why, in the name of all that is
 
 THE VICAR OF SANDILANDS 37 
 
 mysterious, does she wear that ridiculous dress ? 
 She is neither deaconess nor sister, and yet her 
 long grey cloak and poke-bonnet savour of both. 
 I suppose even a good, highminded woman like 
 Miss Brett has her pet vanities ? ' 
 
 1 There is no vanity about it,' returned the 
 Vicar, a little impatiently ; ' she told me herself 
 that a distinctive dress would be better for her 
 work, and that she could not well carry out her 
 scheme without it. All the other ladies wear it — 
 the poor people call them the " good ladies " — 
 though I believe she is Sister Marion among them. 
 Well, go on, Cornish. I suppose she recognised 
 you ? ' 
 
 ' Oh dear, yes, she had her hand stretched out 
 before she reached me. She wears well, Went- 
 worth ; I think she is handsomer than ever, in 
 spite of the poke-bonnet, but she looked a little 
 tired too.' 
 
 * No doubt, she works hard enough for half a 
 dozen women.' 
 
 ' She asked after your sister at once, and then 
 she mentioned you. "Is he well — quite well — 
 and does he like Sandilands?" But before I 
 could half answer her the train came up. I left 
 her still standing on the platform; some miserable- 
 looking child who had lost her way, or her ticket, 
 was crying and appealing to her, and she had 
 already forgotten my existence. Now my pipe
 
 38 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 and story are finished, shall we shut up and go to 
 bed?' and here Douglas Cornish straightened 
 himself with a portentous yawn. 
 
 When the Vicar had his study to himself, he 
 drew his chair closer to the fire, as though he had 
 grown suddenly cold. 
 
 '"Is he quite well? And does he like Sandi- 
 lands?'" he muttered to himself; and then again, 
 as though he were following out some line of 
 thought — 'the child would be all right if she 
 appealed to her. Marion's heart is big enough to 
 hold the whole world — except one — except the 
 one who most needs her.'
 
 II 
 
 AN OLD MAID'S STORY 
 
 In spite of the supreme interest that centres 
 round each individual existence, and which makes 
 a good biography one of the most fascinating of 
 studies, it cannot be denied that the events of 
 many women's lives might be summed up in half 
 a dozen sentences. Sometimes it would seem as 
 though some women are for ever fingering a per- 
 petual prelude ; and that the real symphony, 
 with its wondrous harmonies and long-drawn-out 
 sweetness, its subtle chords and melodies, is not 
 played out here. 
 
 Some baffling spirit, though without the flaming 
 sword, bars their way to the paradise they are 
 for ever seeking. No one writes of these dim but 
 heroic lives that are often endured with such 
 patience ; and little do these humble souls dream 
 'their daily life an angel's theme,' and yet per- 
 chance on heavenly pages such life-stories may be 
 traced in letters of gold. 
 
 ' Nothing ever happens to me,' Patience
 
 4 o THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 Wentworth would say when she was young; 
 but she spoke in no complaining spirit. People 
 who live in the lives of others have seldom time 
 for their own grievances. It was not until youth 
 had passed, and the freshness of her bloom had 
 faded, that Patience had leisure to think about 
 herself. 
 
 To be a little mother at thirteen, and to tend 
 and wait upon an ailing father, was enough to tax 
 any young girl's strength and energies ; but 
 Patience never complained that her burdens were 
 too heavy for her; and though more than one 
 well-meaning friend hinted to Mr. Wentworth 
 that his young daughter was over-exerting herself, 
 and that it was clearly impossible for her to act 
 as mistress of his house and carry on her own 
 studies, Patience soon convinced him to the 
 contrary. ' I am as strong as a horse,' she would 
 say laughingly ; ' don't listen to them, father dear ; 
 my lessons are just play to me,' and then she 
 would trip away with a smile on her face, leaving 
 him quite satisfied. 
 
 Evelyn was only seven years old when their 
 father died. Me was a bright, winning boy, and 
 Patience idolised him. She nearly broke her 
 heart when he first went to school ; and when 
 scarlet fever attacked him during one vacation, 
 she persisted, contrary to all advice, in helping to 
 nurse him.
 
 AN OLD MAID'S STORY 41 
 
 Evelyn very soon recovered, but his sister, who 
 had also sickened, lay for a long time at death's 
 door. People who knew her well said she was 
 never quite the same afterwards, and that her 
 constitution was undermined by the fever ; it was 
 then that a slight deafness was first noticed, 
 which increased later on. Patience bore her 
 trouble very quietly, and said little about it, but 
 it quenched her brightness, and long before she 
 was thirty she had the precise, mature habits of 
 middle age. 
 
 Girls very little younger than herself would 
 laugh at her for her old-maidish ways, and yet 
 they loved her too. ' Patience Wentworth is 
 an old dear/ they would say, ' but she is terribly 
 antiquated in her notions ; there is almost a 
 Puritan cut about her; one must be up to date 
 nowadays, if one is to be in the swim at all ; of 
 course, it is her deafness : she is so heavily handi- 
 capped, poor soul,' and then they would shake 
 their heads in melancholy fashion. 
 
 It was long before Patience lost all nope. She 
 consulted one aurist after another, and tried all 
 their remedies. It was on the nerves, one of them 
 said, and for a longtime Patience believed him; she 
 certainly heard better at times. When she was 
 tired or had any mental strain on her, her hearing 
 grew worse ! Certain voices, too, reached her more 
 easily than others, and there was one voice that
 
 42 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 almost to the last could make itself under- 
 stood. 
 
 Patience never could remember when it was 
 she first looked upon Douglas Cornish as her 
 special friend. 
 
 In Evelyn's school-days he had not interested 
 her. She had thought him gauche and abrupt, 
 and secretly marvelled at her brother's infatuation. 
 It was not until their undergraduate days that 
 she began to form a favourable opinion of him, 
 or to realise the seductive power of a strong 
 man's sympathy. 
 
 One summer, one never-to-be-forgotten summer, 
 Evelyn had coaxed his aunt, Mrs. Baldwin 
 Wentworth, to bring down Patience for two 
 or three weeks to Oxford. She was a good- 
 natured woman, and after her husband's death 
 she had spent the greater part of her time with 
 her niece, but her second marriage, a few years 
 later, deprived Patience of her chaperonage. 
 
 Evelyn had taken pleasant lodgings for them 
 near Magdalen, and Patience, who was always 
 perfectly happy in her brother's society, enjoyed 
 a few weeks of utter bliss. 
 
 Oxford was always a delight to her. She 
 loved wandering through the college gardens, 
 past the grey old quadrangles ; the lawns of St. 
 John's, the lime Walk at Trinity, the lake and 
 swans at Worcester, and the deer park and
 
 AN OLD MAID'S STORY 43 
 
 Addison's Walk at Magdalen, were all dear to 
 her. 
 
 Evelyn would bring his friends to afternoon tea. 
 Douglas Cornish was always one of them ; the 
 two young men were inseparable, and one boy wag 
 had christened them Damon and Pythias. 'They 
 run in pair, don't you know. I give you my word, 
 Miss Wentworth, if I see Cornish mooning 
 down the High without your brother, I think 
 something must be wrong. They are such chums, 
 you see.' But, as the youth rattled on, Patience 
 only smiled, and there was a tired look in her 
 gentle eyes ; she scarcely heard anything of the 
 lively talk that circled round her little tea-table. 
 
 Now and then, when Evelyn and his friend 
 came to fetch them for a stroll through the 
 colleges or down by the river, she would find her- 
 self walking with Douglas Cornish. One after- 
 noon they had punted to Iffiey Lock, and were 
 sitting on the bank together for a rest, while 
 Evelyn and his aunt had strolled on farther. 
 
 Cornish had addressed some question to her ; 
 perhaps he had spoken in a lower tone than usual, 
 but for the first time she had failed to hear him, 
 and there was a distressed flush on her face as 
 she turned to him. 
 
 ' I beg your pardon. You must find me a very 
 stupid companion, but you know — Evelyn will 
 have told you — that I do not hear so well.'
 
 44 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 'Yes, Evelyn told me. Why don't you go to 
 Dunlop? They say he works miracles ; he is the 
 man of the day. If I were in your place, Miss 
 Wentworth, I should try him.' Cornish spoke a 
 little too loudly in his earnestness, and she winced 
 slightly. 
 
 'I am afraid it will be useless,' she returned in 
 her subdued voice. Alas, poor Patience, it was 
 growing more toneless year by year as the sweet 
 timbre died out of it. 'But I will go — yes, why 
 not? Certainly I will go.' 
 
 ' It will be wise of you, and I know your brother 
 wishes it,' was all Douglas Cornish said in answer; 
 but as she looked at him in her pathetic, anxious 
 way, not wishing to lose a word, there was a 
 sudden softening in his keen eyes, a gleam of 
 some strong sympathy that went straight to her 
 heart. 
 
 ' He is very kind and he is sorry for me,' she 
 said to herself, as he left her side and strolled off 
 to meet the others, who were now returning. ' I 
 never knew any one so kind before,' and it seemed 
 to her that day as though some stray sunbeam 
 had fallen across her path. 
 
 Do people ever realise the power of sympathy? 
 It is a lever that might move mountains ; the 
 comfort of that kind look and word made Patience 
 happier for weeks. 
 
 She was only one or two and thirty then, and
 
 AN OLD MAID'S STORY 45 
 
 Doucrlas Cornish was not much over four-and- 
 twenty ; but he was singularly mature for his age, 
 and Patience always treated him as though he 
 were her contemporary. Evelyn was still her 
 boy, to be mothered and petted and advised, but 
 she stood in awe of his friend. Evelyn would 
 laugh at her sometimes. ' Why, Patsie,' he would 
 say — his pet name for her — 'you talk of Cornish 
 as though he were a Don at least, and a dozen 
 years my senior, but he is only three years older.' 
 
 ' Ah, I always forget that,' she would say, with 
 her shy flush. ' He is so grave and clever, Evvy, 
 that one cannot remember that he is only a young 
 man,' and then Evelyn would throw back his 
 head and laugh again in his boyish fashion at old 
 Patsie's droll speech. 
 
 If Patience had had more knowledge of the 
 world, she might have become sooner aware of 
 her own danger ; but she had no mother to warn 
 her, and in that strangely silent world of hers she 
 seemed to move apart ; the ordinary pleasures of 
 young womanhood had never been hers : ball- 
 rooms were unknown to her, and concerts and 
 musical parties could give her little satisfaction. 
 
 ' It is no use, auntie,' she would say to Mrs. 
 Wentworth, during the years that lively widow 
 presided over her niece's household. ' I 'm not fit 
 for society, and I had far better stay at home,' 
 and after one or two attempts to make Patience
 
 46 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 change her mind, Mrs. Wentworth wisely let her 
 go her own way. 
 
 ' It is a grievous pity,' she would say sometimes 
 to Evelyn. ' Patience is really very good-looking, 
 and when she is dressed properly she is quite 
 pretty ; if that horrid deafness did not make her 
 so shy and nervous, I am sure people would 
 admire her. These up-to-date girls are terribly 
 fatiguing, and many a sensible man would prefer 
 a gentle, old-fashioned girl like Patience.' 
 
 'Aunt Hilda, you are a born match-maker,' 
 Evelyn would return, with his fresh boyish 
 laugh, ' but you may as well leave Patsie out 
 of your reckoning ; she never means to marry, I 
 can tell you that ; besides, I could not spare her.' 
 
 But Mrs. Wentworth only shook her head 
 incredulously. If Patience had ever realised 
 that her brother's friend was becoming too 
 powerful a factor in her life's happiness, she 
 would have been the first to cry shame on 
 herself ; it would have seemed a shameful and 
 inconceivable thing to her that she should yield 
 her heart to a man who had never shown her any 
 preference, and yet such love in its crystalline 
 purity would have been a crown to any man. It 
 was friendship, she would say, tying the flimsy 
 bandage over her innocent eyes ; but later on she 
 knew, and the knowledge was to her the bitterest 
 humiliation.
 
 AN OLD MAID'S STORY 47 
 
 It was not for two or three years after that 
 Oxford visit that the full awakening came. 
 
 A friend of Mrs. Wentworth had lent her his 
 house at St. Servan, that charming little suburb of 
 St. Malo, for two months ; and she had induced 
 Patience and her brother to spend part of the long 
 vacation there with her. 
 
 Douglas Cornish, who had joined a reading 
 party at Ambleside, came to them later on. 
 
 One morning they were all sitting among the 
 rocks, watching the bathers in their gay dresses 
 splashing and frolicking in the water ; the young 
 men had their London papers, Mrs. Wentworth 
 was busy with a magazine ; but Patience's work 
 lay idle in her lap, and she watched the scene 
 with engrossing interest. 
 
 A fresh wind was rippling the bay and creasing 
 it into tiny waves ; the deep blue of the water 
 contrasted with the heaps of amber seaweed that 
 lay piled in heaps ; the rocks cast strange violet 
 shadows over the sand ; Dinard lay across the 
 bay in the sunshine, and the distant pealing of bells 
 came from some grey old churches in the distance. 
 
 Some children were paddling in the sea ; their 
 bare brown legs seemed to twinkle as they danced 
 in and out of the water ; half a dozen boys in 
 blue blouses, carrying streamers of wet brown 
 seaweed over their shoulders, were marching and 
 stumping along in military fashion.
 
 48 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 Their captain marched proudly beside them. 
 ' Pierre, thou art stooping like an old wood-cutter. 
 Hold thyself erect and regard me, thy com- 
 mander.' He flapped his brown pennon bravely 
 as he spoke, and the little regiment stumped on, 
 past the gay striped circles of bathers, popping 
 up and down like gigantic corks, and holding 
 each other's hands tightly. When the blue-coated 
 battalion had passed, the children began frisking 
 again ; then Mrs. Wentworth remembered that 
 she had notes to write before the dejeuner, and 
 that she must go back to the chalet. 
 
 Patience gave a little nod and coloured slightly 
 when her aunt, who was fond of gesticulation, 
 traced imaginary characters in the air. The good 
 lady was rather given to this dumb-show ; she 
 said it saved her trouble, but how Patience hated 
 it ! She hoped secretly that Mr. Cornish had not 
 noticed the little by-play, for she was always 
 more sensitive when he was near, and there was a 
 shadow on her brow as she gave her attention 
 again to the bathers — a little of the sunshine had 
 faded out of the landscape. 
 
 Evelyn was the next to put down his paper. 
 A tall girl in a blue serge boating-dress and 
 a sailor-hat was coming down the steep cliff 
 path, followed by an elderly man with a grey 
 moustache. 
 
 Evelyn tossed away his Standard, and there
 
 AN OLD MAID'S STORY 49 
 
 was a quick glance of recognition in his eyes ; 
 then he leisurely dusted the sand from his coat 
 and sauntered slowly across the beach. 
 
 Douglas Cornish, who noticed everything, 
 raised his eyes with an amused smile to Patience. 
 
 ' Colonel Brett and his daughter are going for a 
 sail,' he said. ' I expect they will ask Wentworth 
 to go with them,' and Patience, who had lost no 
 syllable of the young man's clear and carefully 
 modulated speech, bent her head in assent. 
 
 ' She is very beautiful,' she said, half to herself 
 'and one cannot wonder at it; but he is young — 
 oh, far too young.' 
 
 ' Age does not count in such matters,' and 
 Cornish laughed ; ' and it is not lad's love at three- 
 or four-and-twenty. I believe Miss Brett is not 
 really older, but she is just a trifle mature for 
 Wentworth ; she dominates him a bit, don't you 
 know ? ' 
 
 4 Yes, I see what you mean,' but not even with 
 this dearest friend would Patience discuss her 
 brother's love-affair; in her simple old-world 
 creed such topics were not to be talked over 
 with any man. She coloured, fidgeted a little, 
 and then said, almost abruptly — 
 
 ' Mr. Cornish, there is something I want to tell 
 you about myself- — Evelyn does not know yet. 
 Do you remember some summers ago begging 
 me to go to Dunlop? Of course I took your 
 
 D
 
 50 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 advice, and Aunt Hilda went with me, but he 
 could work no miracle in my case, and — and — I 
 have been to others. I have even consulted that 
 famous German aurist.' 
 
 ' Well,' he said, looking at her through his 
 puckered eyelids, 'and could none of them do 
 you good ? ' 
 
 ' No,' she said, folding her hands quietly on her 
 lap. She had beautiful hands, and they were soft 
 and dimpled as a child's. ' There is nothing to 
 be done ; it is partly nerves, but there is other 
 mischief; if I live long, I must be wholly deaf.' 
 She had wrought herself up to say this to him, 
 and yet she could give herself no reason for the 
 confidence; for once she had acted on impulse, 
 but Douglas Cornish did not disappoint her ; he 
 took it all as she meant it. 
 
 'This is grievous news,' he said gently. 
 ' Evelyn will feel it much ; he is so fond of 
 you, Miss Wentworth. Few brothers are more 
 devoted to a sister, but then you have been a 
 mother to him. Should you like me to tell him ? 
 I think he ought to know, and then he will 
 leave off bothering you about remedies.' 
 
 ' It will be very kind of you,' she said gratefully, 
 and then there came that blue flash into his eyes 
 that she had once seen before. 
 
 'Who could help being kind to you, Miss 
 Patience?' he burst out. 'Upon my word, you
 
 AN OLD MAID'S STORY 51 
 
 are the best and the bravest woman I know, and 
 Evelyn thinks the same.' It was not a lover-like 
 speech ; the vainest and most conscious of women 
 would not have interpreted it in that sense ; 
 nevertheless Patience Wentworth's pulses tingled 
 and throbbed with pure delight. 
 
 '"Who could help being kind to you?'" she 
 repeated to herself, as she sat at her open window 
 that evening. ' " You are the best and the bravest 
 woman I know."' Those words would ever be 
 engraven on her heart, but that night, alas, the 
 flimsy bandage was removed for ever from her 
 eyes. This was Patience Wentworth's solitary 
 romance, her one secret, but no one, not even her 
 brother, ever guessed it, and Douglas Cornish 
 least of all. Cornish was very much attached to 
 his friend's sister ; he had never had a sister of 
 his own, and Patience Wentworth seemed to 
 fill the place of one. When they were alone, he 
 would tell her things about himself, not every- 
 thing, perhaps, for his nature was singularly 
 reticent, but little everyday matters about his 
 rooms, or his scout, or his pupils, and dearly she 
 prized these confidences. 
 
 But he never marvelled why she always seemed 
 to hear him better than other people, though 
 Evelyn once called his attention to it. 
 
 ' How do you manage it, Cornish ? I wish you 
 would teach me the trick. You never speak
 
 52 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 louder than the rest of us, and yet Patience seems 
 to hear you.' Evelyn spoke in perfect good 
 faith ; his sister's increasing deafness was a great 
 trouble to him, and he wondered how she could 
 take it so quietly. 
 
 Patience kept her own counsel ; she was too 
 unselfish to harrow up people's feelings. It was 
 her cross, her burden, to be carried and borne 
 all the days of her life. If she had chosen, she 
 could have been eloquent enough ; she could have 
 described to them a strange world that seemed to 
 be peopled with ghosts. Faces seemed to rise out 
 of the silence, hands waved to her, and a sound- 
 less wind seemed to blow from the four corners 
 of the earth ; the daughters of music were brought 
 low, and on summer mornings the thrush sang 
 delicious roulades of full-throated music in vain 
 under her window. 
 
 ' I am so looking forward to the music in 
 heaven,' she said one Sunday evening, but when 
 she saw the tears rise to Evelyn's eyes as he 
 suddenly and acutely realised her deafness, she 
 repented of her speech. 
 
 Patience's pitiful little confidence had touched 
 Douglas Cornish, and he thought much of her 
 that night. 'There is something heroic about 
 women,' he said to himself; 'they will bear 
 patiently and uncomplainingly a burden that 
 would stagger a strong man. I suppose they
 
 AN OLD MAID'S STORY 53 
 
 are more unselfish. Miss Wentworth is — she 
 simply has no self.' 
 
 He had intended speaking to his friend that 
 night, but Evelyn came back from his sail in 
 Colonel Brett's yacht looking thoroughly de- 
 pressed and out of sorts. 
 
 They found out later on that he had heard that 
 day that the Colonel was returning to India very 
 shortly with his wife and daughter ; perhaps the 
 Colonel and his wife had grown a little afraid of 
 their daughter's intimacy with young Went- 
 worth, but from that day Evelyn found himself 
 received rather coolly ; even Marion Brett was a 
 little distant and stand-offish in her manner. 
 
 Evelyn used to bore his friend with a recital of 
 his sufferings ; he would have been thankful for 
 his sister's sympathy, but how was one to shout 
 out a love-story? 'What do they mean by it, 
 Cornish ? ' he would ask fiercely. ' The Colonel 
 was civil enough at first, and so was Lady Doreen, 
 and now they are as stiff as though I had run 
 suddenly counter to all their prejudices. Colonel 
 Brett knows all about me ; he knows that my 
 father, God bless him, was a gentleman, and that 
 I have money of my own. Colonel Brett is not a 
 nabob ; confound it all, what does it mean, blow- 
 ing first hot and then cold in this fashion ? ' and 
 then Evelyn would pace the room angrily. 
 
 ' I suppose they want Miss Brett to marry Lord
 
 54 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 Camperdown,' returned his friend slowly ; ' any 
 one can see that he is hard hit. My dear fellow, 
 you have your advantages, no doubt, but the 
 question lies in a nutshell — can you compete 
 with a viscount and ten thousand a year?' 
 
 ' Confound you, Cornish,' returned Evelyn 
 furiously ; ' do you suppose a girl like Miss Brett 
 will have anything to say to that limp, red-haired 
 little fellow, if he had a million a year? do you 
 suppose a woman of her calibre is to be bought 
 at any price?' Then Cornish held his peace; 
 nevertheless, when the Bretts started for Calcutta, 
 a cabin in the same steamer was taken for Lord 
 Camperdown. 
 
 Evelyn Wentworth bore his disappointment as 
 well as he could ; perhaps at that time things had 
 not gone very deep with him, and in youth time 
 and absence work wonders, so he gained his 
 Fellowship and took orders, and was beginning to 
 make his mark on his generation. 
 
 It was nearly six years before Marion Brett 
 crossed his path again. She had come back to 
 England, leaving both her parents lying side by 
 side in their Indian graves. She still bore her 
 maiden name, although report said that no other 
 girl had ever had so many offers. As for Viscount 
 Camperdown, even before the end of the voyage 
 he had known his suit was useless. 
 
 1 1 have simply no vocation for matrimony,' she
 
 AN OLD MAID'S STORY 55 
 
 had said once, in her proud, careless way to one 
 of her rejected lovers. He was young and very 
 much in love, and perhaps his temper was not 
 quite under control. 
 
 ' You will have nothing to say to any of us, 
 Miss Brett/ he returned bitterly. ' You are a cut 
 above us, you see ; but perhaps if some immaculate 
 
 hero were to cross your way ' and here he 
 
 paused meaningly, but she only shook her head. 
 
 ' I am afraid he would bore me, unless he 
 talked about something sensible. It is no use, 
 Captain Lindsay,' treating him to one of her 
 brilliant smiles. ' We all have our vocation, and 
 I am called upon to work — ah, the need of 
 workers,' and then her eyes grew soft and dreamy, 
 for the cry of the children was in her ears, and 
 the sin and the sorrow of suffering humanity lay 
 heavy on her heart. 
 
 She had done noble work in India, and had 
 come to England full of schemes for the future ; 
 yet when she met Evelyn Wentworth again, she 
 recognised her fate, and for a time at least her 
 woman's sceptre fell from her hand. 
 
 The Fellow of Magdalen was certainly no 
 miraculous hero. He was simply a noble-hearted, 
 genuine man, with scholarly tastes and strong 
 sympathies ; nevertheless, he won Marion Brett's 
 affections, and before long they were engaged. 
 
 Then followed a few glorious, troubled months.
 
 56 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 Evelyn, who knew that his fiancee must have 
 scope for her untiring energies, was debating with 
 himself whether he should accept an important 
 living that had been offered him, a large and 
 somewhat neglected parish, near Liverpool. He 
 had actually so far sacrificed his own feelings and 
 tastes as to write an acceptance, in spite of his 
 friend Cornish's earnest remonstrances. 
 
 ' The work will not suit you, Wentworth,' he 
 had said at once in his uncompromising way ; 
 'the slums are not your vocation. If you accept 
 St. Chad's, you will make a grievous mistake ' ; 
 but though in his secret heart Evelyn agreed with 
 him, Marion Brett's influence was too strong ; the 
 letter was written, but before it was posted the 
 blow had fallen ; Marion had written to beg him 
 to set her free. 
 
 The letter she wrote was a strange one, an odd, 
 pathetic mingling of womanly tenderness with 
 unbalanced and crude reasoning, and a morbid 
 self-surrender to a one-sided and perverted sense 
 of duty. 
 
 ' I could never be happy if I turned traitor to 
 my work ; dear Evelyn, be good to me and 
 release me. All these months I have never been 
 at peace, but you were so strong, and you com- 
 pelled me against my will. Ah, you have taught 
 me that love means suffering, but if I married 
 you we should both be so miserable ; when the
 
 AN OLD MAID'S STORY 57 
 
 conscience is not at rest, the heart knows no 
 peace,' and so on, until the iron entered Evelyn 
 Wentworth's soul, and he consented to give her 
 up. 
 
 'You have never loved me, Marion, or you 
 would not be leaving me like this,' he said to 
 her, and his face was white with passion and pain, 
 but there was almost a look of anguish in her 
 beautiful eyes as she answered him — 
 
 ' You are wrong, Evelyn. Oh, if I could only 
 make you understand, but you have never under- 
 stood me, never ; and I have been much to 
 blame,' and then she stretched out her hand to 
 him as though in mute appeal for his forgiveness, 
 and its marble coldness seemed to chill him to 
 the heart. 
 
 Evelyn Wentworth suffered terribly ; the whole 
 plan and purpose of his life seemed spoiled ; but 
 after a time, when the pain of his loss grew more 
 bearable, he settled down to his work doggedly, 
 and a few years later he accepted the living of 
 Sandilands ; and Patience broke up her home 
 without a word, and took up her life at the 
 Vicarage. With all her sweet charity, there was 
 one woman in the world for whom she had simply 
 no toleration, and at whose name her gentle face 
 always grew stern and hard. 
 
 ' Don't speak to me of Marion Brett,' she would 
 say to Mr. Cornish, and her voice would tremble
 
 58 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 with indignation. ' I pray God that I may not 
 hate her, for it is wrong to hate any one, but she 
 broke Evelyn's heart, and — and — I cannot forgive 
 her,' and then she would draw herself up and go 
 out of the room. 
 
 ' It is like a red rag to her,' Cornish would 
 mutter, ' and I will not deny it was a sad business, 
 though as far as Wentworth is concerned, I am 
 not sure it was not a lucky escape. Miss Brett 
 would never have made a comfortable wife to any 
 man, and he has done some good work — some 
 excellent work in its way.'
 
 Ill 
 
 MISS PATIENCE GOES HOME 
 
 Mr. WENTWORTH had been Vicar of Sandilands 
 five years, when the second great trouble of his 
 life came to him. By that time the little Sister 
 had become very intimate at the Vicarage, and 
 had grown to love Miss Patience dearly ; little by 
 little the few pitiful details of a disappointed life 
 had been filtered with difficulty through the dim, 
 ineffective ears to the bright intelligence and 
 warm, womanly heart ; and it was wonderful how 
 soon she grasped the whole truth. 
 
 Some people will think it strange that I have 
 spoken of myself in the third person, but it has 
 seemed to me far better, when one is relating the 
 stories of one's friends, to stand outside oneself, 
 as it were, and to mingle with the crowd as 
 bystanders and loiterers are wont to do. 
 
 For even to the least egotistical of mortals it is 
 difficult to resist the temptation to group all 
 incidents and situations round the central Ego ; 
 and to stamp one's friends with the everlasting 
 
 69
 
 bo THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 impress of one's own personality ; as though they 
 were puppets in some show, that only move to 
 particular wires, and dance as their owner bids 
 them ; this danger, then, let me once and for ever 
 eschew by calling myself by the name given me 
 by the simple villagers, 'the little Sister/ or 'our 
 little Lady up at Fir Cottage' ; or to a few, just 
 Miss Merrick or Clare. 
 
 Those hours spent at the Vicarage were dearly 
 prized by the little Sister ; and she recalls 
 especially one winter's afternoon when she and 
 Miss Patience sat together, not talking much, but 
 enjoying that pleasant sense of fellowship that 
 even the silent presence of a congenial companion 
 sometimes affords ; and how she felt suddenly a 
 soft, warm hand on hers, and the low, monotonous 
 voice that she had grown to love broke the 
 stillness. 
 
 ' Clare, my dear, I have been thinking so much 
 of you and poor Bessie Martin, and — and of 
 others lately ; there are so many life-skeins in a 
 tangle, are there not ? and we are such sad 
 bunglers when we begin to unravel them ; but 
 there is a word of comfort for each one of us : 
 " What I do, thou knowest not now, but thou 
 shalt know hereafter.'" There was a slight 
 tremulous motion of Miss Patience's chin as she 
 said this. Then she repeated more steadily, 
 ' " but thou shalt know hereafter." Ah, we may
 
 MISS PATIENCE GOES HOME 61 
 
 well be patient, Clare, when we think of all our 
 good things heaped up and ready for us there.' 
 
 When Miss Patience's unsuspected malady 
 suddenly developed, and she grew daily more 
 ill and suffering, the little Sister left her rooms 
 at Fir Cottage, and took up her quarters at the 
 Vicarage, and it was her privilege to nurse her to 
 the end, 
 
 It was long, very long, before the Vicar realised 
 the hopelessness of the case; perhaps he closed 
 his eyes wilfully, and refused to recognise the 
 truth, and Dr. Barrett never attempted to un- 
 deceive him. ' There is no need to cross the 
 bridge until we come to it,' he would say, in his 
 tough, kindly way. 'The Vicar will find it out 
 for himself soon enough. Miss Wentworth will 
 not die just yet,' and Mr. Cornish fully indorsed 
 this opinion. Mr. Cornish was a constant visitor ; 
 sometimes the servants, especially Mrs. Catlin, 
 the cook, would grumble a little at the extra 
 trouble that his visits involved ; but Barry, who 
 was devoted to his master, always cut these com- 
 plaints short. 
 
 ' I don't see that the Professor makes so much 
 difference,' he would say, obstinately. ' What is 
 good enough for the master is surely good enough 
 for any gentleman, and it is only laying another 
 place and opening a fresh bottle of claret every 
 day. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mrs.
 
 62 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 Catlin, and you too, Phoebe, making troubles out 
 of nothing, when you know how the master loves 
 to have Mr. Cornish smoking his old meerschaum 
 in the chimney corner ; but there, this comes of 
 living with a pack of women,' and Barry would 
 march off to his pantry in a dudgeon, while Mrs. 
 Catlin, who was a good-hearted creature, would 
 add some favourite dainty to the menu in token 
 of her penitence. 
 
 Perhaps Mr. Cornish knew that his presence 
 was a comfort to the Vicar, or he would not have 
 left his beloved rooms at Oriel, and come down 
 sd constantly to Sandilands ; during the long 
 vacation he almost lived at the Vicarage. 
 
 Miss Patience's dim eyes used to brighten 
 when she heard he had come. ' He is so good,' 
 she whispered to herself ; ' he does it for Evelyn's 
 sake. May God reward him for his faithful 
 friendship ! ' 
 
 Now and then there would be a wistful look in 
 her eyes, and she would say a word or two that 
 showed where her thoughts had strayed. 
 
 'What time is it, Clare? Half-past eight? 
 Ah, they have finished dinner, and have gone 
 back to the study. They will be sitting in the 
 big bay watching for the moon to rise behind the 
 firs ; that is what Evelyn loves.' 
 
 Or again, ' I hope Mrs. Catlin remembers to 
 have fish every day. Barry has plenty of time to
 
 MISS PATIENCE GOES HOME 63 
 
 fetch it from the station ; or Crampton's cart 
 would bring it. She is a good manager, but the 
 best of servants need the mistress's supervision ; 
 would you give her a hint, dear? But there,' 
 with a patient sigh, ' I must learn to leave things. 
 I must not be too Martha-like now.' 
 
 One day Mr. Cornish sent up a message to 
 know if Miss Wentworth were well enough to see 
 him ; the Vicar had dropped a hint during 
 luncheon. He was a little uneasy about his 
 sister, and he wished Cornish would see her, and 
 give him his opinion ; perhaps it was only because 
 the heat had tried her, but he thought that she 
 looked more ill than usual. 
 
 Miss Patience was lying on her couch by the 
 open window in her white dressing-gown and 
 close cap. It was a bad day with her, and her 
 deafness seemed worse than ever. It was some 
 time before she could be made to understand the 
 message, and she got sadly flurried and nervous 
 before she grasped it, and then quite a girlish 
 flush came to her face. 
 
 ' Ah, yes, I can see him,' she said eagerly. ' I 
 am well enough for that. Will you go and tell 
 him so, Clare ? and — and— I think I should like 
 to see him alone.' 
 
 It was evident that Mr. Cornish was not pre- 
 pared for the sad change, for he started, and his 
 eyebrows contracted with sudden pain, as Miss
 
 64 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 Patience held out her hand to him with a smile. 
 The wan little face looked pinched and shrunken, 
 there were violet shadows under the soft eyes, 
 and the lips were dark and dry, as though with 
 inward fever. 
 
 1 It is kind of you to come,' she said, a little 
 breathlessly; 'but you are always kind, and I 
 have wanted so much to see you and to thank 
 you for all your goodness to Evelyn.' 
 
 ' Oh, I have done nothing, nothing at all,' and 
 then, as he sat down by her, the faint rose-leaf 
 flush came again to her cheek, hiding for a few 
 moments the waste and ravage of disease ; any 
 one who had guessed her secret would have in- 
 terpreted rightly that yearning tenderness in her 
 eyes, but Douglas Cornish held no such clue. 
 
 But he felt vaguely troubled and ill at case — 
 perhaps at that moment he realised how much he 
 should miss her ; for there is something very 
 precious and satisfying in an old friendship, and 
 sympathy from one who cares for us is just the 
 priceless spikenard that was once poured on a 
 Kingly Head, when a feeble woman's hand broke 
 that alabaster box for that sacred anointing ; and 
 in her simple, kindly way Miss Patience had 
 been very good to him — that was how he put it. 
 He said very few words to her, but she evidently 
 heard them ; he only made some observation on 
 the lovely clusters of roses that were peeping in
 
 MISS PATIENCE GOES HOME 65 
 
 at the open window, but she understood him at 
 once. 
 
 ' Yes, are they not lovely ? ' she said, with a 
 sweet smile. ' I tell Clare Merrick that I will not 
 have them touched ; they are a message from 
 " the garden that I love," and in the night, when 
 I cannot see them, their fragrance is with me.' 
 
 ' You do not sleep well, then ? ' he asked, 
 narrowing his eyes as he spoke, but she shook 
 her head sadly at the question. 
 
 ' I do nothing well now,' she said, in her weak 
 voice, ' but I shall be better by and by. Mr. 
 Cornish, there is a great favour that I want to 
 ask you,' and then she stopped and looked at 
 him wistfully. 
 
 ' Dear Miss Wentworth,' he said gently, ' we 
 are such old friends, you and I, that surely you 
 need not hesitate a moment.' 
 
 'Oh, but you do not know what it is that I am 
 going to ask, but you are so kind, and I know 
 you will not refuse. Something tells me that it 
 will not be long now — please do not look sorry 
 because I say that, for when one suffers, the only 
 longing is for rest ; but it troubles me that Evelyn 
 does not see, that he will not open his eyes to 
 understand.' 
 
 'Do you wish me to tell him?' he asked 
 abruptly, but again she shook her head. 
 
 'No, let him be ; he will find it out some day, 
 
 E
 
 66 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 and then — ah, I know — he will be so terribly 
 unhappy. All his life I have mothered him, and 
 there is no one — no one — to take my place. 
 Dear friend,' and here the thin hand touched his 
 coat-sleeve pleadingly, ' will you stay with him 
 until it is over? You can help him as no one 
 else can, and I shall be happier to know you are 
 beside him ; it will be helping me too.' 
 
 'You need not fear, I will not leave him,' this 
 was all his answer, but the keen eyes softened in 
 the way Miss Patience loved. 
 
 'Thank you,' she said, with a little sob, and 
 that was all that passed between them ; but she 
 grew rather faint and weary after that, and Mr. 
 Cornish in alarm summoned the little Sister, and 
 then went out into the fir wood, to avoid answer- 
 ing the Vicar's questions. 
 
 Strange to say, the very next day Miss Patience 
 had another visitor. It was a close, sultry after- 
 noon, and even the roses drooped their sweet 
 heads in the fierce July sunshine, and there was 
 hardly a leaf moving ; the birds were all hushed 
 to silence, and only the white butterflies skimmed 
 blithely through the hot air. Miss Patience, who 
 suffered terribly from the heat, was propped up 
 high on her pillows that she might rest her weary 
 eyes with the dark shadows of the fir woods. ' If 
 I could only be carried into the woods,' she 
 had said more than once, 'and smell the spicy
 
 MISS PATIENCE GOES HOME 67 
 
 fragrance of the firs, I think I should feel better,' 
 but of course she knew that it was impossible ; 
 the longest journey that she could ever take in 
 this world was just those few steps from the bed 
 to the couch. 
 
 She had only just uttered this little speech 
 when a note was brought to her — a few pencilled 
 words traced hurriedly on a slip of paper ; but as 
 she read them the small face grew set and stern, 
 and she trembled all over. ' How dare she enter 
 this house/ she said angrily; and then she checked 
 herself. ' No, I was wrong ; if we do not forgive, 
 how are we to expect to be forgiven ? ' and then 
 she read the words again. ' Dear Patience, for 
 the sake of our old friendship, do not refuse to 
 see me. I have come all this way to bid you 
 God-speed. — Your loving Marion.' That was all. 
 
 The silence in the sick-room grew more op- 
 pressive every minute ; only the humming of a 
 large brown bee broke the silence, but Miss 
 Patience still lay with one hand covering her 
 eyes, and her lips moving as though she were in 
 some dire strait of perplexity and doubt ; then 
 she said in an agitated voice, ' It is a sad trouble 
 to me, but I do not see how I am to refuse. 
 Clare, will you go down to Miss Brett and tell her 
 that I will see her for a few minutes, but she 
 must not stay long ; but you will know what to 
 say to her ; you are always so kind and wise,' and
 
 68 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 then the little Sister went down to interview the 
 stranger. 
 
 A tall, stately-looking woman in a long grey 
 cloak was standing by the window. At the sound 
 of the opening door she turned her head, and then 
 the little Sister felt a sudden shock of surprise. 
 In all her life she had never seen such a beautiful 
 face. For a long time after the interview was 
 over she puzzled herself to think where she had 
 seen it before, and then she remembered the 
 Parian marble bust of Clytie in the Vicar's study, 
 and it seemed to her then that Marion Brett 
 might have been the model. It was not a young 
 face by any means — Miss Brett must have been 
 forty at least — but the profile was perfect ; the 
 grave, dark eyes, a little sunken, were full of fire 
 and sweetness, and under the close bonnet the 
 glorious auburn hair rippled in perpetual sun- 
 shine. 
 
 1 You are the nurse,' she said quickly — she had 
 a deep, musical voice. 'You have come to tell 
 me, I hope, that Miss Wentworth will see me.' 
 
 'Yes, she will see you,' returned the little Sister 
 in a hesitating voice ; ' but will you permit me to 
 give you a hint first ? I am only the friend who 
 is nursing her ; but I love her dearly, and I under- 
 stand her so well. She is very ill ; when you see 
 her, you will find that out for yourself; her nights 
 are terrible, and she suffers much at times, so she
 
 MISS PATIENCE GOES HOME 69 
 
 can bear very little. Mr. Cornish saw her yester- 
 day for the first time, but it was too much for her, 
 and she was very faint.' 
 
 1 1 will be careful,' in a low voice. ' I know a 
 good deal about illness. I have nursed in a 
 hospital, and there are always sick people round 
 us. Miss Patience was never strong, and that 
 fever undermined her constitution ; and yes, I 
 know,' and her eyes grew pitiful as the little 
 Sister looked at her, 'her mother died of it, and 
 she was so young — so young ; and now will you 
 let me go to her, for my time is not my own ? ' 
 And then without a word the little Sister led her 
 to the door. 
 
 Miss Patience was still lying high on her 
 pillows, but there was a strained, anxious look in 
 her eyes, and two feverish spots had come to her 
 wan cheeks. 
 
 ' Marion, why have you come ? ' she said re- 
 proachfully, as Miss Brett knelt down by her 
 couch ; and as she took the weak little figure in 
 her arms, the grey cloak seemed to envelop her 
 like spreading wings, and the beautiful face had 
 the tender smile of a benignant angel. ' It is not 
 right that you should enter this house ; surely you 
 must feel that.' 
 
 1 There is no house in all the world that I 
 should fear to enter, if one whom I loved were on 
 a sick-bed,' and Marion Brett's voice was clear
 
 70 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 and unfaltering. ' Patience, dear Patience, do 
 you not know me by this time? If my friend 
 needed me, I would go into Hades itself. Is 
 there anything that I have ever found too hard 
 to do, if it were in my power to bring comfort ? ' 
 Then Miss Patience shook her head sadly. 
 
 'There is no comfort you can bring to this 
 house. Marion, you mean it kindly, you have a 
 warm heart, and you do not forget, and — and you 
 are sorry for me ; but the hand that has inflicted 
 the wound cannot heal it, and the day you 
 destroyed my brother's happiness I prayed that 
 I might never see your face again.' 
 
 ' Ah, if you speak to me like that I must indeed 
 go ; but you do not mean it : we cannot part like 
 this. Is it not pain enough for me to see you 
 lying there a mere wreck of your old sweet self, 
 that you must add to my sorrow by these bitter 
 words? Patience, you are a good woman; why 
 can you not understand that one must act up to 
 one's sense of right? If I have caused suffering, 
 have I not suffered myself? Has my life been so 
 easy and happy all these years ? Ah, God knows, 
 for only He who made women's hearts knows 
 how much they can bear.' 
 
 The deep, passionate voice so close to her made 
 itself partially heard; then Marion Brett suddenly 
 broke down, and her tears wetted the weak hands 
 that lay so limply folded together.
 
 MISS PATIENCE GOES HOME 71 
 
 ' Dear Patience/ she sobbed, ' say something 
 kind to me — do not leave this world bearing a 
 grudge against me. Oh, if we could only change 
 places — if I could lie there in your stead — how 
 gladly I would yield my life to give you back 
 to him ! ' Then a wan smile came to the sick 
 woman's face. 
 
 'You speak as though you meant it, and I 
 thank you ; but it would be cruel kindness. I 
 have never wished for a long life ; when one's 
 path is silent and solitary — but no, I will not 
 complain. I have had my blessings too. Marion, 
 there shall be peace between us. Forgive me if 
 I spoke too bitterly ; but when one has to see day 
 by day the waste and barrenness of a life that 
 might have been so beautiful, it seems to harden 
 one's heart ; but I know, of course I know, that 
 you were not wantonly cruel.' 
 
 1 Thank Heaven that at least you can do me 
 that justice ; but, Patience, for the sake of the 
 dear old past, answer me one question — how is 
 he?' 
 
 ' He is well, but he is very lonely ; when I am 
 gone there will be no one to comfort him. Evelyn 
 takes nothing lightly; his nature is intense, and 
 he never forgets.' 
 
 Marion Brett's head sank for a moment on her 
 hands ; when she raised it, there was a strange, 
 troubled look in her eyes.
 
 72 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 'Yes, he was always intense, and I see he has 
 not changed ; but if one's prayers were only an- 
 swered — but one must walk by faith, and life will 
 not last for ever. Dear Patience, I must go now. 
 I live in a busy world, and if it were not for my 
 work, I could find it in my heart to envy you ; for 
 you are going to a place where there are no mis- 
 takes, and no need for self-sacrifice ; but I am 
 strong, so strong, and my rest will not come yet. 
 Dear — dearest Patience, goodbye, and God bless 
 you ; the bitterness has died out of your heart, I 
 can see that, and poor Marion is forgiven. May 
 I kiss you again, dear ?' and then for a few seconds 
 the two women clung together, and this time the 
 tears were in Miss Patience's eyes. 
 
 ' I was too hard, too hard,' she whispered ; ' we 
 have no right to judge each other. Now go, and 
 God bless you too ; ' and then, with her head still 
 bent, Marion Brett passed out of the door, just as 
 the Vicar crossed the hall on his way to the study. 
 No one had told him of the visitor, and at the 
 sound of the light tread he looked up ; and then, 
 as the footsteps paused, it seemed to his dazzled 
 eyes as though he were gazing at some wondrous 
 vision. There was a stained-glass window at the 
 head of the staircase, which added greatly to its 
 beauty, and there, with a halo of purple and 
 crimson glory behind it, stood a motionless grey 
 figure, with floating draperies. The thin cloak
 
 MISS PATIENCE GOES HOME 73 
 
 was flung aside, and fell "n soft folds from the 
 shoulders, and the close bonnet was pushed 
 back, only showing the veil and the waves of 
 auburn hair, while the perfect face for which 
 he had hungered and thirsted all these years 
 was looking down at him with a solemn smile 
 of recognition. 
 
 No wonder the Vicar shaded his eyes as though 
 he were suddenly dizzy, for the dream that had 
 haunted his waking and sleeping hours, stood 
 embodied under the oriel window, with strange 
 colours staining its grey raiment — a grand woman 
 — angel — and the glory and the torment of Evelyn 
 Wentworth's life. 
 
 Most women would have found it a trying ordeal, 
 to be confronted suddenly and unexpectedly with 
 the man they had jilted ; but Marion Brett had a 
 strange complex nature ; with all her faults, her 
 grievous mistakes, there was nothing small about 
 her ; she took things simply, and without self- 
 consciousness. For the moment she was startled ; 
 then the remembrance of the sick-room she had 
 just left seemed to blot out all other thoughts, 
 and she came swiftly down the stairs until she 
 was beside him. 
 
 'Oh,' she said, a little breathlessly, 'she is very 
 ill, and it breaks my heart to see her so changed 
 and weak ; and there is nothing to be done — 
 nothing.' And now the tears were rolling down
 
 74 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 her face again, for the sight of physical pain 
 always unnerved her ; and she who never knew 
 an ache, would quiver with sympathy from head 
 to foot if she witnessed any phase of acute 
 suffering. 
 
 There was a strange glow in the Vicar's eyes, 
 but all he said was : ' Will you come in here, and 
 tell me what you think of her?' And then side 
 by side they crossed the threshold of the study ; 
 but when he offered her a seat she shook her 
 head, and for the first time a flush of conscious- 
 ness came to her face. She was in the house of 
 the man she had refused to marry, and they were 
 alone ! 
 
 'Will you tell me,' he said quietly, and still 
 watching her, 'why you say there is nothing to 
 be done ? Barret is clever and understands her 
 constitution, but we can have another opinion. 
 Dr. Fremantle was here a month ago, but we 
 could have Peacock or Whistler.' Then she 
 looked at him in surprise. 
 
 ' Why should you go to that expense ?' she 
 said quickly. « Dr. Peacock could do nothing 
 more than Dr. Barret is doing ; the disease is too 
 much advanced for any possibility of cure. They 
 will just keep her under powerful narcotics.' Then, 
 as she saw how pale he grew : ' Surely they have 
 told you — the doctor, or Mr. Cornish, or the little 
 nurse that I saw just now.'
 
 MISS PATIENCE GOES HOME 75 
 
 ' You mean Miss Merrick ? Ah, she has been 
 our good angel ; but, Marion, for Heaven's sake 
 speak plainly to me. They have told me nothing. 
 Patience is very ill, and suffers much ; that is all 
 they say.' 
 
 ' And they have left it for me — me of all people 
 — to tell you,' and there was a scared expression 
 on Marion Brett's face. ' Evelyn, it was cruel of 
 them — cruel to you and to me. Dear Patience 
 will not be here long ; she is going home. Those 
 who love her must not be too sorry, for life to her 
 would only mean prolonged suffering.' 
 
 ' Good God !' was all his answer, but as he sank 
 into a chair and covered his face with his hands, 
 as though stricken to the heart, the woman who 
 stood beside him would have given a year of her 
 life for the power to say one word of comfort to 
 him that would not be mockery or mere conven- 
 tionality from her lips. But Patience's sad speech 
 lingered in her memory and kept her dumb : 
 1 There is no comfort that you can bring to this 
 house. The hand that has inflicted the wound 
 cannot heal it.' Alas, alas ! it was the truth. 
 
 But the silence was horrible to her, and the 
 buzzing of a honey-laden bee round the flower 
 vases seemed to jar on her. Outside, roses and 
 sunshine and the cool shadow of the woods ; and 
 within, the veiled angel of death, and a sweet life 
 wearing itself painfully away ; and beside her, a
 
 76 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 lonely man who wanted comfort. Then a dry sob 
 seemed to rise in her throat. 
 
 ' Evelyn, try to bear it. Life will be over soon ; 
 
 and though she is your dearest ' But to her 
 
 terror he interrupted her almost roughly — 
 
 ' She is not my dearest, nor ever will be ; you 
 know that, Marion. But she is the truest and best 
 of sisters, and it will be a sad day for me when I 
 lose her. What, are you going?' for she was 
 straightening the folds of her cloak with trembling 
 fingers, and her eyes were wide and troubled. 
 ' Do you mean that you refuse to break bread in 
 my house?' 
 
 ' I refuse nothing. Oh, Evelyn, do not say such 
 things ; but I have promised to be at the inn at 
 Brentwood in twenty minutes' time, and the fly is 
 waiting. Indeed I must not stay another minute,' 
 and then she held out her hand to him. 
 
