Monoch 
 
 Ella D'Arcy
 
 _ 
 
 DLIVE-PERCIVAL- 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 MONOCHROMES
 
 Copyrighted in the United States 
 All rights resetted
 
 MONOCHROMES 
 
 BY ELLA D'ARCY 
 
 LONDON : JOHN LANE, VIGO ST. 
 BOSTON: ROBERTS BROS., 1895
 
 Edinburgh : T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty
 
 TR 
 
 4525 
 
 TO 
 THE CHIEF 
 
 A Q 
 
 
 
 "" TDD APV
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 'THE ELEGIE,' ...... I 
 
 IRREMEDIABLE, ...... 65 
 
 POOR COUSIN LOUIS, ..... 9$ 
 
 THE PLEASURE-PILGRIM, . . . .129 
 
 WHITE MAGIC, . . . . . -177 
 
 THE EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT, . . *9*
 
 'THE ELEGIE'
 
 'THE ELEGIE' 
 
 ' Into paint will I grind thee, O my Bride ! ' 
 
 Do you know how Schoenemann's ' Elegie ' came 
 to be written ? 
 
 This is the story. 
 
 In the summer of '40, Emil Schoenemann, then 
 quite a young man, returned from Leipsic, where 
 he had been studying under Brockhoff, to his native 
 village of Klettendorf-am-Rhein. He had already 
 written his ' Traum-Bilder,' those delicious fugitive 
 thoughts which Vieth's fine rendering has since 
 made known all over Europe ; and we can trace 
 in this early composition the warm imagination, 
 the aspirations towards the Beautiful and the Good, 
 and the wide, vague hopes as yet unfulfilled, which 
 mark the history of most artists. 
 
 Schoenemann came back to the homely family, 
 to the cottage-house with its low rooms, its tiny 
 garden and orchard, to the beautiful Rhine country 
 with its vineyards, wooded hills, and swiftly-flowing 
 river, purposing to spend the summer months in a 
 profitable solitude. 
 
 But his fame had preceded him. Every one
 
 4 MONOCHROMES 
 
 knew of young Schoenemann's Academy successes ; 
 Herr Postmeister and Herr Schulmeister held 
 learned discussions on the subject of his musical 
 genius, and Herr Schumacher, who had played 
 the 'cello in trios with Emil's father, predicted 
 emphatically a great career for his old friend's 
 son. But it was Harms, the organist, who did 
 most to spread Schoenemann's glory round and 
 about ; for it was to Harms, his earliest master, 
 that Emil had sent in affectionate remembrance 
 a manuscript copy of the 'Traum-Bilder' the pre 
 ceding Christmas. 
 
 Harms became enthusiastic over this composi 
 tion. All the winter it had been his constant 
 theme for discourse. He had played portions on 
 every piano in Klettendorf, and for miles around. 
 He could not see an instrument without sitting 
 down to it, asked or unasked, to demonstrate the 
 beauties of the ' Bilder.' He would play a few 
 bars, then dash his hands down upon the notes 
 in a rush of admiration which rendered his fingers 
 powerless, and flinging himself round to face his 
 audience, would call their attention in stammer 
 ing words to the profundity of the thought, the 
 subtlety of the scoring, the originality of this or 
 that phrase, until he had roused excitement to a 
 pitch nearly equalling his own. Then he would 
 toss back his already grizzling head with a dog- 
 like shake, and begin the composition over again, 
 to recommence the moment he had finished, lest 
 inadvertently he should have slurred over one of 
 its thousand excellencies.
 
 'THE ELEGIE' 5 
 
 Yet, that Klettendorf took Schoenemann at 
 Harms's estimate was due rather to the latter's faith, 
 energy, and good-will, than to his skilful interpreta 
 tion of his ex-pupil's work ; poor Harms was but a 
 mediocre pianist. It was reserved for Vieth to 
 combine a just appreciation of Schoenemann's 
 genius with a fine illustrative talent of his own. 
 Naturally, if Harms had possessed such a talent, he 
 would not have found himself at forty the obscure 
 organist of a Rhine village. 
 
 Among those persons to whom he had spoken of 
 the young composer with most warmth were the 
 Dittenheims. Graf Dittenheim owned Klettendorf 
 and most of the land thereabouts ; he possessed 
 across the river at Godesberg, a beautiful villa, 
 generally occupied for a few months only, during 
 the summer season. But this year the family had 
 been there since early March, the Graefin having 
 been ordered away from the bitter winds of Berlin. 
 Again, as on previous occasions, Harms was 
 allowed to give piano-lessons to the only daughter, 
 the little Contesse Marie. But he, with the simple 
 uncalculating generosity that distinguished him, 
 wished her to have Schoenemann for a master 
 instead. 
 
 'When Schoenemann comes to us in the 
 summer,' he told the Graefin, ' you should not 
 fail to give the Contesse the advantages of his 
 help. She has a charming talent, to which I have 
 at least done no harm ; possibly even some little 
 good. But I can take her no further. I have 
 taught her all I know. Now, Schoenemann in six
 
 6 MONOCHROMES 
 
 weeks will do more for her than I could in six 
 years.' 
 
 The Graefin looked at him from blue and sunken 
 eyes. She had no interest in, or opinion on, the 
 subject of music ; it was nothing to her whether 
 Schoenemann or Harms was her daughter's 
 teacher. The only subject which really interested 
 her was her own failing health ; and as she looked 
 and mused on August's ugly face and thickset 
 figure, where nevertheless strength and long life 
 were so legibly written, she grew bitter against the 
 fate which threatened to cut her off in the height 
 of her youth and beauty. She was thirty-four, and 
 looked twenty-six, and her passionate love of life 
 and amusement grew keener in proportion as she 
 seemed destined to forego them. Yet she did 
 remember to say to her husband the next time she 
 happened to see him, ' That odd Harms wants us 
 to have young Schoenemann to give Marie music- 
 lessons. It seems he is expected back in Kletten- 
 dorf.' 
 
 'So? Schoenemann?' said the Graf; 'he is 
 expected home, is he? I hear he is one of our 
 coming men. By all means patronise him, if the 
 little one would like it. I should be glad to help 
 him for his father's sake. Poor Franz was a faith 
 ful servant, and a good musician himself. His 
 touch on the violin was superb.' 
 
 Thus Harms obtained the wished-for permission 
 to bring Emil to Bellavista, and present him to 
 the family. But on the day fixed for this cere 
 mony it happened that a funeral service was to be
 
 'THE ELEGIE' 7 
 
 celebrated in the Hofkapelle in Bonn, and that the 
 organist was taken ill. Harms was asked to 
 supply his place ; and in consequence, Schoenemann 
 found himself on the way to Bellavista alone. 
 
 It was June, gloriously sunny, three in the 
 afternoon. It was a day for lying by woodland 
 streams, listening to the small sounds of woodland 
 life, seeing in fancy coy woodland nymphs peep 
 ing out from between the tree-boles. The road 
 to Godesberg was long, dusty, and monotonous ; 
 most people would have found it insuperably dull ; 
 but Emil, who walked in the melodious company 
 of his own thoughts, was raised far above dulness. 
 
 Every impression received through the senses 
 became music when it reached this young man's 
 brain. The birds sang to him, and so did the 
 breeze in the trees. The complaining cry of a 
 gate which a woman opened to drive through some 
 young calves, became a whole phrase in the tone- 
 poem growing up in his soul. A band of little 
 children, holding hands as they advanced towards 
 him, introduced a new train of thought. He saw 
 himself again just such a little child as one of 
 these, running down the village street, and listen 
 ing to the tune which his iron-bound shoes rang 
 out upon the cobbles. 
 
 The whole of this walk, or rather the emotions 
 which it set free, has been immortalised in the 
 descriptive opening movement of Op. 37 so at 
 least Vieth tells us, to whom Schoenemann con 
 fided much of his history and early experiences : 
 the dreamy and delicious adagio was born of the
 
 8 MONOCHROMES 
 
 rose-garden, and the impulsive passionate finale of 
 the events that followed. But first I must describe 
 to you this garden of Bellavista. 
 
 The high road ran right through it ; or rather, 
 there were two separate gardens, one on either 
 hand. In the centre of the right-hand garden, 
 fenced off from the highway by a wire-rail and a 
 laurel hedge, stood the house ; a villa in the 
 Italian style, that thus determined the foreign 
 form its name should take. On the other side of 
 the road, railed off in a similar manner, was a 
 garden for pleasure only, extending from road to 
 Rhine. And the view obtained from the windows 
 of Bellavista, of rose, of myrtle, of broad-bosomed 
 river, of upland vineyard and wood beyond, fully 
 justified the claim set forth in the name itself. 
 
 Floating out from the two gardens, innumerable 
 flower-perfumes blent themselves into one intoxi 
 cating whole, which was wafted far and wide, so 
 that Schoenemann revelled in it long before he 
 reached the open iron wicket that gave access to 
 the house. 
 
 The path wound first between walls of glossy 
 laurel. Then suddenly you found yourself upon 
 an open lawn, pierced with flower-beds resembling 
 jewels in their gorgeous colourings and geometrical 
 shapes. Here lay a ruby, formed of black and 
 red and crimson roses, pinned closely down to the 
 grass in circular pattern ; there climbed a clematis 
 about a slender rod, which, massing its purple 
 blossoms in an immense bouquet at the top, looked 
 like a cluster of deep-hued amethysts and sapphires
 
 'THE ELEGIE' 9 
 
 invisibly suspended a few feet above the ground. 
 And scarlets, yellows, and whites, yellows and 
 scarlets, flashed and flamed and glimmered against 
 the greenness on every side. Yonder lay the 
 tubing which finished in the iron stand-piece of 
 a movable fountain. It was playing now. Two 
 broad rings of water, one above the other, revolved 
 in contrary directions ; and while the inner portion 
 of each ring was of a glassy tenuity and smoothness, 
 the outer edges broke up into a spray that scattered 
 its myriad drops like diamonds in the sunshine. 
 Continental gardens have a charm of which those 
 who only know the green lawns and shady trees 
 of England can form no idea. Those trees and 
 lawns are beautiful indeed in their own peaceful 
 way ; but such a garden as Bellavista is a veritable 
 land of enchantment, where warmth, colour, 
 perfume, and the aural coolness of plashing water, 
 all woo the senses at once. 
 
 Schoenemann found the door of the villa wide 
 open like the gate. He stood on the threshold of 
 a square hall, solemn and silent as a temple ; and 
 the Medicean Venus, who, from her pedestal of 
 porphyry, was reflected at all her white and lovely 
 length in the marble floor below, appeared like the 
 goddess of the shrine. On either hand were door 
 ways closed by heavy curtains, but there was no 
 sight or sound of human life. Only the noise of 
 water from a vase of roses overturned upon a side- 
 table, falling drop-wise into a self-formed pool on 
 the pavement below. Only this, and the murmur 
 of a bee, which had followed the young man in
 
 io MONOCHROMES 
 
 from the garden, broke the stillness. And when 
 presently the water was all drained away, and the 
 bee having found out the flowers, settled down to 
 enjoy them, the silence grew intense. 
 
 Emil told himself he had come upon a fairy 
 palace, of which the inhabitants had long ago been 
 touched to sleep. He stood there upon the thres 
 hold, and savoured a perfect enjoyment. He was 
 not in the least embarrassed. The possessor of 
 genius never is. He feels himself at all times 
 and in all places far above external circumstances. 
 Nature has crowned him king ; and though a king 
 may meet his equals, none stand above him. 
 It is only the consciousness of a real or fancied 
 inferiority that causes embarrassment. 
 
 For some little time the young man remained 
 quiescent, because the beauty, silence, and solitude 
 of his surroundings pleased him ; but when 
 presently he noticed a doorway of which the 
 curtains were not closed, he thought it natural to 
 walk straightway in. 
 
 He found himself in a large drawing-room, with 
 a parqueted floor, an admirably painted ceiling, 
 and walls hung with silk brocade. Three long 
 windows looked out across the garden on to the 
 Rhine, and a fourth window at the farther end of 
 the room stood open on to a conservatory filled 
 with tropical plants. There were flowers here too, 
 and the stronger fragrance of tuberose and gardenia 
 effaced the remembrance of the roses outside. 
 
 But the only object which appealed to Schoe- 
 nemann's interest was a grand piano placed at
 
 'THE ELEGIE' n 
 
 an angle to this conservatory door. There are 
 men who go into a room and leave it again, 
 having seen absolutely nothing of its contents. 
 Others there are who will give not only a 
 correct inventory of all the furniture, but an 
 appraisement of every article at its just price. 
 There are those who see only the pictures, and 
 those who see only the books ; and some among 
 the latter cannot resist taking a book up from 
 the table or down from the shelf, although they 
 knew their immediate expulsion were to be the 
 consequence. 
 
 Schoenemann was affected in this way by 
 musical instruments. He could not keep his 
 fingers off them. Now he crossed over to the 
 piano, opened it, and seated himself at the key-board 
 with the same calmness and self-absorption as at 
 the hired instrument in his Leipsic lodging, or at 
 the wheezy old spinnet in the tiny living-room at 
 home. He began to transmute back through his 
 fingers, with the god-like faculty given to musicians 
 alone, all the impressions of life, and joy, and 
 beauty which his soul had received. At first with 
 a certain hesitation, as his fingers sought the right 
 chords a hesitation still audible in the first eight 
 bars, before comes the change of key the 
 harmonies rose and swelled and flooded the room 
 with sound, until by that most unique and 
 beautiful transition I write with my eyes 
 upon the published score he passed to the light 
 scherzo movement, which paints so well Nature's 
 joyousness, and which, yet, like Nature, to those
 
 12 MONOCHROMES 
 
 who know her best, reveals an undersong of pain. 
 Cruder, no doubt, in places than in its now perfected 
 form, the work which has appealed to so many 
 thousands of feeling hearts ever since, must have 
 possessed an extraordinary fascination on the day 
 when it was first drawn, warm and palpitating, out 
 of silence by the power of the musician's soul. 
 
 The piano was placed so that the player faced 
 the Rhine windows ; and as Emil played, his gaze 
 travelled across the river, and rested on the 
 congregated roofs of his own village ; but rapt by 
 the melodies he created, he was raised to an ideal 
 world. He was unconscious of the instrument he 
 played on, of the realities around him. 
 
 Velvet curtains hung on either side of the con 
 servatory door, fell in voluminous folds, and lay 
 on the floor in masses of drapery to delight a 
 painter's heart. While Schoenemann played, one 
 of these curtains was pulled gently aside, to reveal, 
 hitherto concealed behind it, a very young girl. 
 She had been sitting there reading, until the 
 warmth of the day, the silence, and the enervating 
 perfumes of the flowers had sent her to sleep. 
 The book, a slim volume of Goethe's ' Lieder,' still 
 lay open where it had slipped to her feet. If she 
 had dreamed she was in heaven listening to the 
 music of the spheres, she awoke to find the music 
 was real; and she drew aside the curtain to perceive, 
 with blue astonished eyes, a veritable flesh and 
 blood young man, an entire stranger, seated at the 
 piano before her. 
 
 Schoenemann struck the final chords, and slowly
 
 'THE ELEGIE' 13 
 
 released the notes one by one. The faint 
 harmonies still delighted his ear, when his glance 
 fell upon the young girl. He looked at her, not 
 with surprise, but with interest that passed into a 
 passionate pleasure. In a flash of light, he caught 
 a resemblance between her and the ideal woman, 
 he had vainly sought since boyhood. The next 
 moment, real and ideal were inextricably blended, 
 and he devoted himself, body and soul, to the 
 worship of Marie von Dittenheim. If his very 
 first words did not tell her what had happened to 
 him, at least his eyes must have done so; for, 
 leaning on the piano and blushing deeply, she 
 murmured in broken phrases her thanks for his 
 music, and her praise, while her mind swung like 
 a pendulum between terror and joy.
 
 II 
 
 THAT evening Emil sought out Harms, and over 
 flowed to him on the subject of the Contesse 
 Marie. 
 
 ' She is the most beautiful creature I have ever 
 met ! Where were your eyes, Harms, not to have 
 seen it? Wonderful man that you are! You 
 have always spoken of her to me as a mere child. 
 If I ever pictured her to myself at all, it was as 
 a most ordinary young person. But she is holy 
 as an angel, and exquisite as a Grecian statue, into 
 whom the gods have just breathed life. Just so 
 must Galatea have looked when she stepped down 
 from her pedestal to Pygmalion. Have you not 
 noticed her throat? It is like marble, as white, 
 as columnar, as softly rounded. You feel irresis 
 tibly inclined to lay your hand on its smooth 
 contours, precisely as you desire to touch some 
 subtly modelled piece of statuary.' 
 
 Harms was bewildered, as much by Emil's 
 warmth of language as by the new light his 
 praises shed over the little Contesse. In point of 
 fact, Harms had hitherto considered her as an 
 amiable, nice-looking, but not unordinary young 
 girl. Now, influenced as ever by Emil, he began
 
 'THE ELEGIE' 15 
 
 to readjust this opinion. Certainly she had a full 
 white throat this was a point about her he 
 remembered ; but he had never felt tempted to 
 touch it in the way Emil described. His attitude 
 towards Woman was altogether too timorous to 
 allow him to entertain any such poetic idea. 
 
 ' And then her hair ! ' pursued Schoenemann ; 
 ' I like that light-brown crinkly sort of hair. And 
 it is gathered back into a loose knot behind, from 
 which a golden haze escapes to float like an aureola 
 about her face." 
 
 In true lover-fashion he saw beauties where the 
 sane man might reasonably have found defects. 
 
 ' She has no eyelashes, Harms, or scarcely any. 
 Have you observed ? But then her eyelids have 
 curves that Phidias might have copied. And 
 after all, eyelashes are a type of low organisation. 
 Cattle and deer have them in far greater abundance 
 than man ; while the highest point of human 
 beauty, as achieved by the Greeks, is entirely 
 devoid of them. Yet who has ever felt the need 
 of giving eyelashes to the Milean Venus ? And, 
 Harms, what heavenly dove's eyes ! the bluest 
 blue I have ever seen. There are no eyes like blue 
 eyes, I think.' 
 
 ' Dark eyes are beautiful too,' Harms answered. 
 Emil's own were ' black as our eyes endure ; ' but 
 Harms was thinking of other eyes less beautiful 
 than Emil's, but which he was once in the way of 
 loving even better. 
 
 ' Marie, Marie ! ' murmured the young man 
 rapturously ; ' the name of Marie has acquired
 
 16 MONOCHROMES 
 
 quite a new meaning for me. I am coming to 
 consider it the most beautiful name in the world.' 
 
 ' It has always seemed so to me/ said Harms 
 with a certain shyness ; but Emil was too self- 
 absorbed to remember that Harms had any 
 particular reason for caring about the name. 
 
 ' Yes ? ' he said carelessly ; ' but being my sister's 
 name, it had become a household word to me, 
 devoid of meaning. Now only, has its significance 
 and its poetry returned. I am to go over to 
 Bellavista again next Friday. Ah, how shall I 
 live through the days and the nights till then ! ' 
 
 The two men were walking in the woods above 
 Klettendorf. They reached a point in the steep 
 ascent where a clearing had been made, and a 
 bench placed, that the climber might rest awhile 
 and enjoy the view. The trees fell away on either 
 hand, permitting the eye to travel down over 
 umbrageous masses of foliage to the river far 
 below ; to the level opposite shore, where stretched 
 the gardens of Godesberg ; to where beyond them 
 a glowing sun sank down towards a horizon of 
 distant trees. And as he sank, long ranks of 
 crimson cloudlets radiated out and up to the 
 very zenith of the sky, while the broad-bosomed 
 Rhine flowing below was stained to a corresponding 
 crimson glory. 
 
 Emil and Harms sat down on the bench, which 
 was an old and favourite haunt of theirs. The 
 younger man continued his love-litany. The elder 
 listened, uttered the necessary responses, and like 
 many another worshipper who prays devoutly with
 
 'THE ELEGIE' 17 
 
 the lips, allowed his thoughts to stray away to 
 personal matters. It was impossible for him not 
 to recall that, on just such an evening as this six 
 years ago, he and Emil had sat together on that 
 same bench, and their talk then as now had been 
 of love, but with this difference then Harms had 
 been the lover, Emil the listener ; and he had 
 listened in absolute silence to August's unexpected 
 and unpleasing confession listened until he could 
 endure it no longer, but had broken out into a 
 passion of protestation and grief. He had thrown 
 himself over there upon the ground and wept 
 ragingly. Harms could still see the slight boyish 
 figure shaken by sobs, and the black head low 
 among the grasses, half hidden by nodding 
 ferns. 
 
 Whence came these tears? Harms had foolishly 
 slipped into love with Emil's sister. He had 
 known Marie Schoenemann since he first came 
 to Klettendorf. She had been his piano-pupil 
 as well as Emil. He had seen her grow from 
 a child to a shy and silent maiden, to a woman 
 gay, hopeful, and kind. She could talk and jest 
 now, as well as knit and sew ; could wash her 
 men-folk's shirts as well as cook their dinners. 
 Harms admired all she did. He saw in her a 
 heaven-sent wife. But he had never dared think 
 practically of marrying her until the unexpected 
 offer of a fairly good post at Bremen made 
 marriage a possibility instead of a dream. And 
 then he had been stricken dumb by the manner 
 in which Emil had received his confidence. He 
 
 B
 
 i8 MONOCHROMES 
 
 had looked at the prone figure before him, and 
 been filled with perplexity and pain. 
 
 The storm had passed as suddenly as it had 
 broken. Emil had sprung up pale and with 
 flashing eyes, to demonstrate to Harms his 
 colossal selfishness in desiring to take Marie 
 away from her recently widowed mother, not 
 to speak of the irreparable loss his friendship 
 and daily companionship would be to Emil him 
 self. The boy had spoken with singular lucidity 
 and force. He was one of those gifted people 
 who, the moment they have adopted an opinion, 
 are able to impose it upon others by mere strength 
 of will. Instantly they marshal forward such an 
 array of weighty arguments that even opponents 
 are forced to admit reason is on the other side. 
 While Emil had spoken, poor Harms had sunk 
 through every stage of humiliation and self- 
 reproach. Nor had the boy spared him for this. 
 When the iron glows hot and malleable is not 
 the moment to give over striking. 
 
 'And Marie does not care for you,' he had 
 said, ' except as a friend. Of that I am certain. 
 Who could have better opportunities of judging 
 than I ? To tell her of your feelings towards her 
 would be to destroy for ever the harmonious 
 relations existing between you. She will marry, 
 of course, some day ; but it must be with a man 
 more suited to her than you. Marie is twenty, 
 but in many respects even younger than I am. 
 You are nearly forty, and old for your years.
 
 'THE ELEGIE' 19 
 
 What possible sympathy could there be between 
 you ?' 
 
 'There is something in what you say,' August 
 had admitted humbly ; and he realised for the 
 first time that youth was irrevocably gone. Such 
 knowledge usually comes with a shock and an 
 extraordinary bitterness. For so many years one 
 has been young, very young, the youngest of one's 
 company. 
 
 ' There would, of course, be little* inducement 
 for a girl to leave her own people and begin life 
 in a new place for my sake. It was folly of me 
 ever to think of it. I will do so no more. But 
 keep my secret, Emil, that I may keep her friend 
 ship. I would sooner see her and you daily, 
 and be of some use to you both, than meet 
 with all the good fortune in the world else 
 where.' 
 
 In consequence of this conversation Harms had 
 declined the Bremen offer, and from that day he 
 strenuously endeavoured to put from him all idle 
 hopes. But to-night, scene and circumstance 
 brought back past dreams so vividly, he could 
 not at once trample them under foot. For a 
 while he lost himself in them, and the pains of 
 renunciation were renewed. Whereby he came 
 to sympathise all the more strongly with Emil, 
 who appeared to him to be opening the first 
 volume of an equally unpropitious love-story. 
 For August found it impossible to contemplate 
 seriously an alliance between a Dittenheim and 
 the son of Franz Schoenemann. He thought he
 
 20 MONOCHROMES 
 
 could gauge the Graefin's amazed reception of such 
 an idea. 
 
 'Did you see no one beside Contesse Marie?' 
 he asked Emil. 
 
 ' A vague-looking lady with red eyebrows came 
 in, but I did not observe her much.' 
 
 'That would be the English governess,' said 
 Harms. 
 
 ' And then I was summoned into another room 
 to be presented to the Graefin.' 
 
 ' Ah, now ! what did you think of her ? ' asked 
 Harms, with interest. ' Sad she should be so 
 delicate, is it not ? But she is still universally 
 considered a very beautiful woman.' He him 
 self thought her, so far as appearance went, better 
 worth praise than her little daughter. 
 
 ' Perhaps/ said Emil briefly ; ' I scarcely re 
 member. Do you know, Harms,' he went on, 
 clasping his two hands behind his neck with 
 an action which was habitual to him, ' I have 
 made a discovery; all life and all art is but a 
 preparation for Love. Love is the end of life, 
 and I do not seem to have really lived until 
 to-day. I have eaten and drunk, have slept and 
 have awakened, but, like an infant on its nurse's 
 arm, have hitherto been utterly unconscious of the 
 real meaning and purpose of existence. In the 
 same way, my music has been but a vague groping 
 after joys and beauties which have for ever eluded 
 me. I have played on an instrument from which 
 the key-note has been missing, and the result has 
 been as unsatisfying as a series of unresolved
 
 'THE ELEGIE' 21 
 
 chords. But henceforth all will be different. 
 With Marie as my sweetheart and wife, I shall 
 scale the highest pinnacles.' 
 
 Harms was staggered by this confidence. 
 
 1 But,' objected he, ' do you think the Ditten- 
 heims would ever consent to accept you as a 
 suitor?' 
 
 ' Why not ? ' asked Emil, superbly. ' Love 
 makes all things equal ; and if she loves me, 
 she is raised to the same level as mine.' 
 
 Harms stared, doubting whether his ears did not 
 betray him. 
 
 ' Or is it possible you mean she is what fools 
 call " well-born," and I am not ? To my mind 
 the best born is he who has received the gifts of 
 the gods direct. Read Plato. Does he not put 
 musicians highest of all even above poets and 
 orators ? False modesty shall never lead me to 
 deny or belittle a possession which I prize and 
 honour a thousand times more than life.' 
 
 ' Yes, yes, I agree with all you say,' cried 
 Harms ; ' and those whose opinion is better worth 
 having than mine, to-day put genius above birth. 
 But will the Dittenheims do so? I cannot endure 
 to see you preparing for yourself such bitter 
 disappointment.' 
 
 ' I love this girl,' said Emil ; ' and if she loves 
 me and she will love me no power on earth 
 shall stand between us. I have set my whole 
 heart and mind on this thing, and you or the 
 Dittenheims could as easily turn me from it, as 
 you could make the Rhine there flow backwards.'
 
 22 MONOCHROMES 
 
 From childhood up, Emil had achieved his own 
 way hitherto in silence. This was the first 
 occasion on which he openly announced his 
 intention of always achieving it. 
 
 The upper rim of the sun-ball now touched the 
 trees behind the gardens of Godesberg. Looking 
 down on the river, the two men saw it all orange 
 and indigo, while the sky flamed with orange and 
 rose. They began their descent through the 
 twilight of the woods. When they gained the 
 open hillside, the heavens were painted with the 
 softer colours of the afterglow. In the east, river 
 and sky were red with reflected light ; but in the 
 west, sky and river were of an exquisite unearthly 
 green. The islands and wooded promontories 
 rose up with a new sombreness, and to Emil's 
 fancy the trees justled closer together and moved 
 into new combinations as he watched them through 
 the gathering gloom.
 
 Ill 
 
 SCHOENEMANN, who would recognise no diffi 
 culties in the way of his love for Marie von 
 Dittenheim, chose to observe no reticences either. 
 Before Friday came, his whole family I had 
 almost said all Klettendorf knew of his passion. 
 Precisely as he had overflowed on the subject to 
 Harms, so he overflowed to his mother, his aunt 
 Kunie, his sister Marie. The two elder women 
 were dismayed. The discipline of life had taught 
 them to place expediency before sentiment. 
 Besides, Emil's sentiments appeared to them 
 exaggerated, his hopes impossible to fulfil. But 
 although, when alone together, they reiterated the 
 insuperable difficulties which barred his wishes, 
 neither ventured to point these out to the young 
 man himself. Their love for him was largely 
 tempered with fear. 
 
 Marie Schoenemann, on the contrary, was 
 strangely stirred by the event. Here, for the first 
 time in her life, was a real love-story beginning 
 under her very eyes. She could not hear enough 
 of it from Emil; nor could she recover from her 
 surprise that the Contesse Marie, whom she had 
 last seen two summers ago, a little girl in short
 
 24 MONOCHROMES 
 
 frocks, with plaited hair down her back, should 
 be capable of inspiring such a passion as her 
 brother's. 
 
 But, besides elation, she was conscious of feeling 
 a species of envy, and when at night combing out 
 her long dark hair she looked in the glass at her 
 agreeable reflection, she longed for some such 
 happiness as Marie von Dittenheim's to befall 
 herself. She was already six-and-twenty : it was 
 time the lover came. And now, while she cooked 
 and scoured, washed Emil's shirts and ironed them, 
 she ceased to sing. For the first time in her life 
 her youthful confidence in her own future began 
 to be shaken. 
 
 Emil, who did not lean on chance, but had the 
 lofty assurance his future should be as he chose to 
 make it, lost neither time nor opportunity in further 
 ing his desires. His second interview with the 
 little Contesse was decisive. I know not how he 
 managed to again escape the company of the 
 vague lady with the fiery eyebrows. I only know 
 that determined lovers always do succeed in 
 managing such things. But he did not leave 
 Bellavista a second time without having won from 
 the young girl her tremulous admission that she 
 loved him too. Masculine fire such as his could 
 not burn without awakening a corresponding glow 
 in the feminine mirror. 
 
 The lady with the eyebrows, though constantly 
 out-generalled by Emil in matters of detail, could 
 not be altogether blinded to the state of affairs. 
 She carried her surmises to the Graefin, who, first
 
 'THEELEGIE' 25 
 
 incredulous, then disdainfully amused, caused a 
 letter to be written to Emil putting a stop to her 
 daughter's lessons. Emil continued to visit Bella- 
 vista as a friend. The servants had orders to 
 deny him the door. Aided at every point by 
 the little Contesse herself, he contrived to meet 
 her in the Rhine garden. The Graefin, now 
 angry in earnest, kept the girl a prisoner in the 
 house. Emil wrote her letters, which were con 
 fiscated before reaching her. He determined to 
 make a bold appeal to the Graf to sanction a 
 betrothal. The Graefin appealed to her husband 
 on the same day for his interference and support. 
 
 Dittenheim turned from a perusal of Schoene- 
 mann's extraordinary epistle to listen to his 
 wife's denunciation of the writer. He sent for 
 his daughter, and drew from her a meagre con 
 fession and an abundance of tears. Alone again 
 in his study, he gave himself up to a sense of 
 dispassionate entertainment. He was a student 
 of human nature, and constantly deplored the fact 
 that conformity and mental flabbiness, rendered so 
 few humans profitable studies. But he scented in 
 Emil's letter a refreshing amount of originality of 
 mind. It was undeniably original that the son of 
 his deceased under-ranger should write and calmly 
 demand the hand of his only daughter in marriage. 
 He must see between four walls what manner of 
 man it was, who could prefer so audacious a 
 request. 
 
 Emil accordingly came over again to Bellavista 
 at Graf Dittenheim's desire, who, devoting eye and
 
 26 MONOCHROMES 
 
 ear to the young man before him, told himself he 
 had not for months past experienced so keen 
 a pleasure. And indeed there are no pleasures 
 comparable to those of observation. To these 
 alone time bringeth not satiety, and the most in 
 veterate sportsman rejoices less when his prey falls 
 living into his hands, than does the character- 
 hunter on first turning a fresh page in the history 
 of his fellows. 
 
 'You tell me my daughter is as much in love 
 with you as you are with her? Good. Love 
 makes all things equal, you say? Good again. 
 You won't take a seat ? Very good, very good. 
 Continue walking up and down if it gives you any 
 solace.' 
 
 Emil, for the first time in his life, was slightly 
 disconcerted. He had thought to experience the 
 most violent opposition ; scorn, perhaps vitupera 
 tion. He had armed himself with counter-scorn, 
 with passion, eloquence, irresistible pleadings to 
 beat it down ; and he found the expected foe very 
 courteous, very bland, almost cordial. It was like 
 going out to assault a castle, and finding yourself 
 engulfed instead in a smooth, smiling, and 
 treacherous sea. 
 
 Dittenheim, leaning comfortably back in an 
 easy-chair, noted Emil's every look, registered his 
 smallest word, and while he appeared to be 
 merely listening, was collating evidence, weighing 
 it, passing judgment. Not for one moment did he 
 contemplate an alliance between his daughter and 
 his late servant's son ; but he fancied he detected
 
 'THE ELEGIE' 27 
 
 in Emil's own character, that which would have 
 made him refuse the honour, no matter how 
 highly born the young man had been. 
 
 The Graf, pointing the ends of his moustache 
 with white ringers, smiled up at him. 'You are 
 aware,' he went on, 'that the Contesse and you 
 belong to widely different ranks? Yes, yes, you 
 have told me already that genius is superior to 
 birth ; that such gifts as yours, received straight 
 from the gods, are better than a worn-out name, 
 handed down through a line of enfeebled progeni 
 tors. No doubt you are right. Only there is this 
 point to be considered. Any fool can verify the 
 social value of a name ; but as to the genius, the 
 supposed possessor, when young and unknown as 
 you are, stands in the position of a page who has 
 still to win his spurs. The genius is unproven. 
 You say you can prove it ? Very good indeed. 
 Go out into the world, make your reputation there, 
 come back in seven years' time and then I will 
 reconsider the question of giving you my 
 daughter.' 
 
 Emil protested against seven years. It was a 
 lifetime. 
 
 ' But can you reach the goal in less ? You 
 know the difficulties of the career you have chosen. 
 Besides, did ever man yet make a reputation worth 
 having before he was thirty ? Putting the Contesse 
 out of the question, are seven years too long for 
 the work you have mapped yourself out ? ' 
 
 'Give me ten years,' said Emil, impetuously, 
 ' and I reach the top of the ladder.'
 
 28 MONOCHROMES 
 
 ' And I as a reasonable man offer to take you 
 while you are yet a few rungs lower down. Only, 
 that I should see you first fairly mounted, is not, I 
 think, too much to ask. Go out into the world, go 
 to Paris,' there was, in fact, a project that 
 Schoenemann should go to Paris to complete his 
 studies ; Brockhoff, his Leipsic master, had recom 
 mended it ; it had been a question of ways and 
 means which had hitherto prevented him from 
 acting on Brockhoffs advice, ' study, succeed, set 
 the name of Schoenemann as high in the musical 
 world as Dittenheim stands in society circles, come 
 back in seven years crowned with laurels, and 
 Marie is yours provided of course she still wishes 
 it.' 
 
 Emil required at the least a formal betrothal, 
 but this the Graf pleasantly refused. ' With seven 
 years' separation before you it is better both should 
 be absolutely free. But why let that depress you ? 
 What are words or promises? How can they 
 make more binding an affection which you tell me 
 nothing can weaken or change? Betrothals may 
 be useful between persons who believe more in the 
 sanctity of a promise than in the sanctity of love ; 
 but to you, and presumably to my daughter, who 
 understand so perfectly love's divine, unalterable 
 nature, it could only be a work of supererogation.' 
 
 ' But,' the young man objected, ' you and all 
 her people will endeavour to make her forget 
 me?' 
 
 ' I shall certainly try,' admitted Dittenheim. 
 ' I should be very glad to think I could succeed.
 
 'THE ELEGIE' 29 
 
 Unfortunately, Marie is of a steadfast disposi 
 tion.' 
 
 He looked at his visitor smilingly, had a phrase 
 on the tip of his tongue, bit it back as imprudent, 
 and after all, could not resist letting it go. ' It 
 is rather on your inconstancy, that I build my 
 hopes.' 
 
 Emil was indignant, demanded explanations, 
 and received them after this fashion : 
 
 ' Marie is a good but ordinary girl ; you are an 
 exceptional young man. It is not probable she 
 will ever again be wooed with such poetic fire and 
 passion. She will compare future suitors with you 
 to their disadvantage. The mere fact of your 
 absence will not efface your memory from her 
 heart. I even contemplate the possibility of her 
 remaining intolerably true. She will continue to 
 lead a sheltered and more or less monotonous life 
 running always in accustomed grooves. It will be 
 difficult to obliterate the impression you have 
 created. Besides which, she has reached the 
 highest point of her development. She will never 
 be much other than what she now is. But you 
 have still a long way to go. It is safe to predict 
 that five years hence will find you a very different 
 person from what you are to-day. You will have 
 discovered new wants, of which at the present 
 moment you have no suspicion. You will have 
 rid yourself of many old possessions, which have 
 their uses while we linger in the valley, but become 
 impedimenta when climbing the mountain-side. 
 And then you will have met in Paris the most
 
 30 MONOCHROMES 
 
 refined, the most charming, the most intellectual 
 women in the world. I have lived there, and 
 speak with knowledge. You will look back with 
 astonishment at this grande passion of yours, this 
 green love-episode, and you will remember, with 
 gratitude let me hope, that you are absolutely free. 
 This at least, my young friend, is what I reckon 
 on, and it partly explains the equanimity with 
 which I have listened to your entirely preposterous 
 proposals.' 
 
 The frankly cynical speech was delivered with a 
 confidence which Emil found extremely galling. 
 The well-chosen words fell like drops of ice-water 
 upon his red-hot passion. They left a rankling 
 wound long in his breast He could not forget 
 Dittenheim's looks and tones, which asserted a 
 superiority in worldly wisdom, hard to forgive. An 
 immense desire to prove the Graf wrong laid hold of 
 Emil, who said to himself that even in the impossible 
 case of his ever loving Marie less than at that 
 moment, he would marry her merely to show Graf 
 Dittenheim how much he had been mistaken. 
 
 Meanwhile Emil's departure for Paris became a 
 settled thing, and his arrangements were facilitated, 
 unknown to himself, by Dittenheim's liberality 
 towards his mother. The Graf fully believed in 
 the wisdom of building a golden bridge for the 
 retreating foe. 
 
 Emil asked for a final interview with his little 
 sweetheart; and because the girl kissed her 
 father's hand, and wept over it, and besought 
 ardently for the same favour, Dittenheim permitted
 
 'THE ELEGIE' 31 
 
 it. He laughed at himself for doing so, and told 
 his wife he was weak-minded to be moved by a 
 woman's tears. And she, turning on him incensed 
 and sunken eyes, from the sofa she could now no 
 longer leave, declared he was worse than weak- 
 minded, he was criminal. 'The whole of life is 
 only a play to you,' she said, ' and even your own 
 daughter but one of the players. You would not 
 mind what shameful part she took, so long as you 
 from your box could see and hear comfortably all 
 that was done and said.' Which, however, was not 
 altogether true. 
 
 All the same, the interview took place one 
 August evening, in the Rhine garden of Bellavista. 
 Here a terrace of stone overhangs the river. Here 
 it is good to walk and watch the waters flowing 
 down from the Sieben Gebirge towards the broad 
 plains of Koeln. Here, leaning on the stone balus 
 trade, Schoenemann held Marie's plump little red 
 hand between his own nervous white ones, and 
 implored her over and over again to be true. 
 
 ' 1 think it is you who will first forget me,' she 
 told him, for she too had heard of the sirens 
 of Paris. 
 
 ' Never shall I cease remembering you. Alone, 
 in exile, among strangers, how could I forget ? But 
 you will meet some man of your own rank, and 
 your people will persuade you into taking him.' 
 
 ' Ah, indeed I would die sooner ! ' she declared, 
 with the pardonable exaggeration of the very 
 young. 
 
 Emil had bought in Bonn two crystal lockets
 
 32 MONOCHROMES 
 
 exactly alike ; cheap enough trinkets, but as dear 
 as his purse could afford ; painfully ugly, but safe 
 guardians for their destined locks of hair. The 
 lovers exchanged these mementoes with due 
 ceremony. They were to be worn day and night 
 as talismans against misfortunes, and pledges of 
 secretly-plighted troth. Marie slipped his on to 
 her little gold neck-chain, which she had worn with 
 an Immaculate Conception medal since childhood, 
 and gave him these also. He tied hers with a 
 ribbon round her throat, and hid the locket in the 
 bosom of her dress. And finally, after an incred 
 ibly protracted leave-taking, and manifold signs 
 of impatience from the red-eyebrowed lady who 
 played propriety at a little distance off, the young 
 people parted with vows, tears, kisses, and mutual 
 heart-break.
 
 IV 
 
 EMIL'S first months in Paris, his solitariness, the 
 difficulties he encountered, and the extent to 
 which he enhanced these by his own proud and 
 impetuous bearing, may be found in the bio 
 graphies. I leave all this aside, being concerned 
 in following one thread only of his story, in casting 
 light on a single episode in a career which boasted 
 many episodes, and which, dating from his arrival 
 in Paris, embraced wider and more varied interests 
 daily. 
 
 By the time that he had published the first book 
 of ' Preludes,' the worst struggle was over. He 
 was beginning to be favourably noticed. Custom 
 had softened his early detestation of the city and 
 its ways into tolerance, which in its turn grew 
 imperceptibly into affection. As in the beginning 
 he had wondered how he could ever endure the 
 new life and strange people, so at length he asked 
 himself how he could ever again exchange the 
 intellectual brilliancy of Paris for the somnolence 
 of a German town. 
 
 At first the idea of Marie von Dittenheim had been 
 his constant companion. But as his days grew 
 more busy, he could only remember her in leisure 
 
 C
 
 34 MONOCHROMES 
 
 moments, and by-and-by when he occasionally 
 recalled her image, it was to reproach himself with 
 having so habitually forgotten it. For he was 
 now beginning to make that long succession of 
 warm friendships which is one of the remarkable 
 features of his life; and to the friend of the hour he 
 was always passionately and exclusively attached. 
 It is true, these intimacies were seldom of long 
 duration, and yet it was not fickleness which 
 brought them to a close. The moment that 
 Schoenemann discovered that he had passed his 
 friend intellectually, he deliberately threw him 
 aside. He said, and with some show of reason, 
 that friendship being an exchange of mutual 
 benefit, directly one ceases to derive advantage 
 from one's friend, the friendship by that very 
 reason is dissolved. 
 
 The most durable of his friendships was that 
 with Madame Vasseur, some account of whom 
 is pertinent to my sketch, since it was perhaps as 
 much because of the empire which this lady began to 
 exercise over him, as from any other cause, that he 
 eventually held true to his German sweetheart. 
 
 Flore Vasseur would be now entirely forgotten 
 but for her connection with Schoenemann (which 
 led to her tragic death in Rome some years later), on 
 which account a brief notice is given of her by most 
 of his biographers. She was, however, in her day, 
 a flower-painter of some repute. Curiously enough, 
 I recently came across one of her studies in an 
 appartement garni of the Quartier Marais. It was a 
 fruit-piece splashily painted, but all its colours
 
 'THE ELEGIE' 35 
 
 faded to a uniform neutrality of tint. Nothing re 
 mained of its pristine glories, save the ' Flore ' 
 boldly written in vermilion letters across one 
 corner, and the date, ' 1842,' underneath. She 
 voluntarily sacrificed future glory for the praise of 
 her contemporaries, and obtained by illegitimate 
 methods a brilliancy of colouring as unrivalled as 
 it was transitory. When it was pointed out to her 
 that her work would not endure, she replied it 
 would probably endure quite as long as it deserved 
 to do. She had not the smallest desire it should 
 be immortal. 
 
 ' I wish to leave room for those who come after 
 me,' said she, jesting ; ' and every twenty years 
 will produce a flower-painter as good or better than 
 I. Such talent as mine is perennial as the flowers 
 themselves. It is not like the genius of Emit 
 Schoenemann. The true musician and the aloe- 
 blossom appear only once in a century.' 
 
 Madame Vasseur lived just outside Paris, at 
 Cergay-sous-Senart. Her acquaintance with Emil 
 dated from the third year of his Paris sojourn. 
 They were introduced to each other at a musical 
 evening given by the Pleyels. Emil had by this 
 time just made the discovery that general society 
 was distasteful to him, that the adulation people 
 now gave him was worse than their former neglect, 
 and that the round of so-called amusement which 
 he had at first followed with youthful ardour, was 
 in reality as insipid as it was enervating. 
 
 Madame Vasseur attracted him from the first 
 moment he met her. She was not so pretty as
 
 36 MONOCHROMES 
 
 many women, but she was vivacious, intelligent, and 
 extraordinarily sympathetic. He acquired the habit 
 of spending a good deal of his time at Cergay. He 
 found he could work there under happier conditions 
 than in Paris. After an industrious and solitary 
 morning, he liked to spend the rest of the day in 
 Flore's studio. Here, to please him, she had 
 placed a grand piano, on which he would try over 
 his latest compositions, while she painted with 
 rapid, skilful hand. Or if he wished to talk, she 
 put down her brushes and gave him her whole 
 attention. She had pieced together the scraps he 
 had let fall of his early history, and took so vivid 
 an interest in all that concerned him, that she 
 could speak of the incidents of his boyhood, and of 
 the people of Klettendorf, with almost as much 
 confidence as though personally acquainted with 
 them. She knew, too, all about the Contesse 
 Marie ; but on this subject at least, it must be con 
 fessed, her attitude was slightly chilling. 
 
 When she first knew Emil, four years of freedom 
 still lay before him; an eternity, he told himself; 
 for the years ahead always seem vague and long as 
 centuries ; it is only when one looks back upon 
 them that one sees they have gone like so many 
 days. And in the beginning of their friendship, his 
 infrequent references to the young girl troubled 
 Flore but little; a thousand things might yet happen 
 to release him from a position she felt sure no longer 
 held for him any charm. But when, at last, he began 
 to speak of his departure for Germany as likely to 
 take place within a year within a few months her
 
 'THEELEGIE' 37 
 
 feeling towards Mademoiselle von Dittenheim 
 deepened into dislike. It was characteristic of 
 Schoenemann that, seeing this, he should refer to 
 the subject more often than he might otherwise have 
 done, and that he should adopt a tone of decision 
 he was, in reality, far from feeling. 
 
