XL
 
 "THRACIAN SEA
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO 
 DALLAS ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO.. LIMITED 
 
 LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. 
 
 TORONTO
 
 THRACIAN SEA 
 
 A Novel 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN HELSTON 
 
 AUTHOR OF "APHRODITE AND OTHER POEMS' 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1914
 
 COFWIOHT, 1914 
 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1914
 
 TO MY MOTHER 
 
 Mother, take this the tribute of a pen, 
 Ill-fledged for flight in many realms above 
 The damps of earth that weight the wings of love, 
 Those clouds that darken on the eyes of men 
 To blind the soul, their prisoner within. 
 Yet, when I have looked up, be this to prove 
 I looked on thee! not all the darkness wove 
 Of all the looms of night could blind me then. 
 
 As one who sees night haunting still the heath, 
 Where men see lights at morning from the vale 
 When to the hills comes glory, I have gone 
 While sloth, my boon companion, stopped for breath 
 To curse the day, for coming without fail. . . . 
 If there be good in this I am thy son. 
 
 2136086
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 IN offering this book to the public, I would like to 
 say that I have endeavored to depict the truths of life 
 in certain of its phases as they are being lived to-day and 
 as they appear to me, a socialist one not altogether 
 negligible both as a poet and as a practical man of his 
 hands. 
 
 While believing that the social and industrial revolu- 
 tion is not yet, I hold the belief that peace under the 
 old order is already passing away forever. I am as 
 fond of sport (with which this book is in part concerned) 
 as most men of my nationality; and am insular enough to 
 hope that our race may not be behindhand in such 
 strife as may well be inevitable in setting an example 
 of fair play. A frank recognition extended to "the other 
 man's point of view" should do much since we are 
 henceforth to be divided toward restraining class 
 hatreds. To those, capable of taking thought on the 
 subject, who have had acquaintance with it at first hand, 
 who have worked as working-men themselves, the purely 
 psychological movement among the masses is obvious 
 enough: a decade of falling real wages, the "speeding 
 up" that has been going on, the frightful toll of human 
 lives, are additional factors exciting the soul through the 
 body of the proletariat. 
 
 Such a book as this, a socialist's study of the ideals 
 and lives of, for the most part, middle-class people, may 
 offend the susceptibilities of some: but unless liberty of 
 conscience be frankly accorded to men expressing ideas 
 in terms of such art as they can command, indifferently 
 sincere craftsmen are more likely to result than the re- 
 moval of social antagonisms. Signs are not wanting that 
 liberty for the Point of View is becoming generally 
 vii
 
 viii FOREWORD 
 
 recognized as an essential in the search for the truths of 
 life. Reviewers have accredited me, in my first book, 
 with the possession of power and originality two qual- 
 ities which, even in an age far more spiritually and 
 mentally strenuous than this, should suffice to justify a 
 poet in his choice of Literature as his proper profession : 
 they have seen fit to rebuke me for bad taste. I have no 
 doubt, had it appeared only half a generation earlier, 
 that they would have used much stronger condemnation 
 or ignored the book altogether. Such belief, to me, 
 promises a better understanding between men and men 
 in the future. I cannot conceive that in the present ortho- 
 dox standards of good taste we have reached finality; or 
 that a time is not close at hand when many ideas on con- 
 troversial subjects, officially sanctioned and promulgated 
 to-day, will be held to be in anything but exceedingly 
 bad taste. To quote only one example: I have listened 
 to preachers of religion promising future beatitudes of 
 eternal life to ignorant men and women, worse cared for 
 in this than are hunters or lap-dogs human lives ex- 
 ploited by Commercialism for its own ends. The thing 
 has sounded to me unseemly to a degree. Nevertheless, 
 far be it from me to ask for the suppression of the book 
 responsible for such doctrines, provided men are al- 
 lowed an equal right to deny what others are deliberately 
 encouraged to affirm; but even now grotesque injustice 
 is perpetrated under the Blasphemy Laws. 
 
 If I have written this book without sentimentality as 
 regards the susceptibilities of readers, at least I have 
 not spared certain of my own in the process. It is not 
 written for children, but is an earnest attempt to visual- 
 ize, for thinking men and women, the truths of some as- 
 pects of the life of the day as they have appeared to a 
 writer for whom the old order of society is already con- 
 demned and waiting sentence.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. AN ALL-HALLOW'N MARGARET i 
 
 II. A SPORTSMAN Is INDICATED 13 
 
 III. THE CALL OF THE NIGHT ON THREE TREES 23 
 
 IV. THE FACE OF A CHILD 35 
 
 V. MORNING 49 
 
 VI, GAMMER POLGREAN CONGRATULATES THE 
 
 ALMIGHTY 57 
 
 VII. BEAU VIEW TERRACE 65 
 
 VIII. "His MOTHER" 74 
 
 IX. CAPTAIN COE "COMES UP" AT KEMPTON . 81 
 
 X. WIMBLEDON PARK 90 
 
 XI. THE OTHER WOMAN 96 
 
 XII. JAMES BURKETT FALLS IN LOVE AGAIN . . 104 
 
 XIII. WHITE CHRYSANTHEMUMS 120 
 
 XIV. MRS. GHOOLE 127 
 
 XV. THRACIAN SEA AND BEVERLEY BROOK . .132 
 
 XVI. THRACIAN SEA DOES A GOOD GALLOP . .143 
 XVII. PLANE TREE AVENUE, STREATHAM, S.W. . 149 
 
 XVIII. DUSK ON THE DERBY COURSE 156 
 
 XIX. HELEN MAKES ANOTHER CONQUEST; SYBIL, 
 
 A REVOLTING DISCOVERY 169 
 
 XX. THE WAY OF A MAID WITH A MAN . . .174 
 XXI. "Now, THRACIAN SEA, TAKE ME TO 
 YOUR MASTER AND MINE!" AND How 
 ix
 
 x CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER p AGE 
 
 THRACIAN SEA ANSWERED HELEN DARELL 
 
 AT SANDQWN PARK 185 
 
 XXII. THE OTHER MAN 192 
 
 XXIII. A WEDDING AT WIMBLEDON, AND A JOUR- 
 
 NEY WESTWARD 198 
 
 XXIV. ODYSSEUS APPEARS IN NORTH DEVON . .211 
 XXV. CALYPSO AND PENELOPE 225 
 
 XXVI. MRS. GHOOLE LIVES UP TO HER REPUTA- 
 TION 230 
 
 XXVII. LOVE LAUGHS AT A POET'S PIETY AND A 
 
 PARSON'S POETRY 239 
 
 XXVIII. THE APOSTASY OF THE REV. MERVYN 
 
 INGESTRE 249 
 
 XXIX. CUP DAY AT ASCOT 266 
 
 XXX. WHEN WINDS AND WOODLAND WHISPER 
 
 IN JULY 282 
 
 XXXI. HELL 289 
 
 XXXII. CUP DAY AT GOODWOOD 296 
 
 XXXIII. A NEW AND ORIGINAL CHARACTER INTRO- 
 
 DUCED TO THE READER 304 
 
 XXXIV. AUNT DEB'S DIFFICULTIES, AND THEIR 
 
 SOLUTION 311 
 
 XXXV. THRACIAN SEA SULKS WITH His RIDER .317 
 XXXVI. THE TEMPTING OF MERVYN INGESTRE . . 325 
 XXXVII. HELEN BURKETT DECIDES TO HUNT AN OLD 
 
 TRAIL 339 
 
 XXXVIII. PHOEBE'S REVENGE 347 
 
 XXXIX. A STRANGER COMES TO STOKE MIDFORD . 353 
 XL. HER TAME POET SAYS GOOD-NIGHT TO His 
 
 DIVINITY, AND TO HER MOTHER-IN-LAW 357
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 XI 
 
 CHAPTER PAG* 
 
 XLI. BETWEEN THE HILLS AND THE SEA . . .361 
 
 XLII. AT SUNDOWN IN SUSSEX 367 
 
 XLIII. ARGYNNIS PAPHIA AND A "BUMBLE BUSH" 370 
 
 XLIV. MERVYN INGESTRE TAKES THE HILL WAY . 376 
 
 XLV. LAODICE'S LOVE 384 
 
 XLVL "THE RISING SUN" AT BEERMINSTER . . . 390 
 
 XLVII. A CESAREWITCH FINISH 394 
 
 XLVIII. THREE TREES AGAIN 402
 
 THRACIAN SEA
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 AN ALL-HALLOW'N MARGARET 
 
 THAT autumn had been very fine. September's peace 
 had passed, like a Presence visualized amid its own auras 
 of golden-blue light, along the earth and skies: a quiet 
 thing, imperceptibly lengthening and making paler its 
 own shadows under the noon; and under the moon, con- 
 juring forth the first white spirits of the fall from stilly 
 fields and gorseland, and from a broad bent-grass, 
 marshy in places with springs and reedy brooks, that lay 
 among the hills northward of the fields and cluster of 
 cottages. October had as imperceptibly turned the blue 
 to gray and brightened the woods with variant leaves 
 against the failing sun : and still the slow south-west 
 winds that came there from time to time had brought few 
 cloudy days and little rain. November came down the 
 long valley of Midford Holt dryshod, with feet that 
 brushed through a crisp gold largesse of leaves strewn 
 beneath the beech and birch on the hillsides and the elms 
 standing sentinel around Stoke Midford hamlet. 
 
 Miss Deborah Yeomans, a maiden woman approach- 
 ing her fiftieth year, dwelt with her niece, Margaret, at 
 the cottage standing some few hundred yards north of 
 the ring of elms. Of red-brick and stone, lichened over 
 with gray and orange, oak-timbered, and roofed with 
 the mottled red and green of tiles and ancient moss, the 
 cottage was snug and weather-proof for all its two hun- 
 dred years a pretty place enough, with its front garden 
 of chrysanthemums, box borders, shrubs, and poplar 
 
 i
 
 2 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 trees. Before, and on each side, the bent-grass stretched 
 away, the bleached brown of its autumn waves now 
 broken by rougher places of darker ling and heather. 
 At the back were a kitchen-garden, apple-garth, sheds, 
 beehives, and a fowl-run the whole surrounded by a 
 thick hedge of thorns and holly, ivy and briars. At the 
 bottom of the garth a gate opened out into a wild of 
 gorse and brambles and thistles, ragwort, rushes and 
 greener grass, with a belt of beechwoods beyond. The 
 garden was a rare place for bees while flowers lasted: 
 at ivy-bloom it was still full of small voices from the 
 hedge; where black and scarlet and white wings of many 
 red admirals were wont to flicker their last in the sun 
 before folding with their winter sleep. 
 
 Few folk passed the cottage from year's end to year's 
 end. At the south side of the hamlet a road to Shapston, 
 the nearest town, ran north-east through the beech 
 woods, and joined a road from the west that crossed 
 Midford Holt north of Miss Yeomans' cottage : by 
 which route a saving of miles was effected. The road 
 which ran directly past the cottage, and thence north- 
 ward out on to the high downs, had been, so local tradi- 
 tion affirmed, a great road in Roman times. Now it 
 was half green for a mile at a stretch in parts; and one 
 might watch its shadows change sides from dawn to 
 dark, without sight of a traveler on the Midford Holt 
 section, on more days than one, even in wayfaring 
 weather. 
 
 Westward the downs were high, only less so than in 
 the north and north-east. Old woods clothed many of 
 them: denses of blackthorn and whitethorn and dog- 
 wood, interspersed with gorse and heath and fern, lay- 
 on the tops of some : some were bare of trees and aught 
 but grass, and these generally bore some traces of tumuli : 
 all had their peculiarities of wind voices and echo, of 
 sound and color reflexion. On some, so old a spirit 
 seemed to haunt their sides, one might have looked for 
 the ambages of a forgotten world, that wound out of the 
 womb of Time before a tree was born: on some the
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 3 
 
 weanling sinews of a two-leaved oak did lonely battle 
 with all the hosts of heaven for a right of entry into five 
 hundred years of life. 
 
 The elder of the two women with whom this narra- 
 tive is first concerned had seldom set foot in these soli- 
 tudes during the ten years her niece had made her home 
 with her. The younger, when she grew toward woman- 
 hood, came to love their ways, the flower-bright carpets 
 of early spring; the beeches' verdant gold of leaf and 
 bloom, whereto, no doubt, came many of Aunt Deb's 
 own bees among the quick-winged tribes that seached 
 the woods; the birds, native and immigrant, that made 
 their home there and the Holt's canopies of tree 
 and sky melodious with manifold music; the thou- 
 sand silver flames that were the white beam tree; 
 the large fragrance of the hawthorn brakes; the 
 odored fountains of the scarcer limes, resonant with 
 tiny song, as June crept on above the high tide of the 
 year; the spotted wings, fulvous and black and green and 
 silver, of the wildwood-loving fritillaries, that flashed 
 and fed on bramble-flowers and honeysuckles; the burn- 
 ing breath of August that darkened all the leaves; the 
 dew-light of autumn mornings on the world; the sloes 
 and blackberries and crabs, the scarlet capsules of the 
 dogrose, the mushrooms half hidden in the gleaming 
 grass, the sound and scent of the slow-falling leaves; 
 the rain voice from the far south-west, that came and 
 woke a myriad whispering echoes in Midford Holt; the 
 shouting north that heralded the hush and yellow glooms 
 of snow; all these things made up a world of wonder- 
 ment to Margaret. They were grateful things to her, 
 pleasures, where for most young women there would 
 have been dullness and boredom. She had few of the 
 superficial and often inane conceptions of life that make 
 so many girls the slaves of shop-windows and showy 
 artifice. Nature was for her as real and alive as the 
 streets, and far more beautiful; she was, congenitally, in- 
 different to the glamour of great cities. 
 
 A week in London had excited her, scarcely more
 
 4 "THRACIAN SEA'* 
 
 than that : the young man at the Clapham Junction lodg- 
 ings where they stayed had made up to her with sundry 
 winks, and in a patronizing way, before he had finished 
 uncording her box. He had flushed hotly at two girls' 
 remarks respecting herself, as they returned one night in 
 the train from the Exhibition, where he had escorted 
 her when her aunt's head had been "too bad" to permit 
 of her going. He was nice to her, in his way, she sup- 
 posed, and very good-looking; but he interjected fre- 
 quently, like a parrot, some music-hall witticism she could 
 not understand, and seemed half hurt when she did not 
 laugh shrilly at his jokes, as two other girls, sitting op- 
 posite them in the compartment, never failed to do. In- 
 deed, their attentions had irritated and annoyed her: if 
 they wanted him they could have him, for her, and wel- 
 come; but their cool way of studying her hat, and her 
 hair, and her everything, between whiles, had aroused the 
 woman in her considerably. Afterwards, her escort's im- 
 passioned offer to give up Another a certain young lady 
 who did the typing at the office, and who, he implied, was 
 mad on him for herself, met with a firm refusal. The 
 youth had returned home late on the following night; 
 and she heard him groaning and being very sick in his 
 room. On the whole she was glad to get back to Mid- 
 ford. 
 
 With the fine weather she had been much out of 
 doors this autumn. On this particular afternoon, when 
 returning from Moulton Ridges the highest point of 
 the downs, at the head of the valley through the gorse 
 above Stourbrook Crossways, she had waited for the 
 dusk that threw a blue veil of shadows across Midford 
 Holt the dusk that wakened stars over Rook's Down, 
 and lights in the hamlet below. There was something 
 in the place and hour that kept the girl there, that steeped 
 her senses in the mystery of things, so that she lingered, 
 vaguely wondering amid the silences of the twilight hill- 
 sides. There the presence of the Unseen made itself 
 manifest, through the slowing pulses of the autumn, to 
 a nature simple nor lacking in those other elements of
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 5 
 
 sensuousness and passion that have been held as essential 
 to the making of poetry, as it may be they are pre- 
 requisite to every higher articulation of sentient life 
 itself. 
 