 ' I am sorry,' she faltered ; ' how sorry even you 
 do not know ; but I shall pray for you and dear 
 Patience every hour of the day.' But he made no 
 answer to this. When a man desires to marry the 
 woman that he loves, it gives him small comfort 
 to know that she prays for him. If Marion had 
 prayed less and loved more, he would not be left 
 a lonely man, without wife and child, with only 
 books and friendship to comfort him. 
 
 And so the strange, unsatisfactory interview 
 ended, and the Vicar, standing bareheaded in the
 
 MISS PATIENCE GOES HOME 77 
 
 sunny road, watched with shaded eyes until the 
 white horse and the shabby fly passed out of 
 sight. 
 
 Once, moved by some sudden impulse, Marion 
 turned round and saw him, and waved her hand 
 with kind, sad greeting, but he took no notice ; 
 only as he crossed the threshold again he shivered 
 slightly, as though some solemn presence made 
 itself felt ; then he went up to his sister's room, 
 and no one but he and Patience knew what passed 
 between them. 
 
 It may be that the excitement of these two 
 interviews were too much for Miss Patience in 
 her feeble condition, or perhaps it was only the 
 rapid progress of her insidious disease, but cer- 
 tainly from that time she began to fail, and in a 
 few days she was unable to leave her bed. 
 
 The strong sedatives that were necessary to 
 alleviate her pain made her confused and drowsy ; 
 no voice seemed to reach her, and she often 
 wandered ; but now and then, especially towards 
 evening, or when some stimulant had been given 
 her, she would rouse for a little while from her 
 stupor. 
 
 One lovely August evening she was lying 
 propped up on her pillows, that she might look 
 out at the pink glow of the sunset. The Vicar 
 was sitting beside her as usual, holding her hand, 
 when he suddenly heard the weak, toneless voice
 
 78 THE IDYLLS OF A VICARAGE 
 
 speaking to him. ' Evelyn, do you remember 
 that anthem at Westminster Abbey? Marion 
 was with us, and — and Douglas Cornish' — how 
 the faint tones lingered over the last name ! — ' it 
 was glorious, glorious, as though a choir of angels 
 were singing it. All day long, at waking intervals, 
 I have been hearing it again : " O trust in the 
 Lord, wait patiently for Him, and He shall give 
 thee thy heart's desire " — wait patiently,' and here 
 her voice seem to die away. But more than once 
 that night the watchers by her bed heard her 
 murmuring broken fragments of the same words, 
 and piecing them together with some wandering 
 thought. 
 
 'Thy heart's desire — yours and mine, Evelyn — 
 and all in His own good time.' And again : 
 'Wait patiently — for Him — ah, I have failed ; but 
 it was so hard, and so lonely, and the silence at 
 first seemed so crushing ; and yet — was any cross 
 too hard for Him to bear ? ' And later, when they 
 hoped she was sleeping, and Mr. Cornish was try- 
 ing to persuade the Vicar to take a little rest, the 
 weak voice broke out once again, ' Wait patiently 
 for Him, and He shall give thee thy heart's desire ; 
 dear, dear Evelyn, thy heart's desire ! ' 
 
 But it was not that night that the merciful angel 
 took her home ; there v/as another day of rest- 
 lessness and suffering, but towards evening those 
 who loved her most gathered round her bed.
 
 MISS PATIENCE GOES HOME 79 
 
 The Vicar was supporting her, and on the other 
 side Mr. Cornish was kneeling. Some tender look 
 in the dying eyes had seemed to welcome him 
 and keep him there. 
 
 The feeble life was panting itself away, when 
 there was a sudden gleam on the sunken face. 
 ' Evelyn, He said it, and I heard, Ephphatha, be 
 opened,' and then the sweet eyes closed ; and as 
 Douglas Cornish instinctively laid his strong, 
 warm hand over the little hands that were growing 
 chill with death, Patience Wentworth crossed the 
 threshold between the two she most loved, and 
 then the door of the Infinite closed upon her. 
 
 Those were the words engraved on her tomb ; 
 a marble cross, with a dove perching on one of 
 the arms, stands just by the gate that leads from 
 the churchyard into the fir wood : 
 
 Patience Wentworth, 
 Aged 55. 
 
 'And He said unto her, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened.'
 
 ill 
 
 THE TWO MOTHERS
 
 THE MISTRESS OF KINGSDENE 
 
 If utter and complete dissatisfaction with one's 
 environment constitutes unhappiness, Mrs. Comp- 
 ton of Kingsdene might be considered an unhappy 
 woman. 
 
 All her life she had strained after certain ideals, 
 and had failed to realise them ; and the fruits of 
 mediocrity that she had garnered in her life- 
 harvest, and which would have been riches and 
 joy to a less aspiring and ambitious nature ; were 
 as the apples of Sodom to her fastidious taste — 
 mere dust and bitterness. 
 
 Isabel Compton never owned, even in her 
 secret heart, that her lines had fallen in pleasant 
 places. The metaphorical green pastures and 
 still waters of a peaceful country life were arid 
 desert and monotonous dulness to a woman who 
 loved, above everything, the roar of traffic in 
 Piccadilly and the jostling of a well-dressed 
 crowd on its pavements. Any day she would 
 have exchanged gladly the melodious warbling 
 
 83
 
 84 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 of thrushes and blackbirds in her own copses for 
 the twittering of grimy town sparrows under the 
 eaves, and even for the untuneful cry of the street 
 vendor and gutter merchant ; for like the gentle 
 and witty writer of Etia's Essays, she delighted 
 in the din of a great city. 
 
 Nature had intended Mrs. Compton for a life 
 of action and responsibility ; the wife of a lead- 
 ing politician would have suited her exactly ; she 
 had a clear head, and a power of grasping any 
 subject that interested her that was almost 
 masculine in its breadth and directness ; but her 
 talents had never been utilised. If her husband 
 had died bankrupt for example — instead of leav- 
 ing her a well-dowered widow with an only child 
 — she would have set her shoulder to the wheel, 
 and worked for her boy, and the name of Isabel 
 Compton would have been mentioned with respect 
 in the city. But Richard Compton had been a 
 safe man all his life, and on his deathbed he 
 smiled more than once at the thought that his 
 wife would never miss one of her accustomed 
 comforts; nevertheless, almost the last words he 
 said to her were full of a long hidden and care- 
 fully repressed sadness — 
 
 ' Isabel, my dear, you have been a good wife to 
 me, and I have loved you dearly, but I ought 
 never to have married you ; you would have been 
 happier with another man ' ; and though she had
 
 THE MISTRESS OF KINGSDENE 85 
 
 contradicted this passionately and with bitter 
 tears, in her secret soul she knew that Richard 
 had spoken gospel truth. 
 
 Strangers always wondered where Mrs. Comp- 
 ton had got her dark beauty, but there was 
 Spanish blood in her veins. Her mother had 
 belonged to an old Andalusian family, and her 
 father had been a Highlander. 
 
 When Richard Compton first met Isabel 
 Macdonald at a fancy ball at his father's house, 
 he fell desperately in love with her. She wore 
 the fete dress of an Andalusian peasant, and the 
 crimson roses in her laced bodice, and in her 
 glossy black hair, were scarcely more vivid than 
 the brilliant colour in her cheeks. Excitement, 
 and perhaps the consciousness of her own be- 
 witching beauty, had added to the lustre in her 
 eyes, and many were the envious glances that 
 followed Richard Compton as he carried off the 
 acknowledged belle of the room for another and 
 another dance. Richard Compton had plenty of 
 English pluck, and the proverbial tenacity of the 
 British bull-dog ; when he wanted a thing very 
 badly he generally got it, and if genius consists 
 in 'the capacity for taking infinite pains,' it must 
 be acknowledged that he possessed some sort of 
 genius. His courtship was as impetuous as the 
 charge at Balaclava, and before she had quite 
 made up her mind that she did not dislike him,
 
 86 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 Isabel Macdonald found that she had promised 
 to marry him ; but perhaps those days of their 
 engagement were the happiest in her life. 
 
 Richard Compton was well born and well 
 connected, although he was only a Colonial 
 broker in Mincing Lane ; and he was handsome 
 and athletic, and had good health and an easy 
 temper ; most people who knew him well thought 
 him intelligent and lovable, and he transmitted 
 these virtues to his boy. He had plenty of 
 business capacity, and liked 'the shop,' as he 
 called it, and it galled him excessively to know 
 that his wife despised it. Isabel's chief grievance 
 was that Richard had no ambition, that he did 
 not care to stir out of his groove when he grew 
 rich, and began rolling the golden ball, making 
 ' his pile,' as the Yankees say. He had no desire 
 to shunt business and lead the life of a man 
 of fashion, on the contrary, his one yearning was 
 for a country existence and a model farm. This 
 was the rock on which their matrimonial ship 
 foundered. 
 
 They were a strangely ill-assorted couple. 
 Richard Compton loved his beautiful wife, with 
 the still, deep affection of a strong nature ; he 
 would have brought down the stars from heaven 
 if she had desired them, but he could not alter his 
 nature. When a husband and wife love each 
 other tenderly, and yet do not agree on anj
 
 THE MISTRESS OF KINGSDENE 87 
 
 single point, there must be some degree of friction 
 between them. 
 
 Richard's father and his grandfather had been 
 potentates in Mincing Lane; the old grey- 
 haired clerks had known him from his boyhood, 
 and still spoke of him familiarly as our Mr. 
 Richard. His father had built Kingsdene, and 
 had spent the latter part of his life very happily 
 in beautifying it, and laying out the grounds ; but 
 it was Richard himself who added the farm and 
 the long range of cattle-sheds on the Brentwood 
 Road. 
 
 Kingsdene, and the Dene farm gradually ab- 
 sorbed all his interest, and he withdrew more and 
 more from business. The managing clerk, Mr. 
 Poynter, was as safe as a church tower. 'When 
 I am gone he will keep things snug for Jack, and 
 you need not bother your head about them, 
 Isabel.' he said, when the knowledge that his 
 days were numbered had been broken to him : 
 ' Poynter is worth his weight in gold.' 
 
 If Isabel Compton had had her disappointments 
 and her disillusions, Richard had not been with- 
 out his private grievances too. 
 
 By nature he was a man of peace, and these 
 constant arguments with his high-spirited wife 
 hurt and depressed him. He thought it hard 
 that she would not leave him free to live the life 
 he most loved.
 
 88 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 1 Women are kittle cattle even the best of them,' 
 he would say to himself somewhat grumpily. 
 'What can Isabel want more? she has her fiat at 
 Westminster — I gave in to her about that, though 
 I hate flats. I always feel like Mother Hubbard's 
 dog shut up in a big cupboard ; she has her 
 Victoria and her brougham, and some good 
 diamonds ; the shop that she loathes provides all 
 these good things, yet she can hardly bring her- 
 self to be civil to Poynter when I ask him to 
 dinner, and resents his interest in Jack. Poynter 
 and she never get on, somehow ; she treads on the 
 poor old chap's corns with these pretty little feet 
 of hers ; but there — one cannot alter Isabel,' and 
 Richard would heave a heavy sigh. 
 
 But it may be doubted whether he ever 
 thoroughly understood his wife's complex nature. 
 Isabel liked her luxurious flat, and her carriages 
 and diamonds, but they could not satisfy her, or 
 appease her hunger and thirst for some dominat- 
 ing interest and work. 
 
 If she could have been proud of her husband 
 and sympathised in his pursuits and tastes, she 
 would have asked nothing more of life ; she would 
 have starved beside him uncomplaining in a 
 garret ; she would have borne cold, and poverty, 
 and drudgery with a smile on her face ; but 
 Mincing Lane and diamonds — it was just giving 
 her stones instead of bread, and Kingsdene, with
 
 THE MISTRESS OF KINGSDENE 89 
 
 its glorious views and well-proportioned rooms 
 and the Dene Farm, with its famous black cattle 
 and cream-coloured Alderneys, were nothing to 
 her. 
 
 And by and by another trouble came to her. 
 
 When Isabel Compton first became a mother, 
 and when, in the quaint old Biblical language. 
 'she knew that she had gotten a man from the 
 Lord,' her joy had been so excessive as almost to 
 endanger her life. 
 
 ' Mrs. Compton, if you do not keep quiet and 
 calm, your baby must be taken into the next 
 room,' the Doctor had said to her with assumed 
 sternness, for the uneven beats of the weak pulse 
 alarmed him for the safety of the emotional 
 young creature ; but happily that threat sobered 
 her effectually. Maternity is a passion with 
 some natures ; it was so in Isabel Compton's 
 case — even her love for her husband paled a little 
 beside her adoration of her boy. 
 
 ' He is mine — my very own,' she would whisper 
 to herself in the night ; ' my baby-boy, whom I 
 shall mould, and form, and teach from the first ; 
 he shall have no teacher but his mother until he 
 goes to school. I will get up the rudiments of 
 Latin from the village schoolmaster ; Richard 
 shall not know, he would only laugh at me, but I 
 mean to have my way in this/ and as she rocked 
 her infant in her feeble arms, Isabel had hours of
 
 90 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 exquisite happiness. The first jarring note was 
 struck, when Richard quietly announced his in- 
 tention of calling the child by his father's name. 
 
 'There must be another John Compton, Belle,' 
 he said; 'but I should like him to have your 
 name too — John Murdoch Compton, that is 
 euphonious enough to suit your ladyship,' 'your 
 ladyship ' being one of his pet names for her ; but 
 Isabel only looked at him with a dissatisfied 
 pucker on her brow. 
 
 ' I hope you are only joking, Richard dear,' she 
 said plaintively. 'You know how I hate the name 
 of John, it is so plebeian.' She spoke pettishly, 
 but as usual she rubbed him up the wrong way ; 
 even peaceable well-meaning men have obstinate 
 fits sometimes. ' It is my favourite name,' re- 
 turned Richard sullenly; 'and there has always 
 been a John Compton in every generation. When 
 poor Jack died ' (Jack was his eldest brother) ' I 
 vowed to myself, that if I ever had a boy, I would 
 call him after the dear fellow.' ' Yes, and he will 
 be Jack, too,' returned Isabel with some bitter- 
 ness, for she saw that Richard intended to have 
 his way. Jack! oh, it was hideous! there was 
 a mastiff at the farm called Jack, and in their 
 village there was Jack Beddoes at the post-office, 
 and Jack Crumpton, and little Jack Quain, the 
 cowherd's boy ; if she might call her son Murdoch, 
 and then hope revived, though before long it was
 
 THE MISTRESS OF KINGSDENE 91 
 
 frustrated by Jack himself. ' Boy hates Murdoch, 
 me is Jack — Dada's Jack,' and the baby rebel 
 stamped his tiny foot angrily. Yes, as soon as he 
 could lisp, Jack went over to the enemy. ' Dada's 
 Jack ' soon proved himself to be his father's son. 
 
 Poor Isabel, her case was a hard one. Vainly 
 did she strive to stamp her own thoughts, her own 
 personality on her idolised boy. He was Richard's 
 second self; and except that he had his mother's 
 bright dark eyes and brown skin, he bore no 
 further resemblance to her. 
 
 It could not be denied that Richard gloried in 
 his boy's partisanship. From the hour that Jack 
 could toddle beside him, they had been chums, 
 and Dad and Dada was Jack's household divinity. 
 'Won't you stay with mother, Jack ? ' Richard said 
 to him once, when he saw the sad, yearning look 
 in his wife's eyes ; ' poor dear mother will be so 
 dull.' 
 
 'Yes, but she won't kye — mother never kyes,' 
 and Jack took firm hold of his father's hand. 
 ' Boy 's coming with Dad,' and as usual Jack had 
 his way, though Richard gave his wife an apolo- 
 getic glance. ' He is a chip of the old block ; he 
 is a Compton every inch of him,' he said to him- 
 self, as the little lad toddled beside him, babbling 
 about his pets ; and Isabel, sitting lonely in her 
 grand drawing-room, was telling herself the same 
 thing.
 
 92 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 ' He is Richard's boy, not mine ; already he 
 takes after his father ; there they go, he is chatter- 
 ing to Richard like a little magpie ; nothing would 
 have induced him to stay with me, but I won't 
 kye, no, you are right there, Jack.' For, long ago, 
 Isabel had had to swallow her disinclination — Jack 
 refused sturdily to answer to his second name. 
 
 People who admired Mrs. Compton always 
 said that it was a pity that Jack did not inherit 
 his mother's beauty ; and that, with such good- 
 looking parents, he should grow up such an 
 ordinary young man ; as a matter of fact, he 
 closely resembled his paternal grandfather, old 
 John Compton. He had a short and rather 
 clumsily built figure, which was more remarkable 
 for strength than grace, and in his early youth he 
 certainly failed to carry himself well. When 
 Isabel walked beside him up the church, with her 
 stately and queenly air, and a certain indescrib- 
 able grace of movement, inherited from her An- 
 dalusian mother, people were always conscious of 
 some slight shock. Jack was not handsome either, 
 in spite of his beautiful dark eyes ; his features 
 were heavy and somewhat blunt, and he had a 
 slow, quiet way of talking that irritated Isabel. 
 
 And lastly — and this filled the cup of her 
 humiliation — Jack was not clever ; in fact, in his 
 mother's opinion he was a perfect dunce. 
 
 When other children were reading fairy stories,
 
 THE MISTRESS OF KINGSDENE 93 
 
 Jack had only just mastered his letters. ' Reading 
 without Tears' was a verbal mockery,,, for Jack's 
 tears blotted every page long before he was six. 
 Isabel in despair turned him over to the village 
 schoolmaster, and wept scalding tears at the 
 thought of her hardly acquired Latin. ' It is 
 no use/ she said sorrowfully to Richard, ' I have 
 done my best for Jack, but he will not learn ; 
 perhaps Mr. Ackroyd will manage him better/ 
 and Richard agreed with her. It was the one 
 point on which they did agree — their mutual 
 anxiety for their boy's good. 
 
 But, alas, even in his father's eyes, Jack was an 
 incorrigible dunce. He hated lessons, and even 
 Rugby failed to turn him out decently equipped 
 for the battle of life. It could not be pleasant 
 to any father to hear that his only child was 
 deficient in brain power. ' Look here, Mr. 
 Compton,' the head-master said to him, 'I have 
 watched your boy very closely. He is a good 
 lad, there is no vice in him — you and his mother 
 will rejoice to know that — but it is no good 
 sending him to Oxford ; it will be just throwing 
 your money away. He will not study, and what 
 benefit will he derive from just keeping his 
 chapels and rowing in the eight ? these are 
 rather expensive luxuries. If you want to waste 
 money over him, let him see the world ; that will 
 open his eyes a little.'
 
 94 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 ' His mother has set her heart on his going to 
 Oxford,' returned Mr. Compton slowly. There 
 was an anxious frown on his face. His health 
 had begun to break just then, and he was inclined 
 to take dark views of things, and it was a bitter 
 pill to swallow. His only son, his good lad, was 
 the veriest dunce that had ever left a public 
 school. With infinite trouble he had scraped 
 through a little Latin, and a good deal of History 
 and Geography, but he could be taught little 
 else. In fact, as Isabel had said with deep 
 anguish of soul, Jack had defective brain-power; 
 he was slower than other boys. 
 
 After a time Richard Compton's good sense 
 determined him to make the best of his dis- 
 appointment. The deep affection between father 
 and son only deepened as the years went on ; as 
 Jack expressed it, they were excellent chums. 
 
 One evening they were sitting together on the 
 long terrace that stretched from end to end of 
 the house. It overlooked the gardens, and from 
 one point a break in the shrubbery gave them 
 a lovely peep of the church and village. Mrs. 
 Compton had gone back to the house, and was 
 playing softly to herself in the dim light, but the 
 two men had remained outside to finish their 
 cigars and to enjoy the changing hues of the 
 spring sunset. There was an indescribable feeling 
 of peace and freshness pervading the whole scene.
 
 THE MISTRESS OF KINGSDENE 95 
 
 ' The quiet breadths of evening sky ' had a faint 
 glow like the delicate blush on a maiden's cheek. 
 One small star glittered on the edge of a bluish- 
 grey cloud. 
 
 They had been talking somewhat confidentially. 
 Richard Compton had been explaining some 
 business matter in which he was much interested, 
 and had warmed very much to his subject, and 
 Jack, a little bored and mystified, had been 
 listening dutifully. 
 
 ' I wish I were not such a duffer,' he said 
 presently, with a rueful smile. ' It puzzles me 
 awfully sometimes to think how you ever came 
 to have such a shallow-pated fellow for a son. 
 
 Mother is so clever, and as for you, Dad ' but 
 
 Richard only shook his head sadly. 
 
 'Don't call yourself names, Jack; it is bad 
 form. We can't all be cast into the same mould ; 
 and when all is said and done, you are your 
 father's son, and I don't know that I would 
 change you, my lad,' and here there was a 
 pleasant light in Richard's eyes. 
 
 ' I don't think mother would indorse that 
 remark,' and Jack frowned and sighed. Jack 
 worshipped his beautiful mother ; he thought 
 there was no one like her, and it grieved him 
 to the heart to know that he disappointed her. 
 Then at the sound of Jack's vexed sigh, Richard 
 turned quickly and laid his hand on his son's arm.
 
 96 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 'You must not mind her sharp speeches, Jack,' 
 he said kindly; 'they mean nothing. You are 
 just the apple of her eye, and her one thought. 
 Don't I remember as clearly as though it were 
 yesterday, coming in and seeing her hushing you 
 to sleep by the nursery fire ? It was a sight a 
 man never forgets in his life. If only some great 
 painter could have sketched it. Your mother 
 was always a grand-looking woman, Jack, and, 
 by Jove, you were a fine little chap too. I made 
 quite a fool of myself with the pair of you that 
 day. But, there, I was never clever enough to 
 satisfy her ; she ought to have married a member 
 of Parliament, or the Solicitor-General, or a big 
 journalist, or some one whose name is always 
 before the public. Mincing Lane was not in her 
 
 line at all, and as for the Dene ' and here 
 
 Richard gave a whimsical grimace. 
 
 ' I am afraid I take after you, father, in one 
 thing ; I hate the flat,' and then again there was 
 a twinkle of amusement in the elder man's eyes. 
 
 ' Yes, we agree there ; but, my boy, there is 
 one lesson you must set yourself to learn. When 
 a man marries he is not altogether his own 
 master. It must be give and take, bear and 
 forbear, live and let live. Oh, I could write you 
 a list of aphorisms, but there are some things you 
 must work out for yourself. When I am gone,' 
 here his voice grew a little solemn, ' your mother
 
 THE MISTRESS OF KINGSDENE 97 
 
 must be your first care. Give in to her in little 
 things, and hold your own in big ones. Now we 
 are on the subject, we may as well go on. There 
 will be no need for you to bother your head 
 about the shop ; Poynter will manage to keep 
 things together, and by and by — in five or six 
 years — you might take him into partnership. He 
 draws a handsome salary now, but a partnership 
 in Compton and Son would be like a ducal coronet 
 to a needy younger son, and would make the 
 old boy happy. You were never cut out for a 
 business man, Jack, and as I have feathered your 
 nest well, there is no need for you to trouble. 
 Have you any plans of your own ? ' 
 
 Jack's eyes began to brighten ; then he drew 
 Ben Bolt, his favourite fox-terrier, between his 
 knees, and began patting him nervously. 
 
 'There is one thing I should like, Dad ; to go 
 round the world, and take Ben Bolt with me.' 
 
 'There is no reason why you should not have 
 your wish, but not just yet, my boy. I could not 
 part with you.' For already Richard Compton 
 knew that a longer journey and a more distant 
 haven were before him. ' All in good time, Jack ; 
 but you must stop with your mother for a little.' 
 Then, as the tears rose to the young man's eyes 
 at this allusion, he added quickly, with that dread 
 of a scene that is instinctive in a well-bred 
 Englishman: 'Don't let us meet trouble half-
 
 98 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 way, Jack, my boy ; we will have some good 
 times first, please God. Remember, whatever 
 your mother may say, that I am perfectly satisfied 
 with you. We were chums when you were in red 
 shoes and white woollen gaiters, and we are 
 chums still'; and then with a half- tender, half- 
 humorous smile on his face, he held out his 
 hand to his son. 
 
 But when Jack had left him to take his dogs 
 for their evening run, Richard Compton sat on 
 still, looking out on the dark violet patches that 
 had replaced the pink glow. 
 
 ' How could he fail to be satisfied ?' he said to 
 himself. ' Could any young man be more manly 
 and honest and clean-living than his boy? He 
 had never told a lie in his life ; he had never 
 played a dirty trick or done a mean thing. Were 
 a good heart and an unstained conscience of less 
 value than a clever brain ? ' 
 
 And again, if his Latin was nil and his spelling 
 defective, could any young fellow of twenty ride 
 better or straighter ? He was a capital shot, too, 
 and could swim like a fish, and he always scored 
 splendidly at cricket. 
 
 There was no game — football, golf, or tennis — 
 at which Jack did not excel, and he had other 
 capabilities. He was a capital carpenter, and 
 could beat out a horse-shoe, and shoe his mare 
 as well as the village blacksmith ; and he carved
 
 THE MISTRESS OF KINGSDENE 99 
 
 exquisitely, and even Mrs. Compton was proud of 
 the cabinet he had made for her. 
 
 As a colonist or pioneer he would have made 
 his fortune, but many of his gifts were thrown 
 away at Sandilands. 'Jack ought to be a settler 
 or backwoodsman/ Mr. Compton was saying to 
 himself, and then his wife joined him. 
 
 ' Are you not sitting out too long, Richard ? ' she 
 said anxiously. ' It is only April, remember, and 
 the evenings are chilly.' Then Richard Compton 
 threw down the stump of his cigar, and rose from 
 his seat. 'You are right, dear,' he said quietly, 
 'and I was just getting a little stiff. Let us take 
 a turn on the terrace before we go in. Jack is 
 letting the dogs loose,' and indeed the joyous 
 barking of half-a-dozen excited creatures was 
 distinctly audible. 'We have had rather a serious 
 talk, Isabel — the boy and I. I have told him 
 that he need not go to Mincing Lane, except now 
 and then to look at the accounts, and that Poynter 
 will look after your interests. When you can 
 spare him, you must let him have his wish, and 
 go round the world. You need not fear to trust 
 him, and, if you take my advice, you will just 
 give him his head and let him choose his own 
 hobbies'; but to this his wife made no reply. 
 She had long ceased to argue any point with 
 him ; only, when her opinion differed it was her 
 habit to preserve absolute silence. Richard was
 
 ioo THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 not certain that he did not prefer the old argu- 
 ments. They had provoked and wearied him, 
 but they were less chilling than this black silence 
 that seemed to wall up their intercourse. 
 
 ' I hope your ladyship does not disagree with 
 me,' he said with an attempt at playfulness, as he 
 took her arm. 
 
 * If I do not agree, I will not argue with you,' 
 she returned with unwonted gentleness. ' I never 
 want to trouble you in that way again,' and then 
 she induced him to go in-doors. 
 
 When her husband died Isabel Compton was 
 inconsolable for a long time, and other widows 
 who had mourned more soberly and decorously 
 were a little inclined to speak of her extravagant 
 grief as wanting in resignation, but in reality a 
 good deal was due to remorse. Isabel had loved 
 her husband, but somehow she had failed in her 
 wife's duty. Constant friction between those 
 whom God had joined together was not only 
 undesirable, but absolutely wrong. If she had 
 only been more forbearing, if she had only under- 
 stood his limitations from the first, and adapted 
 herself to suit them ; but all their married life 
 she had been trying to fit a round tiling into a 
 square hole, and had to thank herself for the total 
 failure. 'I failed with Richard; I was never 
 good enough to him,' she said to herself with 
 bitter tears, 'but- I will do better with Jack.' Ah,
 
 THE MISTRESS OF KINGSDENE 101 
 
 if one could only carry out one's good intentions ! 
 but human nature is weak and prone to failure. 
 Before many months had passed, the old arbitrary 
 spirit had awakened again, and Jack's affection 
 and generosity were sorely tried. 
 
 ' Give in to her in little things and hold your 
 own in big ones,' had been Richard Compton's 
 advice to his son, but it somehow seemed to Jack 
 as if his mother wished to deprive him of all 
 liberty. Perhaps her sorrow and loneliness made 
 her unreasonably exacting, but nothing he could 
 do seemed to please her. She was satirical on 
 the subject of his carpentering, and accused him 
 of taking bread out of an honest workman's mouth, 
 and laughed at his clumsy horse-shoes. The 
 hours he spent at the Farm were a perpetual 
 grievance in her eyes, and his dislike to the Flat 
 and a civilised life was clownishness, the vulgar 
 attribute of a Tony Lumpkin. 
 
 'Jack is so perverse; he is as sulky and 
 obstinate as a bear, when one really thwarts 
 him,' she said to her great confidante, the little 
 Sister, for something of the nature of friendship 
 had grown up between those two women, dis- 
 similar as they were. ' Oh, I know what you are 
 going to say — that Jack is really sweet-tempered, 
 and never says cross things to me, however sharp 
 I may be with him. Don't I know that too ? But 
 do you not understand, Clare, how the Opposition
 
 102 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 benches obstruct a bill that they do not mean to 
 pass? Well, that is what Jack does. He says 
 nothing, only he looks firm, and then goes and 
 does the very thing I have begged him not to do. 
 That was what Richard did. I never got my 
 way with either of them : I never shall.' 
 
 But there was another speech very often on her 
 lips : ' If I could only change places with Miriam 
 Earle,' for, as all Sandilands knew, Miriam Earle 
 had a very clever son, who was making his mark 
 as a London doctor, and to the Mistress of 
 Kingsdene the name of Felix Earle was as 
 Naboth's vineyard to the wicked king of Israel. 
 
 ' Thou shalt not covet,' sounded in Isabel 
 Compton's ears every Sunday. Nevertheless, in 
 the naughtiness of her secret heart, she envied 
 Miriam Earle.
 
 • II 
 
 NABOTH'S VINEYARD 
 
 'NABOTH'S vineyard/ or in other words, Felix 
 Earle, had been from his earliest boyhood the 
 pride of the village. 
 
 He had been Mr. Ackroyd's favourite pupil, 
 and the good-hearted man had devoted some of 
 his precious evening hours, two or three times a 
 week, to teach him Latin and the rudiments of 
 Greek, but the clever, sharp-witted lad had soon 
 outgrown his master. 
 
 'Mark my words, Vicar,' Mr. Ackroyd would 
 say, rubbing his hands together while his face 
 beamed, 'Sandilands will be proud of Felix Earle 
 yet ; that lad has plenty of real grit in him,' and 
 though the schoolmaster's geese were not all 
 swans, and Felix was never likely to prove 'a 
 village Hampden' or 'a mute inglorious Milton,' 
 still it could not be denied that he had undoubted 
 talents, and a thirst for knowledge that was not 
 easily slaked. When Miriam Earle responded to 
 that clause in the Litany, ' From pride, vain glory 
 
 103
 
 to4 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 and hypocrisy, Good Lord deliver us,' her thoughts 
 always recurred to her boy. ' I hope I am not 
 too much set up about Felix,' she would say to 
 herself, ' but when I think of him, sometimes I am 
 most carried away with my pride in him ; and he 
 is a good lad too, and never gave me an hour's 
 uneasiness since he was born ; not but what 
 madam up at the Big House could say the same 
 of her son ' ; for out of respect for her foreign 
 blood and dark picturesque beauty, Mrs. Compton 
 was generally called Madam in the village. The 
 women of the place respected the mistress of 
 Kingsdene, but even Miriam Earle — the cleverest 
 and brightest of them — found it difficult to get on 
 with her. ' Madam has a way with her ; she is a 
 bit too high and mighty for the likes of us,' she 
 would say. 'One could not love her as one loved 
 Miss Patience. Ah, she was a saint was Miss 
 Patience, and the Vicar, poor man, is just lost 
 without her. But madam has got her troubles 
 too; no one could look in her face and not see 
 that ; but there, I must be careful of my words, or 
 I shall have Pen flying out at me — that girl fairly 
 worships the ground that madam treads on.' 
 
 The cottage where Miriam Earle lived with her 
 step-niece and adopted daughter, Penelope 
 Crump, stood a little above the post-office at 
 Audley End. 
 
 Audlcy End comprised two long straggling
 
 NABOTH'S VINEYARD 105 
 
 streets just beyond the Silverdale Tavern, each 
 street opening out on a strip of open common. 
 The road where Miriam's house stood was generally 
 called the Street, 'and going down Street' in Sandi- 
 lands always meant an errand to the post-office 
 or the bakery. Miriam's cottage resembled all 
 the others : there was the same red-bricked path 
 leading up to the door ; the same gay garden-plot 
 full of profusely blooming plants ; the same bee- 
 hive chair and bench in the ample porch ; but 
 instead of the row of red geraniums in the window, 
 there were three glass canisters, one containing 
 spiced gingerbread nuts with a delectable almond 
 on each, another filled with puffy dough-nuts, and 
 a third dedicated to a particular apricot sandwich 
 that was esteemed a special delicacy in Sandilands. 
 There, since her husband's death, Miriam had 
 lived and carried on a thriving trade : no such 
 cakes as hers were to be tasted ten miles round 
 Sandilands. 
 
 When the mistress of Kingsdene gave one of 
 her garden or winter tea-parties, the housekeeper 
 always ordered a goodly supply of cakes from 
 the bakery, as Miriam's cottage was termed, and 
 even Mrs. Catlin at the Vicarage bespoke Miriam's 
 help at the school treats and choir suppers and 
 other parish functions ; and nothing pleased the 
 good ladies of Sandilands more, than when some 
 smart London guest praised the chocolate, or
 
 106 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 Sultana cake, and asked if they came from 
 Fuller or Buzzard. 
 
 Miriam Earle took an innocent pride in her 
 own handiwork ; she was quite aware that her 
 fame had travelled to Brentwood and Donarton. 
 Did not the Squire's lady at Donarton Grange 
 actually drive over herself to order all manner of 
 good things when Miss Frances was married? 
 
 Felix used to joke his mother sometimes and 
 call her a vainglorious woman. 'Sandilands 
 can't get on without you, mother,' he would say. 
 'The bakery is as famous in its way as Kingsdene 
 or the Vicarage,' and she always answered him 
 seriously. 
 
 ' I doubt they '11 miss me pretty badly, lad, when 
 I am gone,' she would say in her brisk way as 
 she rolled out her rich paste. It was quite a liberal 
 education to see the little woman at her work. 
 Her fresh round face looked as sweet and whole- 
 some as a ripe russet apple ; and her trim, neat 
 figure in the black cotton gown, and grey-and- 
 black checked shawl pinned invariably across 
 her chest, and the widow's cap set so nattily on 
 her glossy hair, gave her an air of respectability ; 
 one enjoyed the cakes all the better when one 
 had watched the busy fingers — and then to see 
 the lavish hand with which she showered the 
 good things. 
 
 Miriam never parted with one of her recipes —
 
 NABOTH'S VINEYARD 107 
 
 that was her one niggardliness ; the thumbscrew 
 and the rack together would not have induced her 
 to divulge her secret with regard to her almond 
 gingerbread nuts, and not all Miss Batesby's 
 teasing and coaxing could draw it from her. 
 
 Miss Batesby could buy as many as she liked 
 fresh and new from the oven every Tuesday and 
 Friday, and the dough-nuts on Wednesdays and 
 Saturdays ; the apricot jam sandwich never failed. 
 ' We have it always on hand,' as Miriam assured 
 her rather solemnly. ' But Miriam,' remonstrated 
 the spinster mildly, ' it is not for myself I want it; I 
 have told you that before. Of course it is right for 
 you to have your own monopoly in Sandilands, 
 and no one would grudge it to you for a moment ; 
 but it 's my poor sister in London ; she is a widow, 
 you know, and has a large family, and she is 
 trying to make ends meet with that school of hers 
 at Highbury. You are a widow yourself,' looking 
 reproachfully at Miriam's crisp cap border, 'and 
 you ought to feel for a woman in the same afflic- 
 tion.' ' Indeed, Miss Batesby, you are right there,' 
 and Miriam took a handful of rich amber peel in her 
 plump palm and eyed it critically. ' Never spoil 
 the ship for a hap'orth of tea,' was her favourite 
 axiom ; ' put in twice as much as the cookery 
 book tells you, and you will be about right' 
 
 'Yes, Miss Batesby, you are speaking gospel 
 truth there, and I felt sadly put about when I saw
 
 108 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 Mrs. Marple last summer, she looked for all the 
 world like a cucumber run to seed ; but having the 
 recipe for my almond gingerbread cakes won't 
 help her to fill her school, so you will kindly 
 excuse me from going from my rule. But if you 
 are making up a parcel for Highbury about 
 Christmas-time, and would like a dozen or two of 
 the almond nuts for the children, why, say so, 
 and you will be kindly welcome,' and actually 
 Miss Batesby, who had no pride, and was heavily 
 weighted with small means, and a number of 
 needy nephews and nieces, closed with this 
 generous offer. 
 
 Miriam's work was always carried on in the 
 inner room which served as kitchen and bake- 
 house ; it opened on a pleasant yard where Pen's 
 numerous family of hens and pigeons lived. In 
 the outer room, a deal table scoured freshly every 
 morning held her stock-in-trade ; the other part 
 was used as a living-room by the family. There 
 stood the old grandfather's clock that had been an 
 heirloom in the family for generations. On the 
 little round table they ate their simple meals, and 
 there Pen stitched and mended and kept a wary 
 eye on the small boys who crowded round the 
 window. 
 
 An old-fashioned bureau with a couple of 
 shelves filled with books, and a reading-lamp 
 with a green shade, represented Felix's study ;
 
 NABOTH'S VINEYARD 109 
 
 and here for the first seventeen or eighteen years 
 of his life Felix lived a hard-working uneventful 
 life, dreaming dreams and seeing visions, all of 
 which he would pour into Pen's sympathetic ears. 
 
 Pen was only a few months younger than Felix. 
 She was a fair delicate-looking girl, not pretty, but 
 with a certain capability for beauty in her face. 
 Her eyes were full of expression, and her smile 
 was very sweet : by nature she was reserved and 
 somewhat silent, and no one, not even her adopted 
 mother, guessed the intensity of her affection for 
 the handsome clever lad who had been her play- 
 fellow. 
 
 When he was a mere boy, Felix had announced 
 that he and Pen meant to marry each other some 
 day, and as they grew up it was understood in 
 Sandilands that they were sweethearts ; perhaps 
 on Felix's side it was mere lad's love, but at that 
 time Pen was certainly a necessity to him. No one 
 else so thoroughly understood and sympathised 
 with him ; his most startling theories failed to 
 alarm her — she would sit for hours content to 
 listen only to his rhapsodies, and all his restless- 
 ness and discontent with his humble environment 
 never drew a repining from her lips. 
 
 When he told her that he must go up to 
 London and work, though the separation was 
 like death to her, she acquiesced without a mur- 
 mur, and only strove to reconcile her aunt to the
 
 no THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 parting. From her earliest years Felix had com- 
 pletely dominated her, and his will and opinions 
 were hers. 
 
 Doubtless this submission on Pen's part was 
 a subtle form of flattery to Felix. Pen's gentle- 
 ness and ready response soothed him, and then 
 she was more refined than the other girls in 
 Sandilands. Even when he was walking the 
 London hospitals and visited at the houses of his 
 fellow-students, Pen did not at first suffer by 
 comparison with his friend's sisters ; they were 
 smarter and more cultured, but a little of Pen's 
 modesty and simplicity would have improved them, 
 he thought, and during his brief visit home he 
 seemed just as eager to talk to her as ever. Felix 
 was certainly born under a lucky star — he always 
 turned up trumps, as Mr. Cornish told him. Now 
 it so happened that Richard Compton's most 
 intimate friend was a famous London surgeon : 
 Bob Burnaby, as he was always called by his 
 intimates, had been at Charterhouse with Richard 
 Compton, and, though on leaving school their 
 paths in life had widely diverged, Richard going 
 to Mincing Lane and Bob Burnaby to Cambridge, 
 they had never lost sight of each other, and 
 before Mr. Burnaby married he often came down 
 to Kingsdene to snatch a few whiffs of sweet 
 country air. 
 
 When Felix was about seventeen or eighteen,
 
 NABOTH'S VINEYARD m 
 
 Mr. Burnaby had a serious accident that nearly 
 cost him his life, and for some months his medical 
 advisers recommended entire rest and quiet; when 
 this reached Richard Compton's ears nothing would 
 satisfy him until he got the invalid to Kingsdene. 
 
 'You can be as quiet as you like,' he said 
 ruefully, for, being the season, he and his wife 
 were at their Flat, ' but I shall often run down to 
 see you,' and as Mrs. Burnaby was a sensible 
 woman, she soon persuaded her husband that it 
 would be folly to refuse his friend's offer. 
 
 ' Kingsdene is a thoroughly comfortable house,' 
 she said quietly, ' and Mrs. Compton always has 
 such good servants ; if we take Hatton with us, 
 we shall not give much extra trouble, and it will 
 be so pleasant for you, Robert, to sit out on that 
 lovely terrace, now you cannot walk,' and then 
 Mr. Burnaby allowed himself to be persuaded, 
 and for more than two months he and his wife 
 enjoyed Richard Compton's hospitality. 
 
 It could not be denied that the society of the 
 clever doctor was a treasure-trove to Mr. Went- 
 worth, and after a time he went daily to 
 Kingsdene. 
 
 One Sunday, when Mr. Burnaby was well 
 enough to attend service, he asked the name of a 
 handsome dark-looking youth in the choir. ' He 
 has a wonderfully intelligent face,' he said, ' I 
 could not help noticing him.'
 
 ii2 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 'Oh, that is our village genius,' returned the 
 Vicar, smiling; 'you should ask Ackroyd about 
 him ; he is his pet pupil. His name is Felix Earle, 
 and that fair girl who joined him in the porch is 
 his sweetheart (all the lads have their lasses in 
 Sandilands) ; he really is a clever fellow, even 
 Cornish owns that I lend him books sometimes, 
 and Ackroyd is teaching him Latin. I hear his 
 great ambition is to be a doctor.' 
 
 ' Tell him to come up and have a talk with 
 me,' and in this way the celebrated London 
 surgeon and Felix Earle became friends. 
 
 Mr. Burnaby soon took a real liking for the 
 clever ambitious lad, who told him straight out 
 to his face that he would never rest until he 
 became a medical student. ' Of course I know the 
 difficulties, sir,' he went on, as they sat together 
 on the terrace ; ' my mother is only a poor woman, 
 and my father was the village sexton ; but every 
 one has a right to do the work he is cut out for, 
 and I know if I could have my chance I should get 
 on. You will not think that I am boasting, Mr. 
 Burnaby, sir, if I say I have learnt all that Mr. 
 Ackroyd can teach me — the Vicar will tell you the 
 same. I owe the master a debt ; I shall be grateful 
 to him all my life for the Latin and Greek he has 
 taught me ; but there are other things that I must 
 learn, heaps of things,' and here Felix clenched 
 his hands nervously. Poor lad, the thought
 
 NABOTH'S VINEYARD 113 
 
 of his own ignorance fevered him as he tossed 
 through many a wakeful hour on his truckle-bed. 
 Often Pen was awake too, listening to him ; how 
 was she to sleep when she knew Felix was restless ? 
 
 Mr. Burnaby said very little, but he encouraged 
 the lad to talk ; he even took the trouble to put 
 him through his paces, but whatever he felt he 
 kept to himself; but to the Vicar he avowed more 
 than once that Felix Earle had undoubted 
 talents. 
 
 ' Ackroyd is right, and he will make his mark, 
 but he must have a fair chance,' and then he 
 lapsed into so brown a study, that his wife first 
 scolded him and then coaxed him into taking a 
 stroll with her. ' You must not think, Robert,' she 
 said severely ; ' your poor head is to rest, you know 
 that,' and then she talked to him in her cheery, 
 comfortable way about the flowers and the birds 
 and the beauty of the June tints, for if ever a hard- 
 worked doctor had a good wife that woman was 
 Grace Burnaby. 
 
 There were no children in the handsome house 
 in Harley Street — that was the one bitter drop in 
 their cup. The prosperous surgeon would never 
 have a son to inherit his honours and to be proud 
 of his father's name, and though Grace Burnaby 
 strove not to repine unduly, her heart often ached 
 because no little footsteps and no prattling tongues 
 made music in the house, and now and then she 
 
 H
 
 ii4 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 would hint to her husband that they might adopt 
 a child, but he always discouraged this idea. 
 
 'You shall do as you like, Grace,' he said once 
 — ' after all, it is more your affair than mine ; I 
 am too much engrossed with my work to require 
 any distraction, but in my opinion we are happier 
 as we are ; no child could be like our own ' ; 
 and then very reluctantly she gave up the idea, 
 and contented herself with visiting her creche, and 
 spoiling all her young nieces and nephews. 
 
 Mr. Burnaby was very silent and abstracted all 
 the rest of that day, but in the evening he had a 
 long talk with his wife, and the next morning he 
 sent for Felix Earle. 
 
 ' Look here, Earle,' he said in his curt way, ' I 
 have been thinking things over, and I have made 
 up my mind to give you a helping hand. I am 
 going back to Harley Street in about a fortnight, 
 and if you like, and your mother approves, you 
 shall go up with me, and enter at King's College. 
 I know a decent place where you could get rooms, 
 close to the British Museum ; an old butler of 
 mine takes in some of the students, and his wife 
 is a nice motherly woman. No, please, don't 
 interrupt me,' as Felix with a crimson face tried 
 to interpose a word. ' I want you to hear me 
 out. I am a busy man, and have no children ; if 
 my life is spared, I shall probably be a rich one. 
 It will be no inconvenience to pay all necessary
 
 NABOTH'S VINEYARD 115 
 
 expenses until you can earn money for yourself. 
 It is a matter of pure business,' he went on in the 
 same cool dry tone, for his keen eyes saw that 
 the poor lad's agitation threatened to overmaster 
 him. ' I do not give you the money, I only lend 
 it; when you have done your hospital training, 
 and have taken some grand berth, it will be time 
 enough to talk of repayment — until then,' and 
 now his hand rested kindly on Felix's shoulder, 
 'you must let me do my best for you.' And it 
 was in this noble way that Mr. Burnaby became 
 Felix Earle's benefactor. 
 
 Mr. Burnaby always spoke very lightly of his 
 beneficence. He was living within his income ; 
 neither he nor his wife had extravagant tastes ; if 
 he chose to indulge in a little cheap philanthropy, 
 no one could blame him. ' Besides,' he would add, 
 1 I knew it would be a safe investment for my 
 spare cash ; directly I spoke to the lad, I was sure 
 that if we both lived, I should get every penny 
 back,' and Mr. Burnaby was right. 
 
 ' Owe no man anything but to love one another,' 
 had been Miriam Earle's favourite text, and she 
 had taught it to her boy ; but perhaps only Pen 
 knew the deep gratitude and veneration that 
 filled Felix's heart for the man who had put out 
 a helping hand to him. 
 
 1 I am housed like a prince,' he wrote in one of 
 his first letters ; ' Mrs, Mullins is such a kind
 
 n6 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 woman, and reminds me a little of you, mother — 
 perhaps because she always wears a black-and- 
 white checked shawl.' 
 
 'Dear heart, Pen, just to think of that,' ejacu- 
 lated Miriam, ' and I bought my check at Cramp- 
 ton's stores twelve years ago, never thinking it 
 would be the fashion.' 
 
 ' Everything is so beautifully clean, tell Pen, 
 and old Mullins is such a nice chap, all the fellows 
 like him ; and it is so quiet too. If it were not 
 for the smuts and the dingy look of the house, and 
 a curious want of sunshine, I should never guess 
 that I was in London. Of course I see very 
 little of Mr. Burnaby, but now and then I am 
 invited to tea on Sunday, and then he asks all 
 about my work. Tell Pen I wish she could go 
 with me and hear the grand singing at the 
 Foundling ; one of our fellows took me to West- 
 minster Abbey last Sunday, it was just glorious.' 
 
 4 Isn't he happy, Pen?' Miriam would say, as 
 she folded up the letter. And when Mrs. Comp- 
 ton came down from the big House to order a 
 fresh supply of cakes, Miriam would treat her to 
 ample quotations from her boy's letter. 
 
 There are odd contradictions in human nature. 
 Mrs. Compton might easily have sent down her 
 orders by one of her maids ; but though she 
 secretly envied Miriam Karle, and her visits to 
 the bakery always depressed her, she could not
 
 NABOTH'S VINEYARD 117 
 
 keep away ; a necessity seemed laid upon her to 
 follow, however grudgingly, step by step, Felix 
 Earle's career. She even gloated over every fresh 
 success with a sort of morbid fascination. 
 
 Every stiff examination that Felix passed, every 
 change in his hospital career, every fresh token 
 of Mr. Burnaby's interest in his promising protege 
 were all retailed by Miriam to Madam, when she 
 came down street ; when Felix became house 
 surgeon at Guy's, the news was carried by the 
 Vicar himself to Kingsdene. 
 
 1 I saw Burnaby in town yesterday,' he said, 
 ' and he told me the news. He seems immensely 
 proud of Felix. He says he is one of the cleverest 
 fellows he has ever known ; he has worked 
 splendidly. He will be one of our first surgeons 
 one of these days, — he actually said that ; his 
 heart is in his work, and he thinks of little else ' ; 
 and these words, spoken by the kindly Vicar, 
 were gall and bitterness to Mrs. Compton. 
 
 Jack was enjoying his heart's desire just then, 
 and making his big tour round the world. On 
 the whole he was having a good time ; though it 
 must be averred Ben Bolt was a trifle demoralised. 
 He rather stood upon his dignity as a British 
 growler, and was inclined to be snappish to the 
 Japanese and other foreign dogs. ' His bark 
 is more bumptious than it used to be,' wrote Jack, 
 in one of his disjointed and straggling epistles.
 
 n8 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 Poor Jack ! letter-writing was not one of his 
 accomplishments. ' The other day he quarrelled 
 with some Mandarin's dog and insulted him 
 grossly ; I had to give him a taste of the stick 
 before he would leave off growling. Some of those 
 little Japs are handsome little fellows ; if it were 
 not for fear of Ben's sulking, I would bring you 
 home one as a pet.' 
 