 For he began to consider every day more 
 seriously whether it was not a piece of quixotic 
 folly to remain bound to a woman whom he had 
 long ago recognised as unessential to his scheme of 
 life. His mind swayed this way and that. When 
 ever he received a letter from Harms he became 
 for the next few weeks quite determined neither to 
 return to Germany nor to fulfil his engagement ; 
 for poor August's expressed or implied confidence 
 he would do both produced an entirely opposite effect 
 to that which the writer intended. But Emil could 
 not forget his interview with Graf Dittenheim. He 
 would recall the man's shrewd, amused eyes, hear 
 again the complacent superiority of his tone, and 
 again be filled with the strong determination to 
 prove his suspicions had been baseless. And 
 naturally, there were many other motives pressing 
 down the scale on this side or that. In real life, 
 conduct is ever complex : it is only in the story 
 books that we find it determined by a beautiful 
 singleness of purpose. Thus, much as Schoene 
 mann might believe he despised social rank, he 
 could not be a German and not appreciate the 
 honour of an alliance with a Dittenheim ; and how 
 ever coldly egotistic he had become, he could not, 
 as a man, stifle all feeling for the young girl, who
 
 38 MONOCHROMES 
 
 as Harms and rumour told him, still loved him so 
 devotedly. Yet he knew that never again could 
 she be anything but a burden to him ; he knew he 
 had passed her immeasurably, and that all the 
 stimulus he found in such companionship as Flore's 
 would be entirely wanting in his home life, should 
 he make Marie his wife. The problem how to act 
 best was a knotty one. 
 
 He sat one evening in the studio, with a letter 
 from Harms in his pocket, received that day. It 
 was a more annoying letter than usual ; for where 
 as Harms, as a rule, spoke of Emil's return as a 
 matter of course, he now, to the young man's great 
 surprise, urged him vehemently to return at 
 once. ' Do not wait for the summer, best of 
 friends/ wrote Harms, 'but come immediately and 
 claim your betrothed ; ' and then he hinted at 
 some appalling misfortune overhanging the head 
 of the little Contesse, in dark enigmatical language, 
 which aroused Emil's anger, rather than his sym 
 pathy. He sat lost in thought, with set lips and a 
 frown on his handsome forehead, while Madame 
 Vasseur watched him pensively. 
 
 1 What is the matter with you ? ' she asked him 
 when the silence had endured some little time ; 
 'you are not happy to-night. Tell me what is 
 troubling you.' 
 
 'Do you think confession would make me 
 happier?' said the young man, and his calm 
 glances rested on her face with immense inward 
 satisfaction. She had what he called suchfragende 
 Augen, eyes that seemed to ask and confide so
 
 'THE ELEGIE' 39 
 
 much more than the smiling lips would confess 
 to. 
 
 'Assuredly. I always find that to confess my 
 troubles is the first step towards dismissing them.' 
 
 ' Because probably your troubles are not real 
 ones. I do not see how a real trouble or perplexity 
 is to be vanquished by imparting it to another mind 
 especially to a mind less capable of sustaining 
 it.' 
 
 'A flattering truth!' said Flore, laughing; 
 and he found her childlike type of face delicious 
 when she laughed. ' But tell me, do you make no 
 account of sympathy ? ' 
 
 ' Not much. I begin to think that sympathy, 
 like charity, is more harmful than helpful to the 
 recipient.' 
 
 'You are becoming so self-sufficing, that I 
 should advise you to imitate St Simeon Stylites ; 
 build yourself a pillar, and make music on the top 
 of it' 
 
 ' It appears to me,' said Emil, musing, ' that as 
 we advance mentally we do live, so to speak, 
 each of us, on the top of a pillar, and have less and 
 less communication with our fellow-men. In child 
 hood the love and praise of our home circle alone 
 is essential to us ; later on we seek eagerly the 
 wider appreciation of the world ; but finally, we 
 outgrow the necessity for either, and ask for nothing 
 but the approbation of our own souls.' 
 
 Flore, with her graceful head on one side, 
 watched him smilingly. ' You have not reached the 
 highest point yet then,' said she, ' for you do not
 
 4 o MONOCHROMES 
 
 seem to-night entirely convinced of your soul's 
 approbation. And I am glad of it/ she added : 
 1 for when that time comes, my poor praises will 
 no longer give you any pleasure.' 
 
 ' Every man, of course, likes praise,' said Emil, 
 ' but it is just as well to learn to do without it. I 
 foresee little enough in the life that lies before me. 
 That is to say, little intelligent praise, and none 
 other is worth the having.' 
 
 1 Are you thinking of your Gerrr\an fiancte ? ' 
 asked Flore. 
 
 1 Yes ; of my fiancee who is soon to be my wife.' 
 
 She looked at him in silence, but still smiled. 
 ' You are determined to go in the summer ? ' she 
 said presently. 
 
 ' Even sooner. In fact I have received news 
 from home which seems to necessitate my immedi 
 ate departure. I must return to Paris to-morrow 
 to settle my affairs, and so to-night I have come 
 to bid you good-bye.' 
 
 The sudden colour that rose to her cheek, her 
 momentary hesitation, did not pass unobserved by 
 Schoenemann ; but when she spoke, the gaiety of 
 her tone once more perplexed him. 
 
 ' A most dramatic announcement ! ' she cried, 
 'although I suspect the decision was only this 
 moment come to. Well, you would have my best 
 wishes were you going away for any other cause 
 than that of your marriage ; but I should be a poor 
 friend indeed, were I to affect to regard such a step 
 as beneficial to you." 
 
 1 Ah, I know your objections to marriage,' said
 
 'THEELEGIE' 41 
 
 Emil ; ' although, coming from a married woman, 
 the advice rings rather oddly.' 
 
 ' Oh, I ! what does it matter about me ? 
 Whether I make more or less progress, am more 
 or less happy, what difference does it make ? But 
 for the true artist, the man of genius, it is otherwise. 
 The world asks from him, and rightly, the best he 
 can give; and for the production of his best, 
 happiness is essential. How can he possibly be 
 happy married to a woman with whom he has no 
 sympathy ? ' 
 
 ' True, undoubtedly,' said Emil ; ' yet what can I 
 do ? Morally I am bound to keep my word. Be 
 sides, the girl loves me. Her happiness counts for 
 something in the affair.' 
 
 ' She does not love you, 1 cried Flore, ' if she can 
 not sacrifice her happiness to her love ! Why, I 
 . . . that is to say, a woman who really loved a 
 man would cheerfully see him married to another 
 if it were for his greater good. But when she 
 saw him going blindly to his own destruction, she 
 would let the whole world perish, if by doing so 
 she could save him.' 
 
 ' It is curious,' said Schoenemann, speaking more 
 to himself than his companion, ' how one's opinions 
 change. Seven years ago it seemed to me that 
 life held nothing more desirable than my little 
 sweetheart. Then I would have married her joy 
 fully, and should have considered myself the most 
 fortunate fellow in the world.' He mused, clasping 
 his hands behind his head with the action Flore 
 knew so well. ' Then, I looked upon the whole of
 
 42 MONOCHROMES 
 
 life merely as a preparation for love. Then, it 
 seemed to me that music itself was but a means of 
 honouring the beloved one. Now I know that life 
 and love too, are but steps upward towards the 
 attainment of the highest art; and the passion 
 which seemed so beautiful in youth is only 
 valuable for the deeper and wider emotions it 
 enables us to express.' 
 
 Madame Vasseur watched him with an indefin 
 able air. ' So you have outgrown love,' she said, 
 ' as you have outgrown society, and as you will 
 presently, no doubt, outgrow friendship. You 
 progress so fast, that with the best intentions in the 
 world, you could not promise to remain to-morrow 
 where you stand to-day. Do you not see that for 
 you, it is madness to contemplate matrimony ? ' 
 
 ' True again,' he answered ; ' to give up in any 
 measure my liberty and independence, is to deduct 
 just so much from the likelihood of producing good 
 work. Yet it seems to me that if Mademoiselle 
 von Dittenheim still desires it, I am bound in 
 honour to fulfil my engagement.' 
 
 Flore's smile condensed a vast number of 
 meanings. 'What, have you not outgrown such 
 puerile notions of honour also ? ' she cried. 
 
 ' In point of fact,' said Emil, seriously, ' I begin 
 to think I have. The honourableness of holding 
 to the letter of a promise, when the spirit which 
 quickened it is dead or changed, does seem 
 sufficiently puerile. And yet ' 
 
 He found it most difficult to decide what to do. 
 He remembered the satisfaction his infidelity
 
 'THE ELEGIE' 43 
 
 would afford Graf Dittenheim, and he inclined 
 to go. But he remembered also the urgency of 
 Harms' entreaties that he should return home, and 
 he was almost fixed in his determination to stay. 
 
 Madame Vasseur, who openly watched him, 
 seemed to read his thoughts. A flash of triumph 
 lighted her soft eyes. The pleasure she felt was 
 too strong to be concealed, and she betrayed it in 
 her smile, in her dimples, in the animation of her 
 voice. 
 
 ' You will not go ! ' she cried gaily. ' Ah, I felt 
 sure all along you could not go. And I confess 
 the studio would seem a strange and desolate land 
 without you. I have the fancy I could no longer 
 paint, if you were no longer here to play to me.' 
 
 Schoenemann looked down the long and lofty 
 room, with its half-lighted distances, its widely 
 dispersed lamps, and said to himself he too should 
 feel strange, rooted out from a life that had grown 
 so congenial to him. Here at the piano he had 
 spent delicious hours, weaving musical fancies into 
 which all his surroundings made subtle entrance 
 the blossoms, flowers, and creepers, which during 
 more than half the year trailed their lengths, shed 
 their perfume, and spread their beauty all over the 
 place ; those other flowers scarcely less brilliant, 
 which still during the winter months bloomed from 
 the walls ; the bizarre properties, the gorgeous bits 
 of drapery, the thousand and one knick-knacks, 
 every fold and piece of which he knew so well ; 
 Madame Vasseur's light, graceful figure, and the 
 small brown head held flower-fashion, now this side
 
 44 MONOCHROMES 
 
 and now that, as she walked to and fro before her 
 easel. 
 
 Yes, he recognised it was Flore herself whom he 
 would miss most of all. She had acquired an 
 influence over him which might in time grow 
 irresistible. And as he glanced at her and listened to 
 her confident assertions, he told himself she would 
 use every means to increase and rivet her power. 
 He felt she would make far greater claims on him 
 than a Marie von Dittenheim could do. Here, even 
 more than in marriage, was he likely to lose the 
 independence he held so dear. Were he at the end 
 of his life, he might perhaps be ready to acquiesce 
 in this woman's gentle yoke ; but now, in the 
 zenith of his youth, with so much still to learn and 
 to achieve, he must break it while he could yet do 
 so without much pain. 
 
 As his hesitations finally condensed themselves 
 into settled purpose, his brow cleared. Flore divined 
 his intentions in the bright coldness of his glance. 
 Her face lost its smile, and she sat in pale 
 suspense. 
 
 4 It is getting late,' said he, rising, ' and I have 
 a great deal to do, so you must allow me to say 
 good-night. Good-night and good-bye both to 
 gether. For at last I have made up my mind. I 
 return to Germany after all.'
 
 THE Dittenheims, father and daughter, were 
 residing in Berlin. The Graefin had been laid 
 to rest, long since, in the cemetery at Nice, the 
 town wherein so many European health-seekers 
 find only a grave. 
 
 Schoenemann did not purpose going straight 
 to the capital. He broke his journey at Koeln, 
 in order to spend half a week at Klettendorf. He 
 desired particularly to see Harms, that he might 
 reproach him for the irritating urgency of his 
 letter. He intended to recapitulate to him all 
 Flore's arguments against marriage, to prove in- 
 contestably that for him, Emil, it would be 
 especially fatal ; then having reduced the un 
 fortunate Harms to a state of abject despair, 
 to go to move heaven and earth to make that 
 marriage an accomplished fact. Quite at the 
 back of his mind he rejoiced in the idea, that 
 when all his predicted misery should have 
 actually come to pass, he would be able to 
 inflict on Harms a still more poignant regret. 
 
 Outside of these intentions he found a real 
 pleasure in returning to Klettendorf. He wanted 
 to see the village, the old home, his own people
 
 46 MONOCHROMES 
 
 again. He loved them all because of the relation 
 in which they stood to himself. He remembered 
 with the greatest affection the little Emil of long 
 ago ; the boy who had run so light-heartedly up 
 and down the highways of Klettendorf, or in the 
 dark cottage room had sat so many hours at the 
 loose-tongued old piano, trying to reproduce the 
 song of the birds, or the gush and babble of the 
 mountain streams. From the beginning all the 
 world had made music to him ; it was to beauti 
 ful and harmonious sounds his affections had 
 first responded. Almost a baby, he had heard 
 melodies in the winter winds which torment 
 the woods above Klettendorf; and the Rhine 
 for ever flowing swiftly seawards had taught him 
 harmonies. 
 
 He remembered now as though it were yester 
 day, numberless incidents which had impressed 
 themselves on his child's mind, in which either 
 his dead father or mother, Marie or Harms, arose 
 as attendant figures ; the humble house, the poor 
 village as familiar background. 
 
 There was an unique occasion on which he had 
 come into collision with his father, who had 
 reprimanded him with some roughness. For two 
 hours afterwards he had lain upon the floor, 
 weeping tropically, and refusing to be comforted. 
 He was about five years old then, and he had 
 said to his mother in reference to the event a 
 few days later, ' I am always happy, and I wanted 
 to be unhappy to see what it was like.' 
 
 The man Emil smiled as he looked back on the
 
 'THE ELEGIE' 47 
 
 child's curiosity to probe sensations, a curiosity 
 which on another occasion had made him persist, 
 despite of gathering nausea, in assisting at the 
 slaughter of a pig. He had stood a stubborn and 
 white-faced spectator of the scene, until he had 
 fallen down on the stones in a faint. But the 
 smoking blood, the shrieks of the victim, had 
 worked upon his mind, and he had composed 
 a little battle-song for piano and riddle, to 
 commemorate the impression. He had tried to 
 represent horror and tumultuous movement, and 
 to simulate by long wailing notes on the violin 
 the cries of the dying. He wondered what had 
 become of this early opus, which Harms had 
 praised enthusiastically, as, by the way, he had 
 praised every single work Schoenemann had pro 
 duced since. 
 
 He remembered how as a child he had adored 
 his mother ; how she had once seemed to him not 
 only the most beautiful and the kindest of women, 
 but the cleverest also. It was only very gradually 
 he came to discover her wanting in perceptions, 
 and too occupied in mending and cooking to have 
 time to listen to his music. By the age of ten 
 he had already begun to lean more on his sister 
 Marie, who was then seventeen, and full of the 
 hopes, the gaiety, the carelessness of a young 
 girl. Marie was devoted to the clever little 
 brother, and no sacrifice was too much for her 
 to make him. When he wanted her company she 
 would give up any personal pleasure, or rise at 
 four to get through the household tasks, so as to
 
 48 MONOCHROMES 
 
 be free for his service. He remembered the hours 
 he had spent with her dreaming aloud, while she 
 listened and praised. And then, as he came to 
 be fifteen, she was less necessary to him than 
 Harms ; he had learned all she was able to teach 
 him ; she was as a book he had read through, 
 and one of those books that do not bear reading 
 twice. Henceforth, all his spare time was spent 
 in August's room discussing life, music, glory ; 
 improvising on his piano, or climbing with him 
 the wooded hills that shelter Klettendorf, walking 
 through the apple and cherry orchards that gather 
 round it. At that time he simply could not have 
 existed in his narrow village, but for the sympathy 
 and affection he found in Harms. No wonder he 
 had opposed August's desire to marry his sister ; 
 and Marie herself had become dear to him as 
 ever the moment there had seemed a possibility 
 of losing her. But as it turned out, they might 
 have married so far as he was concerned ; and he 
 thought with a faint and natural contempt of the 
 weakness of poor Harms, in allowing the whole 
 course of his life to be altered^ by the will of a 
 boy. 
 
 Memories such as these beguiled the way to 
 Klettendorf; and for himself, he was filled with 
 a tender compassion. What a foolish, affectionate 
 fellow he had been. Ever ready to expend his 
 heart on other people, ever believing he had found 
 in each new personality the brother soul which 
 was to satisfy him, ever condemned to struggle 
 upwards alone. His past was strewn with the
 
 'THE ELEGIE' 49 
 
 friendships he had tried in the balance and found 
 wanting. 
 
 He was already beginning to gauge the limits of 
 Harms' capacities, when he had met the Contesse 
 Marie. His passion for her had been but transi 
 tory, yet how beautiful while it lasted. She 
 would always retain a certain interest for him, 
 in having been the passive object, which had 
 awakened those heavenly feelings of first love. 
 But he had long seen clearly that ft was the light 
 of his own genius which had transfigured her, and 
 that he had fallen at the feet of an idol of his 
 own creation. Ah ! the wild, the wonderful, the 
 delicious generosity of youth. He could not 
 restrain a smile when he reflected, that in those 
 days he had desired to consecrate his whole 
 powers, his whole future life, to the service of 
 a little moon-faced girl with round eyes and red 
 hands. 
 
 He supposed her hands were no longer red. 
 Harms had written she was grown thin, and had 
 otherwise much changed. But the real Marie 
 must of course remain the same, a soul on a lower 
 plane which could never be raised to his, any 
 more than he could successfully stoop to hers. 
 And such was to be their union, one in name but 
 never in fact. 
 
 He could and would show her kindness, bear 
 himself with patience, but henceforth all his 
 highest desires and sympathies must be unshared. 
 Mournful anticipations of the future had begun to 
 blot out the pleasanter reminiscences of the past, 
 
 P
 
 5 o MONOCHROMES 
 
 when he reached Klettendorf and stood with his 
 hand on the familiar garden-gate. 
 
 The click of the latch brought two women out 
 from the cottage to greet him : an old woman with 
 bands of yellow-white hair showing in front of a 
 close net cap his Aunt Kunie ; and a woman no 
 longer young, with the expression women acquire 
 whose lives have been all duty without one 
 satisfying joy this was the once bright and hope 
 ful sister. 
 
 Schoenemann sat down with them to the meal 
 they had prepared for him ; the best they could 
 manage, and yet almost barbarous in its homely 
 ingredients and rude cooking, after the civilisations 
 of Paris. The coarse tablecloth was distasteful 
 to him, so were the horn-handled knives and 
 forks, the earthen beer-mugs with their pewter 
 tops. Aunt Kunie produced in his honour the 
 Bowie wine, which she made herself from elder- 
 flowers and oranges, and which as a boy he had 
 thought so delicious. Now he found it detestable, 
 and could scarcely bring himself to finish the 
 small glassful she ladled out for him. Her 
 hesitating, trivial conversation teased him ; he was 
 only annoyed by her well-meant efforts to please. 
 She thought herself bound to talk about Paris, 
 the friends he had made there, and the musical 
 world. It cost him a struggle to reply to her with 
 civility. 
 
 When he looked at Marie, he was amazed to see 
 how plain and old she had become. Again the 
 thought crossed his mind it might have been
 
 'THE ELEGIE' 51 
 
 better for her had Harms made her his wife. 
 Certainly no man would marry her now. 
 
 He almost wished he had never returned to 
 Klettendorf at all. His memory-pictures would 
 have remained entirely agreeable had he never 
 confronted them with the reality. However, he 
 had been obliged to come in order to see Harms. 
 
 'What is all this about the Dittenheims?' he 
 asked his sister. ' August writes such mysterious 
 letters. Marie von Dittenheim has lived well enough 
 without me for seven years. What is the " urgent 
 need " she has for me now ? ' 
 
 ' People say she has always counted on your 
 coming,' said the other Marie. 
 
 ' Well, and have I not come ? I always intended 
 coming this summer, but it would have been more 
 convenient to have come a few months later on. 
 Only August, finally, gave me no peace. Where 
 is he ? Why is he not here to meet me ? ' 
 
 ' He will be here at four. He had a lesson to 
 give across the river.' 
 
 'Just the same life, I suppose? He still 
 lodges with Schumacher ? ' 
 
 'Just the same,' said the sister drily ; ' no change 
 but one ever comes to the poor.' 
 
 'You will wish to go and visit your blessed 
 mother's grave?' said aunt Kunie. 'Marie will 
 take you there, and you will be back in time 
 for coffee.' 
 
 Emil walked with his sister to the quiet God's 
 acre on the hill. He stood before the slate 
 headstone inscribed to the memory of Franz
 
 52 MONOCHROMES 
 
 Schoenemann and Marie Bleibtreu his wife, and 
 thought over many things. It is certain that a man 
 cannot stand by the grave of his mother and not 
 experience emotion. He had told her once, in a 
 transport of child-affection, that when he was a 
 man he would never leave her, but would live with 
 her always. And yet he had not found it possible 
 to get to her dying bed. He wished now it had 
 been possible ; but it had not been so, although he 
 had forgotten by this time the particular obstacles 
 which had prevented him. He left the graveyard 
 trying to recall them. He walked fast, absorbed 
 in thought, and his sister was left far behind. 
 
 A man in slovenly clothes stood by Aunt Kunie 
 in the little garden, watching for his return. Emil 
 saw it was Harms, and said to himself, he, too, had 
 changed for the worse. He looked broken- 
 down, blunted, unsatisfied with life, yet hopeless 
 of mending it. After kissing Emil with his old 
 affection, he waited for Marie to come up, and 
 exchanged a few words with her of the most 
 ordinary common-place. The hopes he had once 
 entertained were along ago extinguished. Now 
 he was so wedded to the dull routine of life, he 
 would have dreaded any change. He had reached 
 the point where all divinely implanted discontent 
 withers away, and could meet the woman he had 
 once loved, and no colour rise to his cheek, his 
 heart beat no whit the faster. 
 
 Her lot was perhaps harder still ; she had never 
 known the happiness of even unrequited love, but 
 had lost youth and freshness, youth's adjuncts of
 
 'THE ELEGIE' 53 
 
 hope and high spirits, and the gaiety that lends a 
 passing charm to glance and smile, nursing in 
 secret the agonising conviction, that never once to 
 any man had she afforded eye-satisfaction or heart- 
 pleasure. She treated Harms with a certain bitter 
 ness, but there was no particular meaning in this ; 
 it was her attitude towards all the world. 
 
 Aunt Kunie had prepared coffee for two in the 
 parlour. She and Marie retired to drink theirs 
 in the kitchen, knowing that Emil would prefer 
 being left alone with his friend. Harms sat for 
 long silent and embarrassed. Momentarily he grew 
 more impressed with Emil's immense superiority, 
 visible even in such trifles as his dress, his manners, 
 the way in which he held his head. He saw that 
 any equality or companionship with his former 
 pupil and friend, was now out of the question. He 
 feared he had shown presumption in the warmth 
 of his greetings. Emil was obliged to question him 
 before he regained courage to talk. 
 
 ' The Contesse Marie is ill ? Is that the misfor 
 tune you hint at ? You seem to imply she is dying 
 of love for me. The idea is absurd. Now and 
 again I have heard of the Dittenheims from 
 Berliners in Paris, and from all accounts my 
 Betrothed has become a most accomplished 
 young lady of the world : the exact counterpart 
 of her mother.' 
 
 1 You still love her, my poor Emil ? ' asked Harms 
 earnestly. 
 
 ' Does it not look like it,' parried the other ' since 
 I am here ? '
 
 54 MONOCHROMES 
 
 ' You wish to make her your wife ? ' 
 ' I mean of course to make her my wife.' 
 1 1 knew it ; I could trust you ! ' cried Harms, 
 enthusiastically. 'I knew that you, a Rhine- 
 lander, would be true. And she, I am sure, loves 
 you still ; but she is naturally weak, and then 
 reports reached her she spoke of them to me 
 last year and of course her family made the 
 most of them. But you can save her yet. Go at 
 once to Berlin ; present yourself. It is fixed for 
 next week, I believe ; but when she sees you she 
 will retract her word. With you beside her, she 
 will feel herself strong enough to face the con 
 sequences, and you will rescue her from the worst 
 possible fate. All the world knows what that 
 man's character is ; and besides, how could he 
 ever satisfy a woman who has been honoured with 
 such an affection as yours ? ' 
 
 Schoenemann stared at the speaker with a 
 glacial irritation. ' You are raving,' said he ; ' I 
 have no conception of your meaning. Speak 
 German if you are able and tell me what fate 
 threatens my Betrothed ? ' 
 
 'Then command yourself, Emil,' said the good 
 Harms, himself greatly agitated; 'keep calm, I 
 implore you! She has yielded at last to over- 
 persuasion, and has consented to marry her cousin, 
 Baron Max. The wedding is arranged for Friday 
 next.'
 
 VI 
 
 HARMS' words surprised Emil as much as a douche 
 of cold water in the face. He sat silent. Then 
 he experienced a movement of sensible relief. He 
 saw for the first time in all its completeness how 
 dear to him was the liberty with which he had 
 been prepared to part. He was free, and in the 
 only way possible to him, through the initiative 
 of Marie herselC 
 
 After that, his surprise returned. It was aston 
 ishing she should have given him up astonishing 
 to the point of annoyance. A great many women 
 in Paris, some as well-born, most far prettier and 
 more intelligent than the little Contesse, would 
 have been proud of his preference. Flore, an 
 artist to her finger-tips, good, gay, witty, with 
 the warmest heart you could desire, the most 
 cultivated mind, only longed to be allowed to 
 serve him. And he had eluded them all, had 
 treated Flore with studied coldness, for the sake 
 of this little girl, who now dared to play him false 
 after letting him wait for her seven years, 
 just when the moment had come to claim the 
 fulfilment of her promise.
 
 56 MONOCHROMES 
 
 Beneath a calm exterior his thoughts travelled 
 with stormy rapidity. What unexampled im 
 pudence on the part of the father, what treachery 
 in the daughter! His anger augmented. He 
 could no longer conceal it ; for his armour of 
 polished coldness was but a weapon of defence 
 painfully acquired. The colour rose all over his 
 face, and his ireful eyes fixed themselves on 
 August, as though he saw in him the chief cause 
 of offence. 
 
 ' Go to Berlin,' Harms urged ; ' you will yet be 
 in time.' 
 
 ' Do you imagine I should beseech her to recon 
 sider, to marry me after all ? No. I think myself 
 fortunate in discovering, before it is too late, the 
 falseness and vacuity of which she is capable. 
 But I will go to Berlin and see her. I owe this 
 to myself. She shall not ease her conscience 
 by saying I made no claim.' 
 
 ' Yes, I will see her,' he reflected. ' I will re 
 proach her to her face.' He foresaw in this 
 interview a new experience which would be in 
 structive to him. Still, as when a child, he sought 
 curiously for emotions, and was eager to exalt, to 
 intoxicate, to crucify his heart for the pleasure 
 of standing aside to watch the effects. He pur 
 posely worked himself into the delusion that he still 
 loved Marie von Dittenheim with passion, in order 
 that the sensations of the final interview might be 
 the more intense. 
 
 He began at once to prepare for departure. 
 Harms desired to accompany him, and Emil
 
 'THE ELEGIE' 57 
 
 permitted him to do so, not caring sufficiently 
 for his absence to find it worth while to forbid his 
 presence. He kissed his women-kind without 
 affection, and turned his back on Klettendorf 
 without regret. It happened that he never saw 
 either village or kindred again. 
 
 He made the journey to Berlin in impenetrable 
 silence, arranging the phrases he should make 
 use of in the coming scene, testing the bitter 
 flavour of each word, selecting those that would 
 inflict the sharpest pain. 
 
 Harms respected Schoenemann's silence. He 
 knew so perfectly all that the renunciation of the 
 beloved one means. His heart suffered vicariously 
 for the suffering of his friend. 
 
 Berlin was reached late one evening, and the 
 two men put up at a small hotel. Harms informed 
 himself as to the quarter of the town the Ditten- 
 heims inhabited, its distance and the way thither. 
 He accompanied Emil next morning part of the 
 way. ' Take courage ! ' he said. ' Be sure she 
 still loves you ;' and then, with a warm hand-grip, 
 turned and left him. 
 
 It was March ; an iron day. The streets were 
 searched by a piercing wind, which tried even the 
 stolid cheeriness of the Berliners. People walked 
 with heads held low, wraps muffled up to nose and 
 ears, hands encased in fur or woollen gloves, and 
 still the universal enemy pierced into every chink 
 and cranny, froze the marrow of their bones, and 
 filled their eyes with dust. Not a propitious day 
 for a wedding, if to-day it was, and yet the day
 
 5 8 MONOCHROMES 
 
 poetic justice should select for the wedding of one 
 who had broken plighted vows. 
 
 The Dittenheim house was large and handsome, 
 with many windows looking on the street. Emil 
 found the door standing half open, as though some 
 one had hurriedly passed out or in. An immense 
 basket of flowers stood in the hall. Other flowers, 
 rows of tall white lilies, masses of white bridal 
 roses, white narcissi, and white snowdrops, were 
 heaped in disordered beauty against one wall. 
 There was a sense of expectancy, a flavour of 
 excitement in the air, as though some imposing 
 ceremony were about to take place. Emil, going 
 in, found none to question him. It seemed as 
 though the household, thrown off its balance by 
 the coming event, had abandoned its accustomed 
 routine. 
 
 A door shut above. Looking up towards the 
 gallery which ran round the upper floor, 
 Schoenemann saw a young woman flit rapidly 
 by. She was in a light-coloured gown. She was 
 not unlike Marie. He was convinced it was Marie. 
 He hurried up the shallow steps. But before he 
 reached the landing she had disappeared through 
 one of the several doors which met his view. 
 
 An overpowering scent of flowers greeted him. 
 Here and there on the crimson carpets lay a sprig 
 of jasmine or a lily of the valley, as though such 
 quantities had been carried up that the few which 
 fell were left unheeded. The unfamiliar house in 
 which he found himself, the silence, the fragrance, 
 reminded Emil of that other day, so long ago,
 
 'THE ELEGIE' 59 
 
 when he first visited Bellavista. Then unknown to 
 himself he was advancing to Love's birth ; now 
 he told himself with a bitterness he did not feel, he 
 went to Love's grave. 
 
 Opposite to him, as he reached the head of the 
 stairs, were high doors of white enamelled wood. 
 They gave, presumably, on to the reception-rooms, 
 the dozen windows of which overlooked the street. 
 Here, he should doubtless find Marie herself, or at 
 least some one who could bring him to her. He 
 opened one door-wing. 
 
 To his surprise he faced darkness, for the wind 
 rushing up from the hall momentarily extin 
 guished the six wax candles which stood in tall 
 silver candlesticks down the centre of the floor. 
 Emil took a step forward and closed the door 
 behind him. The lights burned up again yellow 
 and steady. They shed their radiance down on a 
 mass of flowers, on a cloth of white satin .... 
 what was it ? ... an altar ? . . . or a bed on 
 which a woman was sleeping? . . . The next 
 instant Emil saw it was a bier. 
 
 Advancing, he stood between the candles, look 
 ing down on the dead Marie. For he knew 
 intuitively it was she, though at first his eyes 
 denied it. She was so changed from the little 
 moon-faced girl he remembered. Shewas beautified 
 and ennobled by the hand of Death almost beyond 
 recognition. Her features in their purer and finer 
 outlines recalled those of her dead mother. Emil, 
 who had looked at the Graefin and never seen her 
 in the old days, saw her now and admitted she
 
 6o 
 
 was fairer than the little daughter who had stood 
 beside her. But the dead girl who lay at his feet 
 was even fairer than the mother. Nothing re 
 mained absolutely of the Marie he remembered 
 but the light-brown crinkly hair, which, flowing 
 down on either side of the pale face, was spread 
 out over the coverlet to the slightly raised knees. 
 The delicate, waxen hands were crossed upon 
 a crucifix, and on a satin ribbon round the neck 
 hung a common crystal locket. 
 
 Emil had sought emotions : here he found some 
 of unexpected thrillingness. He was genuinely 
 shaken. The charm of his lost love for Marie 
 returned with full force. His heart seemed to 
 melt, tears gushed from his eyes, all his cold self- 
 sufficiency fell from him. Could the dead at that 
 moment have come to life, he would have flung 
 himself at her feet and sworn eternal devotion. 
 The locket, cherished to the end, touched him 
 inexpressibly. He recognised his own hair still 
 within it. He knew she had worn it day and 
 night upon her heart, and had wished it to go 
 untouched with her to the grave. He remembered 
 with compunction that the companion locket was 
 long since lost. It had gone astray in one of his 
 many Paris removals. 
 
 For the moment he hated himself. By the 
 power which is given to the imaginative, he 
 identified himself with the dead Marie. In the 
 interval of a few seconds he lived through her 
 entire life, loved with her, suffered with her. He 
 understood how completely and irrevocably she
 
 'THE ELEGIE' 61 
 
 had given up her personality to him, how to her 
 gentle and faithful nature he had appeared the only 
 man possible; he felt how constantly she had thought 
 about him, how patiently she had waited and* 
 hoped, how the disappointment of his silence had 
 only strengthened her love through pain. While 
 he had been working, living, enjoying a thousand 
 interests, or concentrating them all into the one 
 absorbing pursuit, his image had been for her all 
 in all. During these seven years, when he had 
 forgotten her for months at a time, or only remem 
 bered her with coldness, every hour of every day 
 her thoughts had turned to him. Love and hope 
 had kept her alive, when otherwise she must long 
 ago have fallen a victim to the hereditary disease 
 which shed its fateful beauty upon her face. It 
 was only when hope was crushed out, and she 
 found herself on the point of ceding to the con 
 tinuous pressure of relatives and circumstances, 
 that she had given up the struggle and life both 
 at once. 
 
 Down Emil's cheeks tears ran unchecked. Love, 
 melancholy, and passionate regret flooded his soul. 
 He gazed at the dead face, and to his shaken 
 fantasy it seemed to regain warmth and colour. 
 He listened intently, and could have sworn he 
 heard low and regular breathing. . . . But sud 
 denly his heart stood still. ... A new force 
 overwhelmed it. ... 
 
 Meanwhile, a figure sitting hitherto unnoticed 
 in the darkness beyond the circle of candle-light, 
 rose and came forward. It was Graf Dittenheim,
 
 62 MONOCHROMES 
 
 but a changed, a broken man. His air of amused 
 superiority, his ironical smile were gone. Death, 
 for the moment, had dragged him down to a level 
 with his fellows. He and Emil exchanged glances 
 of instant recognition. Surprise, doubt, a sort 
 of remorse showed themselves on Dittenheim's 
 countenance. He noticed the tears which still 
 wetted the young man's face, and with a move 
 ment of the hand indicated the dead Marie. 
 
 ' Is it possible you cared for her after all ? ' he said 
 in a low voice ; ' that you have remained true ? ' 
 
 But Schoenemann only looked at him in silence 
 and with an intense earnestness. Then he turned 
 abruptly and walked out of the room. Out of the 
 room, out of the house. Like one distraught he 
 slipped through the streets of the city, and meeting 
 Harms on the tavern steps, flung him aside with 
 furious impatience. 
 
 ' Oh, for God's sake, leave me alone ! ' he cried 
 violently ; and Harms was not wounded. He saw 
 that something terrible had happened, and he 
 understood so well the hopeless misery that cries 
 for solitude. 
 
 Meanwhile Emil double-locked the doors of his 
 room, fearful only that the unlucky encounter 
 might have stemmed or diverted the torrent of 
 music flowing within him. He seized pen and 
 paper, and began to pour it forth in a series of 
 spluttering dots and dashes. His brain was on 
 fire with the excitement, his soul filled with the 
 fierce joy which only the artist knows, and he in 
 the moments of creation alone.
 
 'THE ELEGIE' 63 
 
 With the waning light the sketch lay complete, 
 and Schoenemann threw himself back in his 
 chair with a smile of supreme contentment. 
 Then came the reaction ; he yawned, felt in 
 clined for supper, locked up his papers, and 
 went down to seek Harms, who was stupefied 
 by his friend's genial spirits. But the latter was 
 happy, knowing 'that the work he had just com 
 pleted was very good. 
 
 For it was thus that the famous ' Elegie ' came 
 to be written. This is the story.
 
 IRREMEDIABLE
 
 IRREMEDIABLE 
 
 A YOUNG man strolled along a country road one 
 August evening after a long delicious day a day 
 of that blessed idleness the man of leisure never 
 knows : one must be a bank clerk forty-nine weeks 
 out of the fifty-two before one can really appreciate 
 the exquisite enjoyment of doing nothing for 
 twelve hours at a stretch. Willoughby had spent 
 the morning lounging about a sunny rickyard ; 
 then, when the heat grew unbearable, he had 
 retreated to an orchard, where, lying on his back 
 in the long cool grass, he had traced the pattern 
 of the apple-leaves diapered above him upon the 
 summer sky ; now that the heat of the day was 
 over he had come to roam whither sweet fancy led 
 him, to lean over gates, view the prospect, and 
 meditate upon the pleasures of a well-spent day. 
 Five such days had already passed over his head, 
 fifteen more remained to him. Then farewell to 
 freedom and clean country air ! Back again to 
 London and another year's toil. 
 
 He came to a gate on the right of the road. 
 Behind it a footpath meandered up over a grassy 
 slope. The sheep nibbling on its summit cast 
 long shadows down the hill almost to his feet.
 
 68 MONOCHROMES 
 
 Road and fieldpath were equally new to him, but 
 the latter offered greener attractions ; he vaulted 
 lightly over the gate and had so little idea he was 
 taking thus the first step towards ruin that he 
 began to whistle ' White Wings ' from pure joy of 
 life. 
 
 The sheep stopped feeding and raised their 
 heads to stare at him from pale-lashed eyes ; first 
 one and then another broke into a startled run, 
 until there was a sudden woolly stampede of the 
 entire flock. When Willoughby gained the ridge 
 from which they had just scattered, he came in 
 sight of a woman sitting on a stile at the further 
 end of the field. As he advanced towards her he 
 saw that she was young, and that she was not 
 what is called ' a lady ' of which he was glad : an 
 earlier episode in his career having indissolubly 
 associated in his mind ideas of feminine refinement 
 with those of feminine treachery. 
 
 He thought it probable this girl would be 
 willing to dispense with the formalities of an 
 introduction, and that he might venture with her 
 on some pleasant foolish chat. 
 
 As she made no movement to let him pass 
 he stood still, and, looking at her, began to 
 smile. 
 
 She returned his gaze from unabashed dark 
 eyes, and then laughed, showing teeth white, sound, 
 and smooth as split hazel-nuts. 
 
 ' Do you wanter get over ? ' she remarked 
 familiarly. 
 
 ' I'm afraid I can't without disturbing you.'
 
 IRREMEDIABLE 69 
 
 ' Dontcher think you're much better where you 
 are ? ' said the girl, on which Willoughby hazarded : 
 
 ' You mean to say looking at you ? Well, 
 perhaps I am ! ' 
 
 The girl at this laughed again, but nevertheless 
 dropped herself down into the further field ; then, 
 leaning her arms upon the cross-bar, she informed 
 the young man : ' No, I don't wanter spoil your 
 walk. You were goin' p'raps ter Beacon Point ? 
 It's very pretty that wye.' 
 
 ' I was going nowhere in particular,' he replied ; 
 'just exploring, so to speak. I'm a stranger in 
 these parts.' 
 
 ' How funny ! Imer stranger here too. I only 
 come down larse Friday to stye with a Naunter 
 mine in Horton. Are you stying in Horton?' 
 
 Willoughby told her he was not in Orton, but 
 at Povey Cross Farm out in the other direction. 
 
 ' Oh, Mrs Payne's, ain't it ? I've heard aunt 
 speak ovver. She takes summer boarders, don't 
 chee ? I egspeck you come from London, hen ? ' 
 
 ' And I expect you come from London too ? ' 
 said Willoughby, recognising the familiar accent. 
 
 ' You're as sharp as a needle,' cried the girl 
 with her unrestrained laugh ; ' so I do. I'm here 
 for a hollerday 'cos I was so done up with the 
 work and the hot weather. I don't look as though 
 I'd bin ill, do I ? But I was, though : for it was 
 just stiflin' hot up in our workrooms all larse month, 
 an' tailorin's awful hard work at the bester times.' 
 
 Willoughby felt a sudden accession of interest 
 in her. Like many intelligent young men, he had
 
 7 o MONOCHROMES 
 
 dabbled a little in Socialism, and at one time had 
 wandered among the dispossessed ; but since then, 
 had caught up and held loosely the new doctrine 
 it is a good and fitting thing that Woman also 
 should earn her bread by the sweat of her brow. 
 Always in reference to the woman who, fifteen 
 months before, had treated him ill, he had said 
 to himself that even the breaking of stones in the 
 road should be considered a more feminine employ 
 ment than the breaking of hearts. 
 
 He gave way therefore to a movement of friend 
 liness for this working daughter of the people, and 
 joined her on the other side of the stile in token 
 of his approval. She, twisting round to face him, 
 leaned now with her back against the bar, and the 
 sunset fires lent a fleeting glory to her face. 
 Perhaps she guessed how becoming the light was, 
 for she took off her hat and let it touch to gold 
 the ends and fringes of her rough abundant hair. 
 Thus and at this moment she made an agreeable 
 picture, to which stood as background all the 
 beautiful, wooded Southshire view. 
 
 ' You don't really mean to say you are a 
 tailoress?' said Willoughby, with a sort of eager 
 compassion. 
 
 ' I do, though ! An' I've bin one ever since I 
 was fourteen. Look at my fingers if you don't 
 b'lieve me.' 
 
 She put out her right hand, and he took hold of 
 it, as he was expected to do. The finger-ends 
 were frayed and blackened by needle-pricks, but 
 the hand itself was plump, moist, and not
 
 IRREMEDIABLE 71 
 
 unshapely. She meanwhile examined Willoughby's 
 fingers enclosing hers. 
 
 ' It's easy ter see you've never done no work ! ' 
 she said, half admiring, half envious. ' I s'pose 
 you're a tip-top swell, ain't you ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, yes ! I'm a tremendous swell indeed ! ' said 
 Willoughby, ironically. He thought of his hundred 
 and thirty pounds' salary ; and he mentioned his 
 position in the British and Colonial Banking house, 
 without shedding much illumination on her mind, 
 for she insisted : 
 
 'Well, anyhow, you're a gentleman. I've often 
 wished I was a lady. It must be so nice ter wear 
 fine clo'es an' never have ter do any work all day 
 long.' 
 
 Willoughby thought it innocent of the girl to 
 say this ; it reminded him of his own notion as a 
 child that kings and queens put on their crowns 
 the first thing on rising in the morning. His 
 cordiality rose another degree. 
 
 ' If being a gentleman means having nothing to 
 do,' said he, smiling, ' I can certainly lay no claim 
 to the title. Life isn't all beer and skittles with 
 me, any more than it is with you. Which is the 
 better reason for enjoying the present moment, 
 don't you think ? Suppose, now, like a kind little 
 girl, you were to show me the way to Beacon 
 Point, which you say is so pretty ? ' 
 
 She required no further persuasion. As he 
 walked beside her through the upland fields where 
 the dusk was beginning to fall, and the white 
 evening moths to emerge from their daytime
 
 72 MONOCHROMES 
 
 hiding-places, she asked him many personal 
 questions, most of which he thought fit to parry. 
 Taking no offence thereat, she told him, instead, 
 much concerning herself and her family. Thus he 
 learned her name was Esther Stables, that she and 
 her people lived Whitechapel way ; that her father 
 was seldom sober, and her mother always ill ; and 
 that the aunt with whom she was staying kept 
 the post-office and general shop in Orton village. 
 He learned, too, that Esther was discontented with 
 life in general ; that, though she hated being at 
 home, she found the country dreadfully dull ; and 
 that, consequently, she was extremely glad to have 
 made his acquaintance. But what he chiefly 
 realised when they parted was that he had spent 
 a couple of pleasant hours talking nonsense with 
 a girl who was natural, simple-minded, and entirely 
 free from that repellently protective atmosphere 
 with which a woman of the ' classes ' so carefully 
 surrounds herself. He and Esther had 'made 
 friends' with the ease and rapidity of children 
 before they have learned the dread meaning of 
 ' etiquette/ and they said good-night, not without 
 some talk of meeting each other again. 
 
 Obliged to breakfast at a quarter to eight in 
 town, Willoughby was always luxuriously late 
 when in the country, where he took his meals also 
 in leisurely fashion, often reading from a book 
 propped up on the table before him. But the 
 morning after his meeting with Esther Stables 
 found him less disposed to read than usual. Her 
 image obtruded itself upon the printed page, and
 
 IRREMEDIABLE 73 
 
 at length grew so importunate he came to the 
 conclusion the only way to lay it was to confront 
 it with the girl herself. 
 
 Wanting some tobacco, he saw a good reason 
 for going into Orton. Esther had told him he 
 could get tobacco and everything else at her aunt's. 
 . He found the post-office to be one of the first 
 houses in the widely spaced village street. In 
 front of the cottage was a small garden ablaze 
 with old-fashioned flowers ; and in a larger garden 
 at one side were apple-trees, raspberry and currant 
 bushes, and six thatched beehives on a bench. 
 The bowed windows of the little shop were partly 
 screened by sunblinds ; nevertheless the lower 
 panes still displayed a heterogeneous collection of 
 goods lemons, hanks of yarn, white linen buttons 
 upon blue cards, sugar cones, churchwarden pipes, 
 and tobacco jars. A letter-box opened its narrow 
 mouth low down in one wall, and over the door 
 swung the sign, ' Stamps and money-order office,' 
 in black letters on white enamelled iron. 
 