 She was certainly a pretty girl: her figure promised 
 to be beautiful for many years. Her eyes were gray: her 
 skin still retained something of the summer's tan a pale 
 brown, slightly suffused with red in her cheeks. Her 
 hair, in the shade, was just brown in the sun it re- 
 sponded wonderfully to his golden ardors. She was of 
 medium height. Her nineteen years had fashioned her 
 form on lines sufficiently desirable to appeal to the senses 
 of the average man, to the subtler instincts of the artist, 
 or to the envy of her less favored sisters, and there 
 were many of the latter. Her features were regular, 
 her lips full: there was neither shyness nor boldness in 
 her face; a certain homely placidness was its everyday 
 expression. At times it had a wistfulness sufficiently its 
 own to denote more personality than domesticity a cer- 
 tain gentleness with a suggestion of strength in it, and of 
 a great capacity for loving; the more obvious signs of 
 primitive natures were not noticeable. She was simply 
 dressed in a light brown skirt and jacket; her hat was of 
 faded straw, with some rather faded flowers round it. 
 If her bare hands were rather rough, they were small 
 and well shaped: there was nothing of that large coarse- 
 ness about her, so frequently found in rural districts. 
 
 Her father, a village schoolmaster, who had died 
 of a local epidemic when she was a little maid, had left 
 her somewhat of his quiet studiousness of disposition. 
 Also he had left her a number of books of poetry, fable, 
 and romance. These her own simple mind had devoured 
 until she had made personal friends or enemies of their 
 characters, and had reconstructed her favorite scenes 
 among the secluded fastnesses of the surrounding woods 
 and hills. Without much of education, ignorant of life 
 where Life is measured by the golden rule of Mammon 
 and the theodolite of the town nevertheless Nature had 
 taught her many lessons of her own; lessons not without
 
 6 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 their influence for good in forming the character. More- 
 over, such truths as she can teach, she teaches thoroughly ; 
 though they be diametrically opposed to the ideals of 
 some of her daughters who have outgrown the crudities 
 of her ancient curriculum, detrimental as it is to the pres- 
 ervation of a good figure and to those more important ac- 
 complishments of an enlightened age. 
 
 Much of the genius of the place had grown into the 
 girl's mind; and not a little of its peace, during this 
 autumn, that had at first brought her contentment. But 
 of late the introspective woman had been uneasy assert- 
 ing herself, and questioning, without satisfaction, the con- 
 sequence of objective things. Her nature had ripened 
 with the year, but no man had come for the harvest. 
 She did not entirely apprehend it in that wise it may 
 be doubted if she understood much of the changes that 
 were taking place in her. There were few men at Mid- 
 ford the place held perhaps a dozen families and 
 fewer young men, and those of a type not likely to ap- 
 peal to the girl's heart or mind. There was no man in 
 her life at all, save a shadowy hero of her own : such men 
 as wanted to be in it had aroused no answering impulses 
 within her; but since she had been husband high the girl's 
 natural destiny had been at work quickening and prepar- 
 ing her whole temperament for the inevitable day of ex- 
 altation or disaster. She was moody with inchoate 
 thoughts that thickened in her blood, a girl healthy in 
 mind and body, innocent, but not ignorant of the fact that 
 she was alone in a lonely place, in whose loneliness a 
 thousand thronging suggestions somehow found both a 
 fit and an unfit environment. 
 
 When such moods took hold on Margaret the wild 
 had an irresistible attraction for her. South of Stoke 
 Midford was a good deal of arable land and green pas- 
 ture, interspersed with woodland undulating country 
 sparsely inhabited, with a winding road that forked a 
 mile beyond the village and reached out to a wide main 
 road with broad green edges, some miles further south. 
 In her early teens she had wandered to this far-off road,
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 7 
 
 by way of one of the forks, and after journeying along 
 the highway (not without a sense of adventure on it) she 
 would return by the other, wondering if the great world 
 that she had just left ever saw her coming and going. 
 By some process of the child's imagination her parallels 
 of latitude were sharply defined north and south of her 
 home. Her school maps showed her that there was far 
 more of the great world below her own country than 
 above it; and for her the south was a sign for the great 
 world. The sun lived in the south, for one thing; and 
 far away in the south was a great sea, with proportion- 
 ately great waves and fishes and ships. True, the hills 
 to the north were bigger than those to the south. Stand- 
 ing on the barrow where an old king was buried, from 
 the top of Moulton Ridges she could see a very long 
 way sometimes, but in the south she felt there were things 
 bigger than she could see. When she grew older she re- 
 membered these matters, as, with increasing years, the 
 south lost much of its mystery, and the high hills, with 
 their combs and hanging woods and wind voices, claimed 
 her more and more. There was a reason for this within 
 herself; and with increase of strength and limb she felt 
 more at home in the hills, where she came to understand 
 their ways and to feel a growing desire for them. 
 
 Now, with the afterglow still above her, she stood 
 dreaming at the fading landscape, dimly conscious of the 
 pregnant shadows under the hills, and of the sunset's 
 glory darkening down the west. The girl in her was 
 dying and the woman was coming into her kingdom, 
 slowly, imperceptibly, inexorably, as the night was creep- 
 ing through the length and breadth of the valley; while 
 out of the bosom of the night was born a star. 
 
 There is, for all natures possessing in any marked 
 degree the faculty of understanding esoteric Nature, a 
 sense of the Soul of Things in the face of Solitude. It 
 may vary with the mood of the beholder : to the girl 
 musing there between the hills it was apparent, if be- 
 yond her powers of definition. A little while, and the 
 exterior world might have been for her as a cestus, where
 
 8 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 the spirit of love unborn stirred visibly; while Venus 
 herself began high mysteries in the far south-west. 
 
 She stood very still; though her eyes were quieter 
 than her thoughts. There was no rebellion in her, only 
 a first unrest that had as yet hardly moved upon the calm 
 current of her days. The gorse grew darkly indistinct: 
 gray shadows flicked with white ran jerkily about the 
 green grass and red bracken patches; the rabbits took no 
 heed of the girl who took no heed of them. The light wind 
 of the day had died out and left the valley woods long, 
 silent shadows: the last harsh note of a cock pheasant 
 had jarred across the evening peace. There was nothing 
 now to disturb her thoughts from the dreams. 
 
 How she would love her hero when he came ! Where 
 was he, among all this strange delightful mystery that 
 wrapped the woods and hills? That he was dark and 
 handsome she quite understood; also, that he was strong 
 and tender a masterful man, whose strength had been 
 his weakness on one dreadful occasion when he had fallen 
 to the wiles of a certain sorceress, who always wore her 
 hair in two long plaits while she prepared potently un- 
 holy charms with which she smeared her voluptuous 
 lips. She forgave this other female the more easily inas- 
 much as the experience enabled her hero to appreciate 
 her own disinterested passion for himself. She was con- 
 scious of a great and growing desire to worship her un- 
 known : perhaps to suffer grievously in his cause : she even 
 died on occasion, if not very often she was too happy- 
 natured a young woman for that in his arms, after 
 many tribulations and a baby. She always blushed when 
 she reached this last stage, and was as acutely conscious 
 of bliss as she was unconscious of any banality in so 
 dying. Generally her hero's mother had a hand in her 
 destruction; but Margaret always forgave the latter, 
 long before the end, for his sake. On this particular 
 afternoon she had already passed away once in his arms; 
 and, after sighing audibly, she began to rehearse her joys 
 and woes over again. 
 
 Then Chance began a web of things I shall tell of, in
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 9 
 
 a broad bent-grass by lonely cross-roads toward the 
 northern end of Midford Holt valley, a place where 
 the brambles' spotted death was hung with a myriad 
 webs for shroud and the stubborn bracken hardened 
 swarthy hearts against their slow year's end or the swift 
 stroke of some human fern-cutter; and where the spirits 
 of the dusk held commune with such souh as came there 
 and could understand. For the man walking northward 
 toward the girl standing alone in the gorse they were 
 non-existent; for her, she was neither insensible to their 
 mute appeal nor wholly unready for what was to 
 follow. 
 
 There was no sign-post at the Crossways. Had there 
 been one she might never have come into James Burkett's 
 ken, and the lives of some men and women would have 
 been greatly different for a piece of painted wood. He 
 hesitated, then taking the left hand road, came toward 
 her. 
 
 At the sound of his boots on the fine flints, Margaret 
 awoke from her reverie and, instinctively moving out of 
 the gorse, walked along the road toward the Crossways, 
 as the heath opposite the place where she had been stand- 
 ing sank down steeply into a rush-grown patch of marsh. 
 As the two drew up to each other he stopped and, raising 
 his hat, inquired the way to Ford Hinton. 
 
 She had ventured one swift look of scrutiny at him 
 before he did so, and the result was disastrous to her 
 composure. Her knees trembled, the road rose and fell, 
 her face burned, her eyes were terribly afraid. For a 
 second, flight became as imperative as impossible. It was 
 he ! Then she began to be genuinely angry with herself 
 for such great foolishness. She did not look at him 
 again, but pointed past him at the Crossways, while she 
 said in a rather breathless voice : "You be on wrong road 
 this way; straight up through the Holt 'tis, and seven 
 mile." 
 
 He turned; and with a series of side-long glances she 
 devoured her stranger-knight. He had thanked her po- 
 litely, and seemed to be quite unaware of the state she
 
 io "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 was in. She became aware that he was talking to her 
 pleasantly. 
 
 The solemnities of the autumn twilight had suddenly 
 become fraught with a strange joy for her, as she en- 
 deavored to direct him again while they walked slowly 
 back to the junction of the valley roads a hundred 
 yards or so. She found herself wishing it as many miles. 
 
 James Burkett was good to look at a tall man and 
 well built; with a strong light of life in his brown eyes, 
 and much youthful grace and strength obvious about him. 
 He wore a Norfolk suit of fashionable make and tweeds, 
 and spoke with the accents of a gentleman. The child of 
 nature that had suddenly become a woman drank in his 
 commonplaces to intoxication. 
 
 Yes, it had been fine the weather. 
 
 Yes, she knew the village he had just come through. 
 . . . She lived there with her aunt. 
 
 He had been to Low Green (a village some distance 
 to the south-east of Midford) and had tried another 
 road coming back. . . . He was stopping at Ford Hin- 
 ton, with Squire Radleigh. . . . For some shooting. 
 
 Her compassion for wounded birds that were long 
 a-dying appeared to have been disproportionate mis- 
 placed even. 
 
 They reached the Crossways, and he pointed with his 
 stick up the road that ran northward. 
 
 Yes, that was his way. 
 
 He lingered; and she lingered, too, since he was the 
 first young man that had disturbed her in this strange 
 fashion and he stood looking down at her at that mo- 
 ment; and also because, if she read a question in his 
 brown eyes, her own thoughts were too chaotic to formu- 
 late it clearly enough to satisfy the claims of curiosity. 
 Then suddenly, as Modesty startled at even this short 
 usurpation of her sway returned, she said, "Good even- 
 ing," very distinctly. 
 
 It was nearly dark she saw his hand stretched out, 
 and her own sought it. He held it for a moment, and 
 this time th* woman in her trembled between rebellion
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" n 
 
 and acquiescence ; when he released it her face was burn- 
 ing, but her eyes were smiling more than she knew. 
 
 "Good-bye!" 
 
 He raised his hat, and turned northward; and Mar- 
 garet, stumbling slightly, hurried toward Stoke Midford. 
 At a safe distance she stopped and looked back up the 
 strip of road, where a dark figure waved an arm to her. 
 She half waved her own in reply; and went home won- 
 dering if she had called him "sir." 
 
 That evening she untrimmed her hat, with feverish 
 fingers suddenly grown capricious. The latest fashion 
 book the carrier from Shapston had left some three 
 weeks before became a thing invested with an awe-inspir- 
 ing authority; its designers arbiters of a fate, and, as 
 such, to be approached with all humility and reverence, 
 that the spirit of their works might descend upon her, 
 their disciple, in the cult of the Hat Beautiful. 
 
 Aunt Deb, who read assiduously if somewhat slowly 
 in The Family Herald of evenings, had a certain grace 
 about her of her own: in the composure of the calm pale 
 face and the dark, peaceful eyes was much of that patient 
 strength one sees more often in country women than in 
 those whose lives are passed within the sound of the un- 
 rest of cities. Her hair was still almost as black as it 
 had been in the past, and seemed severe in its arrange- 
 ment above the milder brows beneath. 
 
 There was a small, sweet-smelling fire of birch logs 
 in the grate, with its old-fashioned hooks and oven, be- 
 side which she had passed more than twenty winters of 
 placid life and sorrows gently but bravely borne. Her 
 means were ample for the few needs of herself and Mar- 
 garet. The parlor contained some pieces of good old 
 furniture, and had some thick rugs on its worn stone 
 floor. On a round table in the middle stood a shaded 
 lamp; a smaller lamp burned on the mantelshelf above 
 the quiet, neat woman, as she sat reading. Occasionally, 
 at some exclamation from her niece, she would put down 
 the Herald and, removing her glasses, watch the girl's 
 hands arranging the troublesome hat. Within certain
 
 12 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 limits she understood Margaret thoroughly, and loved 
 her with the love of a strong nature solitary and childless. 
 
 "You'm busy to-night, my dear?" 
 
 "Yes, aunt, it's getting that shabby." 
 
 "Well, well, there's no call to wear it out, to be 
 sure." 
 
 But he had seen her in the hat, and, from his looks, 
 it suited her: only, the flowers were so dingy in the 
 light! She wondered if he was thinking of her: and 
 once she blushed so hot she hurried from the room, find- 
 ing a reason therefor in the opportune absence of Tinker, 
 the cat, from his usual sleeping-place. He was not out- 
 side when she opened the garden door. But the splendor 
 of the night drew her out. Under the apple branches 
 she stood and wondered at the darkness that covered 
 the young man somewhere in the north. She was half 
 afraid to think of him while she was with her aunt in 
 the parlor, now that blushing had begun. 
 
 When at last Miss Deborah Yeomans rose and re- 
 placed her reading-glasses in their case, preparatory to 
 retiring for the night, Margaret put down her work with 
 an inscrutable air, that changed to one of a dubious 
 finality after a further visit to the small mirror, and fol- 
 lowed her aunt upstairs. 
 
 As she got into bed, the stars, whose advent from 
 shadowy skies had synchronized with that of the young 
 man from a shadowy land, seen from the darkness of 
 her room, shone with a supernatural luster. She sat up 
 and looked at them burning, to her quickened senses, 
 with extraordinary fire. When, at last, she fell asleep, 
 she dreamed of him, hand in hand with her through her 
 beloved Midford Holt.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 A SPORTSMAN IS INDICATED 
 
 HER breakfast, next morning, was an inconsiderable 
 affair: the misty-bright mirror of the day was a magnify- 
 ing glass, whereunder the hours grew into unnatural and 
 repulsive size. She decided she must avoid the neighbor- 
 hood of the Crossways for the rest of the shooting. 
 
 She got there as afternoon drew near to evening; 
 and rehearsed her experience to all the intensive influences 
 of environment and association. A little while, and she 
 was bound northward up the road. After covering 
 nearly a mile of it she discovered a sudden and tremen- 
 dous agitation : a figure approaching out of the dusk was 
 undoubtedly his. With hardly less of certainty her 
 emotions told her that he was "coming after" herself; 
 and between joy and confusion the furlong or so that 
 separated them when she made such discovery was too 
 short for her maidenly reserve to rescue her from her 
 all too obvious condition. 
 
 He saw enough, in the shining eyes and red face of 
 the girl, as he stopped before her, to whet his vanity 
 and his appetite : perhaps, therefore, he did not see the 
 gentleness of a trusting, tender woman as well. Also, 
 man the hunter was awake in him; and James Burkett 
 held firm opinions as to the hunted entering keenly into 
 the spirit of the chase. Had the quarry turned and fled 
 him there and then away through the gorse and grass, 
 heading for the woods he could have run her down with 
 a zest beyond anything his occasional days with the 
 "Steyning and Horsham" could bring him. 
 