 Mrs. Compton had not seen Felix Earle for 
 years ; she had never come across him during his 
 brief visits to Sandilands, but one evening they 
 met in an unexpected way. 
 
 Mrs. Compton had been spending some weeks 
 in town, and was returning to Kingsdene. By 
 some mischance, when she reached Donarton, the 
 carriage had not arrived, and she was left waiting 
 for more than twenty minutes. 
 
 It was a wet evening, and the few flies in 
 attendance at the station were soon occupied by 
 the other passengers. The only other occupant of 
 the waiting-room was a tall dark young man in a 
 grey overcoat, who was standing by the window 
 looking out rather discontentedly at the driving 
 rain. When the station-master entered to tell Mrs. 
 Compton that her carriage had at last arrived, he 
 stopped on the way to speak to the young man. 
 
 ' The rain docs not mean to hold off, sir,' he 
 said civilly; 'there is a leaden look about the 
 sky that I don't like. You would be wet through
 
 NABOTH'S VINEYARD 119 
 
 before you were half-way to Sandilands ; better 
 let me send a message to the Inn for another 
 fly.' 
 
 'Very well,' returned the other, and then 
 Mrs. Compton interposed. The stranger was 
 well dressed and gentlemanly-looking ; very likely 
 he was some friend of Mr. Wentworth's. His 
 appearance was decidedly prepossessing ; there 
 could be no harm in showing him a little civility. 
 
 ' If this gentleman is going to Sandilands, 
 Horton, I shall be very pleased to give him a 
 seat in my carriage,' she said plausibly, and then 
 as Felix Earle turned his frill face to her, with a 
 sudden flash of recognition, she almost gasped 
 with surprise. 
 
 <I S it — can it possibly be ?' she began 
 
 nervously. 
 
 ' Yes, I am Felix Earle, Mrs. Compton,' he 
 returned, a little embarrassed by her excessive 
 astonishment. ' I suppose you find it difficult to 
 identify me ; it is six years or more since I went 
 up to London.' 
 
 ' I should not have known you,' she returned 
 abruptly ; ' but, Mr. Earle, I must not keep the 
 horses waiting this wet evening — will you come, 
 please?' And then Felix took up his portmanteau, 
 and the next moment he was seated opposite to 
 her. 
 
 The situation was a little strained, and neither
 
 120 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 of them felt quite at ease. Felix, who was 
 proud and sensitive, was in no mood for patron- 
 age, however kindly expressed ; and, to do her 
 justice, Mrs. Compton would have been unwilling 
 to patronise him. 
 
 Now and then, as they spoke on indifferent 
 subjects, she looked at him keenly, and her heart 
 felt like a lump of ice in her bosom. Why was she 
 not the mother of such a son ; what had Miriam 
 done, poor simple body that she was, to earn such 
 a blessing? It was not Felix Earle's handsome 
 face that attracted her, it was the unmistakable 
 look of power and intellect in his dark eyes, and 
 on his brow ; the very sound of his voice, cultured 
 as it was, and with hardly a trace of his rustic 
 breeding even to her critical ear, seemed to rasp 
 the edge of her sensibilities. Mr. Burnaby's 
 protege was indeed a success ; Mr. Ackroyd might 
 well be proud of his old pupil. 
 
 ' Are you paying a longer visit than usual ? ' she 
 asked, as they drove past the Vicarage, and Felix 
 leant forward to look at the old grey house. The 
 question roused him. 
 
 'Yes, I have come for a whole week,' he re- 
 turned, smiling, and his smile was a pleasant one. 
 ' I have been over-working and am a bit slack, 
 and Mr. Burnaby insists on my having a few days' 
 rest. I suppose he is right, for I feel as though 
 I should like to lie under the pines, and do
 
 NABOTH'S VINEYARD 121 
 
 nothing but sleep. It would be rather soaking at 
 present, though.' 
 
 And then Mrs. Compton gave a forced laugh. 
 She was debating with herself whether she should 
 ask him to call, but she decided that it would be 
 wiser to let things be ; she could do that sort of 
 thing in town, but at Sandilands, where every- 
 body knew that Miriam made cakes for all the 
 gentry round, it would never answer. And when 
 the carriage stopped, and Felix jumped out with 
 warm expressions of gratitude for her kindness, 
 she only shook hands with him and wished him 
 good-bye with ladylike civility, and then watched 
 him with a heavy heart until he was out of 
 sight. 
 
 ' Madam brought you from Donarton in her 
 own carriage ? Dear heart, who would have 
 thought of such a thing?' and Miriam beamed at 
 her boy. And then Pen came out of the inner 
 room with a large muslin apron pinned over her 
 best dress, with a little pink flush in her cheeks, 
 to bid him welcome. 
 
 'We are glad to see you, Felix,' she said in a 
 low voice, as he kissed her. ' Auntie has been 
 wearying for you for weeks ' ; but she looked down 
 as she spoke, and he could not see the light in 
 her eyes. ' Aunt Miriam, shall I bring in the tea? 
 — the cakes are just done to a turn.' 
 
 ' My child, do, and I will come and help you ■
 
 i22 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 the poor lad must be starving, as well as tired. 
 Sit you down, Felix, boy, in father's chair, while I 
 roast you a rasher of ham, and boil a new-laid 
 egg or two ! ' and Miriam bustled away, to pour 
 out her motherly heart in loving service, while 
 Felix, left to himself, looked thoughtfully round 
 the low cottage room. 
 
 Why was it, he wondered, that each time he 
 came home it seemed smaller and lower? but the 
 change was in himself, not in the old home. He 
 knew that the grandfather's clock still ticked in 
 its accustomed corner, and there was the bureau 
 with his books above it, and the reading-lamp 
 and blotting-casejust as he had left them; the old 
 blackbird still sang in his wicker cage in the 
 porch, and Sandy the old tabby-cat lay on the 
 wool rug before the hearth. Sometimes, when he 
 had been too weary and jaded with his hospital 
 work to sleep, he had thought longingly of his 
 home, and pined for the sweet resinous scent of 
 the firs, and the fresh breeze from Sandy Point. 
 And now, though his mother's welcome was fresh 
 in his ears, there was a faint cloud on Felix's 
 brow. 
 
 Alas! his mother's world was no longer his; he 
 had chipped the eggshell of his boy's existence, 
 and entered into a region of wider horizons — of 
 work, and thought, and culture. He had got his 
 foot on the social ladder, and was beginning to
 
 NABOTH'S VINEYARD 123 
 
 climb, slowly but certainly, while two fond women 
 watched him from afar. 
 
 Not that Felix was disloyal or fickle to either 
 of them — he was far too manly and generous for 
 that ; until the day of his death his mother would 
 be sacred to him — the simple homely woman, who 
 brought him into the world, would never have 
 to fear criticism or invidious comparison with his 
 fine friends. 
 
 ' She is just my mother, and I would not 
 change her for the grandest lady of my acquaint- 
 ance,' he once said long afterwards to Penelope, 
 and Pen believed him. Nevertheless, as he looked 
 round the humble cottage room, there was an 
 unmistakable cloud on Felix Earle's brow.
 
 HI 
 A LITTLE RIFT 
 
 If Mrs. Compton had had a daughter, on whom 
 she could have expended some of her surplus 
 affections, she would have been a much happier 
 and more contented woman, and her disappoint- 
 ment with regard to Jack would have been 
 lessened, and in some measure shorn of its 
 bitterness. 
 
 In her early married life she had often amused 
 herself by imagining this visionary girl. 
 
 She must be called Inez after her own sweet 
 mother — and of course she would inherit her dark 
 beauty. Boys were stubborn facts, and could not 
 always be moulded and tutored, and already in her 
 secret heart she feared that Jack would be a failure. 
 But his sister would be different ; she would see 
 things with her mother's eyes, and, when she grew 
 up, would realise all her ambitions. But alas, as 
 the years went on, no dark-eyed girl came to 
 inhabit the empty nursery at Kingsdene. Jack's 
 wife, whoever she might be, was not likely to be 
 a daughter to her, she thought regretfully. His 
 
 124
 
 A LITTLE RIFT 125 
 
 opinion on that subject would certainly not agree 
 with hers. Some fresh-coloured country-girl, good- 
 humoured, and with a dimple or two, was likely 
 to be his choice, especially if she rode well, and 
 had a pretty figure. In that case Jack would 
 never concern himself with her pedigree, or 
 trouble to inquire if her dowry were likely to be 
 equal to her good-nature. He was far too casual 
 and happy-go-lucky for that. In spite of his 
 Scotch ancestry, he was as impetuous and impro- 
 vident as an Irishman, and never looked ahead 
 for consequences. 
 
 With all her faults, Mrs. Compton had a loving, 
 womanly nature. She still hoarded jealously the 
 relics of Jack's babyhood and boyhood. In her 
 sad and lonely hours, she would sit and weep ovel 
 them. 
 
 Jack once saw a shabby little red shoe sticking 
 out of his mother's work-bag, but he never ima- 
 gined, the dense, foolish fellow, that he had ever 
 worn it himself. ' It is just like her, she is so 
 fond of the little kids,' he muttered as he poised 
 it on two fingers, with a laugh. His mother, who 
 entered the room at that moment, saw him re- 
 placing it in the bag, and gave him a queer look. 
 She thought he was laughing at her, and the 
 sound hurt her; but she was far too proud to tell 
 him so ; these little jars and misunderstandings 
 were daily occurrences. Jack in his clumsiness
 
 126 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 was given to tread rather heavily on people's toes. 
 He made foolish blunders, and then laughed at 
 them, and he had a habit of saying the wrong 
 thing at the wrong moment, that was sadly pro- 
 voking to his mother. 
 
 Mrs. Compton was not a woman of wide sym- 
 pathies, but she was staunch and loyal to her 
 friends, and could make herself much beloved by 
 them ; yet with the exception of Miss Patience, 
 and, later on, Clare Merrick, she had few in- 
 timate friends in Sandilands. With the villagers 
 she was a little stand-offish. ' When madam puts 
 her foot down there is no getting over her,' Jane 
 Bowyers would say in her peevish tones, but then 
 Jane Bowyers was a slattern, and a bad manager. 
 
 From the first, Penelope Crump had been a 
 favourite of Mrs. Compton's. There was something 
 in the girl's air of refinement and her modest 
 gentle ways that pleased her, and in her stately 
 fashion madam took a great deal of kindly notice 
 of Felix's sweetheart. 
 
 When Mrs. Trimmer's eyes failed, Penelope's 
 skilful fingers were often of use in mending 
 madam's old lace, or doing fine stitching for her. 
 Trimmer had lived with Mrs. Compton ever since 
 her marriage ; she had been Jack's nurse, and 
 afterwards filled the post of confidential maid. To 
 her faithful Trimmer, Mrs. Compton would speak 
 more openly than to any other creature.
 
 A LITTLE RIFT 127 
 
 On her side, Trimmer was devoted to her 
 mistress ; she was proud of her beauty, and took 
 immense delight in brushing out her glossy hair. 
 'Few women of her age has such hair, Mr. Jack,' 
 she would say sometimes. ' When she is sitting 
 down it just sweeps the ground, and it is as black 
 and glossy still as Mac's wing,' — Mac being the 
 abbreviation used by the household for Machia- 
 velli, Jack's raven. Richard had christened him, 
 rather to his son's disgust. ' It is an ugly name, 
 dad,' he had said discontentedly, and indeed, 
 until he grew up, Jack was not clear who Machia- 
 velli was. 
 
 Mrs. Compton was always ready for a chat with 
 Pen when she came up to Kingsdene, bringing 
 the work with her. The girl was singularly intelli- 
 gent and fond of reading, and Mrs. Compton 
 took a great pleasure in lending her books ; in 
 this way Penelope was made acquainted with the 
 best authors and poets, but she never spoke of 
 these studies to Felix, though now and then he 
 opened his eyes rather widely when she verified a 
 quotation. 'That's from Tennyson's Idylls of the 
 King, isn't it, Felix ? ' she said once. But when he 
 looked at her with a knowing smile, her colour rose. 
 
 ' Somebody reads my books,' he said laughingly ; 
 1 poor little Pen, she means to be a learned woman 
 some day,' and he patted her hand ; but the trace 
 of patronage in Felix's tone iarred on Penelope's
 
 128 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 sensitiveness, and she drew it away with unusual 
 pettishness, and changed the subject. She would 
 not tell him, she vowed inwardly, that she only 
 read the books to make herself a fit companion 
 for him, and to cheat her own misery during 
 those long, weary days of his absence. 
 
 When Mrs. Compton went down to the bakery 
 for the first time after Felix had gone back to his 
 house-surgeon's duties, she noticed a change in 
 Pen. The girl looked worn and sadly out of spirits, 
 and the violet shadows under her eyes gave them 
 a deeper and more wistful look. 
 
 1 She is not happy ; that young man has dis- 
 appointed her in some way,' she said to herself, 
 as she watched Pen's languid movements and 
 listless air with unfeigned solicitude, and all the 
 remainder of the day she could not get the girl's 
 face out of her mind. 
 
 But Mrs. Compton little knew what Pen was 
 undergoing during that week which she had hoped 
 to be so happy. Day by day, and hour by hour, 
 an invisible yet most tangible wall seemed to be 
 slowly building itself up between her and Felix. 
 And yet there was no adequate cause for blame. 
 Felix was as kind and thoughtful as ever ; he had 
 brought her pretty gifts from London ; it was not 
 possible for him to talk to her of all his hospital 
 experiences — there were limitations even to Pen's 
 sympathy and enthusiasm, and she would most
 
 A LITTLE RIFT 129 
 
 certainly have drawn the line at the operating 
 theatre. Felix could not share his greatest 
 successes with her ; he could only hint darkly that 
 he was following in his master's steps. ' He is 
 grand,' he would say with a catch in his voice ; 
 'he has saved more lives than any man in London. 
 When other surgeons hesitate, Mr. Burnaby goes 
 in and wins. If I work hard all my life, I shall 
 never come near him,' and Felix's eyes lighted up 
 with the fire of hero-worship ; but Pen, who knew 
 what he meant, shuddered slightly. Her nature 
 was timid, and she closed her eyes as much as 
 possible to the grim realities among which Felix 
 spent his life. ' I am so glad that doctors never 
 speak about their patients at home,' she said once, 
 later on, to Mrs. Compton, but madam only 
 laughed. 
 
 ' If I had married a doctor I should have made 
 him tell me things,' she said in her abrupt quick 
 way ; ' I could not have borne to have lived out- 
 side his work. I should have felt so out in the 
 cold ; besides, all these scientific subjects interest 
 me so much. I should have made a good hospital 
 nurse myself,' and Mrs. Compton spoke the truth. 
 
 The evening before Felix left Sandilands he 
 asked Penelope to walk with him to Sandy Point. 
 It was their favourite walk, and they both loved it. 
 
 Felix was a little silent and thoughtful, and 
 Pen, with her usual tact and unselfishness, did not 
 
 I
 
 r 3 o THE TWO MOTHERS* 
 
 try to rouse him from his abstraction ; but later 
 on, as he lay at her feet on the soft thymy grass, 
 and looked over the wide landscape that stretched 
 below them, and which Clare Merrick always said 
 reminded her of the Land of Beulah, Felix began 
 to talk, but he seemed in rather a dissatisfied mood. 
 
 ' I don't want my mother to be different, Pen,' 
 he said, a little restlessly ; ' I am not such a cad 
 as that. I should be a fool if I tried to turn her 
 into a lady, or expected her to wear fine clothes 
 and sit with her hands before her. Poor little 
 mother, how miserable she would be ! But all the 
 same, I hate all this cake-making for folk who 
 turn up their noses at us.' 
 
 Felix spoke with such extreme bitterness that 
 Pen glanced at him in surprise. What had put him 
 out ? she wondered ; and then, being very quick- 
 witted, she remembered that madam had paid a 
 visit to the bakery that morning, and had given 
 her orders in Felix's hearing as he sat absorbed 
 in his books. He had risen and bowed at her 
 entrance, but she had only vouchsafed him a cool 
 nod, and had spoken at once to his mother. 
 
 ' My cook tells me the last batch of cakes 
 was not quite so good, Mrs. Earle,' she said in 
 her crisp, decided voice ; but Miriam, who was 
 sensitive on this point, would not allow her to 
 finish her sentence, and madam was compelled 
 reluctantly to listen to her voluble excuses. Some-
 
 A LITTLE RIFT 
 
 131 
 
 thing- had gone wrong with the oven ; she had sent 
 to her landlord, but he had not troubled himself 
 to put things right ; she had been dissatisfied 
 with the cakes herself, but these accidents would 
 happen, and she could assure madam that the 
 next baking would be quite to her liking. ' I 
 have been making a sultana cake for my boy to 
 take back with him to London,' she finished ; 
 'and I do assure you, Mrs. Compton, that the 
 paste just crumbled with richness.' 
 
 Felix stamped his foot as he listened, and said 
 a naughty word under his breath when madam 
 had gone ; Miriam looked a little aghast as he 
 vented his indignation in no measured terms. 
 'Dear heart,' she said placidly, 'what have you 
 taken into your head, my lad ? Madam meant no 
 disrespect because she found fault with my cakes. 
 Don't I know she spoke the truth ? why, the oven 
 would not heat properly ; don't you mind my 
 telling you at breakfast, "If all these cakes are 
 not spoiled, my name's not Miriam Earle"? — 
 those were my very words.' 
 
 ' Mother,' burst out Felix, ' I know I am wrong, 
 and that my temper has got the better of me, but 
 if you knew how it riled me to hear you excusing 
 yourself to that stuck-up piece of elegance. Mrs. 
 Compton may be rich, and have her carriages and 
 horses and fine things, but you are as good as she 
 is, and she shall know it too one of these days.
 
 i 3 * THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 When I have paid my debt, I will take you away 
 from all this, and you shall only make cakes for 
 me ; there is a good time coming, little mother, 
 but we must wait for it.' But here Felix sighed 
 rather heavily, and Miriam, who had listened to 
 him very quietly, turned away with a queer little 
 smile. ' Poor dear lad,' she said to herself, ' he is 
 a bit upset with madam's brusque speech ; he does 
 not understand her as Pen and I do ; he is griev- 
 ing about our humble ways, bless him. Perhaps 
 his holiday has been long enough,' and here 
 Miriam's eyes grew a little misty ; for the first 
 time she felt a sense of forlornness. ' I am like 
 the little grey hen,' she said to herself with a 
 sigh — ' when she hatched the duckling among 
 her chickens, and saw it sailing away across the 
 pond, how she fretted and cackled ! — I called Pen 
 to see her fussing round. Well, London is just 
 the big pond to me ; but my lad 's a good lad, 
 and he will never be ashamed of his mother 
 because she had a humble up-bringing.' 
 
 Felix grew quite eloquent, as he talked and 
 pulled up the little pink bell-heather and twirled 
 the lovely things between his fingers, while Pen 
 sat and watched him with her hands folded to- 
 gether in her lap. Pen was looking unusually 
 well that evening; she wore her best grey dress 
 and her straw hat with a knot of yellow marguer- 
 ites in the black velvet band. As she looked
 
 A LITTLE RIFT 133 
 
 down into the green plain at their feet, her pro- 
 file was turned to Felix, and half-unconsciously 
 he noticed the soft creamy colour of her skin, and 
 the bright glossiness of her fair hair. But Pen little 
 thought that he was admiring her; on the contrary, 
 she was saying to herself in a hard, bitter way, 
 ' It is only Aunt Miriam he thinks about ; he is 
 vexing himself with the thought of the money he 
 owes to Mr. Burnaby, and the years that must 
 pass before he can have his way and take her 
 to London to keep his house ; but he little knows, 
 — and I dare not tell him the truth, poor boy — 
 that auntie is far happier as she is, making her 
 cakes and sitting in the porch of an evening knit- 
 ting socks and thinking of him, than she would 
 be in the finest house he could take for her 
 in London. Aunt Miriam would hate to be 
 waited on by a lot of stuck-up servants,' she 
 went on ; ' her fingers would itch to be mixing the 
 dough, and watching her oven ; but I dare not 
 tell him this ' ; and then a little dry sob rose to 
 Pen's throat ; poor girl, she had her own private 
 grievance. Felix and she had kept company ever 
 since they were children — that is how Pen put it ; 
 she had only been ten years old when they had 
 broken the crooked sixpence together, and Pen 
 had her half now, and was she not wearing the tur- 
 quoise ring that Felix had put on her finger when 
 he first went to London, and which he had told
 
 i34 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 her, with a boyish blush on his face, was one day to 
 be replaced by a wedding ring? And yet for months 
 he had never said one word about the home he 
 hoped to make for her. His work at the hospital, 
 his debt to Mr. Burnaby, and his plans for his 
 mother seemed to fill his mind. No wonder poor 
 Pen was absent and sad-hearted, and that Felix 
 for the first time found her lacking in sympathy. 
 Once or twice she had spoken a little sharply. 
 
 ' You must not be so touchy, Felix,' she had 
 said once in a reproving voice ; ' in this world it 
 does not do to be bristling over with prejudices 
 like a porcupine.' 
 
 Felix, who was in a sore mood that evening, 
 felt himself a little affronted. He wanted to be 
 soothed and comforted ; madam's pride and 
 stand-offishness, her want of neighbourliness, had 
 galled his self-respect ; both his temper and his 
 dignity had suffered, but Pen had no honeyed 
 words for him. 
 
 ' There are thorns everywhere,' she had said, 
 with a touch of impatience in her voice ; ' but there 
 is no need to prick yourself; please do not say 
 such hard things of Mrs. Compton — we all have 
 our faults, but she is a good friend to me, and I 
 love her dearly.' 
 
 Pen had delivered her little protest with a 
 quavering voice — she was on the verge of tears ; 
 but Felix jumped up with a frown and a muttered
 
 A LITTLE RIFT 135 
 
 pshaw, and walked to the end of the green slope 
 The erass where he had lain was strewn with the 
 pale pink heads of the bell-heather that he had 
 decapitated so ruthlessly. Pen gathered two or 
 three and hid them in her glove, they were still 
 warm with the pressure of Felix's strong fingers ; 
 as she did so, her eyes smarted with the tears she 
 had repressed. 
 
 ' It is getting late, and mother will be looking 
 for us,' observed Felix rather sulkily over his 
 shoulder. In certain moods one must find a victim 
 to sacrifice, and an innocent victim will quite 
 answer the purpose. Long before they reached 
 Audley End, Felix had worked himself up into 
 the belief that Pen had injured him. ' I never 
 thought my old chum would have disappointed 
 and failed me like this,' he said to himself 
 gloomily ; and he showed his displeasure so 
 plainly, that the poor girl cried herself to sleep. 
 
 Felix was a little ashamed of himself when he 
 saw Pen's pale cheeks and swollen eyelids the next 
 morning ; and spoke to her with unusual kind- 
 ness. ' You must write to me more regularly, Pen, 
 I shall look for your letters,' he said, as he put 
 his arm round her, for his parting caress ; but 
 Pen made no answer to this, and there was no 
 response to his kiss. The cheek she had turned 
 to him felt cold and smooth as marble, and she 
 shivered a little as she stood in the sunshine.
 
 i*6 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 j 
 
 About a week after this Penelope went up to 
 Kingsdene with some work she had finished. She 
 found madam sitting in the bay-window of her 
 morning-room, writing to her boy. She looked up 
 with a smile and a nod as Penelope entered, and 
 pointed to a chair. 
 
 ' Please sit down and rest yourself, while I 
 finish this letter to my son,' she said in a kind 
 voice. ' There are some books on that table,' and 
 then she wrote on, and Penelope turned over the 
 pages of a novel listlessly, while the raven Mac 
 watched them from outside the window with his 
 wicked glittering eye. 
 
 Mrs. Compton did not hurry herself; her keen 
 eyes told her that Penelope looked unusually 
 languid and weary ; she had made up her mind to 
 question her on the first favourable opportunity. 
 ' Don't I know what it is to be bitter and dis- 
 appointed and unhappy?' thought the widow as 
 she folded up her letter ; ' if I can help her I will,' 
 and Mrs. Compton was a woman of her word. 
 
 Perhaps it was because Pen was weak and 
 overstrung, and needed comfort so sorely, that 
 her shy reticence broke down so completely 
 under Mrs. Compton's kind sympathy. Madam 
 could be soft and womanly when she chose. 
 In a very little while Pen was telling her 
 pitiful tale, and madam's kind eyes were full of 
 tears.
 
 A LITTLE RIFT 137 
 
 ' He has been my sweetheart all these years,' 
 sobbed Pen ; ' I never remember the time when 
 he was not my first thought ; he is the dearest 
 thing I have in the world. I should not know 
 myself if I had not to think of him from morning 
 to night. When I say my prayers, I sometimes 
 forget to pray for myself, I am so busy about 
 him, and now it has come to this, that Felix is 
 just tired of me.' 
 
 ' Oh no, Penelope ; you would never convince 
 me of that,' returned Mrs. Compton quickly. 
 ' Felix Earle is not such a cad as to throw over 
 the girl he has been courting all this time. I 
 think better of him than that.' 
 
 ' Oh, you must not think I mean to blame him,' 
 returned Pen with a sudden flush. ' It is not his 
 fault if he has grown weary of our sweethearting. 
 Don't you see how it is, Mrs. Compton ? Please put 
 yourself into his place. Young men are so different 
 from us poor village girls ; we grow stupid and 
 dense in our limited little world, we see nothing 
 and do nothing but sew and bake, and keep the 
 house neat, and on Sunday we sing hymns and 
 listen to the Vicar's sermons.' 
 
 ' Yes, Penelope, I am following you most atten- 
 tively,' and Mrs. Compton's voice was sweet to 
 Pen's ears ; madam certainly was not stinting 
 her sympathy. 
 
 ' And then think what a different world Felix
 
 i 3 3 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 lives in,' continued Pen ; ' it is not only his work 
 I am meaning, but he visits at good houses, and 
 mixes with clever people. I notice the little 
 things he says, he is always talking about culture. 
 There is a family who are very kind to him, and 
 where he often spends his Sundays. They live 
 in Upper Westbourne Terrace, and their name is 
 Robertson. One of the sons is at Guy's, and 
 there are several daughters ' ; here Pen's voice 
 grew a little strained and high ; ' he often speaks 
 of them by name ; they are all good-looking and 
 amiable. The eldest, Miss Laura, is a linguist, and 
 translates books, and Miss Florence, the second 
 one, is musical, and has taken her degree ; it was 
 only the other evening Felix was praising them 
 to Aunt Miriam. "They are cultured gentle- 
 women, but they love work, and are never idle a 
 moment." I remember he said that " Miss Pauline, 
 the third daughter, is an artist, and exhibited in 
 last year's Academy ; and Phebe, the little one 
 — she is hardly grown up yet — means to be a 
 hospital nurse." ' 
 
 ' And you are jealous of these industrious 
 young ladies,' observed Mrs. Compton with a 
 smile, and again a painful flush crossed Pen's 
 wan face. 
 
 ' How can I help it?' she returned in a stifled 
 tone; 'Felix likes them all, but I think he ad- 
 mires Miss Laura most, she is so handsome, and
 
 A LITTLE RIFT 139 
 
 she is the cleverest of them all. Oh, Mrs. Comp- 
 ton, please do not despise me, but I often cry 
 myself to sleep, thinking of the difference between 
 me and those girls. I have been teaching myself 
 French for a long time, but I have no one to help 
 me, and all my reading does not amount to 
 much ; and then when Felix comes down here and 
 sees me cooking and baking and ironing he com- 
 pares me with the Robertson girls, and of course 
 I suffer in his opinion.' 
 
 Pen was silent from excess of feeling. To her 
 the whole situation embodied a tragedy — the love 
 of her life, the hero whom she secretly worshipped, 
 had looked coldly and critically on his hand- 
 maid, and all Pen's womanly nature was stung to 
 agony. Jealous! she was bitterly jealous. Laura 
 Robertson's visionary face haunted her very 
 dreams. ' If Felix loves her, she shall take my 
 place, but I think my heart will break,' Pen would 
 say to herself, as she wandered through the fir 
 woods in the gloaming. 
 
 Mrs. Compton had said little, but her thoughts 
 were active ; more than once, as the girl talked, 
 madam had looked at her with strangely piercing 
 scrutiny. 
 
 Penelope had always attracted her ; she had 
 long ago found out that the girl had a rare nature, 
 but she had never felt so drawn to her as she did 
 this day ; there was a modesty, a r&ticence, and a
 
 i40 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 self-respect about Pen, that would have become 
 the finest lady. Her manners were soft and pleas- 
 ing ; she moved quietly, and her voice, with all its 
 untrained rusticity, was very sweet. 
 
 ' A little cultivation would do wonders for her,' 
 madam thought ; ' she is one of nature's gentle- 
 women now, she is far too good stuff to be flung 
 aside like a worn-out shoe, even by the most 
 "admirable Crichton " in the world'; and here 
 madam positively sneered. ' No one can be a 
 better judge of such things than I am. I have 
 earned my experience. Penelope will never dis- 
 grace Felix's choice — I would take my oath of 
 that ; he need not be ashamed of his old sweet- 
 heart under any circumstances, but we must 
 change the environment'; and here madam's 
 pretty foot with its arched instep tapped the floor 
 a little restlessly, and then her eyes brightened, 
 and she rose from her seat, and with a gesture 
 full of grace and kindness held out her hands to 
 the girl. 
 
 ' Penelope, you poor child, I am so sorry for 
 you, but you must not take fancies or lose heart. 
 You must be true to Felix in spite of his mannish 
 and careless ways. I am going to help you both. 
 I see a way to do it, but you must submit to be 
 guided by me. Can you trust me?' — very mean- 
 ingly; 'will you for one year put yourself in my 
 hands, and allow me to deal with you as though
 
 A LITTLE RIFT 141 
 
 you were my own daughter? Penelope, believe 
 me that you will never repent it. I shall be your 
 best friend.' And then as Pen looked up into the 
 older woman's eyes, she read there such goodwill 
 and sympathy, with such a perfect understanding 
 of all her dim and confused pain, that her heart 
 gave a little leap ; and as the kind hands pressed 
 hers, she whispered, ' I trust you perfectly ; 
 only help me to keep Felix's love, and I will be 
 grateful to you all my life.'
 
 IV 
 
 PENELOPE'S WEB 
 
 The kindly folk of Sandilands were greatly 
 excited when they heard of Penelope Crump's 
 good fortune. Madam was going up to town for 
 the winter — and Penelope was to accompany her 
 as a sort of humble friend and companion. In 
 the spring, Mrs. Compton hoped to meet her 
 son in Paris — and would probably go to Venice 
 with him, and Kingsdene would be empty until 
 May. 
 
 The Vicar, when he met Pen in the village, 
 stopped and congratulated her warmly. ' You are 
 in luck, Penelope,' he said kindly, ' Mrs. Compton 
 is a staunch friend — the duck-pond is widening 
 into a lake, you see — don't forget what Benjamin 
 Franklin says — 
 
 " Vessels large may venture more, 
 But little boats should keep near shore. 1 " 
 
 And then the Vicar, who could read hearts like 
 books, and had long guessed the girl's secret 
 unhappiness and discontent, smiled at her, and 
 
 142
 
 PENELOPE'S WEB 143 
 
 bade her be wise as a serpent and harmless as a 
 little dove. 
 
 When the news reached Miss Batesby she put 
 on her old hat and went down to the bakery, 
 with the ostensible purpose of ordering almond 
 gingerbread, but she forgot all about her errand 
 when she saw Miriam. 
 
 'What is this I hear about Penelope?' she 
 began in her most incisive voice, and the slight 
 staccato that she affected when anything excited 
 her ; ' when Mrs. Catlin told me just now, when I 
 went up to the Vicarage to get a grocery ticket 
 for those poor Bengers, I could not believe my 
 ears. " Don't tell me that Penelope Crump can be 
 so selfish," I said to Mrs. Catlin. " I have known 
 her since she was so high," — here Miss Batesby 
 made an appropriate gesture — "when she was a 
 curly-haired mite in the infant school. She may 
 have her faults, but ingratitude was never one 
 of them, and would it not be rank ingratitude 
 to leave Miriam Earle, who has been a second 
 mother to her all these years ? " ' 
 
 Miriam, who had been rolling out paste ener- 
 getically during this speech, looked up with her 
 quick bird-like glance, and shook her head. 
 
 ' I am not denying I have been a mother to 
 Pen,' she said simply, 'and that I love her next to 
 my own dear lad. Pen is a good lass, and has 
 always given me a daughter's service, but mothers
 
 i 4 4 THE TW MOTHERS 
 
 have to part with their children sometimes, for 
 their own good. See here, Miss Batesby,' she con- 
 tinued, grasping the rolling-pin more firmly, ' the 
 girl has been needing a change sadly ; she misses 
 Felix, and Sandilands is over quiet for her. So 
 when madam came down and talked to us, and said 
 how much she wanted Pen to go up London with 
 her, and what a comfort she would be to her with 
 Trimmer away, of course I could not refuse. Oh, 
 have you not heard?' as Miss Batesby pricked up 
 her ears at this, ' that good-for-nothing brother 
 of Mrs. Trimmer who has been such a trouble to 
 her is dying, and her sister-in-law has begged 
 that she would come to them at once. They live 
 near Perth. So madam said that it was no use 
 going so far for a week or two, and that she would 
 spare her for six weeks, or even two months, if 
 Penelope would take her place. It is not only the 
 change for Pen, but to oblige madam, so I was 
 bound to say yes.' 
 
 'That was very kind of you, Miriam, but you 
 will miss her sadly. The winter is coming, you 
 see, and you were never much given to visiting 
 with your neighbours.' 
 
 ' Perhaps you are right there, Miss Batesby,' 
 returned Miriam cheerily. 'I was never one for 
 gossip, and Pen takes after me ; but I am always 
 glad to do a good turn for my neighbours. It is 
 no use pretending that I shall not miss Pen, for it
 
 PENELOPE'S WEB 145 
 
 is lightsome and pleasant to hear her moving 
 about the cottage, or singing over her work, but 
 I am hale and hearty, thank God, and I have 
 never feared my own company. My lad and Pen 
 are both famous letter-writers, so I shall do very 
 well — was there anything you were needing this 
 morning, Miss Batesby?' and at this plain hint 
 Miss Batesby recalled her errand. 
 
 Mrs. Compton's shrewd brains and benevolent 
 heart had certainly concocted a clever scheme for 
 Penelope's benefit. She had grasped the idea in 
 a moment of inspiration. Felix must see his 
 sweetheart under different environment. The 
 bakery was not a satisfactory background. 
 Penelope's intelligence must be cultivated and 
 turned to account. She must be educated to 
 keep pace with Felix : the scheme appealed most 
 forcibly to Mrs. Compton's complex nature. The 
 woman so dissatisfied with her own environ- 
 ment, so disappointed in her own aspirations 
 and ambitions, would find a new and absorbing 
 interest in smoothing and determining the girl's 
 future. 
 
 The hobby might be a costly one, but philan- 
 thropy is seldom cheap, and if a thing is worth 
 doing, it is better to do it well. Mrs. Compton 
 was not one for half-measures, and she never 
 feared trouble ; the moment she regarded Pen in 
 the light of a protegee she began to feel a warm 
 
 K
 
 146 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 interest in the gentle sad-eyed girl, and to regard 
 her with affection. 
 
 It was rather curious, certainly, that Trimmer's 
 brother should play into her hands in this way. 
 It gave her such a real pretext for desiring Pen's 
 services at once. Neither Miriam nor Pen could 
 have refused to assist madam in such a strait ; 
 even when Pen would have held back in her 
 unselfish devotion to her aunt, Miriam urged 
 her forward. 
 
 'You must not be ungrateful, dear heart,' 
 observed the good soul : ' if madam needs you, 
 Pen, you must go at once.' And then Mrs. 
 Trimmer had come down to the bakery to plead 
 her mistress's cause. 
 
 ' I am just torn in half, Mrs. Earle, she said 
 wiping her eyes, ' I am bound to go to poor Joe, 
 for he is my mother's son and the youngest of us ; 
 though he has been a thorn in my side ever since 
 he grew up — but I am not going to cast it up 
 against him, now he is on his dying bed, poor 
 lad. If only his wife were not such a feckless 
 creature, and there are six children too, and they 
 have buried three. Don't I know that it is my 
 duty to go and stop a bit with them ? but it is the 
 mistress I am thinking about, she has never been 
 used to wait on herself, and that Susan is just 
 no good at all.' And then Pen had promised to 
 do her best for Mrs. Compton,
 
 PENELOPE'S WEB 147 
 
 Pen was a little hazy about things. She had 
 no idea what duties would be required of her : to 
 replace Trimmer and brush and dress madam's 
 hair, and keep her clothes in order, would hardly 
 bring her nearer to Felix. But when they reached 
 the flat at Westminster, Mrs. Compton unfolded 
 her scheme, and Pen's eyes glistened with grateful 
 tears as she listened. Madam would be very much 
 obliged if Pen would give her a little help night 
 and morning, as long as Trimmer remained away, 
 but she must not think that she was in Trimmer's 
 position. 'Trimmer is my maid, Penelope,' she 
 said kindly, 'but I intend you to be my com- 
 panion. 1 shall expect you to share my meals, 
 and dine with me, and when you are at leisure ' — 
 here Mrs. Compton paused a little mysteriously 
 — ' I hope you will always sit with me.' 
 
 Penelope looked at her in a startled way. ' And 
 my duties?' she faltered. And then Mrs. Compton 
 laughed and patted her hand kindly. 
 
 ' Your first duty will be to get some pretty 
 frocks and hats,' was the unexpected answer. 
 'Sandilands millinery will hardly do in town. 
 Your next will be to work hard at your lessons. 
 I am going to find some good masters for you. 
 It is too late to think of doing much with 
 music, but you have a pretty voice that deserves 
 to be cultivated.' And then Pen's eyes widened, 
 and the excited flush came to her cheek as she
 
 i 4 8 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 heard that she was to study French and elocution 
 and English literature, and to attend a deport- 
 ment and dancing class. 
 
 'No, Penelope, not one word,' she finished, as 
 the girl tried to speak. ' Remember your promise, 
 to trust me implicitly and put yourself in my 
 hands for a year. I am an autocrat, and shall 
 exact a strict obedience, even if for a time I forbid 
 followers.' And then Pen's heart sank a little, 
 for Mrs. Compton's manner and the meaning tone 
 in her voice told that, for a time at least, Felix's 
 visits would not be encouraged. 
 
 If the truth must be told, Felix was a good deal 
 perplexed by this sudden move. He was not at 
 all sure that he approved of it. His mother would 
 be lonely without Pen's companionship, and 
 though Miriam wrote an energetic contradiction 
 to this, he still remained unconvinced. 
 
 He had not forgiven Mrs. Compton, either, for 
 turning her back on him that morning at the 
 bakery. Felix was thin-skinned and sensitive to 
 small rebuffs ; and he hated the idea that any of 
 his belongings should be beholden to her : but 
 when Pen's letter gave him a hint not to seek her 
 out for a time, his wrath fairly boiled over. 
 
 'Why do you not tell me plainly that Mrs. 
 Compton objects to my visits?' he wrote back; 
 ' but she need not be afraid, I am not the sort 
 of fellow to obtrude myself where I am not
 
 PENELOPE'S WEB 149 
 
 wanted. As for taking you out for a walk,' for 
 poor Pen had kindly suggested this, 'we are so 
 busy at the hospital just now that it is impossible 
 to make plans beforehand. I am not likely to 
 have a free Sunday for three or four weeks to 
 come. Somehow it strikes me that we shall be 
 as far apart in London as though you had 
 remained at Sandilands.' 
 
 Penelope was so much depressed by this letter 
 that Mrs. Compton tried to comfort her by ex- 
 plaining her reasons for keeping Felix away. 
 
 ' My dear Penelope,' she said kindly as they sat 
 together one evening, ' it is no want of good- 
 will to either you or Mr. Earle that has induced 
 me to lay an embargo on his visits for the 
 present. I must tell you sincerely that I want 
 him to miss you a little, and then when you next 
 meet, he will see you under new conditions.' 
 
 ' If I could only be sure that he would not for- 
 get me,' faltered Pen rather piteously. But Mrs. 
 Compton only laughed at this remark. 
 
 ' Oh ! Penelope, you foolish child,' she said 
 indulgently. 'How can you be so morbid? 
 Felix is a good fellow. He will never be unfaith- 
 ful to his sweetheart. He has not really cooled, 
 only hard work and London life have absorbed 
 him. Some of his views have widened. When 
 he comes down to Sandilands he unconsciously 
 compares you to the girls he has met in town,
 
 15© THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 and he finds it a little difficult to adjust his ideas. 
 That is where I want to help you both. 
 
 Penelope was silent — in her heart she was not 
 convinced. The terror of the Robertson girls, 
 and Laura Robertson in particular, was upon her, 
 but her shy reticence made her hide her jealous 
 pain. 
 
 ' My dear girl,' went on madam with unusual 
 solemnity, 'the first duty we women have to 
 learn is self-sacrifice for those we love best. If I 
 had only learnt to efface myself twenty years 
 ago, I should be a happier woman now,' and here 
 a sudden wan look of a past trouble crossed her 
 handsome face. 
 
 Madam's far-sighted policy and worldly wisdom 
 could not convince Pen. But she was submissive 
 and docile by nature, and a strong will easily 
 guided her, but for a time she chafed and fretted 
 sorely under these unnatural restrictions. She 
 would have worked and worried herself into a 
 fever before long but for one sentence in Felix's 
 next letter. 
 
 ' What do you think,' he wrote ; ' I am going 
 to a wedding, and have invested in a frock-coat 
 for the occasion. I forget if I told you that 
 Laura Robertson was engaged to Dr. Can uthers : 
 but anyhow, they are to be married next Wednes- 
 day. I hear Florence, the second one, is just 
 engaged to Hazlitt one of our fellows.' When
 
 PENELOPE'S WEB 151 
 
 Pen read this her eyes brightened, and she was so 
 cheerful and animated that evening that Mrs. 
 Compton longed to question her, but she had 
 the good sense to refrain. 
 
 Penelope had been more than two months in 
 town before she and Felix met. And then it was 
 by accident. 
 
 There was to be a concert at St. James's Hall, 
 and Felix, who had a free afternoon, and hardly 
 knew how to turn it to the best account, made up 
 his mind that he would go and hear Signor 
 Botticini. The Hall was rather crowded, but 
 after a time Felix's attention was drawn to a 
 young lady who sat some seats before him ; a 
 respectable-looking woman in black was on one 
 side of her, and an old gentleman, evidently a 
 stranger, on the other. 
 
 Something in the turn of her head and her fair 
 hair reminded him of Pen. And then he laughed 
 at himself: as though that fashionable coil of hair 
 and little close velvet hat could belong to his 
 simple village lass ! ' But Pen's hair was quite 
 as sunny and pretty,' he thought, with a staunch 
 determination to do his sweetheart justice, 'and 
 she had just the same little shell-like ears. If she 
 could only have dressed well,' he continued dis- 
 contentedly ; 'but that eternal grey stuff gown of 
 hers. One of these days I will buy her a silk 
 dress and choose it myself.' ' One of these days,'
 
 152 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 that was always how Felix ended his day-dreams. 
 Poor lad, that debt of his to Mr. Burnaby loomed 
 before his eyes night and day. 
 
 It was not until the concert ended, and the 
 Hall began to empty, that the fair-haired incognito 
 turned round, and to Felix's intense astonishment 
 — it was actually Penelope herself. She stood quite 
 still with a lovely flush on her face, as he impa- 
 tiently strode over the intervening benches that 
 were between them. Mrs. Trimmer was beside her. 
 Madam had a headache and had stayed at home. 
 
 I Oh, Felix ! how glad I am to see you again ! ' 
 exclaimed Pen, oblivious of everything but her 
 lover, but Felix, who noticed curious glances in 
 their direction, only tucked her hand comfortably 
 under his arm. ' Let us get out of this,' he said 
 with masculine brevity. ' We can talk better 
 outside. What did you think of Botticini ? Was 
 he not glorious, Pen ? ' and Felix's eyes looked 
 bright with excitement. 
 
 I I thought I was in heaven,' returned Pen, 
 yielding to enthusiastic feelings, 'for once in my 
 life. I never imagined anything earthly could be 
 so sweet. What a grand thing it must be to be 
 a musician!' and then her hand pressed Felix's 
 arm timidly. ' Do not hurry so/ she whispered ; 
 'the carriage will be outside, and I shall have no 
 time to say anything,' and then Felix's footsteps 
 slackened at once.
 
 PENELOPE'S WEB 153 
 
 ' I am going to spend Christmas with mother,' 
 he said abruptly, 'but I shall only have two days' 
 holidays. Look here, Pen,' and Felix's voice grew 
 a little peremptory, ' I am getting sick of being 
 shunted off like this, and I am not going to stand it 
 any longer. You can tell Mrs. Compton that you 
 belong to me, even if you are in her service,' and 
 here Felix's moustache took a naughty twist. 
 'And I mean to stand on my rights. Directly I 
 get back, and have a free afternoon, I shall just 
 wire to you to be ready for me, and I will take 
 you into the Abbey, or to the Natural History 
 Museum, or somewhere where we can get a 
 shelter and a talk.' 
 
 ' Oh, Felix, how nice that will be ! ' and Pen's 
 soft eyes positively shone with happiness. 
 
 Felix had never been quite so nice to her before. 
 It was not what he said — for they had no time 
 for more than these few brief sentences, but it was 
 his manner, and the way he looked at her, the 
 new deference that seemed to mix with the old 
 affecionate interest. 
 
 ' He looked at me as though he did not quite 
 recognise me,' she said artlessly as she related her 
 encounter with Felix. And Mrs. Compton 
 smiled, well pleased. ' It is beginning to work,' 
 she said to herself. ' No doubt he thought her 
 prettier and more attractive ; nothing suits her 
 better than that little velvet toque. I noticed
 
 X54 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 several people turned round to look at her last 
 time. So you mean to call and take her out, do 
 you, friend Felix? But we shall see about that. 
 Penelope's web is not spun yet.' And that night 
 as Trimmer brushed out her mistress's hair, still as 
 black and glossy as Mac's wing, she puzzled herself 
 how she could best counteract Felix's little plan. 
 
 Fortune favours the brave — Mrs. Gompton's 
 Machiavellian policy was strengthened by an 
 unexpected ally. Jack wrote that he expected to 
 reach Paris soon after the new year, and Pen was 
 distressed to hear that madam had telegraphed 
 for rooms, and that she and Trimmer were to 
 pack up at once. 
 
 'But Felix?' objected Pen. 
 
 'Felix must wait till we get back again/ returned 
 madam in an unusually bracing voice. ' My dear 
 Penelope, do be reasonable. You have only just 
 seen him, and my dear boy has been away for 
 eighteen months.' And then poor Pen felt herself 
 very selfish and held her peace. But in her own 
 room she wept long and sadly over her dis- 
 appointment. 
 
 She wrote such a pathetic note to Felix to bid 
 him good-bye that he was quite touched, and 
 even a little conscience-stricken, and wrote back 
 with much warmth. Felix often thought of Pen 
 as he sat over his books in his dull lodgings. 
 Sometimes when wearied by midnight vigils, he
 
 PENELOPE'S WEB 155 
 
 would put back his head, and close his eyes, for 
 a brief rest ; it was strange how Pen's face as he 
 saw it that afternoon haunted him — the sweet, 
 artless blush on her cheek, and the gleam of 
 sunny hair under the little velvet hat. It was 
 Pen, the same dear, simple Pen of old ; and yet 
 she was changed. ' She has grown somehow,' he 
 would mutter to himself. ' Mrs. Compton's society 
 has improved her. She must be giving her a good 
 salary, or Pen would not be able to dress so well.' 
 But in this Felix was wrong : there was no salary 
 paid to Penelope. Mrs. Compton was doing 
 better for her than that. Pen had the best of 
 masters : her wardrobe was renovated. ' You are 
 giving me everything,' the girl said to her one 
 day almost sorrowfully. ' And how little I am 
 doing for you in return ! ' 
 
 ' You are doing far more for me than you 
 know,' was Mrs. Compton's reply. But though 
 Pen looked puzzled at this reply, she did not 
 explain herself. How was she to tell the child 
 that she had furnished her with a new interest and 
 object in life? That her days were no longer 
 eaten up by ennui and vacuity? That winter had 
 been the most peaceful that she had spent since 
 her husband's death, and her anticipations of 
 seeing her boy again added to her happiness. 
 
 Her spirits were almost high when they reached 
 Paris, and settled themselves into a charming
 
 156 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 suite of apartments, and though disappointment 
 awaited her, and Jack was unable to join her for 
 six weeks, the time passed pleasantly in showing 
 Penelope the sights of Paris, taking her to picture- 
 galleries and theatres and concerts, and super- 
 intending her lessons with her French and singing 
 mistresses. 
 
 After all Jack came a day earlier than he was 
 expected. Mrs. Compton and Trimmer had 
 driven out to make some purchases, and Penelope 
 was practising her scales in the big empty salon. 
 Pen always enjoyed these hours of solitude ; her 
 voice seemed to ring out more truly, and to rever- 
 berate more clearly through the rooms. How 
 gorgeous these apartments seemed to Pen, with 
 the red velvet chairs and couches, the gilt 
 clock and girandoles, the pots of gay tulips and 
 hyacinths ! 
 
 Pen slept in a wonderful brass bedstead with 
 grand tent-like curtains drawn round it. The 
 wardrobe was black and polished, and there was 
 a marble-topped table, and arm-chairs. Only the 
 small ewer and basin, and the tiny fringed towels 
 struck her as somewhat incongruous, but madam 
 soon brought her English customs into vogue. 
 