 The interior of the shop was cool and dark. A 
 second glass-door at the back permitted Willoughby 
 to see into a small sitting-room, and out again 
 through a low and square-paned window to the 
 sunny landscape beyond. Silhouetted against the 
 light were the heads of two women; the rough 
 young head of yesterday's Esther, the lean outline 
 and bugled cap of Esther's aunt. 
 
 It was the latter who at the jingling of the door 
 bell rose from her work and came forward to serve 
 the customer; but the girl, with much mute
 
 74 MONOCHROMES 
 
 meaning in her eyes, and a finger laid upon her 
 smiling mouth, followed behind. Her aunt heard 
 her footfall. ' What do you want here, Esther ? ' 
 she said with thin disapproval ; ' get back to your 
 sewing.' 
 
 Esther gave the young man a signal seen only 
 by him and slipped out into the side-garden, where 
 he found her when his purchases were made. She 
 leaned over the privet-hedge to intercept him as 
 he passed. 
 
 ' Aunt's an awful ole maid,' she remarked 
 apologetically ; ' I b'lieve she'd never let me say 
 a word to enny one if she could help it.' 
 
 'So you got home all right last night?' Willoughby 
 inquired ; ' what did your aunt say to you ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, she arst me where I'd been, and I tolder 
 a lotter lies.' Then, with a woman's intuition, 
 perceiving that this speech jarred, Esther made 
 haste to add, ' She's so dreadful hard on me. I 
 dursn't tell her I'd been with a gentleman or she'd 
 never have let me out alone again.' 
 
 ' And at present I suppose you'll be found some 
 where about that same stile every evening ?' said 
 Willoughby foolishly, for he really did not much 
 care whether he met her again or not. Now he 
 was actually in her company, he was surprised at 
 himself for having given her a whole morning's 
 thought ; yet the eagerness of her answer flattered 
 him, too. 
 
 ' To-night I can't come, worse luck ! It's 
 Thursday, and the shops here close of a Thursday 
 at five. I'll havter keep aunt company. But
 
 IRREMEDIABLE 75 
 
 to-morrer? I can be there to-morrer. You'll 
 come, say?' 
 
 ' Esther ! ' cried a vexed voice, and the precise, 
 right-minded aunt emerged through a row of 
 raspberry-bushes ; ' whatever are you thinking 
 about, delayin' the gentleman in this fashion ? ' 
 She was full of rustic and official civility for ' the 
 gentleman,' but indignant with her niece. ' I don't 
 want none of your London manners down here,' 
 Willoughby heard her say as she marched the girl 
 off. 
 
 He himself was not sorry to be released from 
 Esther's too friendly eyes, and he spent an agree 
 able evening over a book, and this time managed 
 to forget her completely. 
 
 Though he remembered her first thing next 
 morning, it was to smile wisely and determine he 
 would not meet her again. Yet by dinner-time the 
 day seemed long ; why, after all, should he not 
 meet her ? By tea-time prudence triumphed anew 
 no, he would not go. Then he drank his tea 
 hastily and set off for the stile. 
 
 Esther was waiting for him. Expectation had 
 given an additional colour to her cheeks, and her 
 red-brown hair showed here and there a beautiful 
 glint of gold. He could not help admiring the 
 vigorous way in which it waved and twisted, or 
 the little curls which grew at the nape of her neck, 
 tight and close as those of a young lamb's fleece. 
 Her neck here was admirable, too, in its smooth 
 creaminess ; and when her eyes lighted up with 
 such evident pleasure at his coming, how avoid
 
 76 MONOCHROMES 
 
 the conviction she was a good and nice girl after 
 all? 
 
 He proposed they should go down into the little 
 copse on the right, where they would be less 
 disturbed by the occasional passer-by. Here, 
 seated on a felled tree-trunk, Willoughby began 
 that bantering, silly, meaningless form of con 
 versation known among the ' classes ' as flirting. 
 He had but the wish to make himself agreeable, 
 and to while away the time. Esther, however, 
 misunderstood him. 
 
 Willoughby 's hand lay palm downwards on his 
 knee, and she, noticing a ring which he wore on 
 his little finger, took hold of it. 
 
 ' What a funny ring !' she said ; ' let's look ? ' 
 
 To disembarrass himself of her touch, he pulled 
 the ring off and gave it her to examine. 
 
 ' What's that ugly dark green stone ? ' she 
 asked. 
 
 ' It's called a sardonyx.' 
 
 ' What's it for ? ' she said, turning it about. 
 
 ' It's a signet ring, to seal letters with.' 
 
 ' An' there's a sorter king's head scratched on it, 
 an' some writin' too, only I carnt make it out ? ' 
 
 ' It isn't the head of a king, although it wears a 
 crown,' Willoughby explained, ' but the head and 
 bust of a Saracen against whom my ancestor of 
 many hundred years ago went to fight in the 
 Holy Land. And the words cut round it are our 
 motto, "Vertue vaunceth," which means virtue 
 prevails.' 
 
 Willoughby may have displayed some accession
 
 IRREMEDIABLE 77 
 
 of dignity in giving this bit of family history, for 
 Esther fell into uncontrolled laughter, at which he 
 was much displeased. And when the girl made as 
 though she would put the ring on her own finger, 
 asking, 'Shall I keep it?' he coloured up with 
 sudden annoyance. 
 
 ' It was only my fun ! ' said Esther hastily, and 
 gave him the ring back, but his cordiality was 
 gone. He felt no inclination to renew the idle- 
 word pastime, said it was time to go, and, 
 swinging his cane vexedly, struck off the heads of 
 the flowers and the weeds as he went. Esther 
 walked by his side in complete silence, a pheno 
 menon of which he presently became conscious. 
 He felt rather ashamed of having shown temper. 
 
 ' Well, here's your way home,' said he with an 
 effort at friendliness. ' Good-bye ; we've had a nice 
 evening anyhow. It was pleasant down there in 
 the woods, eh ? ' 
 
 He was astonished to see her eyes soften with 
 tears, and to hear the real emotion in her voice as 
 she answered, ' It was just heaven down there with 
 you until you turned so funny-like. What had I 
 done to make you cross ? Say you forgive me, 
 do!' 
 
 ' Silly child ! ' said Willoughby, completely 
 mollified, * I'm not the least angry. There, good 
 bye ! ' and like a fool he kissed her. 
 
 He anathematised his folly in the white light of 
 next morning, and, remembering the kiss he had 
 given her, repented it very sincerely. He had an 
 uncomfortable suspicion she had not received it in
 
 7 8 MONOCHROMES 
 
 the same spirit in which it had been bestowed, but, 
 attaching more serious meaning to it, would build 
 expectations thereon which must be left unfulfilled. 
 It was best indeed not to meet her again ; for he 
 acknowledged to himself that, though he only half 
 liked, and even slightly feared her, there was a 
 certain attraction about her was it in her dark 
 unflinching eyes or in her very red lips? which 
 might lead him into greater follies still. 
 
 Thus it came about that for two successive 
 evenings Esther waited for him in vain, and on the 
 third evening he said to himself, with a grudging 
 relief, that by this time she had probably trans 
 ferred her affections to some one else. 
 
 It was Saturday, the second Saturday since he 
 left town. He spent the day about the farm, 
 contemplated the pigs, inspected the feeding of 
 the stock, and assisted at the afternoon milking. 
 Then at evening, with a refilled pipe, he went for 
 a long lean over the west gate, while he traced 
 fantastic pictures and wove romances in the glories 
 of the sunset clouds. 
 
 He watched the colours glow from gold to 
 scarlet, change to crimson, sink at last to sad 
 purple reefs and isles, when the sudden conscious 
 ness of some one being near him made him turn 
 round. There stood Esther, and her eyes were 
 full of eagerness and anger. 
 
 ' Why have you never been to the stile again ? ' 
 she asked him. ' You promised to come faithful, 
 and you never came. Why have you not kep' 
 your promise? Why? Why?' she persisted,
 
 IRREMEDIABLE 79 
 
 stamping her foot because Willoughby remained 
 silent. 
 
 What could he say ? Tell her she had no 
 business to follow him like this ; or own, what was, 
 unfortunately, the truth, he was just a little glad to 
 see her? 
 
 ' P'raps you don't care for me any more ? ' she 
 said. ' Well, why did you kiss me, then ? ' 
 
 Why, indeed ! thought Willoughby, marvelling 
 at his own idiocy, and yet such is the incon 
 sistency of man not wholly without the desire 
 to kiss her again. And while he looked at her she 
 suddenly flung herself down on the hedge-bank at 
 his feet and burst into tears. She did not cover 
 up her face, but simply pressed one cheek down 
 upon the grass while the water poured from her 
 eyes with astonishing abundance. Willoughby 
 saw the dry earth turn dark and moist as it drank 
 the tears in. This, his first experience of Esther's 
 powers of weeping, distressed him horribly ; never 
 in his life before had he seen any one weep like 
 that, he should not have believed such a thing 
 possible ; he was alarmed, too, lest she should 
 be noticed from the house. He opened the gate ; 
 ' Esther ! ' he begged, ' don't cry. Come out here, 
 like a dear girl, and let us talk sensibly.' 
 
 Because she stumbled, unable to see her way 
 through wet eyes, he gave her his hand, and they 
 found themselves in a field of corn, walking along 
 the narrow grass-path that skirted it, in the shadow 
 of the hedgerow. 
 
 'What is there to cry about because you have
 
 8o MONOCHROMES 
 
 not seen me for two days ? ' he began ; ' why, 
 Esther, we are only strangers, after all. When we 
 have been at home a week or two we shall scarcely 
 remember each other's names.' 
 
 Esther sobbed at intervals, but her tears had 
 ceased. 'It's fine for you to talk of home,' she 
 said to this. 'You've got something that is a 
 home, I s'pose? But me! my home's like hell, 
 with nothing but quarrellin' and cursin,' and 
 a father who beats us whether sober or drunk. 
 Yes ! ' she repeated shrewdly, seeing the lively 
 disgust on Willoughby's face, 'he beat me, all 
 ill as I was, jus' before I come away. I could 
 show you the bruises on my arms still. And now 
 to go back there after knowin' you ! It'll be 
 worse than ever. I can't endure it, and I won't ! 
 I'll put an end to it or myself somehow, I swear ! ' 
 
 ' But, my poor Esther, how can I help it ? what 
 can I do?' said Willoughby. He was greatly 
 moved, full of wrath with her father, with all 
 the world which makes women suffer. He had 
 suffered himself at the hands of a woman and 
 severely, but this, instead of hardening his heart, 
 had only rendered it the more supple. And yet 
 he had a vivid perception of the peril in which he 
 stood. An interior voice urged him to break away, 
 to seek safety in flight even at the cost of appear 
 ing cruel or ridiculous ; so, coming to a point in 
 the field where an elm-bole jutted out across the 
 path, he saw with relief he could now withdraw 
 his hand from the girl's, since they must walk 
 singly to skirt round it.
 
 IRREMEDIABLE 81 
 
 Esther took a step in advance, stopped and 
 suddenly turned to face him ; she held out her 
 two hands and her face was very near his own. 
 
 ' Don't you care for me one little bit ? ' she said 
 wistfully, and surely sudden madness fell upon 
 him. For he kissed her again, he kissed her 
 many times, he took her in his arms, and pushed 
 all thoughts of the consequences far from him. 
 
 But when, an hour later, he and Esther stood 
 by the last gate on the road to Orton, some of 
 these consequences were already calling loudly 
 to him. 
 
 'You know I have only ^130 a year? ' he told 
 her ; ' it's no very brilliant prospect for you to 
 marry me on that.' 
 
 For he had actually offered her marriage, 
 although to the mediocre man such a proceed 
 ing must appear incredible, uncalled for. But 
 to Willoughby, overwhelmed with sadness and 
 remorse, it seemed the only atonement possible. 
 
 Sudden exultation leaped at Esther's heart. 
 
 ' Oh ! I'm used to managin',' she told him con 
 fidently, and mentally resolved to buy herself, so 
 soon as she was married, a black feather boa, 
 such as she had coveted last winter. 
 
 Willoughby spent the remaining days of his 
 holiday in thinking out and planning with Esther 
 the details of his return to London and her own, 
 the secrecy to be observed, the necessary legal 
 steps to be taken, and the quiet suburb in which 
 
 F
 
 82 MONOCHROMES 
 
 they would set up housekeeping. And, so success 
 fully did he carry out his arrangements, that within 
 five weeks from the day on which he had first met 
 Esther Stables, he and she came out one morning 
 from a church in Highbury, husband and wife. It 
 was a mellow September day, the streets were 
 filled with sunshine, and Willoughby, in reckless 
 high spirits, imagined he saw a reflection of his 
 own gaiety on the indifferent faces of the passers- 
 by. There being no one else to perform the 
 office, he congratulated himself very warmly, and 
 Esther's frequent laughter filled in the pauses of 
 the day. 
 
 Three months later Willoughby was dining with 
 a friend, and the hour-hand of the clock nearing 
 ten, the host no longer resisted the guest's growing 
 anxiety to be gone. He arose and exchanged 
 with him good wishes and good-byes. 
 
 ' Marriage is evidently a most successful institu 
 tion,' said he, half- jesting, half-sincere ; ' you almost 
 make me inclined to go and get married myself. 
 Confess now your thoughts have been at home the 
 whole evening.' 
 
 Willoughby thus addressed turned red to the 
 roots of his hair, but did not deny it. 
 
 The other laughed. 'And very commendable 
 they should be,' he continued, 'since you are 
 scarcely, so to speak, out of your honeymoon.' 
 
 With a social smile on his lips, Willoughby 
 calculated a moment before replying, ' I have been
 
 IRREMEDIABLE 83 
 
 married exactly three months and three days.' 
 Then, after a few words respecting their next 
 meeting, the two shook hands and parted the 
 young host to finish the evening with books and 
 pipe, the young husband to set out on a twenty 
 minutes' walk to his home. 
 
 It was a cold, clear December night following a 
 day of rain. A touch of frost in the air had dried 
 the pavements, and Willoughby's footfall ringing 
 upon the stones re-echoed down the empty 
 suburban street. Above his head was a dark, 
 remote sky thickly powdered with stars, and as he 
 turned westward Alpherat hung for a moment 
 ' comme le point sur un *',' over the slender spire of 
 St John's. But he was insensible to the worlds 
 about him ; he was absorbed in his own thoughts, 
 and these, as his friend had surmised, were entirely 
 with his wife. For Esther's face was always before 
 his eyes, her voice was always in his ears, she filled 
 the universe for him ; yet only four months ago he 
 had never seen her, had never heard her name. 
 This was the curious part of it here in December 
 he found himself the husband of a girl who was 
 completely dependent upon him not only for food, 
 clothes, and lodging, but for her present happiness, 
 her whole future life ; and last July he had been 
 scarcely more than a boy himself, with no greater 
 care on his mind than the pleasant difficulty of 
 deciding where he should spend his annual three 
 weeks' holiday. 
 
 But it is events, not months or years, which age. 
 Willoughby, who was only twenty-six, remembered
 
 84 MONOCHROMES 
 
 his youth as a sometime companion irrevocably 
 lost to him ; its vague, delightful hopes were now 
 crystallised into definite ties, and its happy 
 irresponsibilities displaced by a sense of care, 
 inseparable perhaps from the most fortunate of 
 marriages. 
 
 As he reached the street in which he lodged his 
 pace involuntarily slackened. While still some 
 distance off, his eye sought out and distinguished 
 the windows of the room in which Esther awaited 
 him. Through the broken slats of the Venetian 
 blinds he could see the yellow gaslight within. 
 The parlour beneath was in darkness ; his landlady 
 had evidently gone to bed, there being no light 
 over the hall-door either. In some apprehension 
 he consulted his watch under the last street-lamp 
 he passed, to find comfort in assuring himself it 
 was only ten minutes after ten. He let himself in 
 with his latch-key, hung up his hat and overcoat by 
 the sense of touch, and, groping his way upstairs, 
 opened the door of the first floor sitting-room. 
 
 At the table in the centre of the room sat his 
 wife, leaning upon her elbows, her two hands 
 thrust up into her ruffled hair ; spread out before 
 her was a crumpled yesterday's newspaper, and so 
 interested was she to all appearance in its con 
 tents that she neither spoke nor looked up as 
 Willoughby entered. Around her were the still 
 uncleared tokens of her last meal : tea-slops, 
 bread-crumbs, and an eggshell crushed to frag 
 ments upon a plate, which was one of those 
 trifles that set Willoughby's teeth on edge,
 
 IRREMEDIABLE 85 
 
 whenever his wife ate an egg she persisted in 
 turning the egg-cup upside down upon the table 
 cloth, and pounding the shell to pieces in her plate 
 with her spoon. 
 
 The room was repulsive in its disorder. The 
 one lighted burner of the gaselier, turned too high, 
 hissed up into a long tongue of flame. The fire 
 smoked feebly under a newly administered shovel 
 ful of 'slack,' and a heap of ashes and cinders 
 littered the grate. A pair of walking boots, caked 
 in dry mud, lay on the hearthrug just where they 
 had been thrown off. On the mantelpiece, amidst 
 a dozen other articles which had no business there, 
 was a bedroom-candlestick ; and every single 
 article of furniture stood crookedly out of its 
 place. 
 
 Willoughby took in the whole intolerable picture, 
 and yet spoke with kindliness. 'Well, Esther! 
 I'm not so late, after all. I hope you did not find 
 the time dull by yourself?' Then he explained 
 the reason of his absence. He had met a friend 
 he had not seen for a couple of years, who had 
 insisted on taking him home to dine. 
 
 His wife gave no sign of having heard him ; 
 she kept her eyes riveted on the paper before 
 her. 
 
 ' You received my wire, of course,' Willoughby 
 went on, ' and did not wait ? ' 
 
 Now she crushed the newspaper up with a 
 passionate movement, and threw it from her. She 
 raised her head, showing cheeks blazing with 
 anger, and dark, sullen, unflinching eyes.
 
 86 MONOCHROMES 
 
 ' I did wyte then ! ' she cried. ' I wyted till near 
 eight before I got your old telegraph ! I s'pose 
 that's what you call the manners of a " gentleman," 
 to keep your wife mewed up here, while you 
 go gallivantin' off with your fine friends ? ' 
 
 Whenever Esther was angry, which was often, 
 she taunted Willoughby with being ' a gentleman,' 
 although this was the precise point about him 
 which at other times found most favour in her 
 eyes. But to-night she was envenomed by the 
 idea he had been enjoying himself without her, 
 stung by fear lest he should have been in company 
 with some other woman. 
 
 Willoughby, hearing the taunt, resigned himself 
 to the inevitable. Nothing that he could do might 
 now avert the breaking storm ; all his words would 
 only be twisted into fresh griefs. But sad experi 
 ence had taught him that to take refuge in silence 
 was more fatal still. When Esther was in such a 
 mood as this it was best to supply the fire with 
 fuel, that, through the very violence of the con 
 flagration, it might the sooner burn itself out. 
 
 So he said what soothing things he could, and 
 Esther caught them up, disfigured them, and flung 
 them back at him with scorn. She reproached 
 him with no longer caring for her ; she vituperated 
 the conduct of his family in never taking the 
 smallest notice of her marriage ; and she detailed 
 the insolence of the landlady who had told her 
 that morning she pitied ' poor Mr Willoughby,' and 
 had refused to go out and buy herrings for Esther's 
 early dinner.
 
 IRREMEDIABLE 87 
 
 Every affront or grievance, real or imaginary, 
 since the day she and Willoughby had first met, 
 she poured forth with a fluency due to frequent 
 repetition, for, with the exception of to-day's added 
 injuries, Willoughby had heard the whole litany 
 many times before. 
 
 While she raged and he looked at her, he 
 remembered he had once thought her pretty. He 
 had seen beauty in her rough brown hair, her 
 strong colouring, her full red mouth. He fell into 
 musing ... a woman may lack beauty, he told 
 himself, and yet be loved 
 
 Meanwhile Esther reached white heats of passion, 
 and the strain could no longer be sustained. She 
 broke into sobs and began to shed tears with the 
 facility peculiar to her. In a moment her face was 
 all wet with the big drops which rolled down her 
 cheeks faster and faster, and fell with audible 
 splashes on to the table, on to her lap, on to the 
 floor. To this tearful abundance, formerly a sur 
 prising spectacle, Willoughby was now accli 
 matised ; but the remnant of chivalrous feeling not 
 yet extinguished in his bosom forbade him to sit 
 stolidly by while a woman wept, without seeking 
 to console her. As on previous occasions, his 
 peace-overtures were eventually accepted. Esther's 
 tears gradually ceased to flow, she began to exhibit 
 a sort of compunction, she wished to be forgiven, 
 and, with the kiss of reconciliation, passed into a 
 phase of demonstrative affection perhaps more 
 trying to Willoughby's patience than all that had 
 preceded it. ' You don't love me ? ' she questioned,
 
 88 MONOCHROMES 
 
 ' I'm sure you don't love me ? ' she reiterated ; and 
 he asseverated that he loved her until he despised 
 himself. Then at last, only half satisfied, but 
 wearied out with vexation possibly, too, with a 
 movement of pity at the sight of his haggard face 
 she consented to leave him. Only, what was he 
 going to do ? she asked suspiciously ; write those 
 rubbishing stories of his ? Well, he must promise 
 not to stay up more than half-an-hour at the 
 latest only until he had smoked one pipe. 
 
 Willoughby promised, as he would have pro 
 mised anything on earth to secure to himself a 
 half-hour's peace and solitude. Esther groped for 
 her slippers, which were kicked off under the 
 table ; scratched four or five matches along the 
 box and threw them away before she succeeded in 
 lighting her candle ; set it down again to contem 
 plate her tear-swollen reflection in the chimney- 
 glass, and burst out laughing. 
 
 ' What a fright I do look, to be sure ! ' she 
 remarked complacently, and again thrust her two 
 hands up through her disordered curls. Then, 
 holding the candle at such an angle that the 
 grease ran over on to the carpet, she gave Wil 
 loughby another vehement kiss and trailed out of 
 the room with an ineffectual attempt to close the 
 door behind her. 
 
 Willoughby got up to shut it himself, and won 
 dered why it was that Esther never did any one 
 mortal thing efficiently or well. Good God ! how 
 irritable he felt. It was impossible to write. He 
 must find an outlet for his impatience, rend or
 
 IRREMEDIABLE 89 
 
 mend something. He began to straighten the 
 room, but a wave of disgust came over'him before 
 the task was fairly commenced. What was the 
 use? To-morrow all would be bad as before. What 
 was the use of doing anything ? He sat down by 
 the table and leaned his head upon his hands. 
 
 The past came back to him in pictures : his boy 
 hood's past first of all. He saw again the old 
 home, every inch of which was familiar to him as 
 his own name ; he reconstructed in his thought all 
 the old well-known furniture, and replaced it pre 
 cisely as it had stood long ago. He passed again 
 a childish finger over the rough surface of the faded 
 Utrecht velvet chairs, and smelled again the strong 
 fragrance of the white lilac tree, blowing in through 
 the open parlour- window. He savoured anew the 
 pleasant mental atmosphere produced by the 
 dainty neatness of cultured women, the companion 
 ship of a few good pictures, of a few good books. 
 Yet this home had been broken up years ago, the 
 dear familiar things had been scattered far and 
 wide, never to find themselves under the same roof 
 again ; and from those near relatives who still 
 remained to him he lived now hopelessly estranged. 
 
 Then came the past of his first love-dream, when 
 he worshipped at the feet of Nora Beresford, and, 
 with the whole-heartedness of the true fanatic, 
 clothed his idol with every imaginable attribute of 
 virtue and tenderness. To this day there remained 
 a secret shrine in his heart wherein the Lady of
 
 90 MONOCHROMES 
 
 his young ideal was still enthroned, although it was 
 long since he had come to perceive she had nothing 
 whatever in common with the Nora of reality. For 
 the real Nora he had no longer any sentiment, she 
 had passed altogether out of his life and thoughts ; 
 and yet, so permanent is all influence, whether 
 good or evil, that the effect she wrought upon his 
 character remained. He recognised to-night that 
 her treatment of him in the past did not count for 
 nothing among the various factors which had 
 determined his fate. 
 
 Now, the past of only last year returned, and, 
 strangely enough, this seemed farther removed 
 from him than all the rest. He had been particu 
 larly strong, well, and happy this time last year. 
 Nora was dismissed from his mind, and he had 
 thrown all his energies into his work. His tastes 
 were sane and simple, and his dingy, furnished 
 rooms had become through habit very pleasant to 
 him. In being his own, they were invested with a 
 greater charm than another man's castle. Here he 
 had smoked and studied, here he had made many 
 a glorious voyage into the land of books. Many a 
 home-coming, too, rose up before him out of the 
 dark ungenial streets, to a clear blazing fire, a 
 neatly laid cloth, an evening of ideal enjoyment ; 
 many a summer twilight when he mused at the open 
 window, plunging his gaze deep into the recesses 
 of his neighbour's lime-tree, where the unseen 
 sparrows chattered with such unflagging gaiety. 
 
 He had always been given to much day-dreaming, 
 and it was in the silence of his rooms of an evening
 
 IRREMEDIABLE 91 
 
 that he turned his phantasmal adventures into 
 stories for the magazines ; here had come to him 
 many an editorial refusal, but here, too, he had 
 received the news of his first unexpected success. 
 All his happiest memories were embalmed in those 
 shabby, badly-furnished rooms. 
 
 Now all was changed. Now might there be no 
 longer any soft indulgence of the hour's mood. 
 His rooms and everything he owned belonged now 
 to Esther, too. She had objected to most of his 
 photographs, and had removed them. She hated 
 books, and were he ever so ill-advised as to open 
 one in her presence, she immediately began to talk, 
 no matter how silent or how sullen her previous 
 mood had been. If he read aloud to her she either 
 yawned despairingly, or was tickled into laughter 
 where there was no reasonable cause. At first 
 Willoughby had tried to educate her, and had gone 
 hopefully to the task. It is so natural to think you 
 may make what you will of the woman who loves 
 you. But Esther had no wish to improve. She 
 evinced all the self-satisfaction of an illiterate 
 mind. To her husband's gentle admonitions she 
 replied with brevity that she thought her way quite 
 as good as his ; or, if he didn't approve of her pro 
 nunciation, he might do the other thing, she was 
 too old to go to school again. He gave up the 
 attempt, and, with humiliation at his previous fatuity, 
 perceived that it was folly to expect that a few 
 weeks of his companionship could alter or pull up 
 the impressions of years, or rather of generations. 
 
 Yet here he paused to admit a curious thing : it
 
 92 MONOCHROMES 
 
 was not only Esther's bad habits which vexed 
 him, but habits quite unblameworthy in themselves 
 which he never would have noticed in another, 
 irritated him in her. He disliked her manner of 
 standing-, of walking, of sitting in a chair, of 
 folding her hands. Like a lover, he was conscious 
 of her proximity without seeing her. Like a 
 lover, too, his eyes followed her every movement, 
 his ear noted every change in her voice. But 
 then, instead of being charmed by everything as 
 the lover is, everything jarred upon him. 
 
 What was the meaning of this ? To-night the 
 anomaly pressed upon him : he reviewed his 
 position. Here was he, quite a young man, just 
 twenty-six years of age, married to Esther, and 
 bound to live with her so long as life should last 
 twenty, forty, perhaps fifty years more. Every 
 day of those years to be spent in her society ; he 
 and she face to face, soul to soul ; they two alone 
 amid all the whirling, busy, indifferent world. 
 So near together in semblance; in truth, so far 
 apart as regards all that makes life dear. 
 
 Willoughby groaned. From the woman he did 
 not love, whom he had never loved, he might not 
 again go free; so much he recognised. The 
 feeling he had once entertained for Esther, strange 
 compound of mistaken chivalry and flattered 
 vanity, was long since extinct; but what, then, 
 was the sentiment with which she inspired him ? 
 For he was not indifferent to her no, never for 
 one instant could he persuade himself he was 
 indifferent, never for one instant could he banish
 
 IRREMEDIABLE 93 
 
 her from his thoughts. His mind's eye followed 
 her during his hours of absence as pertinaciously 
 as his bodily eye dwelt upon her actual presence. 
 She was the principal object of the universe to 
 him, the centre around which his wheel of life 
 revolved with an appalling fidelity. 
 
 What did it mean ? What could it mean ? he 
 asked himself with anguish. 
 
 And the sweat broke out upon his forehead and 
 his hands grew cold, for on a sudden the truth lay 
 there like a written word upon the tablecloth 
 before him. This woman, whom he had taken to 
 himself for better, for worse, inspired him with 
 a passion, intense indeed, all - masterful, soul- 
 subduing as Love itself. .... But when he 
 understood the terror of his Hatred, he laid his 
 head upon his arms and wept, not facile tears like 
 Esther's, but tears wrung out from his agonising, 
 unavailing regret.
 
 POOR COUSIN LOUIS
 
 POOR COUSIN LOUIS 
 
 THERE stands in the Islands a house known as 
 ' Les Calais.' It has stood there already some 
 three hundred years, and to judge from its stout 
 walls and weather-tight appearance, promises to 
 stand some three hundred more. Built of brown 
 home-quarried stone, with solid stone chimney- 
 stacks and roof of red tiles, its door is set in the 
 centre beneath a semicircular arch of dressed 
 granite, on the keystone of which is deeply cut 
 the date of construction : 
 
 J VN I 
 1603 
 
 Above the date straggle the letters, L G M M, 
 initials of the forgotten names of the builder of 
 the house and of the woman he married. In the 
 summer weather of 1603 that inscription was cut, 
 and the man and woman doubtless read it with 
 pride and pleasure as they stood looking up at 
 their fine new homestead. They believed it 
 would carry their names down to posterity when 
 they themselves should be gone ; yet there stand 
 the initials to-day, while the personalities they 
 
 G
 
 98 MONOCHROMES 
 
 represent are as lost to memory as are the builders' 
 graves. 
 
 At the moment when this little sketch opens, 
 Les Calais had belonged for three generations to 
 the family of Renouf (pronounced Rennuf), and it 
 is with the closing days of Mr Louis Renouf that 
 it purposes to deal. But first to complete the 
 description of the house, which is typical of 
 the Islands : hundreds of such homesteads placed 
 singly, or in groups then sharing in one common 
 name may be found there in a day's walk, 
 although it must be added that a day's walk 
 almost suffices to explore any one of the Islands 
 from end to end. 
 
 Les Calais shares its name with none. It stands 
 alone, completely hidden, save at one point only, 
 by its ancient elms. On either side of the door 
 way are two windows, each of twelve small panes, 
 and there is a row of five similar windows above. 
 Around the back and sides of the house cluster all 
 sorts of outbuildings, necessary dependencies of a 
 time when men made their own cider and candles, 
 baked their own bread, cut and stacked their own 
 wood, and dried the dung of their herds for extra 
 winter fuel. Beyond the outbuildings lie its 
 vegetable and fruit gardens, which again are 
 surrounded on every side by its many rich vergees 
 of pasture land. 
 
 Would you find Les Calais, take the high road 
 from Jacques-le-Port to the village of St Gilles, 
 then keep to the left of the schools along a narrow 
 lane cut between high hedges. It is a cart track
 
 POOR COUSIN LOUIS 99 
 
 only, as the deep sun-baked ruts testify, leading 
 direct from St Gilles to Vauvert, and, likely enough, 
 during the whole of that distance you will not 
 meet with a solitary person. You will see nothing 
 but the green running hedgerows on either hand, 
 the blue-domed sky above, from whence the lark, 
 a black pin-point in the blue, flings down a gush 
 of song ; while the thrush you have disturbed 
 lunching off that succulent snail takes short ground 
 flights before you, at every pause turning back 
 an ireful eye to judge how much farther you 
 intend to pursue him. He is happy if you branch 
 off midway to the left, down the lane leading 
 straight to Les Calais. 
 
 A gable end of the house faces this lane, and its 
 one window in the days of Louis Renouf looked 
 out upon a dilapidated farm and stable - yard, 
 the gate of which, turned back upon its hinges, 
 stood wide open to the world. Within might be 
 seen granaries empty of grain, stables where no 
 horses fed, a long cow-house crumbling into 
 ruin, and the broken stone sections of a cider 
 trough dismantled more than half a century back. 
 Cushions of emerald moss studded the thatches, 
 and Liliputian forests of grass-blades sprang thick 
 between the cobble stones. The place might 
 have been mistaken for some deserted grange, but 
 for the contradiction conveyed in a bright pewter 
 full-bellied water-can standing near the well, in a 
 pile of firewood, with chopper still stuck in the top 
 most billet, and in a tatterdemalion troop of barn 
 door fowl lagging meditatively across the yard.
 
 ioo MONOCHROMES 
 
 On a certain day, when summer warmth and 
 unbroken silence brooded over all, and the broad 
 sunshine blent the yellows, reds, and greys of tile 
 and stone, the greens of grass and foliage, into one 
 harmonious whole, a visitor entered the open gate. 
 This was a tall, large young woman, with a fair, 
 smooth, thirty-year-old face. Dressed in what 
 was obviously her Sunday best, although it was 
 neither Sunday nor even market-day, she wore 
 a bonnet diademed with gas-green lilies of the 
 valley, a netted black mantilla, and a velvet- 
 trimmed violet silk gown, which she carefully 
 lifted out of dust's way, thus displaying a 
 stiffly starched petticoat and kid spring-side 
 boots. 
 
 Such attire, unbeautiful in itself and incongruous 
 with its surroundings, jarred harshly upon the 
 picturesque note of the scene. From being a 
 subject to perpetuate on canvas, it shrunk, as it 
 were, to the background of a cheap photograph, 
 or the stage adjuncts to the heroine of a farce. 
 The silence too was shattered as the new comer's 
 foot fell upon the stones. An unseen dog began 
 to mouth a joyous welcome, and the fowls, lifting 
 their thin, apprehensive faces towards her, flopped 
 into a clumsy run as though their last hour were 
 visible. 
 
 The visitor meanwhile turned familiar steps to 
 a door in the wall on the left, and raising the latch, 
 entered the flower garden of Les Calais. This 
 garden, lying to the south, consisted then, and 
 perhaps does still, of two square grass-plots with
 
 POOR COUSIN LOUIS 101 
 
 a broad gravel path running round them and up 
 to the centre of the house. 
 
 In marked contrast with the neglect of the farm 
 yard was this exquisitely kept garden, brilliant and 
 fragrant with flowers. From a raised bed in the 
 centre of each plot standard rose-trees shed out 
 gorgeous perfume from chalices of every shade of 
 loveliness, and thousands of white pinks justled 
 shoulder to shoulder in narrow bands cut within 
 the borders of the grass. 
 
 Busy over these, his back towards her, was an 
 elderly man, braces hanging, in coloured cotton 
 shirt. 
 
 'Good afternoon, Tourtel,' cried the lady, 
 advancing. 
 
 Thus addressed, he straightened himself slowly 
 and turned round. Leaning on his hoe, he shaded 
 his feyes with his hand. ' Eh den ! it's you, Missis 
 Pedvinn,' said he ; ' but we didn't expec' you till 
 to-morrow ? ' 
 
 ' No, it's true,' said Mrs Poidevin, ' that I wrote 
 I would come Saturday, but Pedvinn expects 
 some friends by the English boat, and wants me 
 to receive them. Yet as they may be staying the 
 week, I did not like to put poor Cousin Louis off 
 so long without a visit, so thought I had better 
 come up to-day.' 
 
 Almost unconsciously, her phrases assumed 
 apologetic form. She had an uneasy feeling 
 Tourtel's wife might resent her unexpected advent ; 
 although why Mrs Tourtel should object, or why 
 she herself should stand in any awe of the
 
 102 MONOCHROMES 
 
 Tourtcls, she could not have explained. Tourtcl 
 was but gardener, the wife housekeeper and nurse, 
 to her cousin Louis Renouf, master of Les Calais. 
 ' I shan't inconvenience Mrs Tourtel, I hope ? 
 Of course I shouldn't think of staying tea if she is 
 busy; I'll just sit an hour with Cousin Louis, and 
 catch the six o'clock omnibus home from Vauvert.' 
 
 Tourtel stood looking at her with wooden 
 countenance, in which two small shifting eyes 
 alone gave signs of life. ' Eh, but you won't be 
 no inconvenience to de ole woman, ma'am,' said 
 he suddenly, in so loud a voice that Mrs Poidevin 
 jumped; 'only de apple-goche, dat she was goin' 
 to bake agen your visit won't be ready, dat's 
 all.' 
 
 He turned, and stared up at the front of the 
 house ; Mrs Poidevin, for no reason at all, did 
 so too. Door and windows were open wide. 
 In the upper story, the white roller-blinds were 
 let down against the sun, and on the broad sills 
 of the parlour windows were nosegays placed in 
 blue china jars. A white trellis-work criss-crossed 
 over the fa$ade, for the support of climbing rose 
 and purple clematis, which hung out a curtain of 
 blossom almost concealing the masonry behind. 
 The whole place breathed of peace and beauty, 
 and Louisa Poidevin was lapped round with that 
 pleasant sense of well-being which it was her chief 
 desire in life never to lose. Though poor Cousin 
 Louis feeble, childish, solitary was so much to 
 be pitied, at least in his comfortable home and his 
 worthy Tourtels he found compensation.
 
 POOR COUSIN LOUIS 103 
 
 An instant after Tourtel had spoken, a woman 
 passed across the wide hall. She had on a blue 
 linen skirt, white stockings, and shoes of gray list. 
 The strings of a large, bibbed, lilac apron drew 
 the folds of a flowered bed-jacket about her ample 
 waist ; and her thick yellow-gray hair, worn 
 without a cap, was arranged smoothly on either 
 side of a narrow head. She just glanced out, and 
 Mrs Poidevin was on the point of calling to her, 
 when Tourtel fell into a torrent of words about 
 his flowers. He had so much to say on the 
 subject of horticulture ; was so anxious for her to 
 examine the freesia bulbs lying in the tool-house, 
 just separated from the spring plants ; he 
 denounced so fiercely the grinding policy of 
 Brehault, the middleman, who purchased his 
 garden stuff to resell it at Covent Garden 
 ' My good ! on dem freesias I didn't make not 
 two doubles a bunch ! ' that for a long quarter 
 of an hour all memory of her cousin was driven 
 from Mrs Poidevin's brain. Then a voice said 
 at her elbow, ' Mr Rennuf is quite ready to see 
 you, ma'am,' and there stood Tourtel's wife, with 
 pale composed face, square shoulders and hips, 
 and feet that moved noiselessly in her list slippers. 
 
 ' Ah, Mrs Tourtel, how do you do ? ' said the 
 visitor ; a question which in the Islands is no mere 
 formula, but demands and obtains a detailed 
 answer, after which the questioner's own health is 
 politely inquired into. Not until this ceremony 
 had been scrupulously accomplished, and the two 
 women were on their way to the house, did Mrs
 
 104 MONOCHROMES 
 
 Poidevin beg to know how things were going with 
 her ' poor cousin.' 
 
 There lay something at variance between the 
 ruthless, calculating spirit which looked forth from 
 the housekeeper's cold eye, and the extreme 
 suavity of her manner of speech. 
 
 ' Eh, my good ! but much de same, ma'am, in his 
 health, an' more fancies dan ever in his head. 
 First one ting an' den anudder, an' always tinking 
 dat everybody is robbin' him. You rem-ember de 
 larse time you was here, an' Mister Rennuf was 
 abed ? Well, den, after you was gone, if he didn't 
 deck-clare you had taken some of de fedders of his 
 bed away wid you. Yes, my good ! he tought you 
 had cut a hole in de tick as you sat dere beside 
 him an' emptied de fedders away into your pocket.' 
 
 Mrs Poidevin was much interested. ' Dear me, 
 is it possible ? . . . . But it's quite a mania with 
 him. I remember now, on that very day he com 
 plained to me Tourtel was wearing his shirts, 
 and wanted me to go in with him to Lepage's to 
 order some new ones.' 
 
 ' Eh ! but what would Tourtel want wid fine 
 white shirts like dem ? ' said the wife placidly. 
 ' But Mr Louis have such dozens an' dozens of 'em 
 dat dey gets hidden away in de presses, an' he 
 tinks dem stolen.' 
 
 They reached the house. The interior is 
 as characteristic of the Islands as is the outside. 
 Two steps take you down into the -hall, crossing 
 the further end of which is the staircase with its 
 balustrade of carved black oak. Instead of the
 
 POOR COUSIN LOUIS 105 
 
 mean painted sticks, known technically as ' raisers,' 
 and connected together at the top by a vulgar 
 mahogany hand-rail a fundamental article of 
 faith with the modern builder these old Island 
 balustrades are formed of wooden panels, fretted 
 out into scrolls, representing flower, or leaf, or 
 curious beaked and winged creatures, which go 
 curving, creeping, and ramping along in the direc 
 tion of the stairs. In every house you will find the 
 detail different, while each resembles all as a 
 whole. For in the old days the workman, were he 
 never so humble, recognised the possession of an 
 individual mind, as well as of two eyes and two 
 hands, and he translated fearlessly this individuality 
 of his into his work. Every house built in those 
 days and existing down to these, is not only a 
 confession, in some sort, of the tastes, the habits, 
 the character, of the man who planned it, but pre 
 serves a record likewise of every one of the 
 subordinate minds employed in the various parts. 
 
 Off the hall of Les Calais are two rooms on 
 the left and one on the right. The solidity of 
 early seventeenth-century walls is shown in the 
 embrasure depth (measuring fully three feet) of 
 windows and doors. Up to fifty years ago all the 
 windows had leaded casements, as had every similar 
 Island dwelling-house. To-day, to the artist's regret, 
 he will hardly find one. The showy taste of the 
 Second Empire spread from Paris even to these 
 remote parts, and plate-glass, or at least oblong 
 panes, everywhere replaced the mediaeval style. 
 In 1854, Louis Renoufjust three and thirty, was
 
 io6 MONOCHROMES 
 
 about to bring his bride, Miss Betsy Mauger, home 
 to the old house. In her honour it was done up 
 throughout, and the diamonded casements were 
 replaced by guillotine windows, six panes to each 
 sash. 
 
 The best parlour then became a 'drawing- 
 room ' ; its raftered ceiling was white-washed, and 
 its great centre-beam of oak infamously papered 
 to match the walls. The newly-married couple 
 were not in a position to refurnish in approved 
 Second Empire fashion. The gilt and marble, 
 the console tables and mirrors, the impossibly 
 curved sofas and chairs, were for the moment 
 beyond them ; the wife promised herself to acquire 
 these later on. But later on came a brood of 
 sickly children (only one of whom reached man 
 hood) ; to the consequent expenses Les Calais 
 owed the preservation of its inlaid wardrobes, its 
 four-post bedsteads with slender fluted columns, 
 and its Chippendale parlour chairs, the backs of 
 which simulate a delicious intricacy of twisted 
 ribbons. As a little girl, Louisa Poidevin had 
 often amused herself studying these convolutions, 
 and seeking to puzzle out among the rippling 
 ribbons some beginning or some end ; but as she 
 grew up, even the simplest problem lost interest 
 for her, and the sight of the old Chippendale chairs 
 standing along the walls of the large parlour 
 scarcely stirred her bovine mind now to so much 
 as reminiscence. 
 
 It was the door of this large parlour that the 
 housekeeper opened as she announced, ' Here is
 
 POOR COUSIN LOUIS 107 
 
 Mrs Pedvinn come to see you, sir,' and followed 
 the visitor in. 
 
 Sitting in a capacious 'berceuse,' stuffed and 
 chintz-covered, was the shrunken figure of a more 
 than seventy-year-old man. He was wrapped in a 
 worn gray dressing-gown, with a black velvet 
 skull-cap napless at the seams covering his 
 spiritless hair, and he looked out upon his narrow 
 world from dim eyes set in cavernous orbits. In 
 their expression was something of the questioning 
 timidity of a child, contrasting curiously with the 
 querulousness of old age shown in the thin sucked- 
 in lips, now and again twitched by a movement in 
 unison with the twitching of the withered hands 
 spread out upon his knees. 
 
 The sunshine, slanting through the low windows, 
 bathed hands and knees, lean shanks and slippered 
 feet, in mote-flecked streams of gold. It bathed 
 anew rafters and ceiling-beam, as it had bathed them 
 at the same hour and season these last three hun 
 dred years ; it played over the worm-eaten 
 furniture, and lent transitory colour to the faded 
 samplers on the walls, bringing into prominence 
 one particular sampler, which depicted in silks 
 Adam and Eve seated beneath the fatal tree, and 
 recorded the fact that Marie Hoched6 was seventeen 
 in 1808 and put her 'trust in God'; and the same 
 ray kissed the cheek of that very Marie's son who 
 at the time her girlish fingers pricked the canvas 
 belonged to the enviable myriads of the unthought- 
 of and the unborn. 
 
 ' Why, how cold you are, Cousin Louis,' said
 
 io8 MONOCHROMES 
 
 Mrs Poidevin, taking his passive hand between 
 her two warm ones, and feeling a chill strike from 
 it through the violet kid gloves ; ' and in spite of 
 all this sunshine too ! ' 
 
 ' Ah, I'm not always in the sunshine,' said the 
 old man ; ' not always, not always in the sun 
 shine.' She was not sure that he recognised her, 
 yet he kept hold of her hand and would not let 
 it go. 
 
 ' No ; you are not always in de sunshine, because 
 de sunshine is not always here,' observed Mrs 
 Tourtel in a reasonable voice, and with a side 
 glance for the visitor. 
 
 ' And I am not always here either,' he murmured, 
 half to himself. He took a firmer hold of his 
 cousin's hand, and seemed to gain courage from 
 the comfortable touch, for his thin voice changed 
 from complaint to command. 'You can go, Mrs 
 Tourtel,' he said, ' we don't require you here. We 
 want to talk. You can go and set the tea-things 
 in the next room. My cousin will stay and drink 
 tea with me.' 
 