 Nevertheless, their talk was, for the nonce, of con-
 
 i 4 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 ventional, innocuous things. His, by now, great desire 
 was made amenable to the curb by a sense of security : a 
 too conformable capture was repugnant to all those better 
 qualities of a sportsman that he possessed. Greatly he 
 prided himself on his being a sportsman, and with a 
 sincere belief that he approximated to that highest of 
 ideals. At this moment he was considering his new 
 powers of restraint as something rather fine morally: 
 the temptation was a bit thick for any man, and he was 
 not a bally St. Anthony, by Jove! any more than most 
 men. As a matter of fact his sensations were of a kind 
 and degree much the same as those of the rest of the 
 Mammalia: the woman at his side felt the wonder, the 
 mystery, the beauty of bodily passion intensified a hun- 
 dredfold because idealized by love; where for him love 
 was in a fair way of becoming idealized by lust. The 
 sportsman in him had rather a poor opinion of ideals, 
 other than his own a penchant, not, of course, peculiar 
 to sportsmen. He had read in the papers that a race 
 horse just dead had earned during his life half a million 
 sterling for his owner, and, in the next column, that some 
 poet's or other artist's life and work had been prema- 
 turely closed by neglect and poverty some man who 
 had added to the collective consciousness, present and 
 future, of his kind a new dignity, a new beauty, a new 
 justification for its existence and for his own. James 
 Burkett had found, in the former case, fresh evidence in 
 support of his idea that sport was the nation's highest 
 attribute, and, in the latter, only another instance of the 
 "hopelessness" of "those impractical Johnnies." In his 
 present adventure the sportsman had already indicated 
 for him his line of country. If there were anomalies 
 therein, perhaps they were like a planet's, and might, for 
 practical purposes, be disregarded. Glory be to the God 
 of the Practical ! Since such uncertainties as are in psy- 
 chology are by his aid removed to the proper and prac- 
 tical place for them a purely immaterial, and some say 
 (but these are not practical men usually) mythical, 
 heaven. He listened eagerly to the Past in his blood,
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 15 
 
 although he refused the Future a hearing. Although 
 but twenty-three years of age he had already erected 
 along his earthly pilgrimage, regardless of expense, the 
 most modern and elaborate of abattoirs, wherein to ad- 
 minister a quietus on occasion to that anachorism and 
 anachronism in a land of Commercial Education and En- 
 terprise the spiritual ego, once yclept the Soul. Far 
 be it from me to cite him as an example of a gross ma- 
 terialism : I am but enunciating some of his many canons 
 of Commonsense. Neither do I affirm that he was un- 
 desirous of assimilating anything of a subtler psychology 
 than is found in sausage-meat, or of appreciating a 
 deeper futility than is represented by all the old anchors 
 fast in the bottom of the sea. If he had not acquired the 
 habit of subjective thought, I know of no good reason in 
 his life and ideals that required it, that is all. 
 
 To go back to the two of them standing there on the 
 grassy flints of the old Roman road that had so few of 
 travelers to disturb them. Presently the girl remarked, 
 in as casual a tone as was compatible with her qualities: 
 
 "I wondered if I should meet you, maybe." 
 
 "So did II" Then, he added, "I came to look for 
 you." 
 
 It was a longish walk from Ford Hinton, and her 
 blushes began afresh, as he was keen to see. She moved 
 to the side of the road, and began plucking long bents 
 among the fringe of wildwood that ran beside the track 
 just there. 
 
 "What's your name? Do tell me." 
 
 "Guess!" 
 
 But his guesses failed; and she said suddenly, 
 
 "Margaret Margaret Yeomans." 
 
 He repeated the "Margaret" in a way that em- 
 boldened her to ask his own. 
 
 "Jim." With a sudden impulse of magnanimity he 
 went on, "James Burkett." 
 
 Feeling more at home with him and with herself, she 
 began to fence, half playfully, at some of his questions 
 and answers, even while holiness filled her heart. She
 
 1 6 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 was barely nineteen, and the greatest happiness is sel- 
 dom entirely serious at the age. 
 
 When they parted, near the Crossways, her momen- 
 tary hesitation was only concerned with her spoken an- 
 swer. She agreed to meet him on Moulton Ridges the 
 next afternoon but one. 
 
 Factlis est discensus, where Love and Life aged 
 nineteen and twenty-three respectively meet on high 
 hillsides under the stars. 
 
 James Burkett had as much or as little sexual moral- 
 ity as the average healthy young men of his class and 
 time. He divided his attention between the Ford Hinton 
 pheasants and the country girl in Midford Holt valley. 
 The birds' misery was a thing of a moment, or a day or 
 two at most; Margaret grew callous to their sufferings 
 did they not keep him from her? and her from happi- 
 ness? As the days went on he spent less and less of his 
 time at the coverts, and more and more of it among the 
 wastes and wildwood and downland that lay about Moul- 
 ton Ridges. 
 
 Squire Radleigh who, in his day, had been as fond 
 of a wench as he was at this time of the whisky that had 
 ousted the wine of his earlier years troubled little about 
 any of his guests so long as they brought down a few 
 birds to their guns, and would laugh at the stories which 
 he delighted to inflict upon the variegated society that an- 
 nually made use of his hospitality during the season. He 
 was a merry old rip an old-fashioned, case-hardened sin- 
 ner, for whom the probability of a sudden termination to 
 any one of his pet anecdotes, by the intervention of a long- 
 threatening apoplexy, had as little effect upon his spirits 
 as the spirits he consumed of an evening had, apparently, 
 upon his head. The house was full; and Burkett was 
 seldom missed. 
 
 Margaret's inventive faculties were strained to the 
 utmost to keep pace with the demands for dissimulation 
 and concealment that her love put upon her. Aunt Deb- 
 orah, without being a puritan, would have made matters
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 17 
 
 distinctly difficult had she known what was toward with 
 her niece. Discovery, Margaret knew, was inevitable 
 sooner or later, and a recognition of that fact convinced 
 her of the futility of attempting to satisfy both her con- 
 science and her love. 
 
 Let it not be thought that she had reached this stage 
 without the lashings of remorse. She loved her aunt who 
 had been so long her mother (her mother had died at her 
 birth) with a very real love. Between the two were many 
 sympathies. In the present case a hitherto unknown re- 
 serve had come over the girl. At the back of her mind 
 the sense of Consequence troubled her, as owls may 
 trouble a stargazer when they scratch the silent Empy- 
 rean with the needy discords of their kind. The elder 
 woman would have insisted on the importance of what 
 was for the nonce, to the younger, an unessential, but one 
 which had in it an active potentiality. Aunt Deb would 
 have gone through the uncut leaves of the girl's romance 
 with a ruthless edge, and with a sound of things that 
 put the stars away. 
 
 She had been brought up to believe that "God is 
 Love." She was not quite sure what God was. He 
 would be very angry with her if she broke His laws, she 
 believed. She had seen His anger reflected in the lives 
 of two or three girls in her own neighborhood in their 
 drawn faces and in a peculiar wildness in their eyes in 
 their evident desire to avoid public recognition, where, 
 before, they had been as eager to court it. She remem- 
 bered Hettie Ryott, in the chestnut wood, lying on her 
 face sobbing her heart out, and asking God to kill her. 
 She had been fond of Hettie from the day of that girl's 
 first attendance at the village school, whereto went Mar- 
 garet, by common consent a great book-learner among 
 them, who, for the most part, found reading difficult. 
 Margaret's description of the new girl to her aunt had 
 been to the effect that she didn't know where Wales was, 
 but had very nice hair. In the course of a day or two 
 child Margaret had assisted child Henrietta in the ac- 
 quisition of geographical axioms ; and the two had found
 
 1 8 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 a striking similarity in the texture and the color of each 
 other's locks. If they had not become exactly bosom 
 friends on the strength of it (a strain of coarseness in 
 Hettie had prevented that) Margaret had been genuinely 
 fond of the other. Her discovery in the chestnut wood 
 had shocked and frightened her, the more so because Het- 
 tie had jumped up and glared at her like "Lass" 
 Poacher Alf's lurcher bitch had glared, when she found 
 that animal, with its hot eyes of pain, trapped in Burnt 
 Hanger, while its master was in Shapston goal, and Long 
 Harry the keeper had shot it. 
 
 Aunt Deborah had seized the opportunity when she 
 had, at the time, mentioned Hettie's distress to that good 
 woman, to deliver a homily on the wickedness of certain 
 things, and God's just and awful punishment upon the 
 delinquents. (In justice to Miss Deborah I will here 
 state that not only did she firmly believe what she said 
 to be the truth, but, also, that she as firmly believed that 
 she enjoyed the confidence of the Almighty in these things 
 as that she enjoyed the confidence of her neighbor at 
 the next cottage, in other matters.) She honestly ac- 
 cepted the divine authority with as little doubt of its truth 
 as of her own humility when receiving Holy Communion; 
 by which act of faith or blasphemy the poor in spirit 
 became the legatees of a quite considerable and important 
 inheritance, to wit, an everlasting life. Such was her 
 creed; and if her humility was only one of her self-de- 
 ceptions it certainly never occurred to her as such. She 
 was a sincere Christian, and while her faith could 
 not destroy her natural goodness of heart it was too 
 strong not to assert its own righteousness on occasion. 
 Let Hettie Ryott repent, let her spend her life in re- 
 penting, there was hope for her in another, Miss Deb- 
 orah would have been the first to admit it, and to glorify 
 the graciousness of the God capable of such magnanimity. 
 But it was "too much to expect that respectable folk 
 would be wanting to associate with her, more especially 
 they with maids o' their own!" No: the next world for 
 Hettie Ryott; for this let her hide her shame away
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 19 
 
 from honest women. Though she finished up her earthly 
 existence in a Lock hospital, it wouldn't matter pro- 
 vided she repented before the end. (A curious creed, 
 and one not entirely without its encouragement for Lock 
 hospitals; as its belief in Immortality is not without its 
 encouragement for bloody wars.) In these days, when 
 the curses of Christianity, with the infallible homing in- 
 stinct of their kind, are more under consideration than 
 the blessings of its mystic dove, lest Aunt Deb be judged 
 too harshly, I will add on her behalf that at least she had 
 no men folk about her to influence her judgment on Het- 
 tie Ryott. 
 
 Of a surety the case of Hettie Ryott would now if 
 her aunt knew be cited afresh for the particular edi- 
 fication and warning of Margaret Yeomans. The 
 thought confirmed the latter in her secrecy. No matter 
 what she was to come to she loved him, she would al- 
 ways love him, whatever he did, or whatever her aunt 
 or anyone else might say. In secret, Hettie Ryott had 
 begun to surprise her into something akin to respect; 
 till she remembered that it had been rumored to have 
 been a case of men with her: whereupon Margaret was 
 in no way surprised to find that she hated her for such 
 wickedness ; and, incidentally, grew averse to comparisons 
 that left the comparer with an indescribable thorn some- 
 where in the soul. The one quality she might ever have 
 in common with the prescribed abject of years before 
 (similitude between her hair and Hettie's had naturally 
 departed long ago) became a still small voice within that 
 larger voice that urges woman to give all. She was of 
 the stuff of martyrs a class to be found more among 
 women than among men and she was jealous and zeal- 
 ous for the whole principle and practice of martyrdom. 
 If the latter should become commoner among women \ 
 than it is at present (which God forbid!) it may lose its 
 vogue for no more reason than male epicures affect in 
 scorn of kippered herrings, which, when good, are a 
 wholesome and nutritious diet as certainly as it is cer- 
 tain that the sun warms the ecliptic.
 
 20 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 With a hundred "Hetties" before them for as mani- 
 fold a moral, the "Margarets" of the world are still 
 prone to forget all but the promptings of the larger voice. 
 This Margaret, meanwhile, was forgetting, as woman 
 will go on forgetting while Life and Love remain hu- 
 man things; while opportunity retains its time-honored 
 if otherwise dishonorable avocation, and man his virility 
 and sex-impulse; while woman's love is tenderer than 
 Mrs. Grundy's lip; until the aeons of effort toward 
 Duality, that have left still for a sign the breast mark on 
 the male, have evolved for men and women a kindlier 
 and a purer philosophy of Sex than obtained in an age 
 when the supreme principle of human existence was 
 a thing to be deplored and even hushed up in "decent 
 society" ; a society whose concept of morality was 
 based on a curious conglomerate of Genesiac super- 
 stition and grocer-worship, and who sought, by a Vic- 
 torian vagary of the Jungle-Law, to hucksterize man's 
 meaning for ever for the sons and daughters of 
 mankind. 
 
 She did not suppose he would marry her, but she was 
 by nature a girl for whom chastity becomes a lesser thing 
 than love. Without the latter the former had been a 
 thing accepted without much thought about it. But with 
 the coming of her man had commenced the vanguard of a 
 host of blushes, and much strange desire and fear. Then 
 trust in her love had put away fear from her . . . For 
 the first time in her life she felt a sense of superiority 
 to the middle-aged, a primal exaltation that she told her- 
 self was unworthy, and yet one which brought with it 
 somewhat of the calm strength that punctuates and ac- 
 companies the Elemental's hour. Then pity for her aunt 
 touched amid her own heartstrings, and set a chord cry- 
 ing against the injustice of that fate which darkens the 
 lives of so many women. Her eyes had grown hot; and 
 her hands had grown cold with the misery she had 
 clenched them on. Aunt Deb had been a mother to her; 
 and yet . . . The problem is an old one older, maybe, 
 than mentality.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 21 
 
 Then, on her nineteenth birthday, while they wan- 
 dered from the old Roman way toward a great green 
 light along the sky, low on the woods and hills, as they 
 passed through a by-place of bourtrees and juniper she 
 felt his arms about her; and he had kissed her and 
 told her that he loved her, as he actually did in a 
 sense. 
 
 It is no mere sentimentality to record that she would 
 have died for him willingly in that hour: it is with no de- 
 sire to excuse the man when I say he had but the re- 
 motest idea of the nature of her exaltation while she 
 walked beside him afterward, her hand in his arm, and 
 with her soul as full of happiness as her eyes were full 
 of the splendor of the west. It had happened as she 
 could have wished it: her own beloved Holt around them: 
 around them, too, the veils of twilight whose apparency 
 moves to the slow breathings of Change, imminent and 
 immanent, about the world; that hour of wistful wizardry 
 so many of humankind repel with lighted lamps and 
 blinds drawn close that stupendous climacteric where- 
 through a million pass daily, unmoved, unconscious, 
 maybe, of aught beyond the fact that evenings draw in 
 or evenings draw out, though even London or what men 
 have made of Lancashire loses under its influence some- 
 thing of its hopeless and astounding ugliness. The 
 wonder of a vague of windless skies hung above them 
 with an empyreal and passionate tenderness, as though 
 emotive over some impalpable, some pure spirit of Color 
 but that moment born. The girl rejoiced, exulted in it 
 all : her instincts were true : she felt deeply and the 
 heights of her mood were proportionate, for all her in- 
 capacity to interpret or describe in words. 
 
 "Don't you love me, Margaret?" 
 
 She had not spoken since his kiss. She was only just 
 beginning to realize that something in the way of words 
 was due to him from her. He would think her stupid. 
 She was not, but too happy for the moment; and it was 
 not easy to talk about it was her first kiss. She looked 
 up at him from great eyes of faith and wonder. It was
 
 22 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 as much as she dared, a hurried glance, that hurt him 
 a good deal years afterward. 
 
 He repeated his question; while she walked with her 
 head bent and her eyes fixed on the tufts of grass before 
 her. 
 
 "Yes." She got the word out at last, and it sounded 
 a poor little word to her ears when it was said. "Oh, I 
 do! I do!" she assured him, in a burst of feeling that 
 made her forget any uncertainties of etiquette proper to 
 her position. "I did! The very first time you spoke 
 by Crossways. I was that dreaming about you, that even- 
 ing, though never I'd set eyes on you afore that. But I 
 told it to myself ever so, he would come; and when he 
 came it was you. Oh, my dear, I do love ee so!" The 
 last sentence was a breathless whisper. 
 