 1 Do, re, mi, fa, sol ' sang Pen, and then she 
 
 started as a cold black nose was laid confidingly 
 on her lap. The sight of a fox terrier bewildered 
 her. ' Come here, you rascal ! How dare you
 
 PENELOPE'S WEB 157 
 
 interrupt a lady ! ' exclaimed a familiar voice, and 
 Pen, turning round hastily, saw a thickset sturdy 
 young man in a fur coat, whose bronzed face wore 
 rather a perplexed expression. 
 
 1 1 beg your pardon ! Have I made a mistake?' 
 asked Jack, with a trace of anxiety in his voice. 
 1 Is not Mrs. Compton staying here ? No. 3 Rue 
 de Luxembourg; that was surely the address'; 
 and then Pen rose, blushing, and somewhat 
 distressed. 
 
 ' Oh, no, you have made no mistake, Mr. 
 Compton. But your mother did not expect you 
 until to-morrow, and she and Trimmer have gone 
 for a drive. Oh, how vexed she will be ! But she 
 will be back ! — oh yes, she will be back for our 
 English five o'clock tea — nothing will induce 
 madam to miss that.' 
 
 ' Madam ! By Jove, I believe you are Penelope 
 Crump. I could not be sure of it before, but 
 " Madam " settles it.' And here Jack caught hold 
 of Pen's hands and shook them heartily. ' How 
 is Felix getting on ? Is he still at Guy's — and 
 Miriam — my word, if I only had some of her 
 gingerbread now ! Tell me about everybody, the 
 Vicar, and Miss Merrick, and — oh yes, I know 
 about dear Miss Patience.' For it was only the 
 previous summer that Miss Patience had gone 
 home. ' Do you know, Pen — please excuse me, 
 old custom, you see, but of course it must be Miss
 
 158 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 Crump now — that though Ben Bolt and I have 
 been round the world, we think that there is 
 no place like Sandilands.' 
 
 This was the speech that reached Mrs. Compton's 
 ears as she hastily crossed the ante-room. The 
 concierge had told her that Monsieur her son had 
 arrived. The little hall was all littered up with 
 portmanteaus, gun - cases, heavy boxes, and 
 bundles of wraps and waterproof coverings. A 
 mongoose was making clock-like sounds as he 
 peered through the bars of his cage ; and a small 
 tawny monkey chained to the umbrella-stand 
 was holding out its tiny paws to every passer-by 
 with an expression of woe in its melancholy eyes. 
 
 'Oh, Jack, Jack!' And then Ben Bolt barked 
 lustily. And Jack, with a sudden flush on his 
 face, put his arms round the excited and sobbing 
 woman who clung to him so convulsively. 
 
 ' Mother, darling mother, do not cry so,' he 
 said in a choked voice. ' I will never leave you 
 again in this way. It has been awfully jolly, 
 and, on the whole, Ben Bolt and I have had a 
 good time, but there is no place like home.' And 
 then as madam looked into her boy's honest 
 eyes, she knew that Jack had returned to her 
 unchanged.
 
 TRANSFORMATION 
 
 'THE best-laid schemes o' mice and men gang 
 aft a-gley,' as Burns tells us, and Mrs. Compton 
 soon realised the truth of this saying. 
 
 Before many days had elapsed she came re- 
 luctantly to the conclusion that her visit to 
 Venice must be given up for the present. 
 
 Often since her first visit, many years ago, 
 Venice had haunted her like a dream of beauty, 
 and she had longed to see it again. 
 
 She had anticipated a great deal of enjoyment 
 from witnessing Penelope's wonder and delight 
 when she first found herself in a gondola, being 
 steered down dark, narrow canals under mysterious 
 bridges, and past frowning prisons and great 
 marble palaces, but all these tempting plans were 
 frustrated by Jack's odd choice of travelling 
 companions 
 
 Ben Bolt, indeed, might have been tolerated ; 
 he had been round the world, and knew a thine 
 or two, and he could be trusted to be on his good 
 
 169
 
 i6o THE TWO MOTHERb 
 
 behaviour under any circumstances ; but a per- 
 petually ticking mongoose who was disagreeably 
 tame and fond of human society, and a small 
 romping monkey, with a woe-begone visage and a 
 diabolical tendency to mischief, were simply un- 
 endurable. To be accompanied by a travelling 
 menagerie — for a huge snow-white cockatoo with 
 a yellow crest had turned up a few hours later — 
 was plainly an impossibility, and even Penelope 
 sorrowfully admitted this. Jack took the whole 
 matter after his usual fashion, with a sort of airy 
 good-nature. The Madre need not trouble her- 
 self; he would cart off the big cases, and the 
 mongoose, and the cockatoo, and the small tawny- 
 haired embodiment of original sin, to either 
 Kingsdene or Brentwood Farm. The journey 
 would be nothing to a fellow who had just been 
 round the world, and he and Ben would be back 
 in no time ; but to Jack's surprise, and somewhat 
 to his disappointment, his mother objected to this. 
 
 Jack must not go home alone ; the idea pained 
 her. After an absence of eighteen months she 
 could not bring herself to part with him even for 
 a few days. Her visit to Venice could be put off 
 until ne:<t year. They could stay at Paris for a 
 week or two longer, and then go straight back to 
 Kingsdene. She must give up all idea of the 
 Flat until later in the year. 
 
 Penelope listened with a sinking heart as Mrs.
 
 TRANSFORMATION 161 
 
 Compton retailed her plans. She looked so pale 
 and wistful that after considerable thought madam 
 decided that some modification of her plan was 
 necessary, and at last she took Jack into con- 
 fidence. 
 
 Jack was immensely tickled and interested. 
 In spite of his want of cleverness he had plenty 
 of common-sense. ' Why should we not run up 
 to town in May for a week or two ? ' he suggested, 
 rather to madam's surprise, for she knew how he 
 abhorred the Flat. ' There is to be a dog-show 
 that I rather want to see, and then you could ask 
 Felix Earle to dinner ; you and Trimmer might 
 invest in a Parisian toilette for Penelope ; and as 
 I am bound she has never seen Felix in his war- 
 paint, they will be mutually struck with each 
 other, and fall in love over again,' and here Jack 
 threw back his head with one of his old merry 
 laughs, and then strolled off to visit his menagerie, 
 leaving madam to digest this advice at her leisure ; 
 but in the end she took it, with one or two 
 amendments, and Pen was infinitely consoled. 
 
 Jack's joy at beholding Sandilands again almost 
 scandalised his mother's feelings of propriety. 
 He shook hands rapturously with every one he 
 met, even the railway porters. More than once 
 he made the coachman pull up the horses that he 
 might jump out and greet some familiar face. 
 The children at the lodge grinned from ear to 
 
 L
 
 1 62 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 ear when they saw him. ' Here be the young 
 master,' shouted little Job, shuffling into the 
 Lodge, and Mrs. Tennant flung on a clean apron, 
 and came forward curtseying and smiling. 
 
 'It is a good day for Sandilands, Mr. John,' 
 she said, as the young Squire wrung her hand; 
 1 and I '11 be bound madam thinks so. You are 
 looking fine and hearty, sir,' and then Jack nodded, 
 and swung little Nan up to his shoulder. She 
 was a small blue-eyed mite of three. 'Job, if you 
 and Silas like to come up to the house to-morrow 
 morning,' he said in his good-humoured way, ' I 
 will show you a live monkey, and a cockatoo, and 
 a wonderful little animal they call a mongoose,' 
 and then he kissed Nan, and putting a bright 
 shilling into each of the boys' grimy hands, 
 jumped into the carriage again. 'Dear old 
 Kingsdene, it looks lovelier than ever,' he said 
 admiringly ; and then there was a great flapping 
 of wings from the terrace, and Machiavelli, with 
 a hoarse croak of exceeding joy, came hopping 
 across the grass to welcome his master. 
 
 Before twenty -four hours had passed, Mrs. 
 Compton told herself that eighteen months of 
 travel had done very little for Jack. He had had 
 a good time and enjoyed himself, and he had 
 brought back several cases of curious and 
 interesting things — wonderfully embroidered 
 mandarin robes, Japanese weapons and armour,
 
 TRANSFORMATION 163 
 
 lacquered work in red and black, ivory carving, 
 strange old temple lamps, a kibachi or fire-box, 
 wadded futons, and brass and silver-tipped pipes, 
 and even a complete dress worn by some pretty 
 dark-eyed Musumee. Madam and Penelope looked 
 on with wide-eyed wonder as Jack opened the 
 cases and explained the use and meaning of 
 every article. Jack had certainly not saved his 
 money. Madam looked a little askance at some 
 lovely tapestry that Jack had just informed her 
 he had got dirt-cheap ; she wondered what Mr. 
 Poynter thought of all the cheques that Jack 
 had drawn. Well, she had followed her husband's 
 advice, and had given the boy his head, and he 
 had frisked gaily like an undisciplined colt in 
 whatever pasture he had wished to disport him- 
 self, and now he meant to settle down as a 
 country gentleman and farmer. It was no use to 
 delude herself, or to dream visions that were as 
 baseless and unreal as though they were built on 
 sand. Jack would be Jack until the end of the 
 chapter, and she must just make the best of him. 
 Jack felt vaguely that his mother was disappointed 
 in him ; she was very loving and unusually 
 yielding, but every now and then she would 
 look at him sadly. One day he went to his old 
 friend and confidante, Trimmer. As a child 
 Trimmer had been the recipient of all his little 
 woes and grievances, and he had never grown
 
 1 64 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 out of the habit of consulting her even in his 
 mannish days. 
 
 'You see, Trimmer, I cannot live up to mother's 
 standard,' he finished; 'that is the long and 
 short of it. I have been round the world, and 
 I have come back the same stupid Jack Compton.' 
 
 There was a slight huskiness in Jack's voice 
 that made Trimmer take off her spectacles and 
 regard him anxiously. 
 
 ' I would not say that, Mr. John, my dear,' she 
 returned seriously; 'calling yourself names does 
 not mend matters. Any one with eyes can see 
 how happy the mistress is to have you back. 
 Times out of number she has said to me as I was 
 brushing her hair for the night : " If I could only 
 know what my boy was doing, Trimmer, I should 
 sleep more comfortably." She just pined for a 
 sight of you, and that was the truth.' 
 
 ' But all the same, my dear old nursey, she is 
 disappointed in me. No, she does not tell me, 
 so,' as Trimmer shook her head at this, ' but she 
 makes me feel it every hour of the day.' 
 
 ' Mr. John, you must not say such things,' 
 returned Trimmer soothingly. ' We all know 
 that the mistress, bless her, is a little difficult at 
 times. More than once, when she has been 
 talking to me, I have turned round and told 
 her that nothing short of an angel from heaven 
 would satisfy her. As long as the old master
 
 TRANSFORMATION 165 
 
 lived she just fretted herself about him. She 
 wanted to put him on a pedestal, and have people 
 crowding round to do him honour. It seemed to 
 hurt her cruelly that his notions did not suit hers, 
 and that he only cared for country pleasures and 
 a quiet life.' 
 
 ' Dear old Dad ! Well, and I take after him, 
 Trimmer.' 
 
 ' Yes, Mr. John, you are just the moral of him, 
 and the mistress is bound to see it in the end. 
 Very likely she had a sort of hope that seeing all 
 those strange countries might have roused you a 
 bit ; and of course you have learnt a good many 
 things, have you not, my dear?' looking at him 
 with wistful affection ; but Jack only broke into 
 one of his boyish laughs. 
 
 ' Oh, yes, I have added considerably to my 
 education. I have learnt to eat with chop- 
 sticks, and to drink a dozen cups of pale amber 
 coloured tea in a day, without milk or sugar, but 
 I could not manage the saki ; and I have floored 
 a Yankee, and caught a couple of thieving 
 Chinamen by their pig-tails and knocked their 
 heads together, and I have roared out "Rule 
 Britannia, and Britons never — never shall be 
 slaves" round camp fires, and in ranches, and 
 once at the foot of a Buddhist monastery in 
 Thibet. In fact, Ben Bolt and I have distinguished 
 ourselves,' and then Jack marched off, hunching
 
 1 66 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 up his shoulders, and making believe to whistle 
 in a light-hearted way, while Trimmer shook her 
 head again solemnly and took up her work. 
 
 'The mistress is making a mistake,' she said to 
 herself, ' and it is not for the first time either. It 
 stands to reason that a fine young man like Mr. 
 John should have his own notion in things. The 
 old master would not be managed, and Mr. John 
 has a will of his own too, and the mistress is 
 bound to find it out.' 
 
 The situation was becoming a little strained, 
 when the time came for the promised visit to 
 town. Mrs. Compton, who had strong dramatic 
 instincts, had acted on Jack's playful hint, and 
 was carefully planning a coup de theatre. 
 
 One day Felix received an invitation that filled 
 him with astonishment. Mrs. Compton desired 
 the pleasure of his company to dinner ; her son 
 had returned from his travels, and would be very 
 pleased to renew his acquaintance; there would 
 be only two other gentlemen. That graciously 
 worded note perplexed and mystified Felix; a 
 cynical smile curled his lips as he remembered 
 that scene in the bakery eight or nine months 
 before, and madam's curt remarks and general 
 stand-offishness. Should he stand on his dignity 
 too, and refuse the invitation ? To be sure he 
 had always liked the young Squire, and then 
 there was Pen — poor little Pen with the wistful
 
 TRANSFORMATION 167 
 
 eyes and soft, pathetic face. It would be cruel 
 to disappoint her, and especially as he had some 
 good news for her private ear. Mr. Burnaby had 
 heard of a good opening for him — a hard-worked 
 doctor in Kensington who needed help. Felix 
 had already written full particulars to his mother. 
 'Dr. Hetherington wants me to go to him at 
 once — he says Dr. Burnaby's recommendation is 
 a sufficient testimonial ; and now keep this to 
 yourself, little mother: if Dr. Hetherington and 
 I hit it off, there is a chance of a partnership in 
 the future. Dear old Burnaby sent for me the 
 other evening, and told me that he meant to help 
 me to it. " Hetherington has got a splendid 
 practice," so he told me, " but his partner is just 
 dead, and he is frightfully overworked." I am to 
 see how it suits me, and work on a bit, and by 
 and by Mr. Burnaby is to pull me through. Of 
 course I shall be in his debt for years, but as I 
 shall be obliged to have a house, you may as well 
 manage it for me until Pen and I are married.' 
 
 Felix wondered vaguely how soon he would be 
 able to keep a wife. Dr. Burnaby had told him 
 more than once rather seriously that he ought to 
 get married as soon as possible. 'People prefer 
 a married doctor to a bachelor,' he had remarked ; 
 but Felix had made no response to this. His 
 lad's love had cooled, and he was in no hurry to 
 exchange his freedom for matrimony, and very
 
 168 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 likely in his secret thoughts he doubted whether 
 Pen, with all her gentleness and sweetness, was 
 quite the wife for a clever, rising doctor. 
 
 Felix was in a curiously undecided mood as he 
 stepped into the hansom that was to convey him 
 to Westminster. He had had a hard day's work, 
 and had been up the greater part of the night, 
 and his nerves had been a little excited by the 
 unexpected success of a difficult and trying 
 operation. Dr. Hetherington had told him that 
 he had covered himself with glory ; indeed the 
 older man had secretly marvelled at Felix's 
 coolness. ' He will be a second Burnaby if he 
 goes on like this,' he said to himself. 
 
 Felix's outward coolness was no sign of in- 
 sensibility or want of feeling. When the poor 
 girl whose life he had saved looked up at him, he 
 had given her an answering smile, so sweet and 
 full of encouragement that it inspired her with 
 more courage to endure her sufferings. 
 
 The moment was almost perfect to Felix. A 
 sense of power, a consciousness that he had found 
 his work in life and was doing it well, seemed to 
 lift him to a higher plane. It was then that the 
 healing instinct of the true physician seemed to 
 intensify and enrich the whole purpose of his 
 life. ' I would not change with any one,' he 
 thought, as he rushed to his lodging for a hasty 
 luncheon before starting on his afternoon work ;
 
 TRANSFORMATION 169 
 
 and at that very moment Miriam Earle, knitting 
 cosily in her beehive chair in the sunny porch, 
 was saying to herself — 
 
 1 It is Pen that he wants, poor lad, if he would 
 only believe it. It is the young folk who ought 
 to begin the world together, but I am too old for 
 new places and new ways. I should hate to have 
 a pack of stuck-up servant-maids buzzing round 
 me and making fun of my homely ways behind 
 my back ; I should be eaten up with worry and 
 fidget. No, no ; my lad must leave me in the 
 cottage that David built for me. If it comes to 
 the worst I would give over the cake-making and 
 have Peggy Black in to do the rough work.' 
 
 Felix held his head a little higher than usual 
 as he entered madam's drawing-room. The May 
 sunshine streamed in at the open window ; the 
 room was full of the fragrance of jonquils and 
 mignonette. Jack stood on the rug talking to 
 Mr. Poynter and another clerk, and Mrs. Compton 
 in her rich mourning silk and jet rose from her 
 chair with a bright smile of welcome. 
 
 ' I am so pleased to see you, Mr. Earle,' she 
 said graciously. 'Jack, my dear, this is a very 
 old acquaintance of yours ; Mr. Poynter and Mr. 
 Keppel, this is an old friend of ours from Sandi- 
 lands.' And then Jack came forward full of 
 friendliness, and delighted to see his old play- 
 fellow again.
 
 170 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 Felix was soon at his ease, but he wondered 
 and grew secretly uneasy at Pen's non-appearance. 
 He had just returned an absent reply to Mr. 
 Poynter, when there was a slight rustle near him, 
 and then a slight girlish figure in white stepped 
 out of the little conservatory and came shyly 
 towards him. Felix felt a little dizzy, and the 
 blood mounted to his forehead. He had caught 
 sight of white gleaming arms under the lace 
 ruffles and a soft, rounded throat with a cluster 
 of pale pink roses against it, a pretty little head 
 with coils of fair hair bent gracefully like a flower 
 on its stalk. When Mrs. Compton saw the glow 
 in Felix's eyes she felt that her coup de theatre 
 had not failed. 
 
 Later on in the evening, as Felix and Pen sat 
 together in the dimly-lighted conservatory, he 
 grew to understand his position more clearly. 
 
 'Pen darling,' he said, drawing her closer; for 
 Pen, with exquisite tact and maidcnliness, had 
 behaved to him with more than her usual shy 
 reticence all the evening ; ' I want you to tell me 
 how you have managed to transform yourself so 
 completely in these few months' time into such 
 a bewitching little woman. Do you know, when 
 you stepped out of the conservatory before dinner 
 I thought you were a strange young lady, until 
 you smiled and held out your hand.' 
 
 ' Am I «o changed ? ' returned Pen softly, but
 
 TRANSFORMATION 171 
 
 Felix's tone made her heart beat more quickly. 
 1 1 know that I have done my hair differently, 
 and that madam has given me some pretty 
 dresses, and that I am learning all sorts of 
 things. Don't you see, Felix,' and here Pen 
 began to blush beautifully, ' that I am trying to 
 keep pace with you as much as I can. Of course, 
 you will always be cleverer than I, but I could 
 not bear the thought that you might ever be 
 ashamed of me.' 
 
 'Ashamed of you?' and then Pen crept closer 
 to him, and hid her face on his shoulder. 
 
 'Oh, Felix, let me say it all out, it will be such 
 a relief. Dear, I have been so unhappy. I think 
 but for madam's kindness and sympathy I should 
 have broken my heart long ago. Don't you 
 remember the week you spent at Sandilands, 
 and our walk to Sandy Point ? I know I dis- 
 appointed you that evening, but I was merely 
 dumb with misery. I thought you had grown 
 tired of me, that the old love was gone, and that 
 you wanted to be free. When you looked at me 
 there was a different expression in your eyes that 
 chilled me, and you never seemed to care to have 
 me near you. — Oh, let me finish,' as Felix tried to 
 stop her ; * it was not fancy. Ask your own heart, 
 Felix, if it has always been true to me.' 
 
 ' I have never cared for any one else,' returned 
 Felix indignantly, and then his wrath suddenly
 
 172 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 evaporated. Pen was right ; for a time he had 
 certainly cooled, and — yes, though he was 
 ashamed to own it, he had grown a little weary 
 of his sweetheart. 
 
 ' My darling,' he said deprecatingly, ' you must 
 not be hard on me. I have had a hard fight, and 
 if I have not always been true to my old sweet- 
 heart, at least I can assure you that I have never 
 wanted to make love to any other woman. 
 
 ' Pen ' (very tenderly), ' let bygones be bygones ; 
 if we have misunderstood each other in the past, 
 we are young enough to make a fresh beginning. 
 The old lad's love for his boyish sweetheart died 
 a natural death long ago, but ever since that 
 afternoon at St. James's Hall I have fallen in 
 love with you over again. Pen, dear Pen, it is 
 you, not my mother, who must keep my house. 
 I will talk to Mr. Burnaby and see what is to be 
 done, and how soon I can afford a wife,' but Pen 
 resolutely refused to talk on this subject. Madam 
 would want her for another year, and it was far 
 too soon for Felix to think of saddling himself 
 with fresh responsibilities. 
 
 ' We have talked long enough,' she said firmly, 
 'and madam will be wanting her music'; and 
 then they went back to the drawing-room ; and 
 Felix listened with wonder and delight as Pen 
 sang one song after another very sweetly. Madam 
 accompanied her. And this was the girl that he
 
 TRANSFORMATION 173 
 
 had vaguely felt, would be no fit mate for him ! 
 No wonder Felix felt ashamed and humiliated. 
 Pen's sweet face and her gentle air of refinement 
 would grace any situation in life. He could not 
 doubt his love for her now, and just then Pen 
 turned round, and their eyes met, and Pen knew 
 that she had won her lover over again. Mrs. 
 Compton was very kind and indulgent during the 
 remainder of their brief stay in town, and Felix 
 and Pen found no more obstacles to their meeting. 
 Felix came to dinner more than once, and one 
 evening he accompanied them to the opera, and 
 he took Pen to the Abbey on Sunday afternoon, 
 and they had a walk in the Park afterwards. 
 
 There was no question of Pen going back to 
 the bakery — madam could not spare her ; and 
 then, as she explained to Felix, Pen must go on 
 with her music and French and English literature. 
 ' I cannot have my work spoiled,' continued 
 madam, with her charming smile ; ' my protegee 
 must do me credit. When you want Pen, Mr. 
 Earle, you shall have her and welcome, but I 
 will part with her to no one else.' 
 
 And so Pen went back to her pretty rooms at 
 Kingsdene, and Miriam Earle lived on at the 
 bakery. Alas, it was the bakery no longer, for 
 on Felix's next visit to Sandilands he put down 
 his foot very firmly. 'Look here, little mother,' 
 he said resolutely, ' if I let you stay on here you
 
 '74 
 
 THE TWO MOTHERS 
 
 must promise me to give up the cake-making. 
 I am going to settle a proper income on you, and 
 you are to get some strong, active girl to do the 
 work,' and as Miriam Earle looked a little dis- 
 tressed at this, Pen hastened to console her. 
 
 ' Dear auntie,' she said gently, ' Felix is right. 
 Do you think that, now he is making all that 
 money, he would allow his mother to work? 
 People would cry shame on him, and say he had 
 no heart ; and you would not have him blamed ? ' 
 
 ' Dear heart, no,' returned Miriam, alarmed by 
 this view of the subject. 'But no one in their 
 senses could cast up anything against my lad, for 
 a better son never lived, as I was telling madam 
 just now.' 
 
 'Then you will get Peggy Black to live with 
 you,' continued Pen, striking while the iron was 
 hot. 'Let me go and speak to her this very 
 afternoon, Aunt Miriam. Peggy is such a clean, 
 good-hearted girl, and she will be such a comfort.' 
 
 ' I don't know about the comfort,' returned 
 Miriam doubtfully, 'and how there will be work 
 for two when the oven 's cold passes my com- 
 prehension ; but if you and Felix are set on it, I 
 must just hold my tongue and take my ease,' and 
 then Pen shot a triumphant glance at Felix. 
 
 Before Felix left for town the next morning 
 the glass canisters were removed from the 
 window, and some fine geraniums from the
 
 TRANSFORMATION 175 
 
 conservatory at Kingsdene had replaced them ; 
 but now and then, when Mrs. Catlin was busy or 
 pressed for time, Miriam would send up a batch 
 of cakes to the Vicarage. 
 
 ' It is just to keep my hand in,' she said 
 apologetically, when Pen found her at it one 
 morning. ' Sometimes when I have got the 
 fidgets seeing Peggy at her cleaning, and having 
 nothing to do, I am obliged to finger the dough 
 just for amusement. I have been baking some 
 almond gingerbread for Fel'ix. You can take 
 some of it up to madam if you like, with my 
 duty,' and indeed, as Miriam grew richer, one of 
 her greatest pleasures was to send little gifts of 
 almond gingerbread to her neighbours.
 
 IV 
 
 A WOMAN'S FAITH 
 
 M
 
 A STRANGER AT THE HEN 
 AND CHICKENS 
 
 There was a small inn on the Brentwood Road 
 that was known by the name of the Hen and 
 Chickens, where weary wayfarers, toiling up the 
 long Brentwood Road on their way to Sandi- 
 lands and Great Ditton, could obtain refreshment 
 for man and beast. It was kept by a buxom 
 widow. Joan Marple had been a Sandilands 
 woman — she was cousin once removed to Bessie 
 Martin, and there was a strong friendship be- 
 tween them. Joan always spoke of herself and 
 Bessie as two lone widow-women, but she was 
 careful not to state this fact in Bessie's hearing. 
 'They do tell that most of us have a bee in our 
 bonnet,' she would say to one of her cronies, ' but, 
 dear heart, Bessie's craze about poor Will beats 
 everything. Five years last Michaelmas since 
 she saw the last of him. Don't I remember the 
 very day, for it was when my poor Peter took 
 his turn for the worst, and a fortnight later I 
 buried him.' 
 
 179
 
 180 A WOMAN'S FAITH 
 
 The Hen and Chickens was a very unpreten- 
 tious place : it had originally consisted of two 
 cottages, but Peter Marple had thrown them 
 into one. The thatched roof and small windows 
 smothered in creepers gave it a picturesque 
 appearance, and in winter, when the lamp-light 
 shone through the closely-drawn red curtains, 
 no passer-by could resist stepping into the snug 
 bar for a draught of the excellent ale, or some 
 mulled elder wine, brewed by Joan herself. 
 
 The surroundings of the Hen and Chickens 
 were very pleasant. There was a small green 
 where Joan's geese and poultry were generally 
 to be seen, and a horse-trough, worn with age, 
 placed invitingly under the shade of two fine 
 elms. There was no other cottage in sight, but 
 Joan never found her life lonely. She had two 
 helpers — an Irish wench, Bridget by name, who 
 was maid-of-all-work, and a red-headed ostler, 
 Pete, who was Joan's factotum and Jack-of-all- 
 trades — these, with a half-blind collie, who rejoiced 
 in the name of Methuselah, comprised the house- 
 hold of the Hen and Chickens. 
 
 It had been a busy day, for since early morning 
 there had been a constant stream of customers. 
 The sale of some farm stock at Great Ditton, 
 owing to the death of its owner, had kept both 
 the Brentwood and Sandilands inns well filled. 
 A wet evening had set in ; and Joan, who was tired
 
 AT THE HEN AND CHICKENS 181 
 
 and wanted to reckon up her profits, had just 
 seated herself by her bright little fire, over which 
 a rasher or two of ham was spluttering and hiss- 
 ing, while some new-laid eggs on the round table 
 were pleasantly suggestive of further cooking, 
 when the sound of a slow, dragging footstep on 
 the threshold made her look up with a slight 
 frown, while Methuselah, roused from a refreshing 
 nap, growled aggressively. 
 
 The stranger who had entered the Hen and 
 Chickens had a forlorn and unprepossessing 
 aspect in Joan's eyes ; he looked like a foreigner, 
 and Joan Marple abhorred foreigners, whom she 
 classed under the name of mounseers or mounte- 
 banks ; he wore a heavy cloak over one shoulder, 
 and had an oddly peaked cap drawn over his 
 forehead, 'for all the world like Guy Fawkes, or 
 an escaped convict,' as she observed afterwards, 
 while an untrimmed beard and some ragged 
 moustachios gave him a fierce air. 
 
 'You are too late for the Hen and Chickens, 
 master,' observed Joan curtly, for she made her 
 own rules and regulations. ' Pete is just going 
 to shut up, 'so you had better make tracks for 
 the Fox and Hounds at Sandilands ; it is not 
 much over a mile, and the road is straight.' But 
 the stranger shook his head at this. 
 
 ' My strength is gone,' he said in a tired voice, 
 'and I could not manage a hundred yards. It is
 
 ^2 A WOMAN'S FAITH 
 
 pouring cats and dogs, too. Look here, mistress,' 
 holding up the wet folds of his cloak, ' for pity's 
 sake let me have a little rest and food ' ; and here 
 he looked hungrily at the frizzling ham. ' I am 
 no beggar, but only a miserable God-forsaken 
 wretch, and I can pay you.' And here he held 
 out a thin hand with some ioose silver in it. 
 
 Joan Marple hesitated. She was a kind-hearted 
 creature, and the veriest tramp could get round 
 her if he only whined long enough ; the man 
 looked down on his luck, there was no doubt 
 about that, and the rain was beating against the 
 windows. It was a good mile to the Fox and 
 Hounds, and very likely they would have shut 
 up, and then she caught sight of a pinned-up coat 
 sleeve under the disguising cloak, and she grew 
 still more pitiful ; then Methuselah, who had left 
 off growling, was snuffing round the stranger in 
 rather a friendly fashion, and Methuselah could 
 be trusted, for he hated tramps, and considered 
 them as his natural enemies. 
 
 ' Well, sit you down, and I will get you some 
 supper,' returned Joan crossly, for she was an- 
 noyed at her own soft-heartcdncss. '' I was just 
 going to have a bite and a sup myself, for I have 
 been on my feet most of the day,' and then she 
 unclasped the low door and told him ungra- 
 ciously to leave his dripping cloak and cap for 
 Bridget to dry at the kitchen fire.
 
 AT THE HEN AND CHICKENS 183 
 
 'I am very much beholden to you, ma'am,' he 
 returned, with a gentleness that contrasted oddly 
 with his wild looks. ' I have been ill, and I have 
 not the strength of a child. If you had turned 
 me out, I should never have reached Sandilands,' 
 and then he shivered and held out his hand to 
 the pleasant blaze. 
 
 Joan's comely face was full of gloom as she 
 bade Bridget spread a cloth on the little round 
 table and draw a jug of ale, while she broke the 
 eggs and broiled some more ham. Her heart 
 sank as she thought of the little room under the 
 roof, which was always kept ready for a passing 
 guest, with its lavender-scented sheets, and the 
 patch-work quilt that she had made with her own 
 hands. Honest English yeomen had slept in that 
 room, which was far too clean and spotless for 
 the likes of a bearded Mounseer ; and then she 
 met a pathetic glance from a pair of haggard 
 blue eyes. 'Do not turn me away,' they seem 
 to say, ' to die like a starving dog in a ditch ' ; 
 and then the sight of that empty sleeve filled her 
 again with pity. 
 
 Joan said no more until she had finished her 
 preparations. When the ham and eggs were done 
 to a turn, she bade the man draw up to the table • 
 a mighty loaf, and a noble wedge of cheese, and 
 a brown earthenware jug full of foaming ale, filled 
 up the intermediate space.
 
 1 84 A WOMAN'S FAITH 
 
 Joan's dour looks grew more benign as she saw 
 how thoroughly the wholesome viands were appre- 
 ciated. Bridget grinned sympathetically as she 
 replenished the earthenware jug. ' Shure, there's 
 a pool on the kitchen floor from the drippings of 
 the gentleman's coat,' she said in an aside to her 
 mistress. ' Will I be getting the bed ready in the 
 attic?' And then Joan Marple nodded. 
 
 ' You may light your pipe,' she said presently, 
 when the table had been cleared, ' while I jot 
 down some things in my day-book.' And then 
 the stranger, with a grateful look, took a smoke- 
 dried meershaum from his pocket and began 
 filling the bowl with strong, fragrant tobacco. 
 Joan watched him curiously. 
 
 'You are uncommonly handy,' she said, ap- 
 provingly. ' Most people would find it awkward 
 to make one hand serve the purpose of two. If 
 I may make bold — have you been a soldier ? ' 
 But the man shook his head. 
 
 'No,' he said, speaking in the low, subdued 
 voice that seemed natural to him. ' I had my 
 arm crushed in some machinery at the Cape, and 
 they were forced to amputate it. It was just my 
 ill-luck.' And then he went on dreamily as he 
 laid down his pipe on his knee. ' There was a 
 tale my mother used to read to me when I was 
 a kid. How often I have recalled it ! Murad the 
 Unlucky, that was the beggar's name, and he had
 
 AT THE HEN AND CHICKENS 185 
 
 a plaguy hard time of it too, but, as far as that 
 goes, I 'm his mate, for I have had ill-luck enough 
 to swamp two men,' and then he turned his back 
 and looked gloomily into the fire ; but Joan 
 Marple saw him once draw his hand before his 
 eyes. 
 
 There was silence in the snug bar-parlour for 
 a while. Methuselah curled himself up at the 
 stranger's feet and went to sleep again, and the 
 tired traveller drew slow whiffs of his pipe, and 
 gazed into the red cavernous depths of the fire 
 as though he saw strange things there ; then 
 Joan, who had finished her calculations, nibbled 
 the end of her pen reflectively, and looked at her 
 guest. 
 
 4 1 suppose you were never in these parts before, 
 master?' she asked, for Joan was as inquisitive as 
 the rest of Eve's daughters. 
 
 A faint colour rose to the stranger's cadaverous 
 face. ' I have not been for a sight of years,' he 
 said slowly, ' but I used to know it when I was 
 a youngster. I was born in London town, down 
 Poplar way, but some of our folk settled in 
 Surrey.' 
 
 ' I thought maybe that you were a furriner 
 returned Joan, but her tone was civil and even 
 friendly ; but the man shook his head. 
 
 ' No, mistress, I am English to the backbone, 
 in spite of the outlandish cut of my cloak. There
 
 186 A WOMAN'S FAITH 
 
 was a Spaniard on board, and he died of con- 
 sumption on the way home, and as he had no 
 one belonging to him, they put up his clothes for 
 auction, and that was how I got the cloak and 
 cap ; but my father was English — a regular British 
 tar — and my mother was born and bred in London, 
 but I have been so long in outlandish parts that 
 I have most forgot my own tongue. Now, mis- 
 tress, if there is a bed handy, I 'd be thankful to 
 turn in and have a snooze, for I have been on the 
 tramp since daybreak.' And then Joan lighted 
 a candle, and conducted him herself to the attic 
 under the roof. 
 
 A wet night was succeeded by a fine sunshiny 
 morning, and as the strange guest at the Hen and 
 Chickens sat at his solitary breakfast in the bar- 
 parlour, a pleasant rustic scene met his eyes. 
 
 Joan in her white sun-bonnet was feeding her 
 feathered family. The little triangular green was 
 crowded by snow-white geese, and hens and ducks 
 of every shade and variety, attended by the lords 
 of the harem ; fussy little black bantams pecked 
 the grain fearlessly at her feet, while the mossy 
 old horse-trough was lined with pigeons; a cart- 
 horse was patiently waiting for an opportunity to 
 take a drink of the cold, clear water, and a sow 
 and her brood of pigs had joined the assembly. 
 Pete's red head shone in the sunlight, and a tall 
 young woman in a grey hood walking briskly
 
 AT THE HEN AND CHICKENS 187 
 
 towards the inn, with a covered basket on her 
 arm, stood quietly under the elm-trees to enjoy 
 the scene. 
 
 Joan did not see her until her apron was empty 
 of grain, then she nodded to her with a bright 
 smile. 
 
 'Ah, you are there, Bessie, my woman ! I sup- 
 pose you have come for some more eggs ; there's 
 a score or two at your service. Is it for the 
 Vicarage, or Mrs. Dunlop, or for madam up at 
 the big House, and how many may you be 
 wanting?' 
 
 'Well, a dozen would serve me, Joan,' returned 
 Bessie Martin in her soft, slow drawl, and at the 
 sound the stranger in the bar-parlour started to 
 his feet as though he had been shot. ' It was 
 Mrs. Catlin who wants them, but I am bound that 
 another half-dozen would come handy. She has 
 got the Professor. He arrived unexpectedly last 
 night, and she sent me a message by Davie to say 
 that their hens would not lay. If you will put 
 them up for me, Joan, I will just step back as 
 quickly as possible, for Ben is a bit dwiny to-day, 
 and I have kept him at home. Miss Merrick is 
 looking after him till I get back. She is ever 
 ready to do a kindness for a body.' 
 
 ' It was a good thing for you, Bessie, when 
 Miss Merrick came to Fir Cottage,' returned Joan 
 confidentially, 'for she has been company for you
 
 1 88 A WOMAN'S FAITH 
 
 these fifteen months, and prevented you from 
 being so lonesome. Don't you recollect, my lass, 
 that it was me who first put it into your head to 
 let the parlour and the bedroom over it, and how 
 you would not listen to me at first, because you 
 said a lodger would be fussy, and give you so 
 much work ? ' 
 
 1 Ay, Joan ; but we all make mistakes some- 
 times, and I never set myself up to be cleverer 
 than my neighbours, but it was a blessed day for 
 me and the children when Miss Merrick came 
 under our roof; to see us sitting working under 
 the porch, when Davie and Ben have gone to bed, 
 you would think we were sisters, and the grand 
 things she tells us, too, they make one feel fairly 
 uplifted ; but then I must not be gossiping like an 
 old wife who has nothing to do but doze in her 
 chimney corner. I have Miss Merrick's dinner 
 to cook, and the ironing besides, for, as I used to 
 say to Will, every day has its own work.' 
 
 The listener in the bar broke into a low moan, 
 as though some sudden pain had seized him, and 
 as the two women entered the inn-door, he slipped 
 out at the back of the bar and stole up to his 
 room. 
 
 Joan looked round her in some perplexity. 
 ' Well, whatever has taken the man/ she said to 
 herself, then aloud — ' We had an odd sort of body 
 here last night — a wayfaring man — who had lost
 
 AT THE HEN AND CHICKENS 189 
 
 his arm and looked as though he were just off a 
 bed of sickness, and he begged so hard for shelter 
 and supper, that I had not the heart to turn him 
 out, but I am bound to say he was no tramp, in 
 spite of his queer outlandish ways. 
 
 1 Well, sit down, Bessie, while I fetch the eggs ; 
 they are in the out-house ' ; and Joan bustled off, 
 while Bessie went to the open door and watched 
 the old cart-horse now drinking his fill, while two 
 fantail pigeons sat on the edge of the horse-trough 
 and looked on. 
 
 How quiet and still it all was ! The grass still 
 glittered with dew-drops, and in the hollows of 
 the road there were little pools of rain-water ; 
 there was a faint soughing in the tree-tops, and 
 some sparrows and martins cheeped and twittered 
 in and out the thatch. 
 
 ' It is a grand world,' thought Bessie, who in 
 her slow way was an idealist, ' if it were not for 
 the wrecks, and the drowned men ' ; and then in 
 a clear musical voice she sung a verse of her 
 favourite hymn that they had had last Sunday: — 
 
 ' Safe home, safe home in port. 
 Rent cordage, shattered deck, 
 Torn sail, provision short, 
 And only not a wreck : 
 But oh ! the joy upon the shore 
 To tell our voyage — perils o'er.' 
 
 'There are your eggs, Bessie, my lass, and I 
 have put up a brown twist that Bridget has just
 
 iqo A WOMAN'S FAITH 
 
 baked for Ben.' And Joan gave the well-packed 
 basket to her cousin. 
 
 Bessie's grey eyes lit up with pleasure as she 
 took it. 
 
 ' Thank you kindly, Joan ; the little lad will be 
 fine and pleased ' ; and then she walked away 
 briskly, swinging the basket and humming to 
 herself, and Joan watched her under her shading 
 hand until she was out of sight. 
 
 Another pair of eyes was watching her, too, 
 and as soon as the bend of the road hid her the 
 stranger came down. He wore his cloak, and the 
 odd peaked-cap was drawn over his forehead as 
 though to disguise as far as possible his ghastly 
 paleness. 
 
 1 1 must be going on my way now, mistress,' he 
 said hastily, ' and must pay my chores, if you 
 will be good enough to reckon up what I owe 
 you ' ; and then he bent down to pat Methuselah, 
 who had come out to lie in the sunshine. ' Was 
 that your sister, mistress — the young woman in 
 the grey hood who has just gone down the 
 road ? ' 
 
 ' Nay, my good man,' returned Joan, smiling at 
 the question, for strangers always thought she 
 and Bessie were sisters. ' I never had a sister ; 
 only eight brothers ; but Bessie Martin is my 
 cousin once removed.' 
 
 The stranger nodded. ' I suppose her husband
 
 AT THE HEN AND CHICKENS 191 
 
 is a Sandilands man,' he said, flicking off the dust 
 from his broken boot 
 
 'No,' returned Joan, who dearly loved to gossip 
 about her neighbours. 'Will was not born and 
 bred in these parts, though he came down to do 
 his courting, poor fellow.' 
 
 'Why, mistress,' returned the man in a gruff 
 voice, 'you speak solemn-like, as though he were 
 dead.' 
 
 ' And so he is dead,' replied Joan, with sudden 
 energy. 'He has been dead these six or seven 
 years ; if only that soft, silly woman would bring 
 herself to believe it. His ship struck against a 
 coral reef, and not a soul survived ; but Bessie 
 has the craze that he is still alive, and refuses to 
 wear black or own herself a widow ; but there, 
 I never argue with her, for she only cries, and 
 says people are trying to break her heart. 
 There's Jem Fenton,' continued Joan, garru- 
 lously, 'down at Great Ditton, who farms the 
 land near the Folly ; he would be glad and thank- 
 ful to marry her any day, and father her boys ; 
 but Bessie won't listen to any one. It is clearly 
 flying in the face of Providence, and so I often tell 
 her, but she only turns it back on me by asking 
 how a woman was to have two husbands. Well, 
 are you going, master? Good-day, and better 
 luck to you ' ; and then Joan Marple went back 
 into the inn.
 
 192 A WOMAN'S FAITH 
 
 Late that afternoon David and Ben were play- 
 ing in the fir woods at the back of their mother's 
 cottage. 
 
 The firs climbed steeply up the hill ; and as 
 far as eye could see, the green, solemn glades 
 seemed to stretch indefinitely on either hand, with 
 pleasant breaks and spaces of sunlight. 
 
 Just behind the cottage there was a clearing 
 which Bessie used as her drying-ground, and where 
 clothes-lines, dust-heaps, and cinder-mounds, all 
 spoke of domestic utility. This was the favourite 
 hunting-ground of the great black sow, and there 
 she and her brood of curly-tailed pigs loved to 
 disport themselves, in friendly company with the 
 little brown hen and her chickens, and there 
 Bessie's sandy cat would sit on the wall, gingerly 
 washing her face, and looking down at them. 
 
 The boys always used the clearing as their 
 play-ground. There were all sorts of handy 
 articles ready to their hand — broken bricks and 
 sardine boxes, empty biscuit tins and pickle 
 bottles, a cracked plate or two, and a little black 
 saucepan without handle or lid. Once David 
 had found a kettle with a hole through it, and 
 had carried it off proudly. He was a strangely 
 imaginative boy, and the games he taught Ben 
 were generally an adaptation of their Sunday 
 lesson. 
 
 Little Mrs. Dunlop, who took the boys' class,
 
 AT THE HEN AND CHICKENS 193 
 
 always regarded David as her model pupil. ' He 
 was so attentive, and seemed to drink in every 
 word she would say.' But she little dreamt that 
 as David sat, with his big blue eyes fixed on her 
 face, that he really was ransacking his boyish 
 brains, to think how he and Ben could dramatise 
 fitly the story of Joseph in the pit, with the ten 
 brethren and the Ishmaelites and their camels all 
 demanding to be represented. 
 
 On the present occasion there was less difficulty. 
 Perhaps that was why it was so often repeated. 
 'Let's play at Cain and Abel, Benjy,' David 
 would say ; and for some time the joy of building 
 an altar of fir-cones and seeking for acorns for 
 Cain's offering reconciled Ben. 
 
 On the afternoon in question Ben had turned 
 restive. He was a little out of sorts, ' dwiny,' as 
 his mother expressed it, and nothing suited him. 
 
 The fir-cones were slippery from last night's 
 rain, and refused to be piled properly, and one 
 after another rolled down, to be pounced on by 
 the sandy cat, who evidently thought this was 
 intended for her amusement ; when David sug- 
 gested making a brick altar and filling up the 
 interstices with biscuit tins, Ben only broke into 
 a roar. 
 
 1 1 hate Cain, and I won't never be Abel 
 again,' he burst out, with a stamp of his foot ; 
 and then, frightened at his own contumacy, and 
 
 N
 
 r 9 4 A WOMAN'S FAITH 
 
 rebellion, for until now David's will had been law, 
 he roared afresh, and set off running up the slippery 
 hill-path as fast as his legs would carry him. 
 
 There retribution overtook him — an avenging 
 Nemesis, in the fearful guise of a mysterious wild 
 man, stood like a lion in his path, freezing Benjy's 
 soul with horror, and curdling the blood in his 
 veins, so that he stood rooted to the spot, with 
 his mouth wide open, unable to utter a sound. 
 
 The apparition was certainly a little startling. 
 In the shadowy light the tall, cloaked figure, with 
 the odd peaked cap disguising the features, looked 
 almost gigantic in Ben's childish eyes. His terri- 
 fied brain, filled with David's gruesome stories, 
 conjured up sudden recollections, all equally awe- 
 inspiring and ghastly — Robinson Crusoe, the 
 giant Fee-Fo-Fum who loved to sup off little 
 children, Giant Despair, and the wild man of 
 the woods who lives with the gorillas — until Ben's 
 round face was white with fear ; and he gasped 
 out: 'Oh, kind man! Oh, please don't kill me. 
 I 'm only Benjy ! ' and then broke into piteous 
 sobs. 
 
 'Why, whatever ails the youngster?' exclaimed 
 a rough but decidedly English voice. 'What are 
 you yelling for, as though a pack of wolves were 
 at your heels ? No one is going to hurt you.' 
 And then a pair of eyes, almost as blue as 
 Benjy's, looked kindly in the little lad's face.
 
 II 
 
 THE WILD MAN OF THE WOODS 
 
 LITTLE Ben Martin's terror of the wild man of 
 the woods abated after the first few moments. 
 The stranger's voice, though gruff, was decidedly 
 friendly,' and no child would have mistrusted 
 those honest melancholy eyes. Benjy left off 
 crying, and only gasped a little when a hand 
 rested benignly on his curls. 
 
 'There's a brave little chap,' observed the wild 
 man, approvingly ; ' now tell me your name, and 
 I will show you something pretty that I have 
 been saving up for a good boy.' 
 
 ' I am Benjamin Robert Martin,' replied Benjy, 
 regaining his powers of speech with marvellous 
 celerity, 'and Davie's name is David William 
 Martin, and we live with mother and Miss Merrick 
 in that cottage yonder,' and Ben pointed with his 
 chubby hand to the bottom of the wooded hill, 
 where the red roof of Fir Cottage shone in the 
 afternoon light ; ' now please, show me your 
 pretty thing,' but his delight was unbounded when 
 the stranger extracted from his pocket a tiny, but 
 
 195
 
 196 A WOMAN'S FAITH 
 
 beautifully carved model of a goat ; the result of 
 many an hour of patient and painstaking work. 
 
 'Why, it is like the nanny what lives down at 
 Crompton's and always butts at the big dog. I 
 am a good boy, mostly,' continued Ben, looking 
 up into the wild man's face with engaging frank- 
 ness, ' though I would not play Abel, but perhaps 
 to-morrow I won't mind so much ; so may I 
 have it ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, you may have the billy-goat,' returned 
 the man gently ; ' it was for you, little 'un, that I 
 made it ; and there 's a kangaroo for David ; he 
 is another good boy, I know.' 
 
 ' Oh, David 's always good,' returned Ben, 
 carelessly ; ' except when he fights the boys in 
 the playground, and comes home with a black 
 eye to mother, and then she always cries. Why 
 is your sleeve pinned up to your coat ? aren't you 
 got no arm inside it? ' and Ben's eyes grew round 
 and pitiful. 
 
 'No, sonny; they were forced to cut it off 
 because it hurt so ; I will tell you all about that 
 by and by ; now give me a kiss for that pretty 
 billy of yours,' but Ben hung shyly back, and 
 shook his head. 
 
 ' I don't never kiss no one but mother and Miss 
 Merrick,' he said, shaking his curls over his eyes ; 
 ' please I must go to mother now.' 
 
 'And so you shall, sonny, but you must do
 
 THE WILD MAN OF THE WOODS 197 
 
 something for me ; I have more than one pretty 
 thing in this pocket for good little lads, now,' lay- 
 ing a little battered locket in his hand, black with 
 age and exposure, but with a tiny curl of red- 
 dish-brown hair distinctly visible. ' I want you 
 to put this in your mother's hand, in her hand, 
 Benjy, mind, and say to her, " Will has sent you 
 this.'" Benjy nodded as he gripped the locket 
 tightly ; he was hungry, and he knew it was near 
 tea-time, and he was dying to show his nanny- 
 goat to David. He sped down the hill as fast as 
 his sturdy legs would carry him, passing David 
 like a miniature whirlwind. David, who felt 
 rather sulky and ill-used, took no notice as Benjy 
 fled past him, overturning his altar of fir-cones 
 and a whole oyster-shell full of acorns that he 
 had carefully collected. Benjy had caught sight 
 of his mother coming up the little lane to call 
 them in to tea ; Bessie's grey sunbonnet was 
 tilted over her eyes, and she had a clean cotton 
 apron tied over her neat black gown. 'What's 
 to do with you, my dearie ? ' she said in a soothing 
 voice, as Benjy rushed up to her excitedly. 
 