 ' Why, my cert'nly ! of course Mrs Pedvinn will 
 stay tea. P'r'aps you'd like to put your bonnet off 
 in the bedroom first, ma'am ? ' 
 
 ' No, no,' he interposed testily, ' she can lay it off 
 here. No need for you to take her upstairs.' 
 
 Servant and master exchanged a mute look ; for 
 the moment his old eyes were lighted up with the 
 unforeseeing, unveiled triumph of a child ; then 
 they fell before hers. She turned, leaving the 
 room with noiseless tread ; although a large-built,
 
 POOR COUSIN LOUIS 109 
 
 ponderous woman, she walked with the softness of 
 a cat. 
 
 ' Sit down here close beside me,' said Louis 
 Renouf to his cousin ; ' I've something to tell you, 
 something very important to tell you.' He 
 lowered his voice mysteriously, and glanced with 
 apprehension at window and door, squeezing tight 
 her hand. ' I'm being robbed, my dear, robbed 
 of everything I possess.' 
 
 Mrs Poidevin, already prepared for such a state 
 ment, answered complacently, ' Oh, it must be 
 your fancy, Cousin Louis. Mrs Tourtel takes too 
 good care of you for that.' 
 
 ' My dear,' he whispered, ' silver, linen, everything 
 is going ; even my fine white shirts from the shelves 
 of the wardrobe. Yet everything belongs to poor 
 John, who is in Australia, and who never writes to 
 his father now. His last letter is ten years old 
 ten years old, my dear, and I don't need to read it 
 over, for I know it by heart.' 
 
 Tears of weakness gathered in his eyes, and 
 began to trickle over on to his cheek. 
 
 ' Oh, Cousin John will write soon, I'm sure,' said 
 Mrs Poidevin, with easy optimism ; ' I shouldn't 
 wonder if he has made a fortune, and is on his way 
 home to you at this moment.' 
 
 ' Ah, he will never make a fortune, my dear, he 
 was always too fond of change. He had excellent 
 capabilities, Louisa, but he was too fond of 
 
 change And yet I often sit and pretend 
 
 to myself he has made money, and is as proud 
 to be with his poor old father as he used to be
 
 no MONOCHROMES 
 
 when quite a little lad. I plan out all we should 
 do, and all he would say, and just how he would 
 look .... but that's only my make-believe ; John 
 will never make money, never. But I'd be glad if 
 he would come back to the old home, though it 
 were without a penny. For if he don't come soon, 
 
 he'll find no home, and no welcome I raised 
 
 all the money I could when he went away, and 
 now, as you know, my dear, the house and land go 
 
 to you and Pedvinn But I'd like my poor boy 
 
 to have the silver and linen, and his mother's 
 furniture and needlework to remember us by.' 
 
 ' Yes, cousin, and he will have them some day, 
 but not for a great while yet, I hope.' 
 
 Louis Renouf shook his head, with the immov 
 able obstinacy of the very old or the very young. 
 
 ' Louisa, mark my words, he will get nothing, 
 nothing. Everything is going. They'll make 
 away with the chairs and the tables next, with 
 the very bed I lie on.' 
 
 1 Oh, Cousin Louis, you mustn't think such 
 things,' said Mrs Poidevin serenely; had not the 
 poor old man accused her to the Tourtels of 
 filching his mattress feathers ? 
 
 ' Ah, you don't believe me, my dear/ said he, 
 with a resignation which was pathetic ; ' but you'll 
 remember my words when I am gone. Six dozen 
 rat-tailed silver forks and spoons, with silver candle 
 sticks, and tray, and snuffers. Besides odd pieces, 
 and piles and piles of linen. Your cousin Betsy was 
 a notable housekeeper, and everything she bought 
 was of the very best. The large table-cloths were
 
 POOR COUSIN LOUIS in 
 
 five guineas apiece, my dear, British money five 
 guineas apiece.' 
 
 Louisa listened with perfect calmness and scant 
 attention. Circumstances too comfortable, and a 
 too abundant diet, had gradually undermined with 
 her all perceptive and reflective powers. Though, 
 of course, had the household effects been coming 
 to her as well as the land, she would have felt more 
 interest in them ; but it is only human nature to 
 contemplate the possible losses of others with 
 equanimity. 
 
 ' They must be handsome cloths, cousin,' she 
 said pleasantly ; ' I'm sure Pedvinn would never 
 allow me half so much for mine.' 
 
 At this moment there appeared, framed in the 
 open window, the hideous vision of an animated 
 gargoyle, with elf-locks of flaming red, and an 
 intense malignancy of expression. With a finger 
 dragging down the under eyelid of each eye, so 
 that the eyeball seemed to bulge out with a finger 
 pulling back either corner of the wide mouth, so 
 that it seemed to touch the ear this repulsive 
 apparition leered at the old man in blood-curdling 
 fashion. Then catching sight of Mrs Poidevin, 
 who sat dumbfounded, and with her ' heart in her 
 mouth,' as she afterwards expressed it, the fingers 
 dropped from the face, the features sprang back 
 into position, and the gargoyle resolved itself into 
 a buxom red-haired girl, who, bursting into a laugh, 
 impudently stuck her tongue out at them before 
 skipping away. 
 
 The old man had cowered down in his chair
 
 ii2 MONOCHROMES 
 
 with his hands over his eyes ; now he looked up. 
 ' I thought it was the old Judy,' he said, ' the old 
 Judy she is always telling me about. But it's only 
 Margot.' 
 
 ' And who is Margot, cousin ? ' inquired Louisa, 
 still shaken from the surprise. 
 
 ' She helps in the kitchen. But I don't like her. 
 She pulls faces at me, and jumps out upon me 
 from behind doors. And when the wind blows 
 and the windows rattle she tells me about the old 
 Judy from Jethou, who is sailing over the sea on a 
 broomstick, to come and beat me to death. Do 
 you know, my dear,' he said piteously, ' you'll think 
 I'm very silly, but I'm afraid up here by myself all 
 alone ? Do not leave me, Louisa ; stay with me, or 
 take me back to town with you. Pedvinn would 
 let me have a room in your house, I'm sure ? And 
 you wouldn't find me much trouble, and of course 
 I would bring my own bed linen, you know.' 
 
 ' You had best take your tea first, sir,' said Mrs 
 Tourtel from outside the window ; she held scissors 
 in her hand, and was busy trimming the roses. She 
 offered no excuse for eavesdropping. 
 
 The meal was set out, Island fashion, with 
 abundant cakes and sweets. Louisa saw in the 
 silver tea-set another proof, if need be, of her 
 cousin's unfounded suspicions. Mrs Tourtel stood 
 in the background, waiting. Renouf desired her 
 to pack his things ; he was going into town. ' To 
 be sure, sir,' she said civilly, and remained where 
 she stood. He brought a clenched hand down 
 upon the table, so that the china rattled. ' Are
 
 POOR COUSIN LOUIS, 113 
 
 you master here, or am I ? ' he cried ; ' I am going 
 down to my cousin Pedvinn's. To-morrow I shall 
 send my notary to put seals on everything, and to 
 take an inventory. For the future I shall live in 
 town.' 
 
 His senility had suddenly left him ; he spoke 
 with firmness ; it was a flash-up of almost extinct 
 fires. Louisa was astounded. Mrs Tourtel looked 
 at him steadily. Through the partition wall, 
 Tourtel in the kitchen heard the raised voice, 
 and followed his curiosity into the parlour. 
 Margot followed him. Seen near, and with her 
 features at rest, she appeared a plump, touzle- 
 headed girl, in whose low forehead and loose- 
 lipped mouth, crassness, cruelty, and sensuality 
 were unmistakably expressed. Yet freckled cheek, 
 rounded chin, and bare red mottled arms, presented 
 the beautiful curves of youth, and there was a 
 certain sort of attractiveness about her not to be 
 gainsaid. 
 
 ' Since my servants refuse to pack what I 
 require,' said Renouf with dignity, ' I will do it 
 myself. Come with me, Louisa.' 
 
 At a sign from the housekeeper, Tourtel and 
 Margot made way. Mrs Poidevin would have 
 followed her cousin, as the easiest thing to do 
 although she was confused by the old man's out 
 break, and incapable of deciding what course 
 she should take when the deep vindictive baying 
 of the dog ushered a new personage upon the 
 scene. 
 
 This was an individual who made his appearance 
 H
 
 u 4 MONOCHROMES 
 
 from the kitchen regions a tall, thin man of about 
 thirty years of age, with a pallid skin, a dark eye, 
 and a heavy moustache. His shabby black coat 
 and tie, with the cords and gaiters that clothed 
 his legs, suggested a combination of sportsman 
 and family practitioner. He wore a bowler hat, 
 and was pulling off tan driving gloves as he 
 advanced. 
 
 ' Ah my good ! Doctor Owen, but dat's you ? ' 
 said Mrs Tourtel. ' But we wants you here badly. 
 Your patient is in one of his tantrums, and no 
 one can't do nuddin wid him. He says he shall go 
 right away into town. Wants to make up again 
 wid Doctor Lelever for sure.' 
 
 The new comer and Mrs Poidevin were examin 
 ing each other with the curiosity one feels on first 
 meeting a person long known by reputation or by 
 sight. But now she turned to the housekeeper in 
 surprise. 
 
 'Has my cousin quarrelled with his old friend 
 Doctor Lelever ? ' she asked. ' I've heard nothing 
 of that.' 
 
 ' Ah, dis long time. He tought Doctor Lelever 
 made too little of his megrims. He won't have 
 nobody but Doctor Owen now. P'r'aps you know 
 Doctor Owen, ma'am ? Mrs Pedvinn, Doctor ; 
 de master's cousin, come up to visit him.' 
 
 Renouf was heard moving about overhead ; 
 opening presses, dragging boxes. 
 
 Owen hung up his hat, putting his gloves inside 
 it. He rubbed his lean discoloured hands lightly 
 together, as a fly cleans its forelegs.
 
 POOR COUSIN LOUIS 115 
 
 ' Shall I just step up to him ? ' he said. ' It may 
 calm him, and distract his thoughts.' 
 
 With soft nimbleness, in a moment he was 
 upstairs. ' So that's Doctor Owen ? ' observed 
 Mrs Poidevin with interest. ' A splendid-looking 
 gentleman ! He must be very clever, I'm sure. 
 Is he beginning to get a good practice yet ? ' 
 
 ' Ah, bah, our people, as you know, ma'am, dey 
 don't like no strangers, specially no Englishmen. 
 He was very glad when Mr Rennuf sent for 
 
 him 'Twas through Margot there. She got 
 
 took bad one Saturday coming back from market 
 from de heat or de squidge ' (crowd), ' and Doctor 
 Owen he overtook her on the road in his gig, and 
 druv her home. Den de master, he must have a 
 talk with him, and so de next time he fancy 
 hisself ill, he send for Doctor Owen, and since 
 den he don't care for Doctor Lelever no more at 
 all.' 
 
 ' I ought to be getting off/ remarked Mrs 
 Poidevin, remembering the hour at which the 
 omnibus left Vauvert ; ' had I better go up and 
 bid cousin Louis good-bye ? ' 
 
 Mrs Tourtel thought Margot should go and ask 
 the Doctor's opinion first, but as Margot had 
 already vanished, she went herself. 
 
 There was a longish pause, during which Mrs 
 Poidevin looked uneasily at Tourtel; he with rest 
 less, furtive eyes at her. Then the housekeeper 
 reappeared, noiseless, cool, determined as ever. 
 
 ' Mr Rennuf is quiet now,' she said ; ' de Doctor 
 have given him a soothing draught, and will stay to
 
 ii6 MONOCHROMES 
 
 see how it axe. He tinks you better slip quietly 
 away.' 
 
 On this, Louisa Poidevin left Les Calais ; but in 
 spite of her easy superficiality, her unreasoning 
 optimism, she took with her a sense of oppression. 
 Cousin Louis's appeal rang in her ears : ' Do not 
 leave me ; stay with me, or take me back with you. 
 I am afraid up here, quite alone.' And after all, 
 though his fears were but the folly of old age, why, 
 she asked herself, should he not come and stay 
 with them in town if he wished to do so ? She 
 resolved to talk it over with Pedvinn ; she thought 
 she would arrange for him the little west room, 
 being the furthest from the nurseries ; and in 
 planning out such vastly important trifles as to 
 which easy-chair and which bed-room candlestick 
 she would devote to his use, she forgot the old 
 man himself and recovered her usual stolid 
 jocundity. 
 
 When Owen had entered the bedroom, he had 
 found Renouf standing over an open portmanteau, 
 into which he was placing hurriedly whatever 
 caught his eye or took his fancy, from the sur 
 rounding tables. His hand trembled from eager 
 ness, his pale old face was flushed with excitement 
 and hope. Owen, going straight up to him, put 
 his two hands on his shoulders, and without 
 uttering a word, gently forced him backwards into 
 a chair. Then he sat down in front of him, so 
 close that their knees touched, and fixing his 
 strong eyes on Renoufs wavering ones, and 
 stroking with his finger-tips the muscles behind
 
 POOR COUSIN LOUIS 117 
 
 the ears, he threw him immediately into an 
 hypnotic trance. 
 
 'You want to stay here, don't you ?' said Owen, 
 emphatically. 
 
 ' I want to stay here,' repeated the old man 
 through gray lips. His face was become the 
 colour of ashes, his hands were cold to the sight. 
 
 'You want your cousin to go away and not 
 disturb you any more ? Answer answer me.' 
 
 ' I want my cousin to go away,' Renouf murmured, 
 but in his staring, fading eye were traces of the 
 struggle tearing him within. 
 
 Owen pressed down the eyelids, made another 
 pass before the face, and rose on his long legs with 
 a sardonic grin. Margot, leaning across a corner 
 of the bed, had watched him with breathless interest. 
 
 ' I b'lieve you're de Evil One himself/ she said, 
 admiringly. 
 
 Owen pinched her smooth chin between his 
 tobacco-stained thumb and fingers. 
 
 ' Pooh ! nothing but a trick I learned in Paris,' 
 said he ; ' it's very convenient to be able to put a 
 person to sleep now and again/ 
 
 1 Could you put any one to sleep ?' 
 
 ' Any one I wanted to.' 
 
 ' Do it to me then,' she begged him. 
 
 ' What use, my girl ? Don't you do all I wish 
 without ? ' 
 
 She grimaced, and picked at the bed-quilt 
 laughing, then rose and stood in front of him, her 
 round red arms clasped behind her head. But he 
 only glanced at her with professional interest.
 
 u8 MONOCHROMES 
 
 'You should get married, my dear, without 
 delay. Pierre would be ready enough, no doubt ? ' 
 
 ' Bah! Pierreorannuder if Ibroughtaweddin'por- 
 tion. You don't tink to provide me wid one, I s'pose?' 
 
 'You know that I can't. But why don't you 
 get it from the Tourtels ? You've earned it 
 before this, I dare swear.' 
 
 It was now that the housekeeper came up, and 
 took down to Louisa Poidevin the message given 
 above. But first she was detained by Owen, to 
 assist him in getting his patient into bed. 
 
 The old man woke up during the process, very 
 peevish, very determined to get to town. 'Well, 
 you can't go till to-morrow den,' said Mrs Tourtel ; 
 ' your cousin has gone home, an' now you've got to 
 go to sleep, so be quiet.' She dropped all sem 
 blance of respect in her tones. ' Come, lie down ! ' 
 she said sharply, 'or I'll send Margot to tickle 
 your feet.' He shivered and whimpered into 
 silence beneath the clothes. 
 
 ' Margot tells him 'bout witches, an ogres, and 
 scrapels her fingures 'long de wall, till he tinks dere 
 goin' to fly 'way wid him,' she explained to Owen 
 in an aside. 
 
 'Oh, I know Margot,' he answered laconically, 
 and thought, ' May I never lie helpless within reach 
 of such fingers as hers.' 
 
 He took a step, and stumbled over a port 
 manteau gaping open at his feet. ' Put your 
 mischievous paws to some use,' he told the girl, 
 ' and clear these things away from the floor ; ' then 
 remembering his rival Le Lievre ; ' if the old fool
 
 POOR COUSIN LOUIS 119 
 
 had really got away to town, it would have been a 
 nice day's work for us all/ he added. 
 
 Downstairs he joined the Tourtels in the 
 kitchen, a room situated behind the living-room 
 on the left, with low green glass windows, rafters 
 and woodwork smoke-browned with the fires of a 
 dozen generations. In the wooden racks over by 
 the chimney hung flitches of home-cured bacon, 
 and the kettle was suspended by three chains over 
 the centre of the wide hearth, where glowed and 
 crackled an armful of sticks. So dark was the 
 room, in spite of the daylight outside, that two 
 candles were set in the centre of the table, 
 enclosing in their circles of yellow light the pale 
 face and silver hair of the housekeeper, and Tourtel's 
 rugged head and weather-beaten countenance. 
 
 He had glasses ready, and a bottle of the cheap 
 brandy for which the Island is famous. ' You'll 
 take a drop of something, eh, Doctor ? ' he said as 
 Owen seated himself on the jonquiere, a padded 
 settle green baize covered, to replace the primi 
 tive rushes fitted on one side of the hearth. He 
 stretched his long legs into the light, and for a 
 moment considered moodily the old gaiters and 
 cobbled boots. ' You've seen to the horse ? ' he 
 asked Tourtel. 
 
 ' My cert'nly ; he's in de stable dis hour back, 
 an' I've given him a feed. I tought maybe you'd 
 make a night of it ? ' 
 
 ' I may as well for all the work I have to do,' 
 said Owen with sourness ; ' a damned little Island 
 this for doctors. Nothing ever the matter with
 
 120 MONOCHROMES 
 
 any one except the " creeps," and those who have it 
 spend their last penny in making it worse.' 
 
 ' Dere's as much illness here as anywhere,' said 
 Tourtel, defending the reputation of his native soil, 
 ' if once you gets among de right class, among de 
 people as has de time an' de money to make 
 dereselves ill. But if you go foolin' roun' wid 
 de paysans, what can you expeck ? We workin' 
 folks can't afford to lay up an' buy ourselves 
 doctors' stuff.' 
 
 ' And how am I to get among the right class ? ' 
 retorted Owen, sucking the ends of his moustache 
 into his mouth and chewing them savagely. 'A 
 more confounded set of stuck-up, beggarly aristo 
 crats I never met than your people here.' His 
 discontented eye rested on Mrs Tourtel. ' That Mrs 
 Pedvinn is the wife of Pedvinn the Jurat, I suppose ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, de Pedvinns of Rohais.' 
 
 ' Good people,' said Owen thoughtfully ; ' in with 
 the de Caterelles, and the Dadderney ' (d' Aldenois) 
 ' set. Are there children ? ' 
 
 'Tree.' 
 
 He took a drink of the spirit and water ; his 
 bad temper passed. Margot came in from upstairs. 
 
 ' De marster sleeps as dough he'd never wake 
 again,' she announced, flinging herself into the 
 chair nearest Owen. 
 
 ' It's 'bout time he did,' Tourtel growled. 
 
 ' I should have thought it more to your interest 
 to keep him alive?' Owen inquired. 'A good 
 place, surely ? ' 
 
 ' A good place if you like to call it so,' the wife
 
 POOR COUSIN LOUIS 121 
 
 answered him ; ' but what, if he go to town, as he 
 say to-night ? and what, if he send de notary, to 
 put de scelles here ? den he take up again wid Dr 
 Lelever, dat's certain.' And Tourtel added in his 
 surly key, ' Anyway, I've been .workin' here desc 
 tirty years now, and dat's 'bout enough.' 
 
 ' In fact, when the orange is sucked, you throw 
 away the peel ? But are you quite sure it is 
 sucked dry ? ' 
 
 ' De house an' de Ian' go to de Pedvinns, an' all 
 de money die too, for de little he had left when 
 young John went 'crost de seas, he sunk in a 
 'nuity. Dere's nuddin' but de lining an' plate, an' 
 such like, as goes to de son.' 
 
 'And what he finds of that, I expect, will 
 scarcely add to his impedimenta ? ' said Owen, 
 grinning. He thought, ' The old man is well known 
 in the Island, the name of his medical attendant 
 would get mentioned in the papers at least ; just as 
 well Lelever should not have the advertisement.' 
 Besides, there were the Poidevins. 
 
 ' You might say a good word for me to Mrs 
 Pedvinn, ' he said aloud, ' I live nearer to Rohais 
 than Lelever does, and with young children she 
 might be glad to have some one at hand.' 
 
 ' You may be sure you won't never find me un 
 grateful, sir,' answered the housekeeper ; and Owen, 
 shading his eyes with his hand, sat pondering over 
 the use of this word ' ungrateful,' with its faint yet 
 perceptible emphasis. 
 
 Margot, meanwhile, laid the supper ; the remains 
 of a rabbit-pie, a big ' pinclos ' or spider crab, with
 
 122 MONOCHROMES 
 
 thin, red knotted legs, spreading far over the edges 
 of the dish, the apple-gdche, hot from the oven, 
 cider, and the now half-empty bottle of brandy. 
 The four sat down and fell to. Margot was in 
 boisterous spirits ; everything she said or did was 
 meant to attract Owen's attention. Her cheeks 
 flamed with excitement ; she wanted his eyes to be 
 perpetually upon her. But Owen's interest in her 
 had long ceased. To-night, while eating heartily, 
 he was absorbed in his ruling passion : to get on in 
 the world, to make money, to be admitted into 
 Island society. Behind the pallid, impenetrable 
 mask, which always enraged yet intimidated 
 Margot, he plotted incessantly, schemed, combined, 
 weighed this and that, studied his prospects from 
 every point of view. 
 
 Supper over, he lighted his meerschaum ; Tourtel 
 produced a short clay, and the bottle was passed 
 between them. The women left them together, 
 and for ten, twenty minutes, there was complete 
 silence in the room. Tourtel let his pipe go out, 
 and rapped it down brusquely upon the table. 
 
 ' It must come to an end,' he said with suppressed 
 ferocity ; ' are we eider to spen' de whole of our 
 lives here, or else be turned off at de eleventh hour 
 after sufferin' all de heat an' burden of de day ? 
 It's onreasonable. An' dere's de cottage at Cottu 
 standin' empty, an' me havin' to pay a man to look 
 after de tomato houses, when I could get fifty per 
 cent, more by lookin' after dem myself .... An' 
 what profit is such a sickly, shiftless life as dat ? 
 My good ! dere's not a man, woman, or chile in de
 
 POOR COUSIN LOUIS 123 
 
 Islan's as will shed a tear when he goes, an' dere's 
 some, I tells you, as have suffered from his whim 
 sies dese tirty years, as will rejoice. Why, his wife 
 was dead already when we come here, an' his on'y 
 son, a dirty, drunken, lazy vaurien too, has never 
 been near him for fifteen years, nor written neider. 
 
 Dead most likely, in foreign parts An' 
 
 what's he want to stay for, contraryin' an' thwartin' 
 dem as have sweated an' laboured, an' now, please 
 de good God, wan's to sit 'neath de shadow of 
 dere own fig-tree for de short time dat remains to 
 dem ? . . . . An' what do we get for stayin' ? Forty 
 pound, Island money, between de two of us, an' 
 de little I makes from de flowers, an' poultry, an' 
 such like. An' what do we do for it ? Bake, an' 
 wash, an' clean, an' cook, an' keep de garden in 
 
 order, an' nuss him in all his tantrums If 
 
 we was even on his testament, I'd say nuddin. But 
 everything goes to Pedvinns, an' de son John, an' 
 de little bit of income dies wid him. I tell you 'tis 
 'bout time dis came to an end/ 
 
 Owen recognised that Destiny asked no sin 
 more heinous from him than silence, perhaps con 
 cealment ; the chestnuts would reach him without 
 risk of burning his hand. ' It's time,' said he, ' I 
 thought of going home. Get your lantern and I'll 
 help you with the trap. But first, I'll just run up 
 and have another look at Mr Rennuf.' 
 
 For the last time the five personages of this 
 obscure little tragedy found themselves together in 
 the bed-room, now lighted by a small lamp which 
 stood on the wash-hand stand. Owen, who had to
 
 124 MONOCHROMES 
 
 stoop to enter the door, could have touched the 
 low-pitched ceiling with his hand. The bed, with 
 its slender pillars, supporting a canopy of faded 
 damask, took up the greater part of the room. 
 There was a fluted headpiece of the damask, and 
 long curtains of the same material, looped up on 
 either side of the pillows. Sunken in these lay the 
 head of the old man, crowned with a cotton night 
 cap, the eyes closed, the skin drawn tight over the 
 skull, the outline of the attenuated form indistin 
 guishable beneath the clothes. The arms lay 
 outside the counterpane, straight down on either 
 side ; and the mechanical playing movement of the 
 fingers showed he was not asleep. Margot and 
 Mrs Tourtel watched him from the bed's foot. 
 Their gigantic shadows, thrown forward by 
 the lamp, stretched up the opposite wall, and 
 covered half the ceiling. The old-fashioned 
 mahogany furniture, with its fillets of paler wood, 
 drawn in ovals, upon the doors of the presses, their 
 centrepieces of fruit and flowers, shone out here and 
 there with reflected light; and the looking-glass, 
 swung on corkscrew mahogany pillars between 
 the damask window curtains, gleamed lake-like 
 amidst the gloom. 
 
 Owen and Tourtel joined the women at the bed- 
 foot. Though each was absorbed entirely in his own 
 egotisms, all were animated by the same secret 
 desire. Yet, to the feeling heart, there was some 
 thing unspeakably pleading in the sight of the old 
 man lying there, in his helplessness, in the very 
 room, on the very bed, which had seen his
 
 POOR COUSIN LOUIS 125 
 
 wedding-night forty years before ; where as a 
 much-wished-for and welcomed infant, he had 
 opened his eyes to the light more than seventy 
 years since. He had been helpless then as now, 
 but then the child had been held to loving hearts, 
 loving fingers had tended him, a young and loving 
 mother lay beside him, the circumference of all his 
 tiny world, as he was the core and centre of all of 
 hers. And from being that exquisite, well-beloved 
 little child, he had passed thoughtlessly, hopefully, 
 despairfully, wearily, through all the stages of life, 
 until he had come to this a poor, old, feeble, 
 helpless, worn-out man, lying there where he had 
 been born, but with all those who had loved him 
 carried long ago to the grave ; with the few who 
 might have protected him still, his son, his cousin, 
 his old friend Le Lievre, as powerless to save him 
 as the silent dead. 
 
 Renouf opened his eyes, looked in turn at the 
 four faces before him, and read as much pity in 
 them as in masks of stone. He turned himself to 
 the pillow again and to his miserable thoughts. 
 
 Owen took out his watch, went round to count 
 the pulse, and in the hush the tick of the big 
 silver timepiece could be heard. 
 
 'There is extreme weakness,' came his quiet 
 verdict. 
 
 ' Sinking ? ' whispered Tourtel loudly. 
 
 1 No ; care and constant nourishment are all 
 that are required ; strong beef-tea, port wine jelly, 
 cream beaten up with a little brandy at short 
 intervals, every hour say. And of course no
 
 126 MONOCHROMES 
 
 excitement ; nothing to irritate, or alarm him ' 
 (Owen's eye met Margot's) ; ' absolute quiet and 
 rest.' He came back to the foot of the bed and 
 spoke in a lower tone. ' It's just one of the usual 
 cases of senile decay,' said he, ' which I observe 
 every one comes to here in the Islands (unless he 
 has previously killed himself by drink), the results 
 of breeding in. But Mr Rennuf may last months, 
 years longer. In fact, if you follow out my 
 directions, there is every probability that he will.' 
 
 Tourtel and his wife shifted their gaze from 
 Owen to look into each other's eyes ; Margot's 
 loose mouth lapsed into a smile. Owen felt cold 
 water running down his back. The atmosphere 
 of the room seemed to stifle him ; reminiscences 
 of his student days crowded on him : the horror 
 of an unperverted mind, at its first spectacle of 
 cruelty, again seized hold of him, vivid as though 
 no twelve benumbing years were wedged between. 
 At all costs he must get out into the open air. 
 
 He turned to go. Louis Renouf opened his 
 eyes, followed the form making its way to the 
 door, and understood. ' You won't leave me, 
 doctor ? surely you won't leave me ? ' came the 
 last words of piercing entreaty. 
 
 The man felt his nerve going all to pieces. 
 
 ' Come, come, my good sir, do you think I am 
 going to stay here all night?' he answered 
 brutally. . . . Outside, Tourtel touched his sleeve. 
 ' And suppose your directions are not carried out ? ' 
 he asked in his thick whisper. 
 
 Owen gave no spoken answer, but Tourtel was
 
 POOR COUSIN LOUIS 127 
 
 satisfied. ' I'll come an' put the horse in,' he said, 
 leading the way through the kitchen to the stables. 
 Owen drove off with a parting curse and cut with 
 the whip because the horse slipped upon the 
 stones. A long ray of light from Tourtel's lantern 
 followed him down the lane. When he turned 
 out on to the high road to St Gilles, he reined in 
 a moment, to look back at Les Calais. This is 
 the one point from which a portion of the house 
 is visible, and he could see the lighted window of 
 the old man's bedroom plainly through the trees. 
 
 What was happening there? he asked himself; 
 and the Tourtels' cupidity and callousness, Margot's 
 coarse cruel tricks, rose before him with appalling 
 distinctness. Yet the price was in his hand, the 
 first step of the ladder gained ; he saw himself 
 to-morrow, perhaps, in the drawing-room of Rohais, 
 paying the necessary visit of intimation and 
 condolence. He felt he had already won Mrs 
 Poidevin's favour. Among women, always poor 
 physiognomists, he knew he passed for a hand 
 some man ; among the Islanders, the assurance 
 of his address would pass for good breeding ; all 
 he had lacked hitherto was the opportunity to 
 shine. This, his acquaintance with Mrs Poidevin 
 would secure him. And he had trampled on his 
 conscience so often before, it had now little 
 elasticity left. Just an extra glass of brandy 
 to-morrow, and to-day would be as securely laid 
 as those other episodes of his past. 
 
 While he watched, some one shifted the 
 lamp .... a woman's shadow was thrown upon
 
 128 MONOCHR6MES 
 
 the white blind .... it wavered, grew monstrous, 
 and spread, until the whole window was shrouded 
 
 in gloom Owen put the horse into a 
 
 gallop .... and from up at Les Calais the long- 
 drawn melancholy howling of the dog filled with 
 forebodings the silent night.
 
 THE PLEASURE-PILGRIM
 
 THE PLEASURE-PILGRIM 
 
 I 
 
 CAMPBELL was on his ,way to Schloss Altenau, 
 for a second quiet season with his work. He had 
 spent three profitable months there a year ago, 
 and he was hoping now for a repetition of 
 that good fortune. His thoughts outran the train ; 
 and long before his arrival at the Hamelin railway 
 station, he was enjoying his welcome by the 
 Ritterhausens, was revelling in the ease and 
 comfort of the old Castle, and was contrasting the 
 pleasures of his home-coming for he looked upon 
 Schloss Altenau as a sort of temporary home 
 with his recent cheerless experiences of "lodging- 
 houses in London, hotels in Berlin, and strange 
 indifferent faces everywhere. He thought with 
 especial satisfaction of the Maynes, and of the good 
 talks Mayne and he would have together, late at 
 night, before the great fire in the hall, after the rest 
 of the household had gone to bed. He blessed the 
 adverse circumstances which had turned Schloss 
 Altenau into a boarding-house, and had reduced 
 the Freiherr Ritterhausen to eke out his shrunken
 
 i 3 2 MONOCHROMES 
 
 revenues by the reception, as paying guests, of 
 English and American pleasure-pilgrims. 
 
 He rubbed the blurred window-pane with the 
 fringed end of the strap hanging from it, and, in the 
 snow-covered landscape reeling towards him, began 
 to recognise objects that were familiar. Hamelin 
 could not be far off. .... In another ten minutes 
 the train came to a standstill. 
 
 He stepped down with a sense of relief from the 
 overheated atmosphere of his compartment into the 
 cold, bright February afternoon, and saw through 
 the open station doors one of the Ritterhausen 
 carriages awaiting him, with Gottlieb in his second- 
 best livery on the box. Gottlieb showed every 
 reasonable consideration for the Baron's boarders, 
 but had various methods of marking his sense of 
 the immense abyss separating them from the family. 
 The use of his second-best livery was one of these 
 methods. Nevertheless, he turned a friendly 
 German eye up to Campbell, and in response to 
 his cordial ' Guten Tag, Gottlieb. Wie geht's ? 
 Und die Herrschaften ? ' expressed his pleasure at 
 seeing the young man back again. 
 
 While Campbell stood at the top of the steps 
 that led down to the carriage and the Platz, looking 
 after the collection of his luggage and its bestowal 
 by Gottlieb's side, he became aware of two persons, 
 ladies, advancing towards him from the direction 
 of the Wartsaal. It was surprising to see any one 
 at any time in Hamelin Station. It was still more 
 surprising when one of these ladies addressed him 
 by name.
 
 THE PLEASURE-PILGRIM 133 
 
 'You are Mr Campbell, are you not?' she said. 
 ' We have been waiting for you to go back in the 
 carriage together. When we found this morning 
 that there was only half-an-hour between your train 
 and ours, I told the Baroness it would be perfectly 
 absurd to send to the station twice. I hope you 
 won't mind our company ? ' 
 
 The first impression Campbell received was of 
 the magnificent apparel of the lady before him ; it 
 would have been noticeable in Paris or Vienna it 
 was extravagant here. Next, he perceived that the 
 face beneath the upstanding feathers and the 
 curving hat-brim was that of so very young a girl, 
 as to make the furs and velvets seem more incon 
 gruous still. But the sense of incongruity vanished 
 with the intonation of her first phrase, which told 
 him she was an American. He had no standards for 
 American conduct. It was clear that the speaker 
 and her companion were inmates of the Schloss. 
 
 He bowed, and murmured the pleasure he did 
 not feel. A true Briton, he was intolerably shy ; 
 and his heart sank at the prospect of a three-mile 
 drive with two strangers who evidently had the 
 advantage of knowing all about him, while he was 
 in ignorance of their very names. As he took his 
 place opposite to them in the carriage, he uncon 
 sciously assumed a cold, blank stare, pulling 
 nervously at his moustache, as was his habit in 
 moments of discomposure. Had his companions 
 been British also, the ordeal of the drive must have 
 been a terrible one ; but these young American 
 ladies showed no sense of embarrassment whatever.
 
 134 MONOCHROMES 
 
 1 We've just come back from Hanover/ said the 
 girl who had already spoken to him. ' I go over 
 once a week for a singing lesson, and my little 
 sister comes along to take care of me.' 
 
 She turned a narrow, smiling glance from 
 Campbell to her little sister, and then back to 
 Campbell again. She had red hair; freckles on 
 her nose, and the most singular eyes he had ever 
 seen; slit-like eyes, set obliquely in her head, 
 Chinese fashion. 
 
 ' Yes, Lulie requires a great deal of taking care 
 of/ assented the little sister sedately, though the 
 way in which she said this seemed to imply some 
 thing less simple than the words themselves. The 
 speaker bore no resemblance to Lulie. She was 
 smaller, thinner, paler. Her features were straight, 
 a trifle peaked ; her skin sallow ; her hair of a non 
 descript brown. She was much less gorgeously 
 dressed. There was even a suggestion of shabbi- 
 ness in her attire, though sundry isolated details of 
 it were handsome too. She was also much less 
 young ; or so, at any rate, Campbell began by 
 pronouncing her. Yet presently he wavered. She 
 had a face that defied you to fix her age. Campbell 
 never fixed it to his own satisfaction, but veered in 
 the course of that drive (as he was destined to do 
 during the next few weeks) from point to point up 
 and down the scale from eighteen to thirty-five. 
 She wore a spotted veil, and beneath it a pince-nez, 
 the lenses of which did something to temper the 
 immense amount of humorous meaning which 
 lurked in her gaze. When her pale prominent
 
 THE PLEASURE-PILGRIM 135 
 
 eyes met Campbell's, it seemed to the young man 
 that they were full of eagerness to add something 
 at his expense to the stores of information they had 
 already garnered up. They chilled him with mis 
 givings ; there was more comfort to be found in 
 her sister's shifting, red-brown glances. 
 
 ' Hanover is a long way to go for lessons,' he 
 observed, forcing himself to be conversational. ' I 
 used to go there myself about once a week, when I 
 first came to Schloss Altenau, for tobacco, or note- 
 paper, or to get my hair cut. But later on I did 
 without, or contented myself with what Hamelin, 
 or even the village, could offer me.' 
 
 ' Nannie and I,' said the young girl, ' meant to 
 stay only a week at Altenau, on our way to 
 Hanover, where we were going to pass the winter ; 
 but the Castle is just too lovely for anything.' 
 She raised her eyelids the least little bit as she 
 looked at him, and such a warm and friendly gaze 
 shot out, that Campbell was suddenly thrilled. 
 Was she pretty, after all ? He glanced at Nannie ; 
 she, at least, was indubitably plain. ' It's the very 
 first time we've ever stayed in a castle,' Lulie went 
 on ; ' and we're going to remain right along now, 
 until we go home in the spring. Just imagine living 
 in a house with a real moat, and a drawbridge, and 
 a Rittersaal, and suits of armour that have been 
 actually worn in battle! And oh, that delightful 
 iron collar and chain ! You remember it, Mr 
 Campbell ? It hangs right close to the gateway on 
 the courtyard side. And you know, in old days 
 the Ritterhausens used it for the punishment of
 
 136 MONOCHROMES 
 
 their serfs. There are horrible stones connected 
 with it. Mr Mayne can tell you them. But just 
 think of being chained up there like a dog ! So 
 wonderfully picturesque.' 
 
 ' For the spectator perhaps,' said Campbell, 
 smiling. ' I doubt if the victim appreciated the 
 picturesque aspect of the case.' 
 
 With this Lulie disagreed. ' Oh, I think he 
 must have been interested/ she said. ' It must 
 have made him feel so absolutely part and parcel 
 of the Middle Ages. I persuaded Mr Mayne to 
 fix the collar round my neck the other day ; and 
 though it was very uncomfortable, and I had to 
 stand on tiptoe, it seemed to me that all at once 
 the courtyard was filled with knights in armour, 
 and crusaders, and palmers, and things ; and there 
 were flags flying and trumpets sounding ; and all 
 the dead and gone Ritterhausens had come down 
 from their picture-frames, and were walking about 
 in brocaded gowns and lace ruffles.' 
 
 ' It seemed to require a good deal of persua 
 sion to get Mr Mayne to unfix the collar again,' 
 said the little sister. ' How at last did you manage 
 it?' 
 
 But Lulie replied irrelevantly : ' And the Ritter 
 hausens are such perfectly lovely people, aren't 
 they, Mr Campbell? The old Baron is a perfect 
 dear. He has such a grand manner. When he 
 kisses my hand I feel nothing less than a princess. 
 And the Baroness is such a funny, busy, delicious 
 little round ball of a thing. And she's always 
 playing bagatelle, isn't she? Or else cutting up
 
 THE PLEASURE-PILGRIM 137 
 
 skeins of wool for carpet- making.' She meditated 
 a moment. ' Some people always are cutting 
 things up in order to join them together again,' 
 she announced, in her fresh drawling young voice. 
 
 'And some people cut things up, and leave 
 other pe6ple to do the reparation/ commented 
 the little sister enigmatically. 
 
 And meantime the carriage had been rattling 
 over the cobble - paved streets of the quaint 
 mediaeval town, where the houses stand so near 
 together that you may shake hands with your 
 opposite neighbour; where allegorical figures, 
 strange birds and beasts, are carved and painted 
 over the windows and doors ; and where to every 
 distant sound you lean your ear to catch the fairy 
 music of the Pied Piper, and at every street corner 
 you look to see his tatterdemalion form with the 
 frolicking children at his heels. 
 
 Then the Weser bridge was crossed, beneath 
 which the ice-floes jostled and ground themselves 
 together, as they forced their way down the river ; 
 and the carriage was rolling smoothly along country 
 roads, between vacant snow-decked fields. 
 
 Campbell's embarrassment began to wear off. 
 Now that he was getting accustomed to the girls, 
 he found neither of them awe-inspiring. The red- 
 haired one had a simple child-like manner that 
 was charming. Her strange little face, with its 
 piquant irregularity of line, its warmth of colour, 
 began to please him. What though her hair was 
 red, the uncurled wisp which strayed across her 
 white forehead was soft and alluring; he could
 
 138 MONOCHROMES 
 
 see soft masses of it tucked up beneath her 
 hat-brim as she turned her head. When she 
 suddenly lifted her red-brown lashes, those queer 
 eyes of hers had a velvety softness too. Decidedly, 
 she struck him as being pretty in a peculiar way. 
 He felt an immense accession of interest in her. 
 It seemed to him that he was the discoverer of 
 her possibilities. He did not doubt that the 
 rest of the world called her plain ; or at least 
 odd-looking. He, at first, had only seen the 
 freckles on her nose, her oblique-set eyes. He 
 wondered now what she thought of herself, how she 
 appeared to Nannie. Probably as a very ordinary 
 little girl ; sisters stand too close to see each 
 other's qualities. She was too young to have had 
 much opportunity of hearing flattering truths from 
 strangers ; and besides, the average stranger would 
 see nothing in her to call for flattering truths. 
 Her charm was something subtle, out-of-the- 
 common, in^ defiance of all known rules of beauty. 
 Campbell saw superiority in himself for recognising 
 it, for formulating it ; and he was not displeased to 
 be aware that it would always remain caviare to 
 the multitude. 
 
 The carriage had driven through the squalid 
 village of Diirrendorf, had passed the great Ritter- 
 hausen barns and farm-buildings, on the tie-beams 
 of which are carved Bible texts in old German ; had 
 turned in at the wide open gates of Schloss Altenau, 
 where Gottlieb always whipped up his horses to a 
 fast trot. Full of feeling both for the pocket and 
 the dignity of the Ritterhausens, he would not use
 
 THE PLEASURE-PILGRIM 139 
 
 up his beasts in unnecessary fast driving. But it 
 was to the credit of the family that he should reach 
 the Castle in fine style. And so he thundered 
 across the drawbridge, and through the great 
 archway pierced in the north wing, and over the 
 stones of the cobbled courtyard, to pull up before 
 the door of the hall, with much clattering of hoofs 
 and a final elaborate whip-flourish.
 
 II 
 
 ' I'M jolly glad to have you back,' Mayne said, that 
 same evening, when, the rest of the boarders having 
 retired to their rooms, he and Campbell were 
 lingering over the hall-fire for a talk and smoke. 
 ' I've missed you awfully, old chap, and the good 
 times we used to have here. I've often meant to 
 write to you, but you know how one shoves off 
 letter-writing day after day, till at last one is too 
 ashamed of one's indolence to write at all. But 
 tell me you had a pleasant drive from Hamelin ? 
 What do you think of our young ladies ? ' 
 
 ' Those American girls ? But they're charming,' 
 said Campbell, with enthusiasm. ' The red-haired 
 one is particularly charming.' 
 
 At this Mayne laughed so strangely that 
 Campbell, questioned him in surprise. ' Isn't she 
 charming ? ' 
 
 ' My dear chap,' Mayne told him, ' the red-haired 
 one, as you call her, is the most remarkably charm 
 ing young person I've ever met or read of. We've 
 had a good many American girls here before now 
 you remember the good old Choate family, of 
 course they were here in your time, I think ? 
 but we've never had anything like this Miss Lulie 
 Thayer. She is something altogether unique.'
 
 THE PLEASURE-PILGRIM 141 
 
 Campbell was struck with the name. ' Lulie 
 Lulie Thayer,' he repeated. ' How pretty it is ! ' 
 And, full of his great discovery, he felt he must 
 confide it to Mayne, at least. ' Do you know/ he 
 went on, 'she is really very pretty too? I didn't 
 think so at first, but after a bit I discovered that 
 she is positively quite pretty in an odd sort of way.' 
 
 Mayne laughed again. ' Pretty, pretty ! ' he 
 echoed in derision. ' Why, lieber Gott im Himmel, 
 where are your eyes ? Pretty ! The girl is beau 
 tiful, gorgeously beautiful ; every trait, every tint, 
 is in complete, in absolute harmony with the whole. 
 But the truth is, of course, we've all grown accus 
 tomed to the obvious, the commonplace ; to violent 
 contrasts ; blue eyes, black eyebrows, yellow hair ; 
 the things that shout for recognition. You speak 
 of Miss Thayer's hair as red. What other colour 
 would you have, with that warm, creamy skin? 
 And then, what a red it is ! It looks as though it 
 had been steeped in red wine.' 
 
 ' Ah, what a good description,' said Campbell, 
 appreciatively. ' That's just it steeped in red wine.' 
 
 ' Though it's not so much her beauty,' Mayne 
 continued. ' After all, one has met beautiful 
 women before now. It's her wonderful generosity, 
 her complaisance. She doesn't keep her good 
 things to herself. She doesn't condemn you to 
 admire from a distance.' 
 
 ' How do you mean ? ' Campbell asked, surprised 
 again. 
 
 'Why, she's the most egregious little flirt I've 
 ever met. And yet, she's not exactly a flirt,
 
 142 MONOCHROMES 
 
 either. I mean she doesn't flirt in the ordinary 
 way. She doesn't talk much, or laugh, or appar 
 ently make the least claims on masculine attention. 
 And so all the women like her. I don't believe 
 there's one, except my wife, who has an inkling as 
 to her true character. The Baroness, as you know, 
 never observes anything. Seigneur Dieu ! if she 
 knew the things I could tell her about Miss Lulie ! 
 For I've had opportunities of studying her. You 
 see, I'm a married man, and not in my first youth, 
 and the looker-on generally gets the best view of 
 the game. But you, who are young and charming 
 and already famous we've had your book here, by- 
 the-by, and there's good stuff in it you're going 
 to have no end of pleasant experiences. I can see 
 she means to add you to her ninety-and-nine other 
 spoils ; I saw it from the way she looked at you at 
 dinner. She always begins with those velvety red- 
 brown glances. She began that way with March 
 and Prendergast and Willie Anson, and all the 
 men we've had here since her arrival. The next 
 thing she'll do will be to press your hand under the 
 tablecloth.' 
 