 For James Burkett the evenings were drawing in; 
 and he was glad of it chiefly for the reasons that most 
 lovers are glad of the dark. 
 
 They wandered about for an hour, with kisses fre- 
 quent and increasing in length and ardor, and with much 
 incoherence for them both. If the man wondered more 
 than once how it would end, not once did the girl see 
 those shadowy wastes that lie beyond the Midford Holts 
 of the world, wherein Sin waits for the woman his victim, 
 and Shame, his mother, watches with calmly mocking 
 eyes.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE CALL OF THE NIGHT ON THREE TREES 
 
 GAMMER POLGREAN lived at the cottage nearest the 
 Yeomans. She was of great and unknown age, but of 
 extraordinary vitality a big-framed Amazon of a 
 woman, bearded like a barbel, in two gray tufts on her 
 bony chin. An exploit of hers, many years before, was 
 still recounted to the few visitors who came for work or 
 pleasure to Midford; was even yet discussed among the 
 inhabitants themselves. During a "ter'ble starm," one 
 midnight, in a bad year, when the hay harvest had 
 moldered where it lay, a stranger man had forced his 
 way into her parlor: the lightning had shown him therein 
 two silver teapots much prized and polished by their 
 owner. It was her invariable rule never to "shut out" a 
 storm: in her theology lightning was by some otherwise 
 obscure process connected with the eye of God; and she 
 had opened her heart to the Lord too often and too hon- 
 estly "to be afeard." Indeed, she rather welcomed such 
 manifestation; and her faith was in nowise weakened 
 when "Shapston gurt spire" had been shattered over the 
 very heads of the devout. As for the robber, she had 
 met him in a hand to hand combat for possession of the 
 teapots, in the midst of the elemental fire and brim- 
 stone, and inflicted such injuries on him with a piece of 
 old kibble-chain that, in his fear and agony, he had 
 broken loose and broken his leg as well in a desperate at- 
 tempt to escape the iron vengeance that circled about 
 him. Thereupon she had laid him upon the sofa, set 
 his limb with staves from a spare butter keg, salved his 
 bruises, and given him a sleeping-draught of her own 
 
 23
 
 24 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 concoction the wretched man had swallowed like a lamb. 
 Next day she had driven him to the hospital. Her more 
 intimate acquaintances had been privileged to view the 
 chain hanging at the head of her bed ever afterward. 
 
 The eyes in her swarthy face were as black as eyes 
 may be, and her black hair, though thin, was without a 
 paler streak. She had given three sons and two grand- 
 sons to the services and a bloody death; and now, a lone 
 woman, the last of her race, she waited dauntlessly the 
 coming of the last Enemy. She was more feared than 
 loved, perhaps, in Midford, for a fierceness in her aspect 
 and grim austerity in her everyday speech. But when 
 there was trouble for the cottagers they turned to her 
 as to a leader. In fevers and lyings-in she was asked 
 for from miles around; there was something heroic about 
 the old woman that greatly impressed her neighbors, 
 death seemed to keep so far away from her who had 
 given him so many hostages. When occasion called for 
 it none could be gentler: she never lost patience or tem- 
 per; and it was well known that she had strange power 
 with herbs and beasts. 
 
 Not seldom had Margaret gone with her in her 
 botanical expeditions, and had accounted it an honor, since 
 Gammer otherwise invariably went alone. She was al- 
 ways gentle with the girl, explaining to her much of the 
 lore of wild plants; but latterly Margaret had seen in 
 her a source of danger, given as the Gammer was to wan- 
 dering through the Holt in search of simples, maned 
 agarics, warty caps and their tribe. The first high winds 
 of the fall, and her tall figure, bent beneath a sack of 
 broken boughs, would be abroad early and late about 
 the wild: she gathered with her own hands, and scorned 
 assistance. 
 
 But on the afternoon following that of the preceding 
 chapter she had arranged to drive Miss Deborah into 
 Shapston ; and they would not be back before eight. 
 
 The girl had assisted her aunt into the Gammer's 
 gig in whose shafts an ancient mare, foaled twenty years 
 back in Midford, still did good service for her aged
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 25 
 
 mistress and she now stood watching them draw slowly 
 up to the Crossways. At last they swung round on the 
 right hand road and disappeared among the beechwoods 
 toward Shapston, some five miles away. They had taken 
 that road for the purpose of making a call at a friend's 
 place : they would return by the other and shorter route. 
 The coast was clear north of the cottage. 
 
 Margaret went indoors, and did her hair afresh with 
 much care and some blushes during the various opera- 
 tions involved in the process. It was the day after her 
 birthday, and her entry into her twentieth year was to 
 her as pregnant with the potentialities of happiness as 
 their wedding-morn is to some women. Very pretty and 
 lovable she looked as she went about the house after- 
 ward, singing to herself in a low, sweet voice she had. 
 
 The skies of soft gray cloud that moved slowly east- 
 ward; the clear light in the west where the dark woods 
 were plain against the green sides of Saxonbury and 
 Longbarrow; the streams of mild air flushing the valley 
 with a sense as of the spirits of the South and West mov- 
 ing upon invisible wings; all nature seemed to her to be 
 in sympathy with her project, as she had waited, with 
 tremulous impatience, for her aunt's departure and for 
 her own ramble through the afternoon and evening with 
 her lover. 
 
 She had arranged to meet him in a bridle-road that 
 wound under the bracken-covered eminence locally known 
 as Three Trees, from the three tall pines on its summit. 
 To the west of the Ford Hinton road, Three Trees lay 
 among heathy wastes at the northwest end of the valley, 
 some three miles from Stoke Midford. A little used way, 
 often deserted for days together by human life, the track 
 started from the Crossways, and, slowly rising through 
 gorse and heather and birchwoods, came out by the tree- 
 crowned knoll that was the highest point in the neigh- 
 borhood. It was a favorite walk with Margaret, this 
 particular bridle-road. From long acquaintance she was 
 familiar with its every aspect, its every mood and that 
 such places have moods of their own is well understood
 
 26 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 by those who can understand these things at all. Book in 
 hand, she would go softly along its grassy miles, where 
 behind the woods would come King Arthur and his men 
 and women, fresh from the pages of Malory, and in- 
 vested with all the magic freshness of things that never 
 grow old for the young in years or heart, with an atmos- 
 phere of more than nitrogen and its kindred elements, a 
 medium as beyond analysis as it is beyond common air. 
 In these days a plowman may breathe it more easily, 
 perhaps, than a prince (if princehood be conditional upon 
 evolution, and the "merchant" variety the last word in 
 the process) : at least I have known plowmen who did 
 indubitably so breathe, while within the same oxgate a 
 veritable majesty of Mammon fumed through a shilling 
 cigar at the sun-filled furrows, because his two thousand 
 pound motor, silent but for stench in the road, had failed 
 to fill his guts punctually to the minute, by breaking down 
 miles from anywhere. 
 
 But to this green grown track there came neither 
 teams of horses nor oxen for the plowing: its quiet 
 grass had never felt the vibrant coming of the motor car. 
 Instead, its wild uncut hedges were a main highway for 
 many birds: with green linnets, yaffles, fieldfares, and 
 their kind, it was the chief thoroughfare from the low 
 lying lands by Midford to the hill tops, and over into the 
 cultivated districts beyond. Rabbits haunted it in great 
 numbers : stoats and weasels took there a frequent toll : 
 squirrels would gallop wildly in hundred yard bursts of 
 brown excitement before the intruding alien: innumera- 
 ble things moved in its grasses, only to vanish ere the 
 wayfarer had reached the spot where they had been. Like 
 all such lonely and delightful places it was full of spirits 
 and voices; and Margaret would watch and listen at its 
 bends, while on before her or behind her curious thrushes, 
 intently staring, would watch and listen to the Unknown 
 also. And now her own Knight was to meet her there 
 alone ! 
 
 All the hamlet was quiet the women busy indoors, 
 the men gone for the afternoon to the fields. Neverthe-
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 27 
 
 less, the girl, in a cautious mood, avoided the road up 
 to the Crossways. As the clock struck three she went 
 down the garden at the back, after shutting up the fowls 
 against a possible fox, through the rushy ground, and on 
 into a narrow footway running through the beechwoods 
 to the Shapston road. Crossing that, she continued 
 through the woods. Presently, well out of sight from 
 the houses, she turned to the left, at right angles, and 
 crossed the valley, gaining the bridle-road to Three 
 Trees without having seen a soul. As the distance from 
 Stoke Midford increased and she drew toward their 
 trys ting-pi ace the loneliness of the spot assumed a 
 friendly air, and she flushed with anticipation. At last, 
 as she rounded the corner of a wood, the three pines 
 showed their dark plumed heads and gaunt red trunks 
 less than a quarter of a mile away. A man's figure moved 
 out from under the trees, and came swiftly down the 
 ocher-colored slopes of bracken toward her. 
 
 She quickened her steps, and rosy with her walk and 
 the joy of meeting stood before him. 
 
 He drew her into the shadow of some thorn trees, 
 and held her to him, drunk with possession and her sweet 
 fresh beauty. Few men, instinct with the normal desires 
 of young manhood, wish to renounce their heritage of 
 all the ages when Opportunity enables them to claim 
 their bequest. Had Margaret and her lover met among 
 suburban surroundings he might never have looked at 
 her as he was looking at her now, but the web of Cir- 
 cumstance was closing its meshes tightly about the youth- 
 ful pair whose passion found expression amid the elemen- 
 tal influences of a lonely land. That compromise which 
 Mammon-worshiping civilization has effected with Na- 
 ture by appointing an unnatural continence to be plague- 
 in-chief of Respectability and merry-andrew of Morality, 
 was fast losing its traditional significance for James Bur- 
 kett, while the wild got to work in his blood as never 
 before. 
 
 For a time she hung submissively in his arms. Free- 
 ing herself suddenly, she asked in a low voice:
 
 28 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 "James, do you really and truly love me?" 
 
 "Yes, Margaret!" The words came mechanically 
 his articulation drowsy with the drugs of sense : and then, 
 her absence from his arms awakening the fierceness of 
 interrupted longing, he caught her to him and kissed her 
 mouth and hair and eyes as man has kissed woman any 
 time this past ten thousand years or so, or since mouths 
 and eyes and hair existed to be kissed. 
 
 Her skin bore witness to her body's thrall the quick 
 blood of the girl rising like a glowing wave on her throat 
 and cheeks, to spend itself in the kisses with which her 
 hot lips sought his own. 
 
 The light in her eyes grew dark with trouble. James 
 Burkett remembered he was "a gentleman." He re- 
 leased her, and turned away, to strike blindly about the 
 place with his walking-stick. 
 
 Margaret, with the maternal instinct of the natural 
 woman quickening within her to the hurrying heart of 
 passion, realized the struggle eloquent in his action. To 
 her the man became merged in the erring child, and, full 
 of pity for him, she stepped into the track again, and 
 stood waiting. 
 
 "Jim!" she called to him, dropping the "James" for 
 the first time. 
 
 "Yes, dear?" 
 
 "Shall we go?" 
 
 He came to her; and they wandered on toward the 
 pines hand in hand: it was her own that had sought his. 
 He held it so tightly that she could not have released it 
 had she wished. She did not wish, the desire for physical 
 contact with the object of her love predominant in her. 
 
 At the foot of the knoll on which the three trees stood 
 they stopped, listening vaguely to the tune the southwest 
 wind brushed from the stirring clusters of foliage that 
 perplexing if monotonous rhythm whose elusiveness is 
 so strangely akin to the sea's. Then, remembering that 
 the hilltop was visible for miles in some directions, they 
 turned into the birchwoods to the right, and sat in a 
 limb of a tree flung out low down along the ground.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 29 
 
 "What do they say, Jim the pines?" 
 
 "Lord knows, dear! ^Why?" 
 
 "I don't know. Jim?" her head was on his 
 shoulder. 
 
 "Yes, dear?" 
 
 "Will you forget when when you go back to Lon- 
 don?" 
 
 "Forget? No fear! Never, Margaret!" 
 
 She sighed. 
 
 "What was that for ?" He kissed her. 
 
 "It seems too good to last this, Jim!" 
 
 His arm tightened round her, and he kissed her again. 
 
 The day was going, and the gray above had lost its 
 silver light along the ridges of cloudland. While they 
 sat gazing westward a long red stripe spread slowly 
 the white limbs of the birches glowing as the west bared 
 its bosom to the setting sun. The cloud shadows passed; 
 presently a myriad feathery twigs were etched clearly 
 against a pale turquoise sky that changed into a paler 
 green beneath, and from that into a ruddy gold. The 
 sun was already down behind Three Trees, but the after- 
 glow streamed through the almost leafless wood and lit 
 up the rapt face of the girl with a glory of its own. 
 
 He had as little of the artistic temperament in him 
 as is usually associated with his class. He could appre- 
 ciate beauty, but the term was for him chiefly indicative 
 of females in tights, or without. For him the country 
 could be pretty enough in its way, provided there was 
 something to be done to death. Motoring, in fifty miles 
 he would see trees sometimes, clouds or blue sky, bits of 
 grass or heath, cottages, woods and fields. Once, when 
 "he was doing forty or so, down Bolney," he had nearly 
 run over a child. There was no one else in sight, but 
 the fear in the little one's face had made his own red 
 afterward with shame of a kind that had cured him of his 
 lust for speed for more than a week. On reflection it 
 occurred to him that to beat out the budding life of a 
 human being was hardly a seemly or a satisfactory item 
 in 'iis otherwise stupendous achievement of getting to
 
 30 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 Brighton in seven and a half minutes faster time than 
 his previous best, in spite of the difficulty of having all 
 the day before him. But there, if all motorists are poten- 
 tial assassins, it is that the breed of motorcars may be 
 improved, even though a thousand or so of pedestrian 
 trespassers per annum be exterminated in the improve- 
 ment. 
 
 He was certainly no artist, he would have affirmed 
 his innocence in that direction, possibly in terms of the 
 office boy, since his attitude toward aesthetics in general 
 resembled somewhat that youth's well-known contempt 
 for such matters. Nevertheless, the presence of the 
 beautiful intruded itself now to insistence upon such 
 aesthetic faculties as he possessed; and he knew some- 
 thing approaching the exaltation of a more spiritual love 
 when his eyes met those of the transfigured face beside 
 him. For a moment other worlds opened to him a 
 vague conception of an ideal, a real, shining behind the 
 material, which, generally, comprised the alpha and 
 omega of his scheme of things, hung like light about her. 
 Had he been ten years older, and his intellect propor- 
 tionately developed, he might have read aright the signs 
 and portents of the Great Enigma. As it was, he was 
 just a healthy young animal, for whom ideas were in 
 the nature of flies on the back of his head things to be 
 flicked off, and in whom the wine of life foamed strongly 
 in a cataract of sense across his eyes; for at three-and- 
 twenty, to men of his type, the material is the one and 
 only reality, and satiety has not then realized either 
 the vacuum created in its consummation, or that the 
 writing on the walls of the house of life is mostly re- 
 markable for the frequent occurrence of two words, Cm 
 bono. 
 
 Yet there had been the flash of a Divine vouchsafed 
 to his vision; and the memory of it in after years was 
 as the memory of a world of greater suns than ours. 
 He did not think of her as a future wife he did not think 
 of the future at all. To him she was the personification 
 of the irresistible Now as the present rose from seme-
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 31 
 
 thing that was of the past, and, with unseen hands, ob- 
 scured the features of the Yet To Be. 
 
 With women these things are different at least, so 
 they have told me; whether they have deceived me, or 
 themselves, or not, I do not know. The thesis in which 
 it is maintained, by certain erudite gentlemen who have 
 devoted their minds to the study of Biology, that the Fe- 
 male is the parent type from which duality of the sexes 
 has been evolved, may contain within its limits the true 
 explanation of many things otherwise inscrutable to the 
 mentality of the male. 
 