 ' Oh, mother,' he exclaimed, eager to make a 
 clean breast to his dearest friend and confidante, 
 'I was a naughty boy, and would not play Cain 
 and Abel for Davie, and the wild man frightened 
 me so, for I thought he was Fee-Fo-Fum, and he 
 had a horrid cloak and no arm, but he is a nice
 
 198 A WOMAN'S FAITH 
 
 man too. He told me to give you this,' laying 
 the blackened locket in her palm, ' and to say 
 " Will has sent you this." ' But alas ! here poor 
 Benjy had a second fright, for no sooner had 
 Bessie's eyes rested on the curl of reddish-brown 
 hair, than she uttered a cry so keen and piercing 
 that it reached the little Sister in her parlour, 
 while Benjy, scared by his mother's white face, 
 clung to her with all his might. 
 
 But Bessie flung him from her so roughly that 
 the child almost fell on his face. 
 
 ' Where ? where ? ' she panted ; and then caught 
 him by the shoulder as though to shake the 
 answer from him, ' where, for God's sake, where?' 
 and poor Benjy, who felt as though all his little 
 world was in chaos, and who had never been so 
 roughly handled in all his happy childish life, 
 had only presence of mind to point up the hill 
 before he broke into another storm of sobs. 
 
 Up there ! yes, there was certainly something 
 dark moving cautiously between the tree trunks ; 
 then Bessie's mood changed, and her sudden 
 frenzy seemed to calm down, and the next 
 moment her clear shrill voice sounded through 
 the wood. ' Will, Will, what 's keeping you, my 
 lad ? ' and then she took off her sunbonnet and 
 waved it a little wildly, for such a trembling had 
 seized her limbs that she was unable to move. 
 ' I am coming, my lass, bide a moment, Bessie,' was
 
 THE WILD MAN OF THE WOODS 199 
 
 shouted back, and then her dazed eyes saw a tall 
 cloaked figure coming swiftly down the woodland 
 path, and the next moment it seemed to Benjy 
 as though his mother was suddenly caught and 
 entangled and lost in the dreadful flapping cloak. 
 
 But Bessie, with her cheek against the empty 
 sleeve, was only sobbing out in an ecstasy, over 
 and over again, ' Ay, my lad, my lad ; I knew 
 you would come back to me, my own dear Will,' 
 and so on, the soft drawling voice only broken 
 upon by a man's tearless sobs. 
 
 ' Dear heart, true heart,' was all Will could find 
 to say, for the joy of seeing that comely brown 
 head resting against his shoulder seemed to 
 deprive him of speech ; but Bessie, who had lived 
 for this moment, and who had rehearsed this 
 scene at least five hundred times, was the first to 
 recover herself. 
 
 So she wiped away the tears that almost blinded 
 her, and began, womanlike, to notice the changes 
 in her beloved. And first she kindly touched the 
 unkempt beard that was so thickly threaded with 
 grey, and noted the thin sunken cheeks, and the 
 haggard weary eyes, and as she remembered the 
 handsome sailor who had bidden her goodbye 
 that summer's morning, a sudden lump in her 
 throat seemed to choke her ; next she stooped 
 down and kissed the empty sleeve pitifully, and 
 then both her arms went round his neck. ' Oh,
 
 2oo A WOMAN'S FAITH 
 
 what have they done to you, my lad ? ' she said in 
 her tender slow voice. Will could have wept 
 like a child when he heard it. 
 
 ' It is only a useless old hulk you have got, 
 Bessie,' he said hoarsely ; ' when you took me for 
 better or worse, you little thought how it would 
 be,' but here Bessie laid a strong work-worn hand 
 upon his lips. 
 
 ' Nay, Will, you shall not say that ; have not 
 the little lads and me prayed for you night and 
 morning, " Only let me see my Will's face again " ? 
 — that is what 1 would say night after night, and 
 it fairly drove me crazy when they would have 
 it you were dead.' 
 
 ' Dear heart, but I was near death more than 
 once ; I never thought to see your bonnie face 
 again'; then Bessie shivered, but the next moment 
 she smiled in his face. 
 
 ' That is over and gone, Will ; now come home, 
 my lad, for you look wearied to death,' and she 
 would have led him down the hill, but Will 
 resisted and stood still. 
 
 ' I must speak to my boy first ; where is David, 
 wife? the little sonny and I have already made 
 friends'; then Bessie looked across the wood in 
 some perplexity, the boys' playground was empty, 
 and only the sandy cat was still playing with the 
 fir-cones, while the black sow, with grunts of 
 satisfaction, was wallowing amongst the acorns.
 
 THE WILD MAN OF THE WOODS 201 
 
 'David,' called out Bessie loudly, and then her 
 keen grey eyes saw the little lad hiding behind 
 the poultry coup. Benjy had discovered him first, 
 — both the boys were crying. 
 
 ' That ain't father, that ugly black man/ David 
 had said, and Benjy's answer had not been con- 
 soling. 
 
 ' I don't know nothing about that,' gasped 
 Benjy ; ' only mother just screeched and flew to 
 him ; he is a wild man, Davie, but he is not Fee- 
 Fo-Fum, and he gave me this nanny-goat, but we 
 don't want him to come and live with us, do we ? ' 
 
 ' Be quiet, Benjy,' and David stamped his foot. 
 The bare idea made the boy furious ; how could 
 this grim bearded foreigner be his handsome 
 sailor father whose portrait he had so often kissed 
 when he wished it good night ? Benjy could not 
 remember him, of course, but David had a vivid 
 recollection of a brown smooth face that he had 
 loved to stroke, and smiling eyes that had looked 
 into his. ' That ain't father/ he muttered, and 
 out of sheer vexation and perplexity he mingled 
 his tears with Benjy's. 
 
 ' David, come here ; I want you, dearie/ ex- 
 claimed Bessie anxiously, but David advanced 
 reluctantly, and his eyes were fixed on the 
 ground. He looked sullen and ill at ease. 
 
 'Won't you speak to your daddy, David?' 
 pleaded Bessie piteously. ' Will, the little lads are
 
 202 A WOMAN'S FAITH 
 
 a bit scared at you, but you must not take it 
 unkindly. Davie was only three when you saw 
 him last, but he is your very image,' and then she 
 looked proudly at her boy, and held out her 
 hand coaxingly to Benjy, and the next moment 
 Benjy was clinging to her apron and hiding his 
 face in her gown, but David held aloof. ' That 
 ain't my dad,' he repeated rebelliously. 
 
 ' You must give them time, wife,' observed Will 
 a little sadly ; ' I doubt that I am only a scarecrow 
 to frighten children ; let me sit down somewhere 
 and rest myself a bit, and David will take to me 
 later on.' 
 
 Clare Merrick saw the little group passing her 
 window. Bessie's grey hood had fallen off, she 
 was holding Will's hand. Benjy was still cling- 
 ing to her skirt ; Davie, with downcast eyes and 
 heaving breast, was following them. 
 
 'Will has come home,' that was all Bessie said, 
 as the little Sister hurried out with her congratu- 
 lations. 'What did I tell you, Miss Merrick? was 
 I not right when I said the same world held my 
 lad and me? God be praised for all His mercies,' 
 and then Bessie led Will into the pleasant homely 
 sitting-room with its window opening on to the 
 honeysuckle verandah, and that evening the little 
 Sister saw her no more. David refused to make 
 friends with his father that night, and all Bessie's 
 coaxing speeches could not draw him from his
 
 THE WILD MAN OF THE WOODS 203 
 
 corner, where he sat doubled up on his little stool, 
 and pretending to read Robinson Crusoe. Will 
 gave her a hint presently to leave him alone. 
 Now and then he cast longing glances on the boy. 
 David's sturdy limbs and clear bright eyes re- 
 minded him of his own childhood. Will was 
 hungry for his boy's caresses, but he was obliged 
 to content himself with Benjy. Benjy was per- 
 fectly friendly, and had climbed up on his knee in 
 the most confiding way. ' David thinks you are 
 too ugly and black to be our dad,' he observed 
 confidentially, but David only glowered at his little 
 brother and hunched his shoulders over his book. 
 
 David had never felt so unhappy, so out in the 
 cold before. He was an imaginative and affec- 
 tionate boy, and constant companionship with 
 grown-up people had made him precocious. From 
 babyhood he had idealised the memory of his 
 father. Dad was his hero ; he was not only noble 
 and beautiful, but he was the bravest and best 
 man in the world. To have his ideals so ruth- 
 lessly destroyed was keen suffering to David, and 
 indeed poor Will was a somewhat unsightly 
 object that evening in childish eyes. 
 
 David slunk off to bed presently — when he 
 could bear his isolation and wretchedness no 
 longer ; it was far more comfortable sobbing 
 out his griefs under the bedclothes than making 
 believe to read Robinson Crusoe — and then sleep,
 
 2o 4 A WOMAN'S FAITH 
 
 that comforter of unhappy childhood, laid his 
 drowsy fingers on David's hot forehead, and 
 lulled him to forgetfulness. 
 
 David slept late the next morning ; the sandy 
 cat woke him by jumping on his chest, and as he 
 rubbed his eyes, with a sleepy exclamation, he was 
 aware of a strange man standing by the window. 
 
 David was wide enough awake now, and he 
 regarded the stranger distrustfully ; what business 
 had brought him there? he had never seen him 
 before, and yet there was something familiar in 
 his appearance. To be sure, his blue coat and 
 brass buttons proved him to be a sailor ; why, dad 
 had a coat like that — mother had it locked up in 
 the big chest ; it was rather old and white about 
 the seams, but he and Benjy always admired it 
 so, though there was a nasty big stain like tar 
 on one shoulder — and here David started up in 
 bed as his eyes caught sight of a familiar patch. 
 At the movement behind him the stranger turned 
 round, and David saw a thin beardless face with 
 sunken cheeks, and curly hair mixed plentifully 
 with grey, and a pair of tired kind eyes that 
 seemed to look straight into his heart. 
 
 'Do you know your dad better this morning, 
 sonny ? ' and then as David, sorely repentant and 
 ashamed, began to cry, Will sat down on the 
 side of the bed and drew the boy's head to his 
 shoulder.
 
 THE WILD MAN OF THE WOODS 205 
 
 1 1 have got rid of the beard,' observed Will, 
 stroking David's hair. * I don't look so much 
 like a wild man of the woods, do I, Davie ? the 
 coat 's a size too big for me, but mother made me 
 put it on,' and then Bessie, peeping through the 
 open doorway, saw David nestle affectionately to 
 his father. 
 
 'You are more like my dad this morning,' he 
 whispered, ' though you ain't so handsome as dad 
 was,' and then Bessie slipped away, for the joy 
 that overflowed her simple heart vented itself in 
 lovine ministries for the husband who had come 
 back to her from the dead. The news spread 
 like wildfire through Sandilands that Will Martin 
 had come home ; and all day long, sympathising 
 and curious neighbours climbed up the steep hill 
 path to Fir Cottage, just to shake Will's hand 
 and wish Bessie joy. 
 
 One of the last arrivals was the Vicar, and to 
 him Will told his strange story. As far as he 
 knew, there was no other survivor of the crew of 
 the ill-fated Arethnsa, and his own escape had 
 been little short of a miracle. When the vessel 
 went down, he had kept afloat for a while, and 
 had then seized a plank that was drifting past 
 him, and by and by, as daylight dawned, he 
 managed to scramble on to a boat that had its 
 keel uppermost, a strong current seemed carrying 
 him along, and before night he found himself
 
 206 A WOMAN'S FAITH 
 
 washed ashore on what looked to be like a bare 
 reef. He was battered, bruised, and starving, and 
 he imagined that he fainted, for when he came to 
 himself he was not in the same place, but was 
 lying bound hand and foot under a clump of 
 bushes, and some dusky figures were sitting in a 
 semicircle round a fire. 
 
 He had fallen into the hands of savages, but 
 happily, as he found out later, they were not 
 cannibals ; but he knew little of what passed for 
 some time. 
 
 Probably his head had received some hurt, for 
 a succession of ghastly dreams and fancies 
 haunted him ; now and then he must have had 
 lucid intervals, for once he found his limbs were 
 free, and that he was lying on a bed of leaves, 
 and another time he distinctly remembered drink- 
 ing a long draught of cocoanut milk from a cala- 
 bash ; afterwards he found out that the chiefs 
 wife had tended him. 
 
 When he recovered he set himself to make 
 friends of his captors, and being handy like most 
 sailors, he made all sorts of toys and little things 
 to please the women and children. 
 
 But his greatest feat was bandaging the arm of 
 a young savage who had received a terrible flesh 
 wound from the stroke of an axe. But for Will's 
 timely help he would have bled to death. After 
 this he seemed to have acquired the reputation of
 
 THE WILD MAN OF THE WOODS 207 
 
 a medicine-man, and was very well treated in 
 consequence. He had a little hut constructed for 
 him, and had plenty of food and cocoanut milk, 
 but he still found himself a close prisoner. When 
 the men went out on their fishing expeditions, 
 the women kept watch over him, and the least 
 attempt to escape the island always brought the 
 whole encampment at his heels, with threatening 
 gestures and loud clamouring that soon drove 
 him back to his hut. 
 
 Will had no means of learning his true situa- 
 tion, and only a rough reckoning by cutting 
 notches in the trees gave him any idea of time, 
 but his opinion was that he must have been on 
 that island more than five years before he managed 
 to effect his escape. His clothes had long been 
 worn out, and he looked almost as wild as the 
 savages among whom he lived, when a boatful of 
 sailors from some vessel cruising near rowed into 
 a sheltered creek at the island. Happily the men 
 of the tribe had gone off on one of their fishing 
 expeditions, and the women and children had 
 hidden themselves among the trees at the sight of 
 the white men, so no one saw Will creeping down 
 on his hands and knees among the prickly bushes. 
 
 ' Hulloa, here comes our man Friday,' exclaimed 
 a bright-faced young middy, and like Friday, 
 poor Will dropped abjectly on his knees. 
 
 1 For God's sake, gentlemen, take me with you,'
 
 208 A WOMAN'S FAITH 
 
 he implored almost hysterically ; ' I am an English 
 sailor, and these savages have kept me prisoner 
 all these years ; my name is Will Martin.' ' We 
 got him in the boat in a jiffey,' related one of the 
 sailors afterwards ; ' my eyes ! how Gurney stared 
 when the man Friday began talking good English. 
 But we were only just in time, for two canoes 
 came round the creek, and in another moment 
 they would have let their arrows fly. As it was, 
 they followed us pretty closely.' 
 
 It was in this way that Will reached the Cape. 
 But his misfortunes were not over ; a few days 
 after he landed the accident occurred that resulted 
 in weeks of helpless suffering, and eventually in the 
 loss of his arm. For the second time he lay at 
 death's door, and when at last he left the hospital 
 he was a broken man, penniless, enfeebled, and 
 almost hopeless; and if he had not fallen into the 
 hands of good Samaritans, Bessie would never 
 have had her husband back. Some Dutch settlers 
 who lived up-country took him with them in their 
 wagon, and Will stayed with them until he had 
 recovered his strength. 
 
 His one idea was to reach England and see 
 with his own eyes if his wife was still faithful to 
 his memory, but after all these years he feared to 
 write. One clay fortune befriended him ; a rich 
 young Englishman travelling for his own amuse- 
 ment crossed his path unexpectedly, and hearing
 
 THE WILD MAN OF THE WOODS 209 
 
 his strange story, took him back with him to 
 the Cape, and finally shipped him to England. 
 
 'The moment he heard my wife was a Sandi- 
 lands woman,' continued Will, ' he turned round 
 and asked me if my name were not Will Martin, 
 and it was he who first gave me hope that my 
 Bessie was still faithful to me.' 
 
 'And the name of your benefactor?' asked the 
 Vicar quickly. 
 
 'Well, sir, he did not tell me for a bit, but when 
 he bid me good-bye on board, he said we should 
 meet again soon, for he had finished his travels, 
 and would be home very shortly, and then he said 
 his name was Jack Compton, and that he lived 
 at the big house at Sandilands. My word, how 
 my heart jumped when he said that, for was it 
 not Madam Compton who had given Bessie her 
 wedding gown ? though I had never set eyes on 
 her son before.' 
 
 ' I hope this was the end of your troubles, 
 Martin,' observed the Vicar with kindly sympathy, 
 as Will paused for a moment. 
 
 ' No, sir ; I am sorry to say Murad the Unlucky 
 was still to the fore ; dry your eyes, Bessie, my 
 lass, for I have nearly finished now. I reached 
 London all right, but the bed they gave me for 
 my night's lodging must have been damp ; but 
 anyhow, I had a bout of rheumatism that kept 
 me in hospital for well-nigh five weeks. 
 
 Q
 
 2io A WOMAN'S FAITH 
 
 ' As soon as I could pick up my strength I 
 started for Sandilands, but somehow, when I 
 reached Brentwood my nerve seemed gone, and 
 I could not face the idea of walking up to Fir 
 Cottage. Would you believe it, I kept walking up 
 and down in the Brentwood road until I was 
 fairly ready to drop, and when the rain came I 
 made up my mind to bide a night at the Hen 
 and Chickens.' 
 
 ' Oh, Will, we must go and see Joan,' exclaimed 
 Bessie rapturously, ' she is the best friend I have 
 in Sandilands.' 
 
 ' True, but there is one duty for us to do first,' 
 returned the Vicar with unusual solemnity, and 
 then he lifted his hand meaningly as the church 
 bell sounded across the valley. 
 
 Bessie put on her grey hood without a word, 
 and she and Will, with the boys following them, 
 walked meekly behind the Vicar. As the little 
 procession crossed the village green, people 
 hurried out of their cottages and stood looking 
 after them, then first one and then another fol- 
 lowed them through the lichgate ; even a knot 
 of workmen standing in the doorway of the Fox 
 and Hounds looked sheepishly at each other and 
 then emptied their pipes. 
 
 Never had the Vicar had such a congregation 
 on a week-day. Before the short service was over 
 the church was full.
 
 THE WILD MAN OF THE WOODS 211 
 
 Bessie's heart heaved with pent-up sobs as she 
 and Will knelt hand in hand, and there was not 
 a dry eye in the church when the Vicar, with a 
 break in his sonorous voice, returned thanks for 
 the great mercies vouchsafed to two members of 
 the congregation. 
 
 But perhaps the crowning glory of the service 
 to Bessie was when she heard Will's voice, a little 
 hoarse and quavering, joining in her favourite 
 hymn, the very one she had sung to herself the 
 previous day as she stood at the door of the Hen 
 and Chickens : — 
 
 ' The exile is at home ! 
 
 O nights and days of tears, 
 O longings not to roam, 
 
 O sins and doubts and fears, 
 What matters now grief's darkest day, 
 The King has wiped those tears away.'
 
 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH 
 MARKHAM
 
 NANCE REED'S DAUGHTER 
 
 When Hannah Reed married Stephen Markham 
 that wild windy March morning all Sandilands 
 rose up like one man and denounced the ill- 
 assorted union. 
 
 Perhaps the women were more scathing in 
 their criticisms, and there were plenty of sharp 
 speeches uttered at the bridegroom's expense. 
 ' What ails the woman that she must take up with 
 a dour man like Steeve Markham ? ' old Elspeth 
 Cameron was heard to mutter, and no word was 
 more true in its description. Not even his best 
 friend, if he possessed one, could have denied that 
 Stephen Markham was a dour man. 
 
 But if the women sharpened their tongues, there 
 was a great deal of head-shaking, and not a few 
 meaning looks in the bar of the Fox and Hounds ; 
 when Nathan Wood the blacksmith put down 
 his empty tankard and drew his hand across his 
 lips with a slow wink at Reuben Stedman, it was 
 at once understood by every one that Hannah 
 had caught a Tartar. 
 
 216
 
 2i6 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 'God help her, poor soul!' murmured Bessie 
 Martin, wringing the soapsuds from her arms as 
 she stood at her wash-tub that morning. ' I fear 
 she has done an ill job for herself this day. But 
 there, when a woman plays the fool and takes the 
 wrong mate for better and worse she must just 
 bide the bitterment.' But all that day Bessie's soft 
 heart felt sorely for Hannah. Perhaps the Sandi- 
 lands folk were a little too hard on Stephen 
 Markham, for, with all his faults and strange 
 complex personality, he was not without his 
 virtues. He was a steady, respectable man, sober 
 and abstemious, and was never known to loiter 
 either at the Fox and Hounds or the Hen and 
 Chickens. He was a good son, too, and had 
 worked for his widowed mother ever since he had 
 been a lad of sixteen. 
 
 The wonder was how he had contrived to win 
 Hannah's affections. 
 
 Hannah Reed was not a Sandilands woman. 
 She was the blacksmith's daughter at Brentwood, 
 and was considered the finest girl for miles 
 round. Even the Vicar, who had an aesthetic eye, 
 and was no mean judge of female beauty, had 
 given his opinion unhesitatingly that Hannah 
 Reed was undeniably handsome. 
 
 She was tall and a little massive in build, but 
 her clear brown skin, bright hazel eyes, and dark 
 hair certainly laid claims to beauty. No girl in
 
 NANCE REED'S DAUGHTER 217 
 
 Sandilands, Brentwood, or Great Ditton could 
 compete with her in good looks, and when 
 Hannah came into church in her grey alpaca, and 
 with a hop garland round her hat, the Brentwood 
 lasses looked anxiously at their sweethearts and 
 pursed up their lips severely. 
 
 Hannah had more lovers than she knew how to 
 manage. On Sunday evenings the green before 
 the forge was black with them. It was odd and a 
 little amusing to see how the lads glowered at each 
 other, and then nudged each other's elbows when 
 Hannah turned her back on them, but when 
 Stephen Markham first showed his face on the 
 green, they were heard to mutter deep down in 
 their throats, that they wanted no black-faced 
 Jeremiah to cut in and spoil their game. But Jem 
 Slater finished more cheerily. ' Well, boys, it don't 
 so much matter after all ; there is no fear that a girl 
 like Hannah Reed would take up with a dour- 
 looking chap like Steeve Markham.' But alas for 
 poor Jem's hopes, a few weeks later the banns of 
 Stephen Markham and Hannah Reed were read 
 in church. 
 
 Stephen Markham lived in the last cottage at 
 Audley End. He was wheelwright and carpenter, 
 and his workshed and yard adjoined the house. 
 Stephen was a capital workman and drove a brisk 
 trade, and was considered in Sandilands a warm 
 man. He had money in the Brentwood Bank, and
 
 2i8 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 the cottage, which was roomy and comfortable, as 
 well as the wood-yard belonged to him. Quite 
 recently he had added two rooms to the cottage, 
 a parlour and bedroom over it, and Miriam Earle 
 from the bakery had lifted up her hands in 
 amazement when she had been shown the corner 
 cupboards and the handsome press and the oak 
 box with the carved lid which Stephen had made 
 for his young wife. There was no denying that, 
 as far as the loaves and fishes were concerned, 
 Hannah was doing a good thing for herself, and 
 perhaps this view of the matter made the black- 
 smith and his wife give their consent ; for when a 
 man has four growing lads to feed and clothe, 
 besides three girls still in their teens, a well-to-do 
 son-in-law with money in the Brentwood Bank 
 was not to be despised. 
 
 ' If Hannah fancies him, and we know no ill of 
 him,' George Reed observed to his wife, ' it is not 
 for us to put down our foot. He is not a 
 genial chap, certainly, and he has a silent tongue. 
 But then we can't be cut after one pattern, so 
 cheer up, Nancy, woman.' But Mrs. Reed shook 
 her head sadly, and her eyes were a little dim. 
 
 1 1 don't hold with it, George,' she said timidly, 
 for she was somewhat in awe of her big stalwart 
 husband. ' Hannah is the flower of our flock, and 
 could take her choice of a dozen honest lads. If 
 she marries Steeve Markham, I doubt if she will
 
 NANCE REED'S DAUGHTER 219 
 
 be as happy a woman as her mother has been.' 
 But even Nancy wavered for a bit, when Hannah 
 slyly enticed her over to Sandilands on pretence 
 of purchasing a bargain at Crampton's Stores, and 
 then inveigled her to the End cottage ; for when 
 the glories of the new parlour and the corner cup- 
 boards were displayed to her, Nancy Reed was 
 not quite so sure that her daughter was to be 
 pitied. 
 
 1 If only Steeve's mother were not to live with 
 them,' she replied ; but Hannah, who was sanguine 
 by temperament, and inclined to see everything in 
 couleur de rose, had offered no objection when 
 Stephen had informed her of this arrangement. 
 
 If Stephen Markham was a dour man he 
 certainly inherited his austerity from his mother. 
 Deborah was by no means a lovable woman. 
 If she had deep feelings and warm affections, 
 which many people doubted, she concealed them 
 most successfully under a stern uncompromising 
 exterior. 
 
 She was a little, white, thin-lipped woman, with 
 strangely keen eyes. But for her eyes, her face 
 would have been as expressionless as a wooden 
 mask. ' Deborah has an east-windy look,' Miriam 
 was once heard to say, though she seldom 
 criticised her neighbours ; 'it is not wholesome for 
 a woman to hold her tongue six days of the week, 
 for it makes her bitter on the seventh ; but there,
 
 220 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARK HAM 
 
 we don't know what troubles she may have known, 
 poor soul.' 
 
 It was a bitter hour when Deborah first learnt 
 from her son's lips that he was to wed the black- 
 smith's daughter. More than one well-meaning 
 person had tried to give her a hint of what was 
 coming, but Deborah had refused to be enlight- 
 ened. 
 
 ' Stephen goes to the Brentwood forge most 
 Sunday evenings ; I am thinking Hannah Reed 
 has got a new sweetheart,' observed her neighbour; 
 but when these sort of speeches were made to her 
 Deborah's thin lips only twitched slightly, but she 
 made no answer. Even when Miss Batesby, who 
 had a finger in every Sandilands pie, told her in a 
 shocked voice that she had come upon Stephen 
 Markham and Hannah Reed the previous evening 
 walking hand in hand on the Brentwood road — 
 'just for all the world as though they were 
 acknowledged lovers,' finished Miss Batesby — 
 Deborah only looked at her in silence, and then 
 went to the oven door to take out her batch of 
 new bread. 
 
 Deborah never spoke to her son that day at 
 dinner-time. The two often ate their meals silently. 
 Stephen was making up his mind that he would 
 break the news before he slept that night. ' We 
 are to be cried in church next Sunday, and it is 
 time that I told her,' he said to himself, and
 
 NANCE REED'S DAUGHTER 221 
 
 when he came to this conclusion he gave himself 
 a shake, and went back to his work. 
 
 Deborah stood at the window a moment watch- 
 ing him, her eyes had an ominous sparkle in them. 
 
 1 He is full to the brim with it,' she thought, 
 'and he will find his tongue to-night,' and then she 
 went doggedly about her work. And no one 
 would have guessed how her mother's heart ached 
 with almost physical agony. ' And he is all I 
 have — all I have,' she would moan at intervals, 
 ' and now he will be taken from me.' 
 
 Deborah's kitchen at tea-time was always a 
 pleasant sight. The bright firelight was reflected 
 on the gleaming brasses and tins ; the well-scoured 
 table and dresser set off the blue-rimmed plates 
 and cups that were the pride of Deborah's heart ; 
 the big rocking-chairs with their red twill cushions 
 looked so inviting, while through the open door 
 one had a side view of the yard, with its wood- 
 piles and cart-wheels and miscellaneous lumber, 
 and even the shed, with its carpenter's bench 
 littered with clean curly shavings was clearly 
 visible. 
 
 When Stephen Markham crossed the threshold 
 he seemed to block up the whole doorway. He 
 was a big muscular man, very strongly developed in 
 the chest and arms, but a little bowed in the legs, 
 as though he had been a rickety child, or had 
 been allowed to walk too early. His features were
 
 222 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 good, and might almost have been considered 
 handsome, but his repellent gravity and the 
 gloom in his lustreless black eyes gave him a 
 down aspect. He seldom smiled, and no one could 
 remember hearing a hearty laugh from him, but 
 Hannah had once told her mother that she had 
 never seen any smile so sweet. ' It was just sun- 
 shine, mother, and transformed him ; it most took 
 my breath away,' and ever afterwards the girl 
 strove in her innocent playful way to make 
 Stephen smile again. 
 
 Stephen stood so long on the threshold that 
 evening that Deborah grew impatient. 
 
 1 Come in, lad,' she said sharply, ' and sit you 
 down ; your tea is ready,' and then Stephen came 
 to the table, and cut himself a mighty slice of 
 bread and butter, which he ate with some young 
 cress, and it was not until he had pushed up his 
 cup for the third time, that he broke silence. 
 ' Mother, I am going to wed Hannah Reed. We 
 are to be cried in church here, and at Brentwood, 
 next Sunday.' 
 
 Deborah made no answer, but the lid of the 
 teapot slipped from her trembling hand and 
 rattled against the sugar-basin. 
 
 'Do you hear me, mother?' and Stephen raised 
 his voice. More than once he had known his 
 mother affect deafness if the subject displeased 
 her.
 
 NANCE REED'S DAUGHTER 223 
 
 'Ay, I hear you, Steeve,' she returned dryly, 
 'and more's the pity. Well, lad, you have given 
 me short notice. So in three weeks I am to turn 
 out and give up my place to Nance Reed's 
 daughter.' Then Stephen brought down his hand 
 on the table with a suppressed oath. 
 
 ' It is like you to be aggravating, mother,' he 
 said angrily. ' Who but yourself would think of 
 such a thing? Haven't I worked for you ever since 
 my father died ? and now, because I tell you I am 
 going to wed Hannah Reed, you are throwing it 
 against me, that I am turning my mother out of 
 doors ! Ah ! you are ill to deal with, as my poor 
 Hannah will find to her cost' 
 
 'Ay, my lad, have I mistook you?' returned 
 Deborah eagerly. ' Am I to stay when you bring 
 your wife home? Oh, the cottage is big enough, 
 she went on ; 'there are three grand new rooms 
 which are far too good for the likes of me. Tell 
 me quick, Steeve,' and here her eyes were almost 
 piercing in their intensity. ' Am I to go or 
 stay ? ' 
 
 'You are to stay,' but Stephen's voice was 
 harsh. He was not even softened when his 
 mother threw her apron over her head and burst 
 into sobs that seemed to tear her to pieces with 
 their violence. All these weeks she had silently 
 borne a martyrdom of doubt and dread, and now 
 the relief broke her down.
 
 224 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 ' Ay, Steeve, God bless thee for saying that!' 
 she wailed. ' After all, I need not have 
 fretted myself and doubted ; it would not have 
 been like my good lad to turn his mother out of 
 doors.' But this speech failed to touch Stephen ; 
 he only frowned as he cut himself some more 
 bread. 
 
 ' 1 am glad you have come to your senses, 
 mother,' he returned almost roughly, ' but it is 
 like you to look at the worst and the darkest 
 side,' and here there was a touch of repressed 
 passion in his voice. ' Oh, I was a fool to expect 
 sympathy,' he went on bitterly, 'or to think you 
 would wish me joy. I have slaved and worked 
 since I was a youngster to keep the wolf from the 
 door, and a good roof over your head, and now 
 you grudge my sweetheart a welcome.' 
 
 ' Nay, Steeve, you must not say that,' and 
 Deborah looked at him wistfully, 'your wife shall 
 have her dues. Don't I know there can only be 
 one missis? I will just bide in my chimney 
 corner and let Hannah tend thee,' and then her 
 hand stole out to him, and her keen eyes were 
 full of yearning tenderness; but Stephen made 
 no response. He had said his say, but in his 
 heart he was hopeless of results. He knew the 
 jealous bitterness with which his mother would 
 yield her privileges to her daughter-in-law. 
 
 1 Hannah will find her ill to deal with,' he
 
 NANCE REED'S DAUGHTER 225 
 
 muttered to himself, as he kindled his pipe in the 
 porch. 
 
 They were a strange couple, mother and son, 
 and from that night to the wedding morning no 
 word about the future passed between them. 
 
 Deborah went about her work^silently, but she 
 made no preparations for her daughter-in-law. 
 It was Stephen who arranged the furniture in the 
 parlour, and who tended the plants at the 
 window. His mother only watched from afar, 
 but when he was safely away she stole in to see 
 the result of his labour. When she saw the new 
 carpet and curtains, and the oval mirror over the 
 mantel-shelf, a dull red colour came to her face. 
 
 ' It is fine enough for Madam,' she muttered. 
 1 1 am thinking Nance Reed's daughter has done 
 grandly for herself,' and at that moment there 
 was almost hatred in her heart for Stephen's 
 sweetheart. 
 
 When the wedding-day arrived Stephen put on 
 his best clothes, and then went to look for his 
 mother. She was busy at her ironing and looked 
 up at him sharply as he entered. 
 
 'Well, I must be going,' he said abruptly. 'I 
 shall bring Hannah home this evening. Don't 
 trouble about supper. We shall have been eating 
 and drinking enough ; for Mrs. Reed is giving a 
 fine spread.' Then Deborah snorted : 
 
 1 I '11 warrant that of Nance Reed,' she said 
 
 P
 
 226 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 severely. ' Ay, they are a wasteful lot. It is 
 well you have money saved, Steeve, for you will 
 need all you have got. Well, well, don't let me 
 keep you,' and then Stephen, with an impatient 
 word, turned on his heel. His brow was dark 
 with anger as he walked down the road ; not even 
 on his wedding-day would she wish him joy. 
 
 Deborah watched him until he was out of sight, 
 then she rocked herself in her chair and shed 
 bitter tears of remorse over her evil temper. 
 
 ' Oh, my lad,' she moaned, ' how could I treat 
 thee so ill ? My Steeve, and looking so grand 
 and noble on his wedding day ! I am just eaten 
 up with my jealousy and my pride in him ; if it 
 were only another sort of woman ; but a good- 
 looking wench with stuck-up notions and grand 
 ways, and not a penny in her pocket ! Oh, it 
 angers me sore to think of it, that my Steeve 
 should choose a wife from a feckless lot like the 
 Reeds,' and Deborah wept long and sorely. 
 
 But when evening had come, she was in her 
 best Sunday merino and a spotless cap. The 
 kitchen too was in nice order, and a tray with 
 cake and ginger wine was on the table. Beside 
 it lay a bunch of keys, ostentatiously laid on 
 a fringed napkin. 
 
 When Stephen, a little flushed, but holding his 
 head high, entered the house with his girl wife 
 hanging on his arm, Deborah winced and her
 
 NANCE REED'S DAUGHTER 227 
 
 small thin face grew strangely white. She put 
 up her hand to her eyes as though Hannah's 
 blooming looks and fresh young beauty almost 
 dazzled her, but the next moment she recovered 
 herself. 
 
 1 Good-evening, Hannah,' sht^ said coldly, ' sit 
 you down, my woman,' but she did not offer to 
 kiss her, though Hannah looked at her wistfully. 
 'Steeve, lad, you'll be giving your wife a glass 
 of our home-made ginger wine and some cake. 
 It is for luck, if ever there is luck in this house, 
 for the new-made wife to break bread before she 
 goes up the stairs ' ; then as Stephen did his 
 mother's bidding, Hannah broke off a crumb or 
 two and sipped her wine, but her eyes were full 
 of tears. 
 
 Deborah's next speech gave her little consola- 
 tion, for the keys were solemnly laid upon her 
 lap. 
 
 'The house is yours and you are mistress,' went 
 on Deborah in the same dry, toneless voice. 
 ' Stephen will show you the keys of the press and 
 the china cupboard,' and then she poured herself 
 out some wine. ' I drink your health, Hannah, 
 and yours too, Stephen, and I hope neither of 
 you will live to repent this day. Now I will wish 
 you good-night, for it is getting late,' and then 
 Deborah went off and lay wakeful and miserable 
 until morning.
 
 228 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 It was not a cheerful home-coming, and Hannah 
 felt herself strangely chilled. 
 
 ' Don't heed my mother, lass,' observed Stephen 
 soothingly, as he saw the cloud on his wife's face. 
 ' She is a bit contrary and perverse at times, but 
 her bark is worse than her bite, and she is not so 
 ill at the bottom. She is put out, maybe, because 
 she has to knock under, and will be missis no 
 longer, but you must just hold your own, Hannah, 
 and I will help you.' But this was poor consola- 
 tion to Hannah, who was affectionate and peace- 
 loving, and who had grown up in an atmosphere 
 of cheerfulness and good-nature. 
 
 Poor Hannah ! it was a woful change. At the 
 forge there had been a merry family party, big 
 strapping brothers who came in from their work 
 whistling and stumping heavily up and down the 
 stairs. All day long her comely, voluble mother 
 had bustled and catered for her household, assisted 
 by her daughters, but when evening fell there was 
 noise and laughter enough to blow the roof off, 
 as George Reed would say, looking complacently 
 round on his lads and lasses. 
 
 But now Hannah had to do her work silently, 
 only overlooked by her mother-in-law's severe 
 eyes. Deborah's keen glances followed her every- 
 where, until the poor girl felt as though the 
 crockery would slip through her fingers from 
 sheer nervousness.
 
 NANCE REED'S DAUGHTER 229 
 
 From the first Deborah had kept rigidly to the 
 rule she had laid down for herself, and sat knitting 
 in the chimney corner, leaving all the work of 
 the house to her daughter-in-law, until Hannah 
 in desperation appealed to her husband. 
 
 ' Steeve,' she said passionately, ' I can bear it 
 no longer. Why does not your mother help me, 
 instead of glowering at me morning, noon, and 
 night from the chimney corner ; it is driving me 
 fairly silly, for I know that nothing pleases her. 
 Yesterday she was finding fault with my baking, 
 and to-day it was my ironing, but mother always 
 had a good word for me. What is the use of my 
 wearing myself out ? ' and here Hannah, tired and 
 discouraged, shed tears of vexation; but Stephen 
 tried to comfort her ; she was over-done, and 
 missed her brothers and sisters. When tea was 
 over, he would take her for a stroll. She must 
 not heed his mother's nonsense ; the old woman 
 was twisty and had got notions in her head. 
 
 After this there was a stormy scene between 
 Stephen and his mother, and one that it was 
 well that Hannah did not witness. As usual, 
 when Stephen was in a masterful mood Deborah 
 had to give way. 
 
 'Look here, mother,' he finished, 'I have done 
 my duty to you, and now I mean to do it to my 
 wife. If you can't get along with Hannah better 
 than this, I must just take rooms for you at the
 
 230 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 other end of the village. I won't have her made 
 miserable and repenting the day that she wed 
 me,' and Stephen looked at his mother so 
 fiercely, and his eyes shone with such angry fire, 
 that Deborah was fairly cowed. 
 
 The next day she waylaid her daughter-in-law. 
 1 That job is too heavy for you, Hannah, let me 
 finish it for you,' and she spoke so civilly that 
 Hannah stared at her in amazement. 
 
 After that she shared all Hannah's work, taking 
 on herself the hardest and least pleasing parts. 
 ' I am tough and used to work,' was all she said 
 when Hannah begged her to spare herself; 'it 
 would send me crazy in a fortnight to do nought 
 but knit socks in the chimney corner.' 
 
 Stephen made no remark when he came in from 
 the shed and found his mother at the wash-tub or 
 pinning up the sheets and quilts on the clothes- 
 lines, and though he was secretly pleased to 
 see her baking bread and gingerbread as of old, 
 he carefully refrained from all comment. ' His 
 threat had frightened her, that was all,' he said to 
 himself, but once when she had refused to let 
 Hannah iron his shirts, he added to himself — 
 
 1 If she were not so terribly fond of me, she 
 might find room in her heart for Hannah.'
 
 11 * 
 
 A DUMB DEVIL 
 
 BEFORE many months had passed, Hannah 
 Markham knew in her secret heart that she had 
 made the great mistake of her life in marrying 
 Stephen, and yet, strange to say, she loved him. 
 
 As for Stephen, he worshipped her very 
 shadow ; but his nature was singularly undemon- 
 strative, and he lacked the power of expression. 
 During their courting days, and the first two or 
 three weeks of their early married life, while the 
 wonder and delight of his new possession had 
 transformed him for the time into another man, 
 his devotion had fully satisfied Hannah ; he 
 seemed never happy away from her, and haunted 
 the place as any ordinary lover might have done ; 
 but by and by he relapsed into his old habits. 
 If only Hannah had understood her husband's 
 complex nature ; but she was a warm-hearted, 
 impulsive creature, and she mistook his reticence 
 for coldness. 
 
 Stephen did not love his young wife less 
 
 231
 
 232 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 because he preferred spending his evenings in his 
 workshed, making a grand cabinet for her parlour, 
 instead of walking with her to Sandy Point or 
 Great Ditton; but when Hannah, sick at heart, 
 and weary of her mother-in-law's sour silence, 
 took to going over to Brentwood and remain- 
 ing for an hour or two at the forge, chatting 
 with her mother and laughing and joking with 
 her brothers, Stephen felt sore and injured. ' It 
 was not meet for a young wife to be always 
 trapezing up and down the Brentwood road,' he 
 said a little sharply; 'when a woman married, her 
 place was at home, and under her husband's 
 roof, and he did not hold with such feckless 
 ways.' 
 
 If only Hannah had had her temper under 
 control, and answered him mildly, Stephen's 
 wrath would have been quickly appeased ; but 
 instead of that she broke into tears and passion- 
 ate reproaches. 
 
 'Why should she not go to her old home to 
 see her parents and brothers and sisters? why 
 should Steeve grudge her a little pleasure when 
 the day's work was done? Did he think his mother 
 such good company, when she scarcely opened 
 her lips until bed-time?' and so on, with the 
 quick, childish petulance that was natural to her. 
 'Why did you not tell me that I was to be a 
 prisoner when you married me ? ' went on Hannah
 
 A DUMB DEVIL 233 
 
 with angry sobs, but Stephen made her no answer. 
 He gave her a dark look, and went on with his 
 turning ; and Hannah flung out of the shed, little 
 knowing the bitter storm she had raised. 
 
 Stephen felt cruelly hurt. Hannah could not 
 have much love for him, if his wishes were no- 
 thing to her ; surely a husband had a right to 
 express an opinion. Hannah was so young and 
 , inexperienced, that she needed guidance and con- 
 trol. ' She is repenting already that we are wed,' 
 he said to himself, and that night the demon of 
 jealousy awoke in the man's soul. 
 
 If only Hannah had had a wiser confidante — 
 but Nance Reed was an injudicious woman; and 
 she gave her daughter the worst possible advice. 
 ' You must not humour Steeve too much, Nanny,' 
 she said the next evening, when Hannah walked 
 over to the forge with her grievance ; ' it is not 
 safe to let a man always get his way, or he will 
 be putting his foot down, just for the pleasure of 
 it. Ah, they are a masterful lot, even the best of 
 them, but it is not for a wife to cringe like a 
 worm in the dust ; you must speak your mind to 
 him, my woman. Why, what ails Steeve that he 
 should take such a notion in his head ? ' 
 
 ' He says it is not for a newly wedded wife 
 to be always trapezing on the road,' returned 
 Hannah with a hysterical giggle. 
 
 'Fiddle-de-dee,' returned Nance scornfully;
 
 234 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 1 did ever a body hear such drivel ? Steeve must 
 have lost his wits to talk such nonsense. My 
 master kept me pretty tightly when we were 
 first wed, but he was never so crazy as that ; does 
 not a woman need the air as much when she is 
 married ? Trapezing the road indeed!' and Nance 
 tossed her comely head. ' Why does not Steeve 
 walk with you if he does not like the notion of 
 your going alone?' 
 
 'That is what I tell him,' returned Hannah 
 eagerly ; ' but he always makes out that so much 
 walking is waste of time, he likes better to be in 
 that horrid old workshop of his. I think work is 
 just play to him. I have left him at it now look- 
 ing as glum as possible, but he never said one 
 word when I told him where I was going ; and 
 mother-in-law was just as silent. Oh, mother,' 
 went on Hannah passionately, ' I feel sometimes 
 as though the pair of them would drive me silly ; 
 it is like living with two dummies who have lost 
 their speech. Sometimes I just talk aloud for the 
 pleasure of hearing a voice.' 
 
 'Poor lass,' replied her mother pityingly ; 'didn't 
 I tell your father that if you ever made up 
 with Steeve Markham, you would repent your 
 bargain, and now, in three months, my words 
 have come true.' But with the strange inconsis- 
 tency of her sex, Hannah no sooner heard her 
 husband vilified than she began to defend him.
 
 A DUMB DEVIL 235 
 
 ' Nay, mother, you must not be too hard on 
 Steeve. With all his masterful ways, he has been 
 good to me, and it was through his taking my 
 part that his mother has been so civil lately, and 
 he spends all his spare time working for me. If 
 only our natures were not so different, if he were 
 only more of a talker ; but there, I must just put 
 up with him,' and Hannah rose from her seat with 
 a sigh. 
 
 • No, you must not go yet, Nanny,' returned 
 Nance with foolish good-nature. A woman better 
 versed in human nature would have recom- 
 mended her daughter to go home as quickly as 
 possible. ' No, I will not part with you. Your 
 father will be in directly, and Jem and Dick with 
 him, and they will be fine and glad to see you. 
 Sit down, my lass, while I take the cake out of 
 the oven.' 
 
 And then Hannah, silencing an inward voice 
 that whispered to her to go, sat down again and 
 joined the merry party that gathered round the 
 table, and soon her ringing laugh sounded through 
 the open door, and reached the ears of a man 
 coming up the road. 
 
 Stephen Markham never quite knew what put 
 it in his head to follow his wife, but when Hannah 
 had left the workshop, he had fought a hard 
 battle with himself. 
 
 Hannah's mutinous spirit and want of wifely
 
 236 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 submission had angered him sorely, she had set 
 herself against him, and absolutely defied him. 
 And then when he thought of the future, and how 
 this first breach might widen between them, a 
 chill fear came over him. 
 
 Perhaps he had been over strict with the lass ; 
 he had not minded the difference of her up-bring- 
 ing ; she was young and lively, and his mother's 
 glum ways tried her. ' She is like a bird anxious 
 to fly back to the old nest,' he thought, and then 
 his eyes gleamed and softened, and his heart 
 heaved with his passionate love. No, this once he 
 would not be hard on her ; he would put by his 
 work and dress himself, and walk over to the 
 forge and bring her back. If only Hannah had 
 not suffered herself to be persuaded to stay, he 
 would have met her half-way, and his heart would 
 have danced with joy at the unexpected sight, 
 and in spite of his undemonstrative nature, Steeve 
 would have drawn her to his side with a word of 
 endearment ; at such moments she would be his 
 jewel, his good little lass, or his pretty Nanny ; 
 and then the sunshine of his rare smile would 
 have enfolded her. 
 
 But alas, Stephen Markham's evil genius was 
 in the ascendant that evening ; and as he leant 
 against the palings of the forge garden a 
 moment, reluctant to join the family party, 
 Hannah's ringing laugh reached his ear. ' He is
 
 A DUMB DEVIL 237 
 
 a dour ill-conditioned chap, and you have made a 
 bad bargain, Nanny,' observed a lad's voice. ' Nay,, 
 nay, I '11 not listen to that, Jem,' returned Hannah, 
 but she laughed again ; how was Stephen to 
 guess that Jem was only talking of the black 
 Bantam, who was such a fighter? Stephen turned 
 away, but he did not go home ; Giles Worrall, a 
 farmer living at Great Ditton, met him an hour 
 later, walking up the road to Sandy Point like a 
 man possessed. 
 
 1 He had a dumb devil,' Giles said, shrugging 
 his shoulders — for he had given him a neigh- 
 bourly good-evening — and had met with no 
 response ; and then he shook his head meaningly. 
 
 Jem walked home with his sister, and left her 
 at her door. Hannah, who was a little ashamed 
 of herself when she knew the lateness of the hour, 
 was half-inclined to apologise to her husband, but 
 when Deborah told her that the workshed was 
 locked, and that Stephen was still out, Hannah 
 became uneasy. 
 
 1 I thought he was with you, for he took the 
 Brentwood road,' went on Deborah — and then 
 she looked suspiciously at her daughter-in-law. 
 Had they quarrelled already ? why were they 
 spending the evening apart ? but before she had 
 time to put the question, Hannah had caught 
 sight of Stephen coming slowly up the path, and 
 with her usual impulsiveness she ran to meet him.
 
 238 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 ' Oh, Steeve, where have you been ? ' she said 
 quickly, and would have taken his arm, but he 
 shook her off as though her touch angered him. 
 He was dog-tired and had worked himself into 
 one of his silent rages. Giles Worrall was not 
 far wrong when he said a dumb devil possessed 
 him. All his life Stephen Markham had at 
 times felt an evil spirit striving within him for the 
 mastery. 
 
 1 Nay, I am not accountable to thee for my 
 movements,' he said rudely ; and then he pushed 
 by her, and went into the house. Hannah was 
 so taken aback by this rebuff, the first she had 
 ever had from him, that she hardly knew whether 
 to laugh or to cry. She stood half dazed as he 
 went to the larder and brought himself out some 
 food and drink ; she did not dare offer to assist 
 him ; his mother only smiled sourly, as she turned 
 the heel of her stocking. ' I knew it,' she said to 
 herself, ' the wench has angered him past bearing 
 with her giddy ways ; Steeve has such notions 
 for his age. Didn't I tell him that if he married 
 Nance Reed's daughter he would live to repent 
 his folly ? ' but Deborah's hands were cold and 
 shaking as she put up her wool. 
 