 ' Oh come, Mayne, you're joking/ cried Camp 
 bell a little brusquely. He thought such jokes in 
 bad taste. He had a high ideal of Woman, an 
 immense respect for her ; he could not endure to 
 hear her belittled, even in jest. ' Miss Thayer is 
 refined and charming. No girl of her class would 
 do such things.' 
 
 ' But what is her class ? Who knows anything 
 about her ? All we know is that she and her uncanny
 
 THE PLEASURE-PILGRIM 143 
 
 little friend her little sister, as she calls her, though 
 they're no more sisters than you and I are they're 
 not even related all we know is, that she and Miss 
 Dodge (that's the little sister's name) arrived here 
 one memorable day last October from the Kron- 
 prinz Hotel at Waldeck-Pyrmont. By-the-by, 
 it was the Choates, I believe, who told her of the 
 Castle hotel acquaintances you know how travel 
 ling Americans always cotton to each other. And 
 we've picked up a few little auto and biographical 
 notes from her and Miss Dodge since. Zum 
 Beispiel) she's got a rich father somewhere away 
 back in Michigan, who supplies her with all the 
 money she wants. And she's been travelling about 
 since last May : Paris, Vienna, the Rhine, Diissel- 
 dorf, and so on here. She must have had some 
 rich experiences, by Jove, for she's done every 
 thing. Cycled in Paris ; you should see her in her 
 cycling costume, she wears it when the Baron 
 takes her out shooting she's an admirable shot by 
 the way, an accomplishment learned, I suppose, 
 from some American cow-boy then in Berlin 
 she did a month's hospital nursing ; and now she's 
 studying the higher branches of the Terpsichorean 
 art. You know she was in Hanover to-day. Did 
 she tell you what she went for ? ' 
 
 'To take a singing lesson,' said Campbell, 
 remembering the reason she had given. 
 
 ' A singing lesson ! Do you sing with your legs ? 
 A dancing lesson, mein lieber. A dancing lesson 
 from the ballet-master of the Hof Theater. She 
 could deposit a kiss on your forehead with her
 
 144 MONOCHROMES 
 
 foot, I don't doubt. I must ask her if she can do the 
 grand ccart yet.' And when Campbell, in astonish 
 ment, wondered why on earth she should wish to 
 learn such things, ' Oh, to extend her opportunities,' 
 Mayne explained, ' and to acquire fresh sensations. 
 She's an adventuress. Yes, an adventuress, but an 
 end-of-the-century one. She doesn't travel for 
 profit, but for pleasure. She has no desire to 
 swindle her neighbour, but to amuse herself. And 
 she's clever ; she's read a good deal ; she knows 
 how to apply her reading to practical life. Thus, 
 she's learned from Herrick not to be coy; and 
 from Shakespeare that sweet-and-twenty is the 
 time for kissing and being kissed. She honours 
 her masters in the observance. She was not in the 
 least abashed when, one day, I suddenly came 
 upon her teaching that damned idiot, young 
 Anson, two new ways of kissing.' 
 
 Campbell's impressions of the girl were readjust 
 ing themselves completely, but for the moment he 
 was unconscious of the change. He only knew 
 that he was partly angry, partly incredulous, and 
 inclined to believe that Mayne was chaffing him. 
 
 ' But, Miss Dodge,' he objected, ' the little sister, 
 she is older ; old enough to look after her friend. 
 Surely she could not allow a young girl placed in 
 her charge to behave in such a way ' 
 
 'Oh, that little Dodge girl,' said Mayne con 
 temptuously ; 'Miss Thayer pays the whole shot, I 
 understand, and Miss Dodge plays gooseberry, 
 sheep-dog, jackal, what you will. She finds her 
 reward in the other's cast-off finery. The silk
 
 THE PLEASURE-PILGRIM 145 
 
 blouse she was wearing to-night, I've good reason 
 for remembering, belonged to Miss Lulie. For, 
 during a brief season, I must tell you, my young 
 lady had the caprice to show attentions to your 
 humble servant I suppose my being a married 
 man lent me a factitious fascination. But I didn't 
 see it. That kind of girl doesn't appeal to me. 
 So she employed Miss Dodge to do a little active 
 canvassing. It was really too funny ; I was coming 
 in one day after a walk in the woods ; my wife was 
 trimming bonnets, or had neuralgia, or something. 
 Anyhow, I was alone, and Miss Dodge contrived to 
 waylay me in the middle of the courtyard. " Don't 
 you find it vurry dull walking all by yourself?" she 
 asked me ; and then blinking up in her strange little 
 short-sighted way she's really the weirdest little 
 creature " Why don't you make love to Lulie ? " 
 she said ; " you'd find her vurry charming." It 
 took me a minute or two to recover presence of 
 mind enough to ask her whether Miss Thayer had 
 commissioned her to tell me so. She looked at me 
 with that cryptic smile of hers ; " She'd like you to 
 do so, I'm sure," she finally remarked, and 
 pirouetted away. Though it didn't come off, 
 owing to my bashfulness, it was then that Miss 
 Dodge appropriated the silk " waist " ; and Pro 
 vidence, taking pity on Miss Thayer's forced 
 inactivity, sent along March, a young fellow reading 
 for the army, with whom she had great doings. 
 She fooled him to the top of his bent ; sat on his 
 knee ; gave him a lock of her hair, which, having 
 no scissors handy, she burned off with a cigarette 
 taken from his mouth; and got him to offer her 
 
 K
 
 i 4 6 MONOCHROMES 
 
 marriage. Then she turned round and laughed in 
 his face, and took up with a Dr Weber, a cousin of 
 the Baron's, under the other man's very eyes. You 
 never saw anything like the unblushing coolness 
 with which she would permit March to catch her 
 in Weber's arms.' 
 
 'Come,' Campbell protested again, 'aren't you 
 drawing it rather strong ? ' 
 
 ' On the contrary, I'm drawing it mild, as you'll 
 discover presently for yourself; and then you'll 
 thank me for forewarning you. For she makes 
 l ove desperate love, mind you to every man she 
 meets. And goodness knows how many she hasn't 
 met in the course of her career, which began pre 
 sumably at the age of ten, in some " Amur'can " 
 hotel or watering-place. Look at this.' Mayne 
 fetched an alpenstock from a corner of the hall ; it 
 was decorated with a long succession of names, 
 which, ribbon-like, were twisted round and round 
 it, carved in the wood. ' Read them,' insisted 
 Mayne, putting the stick in Campbell's hands. 
 ' You'll see they're not the names of the peaks she 
 has climbed, or the towns she has passed through ; 
 they're the names of the men she has fooled. And 
 there's room for more ; there's still a good deal of 
 space, as you see. There's room for yours.' 
 
 Campbell glanced down the alpenstock reading 
 here a name, there an initial, or just a date and 
 jerked it impatiently from him on to a couch. He 
 wished with all his heart that Mayne would stop, 
 would talk of something else, would let him get 
 away. The young girl had interested him so
 
 THE PLEASURE-PILGRIM 147 
 
 much ; he had felt himself so drawn towards her ; he 
 had thought her so fresh, so innocent. But Mayne, 
 on the contrary, was warming to his subject, was 
 enchanted to have some one to listen to his stories, 
 to discuss his theories, to share his cynical 
 amusement. 
 
 ' I don't think, mind you/ he said, ' that she is a bit 
 interested herself in the men she flirts with. I don't 
 think she gets any of the usual sensations from it, 
 you know. My theory is, she does it for mere 
 devilry, for a laugh. Or, and this is another 
 theory, she is actuated by some idea of retribution. 
 Perhaps some woman she was fond of her 
 mother even who knows ? was badly treated at 
 the hands of a man. Perhaps this girl has con 
 stituted herself the Nemesis for her sex, and goes 
 about seeing how many masculine hearts she can 
 break, by way of revenge. Or can it be that she is 
 simply the newest development of the New 
 Woman she who in England preaches and bores 
 you, and in America practises and pleases ? Yes, 
 I believe she's the American edition, and so new 
 that she hasn't yet found her way into fiction. 
 She's the pioneer of the army coming out of the 
 West, that's going to destroy the existing scheme 
 of things, and rebuild it nearer to the heart's desire.' 
 
 ' Oh, damn it all, Mayne,' cried Campbell, rising 
 abruptly, ' why not say at once that she's a wanton, 
 and have done with it ? Who wants to hear your 
 rotten theories?' And he lighted his candle 
 without another word, and went off to bed.
 
 Ill 
 
 IT was four o'clock, and the Baron's boarders were 
 drinking their afternoon coffee, drawn up in a semi 
 circle round the hall fire. All but Campbell, who 
 had carried his cup away to a side-table, and, with 
 a book open beside him, appeared to be reading 
 assiduously. In reality he could not follow a line 
 of what he read ; he could not keep his thoughts 
 from Miss Thayer. What Mayne had told him 
 was germinating in his mind. Knowing his friend 
 as he did, he could not on reflection doubt his 
 word. In spite of much superficial cynicism, Mayne 
 was incapable of speaking lightly of any young girl 
 without good cause. It now seemed to Campbell 
 that, instead of exaggerating the case, Mayne had 
 probably understated it. He asked himself with 
 horror, what had this girl not already known, 
 seen, permitted ? When now and again his eyes 
 travelled over, perforce, to where she sat, her red 
 head leaning against Miss Dodge's knee, and seem 
 ing to attract to, and concentrate upon itself all the 
 glow of the fire, his forehead set itself in frowns, 
 and he returned to his book with an increased sense 
 of irritation.
 
 THE PLEASURE-PILGRIM 149 
 
 ' I'm just sizzling up, Nannie,' Miss Thayer 
 presently complained, in her child-like, drawling 
 little way ; ' this fire is too hot for anything/ 
 She rose and shook straight her loose tea-gown, 
 a marvellous plush and lace garment created in 
 Paris, which would have accused a duchess of 
 wilful extravagance. She stood smiling round a 
 moment, pulling on and off with her right hand 
 a big diamond ring which decorated the left. 
 At the sound of her voice Campbell had looked 
 up, and his cold, unfriendly eyes encountered hers. 
 He glanced rapidly past her, then back to his 
 book. But she, undeterred, with a charming sinu 
 ous movement and a frou-frou of trailing silks, 
 crossed over towards him. She slipped into an 
 empty chair next his. 
 
 ' I'm going to do you the honour of sitting 
 beside you, Mr Campbell,' she said sweetly. 
 
 ' It's an honour I've done nothing whatever to 
 merit,' he answered, without looking at her, and 
 turned a page. 
 
 'The right retort,' she approved; 'but you 
 might have said it a little more cordially.' 
 
 ' I don't feel cordial.' 
 
 ' But why not ? What has happened ? Yester 
 day you were so nice.' 
 
 ' Ah, a good deal of water has run under the 
 bridge since yesterday.' 
 
 ' But still the river remains as full/ she told him, 
 smiling, ' and still the sky is as blue. The thermo 
 meter has even risen six degrees.'
 
 ISO MONOCHROMES 
 
 ' What did you go into Hanover for yesterday?' 
 Campbell suddenly asked her. 
 
 She flashed him a comprehending glance from 
 half-shut eyes. ' I think men gossip a great deal 
 more than women,' she observed, ' and they don't 
 understand things either. They try to make all 
 life suit their own pre-conceived theories. And 
 why, after all, should I not wish to learn dancing 
 thoroughly ? There's no harm in that.' 
 
 ' Only, why call it singing ? ' Campbell enquired. 
 
 Miss Thayer smiled. 'Truth is so uninterest 
 ing ! ' she said, and paused. ' Except in books. 
 One likes it there. And I wanted to tell you, I 
 think your books perfectly lovely. I know them, 
 most all. I've read them away home. They're 
 very much thought of in America. Only last 
 night I was saying to Nannie how glad I am to 
 have met you, for I think we're going to be great 
 friends, aren't we, Mr Campbell ? At least, I hope 
 so, for you can do me so much good, if you will. 
 Your books always make me feel real good ; but 
 you yourself can help me much more. ' 
 
 She looked up at him with one of her warm, 
 narrow, red-brown glances, which yesterday would 
 have thrilled his blood, and to-day merely stirred 
 it to anger. 
 
 ' You over-estimate my abilities,' he said coldly ; 
 ' and, on the whole, I fear you will find writers a 
 very disappointing race. You see, they put their 
 best into their books. So not to disillusion you too 
 rapidly' he rose 'will you excuse me? I have 
 some work to do.' And he left her sitting there alone.
 
 THE PLEASURE-PILGRIM 151 
 
 But he did no work when he got to his room. 
 Whether Lulie Thayer was actually present or not, 
 it seemed that her influence was equally disturbing 
 to him. His mind was full of her : of her singular 
 eyes, her quaint intonation, her sweet, seductive 
 praise. Twenty-four hours ago such praise would 
 have been delightful to him : what young author is 
 proof against appreciation of his books? Now, 
 Campbell simply told himself that she laid the butter 
 on too thick ; that it was in some analogous manner 
 she had flattered up March, Anson, and all the 
 rest of the men that Mayne had spoken of. He 
 supposed it was the first step in the process by 
 which he was to be fooled, twisted round her finger, 
 added to the list of victims who strewed her con 
 quering path. He had a special fear of being 
 fooled. For beneath a somewhat supercilious 
 exterior, the dominant note of his character was 
 timidity, distrust of his own merits ; and he knew 
 he was single-minded one-idea'd almost if he 
 were to let himself go, to get to care very much for 
 a woman, for such a girl as this girl, for instance, 
 he would lose himself completely, be at her mercy 
 absolutely. Fortunately, Mayne had let him know 
 her character. He could feel nothing but dislike for 
 her disgust, even ; and yet he was conscious how 
 pleasant it would be to believe in her innocence, in 
 her candour. For she was so adorably pretty ; her 
 flower-like beauty grew upon him ; her head, 
 drooping a little on one side when she looked up, 
 was so like a flower bent by its own weight. The 
 texture of her cheeks, her lips, was delicious as
 
 152 MONOCHROMES 
 
 the petals of a flower. He found he could recall 
 with perfect accuracy every detail of her appear 
 ance : the manner in which the red hair grew round 
 her temples ; the way in which it was loosely and 
 gracefully fastened up behind with just a single tor 
 toise-shell pin. He recollected the suspicion of a 
 dimple that shadowed itself in her cheek when she 
 spoke, and deepened into a delicious reality every 
 time she smiled. He remembered her throat ; her 
 hands, of a beautiful whiteness, with pink palms 
 and pointed fingers. It was impossible to write. 
 He speculated long on the ring she wore on her 
 engaged finger. He mentioned this ring to Mayne 
 the next time he saw him. 
 
 'Engaged? very much so, I should say. Has 
 got a fiance in every capital of Europe probably. 
 But the ring-man is the fiance* en titre. He writes 
 to her by every mail, and is tremendously in love 
 with her. She shows me his letters. When she's 
 had her fling, I suppose she'll go back and marry 
 him. That's what these little American girls do, 
 I'm told ; sow their wild oats here with us, and 
 settle down into bonnes m^nageres over yonder. 
 Meanwhile, are you having any fun with her? 
 Aha, she presses your hand? The "gesegnete 
 Mahlzeit" business after dinner is an excellent 
 institution, isn't it ? She'll tell you how much she 
 loves you soon ; that's the next move in the 
 game.' 
 
 But so far she had done neither of these things, 
 for Campbell gave her no opportunities. He was 
 guarded in the extreme, ungenial ; avoiding her
 
 THE PLEASURE-PILGRIM 153 
 
 even at the cost of civility. Sometimes he was 
 downright rude. That especially occurred when he 
 felt himself inclined to yield to her advances. For 
 she made him all sorts of silent advances, speaking 
 with her eyes, her sad little mouth, her beseeching 
 attitude. And then one evening she went further 
 still. It occurred after dinner in the little green 
 drawing-room. The rest of the company were 
 gathered together in the big drawing-room beyond. 
 The small room has deep embrasures to the 
 windows. Each embrasure holds two old faded 
 green velvet sofas in black oaken frames, and an 
 oaken oblong table stands between them. Camp 
 bell had flung himself down on one of these sofas 
 in the corner nearest the window. Miss Thayer, 
 passing through the room, saw him, and sat down 
 opposite. She leaned her elbows on the table, the 
 laces of her sleeves falling away from her round 
 white arms, and clasped her hands. 
 
 ' Mr Campbell, tell me, what have I done ? 
 How have I vexed you ? You have hardly spoken 
 two words to me all day. You always try to avoid 
 me.' And when he began to utter evasive 
 banalities, she stopped him with an imploring 
 ' Ah, don't ! I love you. You know I love you. I 
 love you so much I can't bear you to put me off 
 with mere phrases.' 
 
 Campbell admired the well-simulated passion 
 in her voice, remembered Mayne's prediction, and 
 laughed aloud. 
 
 ' Oh, you may laugh,' she said, ' but I'm serious. 
 I love you, I love you with my whole soul.' She
 
 154 MONOCHROMES 
 
 slipped round the end of the table, and came close 
 beside him. His first impulse was to rise ; then he 
 resigned himself to stay. But it was not so much 
 resignation that was required, as self-mastery, cool- 
 headedness. Her close proximity, her fragrance, 
 those wonderful eyes raised so beseechingly to his, 
 made his heart beat. 
 
 ' Why are you so cold ? ' she said. ' I love you 
 so, can't you love me a little too ? ' 
 
 ' My dear young lady,' said Campbell, gently 
 repelling her, ' what do you take me for ? A 
 foolish boy like your friends Anson and March? 
 What you are saying is monstrous, preposterous. 
 Ten days ago you'd never even seen me.' 
 
 ' What has length of time to do with it ? ' she 
 said. ' I loved you at first sight.' 
 
 ' I wonder,' he observed judicially, and again 
 gently removed her hand from his, 'to how 
 many men you have not already said the same 
 thing ? ' 
 
 ' I've never meant it before,' she said quite 
 earnestly, and nestled closer to him, and kissed the 
 breast of his coat, and held her mouth up towards 
 his. But he kept his chin resolutely high, and 
 looked over her head. 
 
 ' How many men have you not already kissed, 
 even since you've been here ? ' 
 
 ' But there've not been many here to kiss ! ' she 
 exclaimed naively. 
 
 ' Well, there was March ; you kissed him ? ' 
 
 ' No, I'm quite sure I didn't.' 
 
 ' And young Anson ; what about him ? Ah, you
 
 THE PLEASURE-PILGRIM 155 
 
 don't answer ! And then the other fellow what's 
 his name Prendergast you've kissed him?' 
 
 ' But, after all, what is there in a kiss ? ' she 
 cried ingenuously. ' It means nothing, absolutely 
 nothing. Why, one has to kiss all sorts of people 
 one doesn't care about.' 
 
 Campbell remembered how Mayne had said she 
 had probably known strange kisses since the age 
 of ten ; and a wave of anger with her, of righteous 
 indignation, rose within him. 
 
 ' To me,' said he, ' to all right-thinking people, a 
 young girl's kisses are something pure, something 
 sacred, not to be offered indiscriminately to every 
 fellow she meets. Ah, you don't know what you 
 have lost ! You have seen a fruit that has been 
 handled, that has lost its bloom ? You have seen 
 primroses, spring flowers gathered and thrown 
 away in the dust? And who enjoys the one, or 
 picks up the others ? And this is what you remind 
 me of only you have deliberately, of your own 
 perverse will, tarnished your beauty, and thrown 
 away all the modesty, the reticence, the delicacy, 
 which make a young girl so infinitely dear. You 
 revolt me, you disgust me. I want nothing from 
 you but to be let alone. Kindly take your hands 
 away, and let me go.' 
 
 He shook her roughly off and got up, then felt 
 a moment's curiosity to see how she would take 
 the repulse. 
 
 Miss Thayer never blushed : had never, he 
 imagined, in her life done so. No faintest trace 
 of colour now stained the warm pallor of her rose-
 
 156 MONOCHROMES 
 
 leaf skin ; but her eyes filled up with tears, two 
 drops gathered on the under lashes, grew large, 
 trembled an instant, and then rolled unchecked 
 down her cheeks. Those tears somehow put him 
 in the wrong, and he felt he had behaved brutally 
 to her, for the rest of the night. 
 
 He began to seek excuses for her : after all, she 
 meant no harm : it was her upbringing, her genre : 
 it was a genre he loathed ; but perhaps he need 
 not have spoken so harshly. He thought he would 
 find a more friendly word for her next morning ; 
 and he loitered about the Mahlsaal, where the 
 boarders come in to breakfast as in an hotel just 
 when it suits them, till past eleven ; but she did 
 not come. Then, when he was almost tired of 
 waiting, Miss Dodge put in an appearance, in a 
 flannel wrapper, and her front hair twisted up in 
 steel pins. 
 
 Campbell judged Miss Dodge with even more 
 severity than he did Miss Thayer ; there was 
 nothing in this weird little creature's appearance to 
 temper justice with mercy. It was with difficulty 
 that he brought himself to inquire after her 
 friend. 
 
 ' Lulie is sick this morning,' she told him. ' I've 
 come down to order her some broth. She 
 couldn't sleep any last night, because of your 
 unkindness to her. She's vurry, vurry unhappy 
 about it.' 
 
 ' Yes, I'm sorry for what I said. I had no right to 
 speak so strongly, I suppose. But I spoke strongly 
 because I feel strongly. However, there's no
 
 THE PLEASURE-PILGRIM 157 
 
 reason why my bad manners should make her 
 unhappy.' 
 
 ' Oh, yes, there's vurry good reason,' said Miss 
 Dodge. ' She's vurry much in love with you.' 
 
 Campbell looked at the speaker long and 
 earnestly to try and read her mind ; but the pro 
 minent blinking eyes, the cryptic physiognomy, told 
 him nothing. 
 
 ' Look here/ he said brusquely, ' what's your 
 object in trying to fool me like this? I know all 
 about your friend. Mayne has told me. She has 
 cried "Wolf" too often before to expect to be 
 believed now.' 
 
 ' But, after all,' argued Miss Dodge, blinking 
 more than ever behind her glasses, ' the wolf did 
 really come at last, you know ; didn't he ? Lulie 
 is really in love this time. We've all made mis 
 takes in our lives, haven't we? But that's no 
 reason for not being right at last. And Lulie has 
 cried herself sick.' 
 
 Campbell was a little shaken. He went and 
 repeated the conversation to Mayne, who laughed 
 derisively. 
 
 ' Capital, capital ! ' he cried ; ' excellently con 
 trived. It quite supports my latest theory about 
 our young friend. She's an actress, a born com6- 
 dienne. She acts always, and to every one: to 
 you, to me, to the Ritterhausens, to the Dodge 
 girl even to herself when she is quite alone. And 
 she has a great respect for her art ; she'll carry out 
 her role, cofite que codte, to the bitter end. She
 
 158 MONOCHROMES 
 
 chooses to pose as in love with you ; you don't 
 respond ; the part now requires that she should 
 sicken and pine. Consequently, she takes to her 
 bed, and sends her confidante to tell you so. Oh, 
 it's colossal, it's/amos /'
 
 IV 
 
 ' IF you can't really love me,' said Lulie Thayer 
 ' and I know I've been a bad girl and don't deserve 
 that you should at least, will you allow me to go 
 on loving you ? ' 
 
 She walked by Campbell's side, through the 
 solitary, uncared-for park of Schloss Altenau. 
 It was three weeks later in the year, and the 
 spring feeling in the air stirred the blood. All 
 round were signs and tokens of spring ; in the 
 busy gaiety of bird and insect life ; in the purple 
 flower-tufts which thickened the boughs of the ash 
 trees ; in the young green things pushing up 
 pointed heads from amidst last season's dead 
 leaves and grasses. The snow-wreaths, that had 
 for so long decorated the distant hills, were 
 shrinking perceptibly away beneath the strong 
 March sunshine. 
 
 There was every invitation to spend one's time 
 out of doors, and Campbell passed long mornings 
 in the park, or wandering through the woods and 
 the surrounding villages. Miss Thayer often 
 accompanied him. He never invited her to do so, 
 but when she offered him her company, he could 
 not, or at least did not, refuse it.
 
 160 MONOCHROMES 
 
 ' May I love you ? Say,' she entreated. 
 
 ' " Wenn ich Dich Hebe, was geht's Dich an?"' he 
 quoted lightly. 'Oh, no, it's nothing to me, of 
 course. Only don't expect me to believe you 
 that's all. 1 
 
 This disbelief of his was the recurring decimal 
 of their conversation. No matter on what subject 
 they began, they always ended thus. And the more 
 sceptical he showed himself, the more eager she 
 became. She exhausted herself in endeavours to 
 convince him. 
 
 They had reached the corner in the park where 
 the road to the Castle turns off at right angles from 
 the road to Durrendorf. The ground rises gently 
 on the park-side to within three feet of the 
 top of the boundary wall, although on the other 
 side there is a drop of at least twenty feet. The 
 broad wall-top makes a convenient seat. Campbell 
 and the girl sat down on it. At his last words she 
 wrung her hands together in her lap. 
 
 ' But how can you disbelieve me ? ' she cried, 
 1 when I tell you I love you, I adore you ? when 
 1 swear it to you ? And can't you see for your 
 self? Why, every one at the Castle sees it.' 
 
 ' Yes, you afford the Castle a good deal of 
 unnecessary amusement; and that shows you 
 don't understand what love really is. Real love is 
 full of delicacy, of reticences, and would feel itself 
 profaned if it became the jest of the servants' 
 hall.' 
 
 ' It's not so much my love for you, as your 
 rejection of it, which has made me talked 
 about.'
 
 THE PLEASURE-PILGRIM 161 
 
 ' Isn't it rather on account of the favours you've 
 lavished on all my predecessors ? ' 
 
 She sprang to her feet, and walked up and down 
 in agitation. 
 
 ' But, after all, surely, mistakes of that sort are 
 not to be counted against us ? I did really think I 
 was in love with Mr March. Willie Anson doesn't 
 count. He's an American too, and he understands 
 things. Besides, he is only a boy. And how 
 could I know I should love you before I had met 
 you? And how can I help loving you now I 
 have ? You're so different from other men. 
 You're good, you're honourable, you treat women 
 with respect. Oh, I do love you so, I do love you ! 
 Ask Nannie if I don't.' 
 
 The way in which Campbell shrugged his 
 shoulders clearly expressed the amount of reliance 
 he would place on any testimony from Miss 
 Dodge. He could not forget her ' Why don't you 
 make love to Lulie ? ' addressed to a married man. 
 Such a want of principle argued an equal want of 
 truth. 
 
 Lulie seemed on the brink of weeping. 
 
 ' I wish I were dead,' she struggled to say ; 
 ' life's impossible if you won't believe me. I don't 
 ask you any longer to love me. I know I've been 
 a bad girl, and I don't deserve that you should ; but 
 if you won't believe that I love you, I don't want 
 to live any longer.' 
 
 Campbell confessed to himself that she acted 
 admirably, but that the damnable iteration of the 
 one idea became monotonous. He sought a change 
 
 L
 
 162 MONOCHROMES 
 
 of subject. ' Look there,' he said, ' close by the 
 wall, what's that jolly little blue flower ? It's the 
 first I've seen this year.' 
 
 He showed her where, at the base of the wall, a 
 solitary blossom rose above a creeping stem and 
 glossy dark green leaves. 
 
 Lulie, all smiles again, picked it with childlike 
 pleasure. 'Oh, if that's the first you've seen,' she 
 cried, 'you can take a wish. Only you mustn't 
 speak until some one asks you a question.' 
 
 She began to fasten it in his coat. ' It's just as 
 blue as your eyes,' she said. ' You have such blue 
 and boyish eyes, you know. Stop, stop, that's not 
 a question,' and seeing that he was about to speak, 
 she laid her finger across his mouth. ' You'll 
 spoil the charm.' 
 
 She stepped back, folded her arms, and seemed 
 to dedicate herself to eternal silence ; then relent 
 ing suddenly : 
 
 ' Do you believe me ? ' she entreated. 
 
 'What's become of your ring?' Campbell 
 answered beside the mark. He had noticed its 
 absence from her finger while she had been fixing 
 in the flower. 
 
 ' Oh, my engagement's broken.' 
 
 Campbell asked how the fiance" would like that. 
 
 ' Oh, he won't mind. He knows I only got 
 engaged because he worried so. And it was 
 always understood between us that I was to be 
 free if I ever met any one I liked better.' 
 
 Campbell asked her what sort of fellow this 
 accommodating fiance was.
 
 THE PLEASURE-PILGRIM 163 
 
 ' Oh, he's all right. And he's very good too. 
 But he's not a bit clever, and don't let us talk 
 about him. He makes me tired.' 
 
 ' But you're wrong,' Campbell told her, ' to throw 
 away a good, a sincere affection. If you really 
 want to reform and turn over a new leaf, as you 
 are always telling me you do, I should advise you 
 to go home and marry him.' 
 
 ' What, when I'm in love with you ? ' she cried 
 reproachfully. ' Would that be right ? ' 
 
 ' It's going to rain,' said Campbell. ' Didn't you 
 feel a drop just then ? And it's getting near 
 lunch-time. Shall we go in ? ' 
 
 Their shortest way led through the little cemetery 
 in which the departed Ritterhausens lay at peace, 
 in the shadow of their sometime home. 
 
 ' When I die the Baron has promised I shall be 
 buried here,' said Lulie pensively; 'just here, next 
 to his first wife. Don't you think it would be 
 lovely to be buried in a beautiful, peaceful, baronial 
 graveyard instead of in some horrid, crowded city 
 cemetery ? ' 
 
 Mayne met them as they entered the hall. He 
 noticed the flower in his friend's coat. 'Ah, my 
 dear chap, been treading the periwinkle path of 
 dalliance, I see ? How many desirable young men 
 have I not witnessed, led down the same broad 
 way by the same seductive lady ! Always the 
 same thing; nothing changes but the flower 
 according to the season.' 
 
 When Campbell reached his room he took the
 
 164 MONOCHROMES 
 
 poor periwinkle out of his coat, and threw it away 
 into the stove. 
 
 And yet, had it not been for Mayne, Miss 
 Thayer might have triumphed after all ; might 
 have convinced Campbell of her passion, or have 
 added another victim to her long list. But Mayne 
 had set himself as determinedly to spoil her game, 
 as she was bent on winning it. He had always the 
 cynical word, the apt reminiscence ready, whenever 
 he saw signs on Campbell's part of surrender. He 
 was very fond of Campbell. He did not wish 
 him to fall a prey to the wiles of this little Ameri 
 can siren. He had watched her conduct in the 
 past with a dozen different men ; he genuinely 
 believed she was only acting in the present. 
 
 Campbell, for his part, began to experience an 
 ever-increasing exasperation in the girl's presence. 
 Yet he did not avoid it ; he could not well avoid 
 it, she followed him about so persistently : but his 
 speech would overflow with bitterness towards 
 her. He would say the cruellest things ; then re 
 membering them when alone, be ashamed of his 
 brutalities. But nothing he said ever altered her 
 sweetness of temper or weakened the tenacity of 
 her purpose. His rebuffs made her beautiful eyes 
 run over with tears, but the harshest of them never 
 elicited the least sign of resentment. There would 
 have been something touching as well as comic in 
 this dog-like humility, which accepted everything 
 as welcome at his hands, had he riot been imbued 
 with Mayne's conviction that it was all an admirable 
 piece of acting. Or when for a moment he forgot
 
 THE PLEASURE-PILGRIM 165 
 
 the histrionic theory, then invariably there would 
 come a chance word in her conversation which 
 would fill him with cold rage. They would be 
 talking of books, travels, sport, what not, and she 
 would drop a reference to this man or to that. So- 
 and-so had taken her to Bullier's, she had learned 
 skating with this other ; Duroy, the prix de Rome 
 man, had painted her as Hebe, Franz Weber had 
 tried to teach her German by means of Heine's 
 poems. And he got glimpses of long vistas of 
 amourettes played in every state in America, in 
 every country of Europe, since the very beginning, 
 when, as a mere child, elderly men, friends of her 
 father's, had held her on their knee and fed her on 
 sweetmeats and kisses. It was sickening to think 
 of; it was pitiable. So much youth and beauty 
 tarnished ; the possibility for so much good thrown 
 away. For if one could only blot out her record, 
 forget it, accept her for what she chose to appear, 
 a more endearing companion no man could desire.
 
 IT was a wet afternoon ; the rain had set in at mid 
 day, with a gray determination, which gave no 
 hopes of clearing. Nevertheless, Mayne had 
 accompanied his wife and the Baroness into 
 Hamelin. ' To take up a servant's character, and 
 expostulate with a recalcitrant dressmaker/ he ex 
 plained to Campbell, and wondered what women 
 would do to fill up their days were it not for the 
 perennial crimes of dressmakers and domestic 
 servants. He himself was going to look in at the 
 English Club; wouldn't Campbell come too? 
 There was a fourth seat in the carriage. But 
 Campbell was in no social mood ; he felt his 
 temper going all to pieces ; a quarter of an hour 
 of Mrs Mayne's society would have brought on an 
 explosion. He thought he must be alone ; and yet 
 when he had read for half an hour in his room he 
 wondered vaguely what Lulie was doing ; he had 
 not seen her since luncheon. She always gave him 
 her society when he could very well dispense with 
 it, but on a wet day like this, when a little con 
 versation would be tolerable, of course she stayed 
 away. Then there came down the long Rittersaal
 
 THE PLEASURE-PILGRIM 167 
 
 the tapping of high heels, and a well-known knock 
 at his door. 
 
 He went over and opened it. Miss Thayer, in 
 the plush and lace tea-gown, fronted him serenely. 
 
 1 Am I disturbing you ? ' she asked ; and his 
 mood was so capricious that, now she was standing 
 there on his threshold, he thought he was annoyed 
 at it. ' It's so dull,' she said persuasively : ' Nannie's 
 got a sick headache, and I daren't go downstairs, 
 or the Baron will annex me to play Halma. He 
 always wants to play Halma on wet days.' 
 
 'And what do you want to do? ' said Campbell, 
 leaning against the doorpost, and letting his eyes 
 rest on the strange piquant face in its setting of 
 red hair. 
 
 ' To be with you, of course.' 
 
 ' Well,' said he, coming out and closing the door, 
 ' I'm at your service. What next?' 
 
 They strolled together through the room and 
 listened to the falling rain. The Rittersaal occupies 
 all the space on the first floor that the hall and 
 four drawing-rooms do below. Wooden pillars 
 support the ceiling, dividing the apartment length 
 wise into a nave and two aisles. Down the 
 middle are long tables, used for ceremonial 
 banquets. Six windows look into the courtyard, 
 and six out over the open country. The centre 
 pane of each window is emblazoned with a 
 Ritterhausen shield. Between the windows hang 
 family portraits, and the sills are broad and low 
 and cushioned in faded velvet. 
 
 ' How it rains ! ' said Lulie, stopping before one
 
 1 68 MONOCHROMES 
 
 of the south windows ; ' why, you can't see anything 
 for the rain, and there's no sound at all but the 
 rain either. I like it. It makes me feel as though 
 we had the whole world to ourselves.' 
 
 Then, 'Say, what would you like to do?' she 
 asked him. ' Shall I fetch over my pistols, and 
 we'll practise with them ? You've no notion how 
 well I can shoot We couldn't hurt anything here, 
 could we?' 
 
 Campbell thought they might practise there 
 without inconvenience, and Lulie, bundling up the 
 duchess tea-gown over one arm, danced off in very 
 unduchess-like fashion to fetch the case. It was a 
 charming little box of cedar-wood and mother-o'- 
 pearl, lined with violet velvet ; and two tiny 
 revolvers lay inside, hardly more than six inches 
 long, with silver engraved handles. 
 
 ' I won them in a bet,' she observed complacently, 
 ' with the Hon. Billie Thornton. He's an English 
 man, you know, the son of Lord Thornton. I knew 
 him in Washington two years ago last fall. He 
 bet I couldn't hit a three-cent piece at twenty yards 
 and I did. Aren't they perfectly sweet ? Now, 
 can't you contrive a target ? ' 
 
 Campbell went back to his room, drew out a 
 rough diagram, and pasted it down on to a piece 
 of cardboard. Then this was fixed up by means 
 of a penknife driven into the wood of one of 
 the pillars, and Campbell, with his walking-stick 
 laid down six successive times, measured off the 
 distance required, and set a chalk mark across 
 the floor. Lulie took the first shot. She held the
 
 THE PLEASURE-PILGRIM 169 
 
 little weapon up at arm's length above her head, 
 the first finger stretched out along the barrel ; then 
 dropping her hand sharply so that the finger 
 pointed straight at the butt, she pulled the trigger 
 with the third. There was the sharp report, the 
 tiny smoke film and when Campbell went up to 
 examine results, he found she had only missed the 
 very centre by a quarter of an inch. 
 
 Lulie was exultant. ' I don't seem to have got 
 out of practice any,' she remarked. ' I'm so glad, 
 for I used to be a very good shot. It was Hiram 
 P. Ladd who taught me. He's the crack shot of 
 Montana. What ! you don't know Hiram P. ? 
 Why, I should have supposed every one must have 
 heard of him. He had the next ranche to my 
 Uncle Samuel's, where I used to go summers, and 
 he made me do an hour's pistol practice every 
 morning after bathing. It was he who taught me 
 swimming too in the river.' 
 
 'Damnation,' said Campbell under his breath, 
 then shot in his turn, and shot wide. Lulie made 
 another bull's-eye, and after that a white. She 
 urged Campbell to continue, which he sullenly did, 
 and again missed. 
 
 'You see I don't come up to your Hiram P. 
 Ladd/ he remarked savagely, and put the pistol 
 down, and walked over to the window. He stood 
 with one foot on the cushioned seat, staring out at 
 the rain, and pulling moodily at his moustache. 
 
 Lulie followed him, nestled up to him, lifted the 
 hand that hung passive by his side, put it round 
 her waist and held it there. Campbell lost in
 
 170 MONOCHROMES 
 
 thought, let it remain so for a second ; then remem 
 bered how she had doubtless done this very same 
 thing with other men in this very room. All her 
 apparently spontaneous movements, he told himself, 
 were but the oft-used pieces in the game she 
 played so skilfully. 
 
 'Let go,' he said, and flung himself down on 
 the window-seat, looking up at her with darkening 
 eyes. 
 
 She sitting meekly in the other corner folded 
 her offending hands in her lap. 
 
 ' Do you know, your eyes are not a bit nice when 
 you're cross ? ' she said ; ' they seem to become quite 
 black.' 
 
 He maintained a discouraging silence. 
 
 She looked over at him meditatively. 
 
 ' I never cared a bit for Hiram P., if that's what 
 you mean,' she remarked presently. 
 
 ' Do you suppose I care a button if you did ? ' 
 
 ' Then why did you leave off shooting, and why 
 won't you talk to me ? ' 
 
 He vouchsafed no reply. 
 
 Lulie spent some moments immersed in thought. 
 Then she sighed deeply, and recommenced on a 
 note of pensive regret. 
 
 ' Ah, if I'd only met you sooner in life, I should 
 be a very different girl.' 
 
 The freshness which her quaint, drawling enun 
 ciation lent to this time-dishonoured formula, made 
 Campbell smile, till, remembering all its impli 
 cations, his forehead set in frowns again. 
 
 Lulie continued her discourse. 'You see/ said
 
 THE PLEASURE-PILGRIM 171 
 
 she, ' I never had any one to teach me what was 
 right. My mother died when I was quite a child, 
 and my father has always let me do exactly as I 
 pleased, so long as I didn't bother him. Then I've 
 never had a home, but have always lived around in 
 hotels and places : all winter in New York or 
 Washington, and summers out at Longbranch or 
 Saratoga. It's true we own a house in Detroit, 
 on Lafayette Avenue, that we reckon as home, but 
 we don't ever go there. It's a bad sort of life for a 
 girl, isn't it ? ' she pleaded. 
 
 ' Horrible,' he said mechanically. His mind was 
 at work. The loose threads of his angers, his 
 irritations, his desires, were knitting themselves 
 together, weaving themselves into something over 
 mastering and definite. 
 
 The young girl meanwhile was moving up 
 towards him along the seat, for the effect which his 
 sharpest rebuke produced on her never lasted more 
 than four minutes. She now again possessed 
 herself of his hand, and holding it between her 
 own, began to caress it in childlike fashion, pulling 
 the fingers apart and closing them again, spreading 
 it palm downwards on her lap, and laying her own 
 little hand over it, to exemplify the differences 
 between them. He let her be ; he seemed uncon 
 scious of her proceedings. 
 
 ' And then,' she continued, ' I've always known 
 a lot of young fellows who've liked to take me 
 round ; and no one ever objected to my going with 
 them, and so I went. And I enjoyed it, and there 
 wasn't any harm in it, just kissing and making
 
 i;2 MONOCHROMES 
 
 believe, and nonsense. But I never really cared 
 for one of them I can see that now, when I 
 compare them with you ; when I compare what I 
 felt for them with what I feel for you. Oh, I do 
 love you so much,' she murmured ; ' don't you 
 believe me ? ' She lifted his hand to her lips and 
 covered it with kisses. 
 
 He pulled it roughly from her. ' I wish you'd 
 give over such fool's play,' he told her, got up, 
 walked to the table, came back again, stood 
 looking at her with sombre eyes and dilating 
 pupils. 
 
 ' But I do love you,' she repeated, rising and 
 advancing towards him. 
 
 ' For God's sake, drop that damned rot/ he cried 
 out with sudden fury. ' It wearies me, do you hear ? 
 it sickens me. Love, love my God, what do you 
 know about it? Why, if you really loved me, 
 really loved any man if you had any conception 
 of what the passion of love is, how beautiful, how 
 fine, how sacred the mere idea that you could not 
 come to your lover fresh, pure, untouched, as a 
 young girl should that you had been handled, 
 fondled, and God knows what besides, by this man 
 and the other would fill you with such horror for 
 yourself, with such supreme disgust you would 
 feel yourself so unworthy, so polluted .... that 
 .... that .... by God ! you would take up that 
 pistol there, and blow your brains out ! ' 
 
 Lulie seemed to find the idea quite entertaining. 
 She picked the pistol up from where it lay in the 
 window, examined it critically, with her pretty head
 
 THE PLEASURE-PILGRIM 173 
 
 drooping on one side, and then sent one of her 
 long red-brown caressing glances up towards him. 
 
 'And suppose I were to,' she asked lightly, 
 ' would you believe me then ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, .... well .... then, perhaps ! If you 
 showed sufficient decency to kill yourself, perhaps 
 I might,' said he, with ironical laughter. His 
 ebullition had relieved him ; his nerves were 
 calmed again. ' But nothing short of that would 
 ever make me.' 
 
 With her little tragic air, which seemed to him so 
 like a smile disguised, she raised the weapon to the 
 bosom of her gown. There came a sudden, sharp 
 crack, a tiny smoke film. She stood an instant 
 swaying slightly, smiling certainly, distinctly out 
 lined against the background of rain-washed 
 window, of gray falling rain, the top of her head 
 cutting in two the Ritterhausen escutcheon. Then 
 all at once there was nothing at all between him 
 and the window he saw the coat of arms entire 
 but a motionless, inert heap of plush and lace, and 
 fallen wine-red hair, lay at his feet upon the floor. 
 
 ' Child, child, what have you done ? ' he cried 
 with anguish, and kneeling beside her, lifted her 
 up, and looked into her face. 
 
 When from a distance of time and place 
 Campbell was at last able to look back with some 
 degree of calmness on the catastrophe, the element 
 in it which stung him most keenly was this : he could 
 never convince himself that Lulie had really loved
 
 I 7 4 MONOCHROMES 
 
 him after all. And the only two persons who had 
 known them both, and the circumstances of the 
 case, sufficiently well to have resolved his doubts 
 one way or the other, held diametrically opposite 
 views. 
 
 ' Well, listen, then, and I'll tell you how it was,' 
 Miss Nannie Dodge had said to him impressively, 
 the day before he left Schloss Altenau for ever. 
 ' Lulie was tremendously, terribly in love with you. 
 And when she found that you wouldn't care about 
 her, she didn't want to live any more. As to the 
 way in which it happened, you don't need to 
 reproach yourself for that. She'd have done it, 
 anyhow. If not then, why later. But it's all the 
 rest of your conduct to her that was so mean. 
 Your cold, cruel, complacent British unresponsive- 
 ness. I guess you'll never find another woman to 
 love you as Lulie did. She was just the darlingest, 
 the sweetest, the most loving girl in the world.' 
 
 Mayne, on the other hand, summed it up in this 
 way . ' Of course, old chap, it's horrible to think of: 
 horrible, horrible, horrible ! I can't tell you how 
 badly I feel about it. For she was a gorgeously 
 beautiful creature. That red hair of hers ! Good 
 Lord ! You won't come across such hair as that 
 again in a lifetime. But, believe me, she was only 
 fooling with you. Once she had you in her 
 hunting-noose, once her buccaneering instincts 
 satisfied, and she'd have chucked you as she did all 
 the rest. As to her death, I've got three theories 
 no, two for the first being that she compassed 
 it in a moment of genuine emotion, we may dismiss,
 
 THE PLEASURE-PILGRIM 175 
 
 I think, as quite untenable. The second is, that 
 it arose from pure misadventure. You had both 
 been shooting, hadn't you ? Well, she took up the 
 pistol and pulled the trigger from mere mischief, to 
 frighten }<pu, and quite forgetting one barrel was 
 still loaded. And the third is, it was just her 
 histrionic sense of the fitness of things. The rdle 
 she had played so long and so well now demanded 
 a sensational finale in the centre of the stage. 
 And it's the third theory I give the preference to. 
 She was the most consummate little actress I ever 
 met.'
 