 The shadows of night came swiftly along the earth 
 through the woods, where they gathered head, and, like 
 a cloudy host, filled every brush and brake around. A 
 star hanging low above dim trees to the southwest stained 
 the dusk with a soft greenish fire. Darker grew the 
 dome of inviolate blue above, till from its sapphire slopes 
 there started a pageant of pale fire the coming of a 
 myriad stars. Half unconsciously they saw the scene 
 changing before their eyes ; and a hush as though all the 
 winds kept quiet made them modulate their voices, until 
 even their whispers ceased and they clung to each other 
 in a silent ecstasy. 
 
 Margaret was a pure woman. I do not wish to con- 
 vey the idea that her purity was of that exalted kind to 
 which some of her sisters of a more civilized type may, 
 and do, so justifiably lay claim. Her purity was not that 
 which instinctively lifts its skirts for fear of possible de- 
 filement when passing one of those "necessary evils" con- 
 spicuous in the neighborhood of Piccadilly, and which, 
 secure in its armor of a perfect innocence, can, and does, 
 unconsciously hawk its own physical and other attractions 
 through the highways and byways of the matrimonial 
 market. 
 
 The love which gives all unasked is a low, primitive 
 kind of love possibly not devoid of redeeming features 
 in the days when refusal meant a tap on the head from 
 a club or stone hatchet. Now that the ruder weapons 
 have been discarded almost universally in favor of the
 
 32 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 high symbolism expressive in the use of the auctioneer's 
 hammer, it is different. Every woman who surrenders 
 herself to her lover "free, gratis, and for nothing" is 
 worthy only of the streets, where fortunately for so- 
 ciety such love is easily taught, through necessity, the 
 really refining and humanizing influences of the Ideal 
 Commercial as the one and only true Ethic of sexual law. 
 
 As a matter of fact, she did not come to the streets, 
 and I think it is only honest on my part to inform the 
 reader at once, lest it be thought I am desirous of arous- 
 ing sympathy on her behalf in people for whom her pun- 
 ishment was, comparatively, no punishment at all, but 
 rather in the nature of a lucky and undeserved es- 
 cape. 
 
 Obedient to some subtle instinct, they found them- 
 selves on the hill beneath the canopy of pines. Out there 
 in the open the night wind crept wistfully about the hills, 
 and from the black shadows above their heads the song, 
 with its strange burden of indeterminable things, mur- 
 mured its ceaseless message through the dark. 
 
 For a while they stood watching northward, where 
 the Titanic plow drove its endless furrow through 
 space and time. Far beneath them the hillsides dropped 
 away into Cimmerian plains, the mystery of night in- 
 vesting with something of her majesty even the common- 
 places of landscape. 
 
 That harmony of the stellar spaces the harmony of 
 silent music audible through visions of sense and sense 
 of vision to the soul; the infinities of the night trans- 
 muted to a mosaic of silver stained with blue, that makes 
 the very stars seem near, and planets lamps that hang 
 upon the outskirts of terrestrial realms; that intensity of 
 clearness found only in high places, and that, literally, 
 by light of stars: in such environments the soul must 
 be but a dull mirror, indeed, that reflects not something 
 of the eternal fires that beacon the immensities of In- 
 finitude. In such moments the lesser things of life shrink 
 to their truer proportions in the perspective of the Eter- 
 nal, before an exaltation of being fanned to fervor by
 
 THRACIAN SEA" 33 
 
 suggestive forces, impalpable in space, that pass through 
 all the gates of sense unchallenged to the soul. Some 
 consciousness of ties that bind a stellar ray to earth, and 
 man to the Immense; some half regarded thought be- 
 gotten by a wish that had a star for sire; of such things 
 is that mist of dreams woven of Starlight around the 
 sense and soul of mortal man and maid. 
 
 It has been said that every man in love has something 
 of poetry in him. For James, under normal conditions, 
 Shakespeare was a clever sort of Johnny, "Paradise 
 Lost" a penal code. Yet, as he stood there with the girl 
 whose love for himself awakened beneath the vanity of 
 the male an answering echo in his soul, though dim and 
 as but the shadow of a sound compared with the paeans 
 of elemental rapture surging through Margaret's, he, 
 too, felt something of the magnetism of the night draw- 
 ing at his fibers. 
 
 When, presently, he whispered to her she smiled, her 
 eyes full of tender tumult as she half leaned, half hung 
 in his arms, where he stood with his back against one 
 of the trees. 
 
 The wind brushed a wisp of her hair across his hot 
 face, bending close above her own, and he tingled as 
 at the touch of a flame. Her eyes clung to his, spell- 
 bound in a trance of passion that had forgotten all else 
 but the joy of mingling. For a moment he fought back 
 the rising tide that was to overwhelm them both; then, 
 forgetting everything, he claimed her warm responsive 
 body for his own. 
 
 From far away the harsh screech of a pheasant came 
 down the wind to the country-bred girl a sound ominous 
 with a foreboding born of the bird's well-known deser- 
 tion of his mates. She shivered with the chill of a newly 
 awakened agony, and then in a revulsion of feeling 
 swayed piteously toward him. 
 
 For the first time in his life James Burkett knew 
 the real meaning of remorse. He looked away so that 
 he might not meet her eyes. The next moment she had
 
 34 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 drawn his head down on to her breast, and he knew that 
 she was crying silently. 
 
 The dust that rhymeth with thy name is thy symbol, 
 and yet ... Art thou a bitter god? Whence comest 
 thou? And goest thou whither? Art thine eyes blind 
 with the weariness of aeons of dead dawns? or haply hath 
 too much watching for the darkness, across too many 
 sunsets, stained thy sight? Scorned thou art of the chil- 
 dren of earth, and yet . . . Art thou a scornful thing, 
 or one exceeding great beyond all other gods that be? 
 Art but a goad in the hands of the Unseen, who with 
 thee drives his children, with stripes, along life's high- 
 way to their unknown goal? Or art thou something be- 
 yond which the mind of man goeth not great and mer- 
 ciless? What are mercy, or goodness, or virtue to thee? 
 v 11 these thou begettest, and with thine own hands slayest 
 L!IOU them. Shalt not thou, too, be slain? Of Time, per- 
 : .aps? Haply thou canst not die? Lieth there thy pun- 
 ishment? And if thou shalt die, shall not all goodness, 
 as all evil, die with thee? Yea, for after thy death 
 only the gray silences, wherein the dust shall breed nor 
 worm nor any germ of life; where are no sins, nor is 
 there any virtuous thing. Art thou not everywhere 
 upon the city's pavements, and amid the wild places of 
 the earth? I have heard thy feet brushing past me in 
 the night; and lo, thy hair was wound about the stars.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE FACE OF A CHILD 
 
 THEY were happy: very happy the girl was, after the 
 first shock of her altered life had passed, with happi- 
 ness that had, more especially before her aunt's quiet 
 face or during the loneliness of her own night hours, a 
 certain desperation in it. James was happy too, with a 
 happiness for which surrounding circumstances were 
 largely responsible. 
 
 Out there in the friendly bosom of the lonely hills, in 
 the forgotten places of the world such as were in Mid- 
 ford Holt with a loving and simple woman beside him, 
 and a hundred miles of hill and dale and woodland be- 
 tween him and his suburban home, where the Grocer-God 
 moved majestically to the brass band musics of his golden 
 syrup-and-tomato-colored wings, Pan was all powerful 
 and love an all-sufficing thing. 
 
 Then they were found out at least, suspicion, the 
 forerunner of that process was awakened. 
 
 Dinner at seven was an institution at the squire's. 
 Twice in a week James, one of the youngest men in the 
 party, had been guilty of a lapse in that direction, and 
 his excuses were in themselves sufficient to arouse sus- 
 picion in his host. He entered the billiard-room one 
 night as the squire was attempting, in one of the pauses 
 of an improbable story, an equally improbable cannon. 
 The squire's billiards was as unique as were his anec- 
 dotes. The ancient sinner looked up at the interruption 
 the stroke resulting in a lovely "leave" for his oppo- 
 nent. Therefore, for relief, he turned instinctively away 
 
 35
 
 36 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 from the table, and his eye fell upon James as the latter 
 was helping himself to a whisky and soda. 
 
 "Hulloa, Jimmy! Where have you been lately?" 
 Then, seeing the young man's color rising, he burst out 
 laughing with: "Who's the filly, lad, eh?" 
 
 Now James knew his man pretty well, and knew that, 
 although good-natured to a fault in some things, he would 
 have his joke. Indeed, the old man was a notorious char- 
 acter in that part of the county among the local people of 
 his own standing, many of whom either studiously 
 avoided him or openly ignored him in their outraged de- 
 cency; though if the squire's description of some of his 
 neighbors was as literally correct as it was emphatically 
 delivered, illegitimacy had been the rule rather than the 
 exception in their families for many generations. There 
 was something innate in him that was evil, brutal, de- 
 graded. And yet men liked him for a while, men who 
 were fond of sport, that is. He was certainly a sports- 
 man. He had lost and won a fortune on the turf; had 
 fought in his young days till a battered wreck, or a bloody 
 victor over an equally battered antagonist: in spite of his 
 excesses he even now retained much of his nerve with a 
 horse and his skill with a gun. He was a shining, a lurid 
 example of those animal spirits which in some natures do 
 duty for happiness. James had often laughed at the old 
 boy's freedom of speech, and at the local coloring with 
 which he loved to depict the real or imaginary amours 
 of his guests. The squire had his good points, but in 
 sexual morality he was deficient. But this was different : 
 James had sufficient love for the girl he had seduced to 
 shrink from the thought of her being made a butt for the 
 ribald witticisms of old Radleigh. He flushed hotly as the 
 laugh went round the table against him, and men older 
 than himself, and comparative strangers, assumed an air 
 of familiarity and interest toward him which was ex- 
 asperating to a young man who had sufficient decency 
 in his nature to regret, for the girl's sake, an act that 
 he did not for his own yet. 
 
 He laughed the matter off the more easily as the
 
 'THRACIAN SEA" 37 
 
 squire's opponent had got the balls well in hand and 
 was scoring rapidly; and, in the possibilities of a big 
 break, the subject was forgotten for a time; but he knew 
 that he would be a marked man during the rest of his 
 stay. 
 
 He had arranged to meet her the following after- 
 noon on the Stoke Midford side of Three Trees their 
 favorite trysting place. As luck would have it, he had 
 only learnt that evening that some of the men at the 
 squire's were driving over to Langley Warren a place 
 nearer Midford, on the hills known as Rook's Down, 
 at the west side of the valley about the same hour next 
 day, and the risk of discovery to Margaret was con- 
 siderable. The brake would go by way of Three Trees; 
 if he was to be present for lunch, and started off on foot 
 directly afterward, it would overtake him. If he fol- 
 lowed it the girl would be waiting there for him, and, 
 finding him late, would come to meet him. If she was 
 seen by any of his party at close range she would be 
 sure to attract attention; and his conscience immediately 
 assumed that she would be associated with him, after 
 the squire's remarks. She had asked him not to write; 
 he could not reach there, very well, before the brake; 
 and he had no one to whom he" could entrust a message. 
 To borrow a hack or bike would be to place restrictions 
 upon their wanderings, which he would avoid if possible. 
 
 The next day, however, he decided to follow the 
 brake; and it was with considerable impatience that he 
 now saw it coming round the corner of the shrubbery that 
 hid the stables from the house. 
 
 "Coming, Burkett?" shouted one of the men as it 
 filled up. 
 
 He shook his head, and went indoors to his room, 
 which commanded a view of the road for some way and 
 the downs in the distance beyond. 
 
 He looked at his watch; it was already past two 
 o'clock, and she would soon be waiting up there by the 
 trees that showed against the sky some three miles away. 
 
 At last he heard the wheels moving on the gravel
 
 38 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 below, and, presently, he saw the brake turn out of the 
 drive into the road. He gave it ten minutes' start, and 
 then followed. 
 
 As he walked along, his feelings were decidedly un- 
 comfortable, and from an early age comfort had been 
 instilled into him, by concrete example as well as by more 
 abstract incitants, as the Great Ideal; in return for which 
 men gave a hostage to Fortune by a sublime disregard 
 of personal comfort "lest one good custom should cor- 
 rupt the world," as it were in one thing, sport. Now, 
 by some subtle anomaly which he could not understand, 
 he was uneasy at a price he would willingly have paid in 
 physical bruises for much less enjoyment than the girl 
 had afforded him. He was actually beginning to be as 
 ashamed of himself as he had, in the first flush of physi- 
 cal conquest and delight, been pleased. There was some- 
 thing wrong somewhere; and he hated solutions which 
 meant mental or spiritual effort. The consummation of 
 his desires had brought less of contentment than intro- 
 spection. The latter vexed him considerably: he could 
 not disguise the fact that he did not love her as much as 
 he had imagined. He supposed that was always the case 
 with the man, and yet . . . He felt ashamed, he could 
 not get away from it, and had suspicions that the game 
 was not worth the candle. For which blasphemy against 
 sport itself his own morality rebuked him severely and 
 indicated penances with alarming conditions. To his 
 credit be it said that he never once blamed the girl; but 
 there was something almost bathetic in his seriousness, 
 in the strong young man, whose virility had been its own 
 sanction, now servile and irritable before a convention- 
 alized morality the natural man in him rejected and 
 despised. For, by degrees, he became aware of one thing 
 clearly: had he been master of his own life, had he fol- 
 lowed his own impulses in the matter entirely, Margaret 
 would have sufficed him. He would have worked for 
 her in the fields, if necessary: but the specter of his mid- 
 dle-class ideal seemed to have opened branches for bogles 
 everywhere. As -his mind fled suddenly across the
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 39 
 
 Rockies he met its ghostly representative on the Pacific 
 slope: in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, 
 everywhere they seemed to accost him, and, after a po- 
 lite formality of acknowledgment toward a shabby straw 
 hat and brown jacket by his side, inquire about the head 
 office of the firm in St. Paul's Churchyard. The smooth 
 gentility of the world into which he was born; his father's 
 white hands, that wore gloves among the geraniums, and 
 which yet had been strong enough and skilful enough 
 (figuratively speaking) to make Burkett and Bowker a 
 power in the land of Commerce, and his son much sought 
 after among mammas who tolerated the young man's 
 wildness and exalted his manliness to daughters em- 
 bloused with the latest thing in Burkett and Bowker's 
 silk, it awed him, even while he half detested it. Why? 
 Alas, to have found out why would have meant thought 
 thought of a kind he more than half detested also. He 
 was the son of his father; who, in him, was the inevitable 
 correlation of the system he had helped to create, and 
 of the habits of thought and life the system helped to 
 engender. Anything subtler than a clever salesman's 
 mentality was discountenanced by Burkett and Bowker, 
 on behalf of the system, as liable to result in inattention 
 to business. Outside business hours there was sport of 
 all kinds good healthy recreation for mind and body. 
 The system was almost maternal in its solicitude for the 
 masses who existed (it was understood) because of it. 
 Among its minor, though sufficiently remarkable, achieve- 
 ments it found time to operate like an x horsepower poul- 
 tice, drawing unbusinesslike irregularities of sense and 
 soul by the million into its antiseptic folds. To a few 
 incorrigibles, it is true, it seemed to indicate that man's 
 psychology was a huge mistake, a thing unseemly on its 
 sensual side, and on its spiritual side premature and quite 
 uncalled for in this world, beside which the lobes of his 
 ears were, by comparison, an ornamental survival, and 
 not without an object lesson in the practical utilities. 
 
 Even as he strode toward the hills, under the skies of 
 gray afternoon, that cast no shadow, like a shadow be-
 
 40 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 side him the system kept at his mind's elbow; he could not 
 get away from it. The copses assimilated his expletives, 
 the green fields and the brown heard his frequent allu- 
 sions to a Devil. He was worried, and when he was 
 worried he swore in a vague virulence that knew no other 
 tongue. 
 