 Hannah lingered timidly in the background ; 
 she was afraid of her husband in this mood. She 
 would have humbled herself if he had given her 
 the least opening, but Stephen seemed uncon-
 
 A DUMB DEVIL 239 
 
 scious of her presence. When he had finished his 
 supper he went into the woodyard, slamming the 
 cottage door after him ; and Hannah went to her 
 bed and cried herself to sleep. 
 
 From this day the breach widened perceptibly 
 between the wife and husband. Hannah, who was 
 ailing and miserable, brooded sullenly over her 
 troubles, or sought comfort in her mother's 
 sympathy. As the months went on the atmo- 
 sphere of her home became unbearable to her, and 
 she pined like a plant shut up in a dark cellar ; her 
 bright colour faded, and her face looked white and 
 pinched. Deborah grew anxious about her at last, 
 and spoke to her son privately. ' You must not be 
 too hard on her, Steeve,' she said to him plead- 
 ingly. ' I doubt the lass is not over well, she is a 
 young thing, and young things need plenty of 
 patience'; but Stephen, who was in an evil mood, 
 only scoffed at this. 
 
 ' She is only sulking a bit because she cannot 
 get her way,' he said, flinging the words at his 
 mother so loudly that Hannah heard them ; ' but 
 she has found out that I mean to be master ' ; 
 for there had been a sad scene at the cottage. 
 Stephen, half-maddened by Hannah's perversity 
 and his own jealousy, had forbidden her at last to 
 go to the forge ; — and his manner had been so 
 wild and menacing, that Hannah for the first time 
 had been completely cowed. Could Stephen have
 
 2 4 o THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 been drinking ? she wondered ; his face had been 
 flushed of late, and even Deborah seemed anxious 
 about him. 
 
 1 Hannah,' she said more than once during 
 those dark days, ' Steeve is a bit hard at times, 
 but it would be best to humour him. He has 
 taken the wrong bit in his mouth, and Giles 
 Worrall tells me he iias been seen lately at the 
 Fox and Hounds ; if you could be a little cheerful 
 with him, instead of giving a cold shoulder when 
 he comes in of an evening. Try, my lass.' But 
 Hannah, sick at heart, took no notice of this 
 appeal — her heart was turning against her hus- 
 band, he was making her a prisoner in her own 
 house. She wanted her mother ; and when Deborah 
 coaxed her to eat, bringing her homely dainties 
 that she had cooked herself, Hannah only turned 
 peevishly away. It was not food she wanted, or 
 any other creature-comfort, it was only sunshine 
 and cheerfulness and kindly words ; but Stephen, 
 angered at what he chose to consider Hannah's 
 temper and sullenness, only gave her dark looks 
 when he came in for his meals. 
 
 And yet, if Hannah had only guessed that her 
 own disappointment and heart-sickness were not 
 to be compared to Stephen's ; that the man's 
 heart was slowly breaking within him. His young 
 wife had no love for him, she loathed the very 
 sight of him — and indeed, Stephen's unshorn
 
 A DUMB DEVIL 241 
 
 haggard face and the sombre fire in his eyes 
 seemed to repel Hannah. 
 
 One evening when there were sharp words 
 between them, Stephen, who had been drinking 
 freely at the Fox and Hounds, so lost all control 
 over himself that he actually lifted up his hand to 
 strike her. Then Deborah rushed between them, 
 with a face like death, and hung with all her 
 feeble force on his arm. 
 
 ' No, my lad,' she said gently, ' you must not do 
 that, Steeve. Hannah is your own flesh ; a man is 
 bound to reverence his wife. Speak to him kindly, 
 my wench — he is more angered at himself than at 
 you' ; but Hannah's passionate resentment would 
 not listen to this. 
 
 Stephen had lifted up his cruel hand against 
 her. But for his mother's interference he would 
 have struck her. What if he had been drinking ; 
 was that any excuse ? 
 
 ' Shame on you, Stephen,' she said angrily ; 
 ' only a coward would strike his wedded wife. I 
 will not stay hereto be ill-treated. Heaven knows 
 that my life has been hateful ever since I entered 
 this house, but I will out ud with it no longer.' 
 
 ' Hannah, Hannah, my wench, for God's sake 
 speak him fair ' ; but Deborah's voice of agonised 
 entreaty failed to reach her daughter-in-law. Then 
 Stephen, driven to frenzy by Hannah's hysterical 
 words, seized his wife roughly by the arm. 
 
 Q
 
 242 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 ' Oh, you need not be feared, mistress,' he said 
 rudely. ' I will not strike a poor puling thing 
 like thee — but you shall listen to me. 
 
 • I will not have you carry tales to the forge, 
 mind that. You are my wife, and I will master 
 you somehow ; bide here quietly, and, though I 
 am angered, I will do you no harm, but if you 
 leave this house to-night you will find it barred 
 against you,' and then he flung her from him, and 
 went out, and shut himself in the workshop. 
 
 Hannah pushed up her sleeve and looked at 
 her arm. Stephen's savage grip had left a dark 
 bruise on her tender flesh. Deborah glanced at 
 it in pity. 
 
 ' Hannah,' she said soothingly, ' the poor lad 
 never meant to hurt you ; he fairly worships the 
 ground you walk on ; it maddens him to see you 
 so contrary. If you would only say a kind word 
 to him, he would be shamed and ask pardon.' 
 But Hannah only sobbed hysterically. 
 
 ' I will not bear it,' she said passionately. ' No 
 one has ever raised a hand against me before,' and 
 then she laid her cheek tenderly against the 
 bruise, bemoaning herself in her petulant childish 
 way. 
 
 Poor Hannah ! she was little better than a child, 
 she was so wayward and undisciplined. When 
 Deborah tried to coax and soothe her she refused 
 to be comforted.
 
 A DUMB DEVIL 243 
 
 ' Dry your eyes, my wench, and I will set on 
 the kettle and make you a cup of tea,' she said 
 tenderly. 'You have eaten next to nothing, and 
 now all this upset has taken the heart out of 
 you.' But Hannah disregarded this good advice. 
 She was sick and faint, and there was a strange 
 sinking at her heart. She was ill, and Deborah 
 knew it — and all her motherly compassion was 
 aroused. 
 
 ' Sit down in the big chair, and I will have tea 
 ready in a twinkling,' she went on; and when 
 Hannah made no answer, she thought the worst 
 of the storm was over. 
 
 It was a warm September evening, and the fire 
 had been lighted in the outer scullery, and there 
 Deborah busied herself with her preparations, but 
 her limbs trembled and she moved slowly — these 
 constant scenes were sapping her strength ; she 
 was growing old, and wanted peace and a little 
 quiet, for her life had been a hard one ; and now 
 her heart was sore with the thought of her son's 
 misery. ' A}-, he has bruised his own heart more 
 than he has bruised her arm,' she said to herself, 
 as she took down a gaily painted cup and saucer, 
 and then a little scene recurred to her memory. 
 Hannah had been busy rolling out some dough, 
 when Stephen had come into the house on some 
 errand, and had lingered to watch her at her task. 
 Hannah had tucked up her sleeves to prevent the
 
 244 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 flour from touching them, and her white arms 
 looked very round and fair, suddenly Stephen 
 had stooped and kissed one dimpled elbow, a real 
 lover's kiss. ' My little Nannie,' he had said 
 tenderly, and Hannah had blushed with pleasure, 
 and now the dark grip of his fingers had obliter- 
 ated all memory of that kiss. ' Oh the pity of it ! ' 
 she thought ; and then as the tea-tray was ready, 
 she carried it in, but Hannah had gone ; she was 
 not in the parlour nor in her bedroom, and when 
 Deborah, with a sad misgiving at her heart, 
 went out of the garden gate, she could just see a 
 dark figure running quickly down the Brentwood 
 road. 
 
 Deborah felt sorely frightened. Was the wench 
 mad to play a trick on her like that? If she had 
 had strength, she would have followed her to the 
 forge, and compelled her to return, and neither 
 she nor her mother could have resisted her 
 appeal ; but alas, she had no power to accomplish 
 half the distance. 
 
 ' I must do the best I can,' she muttered, and 
 then she carried the little tray into the workshop. 
 Stephen was sitting on his workman's bench, but 
 his head was in his hands. He looked up im- 
 patiently when his mother laid her hand on his 
 shoulder. 
 
 1 I have brought you some tea, Steeve,' she said 
 gently. ' You are tired and fevered, and there is
 
 A DUMB DEVIL 245 
 
 no medicine like it ; take a cup to please me, lad.' 
 But he only shook his head. 
 
 ' I care naught for it,' he said mechanically ; for 
 one wild moment he had thought it was his wife's 
 hand that had lifted the latch ; if she had come to 
 seek him, if she had looked at him without anger 
 or taunting scorn in her eyes, he would have knelt 
 at her feet and prayed her to pardon his violence. 
 
 ' It is the drink,' he had moaned more than once; 
 • it was as though some devil had got hold of me, 
 and I would have struck her, my little Nannie — 
 savage brute that I was ; no wonder she shrank 
 away from me. If I go on like this, I shall make 
 her hate me.' 
 
 1 Let me see thee drink some tea, lad/ persisted 
 Deborah, and she held the cup to his lips as though 
 he were a child, and then Stephen yielded. 
 
 Deborah carried away the empty cup, but when 
 she was outside the door, she stood still for a 
 moment. 
 
 ' Ah, woe is me,' she said, with a little tearless 
 sob. 'This is a weary world, and there is naught 
 but bitterness in it. My lad is just breaking 
 his heart over his own hardness ; but when he 
 comes in and finds Hannah gone, there will not 
 be one devil but a legion,' and then she sat down 
 and took up her knitting. 
 
 Stephen did not return to the house until it 
 was growing dusk. When he found his mother
 
 246 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 alone in the kitchen, he looked at her for a 
 moment in a fierce questioning way, then he 
 refrained himself and went upstairs — afterwards 
 she heard him moving about the parlour. 
 
 When he came back, he made a pretence of 
 taking his supper, but very little food passed his 
 lips ; then he went out into the garden and the 
 woodyard, and finally, when the clock struck ten, 
 he came in and began bolting the door. 
 
 Deborah watched him. ' There is no need for 
 that, Steeve,' she said with a little laugh ; ' go to 
 bed, lad, and when Hannah comes in, I will tell 
 her not to disturb you.' But Stephen's sole 
 answer was a fierce oath. The bolt was a little 
 rusty with disuse, and he had some difficulty with 
 it, but it shot into its place at last ; then he 
 fastened the scullery door, and took out the key. 
 
 ' If Hannah knocks, you can tell her to go back 
 to the forge,' he said. And then before Deborah 
 could answer, he had gone upstairs, and she heard 
 him lock himself in. 
 
 Meanwhile Hannah was driving down the 
 Brentwood road in Giles Worrall's covered gig; 
 his business had detained him in Brentwood until 
 late that night, and as he was passing the forge, 
 George Reed had asked him to give Hannah a 
 lift. 
 
 ' She has been spending the evening with me 
 and the missis, and is rather in a hurry to get
 
 A DUMB DEVIL 247 
 
 home. Up with you, Nanny,' he continued 
 sharply; ' don't keep her, mother, or Steeve will be 
 vexed ; Giles will drop you at the cross-roads, 
 and then you will only have a dozen yards to 
 walk ' ; and so saying, he helped his daughter into 
 the cart, and with a cheery good-night went into 
 the forge. 
 
 Hannah looked back at the lighted windows 
 with sad yearnings ; she had left her mother 
 crying bitterly in the chimney corner, and ex- 
 claiming at her husband's hardness of heart. 
 
 1 Let Nannie bide with us the night,' she had 
 pleaded. ' You can see for yourself, George, that 
 the poor lass is not fit to tramp the road in this 
 darkness ; by the morning she will be rested.' 
 
 1 She will bide under her husband's roof to- 
 night,' returned George Reed obstinately. 'You 
 are naught but a fool, Nance, to set her up against 
 Steeve in this way — don't we know to our cost 
 that he has forbidden her to take the Brentwood 
 road, and you would be keeping her the night?' 
 
 1 But he treats her ill,' sobbed Nance. ' I have 
 seen the mark of his wicked hand. He would have 
 struck her, only Deb Markham put herself be- 
 tween them.' 
 
 1 Pish, nonsense,' returned the blacksmith 
 wrathfully ; it made him angry to think of 
 Nannie's bruised arm. ' Steeve is a dour man, 
 and he was in his tantrums, but Nannie will come
 
 248 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 to no harm with him, he is a deal too fond of 
 her.' And then he had gone into the road to 
 watch for Giles Worrall. 
 
 1 He will not let you bide, Nannie,' observed 
 Nance sorrowfully ; ' oh, but they are masterful, 
 these men.' 
 
 1 But, mother,' exclaimed Hannah piteously, ' if 
 Steeve will not let me enter ? ' and then she began 
 to sob afresh. 
 
 ' Nay, lass, he '11 let you in fast enough, and be 
 thankful to do it.' And Nance actually believed 
 her own words. ' But you must speak him fair,' 
 and then George Reed's voice interrupted them 
 — and before Hannah could remonstrate, her 
 father had lifted her into the cart, and the grey 
 mare was jogging comfortably down the road.
 
 Ill 
 
 HOW THE DEVIL WAS CAST OUT 
 
 When Hannah Markham stood under the sign- 
 post at the cross-roads, and watched Giles 
 Worrall's cart and grey mare disappear, she felt 
 as though she were in some nightmare. 
 
 It was not quite half-past ten ; but already the 
 village seemed asleep. A profound stillness seemed 
 to hover over the whole place. 
 
 It was one of those glorious September nights. 
 The harvest moon hung like a great golden globe 
 over the dark fir woods, the roads were white as 
 though they were paved with silver ; now and then 
 there was a faint crackling among the furze- 
 bushes, and occasionally the hooting of an owl 
 was audible — but when the chimes rang out 
 across the valley, Hannah started and shivered 
 as though some sudden fear had come to her; 
 the next moment she walked quickly down the 
 road and unlatched the little gate. 
 
 Evidently she was not expected — the cottage 
 was dark, and the door securely fastened ; her 
 hand shook a little as she raised the knocker, but 
 
 249
 
 250 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 before she could lift it she heard a window open. 
 ' Hannah, my poor lass, is that you ? ' then still 
 more cautiously, ' hush ! do not answer. I can 
 see you plainly now ; go round to the back and I 
 will speak to you.' 
 
 Hannah obeyed — she was worn out and felt 
 sick and chill, and the darkness and silence and 
 mystery affected her strangely. Why was her 
 mother-in-law so slow? surely she could light a 
 candle, and unfasten the scullery door, without 
 all this delay ; but to her surprise the window of 
 the little end-room where Deborah slept was 
 softly opened over her head. 
 
 ' Hannah, my wench, come closer. I want no 
 one to hear us. You have played a fool's trick 
 this evening, and the devil has tempted my poor 
 lad to evil. Oh, but Steve is just mad with you ; 
 he has barred up the front door, and he has taken 
 away the key of the back kitchen so that I can- 
 not let you in, and he has locked himself in ; he 
 will not hearken or answer, though I have prayed 
 him for one word. Oh ! he is in a fearsome state, 
 and it is all your fault.' And Deborah wrung 
 her hands in sore anguish of spirit. 
 
 Hannah turned deadly sick, and a clammy cold- 
 ness seemed to bedew her forehead. She leant 
 against the wall, and then a choking sob seemed 
 to relieve her. 
 
 ' Mrs. Markham,' she said hoarsely, ' if you
 
 HOW THE DEVIL WAS CAST OUT 251 
 
 leave me out here alone in the moonlight, I shall 
 die of fear. The world seems dead to-night, and 
 I cannot bear it. Go to Steeve, tell him I am ill, 
 and that I am sorry I said sharp things and 
 angered him, and I will bide at home — go, go,' 
 and her voice rose almost to an hysterical 
 scream. 
 
 ' Hush, my lass, hush ! Yes, I will go to Steeve, 
 and make him hearken — keep quiet and still — 
 there is nought to hurt you,' and then Hannah, 
 soothed by the womanly sympathy in her mother- 
 in-law's voice, crouched down on the doorstep 
 and waited. 
 
 Poor child, it was an awful experience to be 
 turned out of doors by her own husband. To her 
 proud, undisciplined spirit the disgrace was 
 greater than she could bear. 
 
 ' I hate him for this. I hate him — tyrant — 
 coward — bully that he is,' she said to herself over 
 and over again. ' I will never — never forgive him 
 as long as I live,' her sobs almost strangling her, 
 and all the time her ears were straining to hear 
 the key turn in the lock. But alas ! Deborah's 
 voice sounded again from the upper window. 
 
 ' Hannah, where are you, lassie ? oh, poor 
 lamb ! ' as the sound of Hannah's weeping reached 
 her ear. ' I have knocked and called to Steeve 
 until I was weary, but I doubt he is not there, 
 for the window is open ; he has let himself down
 
 252 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 by the porch, and he may be in the woodyard or 
 workshed ; go to him, lass, and humble your- 
 self, and perhaps he will let you in ' 
 
 1 No, no, I dare not ; he would kill me,' and 
 Hannah moaned outright. ' He is killing me 
 now with cold and fright. Oh, mother, mother, 
 why did you send me back to die on my own 
 doorstep?' 
 
 ' Hush, hush, my dearie, you must not lose 
 heart,' and Deborah's tone was tender as though 
 she were speaking to a babe. ' I cannot get to you, 
 but I have thought of something that may help 
 us a little. I will throw down some wraps first. 
 Hannah, do you mind the larder window ? — it is 
 small, dear, but I can pass my hand through it. 
 I am going to kindle a fire and make some tea' — 
 Deb's unfailing panacea for all ailments, bodily 
 and mental — 'and then I will sit beside thee until 
 morning. Hannah, you must be good, and 
 do as I bid thee, and I will love you as though 
 you were my own.' 
 
 A thrill of comfort passed through Hannah's 
 sore and wounded heart. Her nature made 
 instant response to this unexpected kindness; 
 but her answer was childish enough. 
 
 ' Will you hold my hand ? ' 
 
 ' Ay, that I will, dearie,' returned Deborah 
 heartily. ' Now catch this blanket and this nice 
 warm shawl ; the night is warm, and there is no
 
 HOW THE DEVIL WAS CAST OUT 253 
 
 fear that you will take cold ; there is a little stool 
 in the porch that Steeve made for you — fetch it, 
 Hannah, and then you can rest a bit.' 
 
 Hannah dried her eyes and did as she 
 was bid, and placed the stool underneath the 
 larder window. Deborah's grey shawl felt 
 warm and comfortable, and when she had 
 wrapped the blanket round her, her teeth ceased 
 to chatter, but it seemed long to both of them 
 before the kettle boiled. When Deborah passed 
 the cup through the tiny window the icy cold- 
 ness of Hannah's hand alarmed her, but she only 
 pressed her kindly to eat and drink. 'It will 
 drive the chill away, and give you strength,' she 
 said more than once, but though Hannah drank 
 the tea thankfully she could eat nothing ; ' It turns 
 me sick/ was all she said. And the next moment 
 Deborah's hard wrinkled hand was holding hers. 
 
 • There, dearie, I 'm as close as I can be ; put 
 your head against my arm, and maybe you will 
 sleep. What ails you, Hannah? a moment ago 
 you were like a piece of ice, and now you are 
 burning.' 
 
 • I think I am ill,' replied Hannah in a choked 
 voice. ' My head aches and feels heavy as 
 lead, and now and again I have such a sinking 
 feeling. Mrs. Markham, if I die, Steeve will 
 never forgive himself for this night's work.' 
 
 ' He will never forgive himself now, Hannah.
 
 254 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 Don't you mind that grand story of the man 
 among the tombs, and how the devils drove him 
 into desolate places ? Well, when I read that I 
 always think of my Steeve ; he is just as though 
 he were possessed at times with an evil spirit. 
 Many and many a time I have asked the Lord to 
 cast it out ; but my prayer has never been 
 answered. Ah ! I have had a sore time with him 
 and with his father before him,' and in the dark- 
 ness the slow tears of age stole down Deborah's 
 face. 
 
 'Go on; tell me about it,' murmured Hannah 
 dreamily. It was only silence she dreaded ; to 
 her excited fancy there were dark shadows creep- 
 ing up the garden path, and she half-turned and 
 hid her face against Deborah's arm. 
 
 'Yes, I will tell you as though you were my 
 own child,' went on Deborah. ' To-night I am so 
 full of pity and trouble. Hannah, when Steeve 
 married you I was terribly set against the match. 
 I knew my lad's nature, and I thought there were 
 few women who could put up with his contrary 
 ways, and I could not find it in my heart to give 
 you welcome ; it was like frowning at a sunbeam, 
 you looked so sonsie and bonnie the day you 
 were wedded.' 
 
 Hannah shuddered at the recollection — and it 
 was only six months ago ! Had Nance Reed's 
 bonnie daughter come to this, that she must
 
 HOW THE DEVIL WAS CAST OUT 255 
 
 pass the night like an outcast on her own door- 
 step! 
 
 ' Hannah, my Steeve is a dour man, and so was 
 his father before him ; but with all his moods and 
 his tempers he is a better man than his poor 
 father. 
 
 I When I married Jem I was just such a feck- 
 less, giddy lass as you were, when Steeve took 
 to courting you. All my folks were set dead 
 against him, but I would hearken to none of them. 
 
 I I remember my mother saying to me, " Deb, I 
 would sooner see thee in thy coffin than have thee 
 wed Jem Markham. There is Silas Pickering, a 
 sober, God-fearing, honest man, and he would make 
 thee the best of husbands, and thy father is just set 
 on thee taking him"; but I would not hearken ; 
 it was Jem I wanted, and in the end, and to 
 my cost, I married him.' 
 
 1 And he was unkind to you as Steeve is to 
 me?' and here Hannah began to sob again. 
 
 1 No, dearie, he was never unkind to me ; he was 
 too set on me for that ; but when the drink 
 mastered him, I hardly dared go near him. I 
 was that fearful of him that over and over again 
 I have taken refuge with mother in her cottage, 
 and hid myself and my baby ; but I need not have 
 been so frighted, for Jem would never have laid 
 a hand on me. 
 
 '"Deb," he said once, "thou need not be so
 
 256 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 scared at me. It maddens me to find the cottage 
 empty, and thee and the child away," but I was 
 young and foolish and I did not heed this. 
 
 ' Hannah, lass, are you listening, for the worst 
 is to come. I loved Jem dearly, and he loved me, 
 and neither of us knew that he was suffering from 
 the effects of an old sunstroke, and that a little 
 drink fairly drove him mad. If I had known 
 that, I would have stayed with him to help him. 
 
 ' One evening he had gone to the Fox and 
 Hounds, and he remained away so long that I 
 got one of my panics. I had put Steeve to bed, 
 but I lifted him out of his cot and wrapped him 
 up in my shawl and I went down the road to 
 mother. She was a widow then. 
 
 1 It was just such a night as this — clear moon- 
 light — and I remembered how black the firs 
 looked against the sky. Mother was reading her 
 Bible in the porch and did not seem quite pleased 
 to see me. 
 
 '"Deb," she said a bit sharply, " it is a wife's 
 duty to stay with her husband and make the 
 best of him. I don't hold with running away 
 from one's duty." 
 
 1 Well, you see, I was a bit spoiled, and any op- 
 position made me sulky. I knew myself that my 
 panic was childish, and that I ought to go back 
 and get Jem's supper ready ; but when mother 
 said that, I just sat down and rocked Steevie
 
 HOW THE DEVIL WAS CAST OUT 257 
 
 and began talking nonsense to him ; and by and 
 by, who should come up to the gate but Jem 
 himself, and when he saw me sitting in the porch 
 he shouted out to me rather roughly to come 
 home, but I took no notice. Mother put down 
 her book and whispered to me to go with him. 
 "Jem 's been drinking, and he is not in the best of 
 tempers, but you must humour him, Deb," she 
 said. Ah, if I had only listened to mother ! 
 "Well, are you coming, lass?" and here Jem 
 shook the gate, and that made Steevie wake up. 
 
 ' " Oh ! go away, Jem," I said crossly. " I am 
 sick to death of the very sight of you." Ah, you 
 may well look shocked, Hannah ; sometimes even 
 now I wake up in the darkness, and those cruel 
 words seem written in fire on the very walls. 
 But it was only temper and perversity, and I 
 meant nothing by them. 
 
 ' Half an hour afterwards I went home quietly 
 enough ; but Jem was not there. He had gone 
 back to the Fox and Hounds. That night — oh, 
 Hannah, pity me ! — Jem, my Jem, Steeve's father, 
 drowned himself in a fit of madness in the long 
 pond at Ditton.' 
 
 Hannah uttered a shocked exclamation. ' Oh ! 
 you poor thing ! you poor thing ! ' she said, press- 
 ing her cheek to the rough toil-worn hand. At 
 that moment she had forgotten her own troubles 
 as she listened to Deb's tragical story. 
 
 R
 
 258 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 ' My dearie,' went on Deb slowly, ' when they 
 broke the news to me, and I saw them carry my 
 Jem home on men's shoulders, I was near losing 
 my reason. I turned like a stone, and my tears 
 seemed to dry up. When mother wept and 
 prayed over me I gave no heed to her. Many a 
 time has she told me told me since that they 
 feared I should have brain fever. 
 
 'Well, that was five-and-twenty years ago, and 
 my Steeve is just Jem's age now. Five-and- 
 twenty years have I carried my burden, and only 
 the good Lord knows when I may lay it down. 
 Now you know, Hannah, the reason of my glum 
 moods and moping ways, and why I have for- 
 gotten how to smile ; even Steeve at times finds 
 me ill to live with and loses patience with me, and 
 now and then there are sharp words between us, 
 and yet he is a good lad to me.' 
 
 ' Poor Mammie Markham ! ' observed Hannah 
 pityingly ; and from this night Deb was always 
 mammie to her. How Deb thrilled at the name ! 
 
 'There, I have finished my story,' she went on. 
 ' Hannah, I have been bitterly hard to you, and 
 yet in my heart I have yearned for a daughter, 
 but since Jem left me it seemed as though all 
 power of loving had died within me ; but I see 
 now I was wrong, and maybe when this trouble 
 is over we may find comfort in each other ; but, 
 dearie, you must forgive Steeve.'
 
 HOW THE DEVIL WAS CAST OUT 259 
 
 Hannah sighed. Deborah's story had strangely 
 affected her, and she no longer felt so bitterly 
 angry with Stephen. Just then Deb moved 
 her arm — it was getting painfully cramped. 
 
 ' You are not so fearful now, Hannah,' she said 
 tenderly ; ' my old arms will not bear the strain 
 and the cold any longer, but I am close beside 
 you.' 
 
 ' No, no/ returned Hannah, shocked at her own 
 selfishness. ' You will take your death, my poor 
 mammie, if you sit here any longer. Go and 
 warm yourself, and I will walk up and down a 
 little ; it must be near morning now,' and Hannah 
 struggling bravely with the faintness that threat- 
 ened to overcome her, rose stiffly from her seat, 
 and moved slowly down the garden path. 
 
 What had become of her terror? The darkness 
 and the creeping shadows and the weird silence 
 no longer oppressed her. Some strange fever 
 burned within her veins, and she felt curiously 
 lieht-headed : more than once she seemed to 
 hear her name, and thought Stephen was calling 
 to her ; and though her limbs trembled with 
 weakness she tried to reach the workshop. 
 
 As she stood by the door, groping for the latch 
 in the darkness, she distinctly heard a movement 
 within ; the next moment the latch yielded and 
 she crossed the threshold noiselessly. Stephen's 
 dark lantern was on the bench, and by its light
 
 260 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 she could distinctly see a dark figure lying face 
 downwards upon the shavings ; then a man's 
 hoarse sobs, that most terrible of sounds, broke 
 on her ear. 
 
 1 My Nannie, my Nannie,' he groaned, ' my little 
 wife, locked out in the cold and dark, and the 
 devil within me made me do it ! My pretty 
 Nannie, and I worshipped the very ground she 
 trod on ! But she has a proud spirit, and she will 
 never forgive me this. Oh, my God ! she will 
 hate me, and I shall have the misery of seeing 
 her shrink from me,' and again the fierce tearless 
 sobs seemed to shake him terribly. 
 
 ' What is to become of us ! ' he moaned pre- 
 sently, while Hannah, pressing her hands to her 
 bosom, listened pitifully. 'I am just mad with 
 love and jealousy, and she cares nought for me ; 
 if she only would give me a kind look or word I 
 would be as grateful as a famished dog for a 
 bone, but I have nought but sulks and temper. 
 
 ' I was a fool to wed her,' he went on more 
 sullenly, 'for she is just pining like a bird in a 
 cage, and her scorn is turning me into a devil. 
 Even mother was scared at me when I drew the 
 bolts. I could see in her face that I reminded 
 her of father. Ah, there it is again ! Oh, my 
 God, how am I to resist it when the foul fiends 
 are all night long tempting me with the thought 
 of the long pool at Ditton ! It would be such an
 
 HOW THE DEVIL WAS CAST OUT 261 
 
 easy death, and my Nannie would be fine and 
 glad to be rid of me,' but as Stephen uttered 
 these wild, despairing words two cold arms tried 
 to raise his head. 
 
 ' No, no, Steeve,' cried a weak, toneless voice 
 that could scarcely be recognised. ' You shall not 
 drown yourself like Jem. I will not let you. Come 
 home with Nannie, love. Oh, my Steeve, you have 
 used me badly, but I love you still, I have always, 
 always loved you ! ' and then the words seemed to 
 gurgle oddly in her throat, and there was a strange 
 surging in her ears, and before Stephen could 
 disengage himself to look in her face she had 
 fallen heavily to the ground like a dead thing. 
 
 • •»•••• 
 
 ' She is out of danger now, Steeve, my lad. Do 
 you hear me ? The doctor says there is hope that 
 she will go on well ; only until the child is born 
 we must tend her carefully. Steeve, why do you 
 not hearken ? ' then as Deborah shook him by 
 the shoulder, Stephen raised his white, haggard 
 face and looked at her. 
 
 ' Yes, I hear you, mother,' he said in a dry, 
 husky voice ; ' but I can't bring myself to believe 
 it. If Nannie dies and the child dies, I shall have 
 been their murderer.' 
 
 Deborah sighed heavily, and the tears gathered 
 in her dim eyes. 
 
 1 God help thee, poor lad,' she said sorrow-
 
 262 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 fully ; and then she went back to her daughter- 
 in-law. 
 
 For five weeks Hannah had lain in the grip of 
 a deadly sickness ; a slow fever that had seemed 
 as though it would consume her very life ; and 
 all those weeks she had been watched and nursed 
 night and day by Stephen. 
 
 How he had lived without sleep no one knew ; 
 but those broken nights and days of anguish 
 turned his hair grey. Yet no entreaties, no offers 
 of help from kindly neighbours, could induce him 
 to spare himself; even Nance Reed pleaded in 
 vain to take his place. 
 
 ' Steeve, my lad,' she said pitifully, 'Nannie 
 knows none of us, and you can lie down a bit and 
 leave her to me. I have done a power of nursing 
 in my day,' but Stephen only shook his head. 
 
 ' I can't rest away from her,' he said hoarsely. 
 ' I have tried, but the terror masters me. I will 
 lie beside her and hold her hand, and then maybe 
 I might sleep a little.' 
 
 ' Do so, lad, and I will watch you both,' re- 
 turned the kindly creature, and then with true 
 womanly instinct she said artfully — 
 
 ' I think Nannie seems to miss you when you 
 go out of the room, Steeve. Deborah was saying 
 so the other day ; she is less quiet, and turns her 
 head from side to side as though she were look- 
 ing for something, and she takes her food better
 
 HOW THE DEVIL WAS CAST OUT 263 
 
 from you.' Then the pale ghost of a smile 
 crossed Stephen's face ; it was the truth, and he 
 knew it. 
 
 These terrible weeks were never effaced from 
 Stephen's memory. Not even to Hannah could 
 he bring himself to speak of that time. He was 
 in the Valley of the Shadow of Death with his 
 beloved, and behind him were the grisly foot- 
 steps of the foul fiend Despair. 
 
 ' If Nannie dies, or if her baby dies, I shall be 
 their murderer,' was his one recurring thought, 
 and even the Vicar and the little Sister when 
 they came to the cottage with kindly attempts at 
 comfort felt the words die upon their tongue 
 when they looked at Stephen Markham's face. 
 
 ' We must leave him in better hands than ours,' 
 the Vicar said one day to the little Sister. 'No 
 words of ours can reach him in that charnel- 
 house where he has entrenched himself. If things 
 do not go well with Hannah, I will not answer 
 for his reason. No man can lead the life he has 
 led for these weeks with impunity. Sleep taken 
 by snatches, hasty meals, and a never-ending 
 remorse for that night's cruelty. Ah ! if other 
 men would take warning ! ' continued Mr. Went- 
 worth solemnly, for he thought it was the drink 
 far more than jealousy and angry passions that 
 had made Stephen Markham so cruel to his 
 young wife.
 
 264 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 ' Deb thinks he did not understand,' faltered 
 the little Sister ; and then they walked on silently 
 and sadly ; for the Vicar's heart felt heavy with 
 reflected pain. No one knew better than he did 
 how the threatened loss of some loved woman can 
 sap a man's life and drain it of all hope and 
 sweetness. 
 
 Those were weary days to Deborah. No one 
 knew how her heart failed her as she had stood 
 by the bed listening to Hannah's confused talk. 
 
 ' Is Steeve angered still ? ' she would ask over 
 and over again. 'Will he never forgive his poor 
 little Nannie ? ' and now and then there would be 
 a shuddering allusion to the long pond. 'Jem 
 did it, and Steeve is bound to do it,' and then as 
 Stephen bent over her and prayed her for God's 
 sake to hush, she would pat his check with her 
 feeble hand. ' Never mind, Steeve, I love you,' 
 she would say ; but alas, the next moment she 
 would fail to recognise him. 
 
 ' Well, my man, cheer up, we shall pull her 
 through, please God,' observed the doctor one 
 day ; but there was no answering gleam in 
 Stephen's sunken eyes. 
 
 'You will do your best, doctor, no doubt,' he 
 returned, in a subdued voice. ' But we can't 
 expect you to work miracles ; if Hannah lives, her 
 child will not,' but to this the doctor made no 
 answer ; perhaps in his secret heart he thought it
 
 HOW THE DEVIL WAS CAST OUT 265 
 
 best that Stephen should not be too sanguine. 
 After that night shock and the fever it would be 
 a pretty close shave, so he said no more of his 
 hopes, not even to Deborah or Nance Reed, 
 though they gave him appealing looks as though 
 asking for comfort. 
 
 At last there came a day when Stephen was 
 almost forced out of his wife's room — when, dazed 
 and bewildered for want of sleep, he sat on the 
 little stool in the porch, close under the tiny 
 window where Deborah's wrinkled hand had 
 brought comfort to Hannah ; and after a time 
 the Vicar, passing by the cottage, caught sight 
 of him and sat beside him for a while without 
 speaking. 
 
 By and by, Stephen's face grew so ghastly 
 that Mr. Wentworth went into the cottage and 
 poured out a glass of the wine that had been sent 
 down from Kingsdene for Hannah's use, and, 
 standing beside him, put it to his lips, ' My poor 
 fellow, you are faint,' he said ; ' drink this,' but 
 when Stephen had emptied the glass he looked 
 at the vicar strangely. 
 
 ' Yes, I am faint,' he moaned, ' but it is with the 
 thought of her peril. Oh, Mr. Wentworth, sir! 
 you must bear with me, for I am fairly drunk 
 with misery ; it makes me an unbeliever to think 
 my little Nannie must go down again to the gates 
 of death, and me, who deserved it most, left
 
 266 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 behind.' Then the Vicar took the clammy, nerve- 
 less hand in his and held it in his warm grip. 
 
 ' Stephen, my poor fellow,' he exclaimed gently, 
 'I can understand how it tries a man's faith ; but 
 don't you think for a moment that Hannah has to 
 bear her trouble alone. I have always thought,' 
 continued the Vicar dreamily, 'that some special 
 angel, one more merciful and loving than all his 
 fellows, abides with women at such times ; in the 
 bosom of His mercy — yes, that is where He is 
 hiding her. Patience and prayer, that is your part 
 and mine,' and then he went on his way. 
 
 ' Markham, my good fellow, where have you 
 hidden yourself? ' observed a brisk voice. 'Do you 
 know, I have good news for you. Hannah has a 
 daughter ; the child is small but likely to live, and 
 the mother is doing well; tut! — nonsense! — you 
 must not give way,man,' but he spoke to deaf ears — 
 for the first and last time in his life, Stephen Mark- 
 ham fell down in a dead faint. ' Poor chap, one 
 can hardly wonder at it,' thought the doctor, ' after 
 all he has been through. And it was a near shave 
 too — at one time I thought it would be all up 
 with the child ? ' 
 
 ' Why does not Steeve come and see baby ? ' 
 asked Hannah languidly of her mother before 
 many hours had passed. 
 
 Nance Reed hesitated and equivocated, for how 
 could they tell the child in her weak state that
 
 HOW THE DEVIL WAS CAST OUT 267 
 
 Stephen was so spent with all the misery and 
 fatigue that he had no strength to drag himself 
 up the stairs ? 
 
 'Is Steeveill?' continued Hannah anxiously; 
 then Deborah came to Nance's help. 
 
 ' No, my dearie, Steeve is too joyful to ail any- 
 thing,' she returned mendaciously. ' He is just 
 beside himself with happiness, but the doctor has 
 given strict orders that no one comes up these 
 stairs but your mother and me, so Steeve, poor 
 fellow, is forced to submit.' 
 
 'Then give him my love, my dear love, and tell 
 him how sweet baby is,' pleaded Hannah, much 
 disappointed ; and this message was faithfully 
 delivered to poor Stephen as he lay on the little 
 couch in Nannie's parlour, white as death, with the 
 little Sister beside him. More than once he had 
 tried to rise, but his knees had given way beneath 
 him ; but when Dr. Hazlitt came again he very 
 soon took things into his own hands. 
 
 'He must have a good night's sleep before he 
 stirs from that couch,' he said decisively. ' I am 
 going to give him a sleeping draught, Miss Merrick, 
 and you must make him swallow it. No, there is 
 no need for you to stop ; there is little fear that he 
 will wake until morning, and Nance Reed will 
 look after him,' and then they covered him up 
 and put pillows under his weary head, and before 
 long the sedative took effect. And the next day
 
 268 THE ORDEAL OF HANNAH MARKHAM 
 
 the doctor helped him up the stairs and left him 
 at the door of Hannah's room. ' Ten minutes, not 
 a second more,' he said warningly. 
 
 When Stephen fell on his knees beside the bed, 
 Hannah looked at him anxiously. 'Oh, Steevci 
 how white you look, and how ill ! ' but he would not 
 let her finish that sentence. 
 
 ' I was fair staggered with happiness,' he said 
 simply. ' Oh, my little Nannie, all these weeks I 
 have been in hell for your sake, but the good 
 Lord has been merciful to us. Nay, is this the 
 babe ? ' and Stephen's arms trembled with emotion, 
 as Nance, with tears running down her comely 
 face, laid the wee creature in them. 
 
 1 She is like you, Steeve,' cried Hannah eagerly. 
 ' Her eyes are dark and her hair is dark too ; is 
 she not sweet, my lammie?' Then one of Stephen's 
 wonderful smiles irradiated his face ; never in his 
 life had he seen any babe so small, and to him 
 the tiny face was almost grotesque in its ugliness, 
 but Nannie loved her already, and he must open 
 his heart to her too. 
 
 'She is small,' continued Hannah a little 
 jealously, as though she read his thoughts ; ' but 
 mother says she will be a fine strapping wench 
 some day.' 
 
 'Ay, that I did,' echoed Nance, 'and Nannie 
 was a little 'un herself. I was fairly shamed 
 when I first put her in her father's arms.'
 
 HOW THE DEVIL WAS CAST OUT 269 
 
 ' But I could not be shamed of my sweet baby,' 
 returned the young 'mother proudly; 'oh, look, 
 Steeve, her eyes are open now ! ' 
 
 Stephen could not answer, his heart was too 
 full ; but as he stooped over his wife, his tears 
 wetted her face. ' God bless thee and the babe, 
 too, and make me worthy of your love.' And 
 that day the devil was cast out of Stephen Mark- 
 ham's heart and troubled him no more.
 
 VI 
 
 THE TIN SHANTY
 
 A RED TAM-O'-SHANTER 
 
 One fine midsummer morning Sandilands was 
 electrified by the news that the Tin Shanty had 
 found an owner. 
 
 It was Miss Batesby who brought the intelli- 
 gence to Kingsdene, and though she was no 
 favourite there, and madam had always kept 
 her at arm's-length — speaking of her severely 
 as a meddlesome, gossiping old maid, with a 
 tiresome habit of prying into her neighbours' 
 business, yet, on this occasion, she received her 
 civilly, and even pressed her to stay and rest 
 a little after toiling up the hill in the sunshine. 
 
 Miss Batesby had scant information to impart, 
 but she spread it out thinly and made it last a 
 long time. 
 
 She had seen the door of the Tin Shanty 
 standing open the previous day, and Susan Perks 
 with her pail and scrubbing-brush hard at work 
 scouring the floors, so she had just stepped up to 
 question her. 
 
 S
 
 274 THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 Mrs. Perks had told her that a gentleman and 
 his sister had taken the cottage for a year. They 
 were from London, she believed, and their name 
 was Ingram ; a van-load of furniture was to 
 come down the next day, and she had had orders 
 from Mr. Roper, the agent, to clean up the place 
 a bit. No one had lived in it for the last year 
 and a half, since Joshua Armstrong had left, and 
 the rooms were damp and fusty from disuse. 
 Her girl, Chatty, was coming down to help 
 presently. And then Susan went on with her 
 scrubbing. The Tin Shanty, as it was always 
 called, was a ramshackle, nondescript sort of 
 cottage, standing at the end of the valley. A 
 small iron room built in the garden for purposes 
 of photography had given it the name. The iron 
 roof was distinctly visible from the inn, but the 
 cottage itself was hidden from sight, and the fir 
 woods shut it in. It was almost as retired as 
 a hermitage, and its dulness and the close 
 neighbourhood of the firs made it a most un- 
 desirable abode in most people's eyes. 
 
 The valley itself was a very pleasant place. 
 The houses were prettily built, and the gardens 
 were gay with flowers. A broad grassy road 
 separated them from the fir woods opposite ; 
 some of the houses had a charming peep of the 
 church and the inn. 
 
 The largest house belonged to Colonel Cham-
 
 A RED TAM-O'-SHANTER 275 
 
 bers, but he and his wife were seldom at 
 Sandilands, though the children, nurses, and 
 governess spent the greater part of the spring 
 and summer there, and their parents paid them 
 flying visits at intervals. The governess, Miss 
 Merriman, was a severe-looking young woman 
 in spectacles, but the children seemed fond of 
 her, to judge by the way they all crowded round 
 her, or ran to the gate to meet her on her return 
 from weekday service. Next to Silverdale, as 
 Colonel Chambers's house was called, came the 
 Hollies, where the Duncans lived. The Duncans 
 were a comfortable old couple ; their children 
 were all married and settled in life, but relays of 
 grandchildren were to be found all the summer 
 playing in the garden of the Hollies, or helping 
 grandfather with his gardening, while the elder 
 ones gathered rose-leaves for their grandmother's 
 great blue jars of pot-pourri, or trotted beside her 
 as she visited kitchen, pantry, and store-closet. 
 
 Next to the Hollies came Red Brae, where the 
 three Misses Willoughby had lived from time 
 immemorial. The Misses Willoughby were 
 growing old ; Miss Sabina, the eldest, was stout 
 and asthmatic, and kept to the house all the 
 winter. It was she who managed the Book 
 Society, and ordered all the new books from 
 Mudie. Sandilands highly respected Miss 
 Sabina, and it was even whispered that earlier
 
 276 THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 in life she had once contributed to a magazine 
 under a nom de plume. The second sister, Miss 
 Mattie, was an energetic person, and took entire 
 control of the household. She and Miss Batesby 
 were always at daggers drawn, and could scarcely 
 speak civilly to each other at the district visitors' 
 meeting. The third sister, Miss Leonora, was 
 much younger, and still retained some claim to 
 good looks. She played the organ and helped 
 the vicar train the choir, and she and Clare 
 Merrick soon became warm friends, for, in spite 
 of a few affectations and a slight remnant of 
 girlishness, Miss Leonora Duncan was a kind- 
 hearted and cultivated woman. 
 
 Next to Red Brae came Ferndale, where the 
 Powers lived, a large family of untidy, noisy 
 young people. Mrs. Power was a widow, and her 
 one object in life was to make ends meet. In 
 this fruitless effort she was assisted by her eldest 
 daughter, a worn, delicate-looking girl, who taught 
 her young brothers and sisters, and slaved in 
 their service from morning to night. Margaret 
 Power was also a great favourite with the little 
 Sister. 
 
 The remaining two or three houses were 
 tenanted by retired tradespeople ; then came 
 Miss Batesby's modest residence ; some broken 
 grass land adjoined her cottage ; and next the dark 
 fir woods which terminated the Happy Valley.
 
 A RED TAM-O'-SHANTER 277 
 
 Miss Batesby often wondered why the Tin 
 Shanty was built so much higher on the hill — 
 quite a steep little winding path led up to it - 
 There was a mere strip of garden ground in 
 front with the ugly little iron room, but behind 
 the cottage there was nothing but bracken and 
 furze bushes, and then the dark terraces of firs 
 climbing up the hill. ' It is the sort of view to 
 drive any one melancholy mad in winter,' Miss 
 Batesby would say; 'from the parlour windows 
 there is not even a curl of smoke to be seen — 
 nothing but black firs back and front and a few 
 furze bushes — no wonder Mr. Roper lets it so 
 cheaply.' 
 
 Miss Batesby spent the greater part of the 
 next day roaming in the fir woods, but she could 
 see little except the top of the van. Only once 
 she saw a tall figure in a curious red headgear 
 come out of the back-door and stand with shaded 
 eyes looking up the hill, but before Miss Batesby 
 could properly focus her, she had gone in-doors 
 again. 
 
 Miss Batesby would have gone home quite 
 discouraged, only, happily, she met Chatty going 
 down to Crampton's for some butter and eggs, 
 and being young and impressionable, she was 
 like wax in Miss Batesby's hands. 
 
 1 Was that tall lady Miss Ingram ?'- — ' Oh, laws, 
 yes, she had heard her mother call her Miss
 
 278 THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 Ingram half a dozen times ; she was the tallest 
 and the funniest lady she had ever seen, and she 
 laughed ! Oh, Chatty had never heard any one 
 laugh like that ; it kind of made you laugh too.' 
 
 Cross-examined by Miss Batesby : ' She knew 
 nothing about Mr. Ingram. There was no gentle- 
 man there at all, and Miss Ingram was not going 
 to sleep there ; she heard her say that she was 
 going back to London. No, she did not know 
 when she was coming down again, but they were 
 to light fires and get some victuals in by the 
 evening. Miss Ingram wants me to live with 
 them, she says I am quite old enough to go to 
 service now ' ; and Chatty looked at Miss Batesby 
 with conscious pride. 
 
 The next morning, while Mrs. Perks and 
 Chatty were busily engaged emptying a crate of 
 china in the tiny kitchen, Miss Batesby coolly 
 proceeded to make a tour of inspection through 
 the cottage. 
 
 The furniture was of the simplest description ; 
 wicker-work chairs and couch in the sitting-room, 
 old-fashioned mahogany in the small dining- 
 room. ' Second-hand — bought probably at some 
 sale,' thought Miss Batesby contemptuously, and 
 then she glanced curiously at a violin and 
 mandoline-case that looked sufficiently solid and 
 handsome. There was a big case of books, too, 
 and several pictures with their face turned to the
 
 A RED TAM-O'-SHANTER 279 
 
 wall. Upstairs the arrangements were even 
 more simple — small iron bedsteads, and the other 
 furniture of stained wood. In one room there 
 was an immense sponge-bath and some dumb- 
 bells, over which Miss Batesby stood and 
 pondered. Then she went down and questioned 
 Chatty, who was now blackleading the kitchen 
 stove. 
 
 ' Oh laws, yes ! the bath was for Mr. Ingram. 
 Miss Ingram had said that her brother could not 
 live without his tub. Tom Flynn had already 
 been engaged, at eighteenpence a week, to bring 
 up water from the pump, down by the inn, early 
 every morning. Miss Batesby evidently thought 
 this news worth retailing, for she actually went to 
 Kingsdene a second time ; and she was secretly 
 gratified when Mrs. Compton put down her work 
 as she listened. 
 
 ' Dear me ! they must be gentle people,' she 
 said half to herself, and half to Penelope ; for, 
 being a woman of the world, she knew that 
 cleanliness often came before godliness in 
 aristocratic circles, and there was something in 
 the big sponge-bath that appealed forcibly to 
 her imagination ; but Pen, who was a little out 
 of her bearings, looked rather perplexed at this. 
 
 ' They must be tidy, respectable people,' she 
 said, in her gentle serious way; 'but the Tin 
 Shanty is a poor place, the ceilings are so low
 
 2 So THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 and the windows only half open, and there is no 
 
 garden to speak of ' and then she corrected 
 
 herself laboriously ; ' I mean there is no garden 
 that can be called one,' for Pen was trying to 
 break herself of slipshod ungrammatical English, 
 and in consequence she was a little pedantic at 
 times. But Felix had not the heart to tell her 
 so ; her old - fashioned ways, her unconscious 
 pedantry were all very sweet to him. Mrs. 
 Compton began to feel curious about the new- 
 comers, but, at the same time, she wanted Jack 
 to give them a clear berth until she had found 
 out more about them. Jack was so impulsive 
 and incautious — he was ready to be hail-fellow- 
 well-met with any one ; before many days were 
 over he might have plunged into intimacy with 
 the newcomers. ' Oh ! Jack, dear — do be careful,' 
 she said more than once ; 'it is so much safer to 
 look before you leap. How do we know the 
 Ingrams are people we should care to visit? 
 True, Mr. Wentworth said just now that it 
 K r as a good name, but many good old families 
 have unworthy members belonging to them — 
 stray black sheep — and then, only extreme 
 poverty could induce them to put up with the 
 Tin Shanty.' 
 