 WHITE MAGIC 
 
 M
 
 WHITE MAGIC 
 
 I SPENT one evening last summer with my 
 friend Mauger, pharmacien in the little town of 
 Jacques-le-Port He pronounces his name Major, 
 by-the-by, it being a quaint custom of the Islands 
 to write proper names one way and speak them 
 another, thus serving to bolster up that old, old 
 story of the German savant's account of the 
 difficulties of the English language 'where you 
 spell a man's name Verulam,' says he reproachfully, 
 ' and pronounce it Bacon.' 
 
 Mauger and I sat in the pleasant wood-panelled 
 parlour behind the shop, from whence all sorts 
 of aromatic odours found their way in through 
 the closed door to mingle with the fragrance of 
 figs, Ceylon tea, and hot goches-a-beurre, con 
 stituting the excellent meal spread before us. 
 The large old-fashioned windows were wide open, 
 and I looked straight out upon the harbour, 
 filled with holiday yachts, and the wonderful 
 azure sea. 
 
 Over against the other islands, opposite, a gleam 
 of white streaked the water, white clouds hung 
 motionless in the blue sky, and a tiny boat with 
 white sails passed out round Falla Point. A white
 
 i8o MONOCHROMES 
 
 butterfly entered the room to flicker in gay 
 uncertain curves above the cloth, and a warm 
 reflected light played over the slender rat-tailed 
 forks and spoons, and raised by a tone or two 
 the colour of Mauger's tanned face and yellow 
 beard. For, in spite of a sedentary profession, his 
 preferences lie with an out-of-door life, and he 
 takes an afternoon off whenever practicable, as he 
 had done that day, to follow his favourite pursuit 
 over the golf-links at Les Landes. 
 
 While he had been deep in the mysteries of 
 teeing and putting, with no subtler problem to be 
 solved than the judicious selection of mashie and 
 cleek, I had explored some of the curious cromlechs 
 or pouquelayes scattered over this part of the island, 
 and my thoughts and speech harked back irre 
 sistibly to the strange old religions and usages of 
 the past. 
 
 ' Science is all very well in its way/ said I ; ' and 
 of course it's an inestimable advantage to inhabit 
 this so-called nineteenth century ; but the mediaeval 
 want of science was far more picturesque. The 
 once universal belief in charms and portents, in 
 wandering saints, and fighting fairies, must have 
 lent an interest to life which these prosaic days 
 sadly lack. Madelon then would steal from 
 her bed on moonlight nights in May, and slip 
 across the dewy grass with naked feet, to seek 
 the reflection of her future husband's face in the 
 first running stream she passed ; now, Miss Mary 
 Jones puts on her bonnet and steps round the 
 corner, on no more romantic errand than the
 
 WHITE MAGIC 181 
 
 investment of. her month's wages in the savings 
 bank at two and a half per cent/ 
 
 Mauger laughed. ' I wish she did anything half 
 so prudent ! That has not been my experience of 
 the Mary Joneses.' 
 
 'Well, anyhow,' I insisted, 'the Board School 
 has rationalised them. It has pulled up the innate 
 poetry of their nature to replace it by decimal 
 fractions.' 
 
 To which Mauger answered ' Rot ! ' and offered 
 me his cigarette-case. After the first few silent 
 whiffs, he went on as follows : ' The innate poetry 
 of Woman ! Confess now, there is no more un- 
 poetic creature under the sun. Offer her the 
 sublimest poetry ever written and the Daily 
 Telegraph's latest article on fashions, or a good 
 sound murder or reliable divorce, and there's no 
 betting on her choice, for it's a dead certainty. 
 Many men have a love of poetry, but I'm inclined 
 to think that ninety-nine women out of a hundred 
 positively dislike it.' , 
 
 Which struck me as true. 'We'll drop the 
 poetry then,' I answered; 'but my point; remains, 
 that if the girl of to-day has no superstitions, the 
 girl of to-morrow will have no beliefs. Teach her 
 to sit down thirteen to table, to spill the salt, and 
 walk under a ladder with equanimity, and you 
 open the door for Spencer and Huxley, and and 
 all the rest of it,' said I, coming to an impotent 
 conclusion. 
 
 ' Oh, if superstition were the salvation of woman 
 but you are thinking of young ladies in London,
 
 i82 MONOCHROMES 
 
 I suppose? Here, in the Islands, I can show you 
 as much superstition as you please. I'm not sure 
 that the country-people in their heart of hearts 
 don't still worship the old gods of the pouquelayes. 
 You would not, of course, find any one to own up 
 to it, or to betray the least glimmer of an idea as 
 to your meaning, were you to question him, for 
 ours is a shrewd folk, wearing their orthodoxy 
 bravely ; but possibly the old beliefs are cherished 
 with the more ardour for not being openly avowed. 
 Now you like bits of actuality. I'll give you one, 
 and a proof, too, that the modern maiden is still 
 separated by many a fathom of salt sea-water from 
 these fortunate isles. 
 
 ' Some time ago, on a market morning, a girl 
 came into the shop, and asked for some blood 
 from a dragon. " Some what ? " said I, not catch 
 ing her words. "Well, just a little blood from 
 a dragon," she answered very tremulously, and 
 blushing. She meant of course " dragon's blood," 
 a resinous powder, formerly much used in medicine, 
 though out of fashion now. 
 
 ' She was a pretty young creature, with pink 
 cheeks and dark eyes, and a forlorn expression of 
 countenance which didn't seem at all to fit in with 
 her blooming health. Not from the town, or I 
 should have known her face ; evidently come from 
 one of the country parishes to sell her butter and 
 eggs. I was interested to discover what she 
 wanted the " dragon's blood " for, and after a 
 certain amount of hesitation she told me. " They 
 do say it's good, sir, if anything should have
 
 WHITE MAGIC 183 
 
 happened betwixt you an' your young man." 
 " Then you have a young man ? " said I. " Yes, 
 sir." "And you've fallen out with him?" 
 "Yes, sir." And tears rose to her eyes at the 
 admission, while her mouth rounded with awe 
 at my amazing perspicacity. " And you mean 
 to send him some dragon's blood as a love 
 potion ? " " No, sir ; you've got to mix it with 
 water you've fetched from the Three Sisters' 
 Well, and drink it yourself in nine sips on nine 
 nights running, and get into bed without once 
 looking in the glass, and then if you've done 
 everything properly, and haven't made any mistake, 
 he'll come back to you, an' love you twice as much 
 as before." " And la Mere Todevinn (Tostevin) 
 gave you that precious recipe, and made you 
 cross her hand with silver into the bargain ? " 
 said I severely ; on which the tears began to flow 
 outright. 
 
 ' You know,' said Mauger, breaking off his narra 
 tion, ' the old lady who lives in the curious stone 
 house at the corner of the market-place? A 
 reputed witch, who learned both black and white 
 magic from her mother, who was a daughter of 
 Holier Mouton, the famous sorcerer of Cakeuro. 
 I could tell you some funny stories relating to la 
 Mere Todevinn, who numbers more clients among 
 the officers and fine ladies here than in any other 
 class ; and very curious, too, is the history of 
 that stone house, with the Brancourt arms still 
 sculptured on the side. You can see them, if you 
 turn down by the Water-gate. This old sinister-
 
 1 84 MONOCHROMES 
 
 looking building, or rather portion of a building, for 
 more modern houses have been built over the 
 greater portion of the site, and now press upon 
 it from either hand, once belonged to one of the 
 finest mansions in the Islands, but through a curse 
 and a crime has been brought down to its present 
 condition ; while the Brancourt family has Ion g 
 since been utterly extinct. But all this isn't the 
 story of Elsie Mahy, which turned out to be the 
 name of my little customer. 
 
 ' The Mahys are of the Vauvert parish, and 
 Pierre Jean, the father of this girl, began life as a 
 day-labourer, took to tomato-growing on borrowed 
 capital, and now owns a dozen glass-houses of his 
 own. Mrs Mahy does some dairy-farming on a 
 minute scale, the profits of which she and Miss 
 Elsie share as pin-money. The young man who 
 is courting Elsie is a son of Toumes the builder. 
 He probably had something to do with the putting 
 up of Mahy's greenhouses, but anyhow, he has 
 been constantly over at Vauvert during the last 
 six months, superintending the alterations at de 
 Caterelle's place. 
 
 'Toumes, it would seem, is a devoted but 
 imperious lover, and the Persian and Median laws 
 are as butter compared with the inflexibility of his 
 decisions. The little rift within the lute, which has 
 lately turned all the music to discord, occurred 
 last Monday week bank-holiday, as you may 
 remember. The Sunday school to which Elsie 
 belongs and it's a strange anomaly, isn't it, that 
 a girl going to Sunday school should still have a
 
 WHITE MAGIC 185 
 
 rooted belief in white magic ? the school was to 
 go for an outing to Prawn Bay, and Toumes had 
 arranged to join his sweetheart at the starting- 
 point. But he had made her promise that if by 
 any chance he should be delayed, she would not 
 go with the others, but would wait until he came 
 to fetch her. 
 
 ' Of course, it so happened that he was detained, 
 and, equally of course, Elsie, like a true woman, 
 went off without him. She did all she knew to 
 make me believe she went quite against her own 
 wishes, that her companions forced her to go. The 
 beautifully yielding nature of a woman never comes 
 out so conspicuously as when she is being coerced 
 into following her own secret desires. Anyhow, 
 Toumes, arriving some time later, found her gone. 
 He followed on, and under ordinary circumstances, 
 I suppose, a sharp reprimand would have been 
 considered sufficient. Unfortunately, the young 
 man arrived on the scene to find his truant love 
 deep in the frolics of kiss-in-the-ring. After tea in 
 the Caterelle Arms, the whole party had adjourned 
 to a neighbouring meadow, and were thus whiling 
 away the time to the exhilarating strains of a 
 French horn and a concertina. Elsie was led into 
 the centre of the ring by various country bump 
 kins, and kissed beneath the eyes of heaven, of her 
 neighbours, and of her embittered swain. 
 
 ' You may have been amongst us long enough 
 to know that the Toumes family are of a higher 
 social grade than the Mahys, and I suppose the 
 Misses Toumes never in their lives stooped to
 
 1 86 MONOCHROMES 
 
 anything so ungenteel as public kiss-in-the-ring. 
 It was not surprising, therefore, to hear that after 
 this incident " me an' my young man had words," 
 as Elsie put it. 
 
 'Note,' said Mauger, 'the descriptive truth of 
 this expression " having words." Among the un 
 lettered, lovers only do have words when vexed. 
 At other times they will sit holding hands through 
 out a long summer's afternoon, and not exchange 
 two remarks an hour. Love seals their tongue; 
 anger alone unlooses it, and, naturally, when 
 unloosened, it runs on, from sheer want of 
 practice, a great deal faster and further than 
 they desire. 
 
 ' So, life being thorny and youth being vain, 
 they parted late that same evening, with the 
 understanding that they would meet no more ; and 
 to be wroth with one we love worked its usual 
 harrowing effects. Toumes took to billiards and 
 brandy, Elsie to tears and invocations of Beel 
 zebub: then came Mere Todevinn's recipe, my 
 own more powerful potion, and now once more 
 all is silence and balmy peace.' 
 
 ' Do you mean to tell me you sold the child 
 a charm, and didn't enlighten her as to its 
 futility?' 
 
 ' I sold her some bicarbonate of soda worth a 
 couple of doubles, and charged her five shillings 
 for it into the bargain,' said Mauger unblushingly. 
 ' A wrinkle I learned from once overhearing an old 
 lady I had treated for nothing expatiating to a 
 crony, " Eh, but, my good, my good ! dat Mr
 
 WHITE MAGIC 187 
 
 Major, I don't t'ink much of him. He give away 
 his add-vice an' his meddecines for nuddin. Dey 
 not wurt nuddin' neider, for sure." So I made Elsie 
 hand me over five British shillings, and I gave her 
 the powder, and told her to drink it with her 
 meals. But I threw in another prescription, which, if 
 less important, must nevertheless be punctiliously 
 carried out, if the charm was to have any effect. 
 " The very next time," I told her, " that you meet 
 your young man in the street, walk straight up to 
 him without looking to the right or to the left, and 
 hold out your hand, saying these words : ' Please, I 
 so want to be friends again ! ' Then if you've 
 been a good girl, have taken the powder regularly, 
 and not forgotten one of my directions, you'll find 
 that all will come right." 
 
 ' Now, little as you may credit it,' said Mauger, 
 smiling, ' the charm worked, for all that we live in 
 the so-called nineteenth century. Elsie came into 
 the shop only yesterday to tell me the results, and 
 to thank me very prettily. " I shall always come to 
 you now, sir," she was good enough to say, " I mean, 
 if anything was to go wrong again. You know a 
 great deal more than Mere Todevinn, I'm sure." 
 "Yes, I'm a famous sorcerer," said I, "but you had 
 better not speak about the powder. You are wise 
 enough to see that it was just your own conduct 
 in meeting your young man rather more than half 
 way that did the trick eh ? " She looked at me 
 with eyes brimming over with wisdom. "You 
 needn't be afraid, sir, I'll not speak of it. Mere 
 Todevinn always made me promise to keep
 
 1 88 MONOCHROMES 
 
 silence too. But of course I know it was the 
 powder that worked the charm." 
 
 ' And to that belief the dear creature will stick 
 to the last day of her life. Women are wonderful 
 enigmas. Explain to them that tight-lacing dis 
 places all the internal organs, and show them 
 diagrams to illustrate your point, they smile 
 sweetly, say, " Oh, how funny ! " and go out to buy 
 their new stays half an inch smaller than their old 
 ones. But tell them they must never pass a pin 
 in the street for luck's sake, if it lies with its point 
 towards them, and they will sedulously look for 
 and pick up every such confounded pin they see. 
 Talk to a .woman of the marvels of science, and 
 she turns a deaf ear, or refuses point-blank to 
 believe you ; yet she is absolutely all ear for any 
 old wife's tale, drinks it greedily in, and never 
 loses hold of it for the rest of her days.' 
 
 ' But does she ? ' said I ; ' that's the point in 
 dispute, and though your story shows there's still 
 a commendable amount of superstition in the 
 Islands, I'm afraid if you were to come to London, 
 you would not find sufficient to cover a three 
 penny-piece.' 
 
 'Woman is woman all the world over,' said 
 Mauger sententiously, ' no matter what mental garb 
 happens to be in fashion at the time. Grattez la 
 femme et vous trouvez lafolle. For see here : if I 
 had said to Mademoiselle Elsie, " Well, you were 
 in the wrong; it's your place to take the first step 
 towards reconciliation," she would have laughed in 
 my face, or flung out of the shop in a rage. But
 
 WHITE MAGIC 189 
 
 because I sold her a little humbugging powder 
 under the guise of a charm, she submitted herself 
 with the docility of a pet lambkin. No ; one need 
 never hope to prevail through wisdom with a 
 woman, and if I could have realised that ten years 
 ago, it would have been better for me.' 
 
 He fell silent, thinking of his past, which to 
 me, who knew it, seemed almost an excuse for 
 his cynicism. I sought a change of idea. The 
 splendour of the pageant outside supplied me 
 with one. 
 
 The sun had set ; and all the eastern world ot 
 sky and water, stretching before us, was steeped 
 in the glories of the after-glow. The ripples 
 seemed painted in dabs of ruddy gold upon a 
 surface of polished blue-gray steel. Over the 
 islands opposite hung a far-reaching golden cloud, 
 with faint-drawn, up-curled edges, as though 
 thinned out upon the sky by some monster brush ; 
 and while I watched it, this cloud changed from 
 gold to rose-colour, and instantly the steel mirror 
 of the sea glowed rosy too, and was streaked and 
 shaded with a wonderful rosy-brown. As the 
 colour grew momentarily more intense in the sky 
 above, so did the sea appear to pulse to a more 
 vivid copperish-rose, until at last it was like 
 nothing so much as a sea of flowing fire. And the 
 cloud flamed fiery too, yet all the while its up- 
 curled edges rested in exquisite contrast upon a 
 background of most cool cerulean blue. 
 
 The little sailing-boat, which I had noticed an 
 hour previously, reappeared from behind the Point,
 
 IQO MONOCHROMES 
 
 The sail was lowered as it entered the harbour, and 
 the boatman took to his oars. I watched it creep 
 over the glittering water until it vanished beneath 
 the window-sill. I got up and went over to the 
 window to hold it still in sight. It was sculled by 
 a young man in rosy shirt-sleeves, and opposite to 
 him, in the stern, sat a girl in a rosy gown. 
 
 So long as I had observed them, not one word 
 had either spoken. In silence they had crossed the 
 harbour, in silence the sculler had brought his craft 
 alongside the landing-stage, and secured her to 
 a ring in the stones. Still silent, he helped his 
 companion to step out upon the quay. 
 
 ' Here,' said I to Mauger, ' is a couple confirming 
 your " silent " theory with a vengeance. We must 
 suppose that much love has rendered them 
 absolutely dumb.' 
 
 He came, and leaned from the window too. 
 
 ' It's not a couple, but the couple,' said he ; ' and 
 after all, in spite of cheap jesting, there are some 
 things more eloquent than speech.' For at this 
 instant, finding themselves alone upon the jetty, 
 the young man had taken the girl into his arms, 
 and she had lifted a frank responsive mouth to 
 return his kiss. 
 
 Five minutes later the sea had faded into dull 
 grays and sober browns, starved white clouds 
 moved dispiritedly over a vacant sky, and by 
 cricking the back of my neck I was able to follow 
 Toumes' black coat and the white frock of Miss 
 Elsie until they reached Poidevin's wine-vaults, 
 and, turning up the Water-gate, were lost to view.
 
 THE EXPIATION OF 
 DAVID SCOTT
 
 THE EXPIATION OF 
 DAVID SCOTT 
 
 MR DAVID SCOTT sat one morning immersed in 
 business. To and fro from his desk, clerks passed 
 continually to the outer room, whence, during the 
 momentary opening of the swing-doors, the rapid 
 driving of pens on paper was distinctly audible. 
 
 Towards mid-day the pressure of work in outer 
 and inner office slackened ; the handsome presenta 
 tion clock chiming a quarter to one reminded 
 Scott to take the prescribed tonic standing there 
 on the mantel-piece before him. But it was rather 
 to please his daughter Catherine that he poured it 
 out and drank it, than because he had any belief 
 in it himself, as it had been to please her that he 
 had recently consulted a famous city physician 
 about his health. The great man had rounded 
 many sonorous phrases, which to a less shrewd 
 patient than Scott would have proved, for a time, 
 amply satisfying. But Scott understood he was in 
 a precarious condition ; he said to himself his days 
 were numbered, and he was grateful to Providence 
 for timely warning before the end. 
 
 The medicine was bitter ; he turned to get a 
 N
 
 i 9 4 MONOCHROMES 
 
 biscuit to take away the taste. Then he changed 
 his mind, putting up with the bitterness instead. 
 He frequently practised unobserved mortifications 
 of this sort, with the idea of atonement, yet his un 
 blemished reputation and religious life were the 
 edification of all who knew him. It is, however, 
 only the really pious who suffer from conscience. 
 
 A clerk entered with a card and a letter. On 
 the card was printed ' Mr James O'Brien,' and 
 written beneath, in pencil, ' from New York ' ; the 
 letter was in the well-known hand of one of Scott's 
 correspondents in that city, and contained a 
 friendly request that Scott would do everything in 
 his power for the gentleman presenting it. 
 
 Scott gave orders for Mr O'Brien's admission. 
 During the few seconds that elapsed before the 
 entry of the visitor, he sat with the open letter 
 under his hand, and a presentiment of trouble in 
 his heart. He was sensibly relieved when a total 
 stranger to him walked into the room. 
 
 ' Mr David Scott ? ' asked the visitor promptly, 
 with a slight American accent. 
 
 Scott assented with a bow, and indicated a seat. 
 
 The full light from the window fell upon the 
 stranger's face ; but Scott, having shifted his chair, 
 sat in shadow. One naturally takes such an 
 advantage as this on one's own premises. Scott saw 
 a man in the prime of life, with a tanned skin, 
 piercing eyes, and a gloomy expression ; he had 
 short iron-gray hair and a dark moustache that 
 completely concealed his mouth. His clothes were 
 neither new nor good, but he wore them well ; and
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 195 
 
 fixing his interlocutor with his keen glance, he 
 seemed capable of paralysing you from observing 
 that his boots were broken and his coat had lost its 
 nap. 
 
 Scott at first took him to be a military man : 
 but on noting the wary and dogged determination 
 of his face which only comes from confronting 
 the varied and undisciplined ills of civil life he 
 concluded O'Brien had seen service in both careers. 
 
 He took up the card again, and looked at it 
 meditatively. 
 
 ' In what way can I be of any assistance ? ' he 
 asked. 
 
 ' Perhaps my name is not unknown to you ? ' 
 returned the visitor. 
 
 Scott hesitated. In truth, the name was con 
 nected with a melancholy passage in his history, 
 and every time he came across it since and he 
 was constantly coming across it it acted as a key 
 to unlock the secret troubles of the past. 
 
 * I have met a good many O'Briens in the course 
 of my life,' said he, collecting his thoughts ; and 
 added, with a smile, ' the king, your ancestor, was 
 a man of large family.' 
 
 O'Brien smiled too, but without geniality. 
 
 ' To be sure ; there are a good many of us about, 
 and we all descend from kings. But not to detain 
 you unnecessarily, private affairs of importance have 
 brought me to England, and pending their settle 
 ment, it is essential I should obtain some employ 
 ment, having no private means. I was fortunate 
 enough to make the acquaintance of Mr Rezin E.
 
 196 MONOCHROMES 
 
 van Hannen of N'York, and he kindly gave me the 
 letter of introduction to you.' 
 
 ' I should, of course, be very glad to oblige any 
 of the Van Hannens,' said Scott slowly ; ' they 
 have put a good deal of business in my way.' 
 
 But he was wondering to himself how he could 
 be expected to find work for a man of O'Brien's 
 age, and how it was that, despite the stranger's 
 capable and even impressive appearance, he should 
 thus be reduced to begging a place in the city, like 
 the most incompetent of city clerks. Yet he was 
 interested in him too the name in itself was 
 sufficient to rivet his interest and then there was 
 a tone of voice, a trick of manner, Scott found 
 attractive. He put a few questions as to the kind 
 of employment desired. 
 
 ' I'm not particular,' answered O'Brien. ' I 
 would do anything at all. Indeed, at one time or 
 another I've done everything already, from gum- 
 digging in New Zealand to log-rolling in Manitoba. 
 I've worked with my hands, and I've worked with 
 my head, and ill-luck has pursued me all the world 
 round.' He laughed rather bitterly. ' I've heard 
 people doubt whether there's a Power of Good to 
 direct man's actions, but there seems no doubt at 
 all that there's a very active Principle of Evil.' 
 
 ' What appears to us evil,' said Scott, ' is often 
 good in disguise ; and it not seldom happens that 
 those lives, outwardly the most prosperous and 
 enviable, are in reality the most to be pitied.' 
 
 Perhaps he was thinking of the insidious disease 
 which had laid its hold on him the pain in his
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 197 
 
 side, one of its most troublesome symptoms, was 
 keen just then. But O'Brien answered from his 
 own point of view. 
 
 ' People who have enjoyed every material 
 prosperity are fond of indulging in imaginary 
 troubles. To have knocked about two hemispheres 
 as I have done would soon cure them ; and to have 
 known the want of a crust of bread or glass of 
 water makes a man not only grateful, but cheerful 
 under moderate good fortune.' 
 
 ' Yes, indeed,' said Scott, ' those are hardships 
 one rarely encounters. I was referring to other 
 trials, as real perhaps to some minds, though less 
 tangible. But you must have seen strange times. 
 Van Hannen tells me here, you have had some 
 curious experiences ? ' 
 
 ' I have gone through as many unpleasant 
 adventures as are to be found in a dime novel, 
 and now, after twenty years' wandering, find 
 myself home again at last.' 
 
 ' Twenty years ! ' repeated Scott, struck by the 
 coincidence in date with memories of his own. 
 ' After twenty years you must find many changes, 
 not only in London itself though that is altering 
 very rapidly but among your own acquaintances 
 and family?' 
 
 'As it happens, I've never been in London 
 before ; and I never remember any kith and kin, 
 except a brother, and he, poor fellow, met his death 
 the year I went abroad let me see, that was in the 
 spring of '68.' 
 
 Scott, apparently busy searching for something
 
 198 MONOCHROMES 
 
 among the many papers that littered his desk, was 
 in reality listening with strained attention. 
 
 'Your brother was older than you?' he 
 hazarded. 
 
 ' Michael was some five years my elder. He 
 would be five-and-forty or so now. Excuse the 
 question, but is anything the matter with you ? ' 
 
 Scott had gone white as the paper he held in 
 his hand, that fluttered with the tremor of his 
 pulse. 
 
 ' Nothing/ he said, with an effort ; ' nothing 
 at all but this pain ah ! it often takes me 
 like this. Go on ; what were you telling 
 me?' 
 
 ' I was speaking of my brother. He was a 
 clever fellow. Had he lived, life would have gone 
 very differently with me. As it is, the early 
 mechanical training I had with him he was an 
 engineer served me in good stead at Van 
 Hannens', and so has been the indirect means of 
 my obtaining an introduction to you.' 
 
 ' If you had a footing in their works, you could 
 not have done better than held on. Theirs is a 
 fine business ; my operations are mere trifles in 
 comparison.' 
 
 Scott leaned his head on his hand, and traced 
 abstractedly dots and dashes on the blotting-pad 
 before him. 
 
 1 But I had to get back to England,' explained 
 his visitor. ' For many years my whole thoughts 
 have been centred on getting back, and, strange 
 as it may seem, I have never until now been able
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 
 
 199 
 
 to manage it. Once I actually took ship, to be 
 wrecked for the second time in my life ; and on 
 another occasion I got knocked on the head for 
 the sake of my passage money. I spent the next 
 two months in hospital, and the next two years 
 hunting down the man who did it. I paid him 
 back with interest,' said O'Brien grimly, 'for 
 I never forget a debt, an idiosyncrasy that has 
 injured me more than once. I had, for instance, 
 many chances of settling down in America, could 
 I have foregone my purpose of returning over here. 
 But there are some things even dearer to a man 
 than success.' 
 
 ' Yes, yes,' said Scott, ' peace of mind is best 
 of all.' His own peace was gone years ago but 
 he was overcome now by. unusual agitation. 
 ' Strange ! ' he mused, ' strange that Michael 
 should have a brother, and I not know it ; stranger 
 still, that among all the millions in London, chance 
 should lead that brother to me. But is it not 
 Providence rather than chance, who thus provides 
 me with a means of making reparation ? And 
 even if I am mistaken yet the name ? the date ? 
 no, I cannot be but even so, I will still help him 
 for his own sake ; ' for Scott felt that inward 
 leaning towards the stranger that comes to us 
 when we first meet a person whom we shall after 
 wards call friend. 
 
 ' Well, Mr O'Brien,' he said aloud, ' I will see 
 what I can do for you. Leave me your address, 
 or perhaps you wouldn't mind giving me another 
 call towards the end of the week ? Saturday,
 
 200 MONOCHROMES 
 
 shall we say ? Yes ; perhaps by that time I may 
 have hit on something for you." 
 
 The visitor rose and took his departure ; and he 
 might possibly have looked more elated had he 
 known into what good hands his interests were 
 confided.
 
 II 
 
 SCOTT'S thoughts that night dwelt persistently on 
 the past. He had escorted his daughter Catherine 
 to an evening party, and for the first time he had 
 observed in her behaviour a reminiscence of her 
 dead mother's. The sight filled him with inex 
 pressible pain. He could no longer look at her ; 
 he wandered through the hot, gas-lighted rooms 
 alone, examining the drawings on the walls, which 
 he knew by heart these many years, and turning 
 over the equally well-known albums of photo 
 graphs on the side-tables. 
 
 While it was yet early he asked Catherine to 
 come away, and she, always eager to please him, 
 at once sought her wraps. Rolled cosily round 
 in them, she leaned back in her corner of the 
 carriage, and rehearsed in smiling silence the scene 
 she had just left. 
 
 Scott, usually so equable of temper, betrayed 
 signs of annoyance. He let down the window 
 nearest him with an unnecessary rattle; he stopped 
 Catherine's fan in its progress of slipping off the 
 front seat with an impatient word ; finally, he 
 glanced at the pretty, dreamy face beside him, 
 and it seemed to add the last straw to his burden 
 of discontent.
 
 202 MONOCHROMES 
 
 Catherine, returning his gaze, thought he looked 
 tired, and was filled with self-reproach. 
 
 ' You are feeling less well ? ' she said anxiously. 
 ' Oh, we ought not to have gone ! I ought to 
 have stayed at home quietly with you. I am 
 a selfish wretch ! ' 
 
 ' No, I'm all right,' answered Scott ; ' it's not 
 that. It's something else. You have enjoyed 
 yourself, Catherine ? ' 
 
 'Very much indeed/ she answered, slightly 
 surprised by his tone. 
 
 ' I saw it ! ' cried he petulantly ; ' every one in 
 the room could see it. You laughed and talked 
 more than I have ever known you. You looked 
 different you look different now from your 
 usual self.' 
 
 Catherine leaned forward, love and apprehension 
 blent in her beautiful eyes. 
 
 1 Did I do anything wrong ? or say anything ? 
 was anything the matter with my dress ? ' 
 
 ' No ; you looked very well, and you knew it. 
 You betrayed your consciousness in every move 
 ment, in every tone. It was painful to me to 
 be near you. A vain, coquettish woman is a terror 
 to me.' 
 
 Catherine was too startled to speak. She 
 pressed her hands together in perplexity, and 
 her cloak slipped from her bare arms. Scott 
 drew it up again with tender care. His ebullition 
 of temper had relieved him. 
 
 ' I do not mean to accuse you of wilful coquetry ; 
 but you are young, dearest, and thoughtless. And
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 203 
 
 you, too, have received the best gift that can come 
 to a woman, if rightly used beauty. For God's 
 sake do not turn it to the sorrow, the desperation, 
 perhaps who knows ? to the eternal loss of one 
 of your fellow-creatures.' 
 
 Catherine was tongue-tied by the terrible earnest 
 ness of these words, as well as by the strangeness 
 of any reproof from the most indulgent of friends 
 and fathers. 
 
 ' There were two young fellows there to-night,' 
 pursued Scott, ' whom I have long supposed to 
 be interested in you, who stand, I think, on the 
 brink of a warmer feeling. I watched your 
 conduct with them. You distributed kind words 
 and smiles to each. You let Murchinson fan you, 
 but you dropped your handkerchief for Hervey to 
 pick up.' 
 
 Catherine relapsed into smiles. 
 
 'Oh, no, I did not drop it on purpose!' she 
 explained. 
 
 ' You allowed Hervey to turn over the pages of 
 your music, but you asked Murchinson to choose 
 the song you should sing ; and though it was his 
 arm you accepted to the carriage, it was to 
 Hervey you gave from the window your last 
 good-bye.' 
 
 c But how is that wrong ? ' asked Catherine, still 
 smiling; 'should I not try to be equally nice to 
 them both ? ' 
 
 The cloak began to slip down once more, for 
 her warm little hand had sought her father's, 
 and crept inside it like a bird to its nest.
 
 204 MONOCHROMES 
 
 ' How cold your hand is ! ' she said, shivering. 
 
 Scott's fingers closed over hers, at first fondly, 
 then with unconscious force, until beneath the 
 unendurable pressure she gave a cry of pain. 
 
 ' Equally kind to them both ? ' he repeated ; 
 'don't you see what you are doing? You are 
 encouraging both to hope where you can only 
 satisfy one. They used to be friends ; now on 
 your account they are so no longer. I even see 
 them exchange glances of enmity. If Hervey 
 enjoys a momentary pre-eminence, Murchinson 
 is cast down ; if you accord Murchinson a favour, 
 Hervey bites his lip and scowls. Always together 
 when you are present, they avoid each other when 
 alone. I heard Murchinson just now say to his 
 friend, " Are you going to walk ? " and when he 
 got the answer " Yes," then " I'll ride," said 
 he, and turned on his heel. Formerly, as you 
 remember, each enjoyed nothing so much as the 
 other's company ; but jealousy is a plant of rapid 
 growth. Beginning with petty insults of this sort 
 between comrades, no one can say to what it may 
 not lead to the bitter word, the unforgiveable 
 blow, even to the crime of Cain.' 
 
 It was here that Scott in his vehemence crushed 
 Catherine's hand and wrung from her a cry. 
 
 ' My poor darling, I have hurt you ! ' said he 
 remorsefully, and carrying her fingers to his lips, 
 he covered them with kisses. 'There, I will not 
 forget again what a delicate little hand it is. 
 You know I would not purposely hurt it for 
 the world.'
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 205 
 
 ' And I,' said Catherine, with tears in her eyes, 
 but again smiling, ' did not mean to do the harm 
 I appear to have done to-night. But it never 
 occurred to me things were so serious even now 
 oh, I feel sure neither of them cares for me in 
 the way you mean.' 
 
 ' Perhaps not ; perhaps I am mistaken. And 
 yet, Catherine, let us imagine they do care, that 
 both are anxious for your favour. Do you act 
 fairly by them, in letting each one think you like 
 him the best, or at least quite as well as the 
 other ? ' 
 
 ' Why, dearest,' cried Catherine, laughing, ' even 
 if I did care for one in particular, which I don't, 
 I should be bound to conceal it. You know a girl 
 must not show preferences.' 
 
 ' Error, error,' said Scott. ' Is not a girl a 
 human being too ? Shall she not have her likes 
 and dislikes with the rest of us ? That is a fatal 
 doctrine which teaches her to conceal every hint 
 of the truth. My little daughter, I have known a 
 case in which this unnatural reticence, due partly 
 to a narrow education, partly to a cruel coquetry, 
 worked irretrievable harm.' 
 
 He paused, deep in thought. The image of 
 another Catherine rose before him. He followed 
 her through her brief career, down to the dread 
 ful grave. There, one cold, wet day, long ago, he 
 had left her who had so loved the sunshine and 
 the light ; but the sin, the anguish, the unavailing 
 .regret had remained with him ever since. 
 
 ' A man,' said he presently, ' will accept his fate
 
 206 MONOCHROMES 
 
 manfully from the woman he loves, so long as she 
 deals openly and honestly with him ; but while she 
 lures him on, he will cede to no one. Therefore, 
 Catherine, I implore you to act frankly with those 
 two young fellows. If there is one you like better 
 than the other, do not be afraid to reveal it. Why 
 should you be afraid ? If he is poor, I have 
 enough for you both ; and why should I ask for 
 family or position ? I rose from the people myself. 
 All I ask is that you should be happy and good, 
 and make, through your affection, the man you 
 marry good and happy likewise.' 
 
 ' It is evident I don't make you happy/ said 
 Catherine, playfully ; ' or you would not be so 
 anxious to get rid of me.' 
 
 'Should I not be the selfish wretch you called 
 yourself just now, if I tried to keep you from the 
 man you loved ? ' 
 
 ' So you are making out it is I who am in love 
 now, sir ? ' cried Catherine, with reproach. ' For 
 the future, instead of being equally kind to every 
 one, I must be equally cold.' 
 
 ' No ; there is another danger there,' said Scott ; 
 'young men have feelings as well as girls, and 
 some are too shy, and some too proud, to fall in 
 love without receiving any encouragement. I want 
 you to let your heart lead you ; then you cannot 
 go wrong. And it is natural I should have anxieties 
 about your future. Who knows how long I shall 
 be here to take care of you ? ' 
 
 Time after time he said a word of this sort, with 
 the design of gently preparing Catherine for the
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 207 
 
 coming change. But the girl could not under 
 stand his meaning. His fits of pain, his lassitude, 
 his visits to the physician, appeared to her only in 
 connection with some passing indisposition, per 
 haps incidental to his great age. 
 
 She nestled close up to him. 
 
 ' You are never going to leave me, dearest, and 
 I am never going to marry. I am going to 
 remain with you and be your own little girl 
 always.' 
 
 The carriage reached home, and Scott, lifting 
 his daughter out, pressed her gratefully in his 
 arms ; but he knew that, in spite of her innocent 
 protestations, the day would come when she would 
 think otherwise. And he would have hastened the 
 moment had he been able, because, ever drawing 
 nearer and more near, he foresaw for his darling 
 the dark and lonely days of a first great grief.
 
 Ill 
 
 THE interest O'Brien aroused in Scott increased 
 the more he saw of him. Eventually he made him 
 a place in his own business, and found no occasion 
 to regret having done so. O'Brien's new position 
 threw him a good deal in Scott's society, who 
 before long was addressing him with the familiarity 
 of at least an old acquaintance. He even asked 
 him to Streatham to dine an unusual token of 
 favour and drove him out there on the following 
 Saturday. The clerks, gaily preparing to close 
 their week's work, and get away to their amuse 
 ments, had crowded to the window to see the two 
 gentlemen start. They remarked to each other 
 how jolly old the 'governor' looked. 
 
 In fact, Scott grew visibly older every day. Any 
 one would have said offhand he was sixty, yet in 
 reality he was not many years senior to the man 
 beside him. But O'Brien's upright bearing, and 
 broad shoulders, made Scott appear more than 
 usually aged and infirm. 
 
 His residence, forty minutes' drive from the city, 
 stood back from the high road, in its own pleas 
 ant grounds. Within the oak gates, a gravel 
 sweep led to the house, which was low and unpre-
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 209 
 
 tending; yet to the discerning eyes its well-kept 
 approaches, its spruce exterior, spoke of substan 
 tial wealth, which was confirmed by a first glance 
 within. Here were good pictures, soft carpets, 
 handsome furniture ; all the innumerable indi 
 cations that comfort is understood and money 
 plentiful. Well-trained, attentive servants came 
 to take the visitor's coat and stick, and receive 
 Scott's orders. O'Brien looked about him with 
 dark envy. It was the most luxurious house he 
 had ever been in. For the first time in his life 
 he walked over tiger skins and tessellated pave 
 ments ; he saw decorations on the walls, and 
 objects for daily use which he had previously only 
 associated with the stage. He tried to realise how 
 the possession of all these good things would affect 
 him, and he contrasted Scott's evident ease with 
 his own hardships and toil. He was filled with 
 wrath. 
 
 The large drawing-room into which his host led 
 him was empty. Scott passed out through a 
 conservatory at the back, and thence down a 
 semicircular flight of stone steps on to the lawn. 
 O'Brien saw a green, delightful solitude stretching 
 round him. Stately trees cast their shadow over 
 the grass, there was the tinkle of an unseen foun 
 tain, and the limits of the garden were cleverly 
 concealed. It was an ideal place in which to 
 spend long summer days of indolence. 
 
 Through the leafy screen on the right a gleam 
 of white appeared and vanished. Then a girl in 
 a white gown emerged from a side path and 
 
 O
 
 2io MONOCHROMES 
 
 advanced towards them. She appeared about 
 eighteen years of age, had a skin of milk and roses, 
 gentlest of blue eyes, and quantities of fair hair 
 wound round a well-poised little head. She 
 carried a basket of ferns and flowers, green and 
 white and scarlet. 
 
 O'Brien broke off short in the middle of a 
 sentence, his gaze riveted upon her. The proud 
 father understood his surprise and admiration. 
 New acquaintances were invariably surprised at 
 finding he possessed, hidden away in his home, so 
 sweet a creature as Catherine. 
 
 ' My daughter,' said Scott fondly, as O'Brien 
 turned towards him with impatient inquiry in his 
 eyes ; ' Catherine, Mr O'Brien.' 
 
 ' I am glad to see you,' said Catherine, with 
 timid hospitality, as she held out a little hand. 
 
 ' I am glad to come,' he answered, and then 
 suddenly and oddly turned from her to study the 
 scene. 
 
 ' You have a charming place here,' he remarked 
 to her presently ; ' it has a pleasant, old-world air, 
 very refreshing to a weary traveller like myself. 
 I suppose you have lived here all your life ? ' 
 
 ' As long as I can remember,' said Catherine ; 
 ' we came when I was quite a child, sixteen years 
 ago.' 
 
 ' When her mother died,' explained Scott, in the 
 lowered tone in which a man mentions the still- 
 loved dead ; ' the first four years of my marriage 
 I had a cottage Hampstead way.' 
 
 ' Sixteen years,' repeated O'Brien. ' That is a
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 211 
 
 long, an enviable time to have spent in such an 
 oasis as this ; for it seems to me that life here must 
 be always smooth and happy.' 
 
 ' Yes, yes,' said Scott ; ' and if happiness were 
 intended to be our portion on earth, under con 
 ditions similar to these, it might perhaps be attained.' 
 He looked from Catherine to the velvet lawns and 
 pastures, to the low house, with its friendly aspect, 
 and sun-awnings of white and red. ' But it has 
 not been so willed for man, and we have each of 
 us to bear our cross.' 
 
 ' True,' assented O'Brien ; ' there is no rose 
 without its thorns ; yet to one who has been so 
 long the sport of chance as I have, ten years, five 
 even, of such a peaceful home-life would go a long 
 way towards compensation. After that, I fancy I 
 could face death without grumbling ; but as it is, 
 I should rebel, for it would seem hard to go without 
 having tasted one of the good gifts for which life 
 was given.' 
 
 ' Life was given for one thing only,' said Scott, 
 as though speaking to himself; ' everything else 
 passes as quickly as those shadows over the grass. 
 Inequalities here will be set right in the world to 
 come ; and some of those who stand highest now 
 will take the lowest places then if, indeed,' he 
 added, with passionate earnestness, ' if, indeed, they 
 find a place at all.' 
 
 Catherine saw her father had entered into one 
 of his religious reveries, which often made him 
 oblivious to external things. To conceal his con 
 dition from strange, and perhaps unsympathising
 
 212 MONOCHROMES 
 
 eyes, she conquered her shyness sufficiently to ask 
 O'Brien if he would care to go round the garden. 
 She led him from point to point ; showed him the 
 great guelder rose-bush, with its million blossoms ; 
 the little fountain, where the gold-fishes swam 
 under a glittering cascade poured over them by a 
 smiling Nereid, and the ' turn-about ' house, set 
 on a pivot, so that a touch would bring it round to 
 follow the sunshine ; and he listened to her in such 
 silence, and with such evident pre-occupation, that 
 she might have thought he had forgotten all about 
 her, but for the strangely intense look she en 
 countered if she chanced to meet his eye. 
 
 Presently he abandoned taciturnity and began 
 to talk. She had taken him into the .orchid-house 
 to exhibit with especial pride her favourite flowers. 
 He told her of the countries where he had seen 
 these growing wild, common as weeds. 
 
 ' You have travelled a great deal, my father tells 
 me ? ' said Catherine. 
 
 'Yes, I have been a rolling stone, and conse 
 quently have gathered no moss ; so that I find 
 myself, Miss Scott, at an age when other men have 
 homes and children, about to begin life over again. 
 I am absolutely no further advanced than I was 
 twenty years ago. 
 
 ' Oh, but you have been unlucky,' said Catherine, 
 gently. ' Now that you are home in England you 
 will find things will go better.' 
 
 She blushed at her temerity in offering these 
 timid consolations, and O'Brien watched her 
 furtively.
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 213 
 
 ' Yes, I think the luck has changed now,' he 
 answered. ' I see the goal plainly at last.' But 
 his manner was still charged with gloom. 
 
 Catherine was puzzled. His long dark glances 
 confused her. She was glad that the gong at that 
 moment recalled them to the house. 
 
 At dinner the conversation turned upon the guest's 
 travels. Scott, whose life was so uniform, who 
 knew no greater excitement than the rise and fall 
 of markets, no greater danger than the crossing 
 of Leadenhall Street, was much interested in the 
 other's strange tales. O'Brien warmed to his work. 
 He shook off his moroseness, and without either 
 boasting or self-depreciation, set forth his adven 
 tures in manly fashion, selecting episodes he 
 thought most likely to interest, and painting lively 
 pictures of foreign life and manners. 
 
 Catherine listened enthralled. Never had any 
 one within her limited experience spoken like this, 
 seen so many marvels, or done such courageous 
 things. In her heart she appraised at their just 
 value the deeds he passed so lightly by. Her 
 cheeks glowed ; her sweet eyes involuntarily ex 
 pressed her homage. Yet she did not know the 
 full meaning of the new emotions awakening 
 within her breast ; and, had she been asked with 
 what sentiment O'Brien most inspired her, she 
 would undoubtedly have told you with fear. For, 
 though it pleased her so much to hear him talk, 
 she could scarcely answer for rising blushes and 
 fluttering pulse.
 
 IV 
 
 O'BRIEN began to come over to Streatham at 
 regular and frequent intervals. It seemed to Scott 
 his guest took pleasure in walking about the 
 gardens with Catherine, in telling his stories to 
 her gentle ear. It was while watching them thus 
 together one day that the idea first presented itself 
 to Scott's mind that, by giving his daughter to 
 James O'Brien, he should be making the best and 
 fittest atonement. For he no longer felt the 
 smallest doubt that this man, led by chance across 
 his path, had, all unknown to O'Brien himself, the 
 strongest possible claim upon him. And even for 
 Catherine's own sake, it seemed such a marriage 
 might be best. In O'Brien she would find a 
 more indulgent husband than in a younger man. 
 Young men, said Scott to himself, are often selfish 
 and tyrannical ; such a one might make Catherine's 
 life a slavery. But O'Brien would know how to 
 value the gift, and to unite the tenderness of a 
 father with the ardour of a lover. He was more 
 than twenty years her senior, and yet, in appear 
 ance, still young upright, well built, and possess 
 ing a face and mien of which any woman might be 
 proud.
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 215 
 
 Now, as he walked by Catherine's side across the 
 lawn, he looked particularly well. With her, he 
 put off some of his gloom, and bending down 
 towards her as he talked for the top of her head 
 was but just on a level with his shoulder he 
 called forth constantly on her charming little face 
 the most responsive smiles and dimples. 
 