 At the foot of the range the wheel marks of the brake 
 showed clearly in the grass lane, where a spring oozed 
 across it. Hoping that the party in front had not seen 
 Margaret, he hurried up the mile long ascent to Three 
 Trees. Before he reached the top she had seen him, and 
 she came quickly down the slope. He was an hour late; 
 and the girl while waiting had been imagining a thousand 
 things. She had seen the party coming up the hill, but 
 had not been observed by them, as she had retreated into 
 the Holt until they had passed. She knew they would 
 be going to Langley, and that they would follow the 
 track at Three Trees along the top of the hills, round 
 the valley. 
 
 "We shall have to be careful in the future, dear!" 
 he said, after she had answered him about the brake and 
 he had explained his delay in getting to her. "Old Rad- 
 leigh smells a rat." 
 
 She had forgotten her fears in the pleasure of being 
 with him again. She started at his words, and then 
 waited, filled with the rapid apprehensions of the young 
 in sin. 
 
 He paused awkwardly uncertain how to go on. 
 Then, smiling: "We must make this last as long as we 
 can, Margaret." One did not easily tire of a girl like 
 Margaret among her own proper surroundings. He 
 doubted if he would want her half as much in Wimble- 
 don. But in Midford Holt Margaret was perfect. He 
 had not the slightest doubt that he loved her there. Man 
 has not yet forgotten the passionate wonder of his first 
 wanderings and their accompanying polygamies. 
 
 By this they had turned away from the track into 
 the birchwoods. Among the trees, as they walked, a 
 flood of emotions passed swiftly over her. The white
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 41 
 
 trunks became ghosts, pale sepulchers of dead hours that 
 had lived as hours would never live again. All at once 
 she stopped and faced him, her face grown strange and 
 white. 
 
 "Jim!" 
 
 "Yes, dear?" He endeavored to appear uncon- 
 cerned. 
 
 Her voice, that had sounded strange as she uttered 
 his name, became quiet and broken with anguish almost in 
 a breath. "If anything happens to me I shall . . . Oh, 
 Jim! Jim!" 
 
 He pulled her to him and kissed her. As he felt the 
 sobs awake and thicken, and the tremors of the girl's 
 body within his arms, he, too, awakened from his dreams 
 to the light of a chill reality that borrowed from the 
 cold gray skies of the winter's afternoon. 
 
 "My darling, hush! Don't say that!" he blurted out 
 huskily. "If anything happens I I must marry you!" 
 
 Her sobs ceased, and she looked up at him through 
 her tears; then her gaze dropped away, and she leaned 
 against him quiescent. The "must" had sounded the 
 death-knell of her hopes. For a few moments her heart 
 seemed to have ceased; her senses failed her; she could 
 not see or feel anything but mist, cold, death-like: then, 
 with clear eyes, her brave soul commenced its long battle. 
 
 Man-like, he had misunderstood. A vision of his 
 father and mother put away her tear-stained face. He 
 began to feel uncomfortable and not a little bad-tem- 
 pered with the illogical objection of youth to cause and 
 effect when the latter assumes unpleasant characteristics. 
 As is the way of the male, it was of James Burkett that 
 he was thinking, not of Margaret Yeomans. 
 
 A pheasant cock got up close to them, its discordant 
 crow sounding like derisive laughter to the girl she 
 might not, probably would not, see him again. At the 
 thought she reached up and kissed him, and the feel of 
 his lips^ on hers brought with it a foretaste of the misery 
 that separation from him must mean for her. 
 
 She had had her dream of being loved: it was short,
 
 42 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 and it was over. She was nineteen, and women lived to 
 ninety, sometimes. Gammer Polgrean's brave old face, 
 while she had once told Margaret of her babies, molder- 
 ing now in unknown graves, thousands of miles from 
 Midford, rose before her. Through her dreams' after- 
 math of shadows her own love shone undimmed, as some- 
 thing of that divine compensation which sacrifice for a 
 beloved object brings calmed and fortified her heart. The 
 strength of simplicity was hers, the simplicity which could 
 consecrate all her energies to the one supreme thing in 
 her life a simplicity fuller of mystery than the con- 
 glomerate of sentiments which strew the strata of more 
 superficial natures. 
 
 Her eyes were very bright as she said: "No, James, 
 you mustn't marry me. I'm not the sort of wife for you, 
 dear." 
 
 He was silent, ashamed that he wanted to draw his 
 breath in relief. 
 
 "Will you ever forgive me, Margaret?" 
 
 "Of course, dear! Likely I was most to blame." 
 She spoke evenly : her tears had stopped completely now, 
 and her voice was the voice of one who speculates on 
 the "quite beyond." She went on: "Jim, did you ever 
 love me?" 
 
 "Did I, my darling girl? I do, now!" he said hur- 
 riedly, wishing himself anywhere than in his erstwhile 
 Eden. Then shame took hold on him, and he added: 
 "Look here, my poor Margaret, I have been a damned 
 cad, but we must make the best of it! Only . . ." He 
 broke off the future again chaotic. 
 
 "Only what, Jim?" 
 
 "Only my people will cut up like the very devil. They 
 are so infernally respectable!" He half shouted the last 
 sentence. 
 
 Margaret lost herself for a moment in a vague sur- 
 mise as to the likeness of his mother the word "re- 
 spectable" in connection with that lady conjuring up vis- 
 ions of a being before whom her own lapse would be a 
 thing for the scorn unspeakable which is too grievous
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 43 
 
 to be borne by woman from woman. In his vehemence 
 she felt already his mother's hate, notwithstanding Mrs. 
 Burkett was in blissful ignorance of her existence. 
 
 "Your mother would hate me, Jim!" she said, full of 
 the thought and its inevitable consequence of curiosity. 
 
 "The mater's all right, but . . . Oh, you know, 
 dear!" To himself he opined that women were the very 
 devil in some things. 
 
 The problem was as difficult as it was uninviting. 
 He must hope for the best. Certainly that was the thing 
 hope for the best. He proceeded to cheer her up a 
 process which involved more physical caresses than men- 
 tal effort, in a solution of difficulties which, after all, 
 might never materialize. 
 
 In this cheering up he was so far successful that Mar- 
 garet forgot her troubles to a certain extent in her lover's 
 kisses. He would think of her sometimes, she supposed 
 wistfully. 
 
 Of course he would! Rather! He should think he 
 would! Dear old Midford! In his way he loved the 
 country; but his career was agreed upon, mapped out 
 for him. His father looked to him to carry on the 
 already great tradition which was Burkett and Bow- 
 ker. 
 
 The firm would offer ample scope for all a young 
 man's talents. He had been despatched to the Argentine 
 the year before : there was talk between the partners of 
 great extensions. His father hoped, the boy's restless- 
 ness was only a temporary aberration. Not without se- 
 cret misgivings Mr. Burkett compared his son's physical 
 and mental equipment and activities. His mother spoilt 
 him, of course, her only son. 
 
 He would be expected to marry, and to marry "a 
 lady" the latter had been a point of honor with his 
 father whenever the subject of a possible marriage for 
 him had been mooted. His mind had wandered to the 
 future again. Damn the future! The future held all 
 sorts of unpleasant things. His arms held his Margaret 
 at that moment.
 
 44 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 "We had best not meet again, James," she said sud- 
 denly, with quiet resignation. 
 
 "My darling! Why not?" Then, after a pause: 
 "Aren't you sorry you ever met me, Margaret?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "No, Jim, I'll never be that whatever happens!" 
 
 She had idolized him; and already he represented to 
 her the memory of a supreme happiness to be cherished 
 while her life lasted. Already she looked upon him as a 
 joy of the past. Her renunciation was as spontaneous as 
 her love had been. His kiss awoke her from her reverie, 
 and she sighed involuntarily. Her resolve was taken 
 they must not meet again. If her love was to bring with 
 it that which nature had ordained for the woman, would 
 not her love provide her with strength to bear her bur- 
 den? Her hasty, inchoate words just before, prompted 
 by the emotion of a sudden fear, sounded to her now 
 like blasphemy. 
 
 "Dear, don't ee worry about me ! I never meant that 
 what I said just now," she told him. 
 
 His relief was beyond words. He held her closer 
 to him, stroking her hair tenderly. 
 
 The sky was darkening slowly, clouds, of softer gray, 
 in league-long ranks, came closer to the hills. Once or 
 twice big drops rustled the golden carpets of the woods. 
 
 They walked on down the bridle-road toward the 
 Crossways. Neither of them could find many words. He 
 forebore to look at her, since he knew she was only par- 
 tially successful in a struggle with tears. As darkness 
 gathered, passion worked in him, but genuine sorrow 
 for her made him a shamefast man. His head burned; 
 when he took her hand it was cold in his. Once 
 she dropped behind; and he did not turn while she wiped 
 her eyes. He could not find it in him to affect a cheer- 
 fulness with her now, he was too uneasy. She was mak- 
 ing pitiful search for courage to carry her through her 
 last moments with him. 
 
 A little above the Crossways they stopped involun- 
 tarily. A fortnight, hardly more, had sufficed to fashion
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 45 
 
 the girl into a woman for whom life was a transcendent 
 vindication of reality, in terms of sense and spirit; when 
 the Hour can be a supreme thing in the presence of Eter- 
 nity. Now, a deadly chill upon her, the end was come. 
 She held out her hand. Instead of taking it he took her 
 in his arms a little. All passion left him: before her 
 mute womanhood a lump rose in his throat that sickened 
 him. Fearing for her courage she managed "Good-bye." 
 The next moment her arms were round his neck while she 
 whispered, "God bless and keep you, dear. Good-bye, 
 Jim." 
 
 She was gone. 
 
 James Burkett stood watching her disappear into the 
 dark she did not turn round the sense of loss only less 
 than the sense of shame upon him. When the night hid 
 her he turned, and trudged slowly out of the valley, a 
 miserable man. 
 
 Struggling desperately with her sobs Margaret lin- 
 gered in the gorse. At last her passion had spent itself 
 somewhat, and she could put her outward grief away 
 from her in her efforts at composure before she went in 
 to her aunt. Fate was merciful to her now: Aunt Deb 
 had gone down to Gammer Polgrean's, and did not return 
 for an hour. 
 
 She went up to her room, thankful beyond measure 
 for this respite, and bathed her face and eyes. The re- 
 action from the control she had managed to exercise for 
 his sake and her own when they parted would not claim 
 all its due yet, there came upon her such physical weari- 
 ness as numbed her senses for a time. 
 
 Her aunt, when she returned, was full of the scheme 
 for church decoration at the coming Christmas the 
 while Margaret prayed inwardly for bed and a release 
 from the tortures her attempts at concealment put upon 
 her. The desire to cry out, to fall upon her aunt's knees 
 as upon a mother's, rose hysterically in her once, and 
 frightened her into quiet lest it should repeat itself. She 
 sought frantically for support in her loneliness, and found 
 it, curiously to her half distracted mind, in the thought
 
 46 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 of Gammer Polgrean. Somehow she felt she had for- 
 feited for ever her claim on her aunt's forgiveness. She 
 remembered Hettie Ryott. Did her aunt guess? She 
 would feel the shame how could she feel the glory of 
 what it had been to her? 
 
 Her aunt had seen nothing suspicious in her niece's 
 frequent absence. Margaret had always been a great 
 one for wandering about the Holt. Indeed, Miss 
 Deborah, more practical, looked upon the girl as 
 a "wool-gatherer" a tendency which had been 
 strongly developed in her dead brother, the girl's 
 father, and which she, no doubt, inherited from "poor 
 David." 
 
 That night, as Margaret undressed, a star, that had 
 been to her as an emblem of heavenly joy, seemed now 
 to shine upon her with a baleful gleam. Suddenly it was 
 gone behind a cloud; and her soul sank into a great dark- 
 ness, as deep as the impenetrable gloom which came upon 
 the skies, harbinger of coming rain. Presently it began 
 to beat upon the lattice : as her own tears broke forth 
 anew it was to her as though the night wept with her in 
 all its desolation. 
 
 She slept at last; and woke to find it still raining 
 steadily. No escape: she must stay indoors, and put as 
 bright a face upon the matter as she could. The long 
 drought was broken: there came a week's incessant rain 
 and wind. Wind that crept sighing through the tiles, 
 and moaned in the woods, or rose to a wail, and gasped, 
 and sank to the echo of a sob, like a human thing: the 
 long-drawn horror of it, and her ghastly efforts at cheer- 
 fulness during the day, left her a physical and mental 
 wreck. 
 
 Then the frost came, and the clear cold skies and 
 pale December sun. At that she crept out a broken, 
 wounded creature with white cheeks and dark rings 
 under her eyes. 
 
 Her aunt was alarmed, and spoke of the doctor. 
 Margaret insisted that it was nothing: she never felt 
 well long if she had to stay indoors.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 47 
 
 She went southward that afternoon: she must keep 
 away from the Holt. 
 
 The short days that seemed so long to her drew 
 near to Christmas. He was going back on the fourteenth 
 of the month, he had told her. 
 
 Again the wind, that had gone info the north when 
 the frost came, veered to the southwest, and another 
 spell of open weather followed. 
 
 An irresistible desire to wander once more among 
 the hills, that had brought her so much happiness and 
 misery, came upon her one afternoon, and she went up 
 the valley to Three Trees. Instinctively she sought out 
 the places where they had roamed together: she found 
 the bircji tree where she had sat with his arm round her 
 that afternoon that seemed so long ago. She started 
 as she reached it, easily distinguishable from its fellows 
 by the peculiarity of its limbs. 
 
 On the one where they had sat he had cut the letters 
 J and M. 
 
 So he had been there since ! The sight awakened a 
 host of tender memories that swept aside for a time the 
 hopeless longing in her heart. 
 
 James had been to the Holt, hoping that she would 
 come again, in spite of the conviction that she would not, 
 and that it was better so. Then the time had come for 
 him to go back to London. On the morning of the day 
 he left the squire's he went up into the wood, and cut 
 the letters Margaret had found there. 
 
 She sat in the tree until the dusk grew dark with night. 
 There was no hurry: her aunt would stop to tea with 
 Gammer Polgrean. At last she rose, and, shivering 
 slightly, walked toward the pines. The tears welled 
 fast in her eyes as she heard their voices, wholly sor- 
 rowful now, borne on the wind to her as she approached; 
 their somber heads raised darkling under a nightfall 
 thick with cloud. 
 
 Then she saw IT, and stopped suddenly and stood 
 very still, with wide eyes bright with a nameless won- 
 der that changed to dreadful fear.
 
 48 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 At the foot of one of the trees there shone through 
 the shadows the face of a child. 
 
 She sank on her knees in silent terror. Then her 
 lips framed one word "Mother!" and she fell forward 
 on her face, insensible.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 MORNING 
 
 ON coming to after her swoon the dead bracken 
 around her, rustling in the wind, seemed full of unearthly 
 voices: when her brain cleared a dreadful longing to 
 watch the shadows under the pine warned her that she 
 must escape from the spot or lose her reason. 
 
 She staggered away through the fern, ricking her 
 ankle in a rabbit-hole ere she reached the soft turf of the 
 bridle-road. The physical pain steadied her, and when 
 it passed she found herself walking quietly toward home, 
 notwithstanding that her soul sank into depths beyond the 
 power of man's pen to adequately describe, during her 
 passing along that dark way out of the hills. But just 
 before she reached the Crossways, at the place where 
 she had parted from her lover, something of her old 
 courage came back in a way that surprised her. She be- 
 gan comparing her case with the forsaken women of 
 books, with girls who had fled from her own district 
 that she had known of personally. The instinct of flight 
 became insistent in her, and forced her faculties to co- 
 herent thoughts of escape. 
 