 'Oh, I don't know, mater,' returned Jack, with 
 a slight shrug; 'the Tin Shanty is not so bad 
 — it always reminds me of our diggings in
 
 A RED TAM-O'-SHANTER 281 
 
 Colorado, when Miles and I chummed for a 
 month. I could understand any fellow taking 
 a fancy to it — it is so quiet, none of the valley 
 houses overlook it: perhaps Ingram is a photo- 
 grapher or an artist. Oh, it is all right, you may 
 depend on it,' and Jack marched off whistling 
 with Scamp at his heels. 
 
 At this time the young Squire of Sandilands 
 was a little restless and unhappy. In spite of his 
 sweet, peace-loving nature, his mother's despotic 
 yoke pressed heavily on him ; his eighteen months 
 of freedom, of buoyant movement and activity, 
 made the old thraldom still more irksome. Why 
 had his mother not learnt wisdom by this time? 
 Why was a clever woman — for she was a clever 
 woman — so dense as to believe she could fit a 
 round thing comfortably into a square hole? 
 Why did she not give up all her useless efforts 
 and put up with him as he was ? Jack, who was 
 by no means perfect, grew a little sulky at last 
 under his mother's endless strictures. Once or 
 twice he had answered her so curtly that madam 
 had looked at him in grieved displeasure. 
 
 ' You need not be so short with me, Jack,' she 
 had said ; ' I am only speaking for your good.' 
 And when Jack saw the tears in her eyes, he told 
 himself angrily that he was a brute. 
 
 If only Mrs. Compton had guessed how her 
 smooth sarcastic speeches galled Jack's sensi-
 
 282 THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 bilities; but with all her cleverness she was a 
 little dense, and dearly as she loved Jack she 
 still persisted in rubbing him up the wrong way. 
 ' If I could only do one thing to please her,' 
 Jack would say to himself as he walked down 
 to the farm, and in spite of his want of imagina- 
 tion he would picture to himself some stirring 
 deed that should make his mother's eyes beam 
 softly with admiration. 
 
 But, alas ! Sandilands offered no scope for 
 heroism. There were no runaway horses to 
 arrest, and no fair lady dragging with her foot 
 in the stirrup. There was no possible encounter 
 with a mad dog or an infuriated bull ; dogs never 
 went mad in Sandilands, and bulls were in safe 
 pasturage. No burglars or poachers ever showed 
 their evil faces ; in fact, life was quiet and un- 
 eventful in the Happy Valley. 
 
 Jack, who was not without some sense of 
 humour, wondered how it would be, if, instead 
 of some doughty deed of valour, he were to be 
 guilty of some heinous and irrevocable delin- 
 quency; some deviation from Compton rectitude; 
 some lapse or indiscretion in which he would be 
 taken redhanded, and for which there could be 
 no redress ! Already Mrs. Compton had gently 
 hinted at certain endowments that would render 
 a daughter-in-law acceptable. Indeed, Jack 
 recalled with dreary amusement a short lecture
 
 A RED TAM-O'-SHANTER 283 
 
 that she had once delivered as they walked to 
 and fro on the Terrace. 
 
 ' Of course you must marry, Jack,' she had said 
 in a softer tone than usual ; ' and I mean to be 
 very fond of your wife. There is no need for 
 her to be an heiress,' she continued ; 'you have 
 plenty of money, unless you think of going into 
 Parliament ' — here there was a brisk negative 
 on Jack's part. ' Oh, I know,' continued Mrs. 
 Compton, dryly, ' that there is little hope of 
 drawing you from your bucolic occupation— prize' 
 oxen and fat sheep are more to your taste than 
 the interests of your country.' 
 
 'My dear mother!' protested Jack; but Mrs. 
 Compton only shrugged her shoulders impatiently. 
 
 ' Oh, there is no need to discuss all that,' she 
 went on ; ' I was only speaking of your future 
 wife.' Jack blushed a little in the darkness as 
 his mother said this. ' My dear boy, I want 
 you to be careful of one thing. Riches are not 
 indispensable, but she must be a gentlewoman 
 and belong to a good family ; and, Jack, though 
 beauty is deceitful and favour vain, I hope she 
 will be handsome.' And as Jack said amen to 
 this with unusual fervency, Mrs. Compton for 
 once felt they were of one mind. 
 
 Jack listened dutifully when his mother begged 
 him to give the Tin Shanty a wide berth, but he 
 bound himself by no promise. It had grown to
 
 284 THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 be a habit with him to listen in silence, and then 
 perhaps go out and do the very thing that Mrs. 
 Compton had begged him not to do. Madam 
 called it obstinacy and self-will, but Jack merely 
 regarded it as manly independence. 
 
 He was excessively curious about the new 
 owners of the Tin Shanty, and had already 
 made up his mind to take his own observations. 
 So one afternoon, about a week after Miss 
 Batesby's second visit to Kingsdene, he purposely 
 took the path through the fir woods that would 
 bring him out at the back of the cottage. He 
 had scarcely reached his vantage ground before 
 the sound of a female voice made him ' lie low,' 
 in other words, he dropped behind a furze-bush, 
 and lying down full length on the bracken, 
 propped himself on his elbows and reconnoitred 
 the position. He was on the verge of the wood, 
 and only furze and bracken clothed the remainder 
 of the hill ; a small space of level ground just 
 above the Tin Shanty made an excellent drying- 
 ground, here some lines had been fixed, and a 
 tall girl in a blue serge dress and a red Tam-o'- 
 Shanter cap — perched rather knowingly on her 
 brown hair — was busily pegging some flapping 
 sheets on the lines, while Chatty watched her 
 respectfully. Her back was towards Jack, 
 nevertheless he regarded her with amazement. 
 She was the tallest girl he had ever seen in his
 
 A RED TAM-O'-SHANTER 285 
 
 life ; she must have been little short of six feet, 
 but her figure was so supple and beautiful, and 
 her movements were so full of life and un- 
 conscious grace that he watched her with a 
 feeling of undefinable pleasure. She was evi- 
 dently new to the work and a little awkward 
 at it, and every now and then a peg slipped, and 
 then Chatty groaned and her mistress laughed, 
 for the heavy sheet flapped earthward again. 
 
 1 Oh, Chatty, I do wish you were a little taller,' 
 observed the owner of the Tam-o'-Shanter 
 presently, when she had become a little breath- 
 less with her labours ; ' pegging wet sheets is 
 not quite in my line. There it has flapped again, 
 the tiresome thing,' and here there was another 
 silvery laugh; 'but I won't be beaten — no, I 
 won't ; go and fetch me a kitchen chair, Chatty.' 
 But here, Jack could 'lie low' no longer. 
 
 'Will you allow me to help you?' he said ; but 
 as the young lady started at the sound of a 
 strange voice and turned round, Jack had a 
 shock that almost took his breath away ; for, in 
 spite of her beautiful figure and brown hair and 
 pleasant voice, Miss Ingram was decidedly plain 
 — nay, more, she was positively ugly, with that 
 frank, decided ugliness that at first sight offers 
 no redeeming points. 
 
 Jack could have overlooked the wide mouth 
 and clumsy, unfinished nose, but the small
 
 286 THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 greenish -blue eyes and the sandy, ill-defined 
 eyebrows were sore defects. Why had nature 
 been so cruelly hard to any woman by giving 
 her the figure of an angel, if angels have figures, 
 and then blurring her handiwork in this fashion ? 
 There was really something grotesque in Miss 
 Ingram's ugliness, and though, when she laughed, 
 she showed a row of pearly white teeth that 
 would have filled any dentist with admiration, 
 Jack could only notice how her eyes crinkled up 
 and almost disappeared. Yes, he had had a 
 shock, but, all the same, he would give her the 
 help she needed ; but Miss Ingram only laughed 
 in an easy, unembarrassed fashion as he took the 
 peg from her hand, and began fixing it in a 
 thoroughly workman-like manner. 
 
 'You ought to do it so,' he said, 'and so ; now 
 let me put up that last sheet for you.' 
 
 ' I did not know there were such kind neigh- 
 bours in Sandilands,' observed Miss Ingram ; and 
 then as Jack drove in another peg he thought how 
 delightful it would be to listen to Miss Ingram's 
 voice, if he could only shut his eyes. ' Thank 
 
 you so much ' and then she hesitated, 
 
 and the reason of her unfinished sentence was 
 so obvious that Jack hastened to introduce 
 himself. 
 
 1 My name is John Compton, and I live at 
 Kingsdene, over there,' pointing to the grand-
 
 A RED TAM-O'-SHANTER 287 
 
 looking house with its many windows shining 
 in the afternoon sun. 
 
 'Oh, you are the Squire, are you?' and Miss 
 Ingram looked at him a little curiously. ' I 
 know — Mr. Wentworth was talking about you 
 yesterday — you are an excellent farmer, but he 
 never told us you were able to peg sheets.' 
 
 ' No, it does not do to praise people too much,' 
 returned Jack, modestly, ' one must keep some- 
 thing in reserve. I learnt this useful accomplish- 
 ment when I was a youngster. I used to help 
 old Mrs. Bennet at the Grey Cottage on washing 
 days ; it was one of my greatest treats, especially 
 when we made toffee afterwards. Have you a 
 weakness for toffee, Miss Ingram ?' 
 
 'Well, no,' she returned frankly; 'but I shall 
 shock you dreadfully if I own that, as a child, 
 I loved those great brown sticky brandy-balls ; it 
 was a vulgar, plebeian taste, but when I had one 
 of them in my mouth I felt life was just the 
 essence of sweetness,' and here she pushed her 
 red Tam-o'-Shanter a little to one side. ' I am 
 not sure that I should not enjoy a brandy-ball 
 now.' 
 
 ' There are splendid ones at Crampton's,' 
 returned Jack, eagerly ; he began to find Miss 
 Ingram amusing. She was decidedly original 
 and out of the common. 
 
 ' Are there indeed ? Well, as the clothes-basket
 
 288 THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 is empty, we may as well go round to the front 
 of the house. Should you like me to introduce 
 you to my brother, Mr. Compton ? he is painting 
 a little below the cottage.' As she said this, 
 Miss Ingram took up one end of the basket while 
 Jack grasped the other, and then they gravely 
 carried it in. If only madam could have seen 
 that sight ! 
 
 'Is your brother an artist?' asked Jack, when 
 they had reached the little porch. 
 
 'Well, he thinks himself one, and I hope you 
 will not undeceive him. To be frank with you, 
 Mr. Compton, my brother is an idealist, and he 
 idealises even his own work ; you have no idea 
 how happy it makes him. I advise you to try his 
 receipt if you ever feel low; nothing is so cheerful 
 as to carry your own halo about with you,' and 
 then they turned a corner leading to a small open 
 glade ; and there Jack saw a young man in an 
 old brown velveteen coat and a wide-brimmed 
 felt hat, rather peaked in the middle, painting 
 under the shade of an immense white umbrella. 
 
 ' I have brought you a visitor, Moritz,' observed 
 his sister in her cheery voice. ' Mr. Compton, 
 this is my brother,' and then the two young men 
 shook hands — the artist with effusion, and Jack 
 cordially but tentatively. 
 
 Moritz Ingram was almost as surprising as his 
 sister. At first sight no one would have guessed
 
 A RED TAM-O'-SHANTER 289 
 
 that they belonged to each other. He was a 
 small dark man somewhat foreign in his appear- 
 ance, his skin was swarthy, and he had a black 
 moustache, turned up and twisted in Louis 
 Napoleon fashion, and his hair would have done 
 credit to Pentonville or Portland ; but he had 
 bright clear eyes, and he spoke like a cultured 
 man. 
 
 'Sandilands is a model village,' he said, looking 
 a little absently but fondly at a small smudgy 
 sketch on his easel. ' We have only been a week 
 here to-day — it is a week, is it not, Gwen ? — and 
 actually the vicar has called, and now the squire ; 
 two whole and distinguished visitors in one week,' 
 and Mr. Ingram sighed as though the magnitude 
 of his blessings oppressed him. 
 
 'Three visitors, Moritz ; you must not forget 
 Miss Batesby, our kind next-door neighbour.' 
 Jack looked up sharply : was there a sarcastic 
 accent in Miss Ingram's charming voice? 
 
 1 Oh, to be sure, but then it is three or four 
 days since that good lady honoured us with a 
 visit By the by, Gwen, you must return that 
 call ; England and Sandilands expect every one 
 to do his duty. It is an odd thing, Mr. Comp- 
 ton, but every village has its Miss Batesby ; it is 
 a genus that flourishes everywhere. I have met 
 a dozen Miss Batesbys already, though they call 
 themselves by other names, but they are all 
 
 T
 
 290 THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 industrious and painstaking like our neighbour 
 on the green.' 
 
 ' Poor Miss Batesby, he teased her unmercifully. 
 I told you, Mr. Compton, that my brother was 
 an idealist; if visitors do not please him he 
 weaves a perfect web of invention to keep them 
 off the premises. Poor little woman, I had to go 
 to the rescue at last ; she looked as bewildered 
 as though she did not know whether she was 
 standing on her head or her heels.' 
 
 ' Now, Gwen, no exaggeration. I cannot have 
 Mr. Compton prejudiced against me just as I 
 hoped I was making a favourable impression on 
 him — so much depends on first impressions. As 
 I saw Miss Batesby was of an inquiring turn of 
 mind, I only volunteered a little information. I 
 begged her, for my sister's sake, not to ask why 
 my hair resembled a scrubbing-brush, and I 
 gently intimated, very gently, that certain brain 
 diseases required cooling and stringent applica- 
 tions. I could see she was impressed, painfully 
 so,' and here Mr. Ingram heaved a deep sigh, 
 and commenced daubing a fresh smudge of 
 indigo blue across the canvas. 
 
 ' Mr. Compton, don't listen to him,' returned 
 Miss Ingram ; ' he behaved shamefully, he 
 frightened the poor little woman nearly out of 
 her senses. I really think that she went away 
 with the belief that Moritz had just come out
 
 A RED TAM-O'-SHANTER 291 
 
 of Hanwell. If he had kept to brain diseases it 
 would not have mattered so much, but he got 
 on the subject of criminal instincts, and actually 
 asked her if she had ever felt suddenly as though 
 a bodkin or a blunt pair of scissors were dangerous 
 weapons. " A blunt instrument in a desperate 
 hand can do a lot of damage," those were his 
 very words, and I was not at all suprised when 
 she said very hurriedly that she must go.' 
 
 Jack threw back his head with one of his 
 boyish laughs, and Miss Ingram joined him ; but 
 the artist only regarded them mournfully and 
 shook his head. 
 
 ' Young, very young,' he murmured. ' Gwen- 
 doline, my child, when you have finished your 
 outburst of unseemly merriment, will you kindly 
 instruct the infant to have tea in the front 
 garden?' and then, as his sister nodded and 
 vanished, Mr. Ingram dropped his whimsical 
 melodramatic manner, and began talking in a 
 sensible way. 
 
 Never had Jack spent a pleasanter afternoon. 
 When Miss Ingram summoned them to tea they 
 found her presiding over a little Japanese tea- 
 table in the porch. Two wicker chairs, softly 
 cushioned, were on the tiny level strip of green 
 that comprised the front garden, and below them 
 lay the valley, and opposite the fir-clad hill with 
 white paths winding in all directions.
 
 2 9 a THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 For once Jack felt perfectly in his element, and 
 before he took his leave he had made up his 
 mind that the Ingrams were congenial spirits. 
 
 They were evidently well-bred people ; there 
 was an unmistakable air of ease and cultivation 
 about them ; and though they did not indulge 
 Jack with any autobiographical sketches, and 
 never even hinted at their reason for settling 
 down in Sandilands, he felt instinctively that 
 they were to be trusted. 
 
 The conversation turned chiefly on Japan. 
 Jack learnt to his surprise that both the brother 
 and sister had been there ; and Mr. Ingram grew 
 quite excited in his praise of a certain dark-eyed 
 Musumee at a tea-house in Tokio. 
 
 ' She was in a dove-coloured silk kimono, and 
 wore a pale pink obi, do you remember, Gwen ? ' 
 and Mr. Ingram's eyes almost closed with 
 rapture; 'she was a perfect darling. I lost my 
 heart to her, only Gwendoline objected to mixed 
 marriages and a Japanese sister-in-law, and 
 hurried me away ; and then we made straight 
 tracks for England, and hard work and retrench- 
 ment and the bitter bread and unalloyed water 
 of indigence became the orders of the day,' and 
 here Mr. Ingram helped himself to another slice 
 of brown bread covered thickly with clotted 
 cream — a Somerset recipe for afternoon tea, as 
 Gwendoline informed their visitor.
 
 A RED TAM-O'-SHANTER 293 
 
 And then when Jack modestly told them that 
 he had just been round the world, they put him 
 through his paces, and absolutely refused to talk 
 more of themselves. Jack had not half exhausted 
 his Colorado experiences, when he discovered 
 how late it was, and took his leave in a hurry. 
 
 'You must come again and finish your ranche 
 stories,' observed Mr. Ingram in friendly fashion, 
 as they stood together on the brow of the hill ; 
 1 and Gwendoline must play her mandoline. We 
 are rather musical people, Compton. The violin 
 is my instrument — tell it not in Gath, breathe it 
 not in Miss Batesby's ear : I have a Stradivarius 
 dearer to me than wife or child, or even a 
 Musumee in a pink obi.' 
 
 ' Moritz, Mr. Compton is really in a hurry.' 
 
 'Thank you, Miss Ingram, you are very good 
 to take my part. It is almost as kind to speed 
 the parting guest as to welcome him' ; and then 
 Jack coloured and stammered a little. ' I have 
 had an awfully jolly afternoon, and I will certainly 
 come again and bring my mother,' and then he 
 set off at full speed for Kingsdene.
 
 II 
 
 AN UGLY HEROINE 
 
 WHEN Jack returned from the Tin Shanty, he 
 found his mother in one of her difficult moods. 
 Her own centre of gravity being disturbed, she 
 was looking out on every side for a possible or 
 impossible cataclysm. 
 
 Humanity is sadly puerile at times. A man 
 with dyspepsia regards his perfectly healthy com- 
 rade with feelings that border on offence. Such 
 splendid and lavish well-being seems almost im- 
 moral to him. 
 
 Under some aspects of affliction it is aston- 
 ishing that the grass continues green ; and yet if 
 nature pulled down her sable curtain every time 
 some son of Adam yielded up his breath, the 
 world would be veiled in utter darkness more 
 terrible than the Egyptian one of old. But 
 nature is a truer comforter, and never puts off 
 her girdle of hope. Tears flow, hearts break, 
 worn-out bodies lie in their graves, yet flowers 
 bloom, and trees put forth their tender leafage 
 
 294
 
 AN UGLY HEROINE 295 
 
 spring after spring, and the blue arc of heaven 
 is as clear and cloudless over our heads, and still 
 the blessed sun shines with equal benediction on 
 the evil and the good. 
 
 When Jack entered his mother's dressing-room 
 with a radiant face, brimful of his afternoon's 
 adventures, Mrs. Compton received him rather 
 coldly. Penelope had been spending the day at 
 Brentwood, and she was tired of her loneliness. 
 As Jack went on with his story her countenance 
 expressed decided disapprobation. He had done 
 the very thing she had dreaded, and had made 
 friends with the newcomers ; but what was the use 
 of her saying anything ? Jack was his own master, 
 and she had little or no influence with him. His 
 happiness, his pursuits, were always apart from 
 her, and his friends were not congenial to her. 
 She cut him short presently by telling him that 
 the dressing-bell had rung, and he marched off 
 in rather a huff, and it was an uncomfortable 
 evening. Jack, who resented his mother's dis- 
 pleased silence, made no special effort to pro- 
 pitiate her, and went off early to ^nioke his pipe 
 at the lodge. 
 
 But the next day the horizon cleared unex- 
 pectedly. A sad, wakeful night had shown the 
 widow her mistake, and with one of her generous 
 impulses she told Jack that she was ready to call 
 with him at the Tin Shanty whenever he liked.
 
 296 THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 1 1 will not promise to like your friends,' she 
 finished more severely, ' but at least I will do my 
 duty to my neighbours.' But though Jack availed 
 himself of his mother's magnanimity, it may be 
 doubted if he enjoyed his second visit. 
 
 As he opened the little gate, he was dismayed 
 to see Miss Ingram shelling peas in the porch — 
 a huge yellow basin stood beside her — and she 
 wore a coarse bib apron over her serge dress ; 
 her red Tam-o'-Shanter was somewhat askew, 
 and Jack, looking through his mother's spectacles, 
 thought that she was even plainer than ever. He 
 did not in the least understand why his mother 
 grew so suddenly and aggressively cheerful. Her 
 extreme civility struck him as almost artificial. 
 In reality she was -^cretly rejoicing over Miss 
 Ingram's ugliness. 'That tall, gawky young 
 woman would never attract Jack !' 
 
 Happily unconscious of this unfavourable 
 opinion, Miss Ingram received them with easy 
 cordiality, and, taking off her apron, led the way 
 into her parlour. 
 
 The little room was so low and so full of 
 furniture that Jack felt almost stifled, and he 
 was thankful when Miss Ingram begged him to 
 find her brother, as she was anxious to introduce 
 him to Mrs. Compton. 
 
 ' She just ordered Jack off as though he were 
 her lacquey,' observed madam afterwards to the
 
 AN UGLY HEROINE 297 
 
 little Sister. ' I never saw a girl of her age with 
 such cool assurance. She talked to me as though 
 she were my equal in age. Really, the independ- 
 ence of the young generation is one of the sad 
 features of the age.' But the little Sister only 
 smiled in answer ; when madam was on her high 
 horse she never argued with her. 
 
 When Mr. Ingram made his appearance things 
 were rather better. The infant, alias Chatty, 
 brought in the tea-tray. But to Jack's chagrin 
 his mother took her leave almost immediately, 
 and he was forced to accompany her. Mr. 
 Ingram, talking garrulously, accompanied them 
 down the hill, but even to his dense masculine 
 perception the visit had not been a success. ' I 
 wonder what Gwen thinks of that piece of mag- 
 nificence in a French bonnet,' he said to himself 
 cynically as he climbed up the hill. 
 
 He found his sister shelling peas in the porch 
 again, but there was something disconsolate in 
 her attitude, and as she looked up at him he was 
 surprised to see there were actually tears in her 
 eyes. 
 
 1 Hulloa ! what is up, Gwen ? ' he said, sitting 
 down beside her ; but though she tried to laugh 
 it off, a big tear fell among the empty pods. 
 
 Moritz took her by the shoulder and obliged 
 her to face him. 
 
 1 Now, young woman,' he said sternly, ' no non-
 
 298 THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 sense — the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 
 the truth' ; then Gwendoline gave another quecr 
 unsteady little laugh. 
 
 'Oh, Moritz, I did not mean to be silly, and 
 of course I am not really crying.' 
 
 1 Oh, of course not,' sarcastically, as splash 
 number two occurred. 
 
 ' I must be an idealist, too, or I should not be 
 so foolish,' she went on ; ' but, Moritz,' catching 
 her breath, ' I cannot help it, it has been like 
 that all my life. When I see a beautiful face I 
 get quite sick with envy. From a mere toddling 
 child I have so longed to be beautiful. Oh, don't 
 laugh ; you are a man and you do not under- 
 stand. But do you remember dear mother re- 
 peating my baby speech : " Oh, mamma, when 
 I am an angel shall I have my beauty-face 
 then?" and when she said, "Why, yes, Gwen, 
 certainly," how I knelt down and prayed God 
 to let me die that minute ? ' 
 
 Gwendoline spoke in a strangely impassioned 
 voice, and her small greenish-blue eyes shone 
 rather feverishly, but her brother only smiled 
 and patted her as though she were an infant. 
 
 ' Good child ; she always speaks the truth. I 
 guessed what had upset you. So you admired 
 that stately dame, Gwen ? ' 
 
 ' Mrs. Compton ? oh yes ! She is beautiful, 
 and that dark Spanish style is so uncommon.
 
 AN UGLY HEROINE 299 
 
 It was a perfect feast only to look at her. I 
 wonder why her son is so ordinary-looking. He 
 has a nice face, and his eyes are good, but he is 
 not to be compared to his mother.' 
 
 ' Not in looks, perhaps. Poor Cornpton, I fancy 
 he is rather to be pitied. He did not seem at his 
 ease this afternoon, and really, Gwen, you took so 
 little notice of him. You were so absorbed with 
 his mother.' 
 
 1 1 am sorry,' returned Gwendoline, in a sub- 
 dued voice. ' Moritz, dear, you are very good 
 not to laugh at me. You know they say every 
 one has a bee in his bonnet, and I suppose I 
 am crazy on this point ; but it is so dreadful to 
 be ugly. There, I have said the word for once 
 in my life — hopelessly, irredeemably ugly.' 
 
 ' Nonsense, Gwen ! ' and Moritz's eyes were 
 suspiciously moist. He adored his sister, and 
 this womanly confession of weakness appealed 
 to him strongly. 'You are exaggerating things 
 absurdly. You are no beauty, certainly ; but no 
 one could love you and not love your face too.' 
 But here Gwendoline, thoroughly ashamed of her 
 outbreak, jumped up and refused to hear any 
 more. 
 
 4 1 am sane now,' she said, in her odd, abrupt 
 way, ' and I shall take advantage of this lucid 
 interval to pour out your tea. Stay where you are, 
 Moritz, and the infant and I will cater for you.'
 
 3 oo THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 And the next moment he could hear her high, 
 clear tones pealing through the little house : 
 ' I care for nobody, no not I, and nobody cares 
 for me.' 
 
 'Poor Gwen,' mused Moritz, 'how small and 
 trivial and girlish it all sounded — that longing 
 for a "beauty face"; but there are elements of 
 tragedy in it, too.' But all that evening his 
 tenderness was almost exasperating to Gwen. 
 
 Meanwhile the mother and son had walked 
 through the village in silence. But at last Jack 
 turned restive. 
 
 'Well, mother, I should like to know your 
 opinion of the Ingrams. I am afraid,' with a 
 touch of impatience in his voice, 'that she is not 
 quite your style.' Then Mrs. Compton gave a 
 low scornful laugh that made him wince. 
 
 ' My style — no, indeed ! ' And again ' That 
 tall, gawky young woman ' came perilously near 
 her lips, but the words were unuttered. Then as 
 she saw the vexed expression on his face, a kind 
 motherly look came into her beautiful eyes. 
 
 ' Dear old boy, please do not glower so. I wish 
 I could please you by praising your new friends. 
 But I cannot say with truth that I admire either 
 Miss Ingram or her brother. I disliked his joking 
 manner excessively, and then he was so jerky, 
 and said such extraordinary things ; but I dare- 
 say he is clever and good-natured. As for Miss
 
 AN UGLY HEROINE 301 
 
 Ingram ' but here Mrs. Compton paused as 
 
 if she were afraid of committing herself. 
 
 'Go on, mother; you need not be afraid of 
 hurting my feelings.' And Jack's tone was so 
 sarcastic that Mrs. Compton glanced at him 
 uneasily. 
 
 * Well, dear, it is not the poor girl's fault that 
 she is so plain, and of course she has a very nice 
 figure, but such self-assurance is hardly good form 
 in a young woman of her age ; and then the way 
 she ordered you about. Oh no, she is far too 
 free-and-easy for my taste ; too downright and 
 American altogether.' But here Jack could bear 
 no more. They were at the lodge by this time, 
 and with a hasty excuse, that did not impose on 
 his mother in the least, he turned back to the 
 village, and left her to go up the drive alone. 
 
 Jack felt unaccountably sore and angry, for, 
 after all, the Ingrams were merely new acquaint- 
 ances ; he had only spoken to them three times, 
 the second occasion being a short stroll with them 
 in the fir woods after evening service. There was 
 no special reason why he should take up cudgels 
 in their defence. His mother had a right to her 
 own opinions, and there was no need to quarrel 
 with her because she thought Miss Ingram's 
 manners too free and easy. Nevertheless Jack 
 felt distinctly aggrieved. 
 
 ' If there were only one thing on which we
 
 3 o2 THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 could agree,' he said to himself bitterly ; ' but it 
 is no use, we shall never think alike on any sub- 
 ject. Things seem worse since I came back. I 
 suppose as people grow older their prejudices 
 grow stronger. Mother is a splendid hater. 
 When she takes a dislike to a person she never 
 seems to change her mind. She has set herself 
 dead against the Ingrams, just because they live 
 in the Tin Shanty, and no amount of argument 
 will convince her that they are gentle people.' 
 
 From that day Jack never mentioned the Tin 
 Shanty in his mother's presence if he could help it. 
 Nevertheless she was perfectly well aware that 
 few days passed without his dropping in for a 
 chat with the artist and his sister. 
 
 When the Ingrams called to return Mrs. Comp- 
 ton's visit Jack was over at the Farm. His mother 
 gave him a very concise and carefully worded 
 account of the interview. 
 
 4 The Ingrams have been here, Jack,' she said 
 very quietly, as he came in looking hot and dusty 
 from tramping the roads. 'Please, do not let 
 Ben Bolt jump on the sofa ; his paws are dirty. 
 They were very sorry to miss you. I gave them 
 tea, and they stayed quite a long time, and were 
 very pleasant, and of course I showed them the 
 view from the terrace. Miss Ingram seemed 
 delighted with everything.' 
 
 « I am very glad,' returned Jack, but he spoke
 
 AN UGLY HEROINE 303 
 
 without enthusiasm. The next minute he changed 
 the subject by giving his mother a message from 
 the Vicar. What an escape he had had ! How 
 thankful he was that he had taken it into his 
 head to walk over to the Farm ! He went off to 
 dress for dinner, whistling for very lightness of 
 heart. But Mrs. Compton sighed uncomfortably 
 as the door closed after him. 
 
 Jack was growing strangely silent and reticent, 
 she thought ; day by day a barrier seemed slowly 
 rising between them. He would not discuss the 
 Ingrams with her. He had never forgiven her 
 criticism. In reality she was growing puzzled 
 about them. After all Jack was right, and they 
 were certainly gentle people. There were little 
 tricks of speech in both the brother and sister 
 that showed culture and knowledge of the world. 
 And then, in spite of her shabby dress — for 
 Gwendoline's blue serge showed traces of wear 
 and tear, and her sailor hat had a frayed blue 
 ribbon round it — it was impossible to deny tha-t 
 Miss Ingram's figure was beautiful, and her move- 
 ments peculiarly graceful. She held herself well, 
 and the carriage of her head was really fine. With 
 careful dressing she would look almost distin- 
 guished. Mrs. Compton could not deny that. 
 
 Then a speech of Mr. Ingram's had puzzled 
 her. He had been praising the room in his free- 
 and-easy way, commenting on its good points
 
 304 THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 with artistic freedom ; and Mrs. Compton had 
 been secretly gratified. Then he had turned to 
 his sister: 
 
 1 1 don't think the green drawing-room at Brent- 
 wood Hall is larger than this, Gwen, and it is 
 certainly not so well proportioned.' 
 
 'Oh, do you know Brentwood Hall?' she had 
 asked eagerly, before Miss Ingram had done more 
 than give an assenting nod. ' I understood that 
 Lord Royston refused to show it. Even the 
 Brentwood people say he is very churlish and 
 inhospitable.' 
 
 ' Brentwood is not more charitable than the rest 
 of the world,' returned Mr. Ingram rather dryly. 
 ' I believe Lord Royston is a great invalid, and 
 that quiet is absolutely necessary for him.' 
 
 ' Poor man,' had been Mrs. Compton's response 
 to this, ' it was such a terrible shock to him losing 
 his only son in that sudden way.' 
 
 'Yes, and now they say his grandson is hope- 
 lessly ill at Eton.' But here Miss Ingram red- 
 dened and checked herself a little awkwardly as 
 her brother looked at her warningly. 
 
 ' My sister and I knew some friends of the 
 Roystons, at least we travelled with them,' ob- 
 served Mr. Ingram easily. 'One picks up a host 
 of acquaintances in that way, and some years ago 
 we were treated to a private view of the Hall.' 
 
 'Yes, and we were so struck with the Silent
 
 AN UGLY HEROINE 305 
 
 Pool,' went on Gwendoline, following her brother's 
 lead. ' I don't think they even show the grounds 
 now. There was some fine tapestry in one of 
 the rooms. Altogether, it is a very interesting 
 place.' And then they had risen simultaneously ; 
 but though she had shown them the terrace, 
 there had Decn no further talk on the subject of 
 Brentwood. 
 
 ' I cannot make them out,' Mrs. Compton had 
 said to herself as she had watched them from the 
 terrace. ' They have evidently been accustomed 
 to good society, and yet they must be wretchedly 
 poor. That dress of Miss Ingram's was tailor- 
 made, and fitted her perfectly, but it was quite 
 worn at the seams. Her brother was far better 
 dressed. Really he is rather pleasant than other- 
 wise.' But madam with astute policy kept all 
 these doubts and surmises to herself. 
 
 Jack went constantly to the Tin Shanty, and 
 before long his acquaintance with the brother and 
 sister ripened into close intimacy. 
 
 For the first time the young Squire had found 
 friends who were perfectly congenial to him. The 
 Bohemian ways, the open-air life, the free-and- 
 easy manners, which so shocked the dignified 
 mistress of Kingsdene, were all attractions to 
 Jack. 
 
 'Life is ever so much jollier to me since you 
 have both come to the Tin Shanty,' he said quite 
 
 u
 
 3°6 THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 seriously one evening. But Gwendoline only 
 crinkled up her eyelids and laughed. But Jack 
 meant what he said. It was delightful to drop 
 in for one of those porch-teas on his way from 
 the Farm. No tea ever had such a flavour for 
 him, and yet Gwendoline poured it out from an 
 ugly brown teapot. By and by he got into the 
 habit of strolling up the valley after dinner; 
 Moritz, who was generally smoking in the porch 
 at that hour, would hail him lustily. 
 
 How delightful it was to sit in the cool dusk 
 watching the lights from Kingsdene twinkling 
 across the valley, while Gwendoline played her 
 mandoline, or sang to them sweet melodious 
 songs — French or Italian or English as the fancy 
 seized her ! Sometimes Moritz would accompany 
 her on the violin ; but she oftener sang alone. 
 
 Her voice was a little high-pitched ; but there 
 were wonderful vibrations in it, and at times, 
 when the mood was on her, she sang with a 
 passion and power that almost shocked Miss 
 Batesby as she sat in her close little parlour 
 listening to it. 
 
 It was too dramatic, too sensational, for the 
 spinster's taste, and made her vaguely uncom- 
 fortable, but to Jack it was a revelation and a 
 delight. 
 
 ' What a glorious voice your sister has !' he had 
 said to Mr. Ingram that first evening ; 'it makes
 
 AN UGLY HEROINE 307 
 
 me feel quite queer and all-overish, don't you 
 know.' But though Moritz laughed at this boyish 
 criticism, he was secretly pleased. 
 
 ' Gwendoline's voice is very uncommon,' he re- 
 turned, emptying his pipe carefully. ' I have met 
 people who rather disliked it than otherwise, but 
 it has been well trained, and she knows her own 
 defects. The odd part is that it is affected by 
 her moods. There are times when she absolutely 
 cannot sing. But now and then, this evening for 
 example, she seems almost inspired.' 
 
 'She made me feel uncommonly bad once or 
 twice,' returned Jack, puffing at his pipe. It was 
 not easy for him to put his meaning into words ; 
 those clear melodious notes had seemed to play 
 on his very heart-strings; they seemed part of 
 the moonlight, the da?rk fir woods, the faint star- 
 gleams. 
 
 ' Life is not all sadness and labour and dis- 
 appointment,' those tones seem to say ; ' there is 
 love, and human brotherhood, and true hearts 
 everywhere, and God's truth over all — be com- 
 forted, be strong, be at peace, for there are angels 
 singing in the clear spaces above ; rest, sad heart, 
 and be still' 
 
 ' I want you to sing to me again,' Jack had said 
 to her a few nights later ; but Gwendoline had 
 only looked at him and shaken her head. 
 
 • Not to-night,' she said quietly ; ' I cannot get
 
 308 THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 the steam up ' ; and something in her manner made 
 him say no more, and for a long time he did not 
 venture to ask her again. 
 
 One evening his mother astonished him by sug- 
 gesting that he should ask the Ingrams to dinner. 
 
 'You are always down at the cottage, Jack,' 
 she said, a little plaintively, 'and it must look so 
 strange never to ask them here. We could invite 
 the Wentworths and Clare Merrick to meet them,' 
 but Jack curtly and decidedly refused. 
 
 'No, mother, thank you. I think it would not 
 do. The Ingrams know you are not in touch 
 with them, and I don't believe they would come 
 if you ask them ; they hate dinners and conven- 
 tionality, and I know Miss Ingram means to re- 
 fuse all invitations.' 
 
 ' Ah, very well,' returned Mrs. Compton, dryly. 
 ' Then I need not trouble myself any further.' 
 But though she said no more, Jack's speech had 
 galled her terribly : he meant to keep his friends 
 to himself: she was to be left out in the cold as 
 usual. She knew how Jack spent his evenings; 
 more than once she and Penelope, taking a stroll 
 in the moonlight, had paused by the inn to listen 
 to that wonderful voice ringing across to them. 
 
 ' It is very fine, but somehow I do not admire 
 it,' Penelope had said. 'It is a little too high 
 and shrill.' 
 
 ' It is too operatic for my taste,' remarked Mrs.
 
 AN UGLY HEROINE 309 
 
 Compton severely. ' Miss Ingram seems to me 
 a very odd person. It would not surprise me in 
 the least if we were to find out that she was an 
 actress or singer. Jack knows absolutely no- 
 thing about them, for I have questioned him more 
 than once.' 
 
 ' They tell me nothing, and I ask no questions,' 
 had been Jack's reply ; but as he said this, it 
 suddenly struck him how strangely little he knew 
 about these friends of his. They scarcely ever 
 alluded to their past life. 
 
 1 When we were better off,' Gwendoline had 
 once said ; and Moritz had spoken jestingly of 
 their palmy days. 
 
 ' Have you ever lived in London ? ' Jack once 
 asked. He had been telling them about his 
 mother's flat. 
 
 'We have lived in many places,' Moritz had 
 answered carelessly. ' I do not know if the 
 Wandering Jew ever had a sister. London? oh 
 yes, we have lived there, and we once had a hut 
 on Exmoor: when two artistic souls are on the 
 search for the picturesque and economy, they put 
 up with strange resting-places. Do you remember 
 those lodgings at the White Cottage in Patterdale, 
 Gwen, and how you knocked your head against 
 the ceiling, and the old dame's unfeeling remark, 
 "as t'house was not built for giant folk to poke 
 their heads through the whitewash"?'
 
 3 to THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 'Don't, Moritz. I can feel the bump now,' and 
 Gwendoline fingered her coil of brown hair. Jack 
 had more than once admired her hair : in colour 
 it was like a ripe chestnut, only with a sunny 
 gleam in it ; and once when they were black- 
 berrying together, and a bramble had caught her 
 hat and dislodged some of the hair-pins, a long 
 braid had untwisted that reached to her knees, 
 and the beauty and glory of it had taken Jack's 
 breath away. 
 
 He and Gwendoline had soon become close 
 friends ; but the day when he told her of his life- 
 trouble, when he first understood what the mag- 
 netic sweetness of true womanly sympathy really 
 meant, was an epoch, a crisis to be marked hence- 
 forth by a white stone. Things had gone badly 
 with him that day, and, as usual, he had strolled 
 off to the Tin Shanty, to forget his worries in 
 the society of his friends. Gwendoline, who was 
 reading in the porch, was struck by the heaviness 
 of his aspect, and as he sat down beside her, and 
 she saw how tired and pale he looked, such a wist- 
 ful, kind expression came into her eyes, that Jack 
 felt a little thrill of emotion pass through him. 
 
 1 1 wish you would tell me what has been worry- 
 ing you, Mr. Compton,' she said so frankly, with 
 such evident understanding that her friend was 
 in trouble, that before many minutes had passed 
 poor Jack had blurted it all out.
 
 AN UGLY HEROINE 311 
 
 He loved his mother dearly : she was the 
 dearest and the best mother in the world, but 
 somehow they could not understand each other. 
 ' It is just as though we spoke different languages/ 
 went on Jack, with a touch of rugged eloquence. 
 'Nothing I can do seems to please her. If I had 
 been a clever chap like Felix Earle she could 
 have been proud of me, but how is she to be con- 
 tent with a slow, stupid sort of fellow, who cares 
 for nothing but farming and horses?' 
 
 ' I shall thank you, Mr. Compton, to speak more 
 civilly of my good friend : a slow, stupid sort of 
 fellow, indeed !' and here Gwendoline's laugh was 
 delicious to hear. Certainly at that moment Gwen 
 had got 'her beauty- face' ; it was so transfigured 
 with the light of sympathy and warm womanly 
 kindness ; and from that day she was never ugly 
 in Jack's eyes. And how wisely and with what 
 old-fashioned sweetness she talked to him, though 
 at first she a little bewildered him, too ! For her 
 first remark was an extraordinary one — 
 
 ' Thou wilt scarce be a man before thy mother, 
 and as Jack's dark eyes opened rather widely at 
 this, she said with a smile : ' That was only an old 
 quotation, but it is very true. Don't you see how 
 simple it all is, Mr. Compton ? One can never be 
 as old as one's mother ; we cannot be on the 
 same plane ; youth and age can never have the 
 same aspect'
 
 312 THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 'No, of course not; but, Miss Ingram, you 
 know what an awful duffer I am. I wish — I 
 wish — that you were not so clever.' And here 
 Jack's voice had a touch of pathos in it : • Could 
 you not put things more plainly?' 
 
 ' My dear Mr. Compton,' laughed Gwendoline, 
 'don't you know simplicity is the hardest thing 
 in the world ? Clever brains are not everything. 
 Please remember that my favourite Owen says, 
 " Character is higher than intellect " ; and your 
 mother has every right to be proud of you.' And 
 as Jack shook his head rather sadly she laid her 
 hand gently on his arm, and he could see there 
 were tears in her eyes. 
 
 ' Mr. Compton, do try to bear with your mother; 
 she loves you so dearly — even I can see that ; and 
 you are her only comfort now God has taken away 
 her husband. Don't you see how sad it is for 
 her? she has lived all the best part of her life, 
 and yours is to come ; but for her there are only 
 loneliness and old age, and the house of her long 
 rest. One can only have one mother,' and here 
 Gwendoline's lip trembled slightly. ' Try and 
 make her happier ; you will never regret it, and 
 believe me that you will be happier too. For- 
 give me if I have spoken too plainly, but I 
 remember my own dear mother, and the thought 
 of how little I did for her comfort often presses 
 heavily upon me now.'
 
 AN UGLY HEROINE 313 
 
 1 Thank you,' observed Jack, in a choked voice. 
 1 No,' rather abruptly, ' it is no use trying to thank 
 you. You have done more for me than even you 
 can guess.' And as he said this there was a glow 
 in Jack's eyes that made Gwendoline flush and 
 turn away, as though she were suddenly dazzled. 
 
 For when a woman first sees the love-light 
 kindle in a man's eyes, and feels her heart beat 
 with quick response, it is as though a new day had 
 dawned for her on the earth ; and such a day had 
 newly dawned for Gwendoline and Jack.
 
 Ill 
 
 JACK'S VICTORY 
 
 The blackberry season was only just over, when 
 the good folks of Sandilands and Brentwood 
 were startled by the news that Lord Royston 
 was dead. 
 
 His butler had just left him sitting at the 
 breakfast-table with an unopened telegram in 
 his hand, and on his return a moment later he 
 was alarmed by the sound of a heavy thud. His 
 master was stretched on the ground insensible 
 and breathing stertorously, with the telegram 
 still grasped in his stiffening fingers. 
 
 'An apoplectic seizure, brought on by the 
 sudden news of his grandson's death,' was the 
 physicians' unanimous verdict. 'It was just 
 what they had feared,' and so on. 
 
 There was nothing to be done. The faithful 
 old butler, and the housekeeper, and his ancient 
 valet, who had been his foster-brother, watched 
 beside him all that day until the last flicker of 
 life had died away. 
 
 314
 
 JACK'S VICTORY 315 
 
 With the exception of these old retainers, there 
 were no real mourners. Viscount Royston had 
 been a hypochondriac and a recluse since the 
 death of his only son. His personality was a 
 limited one, full of trivialities; a thin, puerile 
 soul, whose life-pilgrimage had been an incessant 
 fight against visionary obstacles. 
 
 Lord Royston had only really loved two people 
 in his whole life — his only son, in whom all his 
 hopes were centred, and himself. He had been 
 proud of his grandson; the clever, sharp-witted 
 lad was likely to do him credit. But he had never 
 cared to have the boy much at Brentwood ; boys, 
 even the best of them, were embarrassing com- 
 panions. He was very fond of Hugh ; he wrote 
 long weekly letters to him, and was very liberal 
 in the matter of pocket-money ; but when the 
 holidays came round Hugh and his tutor generally 
 found themselves packed off to the old Welsh 
 castle that was part of the Royston property. 
 
 And yet when the news had reached the old 
 man that his heir was dead the shock had been 
 his death-blow. And so Hugh Abercrombie 
 Ingram, the ninth Viscount Royston, was gathered 
 to his fathers, in the grey old granite tomb where 
 his wife and his son and his daughter-in-law lay, 
 and his grandson, Hugh the younger, was buried 
 with him, and the only mourner was his next-of- 
 kin — a distant relative whom he had ignored all
 
 3i6 THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 his life, and who, to his own great astonish- 
 ment, found himself Viscount Royston with 
 thirty thousand a year. Sandilands was so near 
 Brentwood that a special interest always attached 
 to Brentwood Hall. Sandilands was rather proud 
 of its aristocratic neighbour, and until lately 
 Brentwood Hall and the Park and the Silent 
 Pool had been regarded as show places. 
 
 1 We must drive you to Brentwood,' Mrs. 
 Compton had always said to her guests. 'There 
 is some fine old tapestry, and a picture gallery, 
 and then the Silent Pool is one of our sights.' 
 And when it was first understood that Lord 
 Royston had laid an interdict on all sightseers, 
 Sandilands had passed a vote of indignation. 
 ' The old churl ! ' — that was what they called 
 him. 
 
 Jack was full of the news when he went up 
 to the Tin Shanty, but he thought Gwendoline 
 looked at him a little oddly as he told her. 
 
 ' Yes, I know ; it is terribly sad. Poor old 
 Lord Royston ! ' and then she sighed, and went 
 on with her occupation. She was trimming her 
 sailor hat with a broad black ribbon. With a 
 sudden freak Jack caught up the old frayed blue 
 ribbon and stuffed it into his waistcoat pocket. 
 
 Gwendoline looked at him in rather a bewildered 
 manner. ' Oh, please do not take that,' she said 
 quickly ; * it is so frayed and old and dirty,' and
 
 JACK'S VICTORY 317 
 
 then she stopped with a sudden flush as Jack 
 looked at her steadily. 
 
 ' I shall keep it because you have worn it,' he 
 returned. ' Gwendoline/ — it was the first time he 
 had called her by her name, and she thrilled from 
 head to foot as she heard it, — ' it is such a lovely 
 morning, more like August than October. Come 
 with me into the fir wood, and leave that stupid 
 millinery business,' and Jack's voice had such a 
 caressing tone in it, and his dark eyes — those 
 beautiful eyes that Gwen had once said reminded 
 her of a spaniel's — were so masterful in their 
 eloquence that Gwendoline put down her work 
 meekly, and so went into the sunshine to meet 
 her fate. 
 
 Jack never knew with what words he wooed 
 his lady-love. When he came to himself he 
 seemed to be saying over and over again, 'O 
 Gwendoline, my darling, why will you not answer 
 me ? I want one word, only one word,' but 
 Gwendoline only hid her face in her hands and 
 wept passionately, and how was he to guess, poor 
 fellow, that they were only tears of joy? 
 
 They were in a sunny little clearing just above 
 the cottage. Gwendoline was sitting against a 
 tree-trunk, and Jack, half-kneeling, half-crouching 
 beside her, was watching her anxiously. The 
 red Tam-o'-Shanter cap lay on her lap, and the 
 smooth coils of brown hair looked glossy in the
 
 5 
 
 rS THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 sunlight. With a sudden, lover-like impulse Jack 
 softly kissed them, and then half-shyly, half 
 proudly, stroked them. 
 
 'Darling, it is so beautiful,' he whispered, as 
 though in apology for the liberty he had taken, 
 but he was a little dismayed when Gwen suddenly 
 flung off his hand. 
 
 'Don't,' she said, as though he were hurting 
 her; 'please don't. There is something I must 
 say first, that I don't know how to say,' and then 
 to his surprise and joy she hid her burning face 
 against his shoulder. 'Jack, let me say it here. 
 I heard what you said, and I tried to believe it, 
 but I cannot — I cannot,' and here a sob mastered 
 her. 
 
 'What can you not believe, dearest?' he asked 
 tenderly; 'that I love you? Why, Gwen, I think 
 I have loved you ever since that day when you 
 first sang to me.' 
 
 ' Not really,' and here he felt her tremble all 
 over ; ' but that was more than two months ago. 
 No, not yet,' as he threatened to be demonstrative, 
 ' let me say something else first. Do you know 
 what I once told Moritz? that I should never 
 marry, never have a lover, because I was so ugly. 
 Please, please,' as Jack laughed boyishly at this, 
 ' it is no joke. It has been a real trouble to me ; 
 that is why I cried so when you said you loved 
 me.'
 