 It seemed to Scott that, so far as Catherine was 
 concerned, his wishes would meet with no resist 
 ance. And he did begin to wish this thing earnestly. 
 He not only liked O'Brien as much as he had 
 liked only one other man in his life, but he believed 
 that Providence was thus offering him a means 
 of expiation for the past. O'Brien should marry 
 Catherine, succeed to the business, and then 
 money, house, all Scott possessed, should be given 
 to her and to him. 
 
 It was a happy spring and summer for David 
 Scott, happier than any he had lived through for 
 the last twenty years. Though he suffered much 
 physical pain, his anxieties were less, and the 
 burden of remorse which weighed down his soul 
 began to lift. 
 
 Catherine, too, was filled with a new life, or, 
 rather, life seemed to hold a new meaning for her. 
 All smiles and blushes when O'Brien was present, 
 she rippled over with happiness when alone. She 
 sang as she ran up and down stairs, or as she 
 wandered through the quiet garden. Murchinson 
 and Hervey were completely forgotten. 
 
 O'Brien had more than once made casual allu 
 sion to that private business which had mainly
 
 216 MONOCHROMES 
 
 brought him to London, and Scott had felt such 
 curiosity as may bs pardoned when it springs from 
 a desire to serve. One evening, as the three were 
 sitting on the lawn after dinner, it recurred to him 
 again, this business, and he wondered whether it was 
 such as might offer any impediment to his hopeful 
 castle-building. 
 
 O'Brien smoked in silence, and Catherine 
 watched the stars, trooping forth in myriads upon 
 the darkening summer sky. 
 
 ' By-the-by,' remarked Scott, tentatively, ' that 
 affair of yours, you have once or twice alluded 
 to I hope it is progressing satisfactorily ? ' 
 
 O'Brien looked up abruptly at the first word ; 
 then he threw away his cigar, though it was but half 
 burnt out, and turned his chair to fully face Scott. 
 
 ' Circumstances are combining to favour me,' he 
 said, ' better than I ever dreamed possible ; and, 
 after twenty years' patience, I seem on the verge 
 of attaining my heart's desire.' He paused a 
 long, intolerable pause it seemed to Scott before 
 he added, 'Justice to a criminal, and vengeance 
 for a crime.' 
 
 Catherine too had begun to listen the moment 
 O'Brien began to speak. Already sensitive to every 
 change in his voice, her eyes opened in terror at 
 the ferocity of his tone. 
 
 1 You think I speak vindictively, Miss Scott ? ' 
 he asked her. ' I am vindictive it runs in my 
 Irish blood. We love and hate warmly and for 
 ever ; and there is a man to whom I owe a debt of 
 hatred hard to pay.'
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 217 
 
 Scott leaned forward with interest. 
 
 ' What was this crime ? ' said he. 
 
 ' Murder/ came the curt answer. ' And the 
 victim was my only brother, Michael O'Brien.' 
 
 It had grown almost too dark for the men to 
 distinguish each other's faces, but Catherine cried 
 out with indignation : 
 
 ' Oh, your brother ! how wicked ! ' And the 
 murderer at that moment would have found scant 
 mercy at her hands. 
 
 ' Yes, it was a cruel piece of work,' began O'Brien ; 
 ' for this man and poor Michael were friends. Yet he 
 murdered him, and spread the report that Michael, 
 in a fit of caprice, had joined an outward-bound 
 ship and sailed for America.' 
 
 ' But how did the murderer escape if you knew 
 of the crime ? ' asked Scott from his dusky corner. 
 
 ' The story is rather singular. I made the 
 discovery in this way. One day I was taking a 
 lonely ramble along the shore this occurred down 
 at Hardsmouth ; the cliffs on either side of the town 
 rise abruptly, and the coast is solitary and danger 
 ous but perhaps you may know those parts ? ' 
 
 ' I do,' said Scott ; ' I was there on business some 
 six years since.' 
 
 ' Well, I was rambling about there one day some 
 months after Michael's disappearance I should 
 explain I had come purposely up from the south 
 to join my brother in business, only to find to my 
 surprise and grief he had gone abroad, so it was 
 told me I was wandering along the shore dis 
 consolately enough when, rounding a promontory,
 
 218 MONOCHROMES 
 
 I was surprised to find the little cove beyond, full 
 of crows, either walking over the sands or flying 
 heavily in the air. Disturbed at my approach, they 
 rose and settled on a jutting-out portion of rock, 
 some twenty or thirty feet above my head. There, 
 wedged into a cleft, I saw what appeared to be a 
 bundle of old clothes. Boylike, I must climb to 
 discover what this might mean. I shouted to scare 
 the birds away. They flapped their ugly wings in 
 circles round my head. Something sickening hung 
 out from the bundle. It was a half-eaten and 
 decaying human hand, the flesh hanging in tatters, 
 the bones showing.' 
 
 ' Oh,' murmured Catherine, ' how dreadful ! ' 
 
 ' In a few seconds more I discovered to what 
 this ghastly relic belonged. The bundle of clothes 
 concealed the body of poor Michael, whom I had 
 last seen six months before, full of life and vigour, 
 whom I had loved, who was the only relation I 
 had in the world.' 
 
 ' That was a terrible discovery,' said Scott, sym 
 pathetically ; ' yet what leads you to suppose it 
 was a murder? Might not your brother have met 
 with a misadventure? The cliffs round Hards- 
 mouth are notoriously dangerous, and on a dark 
 night a man walking along the top might easily 
 miss his footing and be blown over.' 
 
 ' Such was my own impression at first ; but as I 
 lay there upon the rock, innumerable scraps of 
 evidence presented themselves to my mind, which 
 together convinced me it was the work of a 
 murderer. It would not interest you to hear all
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 219 
 
 the details by which I roughly arrived at the theory 
 which I have since elaborated during many years 
 of painful retrospect. This man, this friend of 
 Michael's, had a cause for hating him. Perhaps 
 Michael had won the affections of some girl the 
 other coveted, for my brother, as I remember 
 him, Miss Scott, was a most gay and lovable fellow 
 as different as possible from the man you see me. 
 Perhaps thereupon the false friend laid a trap to 
 entice Michael along the edge of the cliff at night, 
 and then, suddenly springing upon him unawares, 
 flung him over. He trusted to the solitary nature 
 of the spot to keep his secret for twenty years 
 ago, the coast down there was still more sparsely 
 inhabited than it is at present and, but for that 
 chance walk of mine, the remains might never have 
 been found until they were past recognition.' 
 
 ' Human nature is vile,' said Scott ; ' no 
 one knows better than I how deeply man may 
 fall, but such cold-blooded treachery as you 
 describe this man guilty of, I am loth to believe 
 in. Is it not more probable to suppose the two 
 may have quarrelled, come to blows, and then 
 perhaps ' 
 
 ' My brother have fallen over accidentally ? ' said 
 O'Brien, concluding the sentence. ' No, had it 
 been accidental, and the men struggling, both must 
 have gone over together, and if one saw the danger 
 in time to save himself, he could have saved his 
 friend. Besides, the report so sedulously spread 
 of the victim's departure for foreign parts, 
 proves conclusively the guilt of him who spread it.'
 
 220 MONOCHROMES 
 
 ' But what did you do?' asked Catherine eagerly. 
 
 'At this point my own adventures begin. I 
 hung there, clinging on to the rock, and turning 
 things over in my mind, when a boat came in sight 
 a few yards from the shore. I hailed the three 
 men who were in her, and who at first seemed little 
 disposed to stop ; but, after consulting together, they 
 turned her head and ran her up the beach. I made 
 haste to tell them my story ; they appeared friendly, 
 advised me to leave the body precisely as I had 
 found it, and to go with them and lay an informa 
 tion before the magistrates. I got into the boat, 
 and they pulled for the harbour ; it was already 
 past sundown, and the evening was quite closed in 
 before we reached the bar. Here, lying in the 
 offing, all ready for sailing, was a Portuguese 
 trading-vessel, and aboard her, by some easy 
 excuse or other, my companions managed to decoy 
 me. But no sooner was my foot set on deck than 
 I received a knock-down blow, and recovered con 
 sciousness only to find myself out at sea, with my 
 choice of supplementing the wretchedly incompetent 
 crew or tasting the cat. We were bound for 
 Loanga, but never reached our destination, as we 
 were wrecked off the coast of Dahomey. There I 
 fell into the hands of the blacks, and lived in 
 slavery for five years. Slavery is not a condition 
 to soften the heart, and it was then, Miss Scott, I 
 made up my mind to outlive any suffering and I 
 endured many for the pleasure of one day taking 
 my revenge.' 
 
 ' Vengeance,' said Scott, in a low voice, ' belongs
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 221 
 
 to the Lord. Be sure in His own time He will 
 repay, ay, full measure and running over.' 
 
 ' Yes,' agreed O'Brien ; ' but even you good 
 people admit the Lord helps those most who help 
 themselves. I will help myself here. Think of my 
 brother's terrible and lingering death ; for it is 
 evident he was not killed outright by the fall, but 
 got fixed there in the rock, to die of loss of blood 
 or of starvation. Think of what I have gone 
 through since. We have each of us but one life 
 given us, and the man took Michael's, and for 
 twenty years has rendered mine exceeding bitter. 
 The Lord may do as He pleases with his soul 
 hereafter, but I think I have every right to demand 
 satisfaction from him here.' 
 
 ' Catherine,' said her father tenderly, ' it is getting 
 chilly ; it is time you should go in.' 
 
 ' It is time we should all go in,' added O'Brien. 
 ' I must be getting away.' 
 
 Scott accompanied him to the door to bid him 
 good-night. 
 
 O'Brien produced a pipe from his pocket and 
 set about lighting it ; but he was awkward with 
 the matches, which went out one after the other. 
 Meanwhile he spoke musingly : ' The O'Briens,^ 
 said he, 'may be found every hour of the day, 
 in every quarter of the globe ; but I suppose the 
 name of David Scott is not so very unusual 
 either ? ' 
 
 'The combination is about as common as any 
 you will find,' said the host. 
 
 ' Ah ! ' O'Brien struck the fourth match success-
 
 222 M O N OT H R O M E S 
 
 fully ; it flared up, so that for an instant both men's 
 faces were visible in the glow. ' Curiously enough 
 the man who murdered my poor Michael, and 
 whom I have been seeking these many years past, 
 was also named David Scott.'
 
 V 
 
 SCOTT passed the night walking up and down his 
 bedroom unintermittingly but softly, so as not to 
 awaken Catherine in the adjoining room. 
 
 His thoughts went back to the days when the 
 dead and more dearly-loved Catherine was alive 
 and young. He lived over again a certain evening, 
 when Catherine Eames, seventeen, and radiantly 
 pretty, was radiantly happy likewise ; for her two 
 lovers had come up to supper, and it was easy to 
 see from the dark glances and bitter speeches that 
 passed between them, how jealous each was of the 
 other, and how much both aspired to her favour. 
 
 Catherine did all she could to foment their bad 
 feeling. If she gave David a sweet smile, she 
 straightway touched Michael's hand by accident 
 as she dispensed her hospitality ; if she laughed 
 one moment at Michael's half-malicious jests, the 
 next she had turned to David, and with pretty 
 pleading eyebrows and bewitching ways, knew 
 how without a word to get her laughter pardoned. 
 
 The unfortunate young men suffered torments ; 
 but instead of tracing the origin of their pain to 
 Catherine, where it was due, and putting a stop 
 once for all to her thoughtless cruelty, they turned
 
 224 MONOCHROMES 
 
 fiercely on each other, and their old friendship was 
 half burned up in the fires of their new passion. 
 
 Catherine's father, stolid, phlegmatic, indifferent 
 to everything but his supper and his doze, ate and 
 slept the evening away, and noticed nothing of the 
 young people's folly. 
 
 ' You will both come again and see me in three 
 weeks' time,' said Catherine, ' when I shall be back 
 
 from auntie's? and then perhaps I may ' 
 
 She paused to smile coquettishly at one and the 
 other. 
 
 'Then you will give us your answer?' implored 
 David. ' You will decide between us, Catherine ? ' 
 
 Michael listened and laughed ; he played tunes 
 with his fingers on the supper-cloth, and tried to 
 inform David by his whole demeanour that the 
 decision held small terrors for him personally ; 
 but when Catherine turned towards him he 
 immediately dropped his boastful air, and became 
 once more the devout lover. 
 
 'Perhaps I shall never come back at all,' said 
 Catherine, merely to tease. ' Who knows if I may 
 not meet my fate down there ? ' 
 
 The wild, gusty December wind rushed at the 
 cottage, and shook every door and window with 
 violence, as though seeking to force an entrance ; 
 the log-fire crackled gloriously up the chimney, 
 and red reflections played over the cosy house- 
 place and its four occupants upon Eames, who, 
 with folded hands and head fallen back, dreamed 
 uneasily of business complications and vanishing 
 joints of roast ; upon Catherine, turning her fair
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 225 
 
 hair to gold, her eyes to jewels, her flushing cheek 
 and tiny ear to sunset-clouds, to sea-shells, or to 
 anything else that might seem appropriate to the 
 poetical fancy of the lover ; finally, it glowed 
 warmly over the two young men with all the 
 impartiality of Catherine herself. It contrasted 
 Michael's handsome Irish face with David's 
 northern fairness, and so enhanced and equalised 
 the good looks of both, that in point of beauty 
 alone it was impossible to decide which deserved 
 the preference. The stormy wind, rattling at the 
 door, mingled with Catherine's light words, and 
 set Michael quoting: 
 
 ' " Fate and fortune come without knocking," ' 
 said he. ' Give us your answer candidly to-night, 
 Catherine ; for who can tell if in three weeks' time 
 we shall be here to receive it ? You, as you say, 
 may stop down there at your aunt's altogether, 
 or a sudden whim may seize me to take 
 ship to the antipodes, and never be heard of 
 again.' 
 
 ' In that case,' cried Catherine, ' my answer can 
 be of no importance to you.' 
 
 ' Oh, it would be something to meditate on in 
 the watches of the night ! ' he answered, and his 
 blue eyes drew hers and held them fixed for one 
 pensive moment upon his own. A deeper colour 
 came to her cheek. 
 
 ' Have you nothing to meditate on without 
 that ? ' she asked him, smiling ; and Michael thrust 
 a careless hand into his breast. 
 
 ' Ah, to be sure ! There are plenty of nice girls 
 P
 
 226 MONOCHROMES 
 
 down at Hardsmouth,' he said. ' I will meditate 
 upon Maggie or on Liz.' 
 
 Catherine's smile only broadened, and David, for 
 ever on the watch, turned pale. Just now it 
 appeared to him there had passed a glance of 
 secret understanding between the two. He looked 
 darkly at Catherine, who turned towards him a 
 face of childlike innocence ; he looked at his 
 friend, but found no more in Michael's triumphant 
 expression than he was well used to. Michael was 
 always sanguine ; up to the very brink of disaster, 
 his Celtic impetuosity knew no check, his self- 
 confidence was never one whit abated. He lived 
 gaily in the present moment, with neither regret 
 for the past nor fears for the future. 
 
 David took life more seriously ; he was of a 
 religious turn of mind. He ardently desired to 
 save his soul, but he likewise framed plans to 
 conquer Fortune. Lately, Catherine had become 
 the centre and source of all his day-dreaming, and 
 he thought even more of winning her for his wife 
 than of making money or obtaining grace. His 
 worldly position was better than Michael's, and he 
 believed he should have the old man's good word. 
 
 The last mad wind-whirl had disturbed Eames, 
 and his comfortless position in the chair, on the top 
 of a plentiful meal, had given him nightmare. He 
 awoke with a groan, sat up, and saw Catherine 
 and the boys still sitting as he had left them at 
 the supper-table, although they had long since 
 finished. Michael was building up a pyramid of 
 knives and glasses. Catherine watched the structure
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 227 
 
 as it rose, and David looked at Catherine. Pre 
 sently she put out a mischievous hand to interfere, 
 but Michael, still building with his right, caught 
 her wrist in his left hand, and held it fast With 
 an impatient jerk of the table, David brought the 
 edifice crashing down in ruins. 
 
 'If you break the glasses,' said Eames, ' you'll 
 get no hot toddy. Cathey, it's time you were abed. 
 Get out the whisky and mix the boys a glass 
 apiece, and your poor old father will have one too.' 
 
 Catherine fetched the bottle, the lemons, and 
 the old-fashioned silver sugar-crushers. Michael 
 pared the peel into strips so thin ' you might read 
 through them,' and David lifted the kettle, too 
 heavy for the girl's slender arms. The fragrant 
 odour of punch spread about the room, and the 
 young men clinked glasses with Eames and drank 
 to their next meeting. 
 
 ' You've got a rough walk before you, boys,' 
 said he ; 'I shouldn't care to be in your place. 
 But, to be sure, you're young ; your united ages 
 don't come up to mine, I'll be bound. Let me 
 see you're twenty-three, Michael, and David's 
 twenty-five. Twenty and twenty is forty, and five 
 and three is eight. Add another five to forty- 
 eight and there you have me. Well, twenty years 
 goes by like a flash, as one day you'll discover for 
 yourselves.' 
 
 He pressed the young men to take just 
 another half-glass. ' A warm inside keeps the cold 
 without,' said he, dealing forth the spirit gener 
 ously.
 
 228 MONOCHROMES 
 
 They were glad to delay the moment of depar 
 ture, and Catherine coquetted to the last. She 
 handed David his comforter and laughed at the 
 fashion in which Michael wore his. 
 
 ' You've tied it very badly, all the ends are 
 hanging out. Let me do it for you.' 
 
 Standing on tiptoes her head just reached to 
 Michael's chin. She was unnecessarily long in 
 her arrangements, and when she had finished she 
 turned her charming little face upwards, with 
 something so provocative in her baby eyes, that no 
 young mortal Irishman, especially after Eames's 
 hospitality, could resist doing as Michael did, and 
 suddenly kissing her. 
 
 David turned white. 
 
 ' Early times for kissing,' grumbled Eames. 
 
 1 No, late times,' said Catherine, ' I am saying 
 good-night.' With woman's wit she held her 
 blushing cheek up to her father and David in turn, 
 as if it were but ordinary friendliness. 
 
 David was red enough now, as he awkwardly 
 took the kiss she proffered him. 
 
 Michael made a grimace. 
 
 ' You know how to cheapen your favours,' he 
 told Catherine, who blushed still deeper, but 
 answered pertly, ' It will be a long time before you 
 obtain such another favour anyhow.' 
 
 The whole party went out into the porch, 
 and David opened the outer door. The wind 
 drove him back an instant as it rushed triumph 
 antly past him, lifting the carpet from the boards, 
 blowing the curtains into strange suggestive shapes,
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 229 
 
 finally losing itself in the great roaring cavern of a 
 chimney. 
 
 Outside, up in the domed heavens, a gibbous 
 moon, now visible, now hidden, climbed swiftly 
 through the drifting clouds. The scene was alter 
 nately washed in cold white light or plunged in 
 blackness, and the suddenness and completeness 
 of these changes was full of an eerie desolation. 
 
 ' Good-night,' said Eames to the young men. 
 
 ' Good-night !' they cried, setting off. 
 
 ' Good-night, Davy,' said Catherine, in her most 
 caressing tone, and making use for the first time 
 that evening of the familiar diminutive. ' Good 
 night, Michael.' 
 
 Both turned back and waved their caps with a 
 final ' good-night.' All four saw each other for 
 the last time in the wan moonlight, then Eames 
 pulled his daughter within doors, and the two 
 friends trudged on together. 
 
 They went without speaking a mile along their 
 road. The last house of the village was left behind, 
 as, striking across the meadows, they reached the 
 cliff, along the ragged outline of which their route 
 lay. The moon began to disentangle herself from 
 the vaporous meshes that held her ; she reached 
 a breadth of dark transparent sky, and for a time 
 shone out unimpeded and strong. Every leaf and 
 blade of grass became suddenly distinguishable 
 upon the cliff-top ; every bright ripple crest and 
 dark hollow might be counted on the sheet of silver 
 sea that crawled below. * 
 
 David, since he parted from Catherine, had not
 
 230 MONOCHROMES 
 
 opened his lips. The look he still believed he had 
 surprised between her and Michael rankled within 
 him. His blood was on fire with the kiss she had 
 let him take ; perhaps too, Eames's whisky counted 
 for something. He said to himself over and over 
 again, Catherine should be his, and the annoying 
 conviction pressed close upon him, that but for 
 Michael there was no one in the world to dispute 
 his claim. 
 
 Michael, who had not spoken either, was yet 
 never silent. Now he whistled, now he hummed 
 under his breath, now he sang a few bars out loud. 
 All at once he laughed outright. 
 
 David felt a passionate resentment. 
 
 ' What a fool you are ! ' he exclaimed savagely ; 
 ' everything to you is a matter for jest. Yet the 
 very next time we walk along here together, 
 Catherine will have made her choice, and one of 
 us will be the happiest fellow in the world, one 
 the most miserable.' 
 
 ' Perhaps I am cultivating a laughing philosophy,' 
 replied Michael, 'in order to enable me to sustain 
 my fate, and yet ' 
 
 ' Yet what ? ' repeated David. 
 
 1 Well, of course we each hope to have the luck,' 
 said Michael, apologetically, 'and I cannot help 
 being gay-hearted while such a hope is mine.' 
 
 The mere possibility that his rival should 
 succeed and he fail, cut David like a knife, but he 
 marshalled up all the facts that told in his favour 
 and found relief. 
 
 ' Even supposing,' said he, ' Catherine cared for
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 231 
 
 you, what then? How could you support her as 
 a wife ? You have only just enough to live your 
 self. Do you mean to ask her to wait for you ? 
 Eames would not consent. He's a shrewd man. 
 He understands business. I talked with him to-day 
 for a long time. I let him know my position and 
 my prospects. He was pleased. I am almost 
 sure I can count upon his influence. In fact, he 
 hinted as much. He said he wanted a son-in-law 
 competent to put Catherine's own little bit of 
 money to good use.' 
 
 Michael laughed again. 
 
 ' You're a canny Scot, Davy,' said he, ' and where 
 money is concerned you're bound to win. But 
 while you were getting round old Eames, I, for 
 once, was better employed. I was in the kitchen 
 helping Catherine make the pies. I sat on a 
 corner of the table and handed her the pepper, 
 salt, and herbs as she wanted them. Do you 
 know she is different when you're alone with her? 
 she's gentler, and doesn't make fun of what you 
 say.' 
 
 There was a rapturous expression on Michael's 
 face that told his companion, plain as words could, 
 he was living over again his hour with Catherine 
 in the kitchen. 
 
 ' Have you ever noticed her ear ? ' he went on ; 
 ' I didn't know an ear could be such a beautiful 
 thing. It's so small and so perfect. I wonder 
 how any man could have been such a brute as to 
 bore that little hole through it ? She says it didn't 
 hurt her much, but imagine hurting her at all ! '
 
 232 MONOCHROMES 
 
 Every word wrenched the knife round in David's 
 heart ; every moment his face grew more fixed 
 and bloodless. Unconscious or careless of the 
 effect he was producing, Michael went on ; 
 ' There's a wonderful down over her cheek, 
 though you only see it when she turns against 
 the light It is like the bloom on fruit, you 
 would almost fear to brush it away with a 
 breath. It must feel like velvet to the finger. 
 Then her hands. How horny Eames's are, and 
 ours too. Look at that.' Michael held out' a 
 large palm, roughened and engrained by weather 
 and work. 
 
 ' But Catherine's is quite soft and pink, and is 
 crossed inside by hundreds of funny little lines, 
 like a crumpled poppy leaf before it's shaken 
 out of the husk. And it's so small ! She 
 measured it against mine, and it lay here in the 
 centre like a child's. The tips of her fingers 
 don't reach to this ; ' and he drew an imaginary 
 line across his first finger-joints. 
 
 David stood still, for his limbs were suddenly 
 powerless, every drop of blood, all energy had 
 gone to feed the fury welling up in his heart. 
 
 ' What right have you to know such things ? ' 
 he demanded huskily ; ' what right have you to 
 touch her? You desecrate her by your speech, 
 by your thoughts. I have never so much as 
 squeezed her hand, and you did I not see you 
 to-night put her to shame by kissing her before 
 us all ? ' 
 
 'You should be the last to complain of that,
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 233 
 
 remembering what it earned you,' Michael retorted ; 
 'but what I do before her father I dare not do 
 behind his back. When alone with Catherine 
 I am more timid, and go no further than she 
 leads.' 
 
 ' I swear she never leads you ! ' cried David 
 violently : ' you insult her by every word you 
 say.' 
 
 Michael did not seem to hear ; he was immersed 
 in pleasurable recollections. 
 
 'To-day her hair fell down all about her 
 shoulders and below her waist. She had run 
 into the garden to catch her kitten that had 
 escaped, and the wind loosened it and blew it 
 about like a yellow cloud. I wanted to take it 
 in my hands, but I was afraid. I suppose she 
 saw my longing in my face, for she got her 
 scissors from her work-box and cut off for me 
 a long thick piece. I have it here,' and Michael 
 thrust his hand into his breast. 
 
 David recalled the similar movement when 
 Catherine had said to him, 'Have you nothing 
 else to meditate upon?' and he understood at 
 last the look which they had exchanged. Michael 
 had played him false. Three months ago they 
 had agreed to court Catherine openly and in 
 each other's presence, and to loyally accept her 
 choice ; but now Michael had tampered with her 
 affection in an underhand manner, and had got 
 her to concede to him unwarrantable favours. 
 
 Love, rage, and jealousy sent David, usually 
 the most sensible of young men, clean off his
 
 234 MONOCHROMES 
 
 head. He sprang upon Michael with the vague 
 idea of tearing open his coat and proving him a 
 liar, or else of wresting from him the lock of hair 
 of which he made his boast. Michael, astonished 
 at the attack, then angry too, struck back, and 
 his blow falling upon his assailant's mouth, laid 
 the lip open, while his own knuckles streamed 
 with blood. This was enough to change both 
 men to wild beasts. They fought with fury, 
 neither remembering nor caring for the cause. 
 Locked in each other's arms, they swayed 
 this way and that, and, oblivious of the danger, 
 came every moment nearer to the cliffs edge. 
 Both were strong, evenly matched in weight 
 and height. David had a temporary advantage, 
 having got Michael below him, but at the same 
 moment he grew cognisant of their peril, and the 
 shock sobered him at once. It was perhaps even 
 then too late, they were already on the brink. 
 The horror, legible in his eyes, caused Michael 
 to glance round in his turn ; down, down fell the 
 precipice, almost perpendicularly to the shore. 
 His grip upon David's arms, born of ferocity, 
 tightened in despair. 
 
 ' Back, David, for God's sake ... for Catherine's,' 
 he whispered hoarsely. But David felt, with agony 
 of mind, the ground sliding away beneath him. 
 Was there nothing on all this great, round, slippery 
 earth by which to catch hold ? His foot encoun 
 tered an obstacle; with all his strength he held 
 against the knotty root of some long-perished 
 tree, that laced the ground in his path. They
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 235 
 
 were saved. But when Michael said ' for 
 Catherine's sake,' David's feelings underwent an 
 other change. His hatred returned a thousand-fold ; 
 he no longer wished to save his rival, he wished 
 to thrust him back, to leave him to his fate. 
 Perhaps he did transmute this impulse into action ; 
 perhaps Michael must have fallen anyway ; 
 David never knew. All passed in a flash of 
 lightning. With an uncertain cry, Michael crashed 
 down to death alone, and David lay on the grass 
 where he had fallen, and stared at the sky and 
 the sailing moon, and vaguely calculated how soon 
 she would reach that great bank of black cloud 
 that yawned before her. 
 
 Next he observed on the grass, at a little 
 distance from him, Michael's cap, which had fallen 
 off in the struggle. He would have recognised it 
 anywhere by its shape, its colour, its frayed and 
 sun-browned binding. The blustering wind racing 
 along the cliff-top raised the cap on edge, played 
 with it capriciously, whirled it to the brink of the 
 precipice, balanced it there, toppled it over. 
 
 David experienced horrible pain at seeing this 
 senseless, inanimate object thus disappear before his 
 eyes. It woke him from his stupor. It carried 
 his thoughts down to Michael ; he shuddered. Had 
 he died quickly, or was he alive and conscious of 
 the increeping sea, that within a few hours would 
 wash high up the base of every rock and boulder 
 along that lonely coast? David crept along the 
 edge, leaned over the abyss, called down with 
 all his strength. The wind seized hold of his
 
 236 MONOCHROMES 
 
 voice, scattered it hither and thither, overpower 
 ing it. 
 
 No human sound might reach to one down there 
 below ; vision might not scan the depth of those 
 Titan walls, nor cleave the blackness of their 
 shadows. Yet for a moment, David, hanging over 
 the precipice, fancied he could distinguish a dark 
 and awful something blotting the moon-white 
 shore ; then the light flickered, paled, went out, the 
 moon had reached the swarthy cloud bank, she 
 passed into it and left him alone. 
 
 He got up and stumbled home through the 
 windy darkness. As he went he rehearsed the 
 three years of his good friendship with Michael. 
 Closest, most inseparable of companions, never an 
 unkind word had passed between them, until they 
 had made the acquaintance of Catherine Eames. 
 Now, because of this girl, Michael's body lay 
 crushed at the foot of Browncap Cliff, and David 
 was not only a murderer, but to conceal his crime 
 must become a liar and a hypocrite as well. 
 
 He loathed himself; his old love for Michael was 
 strong within him ; and nevertheless, before the 
 next sun rose, he had skilfully pieced together and 
 learned by heart the story he was prepared to 
 adhere to throughout the remainder of his life.
 
 VI 
 
 ' WHAT do you mean to do ? ' 
 
 This was the question Scott asked O'Brien the 
 first moment he found himself alone with him next 
 day. There was no doubt left in Scott's mind now, 
 but that O'Brien knew him for the murderer of his 
 brother Michael. 
 
 ' I have not come to a decision,' answered 
 O'Brien, with more than usual gloom. 
 
 ' Did you know all along I was the man you 
 were in search of?' 
 
 ' When I heard of you from the Van Hannens, 
 it occurred to me you might be the man ; but when 
 I saw you I fancied I was mistaken, you looked so 
 much older than I expected.' 
 
 ' To bear a secret burden of guilt for twenty 
 years does age a man,' said Scott humbly ; ' but for 
 my poor Catherine's sake, I should be glad now 
 the end has come.' 
 
 This conversation took place in Scott's private 
 office during an interval of business. Within a 
 few feet was the roomful of pen-driving clerks, 
 young fellows who now and then exchanged a 
 gay jest over their work ; beyond, again, was the 
 jar and rumble of city life ; all things ran in their
 
 238 MONOCHROMES 
 
 accustomed grooves ; only for Scott was the world 
 revolutionised. His prosperous, honoured, hypo 
 critical career was at an end, and the question this 
 morning of paramount importance to him, was 
 how and when O'Brien meant to pluck away the 
 mask. 
 
 ' It was seeing your daughter convinced me I 
 was on the right track,' O'Brien told him ; ' she has 
 her mother's name and her mother's hair.' 
 
 Scott was astonished. ' How can you know 
 that?' 
 
 The other took from his breast-pocket an oblong 
 packet. Unfolding the paper in which it was 
 wrapped, he produced an old and shabby pocket- 
 book. 
 
 ' This was Michael's,' said he, ' I took it from the 
 body that evening, and through all my wanderings 
 and misadventures I have managed to keep it safe. 
 Sea-water, time, and friction have rubbed away the 
 writing it once contained, but long ago I learned 
 its contents by heart. There, over and over again, 
 stood a woman's name, "Catherine," "Catherine 
 Eames," and sometimes " Catherine O'Brien " ; 
 once it stood " Catherine Scott," but a black line 
 had then been run through it. And here in the 
 pocket I found a treasure time has not destroyed.' 
 
 He laid upon the table a long tress of woman's 
 hair, fine in texture, yellow in colour, and wanting 
 but the brightness of living hair to be the precise 
 counterpart of Catherine Scott's. 
 
 It was the actual lock of hair for possessing which 
 Michael had lost his life, and David had earned
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 239 
 
 the curse of Cain. Tears came into Scott's eyes 
 as he looked at this last memento of all the beauty 
 that had gone to dust. 
 
 * It seems a small thing now to have quarrelled 
 over/ he said, ' but then it meant to me so much. 
 Yet, if she had only told me .... for after all, 
 she loved your brother best. I found this out 
 when it was too late. But even from the very 
 beginning the shadow of the dead stood between 
 me and her, and when she lay dying, and I knelt 
 beside her, it was his name she uttered with her 
 failing breath. I never pray to God but Michael 
 comes to appeal against me, and Catherine in 
 Heaven knows all, and turns away her face. At 
 eight-and-twenty my hair was gray, and you see 
 
 what I am now .... broken up, a wreck 
 
 What is it you mean to do ? ' 
 
 ' I don't know,' said the other again. Deep 
 furrows seamed themselves in his forehead, and he 
 looked at Scott with rancorous eyes. Not because 
 of Scott's crime against Michael which he had 
 long known, but because in his own breast a strange 
 and enraging sentiment of pity warred with his 
 legitimate revenge. The hopes of one day meeting 
 with his brother's murderer, and exacting payment 
 to the uttermost farthing, had lent him the energy 
 and vitality to survive privations that would have 
 killed another man ; the idea had been to. him a 
 talisman of power which had over and over again 
 brought him unharmed from the jaws of death. 
 Yet now that the moment for which he had so 
 long waited was come, he hesitated. In spite of
 
 240 MONOCHROMES 
 
 all, he felt a friendship, an affection almost, for 
 David Scott, that filled him with scorn for himself. 
 He set about recalling his former feelings in the 
 hopes of re-animating them. 
 
 ' Often/ said he aloud, ' have I planned out in 
 my exile what I should do when I met with 
 Michael's murderer. I pictured to myself that if I 
 should find him poor, obscure, uncared for, with 
 nothing precious to him but his worthless life ; 
 then I would take that life ; I would seize him by 
 the throat, and, reminding him of Michael, slowly 
 press his breath from him. But should I, on the 
 contrary, find him as I have actually found you, 
 rich, honoured, well thought of, with loving hearts 
 on which to lean, then I promised myself I would 
 denounce him, drag him to justice, let him suffer 
 all the torturing slowness of the law before expiat 
 ing his crime by a shameful death. You think 
 perhaps I have not sufficient proof ? or that 
 after so many years I could not obtain a con 
 viction ? ' 
 
 ' I should confess everything,' answered Scott ; 
 ' here and now, if you wish it, I will write a con 
 fession, and sign it before witnesses. How often 
 have I not longed to unburden my soul, and 
 lacked courage ! You talk of punishment, of 
 expiation ; believe me, a man may suffer all the 
 tortures of hell within his own heart. What cuts 
 more sharply than unavailing regret ? ' 
 
 ' The scorn of one's fellow-men,' said O'Brien, 
 calling up the dregs of his waning anger to give 
 poignancy to his tone ; ' the child's knowledge
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 241 
 
 that the father is unworthy of her honour and 
 her love.' 
 
 ' Our sins shall be visited on our children/ mur 
 mured Scott ; ' and yet .... my poor Catherine, 
 I would spare her if I could. Sometimes I hoped 
 that God would permit me, through her .... to 
 make you reparation ? ' 
 
 O'Brien's face became a dusky red, his eyes 
 glowed ; the next moment he was iron again, 
 and had bitten back the words on the tip of 
 his tongue. 
 
 ' What I, myself, might have hoped for under 
 other circumstances, has been rendered impossible 
 by your crime. What connection could I have 
 with the murderer of my brother? Would not his 
 spirit haunt me? As it is, I am becoming con 
 temptible to myself. I am temporising and allow 
 ing human considerations to come between me 
 and my just revenge.' 
 
 ' Do not let mistaken pity hold your hand. I 
 am at your mercy. Show it by dealing the blow 
 quickly. Suspense alone is more than I can bear.' 
 
 ' I shall choose my own time and my own 
 measures,' said O'Brien malignantly, ' and if you 
 find the suspense hard, remember it is not one- 
 tenth of the misery your victim suffered, dying on 
 the rocks alone ; or that I have gone through 
 since, thanks to you. I have yet to consider the 
 necessary steps to take, and I will let you know 
 when I come to a decision.' 
 
 A clerk here entered introducing urgent busi 
 ness, and no more was said ; but Scott tacitly 
 
 Q
 
 242 MONOCHROMES 
 
 accepted his enemy's conditions, and resumed his 
 outward life of honourable composure. 
 
 It became apparent to Scott that if O'Brien 
 had ever cared for Catherine, he had successfully 
 crushed out the sentiment. Now, when he came 
 over to Streatham, he avoided being alone with 
 her. He sat in churlish silence. If she addressed 
 him he did not seem to hear, or else answered her 
 abruptly, even rudely. On which her pretty eyes 
 would fill with tears, and for ten minutes after 
 such a rebuff she could scarcely command herself 
 to speak; then she would find excuses for him 
 in her heart, feel sure the fault was hers, and try 
 a thousand dear devices for making herself more 
 pleasing. If he still neglected her, she would 
 go to the piano and sing, and O'Brien found 
 it difficult, when listening to her sweet young 
 voice, to maintain his moroseness. 
 
 Scott watched her with admiration and pain. 
 She was so like the other Catherine in face and 
 form, so different in disposition. The other 
 Catherine had accepted all homage as her right ; 
 this Catherine seemed to plead for kindness as a 
 favour. The mother had played capriciously with 
 the passionate hearts that loved her ; the daughter, 
 in retribution as it were, offered her fresh, intense 
 affections to one who coldly turned aside. 
 
 O'Brien at length gave up visiting at Streatham 
 at all. Catherine waited, hoped, grew anxious, and 
 sought her father. 
 
 ' Why does Mr O'Brien no longer come here ? ' 
 she asked ; ' is he ill ? '
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 243 
 
 ' No,' Scott answered ; ' he was at the office to 
 day.' 
 
 'Then why does he not come as he used to?' 
 
 ' Perhaps he is busy.' 
 
 ' Oh, but not in the evening ! Ask him, dearest, 
 to come out to dinner to-morrow.' 
 
 'Well, is he not coming?' was the first question 
 she put, when her father returned alone the next 
 day. 
 
 ' My dear, he thanks you for the invitation, but 
 he has another engagement.' 
 
 It was misery to Scott to see how Catherine's 
 colour came and went, and how her eyes filled up 
 with tears. 
 
 'It is I who stand in my darling's way,' he 
 thought. He began to wonder if his death 
 would make any difference, whether then O'Brien 
 would be able to forgive the girl her parentage. 
 He began to watch with a new interest the pro 
 gress of his disease. 
 
 Catherine could not sleep. She came down in 
 the mornings looking pale and tired. Scott lay 
 awake at night too, but this was from the ever- 
 increasing physical pain. Presently be was no 
 longer able to go into business.
 
 VII 
 
 ONE day in September James O'Brien came over 
 to Streatham. He had at last made up his mind 
 what he should do, and he wished to communicate 
 his intentions to David Scott. 
 
 He was shown into the study, where Scott lay 
 back in an arm-chair supported by pillows. There 
 was a great and ghastly change in his face. For 
 this O'Brien had been prepared, partly by Scott's 
 absence from the office, partly by a few words he 
 had exchanged with a gentleman who was leaving 
 the house, as O'Brien entered it. This was a 
 minister of Scott's church ; he had been sitting 
 with the invalid. He spoke of Scott's great 
 sufferings, and in conventional phraseology, but 
 with real earnestness, of his Christian patience, and 
 of the loss he would be to them all, if the Lord saw 
 fit to take him. The servant joined in, to praise his 
 master, and O'Brien's observant eye took stock of 
 the enquiry cards that completely covered the hall- 
 table. All these tokens of respect and solicitude 
 awoke anew the devil in his breast, and he more 
 than half regretted the resolution he had come to, 
 which was to relinquish his vengeance and leave 
 the murderer to fate. A variety of motives had
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 
 
 brought him to this ; principally, perhaps, the 
 strange affection he felt for the man who had so 
 injured him. 
 
 Scott, looking up at his visitor with deprecation, 
 did not venture to offer his hand. 
 
 ' It's very kind of you to come and see me,' he 
 said. 
 
 ' I have come to tell you I am going away, back 
 to America. You are safe. I have broken my 
 vow.' O'Brien refused a chair, and stood gazirg 
 moodily into the vacant garden. 
 
 ' Why do you spare me ? ' asked Scott humbly. 
 
 ' Because I'm a fool, I suppose, and a coward.' 
 
 ' But why do you go ? ' said Scott ; ' I shall not 
 be here long ; for do not think I shall escape 
 punishment. The hand of God is upon me. It is 
 hard to leave my poor Catherine all alone. And 
 death itself is hard.' 
 
 O'Brien looked about the room. There, lay 
 Catherine's little embroidered handkerchief on the 
 open book, from which she had probably been 
 reading aloud ; here, on the table by Scott's 
 elbow, was a glorious bunch of purple grapes ; the 
 pillows behind his head, the shawl over his knees 
 had been arranged by loving hands. O'Brien 
 called to mind the sympathy of the minister, the 
 eulogy of the servant, the cards from acquaintances 
 and friends. He was filled with bitterness. 
 
 1 Some deaths are harder than others,' said he ; 
 'you find it hard to die here among your own 
 people, waited on by those who love you, with 
 every alleviation that money and science can give.
 
 246 MONOCHROMES 
 
 You are attended by the first doctor in London, 
 who, though he cannot cure you, can relieve your 
 pain. Your clergyman comes and talks to you of 
 God and of His forgiveness, and all who know you 
 speak of you with respect and regret All day 
 long your daughter Catherine is by your side to 
 soothe you with her caresses ; you will pass away 
 in her arms, death will lose half its terrors with 
 your head reposing on her tender breast. And 
 you call that expiation ? Let me remind you how 
 Michael died. Suddenly, in the midst of life and 
 strength, he found himself face to face with death. 
 And it was a cruel and lingering death to which 
 he was condemned. For the fall crippled him, but 
 did not kill him outright. Who can say how many 
 hours he lingered there on those lonely wind-swept 
 rocks? At first, stunned by the fall, weakened by 
 loss of blood, the time went by unconsciously ; 
 then he would collect his thoughts, remember how 
 you thrust him down over the precipice in a 
 moment of passion, and he would feel sure of 
 your repentance and assistance. Did you hear no 
 voice calling up to you?' 
 
 'The wind drowned every cry,' said the sick 
 man, and drops of sweat stood upon his forehead, 
 and trickled down his face. 
 
 ' But cannot you imagine how he kept expecting 
 you? expecting that you would seek help, let 
 down ropes, come down yourself to save the friend 
 you had loved ? or that you would hasten into 
 Hardsmouth, get a boat, come round by the 
 coast ? '
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 247 
 
 'It was a night of storm/ said Scott, 'no boat 
 could have lived in such a sea.' 
 
 ' But Michael lived through the night. He must 
 have crawled up to the spot where I found the 
 corpse, otherwise he would have been washed away. 
 Think of the lonely and awful day succeeding 
 that night, as he lay there dying of exposure, of 
 loss of blood, of want of aid. Picture the pain of 
 that utter abandonment. Too weak to call for 
 help, too weak at last to move, and the crows 
 gathering round him to stare into his glazing 
 eyes. But he could think, and his thoughts 
 could not have been such as to solace him. 
 What had he to think of? The treachery of a 
 friend a friend who having murdered him, was 
 not likely to stick at blasting his good name. He 
 must have foreseen the specious tale you would get 
 carried to the girl he loved ; foreseen that she would 
 believe he had deserted her, and so give her hand to 
 his murderer. Perhaps he foresaw you in just such 
 a life as you have led, honoured and happy, while 
 he, cut off in the heyday of youth, went down 
 to an unknown grave. If he cursed God then, in 
 the agonies of his abandonment, who can blame 
 him ? Yet, according to you and people of your 
 creed, he thereby lost his soul, and so will suffer 
 eternally, while you, in spite of your crime, 
 because you have had time and opportunity to 
 repent and obtain forgiveness, will die and go 
 straight to life eternal. You may please yourself 
 by calling this an expiation. I can only see in it an 
 aggravation of the unfairness of your lot and his.'
 
 24 S MONOCHROMES 
 
 O'Brien watched the anguish in his victim's face 
 with a keen pleasure at his heart; but down 
 deeper still was an even keener pain ; for he had 
 come to love David Scott as much as one man can 
 love another; and nevertheless felt bound to conceal 
 his love and show hatred, because of the oath he 
 had sworn. Bitter words were all that remained 
 to him now he had abandoned bitter vengeance ; 
 yet he despised himself for bending to handle 
 such woman's weapons. 
 
 Scott leaned his head upon his hand. 
 
 ' To die alone . . . yes, it must be hard,' he 
 murmured ; ' human sympathy in that last hour 
 fs what the whole soul longs for. And Michael 
 had none. No, I have not expiated.' 
 
 An idea struck him. His mind was so un 
 hinged, he believed it came from God. But to 
 carry it out he must be alone. 
 
 ' Will you leave me a while ? ' he asked ; ' the 
 pain here' he pressed his side 'is so terrible 
 . . . there is a remedy I must try. Perhaps in 
 the garden you may find Catherine, you will wish 
 to bid her good-bye ; . . . but then return to me 
 here ... by yourself.' 
 
 In moody silence O'Brien opened the French 
 window and stepped out ; then Scott, unlocking 
 a drawer in the table beside him, produced a 
 small pistol, and laid it on the desk.
 
 VIII 
 
 AT the same moment a gentle knock came to 
 the door, and Scott knew it was Catherine's touch. 
 He drew a newspaper over the pistol, leaned back 
 again among the pillows, and making a strenuous 
 effort to compose his voice, called her in. 
 
 Never had she looked so sweet and winning, but 
 Scott knew these loveliest blushes were not for 
 him. 
 