 The social Torquemada has not yet lost its lust of 
 cruelty toward women, ay! though it be promulgated 
 in the name of God and Righteousness as other abomina- 
 tions have been, and are. And, though it well may be that 
 its human inquisitors, at some time or other in their lives, 
 have had mothers of their own, the land is still loud with 
 its holy the only answer to the whinings of Promiscu- 
 ity; so that, since we are all innately vile, we may yet be 
 thankful, on occasion, that we are not as others are. 
 
 49
 
 5 o "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 Margaret had had plenty of warning, there was no excuse 
 for her. Besides, the truth of these things, a sufficiently 
 deplorable and disgusting one, is intuitively understood 
 by Woman, who is notoriously the first in crying out for 
 the stake and fagot and all the Auto-da-fe of morality 
 on the heretics of her own sex. When the world showed 
 its capacity for thoroughness, by beginning at the very 
 beginning with the raw material of life manufacture, and 
 its capacity for infinite wisdom, by making the wonderful 
 discovery that hypocrisy was as invaluable an adjunct for 
 social happiness as for commercial success, one such dis- 
 covery at a time was as much as could be reasonably ex- 
 pected. It has been left for a later generation to make a 
 still more remarkable one that the practice of hypocrisy 
 results in the production of hypocrites. The sanctity of 
 marriage is now firmly established, and we have to thank 
 the disinterested efforts of a Church for obtaining the 
 formal and express instructions of no less a power than 
 the Almighty in the matter. Since she had been wicked 
 and wilful enough to ignore such well-authenticated in- 
 stance of Divine interposition on her behalf, by which 
 her own cravings would have become refined out of 
 bestiality into the chaste desires of a respectable woman, 
 she must now pay the penalty. 
 
 She was not without courage, as I have said, but with 
 the world against her a girl of nineteen is apt to fly as 
 for her life, before, like other hunted things, she turns 
 at bay. 
 
 During the next few days she would have sunk into 
 a kind of stupor, but for the need of evolving some plan 
 of escape, and for the fear that her aunt would have cer- 
 tainly fetched the doctor, there and then. 
 
 The truth, unequivocal beyond all doubt and in all 
 its terrible reality, faced her, a quick woman, from out 
 the shadows of the future : the vision of the child's face 
 she had seen in the shadows of the tree had been a pre- 
 science soon to be confirmed. 
 
 In a few short weeks she had passed from a happy 
 girlhood into the slow length of an ordeal which is the
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 51 
 
 supreme test of a woman's love, courage and greatness 
 of soul. 
 
 The mystery which surrounds the beginnings of ex- 
 istence was to be revealed to her, in a way no maiden 
 woman may penetrate, with all its wonder, tribulation, 
 terror and triumph ; the mystery of mysteries which hides 
 the birth of sentient things within the life of Woman 
 the Female Principle beside which the active egoisms, 
 mental and physical, of the male may be but as the be- 
 ginnings of a new wisdom, crude and hardly cognizant 
 of its truth as yet; since, for all its clamancy, it has found 
 life less wonderful than death. 
 
 She had left her breakfast only half eaten, and, feel- 
 ing ill, had escaped to her room. 
 
 Suddenly the paroxysms passed, and through the dark 
 which had fallen upon her a great light seemed to be 
 shining into her soul from far away. She rose from 
 the bed on which she had dropped, and stood, white and 
 drawn-looking, but collected. Her hour had come. Now 
 she was going to face it bravely for the sake of the life 
 that was to be her guerdon ; only through it, and by such 
 atonement, could she hope for any salvation. 
 
 For the first time for many days her aunt heard her 
 singing to herself. 
 
 In the afternoon Miss Deborah fozed in front of the 
 fire. Margaret sat watching the drowsy woman's placid 
 face. The sight hurt her cruelly, and she began to cry: 
 her aunt had been very good to her. At last she could 
 stand it no more. She went out quietly, and, crossing 
 the beechwoods at the back of the cottage, came into a 
 plantation of young chestnuts. It was here she had seen 
 Hettie Ryott lying. She wondered if anyone would see 
 herself crying now the trees were so bare. 
 
 She had determined to leave her home early the fol- 
 lowing morning. The struggle to avoid rousing her 
 aunt's suspicions, the mute reproach of the homely things 
 and surroundings among which her life had passed, were 
 becoming an intolerable agony to her now. She felt the 
 coming Christmas season, with its carols, and cards wish-
 
 52 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 ing her "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year," 
 would be a thing beyond all endurance. The thought of 
 mistletoe mocked her: the Christmas pudding would 
 choke her. By leaving Midford at once she would escape 
 certain detection and impossible explanations. Also, it 
 might possibly make it easier for her aunt to account for 
 her absence a visit to London, friends, anything. Poor 
 Aunt Deb! it would be a miserable Christmas for her. 
 Gammer Polgrean would have to know, indeed she would 
 like her to know. Somehow she felt the old woman would 
 not only be her friend, but would be someone to whom 
 her aunt could turn for sympathy. 
 
 She succeeded in saying good-night to her aunt when 
 they went to bed, wondering if her voice would obey or 
 betray her. In her room she wrote a farewell letter. 
 "Dearest aunt," it ran, "I am going away because I have 
 done you a great wrong and I will bear the shame some- 
 where where you need not have the dreadful worry of 
 me in trouble to be looked at by other folks, and you by. 
 I don't ask you to forgive me, because as you said it is 
 right for girls to be punished. But believe me, dearest 
 Aunt Deb, I want to save you as much as I can,, seeing 
 it can't be helped now it's done. And I can't tell even 
 you who he is because I love him so. My aunt is too 
 proud to have me, and so am I, marry a man who don't 
 want me as his wife. So I am going to take a situation in 
 London where I am not known. I will write to you, 
 my dear lost aunt, every week so you will know I am 
 well. You might tell folk, all but Gammer Polgrean, I 
 went on a visit to London for Christmas and afterward 
 I took a situation if you think it right. Dear aunt, I shall 
 always love you next to him better than anybody, but I 
 can't write any more, but God bless you for being a 
 mother to me, your broken-hearted Margaret." P. S. I 
 have taken all I shall want." 
 
 The letter finished, she looked out a few necessary 
 things; got out her best frock and examined it for any 
 of those shortcomings in the way of buttons, hooks, etc., 
 that women's frocks so frequently disclose to the experi-
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 53 
 
 enced eye; and then, after blowing out the light, she knelt 
 and prayed for strength to play her part on the morrow. 
 It was natural that she should cry herself to sleep. Her 
 beautiful brown hair was wet with many tears ere oblivion 
 took her. 
 
 She woke with a start. Rising quietly, she struck a 
 light, and looked at her watch. It was a quarter to seven. 
 Her aunt would not get up before eight. She dressed, 
 and, collecting her things, put them in a hand-bag. Then 
 she stole downstairs, shivering with the chill of a cold 
 dawn and the coldness at her heart. 
 
 Tinker, with his black tail quiveringly erect, came 
 running to greet her, and her tears mixed with his milk 
 as she poured some out for that effusively affectionate 
 feline. She made a strong cup of tea, and forced her- 
 self to eat some bread and butter. Then she laid the 
 cloth for her aunt's breakfast, and left the letter on her 
 platq. Her parents' photos claimed her from across 
 the years the dead woman exacted tribute from her child 
 in a passion of remorse-compelling tears. Afterward she 
 took the photos from their frames and slipped them into 
 her bag. 
 
 It was time for her to go. At last she crept upstairs 
 to her aunt's door listening thereat, and trembling at 
 the mystery of an unconsciously realized Nemesis, ir- 
 revocable, relentless, and obscure. 
 
 In the beechwood she stopped for a last look back at 
 the old house, though it was quite invisible through the 
 mists of the morning and her own tears. A husky cough 
 sounded near her. She recognized the sound as coming 
 from Poacher Alf : no doubt he was returning to his cot- 
 tage, south of Midford, and keeping within the fringe 
 of the woods as he came down the Holt. Afraid to move, 
 she stood motionless and waited. A darker something 
 passed across the surrounding vapor: the cough came 
 again, but faintly, and this time from the Midford side 
 of her. The incident made her hurry. In places the mist 
 lay very thick; at others it opened out for fifty yards or 
 so at a time.
 
 54 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 Not spring with all her laughing leaves and flowers, 
 not summer with all her green delights of woodland 
 shade and shine, had been more wonderful than autumn 
 in the Holt to Margaret; albeit of its myriad April voices 
 that sang the wildwood through at nuptials of the year, 
 of all the crooning in its high beech trees, whose pigeons 
 fattened now upon the mast below, only the robin now 
 whistled his sharp and sudden song across the deep dead 
 leaves. Now that she had to leave it, perhaps for ever, 
 the place became intolerably dear. Often, in the fall, 
 along this very path a happy healthy girl who would 
 shortly go back home to a healthy breakfast, with appe- 
 tite an exquisite hunger from her early ramble she had 
 come to watch and to listen in the silver silence of just 
 such another morning. From a child upward she could 
 remember the glistening swords of grass that stood, 
 gemmed with dew, around the scarlet domes of innumera- 
 ble fungi ; the curled wet gold of lately fallen leaves ; 
 the ghostly limbs of birches; the gray and emerald 
 smoothness of the beech trunks fading away above into 
 soft shrouds of mist: the sight, the smell of it, as she 
 walked away from it all, a girl sick in soul and body, was 
 to haunt her with memories all the autumns of her life. 
 
 Down into the last hollow of the woods, a white pool 
 wherefrom the birches rose like nymphs with dripping 
 hair; up the opposite slope, where, as a little maid, she 
 had lain bluebell-deep, and dreamed of knights and ladies 
 riding by; and she stopped at the edge of the trees and 
 wiped tears and mist out of Her eyes. Beyond was a 
 broad hilly common, whose mushrooms had often brought 
 her to its gprsey miles. The mist held thickly, and she 
 crossed it without being seen. 
 
 By a quarter to nine she had entered Shapston; and, 
 before the hour struck, she was seated in the train for 
 London. There were few travelers by it; and she found 
 a carriage to herself. The engine, after shaking frantic 
 reverberations through the mist, began to move: Mar- 
 garet felt the wheels under her, and took her last look 
 at the half hidden spire as they glided by Shapston
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 55 
 
 Church, where she had been christened; and closed her 
 old life with one long burst of passionate tears. 
 
 It eased her; and she began her preparations for the 
 future by searching for her savings, some twelve pounds, 
 which she had brought with her. The money was safe; 
 and she returned it carefully to a sort of pocket she had 
 sewed to her stays. During the time this amount of 
 money would keep her she would, no doubt, be able to 
 find a situation of some sort: servants were in great 
 request in London, she had heard. Her spirits re- 
 vived as she set herself to think methodically of ways 
 and means, preparations for the shadow-baby that even 
 now began to soothe her from her shame. In her own 
 estimation, the girl became, after a few minutes of such 
 reverie, not only an experienced but a bold-to-brazen 
 woman. 
 
 The temptation to write to James, as she had prom- 
 ised to do in the event of finding herself in her present 
 condition, had been a terrible one. She had resisted it, 
 deciding that she must break her promise to her lover for 
 his own sake. Also, she felt she could not face him : in- 
 stinctively she knew she would be different in his eyes 
 now, and she shrank from a disclosure which she be- 
 lieved would destroy such love as he had for her, in the 
 trouble and disgrace that he would feel she had brought 
 upon him. One day she would endeavor to see him again 
 without being seen herself. 
 
 At least she would try and provide for her child with- 
 out seeking assistance from him. She knew him well 
 enough to know that a revelation of her condition would 
 be a terrible shock to him from what he had said and 
 she would save him that. 
 
 Often, of late, things had seemed half unreal to her: 
 it seemed impossible at times to realize that the penalty 
 she must pay, for obeying the dictates of her love and 
 nature, was one that included in its punishment exile from 
 her beloved Midford and all its joys. Yet here she was, 
 on her way to London, looking forward to a life of 
 drudgery, a life laid desolate but for that other, some-
 
 56 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 where at her heart, an outcast in the eyes of man-and- 
 womankind. 
 
 Beneath her the wheels muttered and murmured: the 
 speed increased: out of the mist spectral trees sprang 
 swiftly and sank again out of sight. Presently she heard 
 muffled reports; and the train, shaken and complaining, 
 came to a stop and silence in a cutting. She wiped the 
 glass of the window: outside she could see the bram- 
 bles, that crept down the bank from a dense of trees 
 above, still with their spotted green and yellow and crim- 
 son leaves hanging in dank indifference in the motionless 
 air. There was something of despair in their attitude 
 and aspect which chilled the girl. Then there came into 
 her head some lines of a poem on autumn, and she found 
 a consolation in repeating them again and again, and 
 to the rhythm of the wheels, when the train had started 
 once more. 
 
 "The golden blight and blain among the trees 
 Shows like some victor's garland of decay: 
 Yet haply death himself shall sooner cease 
 Than Autumn ever wholly conquer May."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 GAMMER POLGREAN CONGRATULATES THE ALMIGHTY 
 
 "MARGARET!" 
 
 Receiving no reply, and thinking that the girl was 
 out at the back somewhere, Miss Deborah went on with 
 her toilet. That completed, she went downstairs, and 
 walked briskly into the parlor. 
 
 At the sight of the letter lying on her plate her usual 
 placid demeanor underwent a tragic transformation: she 
 checked herself, frightened at she knew not what. With 
 hands that shook visibly she tore open the envelope, and 
 read its contents. 
 
 Aunt Deb was not yet fifty. When the letter fell 
 from her hands, a few minutes later, she had become an 
 old woman, whose face had a worn gray look. She sat 
 down, staring at the piece of paper lying before her that 
 had been capable of shaking her like an ague fit. She 
 tried to say something aloud, but no sound came when 
 her lips moved. She sat still, stupefied, stupid-looking, 
 with a pitiful suggestion of terror somewhere at work 
 in her spinal cord that must produce paralysis or im- 
 becility. Then, without a word, she rose and fetched 
 the Bible that lay on the old-fashioned chiffonier behind 
 her. 
 
 She placed it on the breakfast-table, and, feeling in 
 her pocket for her glasses, produced them and a hand- 
 kerchief as well. The Bible to Aunt Deb was not a book 
 in which one looks for the spiritual truths of man's im- 
 agination and aspiration, it was "Gospel truth" to her 
 in the old significance of the term. She wiped her eyes, 
 adjusted her glasses, and, resuming her seat, opened the 
 
 57
 
 5 8 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 great book at the eighth chapter of St. John her fa- 
 vorite Apostle. 
 
 "Now, Moses in the law commanded us that such should 
 be stoned ; but what sayest thou ? 
 
 "This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse 
 him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the 
 ground, as though he heard them not. 
 
 "So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and 
 said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first 
 cast a stone at her." 
 
 Slowly the gray look passed from Aunt Deb's face. 
 She removed her spectacles she could not see to read 
 any more, but sat staring at the big black print, with blind 
 eyes from which two streams coursed steadily down her 
 cheeks. 
 
 With a great effort at control she got up from her 
 chair, and lit the oil-stove that had served its purpose 
 for her niece a little while before. While the kettle 
 boiled she went to the window and stood gazing blankly 
 out at the mists. 
 
 "Margaret! Margaret! My poor maid! It's my 
 
 The girl's strangeness for some time past had be- 
 come dreadfully significant to her aunt now. The poor 
 thing must have suffered dreadfully before taking such 
 a step as this. Margaret had been like a flower bloom- 
 ing in the sheltered hollows of the Holt of which she 
 was so fond. Outside its guardian hills the winds of 
 the World had raged, as unknown to her almost as the 
 jungle tribes of men and beasts in lands afar. 
 
 "My poor darling! Aunt Deb '11 find ee and bring 
 ee home again!" 
 
 Margaret had mentioned she was going to London. 
 The thought stopped her voice suddenly, and she sank 
 down beside the open Bible, her head in her hands, sob- 
 bing and praying alternately. 
 