 JACK'S VICTORY 319 
 
 'Gwendoline, my darling,' and then all of a 
 sudden Jack's voice grew a little husky, 'you 
 need never trouble yourself about that again. I 
 love you, and I would not change my sweetheart's 
 face for all the beauty in the world. Hush, you 
 shall not say another word,' and Jack so effectually 
 closed her lips that Gwendoline was silenced. 
 
 ' I have got my beauty face,' were her first 
 words to Moritz that evening when he returned 
 from town, and then the feckless creature began 
 to laugh and cry at the same time. ' Oh, Moritz, 
 dear old boy, I am so happy ! Jack and I are 
 engaged. He is the dearest and the noblest and 
 the most simple fellow in the world, and I love 
 him with all my heart. He cares for me, just as 
 I am — ugly, freckled Gwen — and he does not 
 know,' and then she laughed again, and Moritz 
 laughed with her, but there were tears in his eyes 
 too. But while Gwendoline was revelling in her 
 brother's sympathy, or thinking of her lover with 
 sweet womanly tenderness, poor Jack was under- 
 going martyrdom in his mother's dressing-room. 
 
 At his first words, his quick, manly announce- 
 ment of his engagement with Gwendoline Ingram, 
 Mrs. Compton had first turned white and rigid, 
 and then had gone into a violent fit of hysterics, 
 and Penelope and Trimmer, in great alarm, had 
 begged him to absent himself for a while. 
 
 ' You were too abrupt,' Penelope said to him in
 
 320 THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 her wise, concise way. ' Your mother is highly 
 strung, and her feelings are more acute than 
 other people's. Oh, it is only an hysterical attack,' 
 as Jack looked at her anxiously ; ' you must give 
 her time to come round. When she is better she 
 is sure to ask for you, so do not go further than 
 the garden,' and Jack, puzzled and miserable in 
 spite of his great happiness, wandered up and 
 down the terrace like a lost spirit. 
 
 It was not until late that evening that he saw his 
 mother again. She was lying on her couch, 
 looking wan and old, and there were violet 
 shadows under her eyes that seemed to add to 
 their depth and lustre, and as Jack knelt down 
 beside her she looked at him with a faint, sad 
 smile. 
 
 ' I am sorry that I misbehaved, Jack,' she said, 
 with a pitiful attempt at playfulness, 'but you 
 were too sudden, and nerves are not made of 
 leather,' and then her lips trembled and got pale 
 again, and the pain in her voice filled him with 
 dull dismay. ' Oh, Jack, why are things so 
 frightfully hard for me in this world ? You are 
 all I have — my only one — and all your life you 
 have crossed my will,' and then, with a haggard 
 smile, she said bitterly, ' " I am weary of my life 
 because of this daughter of Hcth." ' 
 
 Poor woman ! there was something tragical in 
 her excessive grief. Another time Jack might
 
 JACK'S VICTORY 321 
 
 have waxed impatient, but love and love's lessons, 
 and the wise counsels of Gwendoline, were making 
 a man of him ; so he turned aside her complaints 
 with unusual gentleness. 
 
 'Dear old mother,' he said, kissing her, 'I 
 should love to make you happy, but a man is 
 bound to choose his wife for himself. If you only 
 knew what Gwen is, how clever and wise and 
 true ! I never knew a girl like her,' and here 
 words failed Jack, and he sat smiling to himself 
 in the semi - darkness after the usual fatuous 
 fashion of youthful lovers. Gwendoline would 
 have laughed with infantine rapture if she had 
 known how transfigured and glorified she was in 
 Jack's inward vision. 
 
 Mrs. Compton remained silent from sheer 
 disgust and hopelessness. Jack had taken the 
 fatal disease badly ; he was in the first hot stage 
 of delirious rapture. Cleverness and truth and 
 wisdom were all excellent things in their way, 
 but when they were to be taken in conjunction 
 with a tall, gawky young woman who crinkled up 
 her eyelids and had freckles, and whose clothes 
 might have come out of the Ark for shabbiness, 
 Jack's mother saw no cause for congratulation; 
 the very daughter-in-law whom her soul most ab- 
 horred was to be forced on her. No wonder the 
 widow said to herself that night as she wept in 
 the darkness, ' " What good shall my life do me ? " ' 
 
 X
 
 322 THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 And yet, strange to say, it was Jack — simple, 
 honest Jack — who remained victorious ; it was 
 the strong-witted, self-willed woman of the world 
 who had to submit. 
 
 Isabel Compton had a proud temper, but she 
 was not utterly self-centred. Her motherhood 
 forbade that. When Jack's young face began to 
 look worn and sad, and his eyes gazed at her 
 wistfully, the nobler and better side of Isabel's 
 nature wakened within her. They were a strangely 
 assorted pair, she thought ; never were mother 
 and son so utterly dissimilar, but, if one must be 
 unhappy, it should not be Jack. And then the 
 divine spirit of abnegation and self-sacrifice that 
 lies fundamentally at root of every true character 
 came to the surface. 
 
 ' Dear Jack, please do not look so unhappy,' 
 and then her tender motherly arms went round 
 the young man's neck. ' Kiss me, Jack dear, 
 and do not quarrel any more with your poor old 
 mother. Dear, I will try to be good to your 
 Gwendoline,' here she bravely stifled a sigh, ' but 
 you must both be patient with me. 1 will go and 
 see her to-morrow,' but here Jack's mighty hug 
 almost took away her breath. Never since his 
 childhood had she ever received such a caress. 
 
 ' Oh, mother, how good you are to me ! ' he 
 said, almost remorsefully, as he released her from 
 his embrace, and at that moment Mrs. Compton
 
 JACK'S VICTORY 323 
 
 was certainly not unhappy. After all, Jack loved 
 her, and the terrible barrier was down between 
 them. It was only as she lay alone in the 
 autumnal darkness that the grim, unlovely reality 
 forced itself on her. Yes, she would keep her 
 promise ; she would be good to Jack's wife, but 
 there could be no love between them ; and as she 
 tossed on her sleepless pillow, longing for the 
 dawn, she registered a mental vow that the day 
 that saw Gwendoline Ingram mistress of Kings- 
 dene she would shake off the dust of Sandilands 
 and return to her flat. 
 
 Mrs. Compton's miserable night ended in a 
 bad sick-headache, and it was not until late 
 in the afternoon that she felt able to pay her 
 promised visit. 
 
 Jack had spent most of his morning at the Tin 
 Shanty, but he said nothing about his mother's 
 intention. When Gwendoline questioned him a 
 little nervously he managed to evade any awkward 
 disclosures. 
 
 ' My mother was very much startled when I 
 told her about our engagement,' he said. ' I am 
 afraid I was rather too abrupt. We must give 
 her time to get used to the idea, Gwen,' and 
 then Gwendoline, who was shrewd enough to 
 read between the lines, very wisely refrained 
 from any further questioning, and only gave 
 herself up to the delight of her lover's society.
 
 324 THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 ' You have not repented, Jack ? ' she asked, 
 rather archly ; but Jack's answer entirely satisfied 
 her. 
 
 They passed the morning wandering about the 
 fir woods, and talking happily about the future. 
 Once Jack asked after Moritz, but Gwendoline 
 answered carelessly that he had gone over to 
 Brentwood again. ' Moritz is rather busy just 
 now,' she continued, as she stopped to pick some 
 red and yellow leaves that attracted her. 
 
 ' Let me gather them for you, darling,' observed 
 Jack, hastily. ' You see, Gwen, though I want to 
 do nothing but talk to you, I really ought to 
 speak to Ingram. He is your proper guardian, 
 don't you know ? ' but Gwendoline only laughed 
 and crinkled her eyebrows. 
 
 ' It does not really matter, Jack, because I am 
 of age ; but, of course, you shall talk to Moritz as 
 much as you like. Just now he is up to his ears 
 in business, but he told me to give you his love 
 and congratulations. He said you were to be 
 congratulated,' and here Gwen smiled in Jack's 
 face, ' but, of course, that was only his nonsense.' 
 
 ' It was no nonsense at all,' returned Jack 
 hotly, and then he took her hand and kissed it. 
 ' Gwen, darling, tell me what stones you would 
 prefer for your engagement ring — diamonds or 
 emeralds?' and this weighty question occupied 
 them for some time.
 
 JACK'S VICTORY 325 
 
 Mrs. Compton looked so pale and weary when 
 she started for the Tin Shanty, that Jack felt a 
 twinge of remorse. It had been arranged between 
 them that she should go alone, and that Jack 
 should follow her in a quarter of an hour. Mrs. 
 Compton, who was extremely nervous and de- 
 pressed, had extorted this concession from him ; 
 but though Jack pretended to grumble, he was 
 inwardly relieved. No man ever desires to place 
 himself voluntarily in an awkward situation, or 
 to expose himself to a mauvais quart cfheure, and 
 Jack was not at all displeased that his mother 
 preferred to go alone. Poor Mrs. Compton. in 
 spite of her splendid physique the climb up to 
 the Tin Shanty was a veritable Hill of Difficulty 
 to her, and she was so breathless that she was 
 obliged to stand in the porch a moment. 
 
 Chatty, who was taking in the milk, regarded 
 her with a benevolent grin. 
 
 'Oh, laws! yes, Miss Ingram was in, and Mr. 
 Ingram too, and another gentleman. She had 
 just been lighting the fire, because the gentleman 
 said it was so cold,' and as Chatty finished this 
 communication she threw open the parlour door. 
 
 'If you please, miss, here's madam come to 
 see you,' she announced, for to Chatty the 
 mistress of Kingsdene was always madam. 
 
 Gwendoline reddened, and looked at her 
 brother, then she came forward rather nervously.
 
 326 THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 ' It is very good of you to come, Mrs. Compton,' 
 she said with gentle courtesy ; and then the older 
 woman, who had already rehearsed her part, 
 kissed her cheek. The touch of those cold lips 
 made Gwendoline shiver. 
 
 ' My dear Miss Ingram, it was my duty to 
 come ; I am Jack's mother.' She said this a little 
 grandly, and there was a fine sweep of her drapery 
 that almost enveloped Moritz when he came up 
 to shake hands with her. 
 
 ' I am afraid the news has taken you by 
 surprise,' he observed pleasantly, and even at 
 that moment she was amazed at his air of easy 
 assurance. ' Young people sometimes make up 
 their minds rather suddenly, Mrs. Compton. Let 
 me introduce Mr. Fraser to you — our family 
 lawyer and an old friend. Fraser, this lady is 
 Mr. Compton's mother,' and then the grey-haired, 
 sharp-featured man rubbed his hands together, 
 and looked at the stately widow approvingly. 
 
 'Yes, yes, I see. Well, as we have finished that 
 bit of business, I will just take myself off to the 
 inn, and to-morrow morning I will look in on you 
 again. What time shall we say, Lord Royston ? ' 
 and then the lawyer turned to Mrs. Compton with 
 a courtly bow. ' You will excuse us a moment, I 
 am sure ; for you can understand that this sudden 
 and unexpected succession makes Lord Royston 
 exceedingly busy. To-morrow's the funeral,' but
 
 JACK'S VICTORY 327 
 
 the rest of the lawyer's speech never reached Mrs. 
 Compton's ears. ' Lord Royston,' she murmured 
 faintly, as she sank on a chair, and she grew so 
 pale that Gwendoline was quite alarmed. 
 
 ' My brother is the next-of-kin/ she said simply, 
 as the two gentlemen left the room, ' but we only 
 saw poor old Lord Royston twice. He had 
 quarrelled with our father, we never rightly knew 
 why, and so he kept Moritz at arm's-length ; and, 
 of course, we never imagined that this would 
 happen. Poor little Hugh, we thought he would 
 certainly be Lord Royston, but to-morrow he and 
 his grandfather will be buried together.' 
 
 'Gwen, my dear,' observed Moritz briskly — he 
 had that moment re-entered the room — 'Mrs. 
 Compton looks tired and overwhelmed ; suppose 
 you instruct the infant to bring in the tea,' 
 and as Gwendoline departed on hospitable 
 thoughts intent Lord Royston sat down beside 
 his bewildered guest. 
 
 ' I don't wonder you are surprised,' he said in 
 his serio-comic way. ' I tell Gwen that I have to 
 pinch myself at intervals to be sure that I am not 
 dreaming. Brentwood Hall and thirty thousand 
 a year is rather overwhelming after three months 
 of the Tin Shanty. Ah, here comes Jack ! Good 
 old fellow, I wonder what he will say when he 
 knows his beggar-maid has a pretty little dowry 
 of twenty thousand pounds. Fraser says 1 must
 
 328 THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 give her that, you know,' continued Moritz con- 
 fidentially. ' My father, Colonel Ingram, ran 
 through his property, and left us next to nothing. 
 He was in the Guards, and unfortunately he was 
 fond of high play. My mother — she was a Miss 
 Hazledean, and the present Sir Rolf is our cousin 
 — helped him to pay his debts. We were living in 
 Belgravia then, but we had to economise on the 
 Continent for a year or two. Dear me, what 
 changes Gwen and I have seen ! ' Lord Royston 
 was giving Mrs. Compton time to recover herself ; 
 then his manner changed. 'Hulloa, Jack, don't 
 run away ; Gwen will be here directly. Good 
 luck and best wishes to you, my boy,' and he 
 grasped Jack's hand warmly. 
 
 'Thanks, old fellow,' returned Jack gratefully, 
 but Mrs. Compton could keep silence no longer. 
 
 ' Oh, Jack, Jack, forgive me,' she sobbed. ' I was 
 so hard on you last night, and now coals of fire 
 are being heaped on my head. Do you know who 
 Mr. Ingram is? He is Lord Royston, and Brent- 
 wood Hall belongs to him.' Then Jack turned 
 very pale, and his mouth was suddenly compressed. 
 For the first time he looked his mother's image. 
 Gwendoline, who was just entering with a plate of 
 cakes, regarded him with dismay. 
 
 'Oh dear, who has been worrying Jack?' she 
 asked with naive girlishness. Then Jack suddenly 
 marched up to her and seized her hands.
 
 JACK'S VICTORY 329 
 
 1 Gwen,' he said hoarsely, ' will this make any 
 difference? Why did you not tell me this 
 before? I am the last to hear it, and I ought to 
 have been the first. You have engaged yourself 
 to me, and, by heavens, I will not give you up ; but 
 perhaps your brother will disapprove.' 
 
 'No, he won't, old fellow,' and Moritz brought 
 down his hand on Jack's shoulder with a mighty 
 clap. ' He is not such a fool ; he says take her, 
 and bless ye, my children ! ' and Moritz struck a 
 melodramatic attitude. 
 
 'But, Gwen, dearest,' and here, quite unmindful 
 of his mother's presence, Jack put his audacious 
 arm round his fiancee. 
 
 'Jack dear, I did not want you to know,' she 
 whispered in his ear. ' It was so sweet to feel 
 that you cared for me just for myself.' 
 
 ' Exactly so,' chimed in Lord Royston cheer- 
 fully ; ' Gwen and I are both Idealists, and I had 
 not the heart to spoil her charming little idyll. 
 " I don't want Mr. Compton to be told just yet." 
 Now, Gwen, those were your very words.' Then 
 Gwendoline blushed, and looked up at Jack with 
 a wistful appeal in her eyes. 
 
 'Dear, it cannot be helped now,' he said in the 
 slow, quiet voice that was natural to him. 'I 
 would much rather have had things as they were, 
 and not all this fuss, but we must just put up 
 with it.'
 
 i3 o THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 ' Was it not splendid of Jack to say that before 
 his mother?' Gwen observed afterwards, when she 
 and Moritz were talking over things. 'Oh, Mori, 
 I am as proud and happy as a queen ! Jack does 
 not care a straw about my twenty thousand 
 pounds. He says such a lot of money will be an 
 awful bother, and that he has plenty of his own.' 
 And then Gwendoline smiled happily. 
 
 What did her lack of beauty matter now she 
 had this true sweetheart of her own ? Could any 
 knight be more leal and devoted? 'Darling, it 
 is so beautiful!' how those words rang in her 
 ears. As Gwendoline brushed out her hair that 
 night she took up a long tress and kissed it 
 almost passionately. ' With what boyish rever- 
 ence his lips had touched it. Oh, Jack, my own 
 Jack, how I love you ! ' and that night Gwendoline 
 could not sleep for happiness. 
 
 When Lord Royston had carried off Jack for 
 a smoke and a talk, Gwendoline had been left 
 alone with Mrs. Compton. It was an awkward 
 moment for them both, but madam's savoir /aire 
 saved the situation. 
 
 'Gwendoline,' she said softly, ' when Jack told 
 me about things yesterday I was very much 
 upset ; but I said to him then that I would try 
 to be good to you, and I meant to keep my word. 
 I hope you will do me the justice to believe that.' 
 
 ' Dear Mrs. Compton, how kind of you to say
 
 JACK'S VICTORY 331 
 
 that ' ' and there was a little flush of pleasure on 
 Gwendoline's cheek. ' I know how hard it was 
 on you, for, of course, you knew nothing about 
 me, and we were so dreadfully poor. Why,' con- 
 tinued Gwen in her frank way, 'we were very 
 nearly at the end of our tether. Moritz, poor old 
 fellow, could not sell his daubs, no one would 
 look at them ; and I was just making up my mind 
 to look out for some situation as governess or 
 companion.' And then she laughed and looked 
 at Mrs. Compton. 
 
 1 And now you are going to be my daughter 
 and Jack's wife ! ' Mrs. Compton spoke gravely : 
 under the circumstances any demonstration would 
 be in bad taste. ' And I hope that in time we 
 shall be good friends.' And as she made this 
 little speech she kissed the girl's cheek, and this 
 time Gwendoline felt no inward chill. 
 
 That walk back under the starlight was a 
 memorable one to Mrs. Compton ; and as she 
 leant on Jack's arm and felt his strong support, 
 her widow's heart seemed to sing for joy. Jack, 
 her dear boy Jack, would never disappoint her 
 more — the sister of a viscount with twenty thou- 
 sand pounds was surely a good enough match for 
 any squire in Christendom, and yet the foolish 
 fellow was making believe to grumble. 
 
 'Ingram,' — he begged his pardon — ' Royston 
 had been putting down his foot. He was an
 
 33* THE TIN SHANTY 
 
 obstinate old beggar. He had vowed that there 
 must be no marriage for six or eight months to 
 come. He could not part with Gwendoline ; she 
 must settle him at the Hall, and take her place 
 as mistress until he had got used to things a bit.' 
 
 'It is an awful nuisance/ growled Jack; 'there 
 will be a grand wedding and no end of a fuss, 
 and I know Gwen and I will hate it.' Then 
 Mrs. Compton smiled and held her peace — she 
 would not mar the harmony of this moment by 
 telling him that she was on Lord Royston's side. 
 
 Madam did not see either Gwendoline or her 
 brother again for some days, though Jack spent 
 half his time at the Tin Shanty ; but one evening 
 they came up to Kingsdene to dinner. 
 
 When Gwendoline entered the Kingsdene 
 drawing-room followed by her brother, Mrs. 
 Compton started, and Jack grew very red : the 
 distinguished-looking girl in the black silk dress, 
 with a pearl necklace that scarcely rivalled her 
 white neck, and with a diamond arrow shot 
 through her brown coil of hair, could hardly be 
 recognised as 'the tall, gawky young woman ' in 
 the frayed serge. 'Gwen, you were always a 
 darling, but to-night you look quite lovely. Is 
 it because you have got a new frock ? ' and Jack 
 looked at her with puzzled eyes. 
 
 It was true his ugly duckling was developing 
 into a swan ; but perhaps, after all, Gwen's be.iuty-
 
 JACK'S VICTORY 333 
 
 face was only for those who loved her. In most 
 people's eyes young Mrs. John Compton was an 
 exceedingly plain young woman: 'not that one 
 remembers it when she talks or laughs ' observed 
 old Mrs. Fortescue, 'for she has the pleasantest 
 voice and manner, and really she sings like an 
 angel.' But Jack kept his own opinion to himself. 
 But his first act, when Lord Royston took up 
 his abode at Brentwood Hall, was to buy the Tin 
 Shanty, and there in their early married days 
 would he and Gwen betake themselves for a 
 blissful hour or two. On these occasions Gwen- 
 doline always wore her red Tam-o'-Shanter, and 
 Jack always vowed that no other head-dress so 
 well became her.
 
 VII 
 
 THE AFTERMATH
 
 THE AFTERMATH 
 
 It was the general opinion in Sandjlands that 
 from the hour Miss Patience died the Vicar was 
 an altered man. It was as though some blight 
 had crept over him ; some chill despondency 
 that robbed him of strength and energy. His work 
 no longer interested him, and the dust gathered 
 on his beloved books. To outward appearance 
 he was only a little more silent and stately ; and 
 only the friends who loved him and watched him 
 closely guessed that the canker of some secret 
 sorrow was eating out all the sweetness of his life. 
 
 The silence and loneliness of the Vicarage 
 oppressed him strangely. When twilight came, 
 and he sat brooding in the red firelight, it would 
 seem to him sometimes as though he felt some 
 gentle, shadowy presence beside him ; as though 
 if he were to turn his head, he would see Patience 
 looking at him with her tender, pathetic smile. At 
 times the impression was so strong on him that 
 he would rise from his chair abruptly, and pace up 
 and down the room to rouse himself. 
 
 Dearly as he had loved her, he had never realised 
 that he would miss her so intensely, or that her 
 
 Y
 
 338 THE AFTERMATH 
 
 sweet personality had been the great comfort of 
 his life ; her affliction had made her centre all her 
 strongest affections and interests on the brother 
 who so needed her care — and it was only now, 
 when he had lost her, that Evelyn Wentworth 
 gauged rightly the depth of that selfless devotion. 
 
 * If I had only done more for her,' he would 
 say to himself, and the remembrance of those long 
 silent evenings, when she had sat knitting con- 
 tentedly beside him, as he read book after book, 
 rose vividly before him. Why had he been so for- 
 getful and selfish ? Why had he not laid down 
 his book sometimes to talk to her ? because in her 
 divine patience she had never asserted any claim. 
 ' It is late, Evelyn, and I must bid you good-night ; 
 do not sit up too late, my dear.' That had been 
 her simple formula night after night. How small 
 and white her face had looked ; and what weary 
 lines these were under her eyes ! ' My poor, poor 
 Patience/ he would sigh; and a passionate longing 
 to atone for past neglect would sweep over him. 
 
 Some verses the little Sister once showed him 
 in a favourite book haunted him perpetually — 
 
 ' The hands were such dear hands ; 
 They are so full ; they turn at our demand 
 So often, they reach out 
 With trifles scarcely thought about ; 
 So many things they do for me, for you 
 If their fond wills mistake 
 We may well bend not break.'
 
 THE AFTERMATH 339 
 
 One September evening the little Sister, crossing 
 the churchyard on her way from Sandy Point, saw 
 the Vicar standing before the marble cross, with 
 his eyes fixed on the graven word ' Ephphatha.' 
 Something in his attitude and expression appealed 
 to her, and after a moment's hesitation she crossed 
 the grass border and joined him. 
 
 He greeted her with a quiet smile ; evidently 
 her presence chimed in harmoniously with his 
 thoughts. 
 
 'Ah,' he said, 'you were a good friend to her, 
 Clare, you understood her ; she owed to you all 
 the comfort of her last months. You did more for 
 her than I did all my life.' 
 
 ' I think not,' returned the little Sister quietly. 
 ' You gave dear Patience just what she needed- — 
 an object in life. 
 
 4 " If my brother had married, my life would 
 have been more lonely " — she said that to me one 
 evening not long before she died. " But I have 
 had him all to myself, and so it has been full to 
 the brim. I have not to think of myself at all, 
 only of him." Dear Mr. Wentworth, it is not like 
 you to be morbid. I think Mr. Cornish is right, 
 and that it is not good for you to be so much alone.' 
 
 • It is good for no man,' returned the Vicar ; 
 but he spoke absently, and the cloud that had 
 been raised for a moment settled on him again. 
 When the little Sister had left him, he walked
 
 340 THE AFTERMATH 
 
 back to the Vicarage — he remembered that his 
 friend Cornish was to arrive by a late train that 
 evening ; but for once even this anticipation failed 
 to move him from his depression. 
 
 He was out of gear bodily and mentally ; and 
 though he battled bravely against an overwhelm- 
 ing sense of weariness and dejection, he was con- 
 scious that the enemy was too strong for him — 
 that his nerve was failing him, and that he must 
 have change or relief, or he would break down 
 utterly. 
 
 But it was not only his sister's loss that was 
 pressing on him so heavily — that meeting with 
 Marion Brett, more than a year before, had re- 
 opened his old wound cruelly. Why had she 
 crossed the threshold of his lonely home — that 
 home she had refused to bless ? why had she 
 stepped out into the sunshine, like some strange 
 angel, only to embitter his waking hours with 
 feverish longing to see that dear face again ? 
 ' Marion, you have been my blessing and my curse 
 — my torment and my delight,' he would groan 
 within himself ; and there were times when his 
 burden lay so heavy upon him that he would 
 pray that he might cease to love her ; but the 
 next moment he would shudder at his own heresy 
 for he was by nature strong and faithful, and 
 believed in the immortality of a noble love. ' She 
 is mine, for she gave herself to me, and one day I
 
 THE AFTERMATH 341 
 
 shall have her for my own,' he would say to him- 
 self. ' Patience, sweet soul, was hard on her — she 
 could not understand Marion's complex nature ; 
 but when she angered me most, I still did her 
 justice ; with all her faults and mistakes she is 
 a noble woman.' 
 
 When Douglas Cornish saw his friend's face 
 that evening, there was a quick sudden gleam of 
 some strong feeling in the keen, hawk-like eyes ; 
 but his greeting was as cool and quiet as though 
 they had met the previous day. 
 
 ' I hope my telegram did not put you out, 
 Wentworth,' he observed ; ' but I had a spare day, 
 and I thought it would be profitably spent in 
 looking you up.' But as the Professor went up 
 to his old room to get rid of the dust of his 
 journey, he thought how tired and haggard 
 Evelyn was looking. ' This place will kill him in 
 time ; I must get him up to Oxford, and find him 
 some work ; he is eating his heart out in this 
 dreary old Vicarage.' And then he stood still 
 and looked out at the dark firs. 
 
 ' I must tell him, I suppose, but I fear he will 
 worry over it, and he looks pretty bad now — 
 
 still, in his place ' and here the Professor 
 
 shook himself impatiently as though the deci- 
 sion troubled him. 
 
 But all through dinner he was his old eloquent 
 self, and more than once Barry smiled to himself
 
 342 THE AFTERMATH 
 
 as he waited at the side-board, as though the 
 flavour of the old Oxford days were sweet to him ; 
 but though the Vicar listened and responded, no 
 ringing boyish laugh hailed the raciest joke. 
 
 It was one of those still, fragrant nights in 
 September ; a brilliant har.est moon hung like a 
 golden lamp in the dark sky, the air was steeped 
 with the sweet resinous perfume of the firs and 
 the mingled scents of late-blooming flowers. 
 
 When the Vicarage garden had been planned, 
 a small portion of the fir woods had been enclosed. 
 Here on the hottest summer's day there was a 
 cool, shady retreat 
 
 In accordance with Patience's wish, a rustic 
 bench and table had been placed here, and a 
 grassy bank planted thickly with primroses and 
 wild hyacinth, stretching to the garden terrace. 
 It was a favourite spot with both the brother 
 and sister. Patience would call it her woodland 
 parlour; and there she would sit with her work 
 and book, while the wood-pigeons cooed to her 
 unheard, or the rabbits would flash across the 
 clearing, popping in and out their holes, quite 
 fearlessly. 
 
 On fine summer evenings the Vicar loved to 
 smoke his pipe there, and, by mutual consent, he 
 and the Professor turned their steps towards the 
 wild garden ; the moon was flooding the terraces 
 with silvery light, and the grey walls of the
 
 THE AFTERMATH 343 
 
 Vicarage looked grand and mediaeval in the 
 transforming radiance. 
 
 As they sat down, both men had become 
 suddenly silent : the Vicar, weary with his effort 
 to appear like his ordinary self, had suddenly 
 relapsed into his old melancholy, and the Pro- 
 fessor, puffing slowly at his pipe, was saying to 
 himself: ' I suppose I may as well tell him now," 
 but before he could get the first words out, the 
 Vicar turned round suddenly. 
 
 ' By the by, Cornish,' he said rather abruptly, 
 1 I wanted to ask you something — have you seen 
 anything of Miss Brett lately?' Mr. Cornish 
 started, and a dark flush crossed his brow. 
 
 ' Why, Wentworth,' he said with a nervous 
 laugh, ' it must have been transmission of 
 thought. I was just going to tell you something 
 about her. You will be sorry to hear that she has 
 had a rather bad accident.' 
 
 Was it the moonlight that made the Vicar look 
 so pale ? 'An accident,' he repeated — and Douglas 
 Cornish saw the hand next him clench and un- 
 clench itself as though some acute pain had 
 seized him, and then under his breath; 'I have 
 heard nothing — who is there who would take the 
 trouble to tell me ? ' And then with sudden irrita- 
 tion, as though his endurance were too tightly 
 strained : ' Why do you keep me waiting like this ? 
 I must know everything — everything.'
 
 344 THE AFTERMATH 
 
 ' My dc.ir fellow, you shall know all that I can 
 tell you ; but there is no need for you to be 
 anxious now — Miss Brett is better, she has had 
 capital nursing. I saw the doctor myself; I went 
 down to St. Margaret's directly I heard about it. 
 That was only last week ; and of course all the 
 fuss and danger was over.' 
 
 ' Ah, she was in danger then ? in danger, and 
 I never knew!' The Vicar's tone was so full of 
 bitterness and suppressed anguish, that the Pro- 
 fessor winced as he heard it. 
 
 ' My dear Wentworth, we none of us knew it. 
 For the matter of that, we are all liable to acci- 
 dents. Who of us can predicate safely what may 
 happen to him in the next four-and-twenty hours ? 
 Let me tell you everything as I heard it. One 
 of the Grey Ladies — or Sisters, as I think they 
 call them — told me exactly how it happened. 
 
 ' One moment, Cornish : did you see Marion 
 herself? ' 
 
 1 No,' rather reluctantly, ' she was not strong 
 enough for that ; I think she was lying down. 
 She is still weak and pulled down.' 
 
 ' Good heavens ! Marion weak, and she never 
 had a day's sickness in her life ! There, go on, 
 Cornish, and I will try not to interrupt you — but 
 do not keep me on the rack long.' 
 
 ' I will do my best,' replied the Professor rather 
 sadly ; 'but I wish you could have heard it from
 
 THE AFTERMATH 345 
 
 that little grey-eyed Sister. She was such a kind, 
 chirpy little body. Miss Brett was in splendid 
 condition that day, she had been working hard in 
 the slums, and at tea-time she had seemed in 
 excellent spirits, and so full of her work that she 
 could talk of nothing else. 
 
 ' There was a night-school that evening, and she 
 went to it as usual ; and Sister Miriam, the little 
 grey-eyed Sister, was with her. Just before the 
 hour for closing came there was a sudden alarm 
 of fire, and the engine dashed past. Of course 
 all the men and boys rushed out, and Miss Brett, 
 with her usual impulsiveness, followed them, and 
 after a moment's hesitation Sister Miriam locked 
 the door and went too. " I thought Sister 
 Marion would get into mischief without me," she 
 said ; and then with a little laugh, that was half a 
 sob, " but I was too late ; the crowd separated us, 
 and I could not get near her." 
 
 • It was one of those closely packed tenements 
 in Mandeville Street that was on fire, and strange 
 to say, it was the very house where Miss Brett 
 had spent the greater part of the day. When 
 Sister Miriam caught sight of her, she was near 
 the firemen, and one of them had handed her 
 two children ; she seemed directing the men, for a 
 bystander heard her say, " It is on the third floor, 
 and the woman is bed-ridden, and there is a 
 paralysed man too." And after a delay and a
 
 346 THE AFTERMATH 
 
 great deal of anxious watching, the helpless 
 creatures were brought out. 
 
 ' This was all Sister Miriam could tell me from 
 her own observation ; the rest was only gleaned 
 from the lookers-on. One of the firemen had 
 been dangerously injured, and then it was said 
 that the staircase was burning ; the next moment 
 a poor distracted woman's voice was heard in the 
 crowd screaming out for Harry and the baby. 
 Miss Brett heard it, and recognised the voice. It 
 belonged to a young widow, one of her special 
 favourites ; the poor creature had been out char- 
 ring, and had left the children in a neighbour's 
 care. No one had seen the children, and not a 
 man dared to re-enter the house ; they had to 
 hold the poor mother by force. " The smoke will 
 have suffocated them long ago," exclaimed one 
 sympathising Irishwoman ; " shure, Nora avick, the 
 darlints are safe in Paradise with the blessed 
 Mary, the Mother of Sorrows." But at this 
 moment a tremendous shout and cheering broke 
 out, for there, black and grimed, scarcely recognis- 
 able, stood Sister Marion with two children in her 
 arms. But as she tottered towards them, some one 
 saw her sway, and caught her before she fell. The 
 boy was crying with terror, but otherwise unhurt, 
 but the baby she held so tightly to her breast was 
 dead. Something heavy had fallen and struck it, 
 for they found a cruel wound on the little head.'
 
 THE AFTERMATH 347 
 
 ' And Marion ! oh, my God ! and Marion ? ' 
 
 1 My dear fellow, how she escaped with her life 
 was a miracle ; but no one can induce her to say 
 much. 
 
 ' " I went through a hell, but I knew the children 
 were at the other side," that was all she said ; " and 
 I thought of the burning fiery furnace, and asked 
 the dear Lord to take care of me. And you say 
 the poor baby is dead, my little god-daughter; 
 but I knew nothing, I saw nothing, only the 
 roar and the hiss of the long red serpents every- 
 where." ' 
 
 ' And she is hurt ?' 
 
 ' Yes, of course ; one side and arm were badly 
 burned, and what she suffered for days and nights 
 only her doctors and nurses know, but they 
 pulled her through ; it was the shock to the 
 system, you see, and then she strained herself 
 carrying those children. She had only the use of 
 one arm, the other was powerless.' 
 
 ' Do you mean it was broken ? ' 
 
 ' Yes,' very reluctantly ; ' it was broken by the 
 same falling beam that killed the baby ; but it 
 was the burns that caused her the worst suffering. 
 She was in the hospital five weeks, but now she 
 is back at St. Margaret's. Her arm is going on 
 well, though it will be months before she will be 
 ble to use it with comfort.' 
 
 ' And she strained herself, you say ? '
 
 34 3 THE AFTERMATH 
 
 ' Yes, but she has got over that now She has 
 been very ill, Wentworth — it is no good denying 
 that ; but she has turned the corner and is 
 mending fast. They say that she is very much 
 changed, and that her weakness seems to puzzle 
 and distress her. She is very low-spirited and 
 frets a great deal about the baby; being weak, 
 things get hold of her. She has an idea that it 
 is her fault somehow. There, I have told you 
 all ; I have kept nothing back.' 
 
 ' Nothing? are you sure, are you quite sure of 
 that, Cornish ? ' Then, as the Professor hesitated, 
 he faced round upon him sternly : ' Out with it, 
 man ; we know each other well enough by this 
 time — there must be no reservation.' 
 
 ' There is little more to tell,' returned the other 
 slowly. ' I saw the doctor ; he was a man of few 
 words, but I understood from what he said that 
 at one time they had been extremely anxious.' 
 
 ' Yes, yes — and now ? ' 
 
 ' Well, she will not be fit for work for a long time 
 to come ; the nerves have suffered from the shock, 
 and he certainly has his doubts whether she will 
 ever be her strong, capable self again. At one 
 time they think that she believed herself dying, 
 for she called Sister Miriam to her : " If I get 
 worse, will you send for Mr. Wentworth, the 
 Vicarage, Sandilands ? there is something that I 
 must tell him before I go." And though Sister
 
 THE AFTERMATH 349 
 
 Miriam promised her faithfully that she would 
 do so, she was not certain that she was not 
 wandering. 
 
 ""Is his name Evelyn ? ' she asked me ; " for 
 all that first terrible night we heard her say that 
 name perpetually." There, Wentworth, on my 
 honour, I have told you all I know myself.' And 
 Mr. Cornish rose a little abruptly, perhaps because 
 the man beside him had hidden his face in his 
 hands, and something like a choked sob reached 
 his ears. 
 
 1 He has taken it hard,' the Professor murmured 
 to himself as he walked slowly back to the house. 
 ' Good God, how could she have the heart to play 
 with a man like Evelyn Wentworth, and to spoil 
 his life?' 
 
 Taken it hard ! — all the rest of his life the Vicar 
 never remembered that night without a shudder ; 
 the moonlight faded, the grey walls of the Vicar- 
 age became invisible, and still he sat on half 
 stupefied and benumbed by dull aching anguish — 
 until his limbs trembled, and when he rose to his 
 feet he tottered like an old man. 
 
 The damp wood had chilled him, but some 
 thoughtful hand had kindled a fire in the study, 
 and had placed some wine and food on the 
 table. He took some to strengthen himself, 
 then he went to his desk and wrote a few lines 
 rapidly.
 
 350 THE AFTERMATH 
 
 ' Marion, I have only to-night heard that 
 terrible story. We are friends, nothing can alter 
 that, and friends should share each other's 
 trouble. May I come and see you ? perhaps I 
 may be able to comfort you a little in your hour 
 of weakness. — Your faithful brother in Christ, 
 Evelyn Wentworth.' 
 
 And then when he had enclosed the note in 
 an envelope, he stole softly out of the Vicarage, 
 and walked across the dark, sleeping village and 
 posted it. 
 
 Before the Professor left, tne answer came ; 
 they were on the terrace together, waiting until 
 Barry summoned them to breakfast, when a 
 letter with the London post-mark was placed in 
 the Vicar's hand. The writing on the envelope 
 was unknown to him, but inside there was a slip 
 of paper, pencilled by Marion Brett herself. 
 
 ' Dear friend,' was all it said, ' it was good of 
 you to write ; I should like to see you, but you 
 will find me a sad wreck.— Marion.' 
 
 Two hours later, the Vicar had taken leave of 
 the Professor, and was on his way to the station ; 
 and it was still early in the afternoon when he 
 walked up Tudor Street, and knocked at the door 
 of St. Margaret's Home. 
 
 The young girl who admitted him ushered 
 him into a little waiting-room, and begged him 
 to sit down until Sister Miriam was at leisure ;
 
 THE AFTERMATH 351 
 
 But the ten minutes that elapsed before she made 
 her appearance seemed to him endless. 
 
 When the little grey-eyed woman at last 
 entered, he recognised her at once from his 
 friend's description. ' You are Sister Miriam,' he 
 said eagerly. ' I hope you have good news for 
 me ; Miss Brett and I are very old friends. When 
 I heard of that terrible accident, I felt I must 
 come and see her at once.' 
 
 ' Sister Marion is expecting you, Mr. Went- 
 worth,' she returned gently; 'she knows you are 
 here. She is better ; every day she gets more 
 like herself, but you must prepare yourself for a 
 shock. She is sadly changed.' 
 
 ' Do you mean,' and here a grey tinge over- 
 spread the Vicar's face, ' that her accident has 
 disfigured her? ' 
 
 'No, oh no,' returned Sister Miriam hastily; 
 ' thank God, her dear face has not suffered. But 
 she is so weak and can bear so little, and at 
 times her depression is sad to witness. When 
 you see her, you will understand things for your- 
 self ; but I will not keep you from her any 
 longer' ; and then she led the way, talking cheer- 
 fully all the time, down a long matted passage, 
 and opened the door of a pleasant little sitting- 
 room, overlooking a green narrow strip of garden. 
 
 There was a couch by the window, and there, 
 propped up by pillows, lay Marion Brett.
 
 352 THE AFTERMATH 
 
 Perhaps the Vicar's eyes were a little dim, or 
 the light bewildered him, but that first moment 
 he saw nothing but grey draperies and a black 
 sling, and the shining of auburn hair under the 
 cap border , but when she turned and looked at 
 him, and their eyes met, a great stab of pain 
 went through his heart, and unconsciously he fell 
 on his knees beside her. 
 
 'Oh, my poor child!' was all be said; but at 
 the sound of that pitying voice a sob came to 
 her wan lips, and her hand clasped his wrist 
 almost convulsively. 
 
 1 Evelyn,' she whispered in a hoarse, frightened 
 voice that he scarcely recognised, ' I have been 
 in the valley of the shadow of Death ; but it 
 was you that I wanted when I thought I was 
 dying — I felt I could not die without your 
 forgiveness ; and yet how was I to live in such 
 torture? Oh, what I suffered! and then the 
 horrible dread and fear ! ' 
 
 Suffered ! it needed no words to tell him that ; 
 the white, pinched face of the woman he loved so 
 hopelessly, the frightened sunken look of the 
 beautiful eyes, told their own piteous tale. 
 Marion Brett, who had sn gloried in her strong 
 personality, lay before him, broken in heart and 
 nerve, and helpless as a little child. 
 
 ' Evelyn/ she went on, almost clinging to him 
 with her feeble grasp— for he was speechless
 
 THE AFTERMATH 353 
 
 with trouble — ' did you hear me ? I was frightened 
 — frightened for the first time in my life. I was 
 afraid to die ; and now/ and here another sob 
 almost choked her words, ' I am afraid to live. 
 What is the use of life, when one only makes 
 mistakes ? I have so prayed to be of use in 
 the world ; to be a blessing and to bless other 
 lives ; but what good have I done ? and now 
 my strength is gone, and my work has gone 
 too.' 
 
 1 No, no,' he returned, for this roused him to 
 quick, urgent speech. ' You shall not say such 
 things to me. I know you too well to believe 
 them. You have been a heroine if ever woman 
 was one ; when men refused to enter that fiery 
 hell, you went in at the peril of your sweet life, and 
 brought the children out,' and then, in his deep 
 reverence, he bent over her with worshipping eyes 
 and pressed his lips to the silk sling that held the 
 bandaged arm. ' In the name of Him whom I 
 serve, I bless you for that deed of love, as all true 
 hearts will bless you.' 
 
 She lay silent for a moment as though his 
 words had soothed her. But the next minute 
 the look of pain and confusion returned 
 again. 
 
 ' But the baby was dead ! surely you know 
 that, Evelyn.' 
 
 ' Yes, dear, I know that, but it was no fault of 
 
 Z
 
 354 THE AFTERMATH 
 
 yours ; how could you have saved her from that 
 falling beam, when your poor arm was broken? 
 If God's angel had not guided you, neither you 
 nor the boy would have escaped alive,' — then he 
 felt her shudder all over. 
 
 ' It was a miracle,' she said in a low, bewildered 
 voice ; and a wan smile came to her lips. ' The 
 flames were all round us, everywhere, hundreds of 
 red serpents, twining over our heads, and the heat 
 and suffocation were dreadful ; sometimes even 
 now I start from my sleep with a scream, and 
 think I hear that terrible roar.' 
 
 1 Yes, I know, but you must try to forget it, 
 Marion. Listen to me a moment : these fears, this 
 horror, this nameless dread that oppresses you, 
 are only signs of misery and tortured nerves, 
 they are the ransom you are paying for the boy's 
 life ; it is a martyrdom that you are suffering, you 
 poor soul, but it will pass.' 
 
 ■ No, no ! ' 
 
 ' Ah, but as God's minister I tell you that it 
 will. All your life, my poor Marion, you have 
 loved your own will, and have sought to walk in 
 your own paths ; but Providence is giving you this 
 humbling lesson of weakness. You see I am not 
 afraid to speak the truth to you.' 
 
 ' No, you were always true,' she murmured half 
 to herself; and then there came a wonderful 
 brightness to his face.
 
 THE AFTERMATH 355 
 
 1 1 am your friend, and friends should be true ; 
 but, Marion, I have talked enough ; you are very 
 feeble, but to-morrow I will come again.' And then 
 in tender solemn words he blessed her and went 
 away ; and that night she enjoyed a few hours 
 of untroubled sleep for the first time since her 
 accident. 
 
 This was the beginning of Evelyn Wentworth's 
 ministry to the woman he loved. Two or three 
 days afterwards he found a locum tenens for his 
 parish in an old college friend, and put him in 
 possession ; then he took a lodging for himself 
 near Tudor Street, and day after day he sat in 
 Marion Brett's little sitting-room, reading or 
 talking to her. 
 
 ' No one does her so much good,' Sister Miriam 
 would say. ' I think she counts the hours until 
 you come,' but Evelyn Wentworth only smiled a 
 little sadly when he heard this. 
 
 But it was no easy task even for his loving and 
 faithful nature to minister to that diseased and 
 weary mind ; he would leave her in the evening 
 braced and cheered, and with almost a smile on 
 her lips, but the next day the puzzled look of pain 
 in her eyes would bring back his heartache. 
 
 ' Oh, Evelyn, I have had bad dreams again,' she 
 would say ; ' how am I to live through these 
 nights ? ' And sometimes she would break out into 
 piteous weeping, and beg him to pray that she
 
 356 THE AFTERMATH 
 
 might die, for existence was too terrible a burden 
 for her to bear. 
 
 It was sadly up-hill work, but he never lost 
 patience with her. Gently, as one would speak to 
 a bewildered child, he would go over the old 
 arguments. ' It is the heavy price you are paying 
 for the boy's life,' and then he would praise her 
 and tell her that she was noble, and a heroine 
 until the old lovely smile came to the poor 
 trembling lips. 
 
 But often his own heart felt ready to break. 
 
 ' Will she ever get over it?' he asked the doctor 
 once ; he was a Scotchman, and rather taciturn — 
 he frowned over the Vicar's question. 
 
 ' She is mending every day,' he returned at 
 last ; ' but I begin to fear that she will never be 
 fit for work again. She must take life more 
 easily and enjoy herself, that is what I tell her. 
 St, Margaret's will get on very well without her : 
 it is not a sisterhood, and she is as free as I am.' 
 
 'Yes, I know, Macpherson ; but then you see 
 her heart is in her work. How are we to interest 
 her in anything else?' 
 
 ' My dear Mr. Wentworth, that is more your 
 province than mine. But when a woman has been 
 on the brink of brain fever, and has had such a 
 shock, she is likely to be shelved for a year or 
 two; you must get her away from here to some 
 quiet sea-side place, where she can be amused
 
 THE AFTERMATH 357 
 
 without fatigue. Sister Miriam is an excellent 
 nurse, and will go with her.' And after a time 
 this plan was carried out, and lodgings were 
 taken for her at St. Leonards. 
 
 It was not possible for the Vicar to neglect his 
 work any longer, but every week he spent a few 
 hours with her. He knew how welcome his visits 
 were, and each time he came he was cheered by 
 the decided improvement in her. ' Evelyn,' she 
 said to him once as they sat together by the 
 window on a late November afternoon, ' I cannot 
 bear to think of all the trouble I am giving you; 
 these long journeys every week, just to brighten 
 up a poor invalid, and to give her a few hours of 
 enjoyment. You are so good, so good. No one 
 else would heap coals of fire on such an unworthy 
 creature, and I take it all as though it were my 
 right,' and then she began to weep in the old 
 miserable way. 
 
 ' Marion,' he said softly, and something in his 
 tone seemed to check her tears, ' do not cry so 
 bitterly. I want to speak to you. Am I really 
 good to you, my darling?' Then a quick blush 
 came to her thin face. 
 
 'You have been goodness itself. How could 
 I have lived through this dreadful time without 
 you?' 
 
 ' Then give me my reward,' he returned as he 
 drew her towards him. • Give me the right to
 
 358 THE AFTERMATH 
 
 watch over you, Marion. I have loved you all 
 my life. I think no other woman has ever been 
 more truly loved. For your sake I have been a 
 lonely man, without wife or child, but I cannot 
 face a lonely old age.' Then she shrank from him 
 almost in silence, and covered her burning face 
 with her hands. 
 
 ' As you are strong, be merciful. Do not tempt 
 me, Evelyn.' 
 
 • Why not, my dearest ? ' 
 
 ' Because — because — I might be weak enough 
 to yield,' she whispered. ' Because I love so 
 dearly to be with you, and it would be such rest 
 and comfort ; but I will not do it, never, never. 
 How could I bring myself to do such a shameful 
 thing? In the days of my health and strength I 
 left you and broke your heart, and now am I to 
 be a burden to you in my weakness?' but he 
 checked all further speech. 
 
 ' Marion, beloved,' he said almost solemnly, as 
 he looked into the deep, beautiful eyes, ' it is no 
 use. My will is stronger than yours. We will 
 never separate again, you and I, until death us 
 do part. You are mine, mine in heart and mind, 
 as I am yours ; and if I loved you in the days of 
 strength, I love you far more dearly now in your 
 weakness and sadness,' and then, as he kissed 
 her, the chrism of victorious love seemed to flood 
 her very soul with sweetness
 
 THE AFTERMATH 359 
 
 And so in the fresh springtime Marion Brett 
 became Evelyn Wentworth's wife. People some- 
 times said that it was a pity that Mrs. Wentworth 
 was such an invalid, and that her husband was 
 obliged to wait on her, but Douglas Cornish, who 
 came constantly to the Vicarage, never shared 
 this opinion. 
 
 He knew that for the first time in his life 
 Evelyn's heart was at rest ; that the woman he 
 had loved so passionately all those weary years 
 had become his dearer and second self. 
 
 They had no thoughts apart : in her husband's 
 absence Marion drooped and pined. 'You have 
 given me new life,' she once said to him. ' I owe 
 all my peace and happiness to you. How should 
 I ever have struggled through that awful darkness 
 without the help of your dear hand ? ' 
 
 'And you are really happy, dearest?' he asked, 
 * in spite of all your limitations — weak health, and 
 the pain in that poor arm ? ' Then as she looked 
 in his face, he needed no other answer, for he 
 knew that she was truly and utterly content, and 
 that his wife was a happy woman. 
 
 Printed by T. and A. Constable. Printers to His Majesty 
 at the Edinburgh University Press
 
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