 ' Mr O'Brien, father, is walking in the garden,' 
 she began ; ' I saw him from my window. Ought 
 I not Shall I go out to him ? ' 
 
 'Yes, go out to him, for he has come to take 
 leave of us, Catherine. He is going away.' 
 
 ' Away ! ' repeated Catherine, amazed. ' Where ? 
 Why?' 
 
 ' He is returning to America.' 
 
 ' But only for a visit ? He will come back ?' she 
 insisted, with varying colour. 
 
 ' No, dear one, I think I fear he is going 
 
 away for good.' 
 
 Catherine looked at her father with those 
 speaking eyes, which had long ago told him 
 the secret she had thought so well concealed. 
 But now it trembled on her tongue also. She
 
 250 MONOCHROMES 
 
 opened her lips, hesitated, but could not frame 
 the words. 
 
 O'Brien came in sight of the window, crossing 
 the end of the lawn. He was deep in thought, but 
 evidently Catherine had no share in it. He gave 
 no glance towards the house, nor round about him, 
 as he must have done had he been hoping to see 
 her. One hand was carried behind his back, now 
 loosely closed, now vehemently clenched ; the other 
 held his stick, which he prodded viciously into the 
 ground as he walked. 
 
 Scott's eyes followed Catherine's, fell upon this 
 figure, and despair seized the father, a forlorn hope 
 awoke in the girl. 
 
 ' Father, I love him,' she said, looking up bravely. 
 
 ' I have known it long, dearest.' 
 
 ' Did he say nothing ? ' this very wistfully. 
 
 ' Nothing you would care to hear. He spoke of 
 his journey and of other things. He is a man 
 whom grief and injury have rendered hard. He 
 has no thought for softer feelings.' 
 
 ' Yet, if he had cared,' said Catherine, ' it would 
 have pleased you too ? For you like him, father?' 
 
 Scott gave no reply ; yet he loved O'Brien and 
 Catherine to that degree, he had come to the deter 
 mination then and there to put an end to his life, 
 that thus, by avenging Michael, he might remove 
 the impediment between them. 
 
 Catherine pursued her train of thought. 
 
 ' Do you remember what you said to me one 
 night in the spring, as we drove home from town ? 
 It was a few days before I first met him.'
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 251 
 
 That was the epoch-making day of her life, and 
 every event was dated before and after. 
 
 'What did I say, Catherine?' 
 
 ' You said that a woman should not be afraid to 
 show her affection. That sometimes she might 
 miss happiness by hiding it too well. That some 
 times you know a man might be in love with a 
 
 girl and be too proud to show it unless she 
 
 Father ! ' said Catherine, lifting a pale and piteous 
 face, ' I love him so passionately that it is painful, 
 there is a pain always here' she pressed her 
 hands upon her heart ' I shall find no ease till 
 he knows it. Day and night, I am urged by a 
 feeling I cannot explain, to tell him, although I 
 hope for nothing, I ask for nothing in return. But 
 unless I may speak I shall die ! May I, father?' 
 
 Scott saw, in this unrequited passion of his 
 Catherine's, the expiation demanded for her 
 mother's levity, the last drop in his own cup of 
 grief. But perhaps, too, he thought her innocent 
 confession would touch O'Brien's heart, and when 
 he should find also that Scott had made the final 
 reparation, he would relent and be good to her. 
 
 ' Go,' said he, ' if you must, and obtain, if you 
 can, my pardon likewise. Good-bye, my little 
 daughter, God be with you.' 
 
 Catherine went out into the garden and left her 
 father alone.
 
 IX 
 
 SHE had heard his words of farewell, yet had 
 attached no significance to them. Preoccupied 
 with her own thoughts, she felt she had come to 
 the supreme moment of her life, and the sudden 
 meeting with Death himself could not have held 
 more terror for her or more strange sweetness, than 
 this thing she was about to do. And as, too, at the 
 hour of death, all false shame and all convention 
 alities drop away, and the soul at last comes near 
 to other souls, as it never could do in life, so all the 
 rules and teachings, all the arbitrary laws of society, 
 slipped from her, and she listened to the voice of 
 her heart instead. 
 
 O'Brien, turning at the end of the grass, saw her 
 as she advanced towards him. He steeled himself 
 to coldness. 
 
 Catherine gave him, for one instant, a chill and 
 fluttering hand. 
 
 ' You are going to leave us ? ' she said. 
 
 ' Yes ; my passage is booked for next week.' 
 
 ' But why do you go ? ' 
 
 ' Why should I stay ? ' he replied roughly. ' My 
 business is finished ; I have no other ties here.' 
 
 ' We had hoped, my father and I,' said Catherine,
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 253 
 
 ' you would have found England so pleasant, you 
 would not have wished to leave.' 
 
 ' Ah, of course ! ' he retorted bitterly. ' Because 
 you find life pleasant yourself, you imagine every 
 one else should do so. It is a common mistake. 
 You have a home, friends, many who love you, 
 and so you are happy, but I have none of these 
 things.' 
 
 'Yet you might have them,' said Catherine 
 gently, v if you wished.' 
 
 ' That is a pretty speech. I suppose I ought to 
 thank you ? But I have lived a rude, uncivilised 
 life too long, ever to acquire the knack of giving 
 and taking the pretty nothings of society.' 
 
 The savage way in which he said this, the apparent 
 anger that blazed from his eyes, did not daunt 
 Catherine ; on the contrary, it gave her courage. 
 
 ' Mine was no pretty speech, and you know it,' 
 she answered ; ' if you go it is to please yourself, 
 not because there are none here to regret you. 1 
 
 'If I thought you would regret me?' said he, 
 tentatively ; ' but, no, I should be a fool so to 
 deceive myself. You will forget me in a week. 
 There is no one who cares for me.' 
 
 His speech was framed with the cruelly deliber 
 ate purpose of learning more. He watched her 
 closely to note its effect, and he saw how it awak 
 ened some strong emotion in the depths of her 
 pensive eyes, how it changed the expression of her 
 sweet and tremulous mouth, how it brought the 
 vivid colour rushing to her cheek. 
 
 But to herself, she seemed to be lifted above
 
 254 MONOCHROMES 
 
 time and space, to be standing with O'Brien in 
 spirit only ; she felf herself brave, and free to speak 
 her inmost thoughts as only a spirit may. 
 
 ' Do not say that no one who cares for you,' she 
 began ; ' for there is a girl who loves you, and has 
 loved you all along. Why should I be ashamed 
 to own it ? Does it do you any harm, or me any 
 dishonour? I think it does me honour. I am 
 better, prouder, and more glad since I have known 
 you, than I ever was in my life before. And I ask 
 nothing from you in return ; only I could not let 
 you go away without telling you. I said to myself, 
 we are allowed to show our feelings of kindness, 
 friendship, or admiration ; why then must love, 
 which is best of all, be hidden for ever in our hearts, 
 as if it were something criminal ? Let me tell you 
 everything. At first you were always good to me. 
 I thought that you liked me, and I tried to please 
 you. Then you grew cold, and I was tormented, 
 always wondering what was the reason. Some 
 times I fancied if I had not been rich, you would 
 have come nearer to me : and yet my heart told 
 me that a man who loved a woman at all, would 
 hold her far beyond and above her wealth. But 
 then, when I heard just now you were going away 
 for ever, I felt I could not let you go in ignorance ; 
 for, even where one cannot return the same 
 affection, it is surely good to know oneself beloved ? 
 And I like to imagine that, in the days to come, 
 when you yourself will love some good and beauti 
 ful woman, what I have told you will return to your 
 memory and give you confidence. And do not think
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 255 
 
 I shall be unhappy now when you have left me. 
 I shall be happier all my life for having known 
 you, and for having once, if once only, spoken the 
 whole truth. And in proof of how much I trust 
 you, I shall never, never regret what I have told 
 you to-day.' 
 
 O'Brien was looking at her with ardour. He 
 had somehow got both her cold little hands in his ; 
 he pressed them passionately, and the girl, in spite 
 of her last brave asseveration, was seized with fear. 
 Her body trembled like a leaf, her face was 
 suffused with blushes, she could not lift her eyes 
 from the ground. At that moment she would have 
 given the world to be away, anywhere out of his 
 sight, out of the sound of his voice. She would 
 have arrested perversely, had she been able, the 
 words she so longed to hear. 
 
 ' Catherine, my darling, my own darling, you 
 have more than atoned,' he said, in a voice strangely 
 altered, for the man had grown young again ; he 
 had thrown away the burden of twenty years' 
 hatred, and the vow that had bound his heart 
 broke from it like a gossamer thread. ' I have 
 not deserved your love, but come, I too have 
 much to tell you ! ' And they wandered away, out 
 of sight, amidst the trees.
 
 X 
 
 DAVID SCOTT knelt down by his desk with the 
 pistol lying before him. In the strong sun 
 light which filled the room he looked what he was 
 a dying man. All round him were evidences of 
 his material success. Fine pictures hung upon the 
 walls, handsomely-bound books filled the dwarf 
 cases, richly-coloured oriental carpets were spread 
 over the floor. Through the window his eyes fell 
 upon his own freehold acres ; upon the lawns and 
 shrubberies which were his ; upon the million- 
 fanned chestnuts, the feathery acacias, the ever- 
 rustling elms, which, planted so many ge/ierations 
 ago by dead hands, had grown straight and strong 
 to shadow the gardens for his use. He saw his 
 daughter, conspicuous in her white dress, talking 
 with O'Brien. The conversation between them 
 seemed suddenly to grow intense. Catherine 
 gesticulated unconsciously with her hands. He 
 could guess from their motion, as well as from 
 O'Brien's rigid figure and sunken head, how fruit 
 less was her task. 
 
 Scott groaned. The physical pain he was suffer 
 ing at that moment from the rapid development 
 of his disease was nothing to his agony of mind.
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 257 
 
 In the midst of luxury and every apparent con 
 dition for happiness, David Scott was as miserable 
 in body and soul as any man that day in London. 
 He clasped his hands, and the tears forced them 
 selves down his sunken cheeks. 
 
 ' O God and Father,' he prayed aloud, ' if I do 
 this thing Thou knowest the purity of my motives. 
 Not in despair, nor in contempt of Thy holy laws, 
 do I take the life Thou hast given me, but to 
 expiate the crime by which I took Michael's life 
 from him, and left him to die alone without one 
 friendly hand to moisten his lips with water, or 
 wipe the death-dews from his brow. If in those 
 last dreadful moments he doubted of Thy goodness, 
 the fault was mine. If he came into Thy presence 
 uncalled and unprepared, it is right that I too 
 should in the same way seek Thy awful judgment 
 seat, for hast not Thou said, " An eye for an eye, 
 a tooth for a tooth " ? But towards my little girl, 
 my Catherine The anguish of this thought 
 was too much for the man ; he laid his head on 
 the table before him, and his prayer lost all coher 
 ency and purpose. For some moments his soul 
 was in confusion. Then his hand touched the cold 
 steel of the pistol, and it recalled to him his inten 
 tion. He grew calm, rose from his knees, carefully 
 looked to the loading of the pistol, and holding it 
 in his right hand, pressed the nozzle against his 
 waistcoat, moving it a little this way or that as he 
 felt for the heart below. 
 
 A shadow fell upon the window. Catherine 
 stood without and O'Brien looked over her shoulder 
 
 R
 
 25 8 MONOCHROMES 
 
 The girl pushed open the glass and came in. Her 
 face was exquisite in its shy happiness. Scott had 
 just time to put the pistol down unobserved on the 
 table behind him, before Catherine reached her 
 arms up round his neck, and laid her head upon 
 his breast. 
 
 ' Dearest,' she murmured, ' we are going to be so 
 happy.' Scott looked over the pretty, fair head 
 to O'Brien. There was something in the man's 
 appearance totally different to his ordinary self, 
 and yet strangely familiar too. 
 
 ' David,' he said, coming nearer, and Scott's 
 thoughts travelled mysteriously back to the days 
 of Michael's lifetime : ' David, will you forgive 
 me for Catherine's sake as I have forgiven 
 you?' 
 
 A giddiness rushed over Scott. He had but 
 time to put Catherine from his arms before the 
 room turned round with him, wavered into black 
 ness, and for an instant everything was blank. 
 Then he stepped out of the darkness on to a 
 sunlit cliff, where he and Michael were walking 
 side by side ; every step they took was on scented 
 thyme and tiny golden coltsfoot, two blue butter 
 flies fluttered in arabesques over the ground, above 
 was a blue and ardent heaven, below a blue and 
 glittering sea. He tasted the saltness upon his 
 lips, and the slumberous far-away sea-song hummed 
 in his ears. Michael spoke to him, and he an 
 swered. At first it was solid, vivid reality. Then 
 he came to know it was only his spirit there on 
 the cliffs, that his body was lying back in his easy
 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT 259 
 
 chair in his own library, where busy hands were 
 endeavouring to keep him captive, to cheat him 
 of the vision. He resisted ; his soul escaped once 
 more ; but the sunshine on the cliff was already 
 paler, the flowers were drooping, the butterflies 
 were gone. Michael's face looked strange and 
 indistinct, yet his voice now sounded close at 
 hand, in his ear. 
 
 'Davy, Davy!' 
 
 What did it mean ? For surely he was again 
 in his own library, struggling painfully back to 
 consciousness. 
 
 Yes, it was the voice of the dead Michael, but 
 it was James O'Brien who spoke, kneeling beside 
 Scott's chair. 
 
 ' Forgive me, Davy, dear old friend, forgive me ; 
 my sin has been greater than yours ! ' 
 
 From O'Brien's face the dark and sinister look 
 was gone ; his eyes had lost their coldness ; 
 emotion gave him back a reflection of his beautiful 
 youth. 
 
 Over the dying man old memories crowded. 
 Now, as he listened to him, he understood why 
 from the very first this stranger had held such 
 fascination for him. 
 
 'There never was a James O'Brien,' said the 
 speaker, ' he was a figment of my brain, an instru 
 ment of my vengeance. For it was I who, lying 
 crippled at the cliff's foot, was picked up by 
 the crimps and shipped while still unconscious. 
 During twenty years of exile I brooded revenge. 
 I thought on our broken friendship, my lost
 
 26b MONOCHROMES 
 
 Catherine, my ruined life, and my heart became 
 a hell of evil thoughts. I sought you out with 
 the determination of making you pay for every 
 pang that I had suffered, and when I found you 
 happy in your daughter, I conceived the plan of 
 playing with her heart as the mother had played 
 with mine. But from the first moment I saw 
 Catherine, something more than the old love 
 revived. I felt I could do her no wrong, so I 
 made up my mind to leave. I meant to forego 
 everything once more friendship, love, happiness, 
 and my revenge as well. But Catherine has given 
 me back all you once took from me, a hundred 
 fold. Let her earn me, David, your pardon too.' 
 
 Twilight fell upon the room for David Scott. 
 Only dimly could he see the faces of the man and 
 woman he loved ; but holding a hand of each, in 
 each of his, his feeble grasp tightened a little over 
 them as he spoke. 
 
 ' God has been very merciful to me,' he said ; ' be 
 good and happy, Catherine.' Then he withdrew 
 his hand from hers to lean over more completely 
 towards O'Brien. 
 
 ' Kiss me, Michael,' he asked him ; but almost 
 before the kiss could be given and received, he had 
 passed away without a sigh.
 
 Thanks are due to the Editors of 
 BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE and of 
 TEMPLE BAR for permission to 
 reprint 'THE ELEGIE,' and 'THE 
 EXPIATION OF DAVID SCOTT;' 
 and to the Editor of THE YELLOW 
 BOOK for the use of other stories 
 contained in this "volume.
 
 Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty, 
 at the Edinburgh University Press.
 
 John Lane 
 
 STfje Bofclcg 
 VIGO STREET, LONDON, W. 
 
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 and thought, and passion.' Bookman. 
 
 ' A work of genius. There is upon the whole thing a stamp of down 
 right inevitableness as of things which must be written, and written exactly 
 in that way." Speaker. 
 
 ' " Keynotes " is a singularly clever book.' Truth. 
 
 THE DANCING FAUN. By FLORENCE FARR. With 
 Title-page and Cover Design by AUBREY BEARDSLEY. 
 Crown 8vo, 35. 6d. net. 
 
 1 We welcome the light and merry pen of Miss Fan- as one of the deftest 
 that has been wielded in the style of to-day. She has written the cleverest 
 and the most cynical sensation story of the season.' Liverpool Daily Post. 
 
 'Slight as it is, the story is, in its way, strong.' Literary World. 
 
 ' Full of bright paradox, and paradox which is no mere topsy-turvy play 
 upon words, but the product of serious thinking upon life. One of the 
 cleverest of recent novels.' Star. 
 
 ' It is full of epigrammatic effects, and it has a certain thread of pathos 
 calculated to win our sympathy." Queen. 
 
 'The story is subtle and psychological after the fashion of modern 
 psychology; it is undeniably clever and smartly written.' Gentlewoman. 
 
 'No one can deny its freshness and wit. Indeed there are things in it 
 here and there which John Oliver Hobbes herself might have signed with 
 out loss of reputation. Woman. 
 
 ' There is a lurid power in the very unreality of the story. One does not 
 quite understand how Lady Geraldme worked herself up to shooting her 
 lover, but when she has done it, the description of what passes through her 
 mind is magnificent.' Athena-urn. 
 
 ' Written by an obviously clever woman." Black and White. 
 
 'Miss Farr has talent. "The Dancing Faun" contains writing that is 
 distinctively good. Doubtless it is only a prelude to something much 
 stronger. ' A cademy. 
 
 'As a work of art the book has the merit of brevity and smart writing ; 
 while the denouement is skilfully prepared, and conies as a surprise, 
 the book had been intended as a satire on the "new woman" sort of litera 
 ture, it would have been most brilliant ; but assuming it to be written in 
 earnest, we can heartily praise the form of its construction withoui 
 agreeing with the sentiments expressed." St. Jamefs Gazette. 
 
 Shows considerable power and aptitude." Saturday Review. 
 'The book is extremely clever and some of the situations very striking, 
 while there are sketches of character which really live. The final denote 
 ment might at first sight be thought impossible, but the effect on those who 
 take part in it is so free of exaggeration, that we can almost imagine that 
 such people are in our midst.' Guardian.
 
 THE KEYNOTES SERIES 
 
 POOR FOLK. Translated from the Russian of FEDOR 
 DOSTOIEVSKY. By LENA MILMAN. With an Intro 
 duction by GEORGE MOORE, and a Title-page and Cover 
 Design by AUBREY BEARDSLEY. Crown 8vo, 35. 6d. net. 
 
 1 The book is cleverly translated. " Poor Folk " gains in reality and pathos 
 by the very means that in less skilful hands would be tedious and common 
 place.' Spectator. 
 
 ' A charming storjr of the love of a Charles Lamb kind of old bachelor 
 for a young work-girl. Full of quiet humour and still more full of the 
 iachryma rerunt.' Star. 
 
 'Scenes of poignant realism, described with so admirable a blending of 
 humour and pathos that they haunt the memory.' Daily News. 
 
 ' No one will read it attentively without feeling both its power and its 
 pathos. ' Scotsman. 
 
 'The book is one of great pathos and absorbing interest. Miss Milman 
 has given us an admirable version of it which will commend itself to every 
 one who cares for good literature.' Glasgow Herald. 
 
 'These things seem small, but in the hands of Dostoievsky they make 
 a work of genius.' Black and White. 
 
 ' One of the most pathetic things in all literature, heartrending just 
 because its tragedy is so repressed.' Bookman. 
 
 ' As to novels, the very finest I have read of late or for long is ' ' Poor Folk, 
 by Fedor Dostoievsky, translated by Miss Lena Milman.' Truth. 
 
 ' A book to be read for the merits of its execution. The translator by 
 the way has turned it into excellent English.' Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 "The narrative vibrates with feeling, and these few unstudied letters con 
 vey to us a cry from the depths of a famished human soul. As far as we 
 can judge, _the English rendering, though simple, retains that ring of 
 emotion which must distinguish the original.' Westminster R eview. 
 
 'One of the most striking studies in plain and simple realism which was 
 ever written.' Daily Telegraph. 
 
 '"Poor Folk" is certainly a vivid and pathetic story.' Globe. 
 
 ' A triumph of realistic art a masterpiece of a great writer.' Morning 
 Post. 
 
 ' Dostoievsky's novel has met with that rare advantage, a really good 
 translator.' Queen. 
 
 'This admirable translation of a great author.' Liverpool Mercury. 
 
 Poor Folk" Englished does not read like a translation indubitably a 
 masterpiece.' Literary World. 
 
 ' Told with a gradually deepening intensity and force, a pathetic truth 
 fulness which lives in the memory-' Leeds Mercury. 
 
 'What Charles Dickens in his attempts to reproduce the sentiment and 
 pathos of the humble deceived himself and others into thinking that he did, 
 tliat Fedor Dostoievsky actually does.' Manchester Guardian. 
 
 'It is a story that leaves the reader almost stunned. Miss Milman's 
 translation is admirable.' Gentlewo man. 
 
 .'The translation appears to be well done so far as we have compared it 
 with the original.' W. R. MORFILL in Tlie Academy. 
 
 'A most impressive and characteristic specimen of Russian fiction. 
 
 lliose to whom Russian is a sealed book will be duly grateful to the trans- 
 
 ur 1 acquitted herself excellently), to Mr. Moore, and to the 
 
 publisher for this presentment of Dostoievsky's remarkable novel.' Times.
 
 THE KEYNOTES SERIES 
 
 A CHILD OF THE AGE. By FRANCIS ADAMS. Title- 
 page and Cover Design by AUBREY BEARDSLEY. Crown 
 8vo, 35. 6d. net. 
 
 ' English or foreign, there is no work among those now before me which 
 is so original as that of the late Francis Adams. " A Child of the Age" is 
 original, moving, often fascinating.' Academy. 
 
 1 A great deal of cleverness and perhaps something more has gone to the 
 writing of " A Child of the Age." ' Vanity Fair. 
 
 ' Incomes recognisably near to great excellence. There is a love episode 
 in this book which is certainly fine. Clearly conceived and expressed with 
 point.' Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 ' Those whose actual experience or natural intuition will enable them to 
 see beneath the mere narrative, will appreciate the perfect art with which 
 a boy of nineteen this was the_ author's age when the book was written 
 has treated one of the most delicate subjects on which a man can write 
 the history of his own innermost feelings." Weekly Sun. 
 
 'The book possesses a depth and clearness of insight, a delicacy of touch, 
 and a brilliancy and beauty of style very remarkable in so young a writer.' 
 Weekly Scotsman. 
 
 ' " A Child of the Age " is as fully saturated with the individuality of its 
 author as " Wuthering Heights" was saturated with the individuality of 
 Kmily Bronte.' Daily Chronicle. 
 
 ' I am writing about the book because it is one you should read, for it is 
 typical of a certain sort of character and contains some indubitable excel 
 lences.' Pall Mall Budget. 
 
 ' Not faultless, indeed, but touched with the magic of real poetry ; with 
 out the elaborate carving of the chisel. The love incident is exquisite and 
 exquisitely told. "Rosy" lives; her emotions stir us. Wonderfully sug 
 gested in several parts of the work is the severe irony of nature before 
 profound human suffering.' Saturday Review. 
 
 'There is a bloom of romance upon their story which recalls Lucy and 
 
 Richard Feverel It is rarely that a novelist is able to suffuse his 
 
 story with the first rosy purity of passion as Mr. Adams has done in this 
 book.' Realm. 
 
 'Only a man of big talent could have produced it.' Literary World. 
 
 'A tale of fresh originality, deep spiritual meaning, and exceptional 
 power. It fairly buds, blossomSj and fruits with suggestions that search 
 the human spirit through. No similar production has come from the hand 
 of any author in our time. It exalts, inspires, comforts, and strengthens 
 all together. It instructs by suggestion, spiritualises the thought by its 
 elevating and purifying narrative, and feeds the hungering spirit with 
 food it is only too ready to accept and assimilate.' Boston Courier, U.S.A. 
 
 ' It is a remarkable work as a pathological study almost unsurpassed. 
 It produces the impression of a photograph from life, so vividly realistic is 
 the treatment. To this result the author's style, with its fidelity of micro 
 scopic detail, doubtless contributes.' Evening Traveller, U.S.A. 
 
 ' The story by Francis Adams is one to read slowly, and then to read a 
 second time. It is powerfully written, full of strong suggestion, unlike, 
 in fact, anything we have recently read. What he would have done in the 
 way of literary creation, had he lived, is, of course, only a matter of con 
 jecture. What he did we have before us in this remarkable book.' Boston 
 Advertiser, U.S.A.
 
 THE KEYNOTES SERIES 
 
 Second Edition now ready, 
 
 THE GREAT GOD PAN AND THE INMOST LIGHT. 
 By ARTHUR MACHEN. With Title-page and Cover 
 Design by AUBREY BEARDSLEY. Crown 8vo, 35. 6d. 
 net 
 
 'Since Mr. Stevenson played with the crucibles of science in "Dr. 
 Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" we have not encountered a more successful experi 
 ment of the sort.' Pall Mali Gazette. 
 
 ' Nothing so appalling as these tales has been given to publicity within 
 our remembrance ; in which, nevertheless, such ghastly fictions as Poe's 
 "Telltale Heart," Bulwer's "The House and the Brain," and Le Fann's 
 " In a Glass Darkly " still are vividly present. The supernatural element 
 is utilised with extraordinary power and effectiveness in both these blood- 
 chilling masterpieces.' Daily Telegraph. 
 
 ' He imparts the shudder of awe without giving rise to a feeling of disgust. 
 Let me strongly advise anyone anxious fora real, durable thrill, to get it.' 
 Woman. 
 
 'A nightmarish business it is suggested, seemingly, by "Dr. Jekyll and 
 Mr. Hyde " and capital reading, we should say, for ghouls ana vampires 
 in their leisure moments.' Daily Chronicle, 
 
 1 The rest we leave for those whose nerves are strong, merely saying that 
 since "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," we have read nothing so uncanny.' 
 The Literary World. 
 
 'The literature of the "supernatural" has recently been supplemented 
 by two striking books, which carry on with much ability the traditions of 
 Sheridan Le Fanu : one is " The Great God Pan," by Arthur Machen.' 
 Star. 
 
 'Will arouse the sort of interest that was created by "Dr. Jekyll and 
 Mr. Hyde." The tales present a frankly impossible horror, which, never 
 theless, kindles the imagination and excites a powerful curiosity. It is 
 almost a book of genius, and we are not sure that the safeguarding adverb 
 is not superfluous.' Birmingham Post. 
 
 1 The coarser terrors of Edgar Allen Poe do not leave behind them the 
 shudder that one feels at the shadowed devil-mysteries of ' ' The Great God 
 Pan." ' Liverpool Mercury. 
 
 ' it .my one labours under a burning desire to experience the sensation 
 familiarly known as making one's flesh creep, he can hardly do better than 
 read "The Great God Pan." 'Speaker. 
 
 ' For sheer gruesome horror Mr. Machen's story, "The Great God Pan," 
 surpasses anything that has been published for a long time. ' Scotsman. 
 
 ' Nothing more striking or more skilful than this book has been produced 
 in the way of what one may call Borderland fiction since Mr. Stevenson's 
 indefatigable Brownies gave the world "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.'" 
 Glasgow Herald. 
 
 ' The mysteries he deals with lie far beyond the reach of ordinary human 
 experience, and as they are vague, though so horror-producing, he wisely 
 treats them with a reticence that, while it accords with the theme, im 
 mensely heightens the effect.' Dundee Advertiser. 
 
 'The author is an artist, and tells his tale with reticence and grace, 
 hinting the demoniac secret at first obscurely, and only gradually permit 
 ting the reader to divine bow near to us are the infernal powers, and how 
 tembly they satiate their lusts and wreak their malice upon mankind. It 
 is a work of something like genius, fascinating and fearsome.' Bradford 
 Observer.
 
 THE KEYNOTES SERIES 
 
 ' They are fitting companions to the famous stories by Edgar Allan Poe 
 both in matter and style,' Boston Home Journal, U.S.A. 
 
 1 They are horror stories, the horror being of the vague psychologic kind 
 and dependent in each case up_on a man of science, who tries to effect a 
 change in individual personality by an operation upon the brain cells. 
 The implied lesson is that it is dangerous and unwise to seek to probe the 
 mystery separating mind and matter. These sketches are extremely 
 strong, and we guarantee the shivers to anyone who reads them.' Hart 
 ford C our ant, U.S.A. 
 
 Fourth Edition now ready. 
 
 DISCORDS. By GEORGE EGERTON. With Title-page and 
 Cover Design by AUBREY BEARDSLEY. Crown 8vo, 
 33. 6d. net. 
 
 'We have the heights as well as the depths of life. The transforming 
 touch of beauty is upon it, of that poetry of conception beneath whose spefl 
 nothing is ugly or unclean.' Star. 
 
 'The writer is a warm-blooded enthusiast, not a cold-blooded 
 "scientist." In the long run perhaps it will do some good.' National 
 Observer. 
 
 'The power and passion which every reader felt in "Keynotes" are 
 equally present in this new volume. But there is also in at least equal 
 measure that artistic force and skill which went so far to overcome the 
 repugnance which many felt to the painful dissection of feminine nature.' 
 North British Daily Mail. 
 
 ' Force of conception and power of vivid presentment mark these sketches, 
 and are sure to impress all who read them.' Birmingham Post. 
 
 'Written with all "George Egerton's" eloquence and fervour.' York 
 shire Herald. 
 
 ' It almost takes one's breath away by its prodigious wrong-headeclness, 
 its sheer impudence.' MR. A. B. WALKLEY in The Morning Leader. 
 
 ' The wonderful power of observation, the close analysis and the really 
 brilliant writing revealed in parts of this volume . . . . " George Egerton ' 
 would seem to be well equipped for the task.' Cork Examiner. 
 
 ' Readers who have a leaning to psychological fiction, and who rtvel in 
 such studies of character as George Meredith's " Diana of the Crossways " 
 will find much to interest them in these clever stories.' Western Daily 
 Press. 
 
 'There is no escape from the fact that it is vividly interesting.' The 
 Christian World. 
 
 'With all her realism there is a refinement and a pathos and a brilliance 
 of style that lift the book into a region altogether removed from the merely 
 sensational or the merely repulsive. It is a book that one might read with 
 a pencil in his hand, for it is studded with many fine, vivid passages.' 
 Weekly Scotsman. 
 
 ' She has many fine qualities. Her work throbs with temperament, _and 
 here and there we come upon touches that linger in the memory as of things 
 felt and seen, not read of.' Daily News. 
 
 'Mrs. Grundy, to whom they would be salutary, will not be induced to 
 read either " Keynotes" or "Discords." Westminster Gatette. 
 
 ' What an absorbing, wonderful book it is : How absolutely sincere, and 
 how finely wrong 1 George Egerton may be what the indefatigable Mr. 
 Zangwill calls a one-I'd person, but she is a literary artist of exceptional 
 endowment probably a genius.' Woman.
 
 THE KEYNOTES SERIES 
 
 1 She has given, times without number, examples of her ripening powers 
 that astonish us. Her themes astound ; her audacity is tremendous. In 
 the many great passages an advance is proved that is little short of amaz 
 ing.' Literary World. 
 
 ' Interesting and skilfully written.' Sunday Times. 
 
 'A series of undoubtedly clever stories, told with a poetic dreaminess 
 which softens the rugged truths of which they treat. Mothers might benefit 
 themselves and convey help to young girls who are about to be married by 
 the perusal of its pages.' Liverpool Mercury. 
 
 ' They are the work of an author of considerable power, not to say genius. 
 Scotsman. 
 
 ' The book is true to human nature, for the author has genius, and, let us 
 add, has heart. It is representative ; it is, in the hackneyed phrase, a 
 human document. 1 Speaker. 
 
 1 It is another note in the great chorus of revolt ... on the whole 
 clearer, mo're eloquent, and braver than almost any I have yet heard." 
 T. P. (' Book of the Week '), Weekly Sun, December 30. 
 
 ' These masterly word-sketches." Daily Telegraph, 
 
 ' Were it possible to have my favourite sketches and stories from both 
 volumes (" Keynotes " and "Discords") bound together in one, I should 
 look upon myself as a very fortunate traveller; one who had great pleasure, 
 if not exactly happiness, within her reach." Lady's Pictorial. 
 
 'But in all this there is a rugged grandeur of style, a keen analysis of 
 motive, and a deepness of pathos that stamp George Egerton as one of the 
 greatest women writers of the day." Boston. Traveller, U.S.A. 
 
 'The story of the child, of the girl, and of the woman is told, and told 
 by one to whom the mysteries of the life of each are familiarly known, In 
 their very truth, as the writer has so subtly analysed her triple characters, 
 they sadden one to think that such things must be ; yet as they are real, 
 they are bound to be disclosed by somebody, and in due time." Boston 
 Courier, U.S.A. 
 
 Ninth Edition just ready. 
 
 THE WOMAN WHO DID. By GRANT ALLEN. With 
 Title-page and Cover Design by AUBREY BEARDSLEY. 
 Crown 8vo, 35. 6d. net. 
 
 1 There is not a sensual thought or suggestion throughout the whole 
 volume. Though I dislike and disbelieve in his gospel, I thoroughly 
 respect Mr. Grant Allen for having stated it so honourably and so bravely." 
 Academy. 
 
 f ' Even its bitterest enemies must surely feel some thrill of admiration for 
 its courage. It is, once more, one philosopher against the world. Not in 
 our day, perhaps, can it be decided which is right, Mr. Grant Allen, or the 
 world. Perhaps our children's children will some day be canonising Mr. 
 Grant Allen for the very book for which to-day he stands a much greater 
 chance of being stoned, and happy lovers of the new era bless the name of 
 the man who, almost single-handed, fought the battle of Free Love. 
 Time alone can say. . . . None but the most foolish or malignant readei 
 ' . The Woman Who Did ' can fail to recognise the noble purpose which 
 animates its pages. . . . Label it as one will, it remains a clever, stimu 
 lating book. A real enthusiasm for humanity blazes through every pag< 
 of this, in many ways, remarkable and significant little book. ' Sketch. 
 
 'The book is interesting, as embodying the carefully thought-oul 
 theories of so distinguished a writer.' Literary World.
 
 THE KEYNOTES SERIES 
 
 ' Mr. _Grant Allen has undoubtedly produced an epoch-making book, and 
 one which will be a living voice when most of the novels of this generation 
 have passed away into silence. It is epoch-making in the sense that 
 " Uncle Tom's Cabin" was ; the literary merits of that work were by no 
 means great, but yet it rang like a tocsin through the land, arousing mankind 
 to a sense of the slavery under which a large portion of humanity suffered.' 
 Humanitarian. 
 
 ' Interesting, and even absorbing.' Weekly Sun. 
 
 ' His sincerity is undeniable. And in the mouth of Herminia are some 
 very noble and eloquent passages upon the wrongs of our marriage sys 
 tem.' Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 ' A tale of purity and innocence unparalleled since the " Garden of 
 Eden " or " Paul and Virginia.'" Daily Express. 
 
 , 
 ngly.' Speake 
 
 1 The story is as remarkable for its art as its daring, and well deserves a 
 place in the remarkable series in which it has been published.' The 
 Scotsman. 
 
 ' Herminia is a rare and fine creature.' Daily Chronicle, 
 
 carmngy o. eneae w a ecacy n sr 
 cannot but delight the most fastidious reader. Mr. Grant Allen draws a 
 picture of a sweet and pure and beautiful woman. The book is very 
 beautiful and very sad.' Liverpool Mercury. 
 
 ' The book (for it is well written and clever) ought to be the last note in 
 the chorus of revolt. For it proves to demonstration the futility of the 
 attempt. ' Sun. 
 
 ' We cannot too highly commend the conspicuous and transparent purity 
 of the handling. ' Public Opinion. 
 
 ' He conclusively shows that if the marriage laws need revision, yet the 
 sweetness and seemlinnss of home, the dignity of woman as mother or as 
 man's helpmeet, are rooted in the sanctity of wedlock." Daily News. 
 
 ' Mr. Grant Allen deserves thanks for treating with such delicacy a 
 problem which stands in such pressing need of solution as the reform of 
 our stern marriage laws.' Echo. 
 
 ' Its merits are large and its interest profound.' Weekly Scotsman. 
 
 ' It may not merit praise, but it merits reading.' Saturday Review. 
 
 Just published. 
 
 PRINCE ZALESKI. By M. P. SHIEL. With Title-page 
 by AUBREY BEARDSLEY. Crown 8vo, 33. 6d. net. 
 
 'Mr. M. P. Shiel has in this volume produced something which is 
 always rare, and which is every year becoming a greater ranty-a 
 of literary invention characterised by substantial novelty. We 
 Poe's analysis and Poe's glamour, but they are no longer distinct , 
 are combined in a new synthesis which stamps a new imaginative impres- 
 sion. A finely wrought structure in which no single line impairs t 
 symmetry and proportion. One of the most boldly-planned and Is ink- 
 ingly-executed stories of its kind which has appeared for many a
 
 THE KEYNOTES SERIES 
 
 day. We believe there is nothing in "Prince Zaleski" which that great 
 inventor and masterly manipulator of the spoils of invention (Poe) would 
 have disdained to father.' Daily Chronicle. 
 
 ' Should obtain popularity. Written in an easy and clear style. The 
 author shows an amount of ingenuity and capacity for plot considerably 
 above the average. The reader will find it difficult to put the book down 
 before he has satisfied his curiosity to the last page.' Weekly Sun. 
 
 ' The Prince was a Sherlock Holmes, with this difference : that while 
 yielding nothing to Conan Doyle's hero in mere intellectual agility, he 
 had that imaginative insight which makes poets more frequently than 
 detectives. Sherlock Holmes was a clever but essentially commonplace 
 man. Prince Zaleski was a great man, simply. Enthralling . . . once 
 begun they insist on being finished. Broadly and philosophically con 
 ceived, and put together with rare narrative skill, and feeling for effect.' 
 Woman. 
 
 ' There is a strange, fantastic ingenuity in all the stories, while a strong 
 dash of mysticism gives them a peculiar flavour that differentiates them 
 from the ordinary detective story. They are clever and curious, and will 
 appeal to all lovers of the transcendental and improbable.' The Scotsman. 
 
 'Thoroughly entertaining, and the chief figure is undeniably pic 
 turesque.' Yorkshire Post. 
 
 'An abundance of ingenuity and quaint out-of-the-way learning mark 
 the three stories contained in this volume.' Liverpool Mercury. 
 
 1 He has imparted to the three tales in this volume something of that 
 atmosphere of eerie fantasy which Poe knew how to conjure, proceeding 
 by the analysis of a baffling intricacy of detail to an unforeseen conclusion. 
 The themes and their treatment are alike highly imaginative.' Daily 
 News. 
 
 ' Manifestly written by one of Poe's true disciples. His analytical skill 
 is not that of the detective, even of so brilliant a detective as Mr. Sherlock 
 
 ngly.' Speake 
 
 'Truth to tell we like our Sherlock better in his new dress. The 
 book will please those who love a good old-fashioned riddle, and a good 
 new-fangled answer.' National Observer. 
 
 ' Has genuine literary merit, and possesses entrancing interest. A kind 
 
 C CM I _ -1 TT 1 .f *. f 
 
 . ._ nystery surrounding 
 
 the death of Lord Pharanx, the Stone of the Edmundsbury Monks, and the 
 Suicide Society, constitutes a veritable tour de force. We have nothing 
 but praise for this extraordinarily clever and interesting volume.' White- 
 
 kail Review. 
 
 'Worked out very ingeniously, and we are thoroughly impressed by the 
 Prince s mental powers.' Sunday Times. 
 
 ' A clever, extravagant, and lurid little book.' Westminster Gazette.
 
 List of Books 
 
 in 
 
 Retires 
 
 IOHN LANE1PU3 
 LISMER ^ BELLES 
 LETTRtJ 
 TtttBODLEY HEAD 
 VIGOJTLNDNy 
 
 ALL BOOKS IN THIS CATALOGUE 
 ARE PUBLISHED AT NET PRICES 
 
 IS95 
 
 Telegraphic Address 
 ' BODLEIAN, LONDON '
 
 1*95* 
 
 List of Books 
 
 IN 
 
 BELLES LETTRES 
 
 (Including some Transfers) 
 
 Published by John Lane 
 
 VIGO STREET, LONDON, W. 
 
 AT. B. The A uthors and Publisher reserve the right of reprinting 
 any book in this list if a new edition is called for, except in cases 
 where a stipulation has been made to the contrary, and of printing 
 a separate edition of any of the books for America irrespective of the 
 numbers to which the English editions are limited. The numbers 
 mentioned do not include copies sent to the public libraries, nor those 
 sent for review. 
 
 Most of the books are published simultaneously in England and 
 America, and in many instances the names of the American 
 Publishers are appended. 
 
 ADAMS (FRANCIS). 
 
 ESSAYS IN MODERNITY. Crown 8vo. 5s. net. [Shortly. 
 Chicago : Stone & Kimball. 
 
 A CHILD OF THE AGE. (See KEYNOTES SERIES.) 
 
 ALLEN (GRANT). 
 
 THE LOWER SLOPES : A Volume of Verse. With Title- 
 page and Cover Design by J. ILLINGWORTH KAY. 
 600 copies. Crown 8vo. 55. net. 
 
 Chicago : Stone & Kimball. 
 THE WOMAN WHO DID. (See KEYNOTES SERIES.)
 
 THE PUBLICATIONS OF JOHN LANE 
 
 BEARDSLEY (AUBREY). 
 
 THE STORY OF VENDS AND TANNHAUSER, in which is set 
 forth an exact account of the Manner of State held by 
 Madam Venus, Goddess and Meretrix, under the 
 famous Horselberg, and containing the adventures of 
 Tannhauser in that place, his repentance, his jour 
 neying to Rome, and return to the loving mountain. 
 By AUBREY BEARDSLEY. With 20 full-page illus 
 trations, numerous ornaments, and a cover from the 
 same hand. Sq, l6mo. los.6d.net. [In preparation. 
 
 BEDDOES (T. L.). 
 
 See GOSSB (EDMUND). 
 
 BEECHING (REV. H. C.). 
 
 IN A GARDEN : Poems. With Title-page designed by 
 ROGER FRY. Crown 8vo. 55. net. 
 New York : Macmillan & Co. 
 
 BENSON (ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER). 
 LYRICS. Fcap. 8vo., buckram. 55. net. 
 New York : Macmillan & Co. 
 
 BROTHERTON (MARY). 
 
 ROSEMARY FOR REMEMBRANCE. With Title-page and 
 Cover Design by WALTER WEST. Fcap.Svo. 3s.6d.net. 
 
 CAMPBELL (GERALD). 
 
 THE JONESES AND THE ASTERISKS. With 6 Illustra 
 tions and a Title-page by F. H. TOWNSEND. Fcap. 
 8vo. 35. 6d. net. [In preparation. 
 
 CASTLE (MRS. EGERTON). 
 
 MY LITTLE LADY ANNE : A Romance. Sq. i6mo. 
 as. 6d. net. [In preparation. 
 
 CASTLE (EGERTON). 
 
 See STEVENSON (ROBERT Louis). 
 
 CROSS (VICTORIA). 
 
 CONSUMMATION : A Novel. Crown 8vo. 45. 6d. net. 
 
 [In preparation. 
 DALMON (C. W.). 
 
 SONG FAVOURS. With a specially-designed Title-page. 
 Sq. l6mo. 45. 6d. net. [In preparation.
 
 THE PUBLICATIONS OF 
 
 D'ARCY (ELLA). 
 
 MONOCHROMES. (See KEYNOTES SERIES.) 
 
 DAVIDSON (JOHN). 
 
 PLAYS : An Unhistorical Pastoral ; A Romantic Farce ; 
 Bruce, a Chronicle Play ; Smith, a Tragic Farce ; 
 Scaramouch in Naxos, a Pantomime, with a Frontis 
 piece and Cover Design by AUBREY BEARDSLEY. 
 Printed at the Ballantyne Press. 500 copies. Small 
 4to. 7s. 6d. net. 
 
 Chicago : Stone & Kimball. 
 
 FLEET STREET ECLOGUES. Fcap. 8vo, buckram. 55. 
 net. [ Out of Print at present, 
 
 A RANDOM ITINERARY AND A BALLAD. With a Fron 
 tispiece and Title-page by LAURENCE HOUSMAN. 
 600 copies. Fcap. 8vo, Irish Linen. 55. net. 
 
 Boston : Copeland & Day. 
 
 BALLADS AND SONGS. With a Title-page and Cover 
 Design by WALTER WEST. Third Edition. Fcap. 
 8vo, buckram. 55. net. 
 Boston : Copeland & Day. 
 
 DAWE (W. CARLTON). 
 
 YELLOW AND WHITE. (See KEYNOTES SERIES.) 
 
 DE TABLEY (LORD). 
 
 POEMS, DRAMATIC AND LYRICAL. By JOHN LEICESTER 
 WARREN (Lord De Tabley). Illustrations and Cover 
 Design by C. S. RICKETTS. Second Edition. 
 Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net 
 
 New York : Macmillan & Co. 
 
 POEMS, DRAMATIC AND LYRICAL. Second Series, uni 
 form in binding with the former volume. Crown 8vo. 
 5s. net. 
 New York : Macmillan & Co. 
 
 DIX (GERTRUDE). 
 
 THE GIRL FROM THE FARM. (See KEYNOTES SERIES.) 
 
 DOSTOIEVSKY (F.). 
 
 See KEYNOTES SERIES, Vol. in.
 
 JOHN LANE j 
 
 ECHEGARAY (JOSE). 
 
 See LYNCH (HANNAH). 
 EGERTON (GEORGE). 
 
 KEYNOTES. (See KEYNOTES SERIES.) 
 DISCORDS. (See KEYNOTES SERIES.) 
 YOUNG OFEG'S DITTIES. A translation from the Swedish 
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