 When, at last, she stood up it was to realize her own 
 helplessness in the task of finding Margaret. The girl
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 59 
 
 had stated that she would write soon. But would she? 
 A thousand horrors suggested themselves to the dis- 
 ordered mind of the homely country woman. Margaret 
 alone in London ! The thought paralyzed her for a 
 while ; her own impressions of London, derived from her 
 very few visits there, being of a vast whirlpool where 
 people, strangers, especially, were swept away before 
 one's very eyes, engulfed in a seething vortex of hu- 
 manity, and seen no more. For a moment she had a wild 
 idea of driving frantically to Shapston and telegraphing 
 to the police to stop the girl at Waterloo. She dis- 
 missed it, knowing instinctively that even if she were 
 successful to do so would be to crush the girl's sensi- 
 tive soul beneath the weight of an intolerable shame. 
 Improbable things which might yield her something by 
 which to cling for hope she clutched at desperately to 
 discard them after a moment's reflection and drift on 
 still further down the current of her fears. At last she 
 felt firmer ground under her. She knew Margaret well 
 enough to know that she would not have given herself 
 up to any man without loving him with all her heart and 
 soul the girl was no light o' love. Aunt Deb knew that 
 that kind of love had power to save its victims from the ^ 
 worst fate. 
 
 She began to feel angry with Margaret on personal 
 grounds. Why had she such little faith in her aunt her 
 only living relative? Her own loneliness fell heavily 
 upon Miss Deborah, in a way she had never felt since 
 her dead brother's child had come to her, years before. 
 And this was to be the end! Men were brute beasts! 
 and girls blind, senseless fools! She wondered whoever 
 the man was who had done this thing. And Christmas 
 only a day or two off! It would be a Happy Christ- 
 mas for both of them! Poor Margaret! Her own 
 condemnation of Hettie Ryott to the girl, long ago, 
 had frightened her away. God knows she had meant 
 well! 
 
 As she drank her tea her eyes wandered to the empty 
 cup and saucer and the few crumbs that were the only
 
 60 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 signs of the otHer having breakfasted. Aunt Deborah 
 looked out at the morning and shivered. 
 
 The memory of her words about Hettie Ryott for 
 all that they had been meant as a wholesome warning 
 to her niece sounded now in her ears like a retribution. 
 She read the letter again, and, after some considera- 
 tion, she locked it up carefully. Apparently she changed 
 her mind in regard to it, however, for she took it from 
 the drawer again and placed it in her pocket. 
 
 Ten minutes later, with a shawl over her head, 
 she crept out into the mist, a stricken-faced woman, 
 and found her way miserably to Gammer Polgrean's 
 cottage. 
 
 A light was burning in the parlor, and she lifted the 
 latch and entered. The old woman was busy in the 
 kitchen, but she heard her visitor, and came out with a 
 teapot in her hand. 
 
 "Marnin to ee, Deborah Yeomans! Likely you'm 
 be come . . ." 
 
 At the sight of Aunt Deb's face she stopped. 
 
 "Trouble ? Ay me, trust en to know it, my dear ! . . . 
 'Tis never 'bout the maid, surelie!" 
 
 Aunt Deb thrust the letter out to her, and collapsed 
 in a chair. Gammer Polgrean fetched a cup and saucer 
 for the other, and poured her out a dose of strong black- 
 looking tea. Then she went to the light and read the 
 letter through, once, twice, slowly, the while Aunt Deb 
 watched her face from hopeless eyes. 
 
 "Ay, ay, 'tis zummat!" the old woman said at length. 
 "An I do say, even to a single woman like yerself, De- 
 borah Yeomans, we 'em arl alike when our toime be 
 come and th' man. That Margret o' yourn be cut out 
 fer children, be't bearin' or buryin' o' en! . . . Nary a 
 word but good 'bout the lass '11 they learn o' Gammer 
 Polgrean. 'Tis right and proper in her to b'lieve so 
 'twould be. Nary a word but good '11 your Margret 
 have from me, Deborah Yeomans, fer r tis a good lass, 
 trouble or no ! . . . Be'en got in lawful bed, or be en by- 
 blows that comes o' maids caught kissin'-hot outdoors,
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 61 
 
 they'm God Almighty's meanin' for us women, is childer, 
 I do say." 
 
 She wiped her eyes on the corner of her blue cotton 
 apron, and came over to her guest, coaxing her to drink 
 tea. Then she went on: 
 
 "I've told parson that same, any time this fifty year 
 an mo, f er zez th' Lard, be fruitful and multiply, he zez ; 
 an I up and told Him straight to 's face, an, no doubt, 
 a mort o' angels nigh on en to take it arl down. 'God 
 Almighty,' I zez, 'never you spoke a truer word neyther!' 
 Aaften I've had that Margret o' yourn, Deborah Yeo- 
 mans, wi me to Holt an back, an aaften I've thought 
 many's the time I'd a been glad to give this right hand, 
 and welcome, fer sech a maid fer one o' my poor dead 
 boys. Arl o' en died single men, in heathen lands, poor 
 souls, wi nary a Christian wife among the three on en. 
 . . . An if so be you'm likely to feel shame on her, fer 
 bein kinderd o' yourn, while Gammer Polgrean's alive 
 she's a whome, has Margret. Ay, an mebbe 'twill 
 be news to ee, Deborah Yeomans, but John Dale, 
 the laryer man to Shapston, he drarn it arl up; an it's 
 in th' will, sealed and settled 'tis, that Margret 
 has th' cottage an arl th' estate an monies o' Mary 
 Anne Lohibah Polgrean, deseized, when I'm garn. 
 Fer aaften I've zed to mysel, at sight o' that lass o' 
 yourn, ther be gwoain as good a wife as mebbe, 
 wastin, wi nary a husban; .an now 'tis arl out, to be 
 sure!" 
 
 Gammer Polgrean, a judge of her sex, knew by in- 
 troducing, at such a time as this, the matter of her will 
 and how she had made Margaret sole legatee of her 
 little property, she would not only impress upon her 
 neighbor that her affection for the latter's niece was be- 
 yond dispute, but that, also, by so doing, she would be 
 striking a shrewd blow for the runaway, by shaming a 
 possibly outraged relation into receiving her kindly, 
 should the girl return. Truth to tell, the old woman, 
 who really loved Margaret as if she were one of her 
 own, was more excited than shocked at the news, how-
 
 62 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 ever much she might grieve, and she did grieve greatly, 
 for the unhappy girl. 
 
 After delivering her pronouncement on the subject 
 she came and sat by Aunt Deb, encouraging her by ex- 
 ample to sup her tea. 
 
 In broken sentences her visitor thanked her for her 
 sympathy, and tried to express her gratitude, both on be- 
 half of herself and her niece. Gammer was held in too 
 great respect, for miles round Midford, not to be a 
 most powerful ally; and few would care to cross her, if 
 by words and deeds she showed her opinion that Mar- 
 garet was more sinned against than sinning. 
 
 The curiosity of both women was bound before long 
 to assert itself above the desultory dreariness that was 
 Aunt Deb's effort at discussion, and the restrained ex- 
 citement of the older woman: around as to whom the 
 man was the talk ebbed and flowed for an hour. At 
 last they were compelled to reject any probability of his 
 being from the immediate neighborhood: had he been a 
 local there was always the chance of a more satisfactory 
 conclusion. On the other hand, if Margaret was not to 
 marry him, it was better that he should be a stranger, 
 since they might get the girl back more readily if that 
 were the case. 
 
 In the afternoon Gammer returned the visit, and found 
 Miss Deborah "that low" who had in the interim wept 
 herself dry she stayed the day and night out with 
 her. 
 
 Long before morning filled the back casements of the 
 cottage with quiet light the desolate woman was reduced 
 to a deplorable condition. Shame, sin, everything else, 
 seemed of small moment beside the essential fact that 
 Margaret was gone. 
 
 Gammer, who had been sitting beside the girl's bed, 
 whereon Aunt Deb lay, asleep at last from exhaustion, 
 went softly to the window when the light began, and let 
 in the gray sweetness of the dawn. There was no mist: 
 a steady wind all night had blown across Midford. From 
 the bedroom, that had hidden how many dreadful hours
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 63 
 
 of agony for the missing girl, she saw the beech tops 
 slowly etched upon the east. 
 
 The old woman was by nature pantheistic: a Chris- 
 tian's worship was for her more the convention of the 
 Sabbath, and less than her work-a-day exaltations, when 
 wonders were revealed to her, at first hand, in lonely 
 places. Though generally conforming to the orthodox 
 beliefs of the neighborhood, in her heart of hearts she 
 had at times a suspicion that the Christ they acclaimed as 
 the Son of God was of humbler origin. She had not re- 
 jected the established religion, but because of her sus- 
 picions she was apt to prove recalcitrant on occasion 
 when the application of its dogmas, in the life of the 
 men and women about her, was at variance with her 
 own idea of the truth of things. 
 
 She leaned out from the lattice, her old eyes lighten- 
 ing, her old weather-worn face strangely inspired, in the 
 first flush of the day new-born. While her gaze traveled 
 the dark and stirring line of the tree-tops and the sky 
 behind, she muttered to herself prophetic things, and a 
 message of comfort for the wanderer who had fled to- 
 ward the dawn. The yellow hand that closed on the 
 sill might have held more than the weight of mortal 
 years. 
 
 "Ay, ay, Margret Yeomans, 'tis summat t' have 
 God's word wi in en, be en got in church-house or th' 
 Holt; an' likely 'twill be th' Holt wi ee, my dearie." 
 
 The wonder of the hour was at work in the Holt: 
 the climbing world rose out of the darkness; and the 
 fresh light, and spirits of the light, came over the hills 
 to meet the climbing world. Southward, smoke from one 
 or two chimneys lingered visible for a moment, and was 
 gone into a wind that had in it the sound of many cock- 
 crows from the further side of the hamlet. Midford 
 was being initiated into the presence of another day with 
 heraldry and incense and voices in the air. 
 
 The watcher, who had kept vigil by so many dawns, 
 sighed, and drew back into the little room. She won- 
 dered if she would ever have the girl to herself again, for
 
 64 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 one more ramble together through their beloved Holt, 
 searching for those wild things which are so much more 
 than weeds to those who understand. She glanced sadly 
 at the huddled figure under the shawl on the bed; and 
 then, going quietly downstairs, began preparations for 
 breakfast.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 BEAU VIEW TERRACE 
 
 THE train was billed to stop five minutes at the junc- 
 tion for Shapston; being joined thereat to the London 
 express. The latter was late : ten miles away, she was at 
 that moment whistling under a ghostly signal post in pro- 
 test at the delay. 
 
 All over the country the mists had moved up im- 
 penetrable ranks into one great white army, that now 
 held the whole air for hundreds of teemful, tremendous 
 miles. 
 
 The physical excitement of her flight had left the 
 girl by now, and she sat shivering in the corner, vainly 
 endeavoring to see across the intervening platform to 
 the main line beyond. She longed for another cup of 
 tea to warm her, but the desire to hide her flight was 
 strong within her, as was the fear of meeting with, or 
 being seen by, someone who knew herself or her aunt, 
 if she left the carriage. The waiting was bad enough, 
 torture, in its way, to her tense nerves, but somehow the 
 mist had a kindlier meaning for her: it was as if designed 
 to cover up her flight from the eyes of garrulous men 
 and women. To the best of her belief no one had seen 
 her, as yet, who would report and comment thereon to 
 poor Aunt Deb or to Midford gossip. 
 
 At last the express came in, cautiously, hardly dis- 
 tinguishable across the width of the platform. She had 
 prayed for a compartment to herself, and gratefully con- 
 ceived her prayer as answered when, after five minutes 
 of shouting and shunting, they drew away from the little 
 junction for the long non-stop run to London. 
 
 65
 
 66 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 It was, by now, bitterly cold, with the penetrating 
 rawness of atmospheres heavy with moisture, and a low 
 thermometer. The whiteness through which they rushed 
 grew dirty gray toward London. Nevertheless they 
 made good progress on a mostly open road. At length 
 the speed dropped to a crawl, and she saw the name, 
 Surbiton, on the lamps, as they crept through a station. 
 Examination of a map of the line in the carriage showed 
 her she was drawing near to his home. Presently, 
 though running at some speed, through the lights of an- 
 other station she caught the letters of the word Wimble- 
 don. All excitement, she looked out eagerly. She could 
 see but little houses half hidden in fog that grew more 
 yellow and more dense; then, when the fog turned for a 
 minute or so to whitish mists again, swampy fields; then 
 houses once more mean streets, in which the flares of 
 paraffin showed like the mists of fire. 
 
 With a shriek the train plunged through a phantas- 
 magoria of yellow lights, fog, noise, a huddle of vaguely 
 human forms, and screaming engines, that was Clapham 
 Junction, into a yellow darkness beyond: there it slowed 
 down, and after awakening several muffled explosions 
 from fog signals outside, eventually came to a stop in 
 Vauxhall. 
 
 As she heard the collector calling out, "All tickets," 
 Margaret was seized with a sudden resolve to alter her 
 plans. Catching up her bag, she got out of the train. 
 She found a way through the choking darkness to the 
 "Way Out," and going down the steps, she took a ticket 
 for Wimbledon. 
 
 The few people in the waiting-room, where a big fire 
 was blazing, took little notice of her as she entered, des- 
 perate at last for warmth and an escape from the sul- 
 phurous gloom the fog which preceded and followed 
 her apparently arousing their hostility more than any 
 feeling of interest and annoyance toward the white- 
 faced, red-eyed, and red-nosed young woman who had 
 just allowed it to assert _itself in the clearer atmosphere 
 of the room.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 67 
 
 She sat down quietly in a corner by herself and, after 
 a furtive glance at the rest of the company, began, half 
 unconsciously, to study them. They were, for the most 
 part, apparently, dividing their attention between a specu- 
 lation as to the destinies of one or two steamers plow- 
 ing a sea, whose moisture was emphasized by the beads 
 of smoking perspiration that clung to its shiny surface, 
 and listening for something hidden away among the 
 muffled reports which punctuated the silence inside and 
 outside the room. 
 
 She had decided to cover up her traces as far as lay 
 in her power to do, and she had welcomed the assistance 
 of the day's obscurity. Now, among strangers for the 
 first time, she realized how completely she was breaking 
 with the past, and how easily she could lose herself for 
 ever from the one human being who was her only living 
 kin. Poor Aunt Deb ! At the thought of her aunt's 
 many acts of kindness and mother-love for herself her 
 tears began afresh, and she forgot everything but the 
 misery which her own act was bringing upon herself and 
 another woman. 
 
 Presently a shout outside made people in the wait- 
 ing-room move with one accord to the door. The train 
 which was then running into the station stopped at Wim- 
 bledon the very sound of the name, even in the thick 
 voice of a porter indifferently shouting it among a dozen 
 others had a strange excitement for her. She found 
 an empty carriage, wherein she succeeded in mastering 
 her tears. When she got out at Wimbledon she made 
 her way to the bookstall, and bought a local paper. In 
 the waiting-room she searched its columns for apart- 
 ments: apparently they were plentiful enough. She left 
 her bag at the cloak-room in an assumed name the 
 clerk's unexpected question startling her wits into a 
 desperate flurry of invention and went forth into a land 
 wherein he dwelt, into his own country, a wonderful land 
 for her. Its very railway station, to which he came in 
 the morning and in the evening, for her was wonderful 
 because of him; the gloom into which she walked had
 
 68 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 been radiant enough had it held him within a mile. With 
 hot cheeks she hoped she would not meet him: with a 
 chill at her heart she dared do nothing but hope that 
 one day, at least, they must meet again. 
 
 She turned to the left: an errand boy, whistling 
 strangely, brushed by her, his basket betokening in him 
 a knowledge of the neighborhood. She stopped him 
 timidly, and asked him the direction of the road she men- 
 tioned. Without ceasing the shrillness at his lips he 
 heard her, and flung out his disengaged arm, pointing the 
 way. Then he darted off again. There the fog was 
 lighter than in London, and the street was gay with 
 Christmas decorations a sight that renewed the pain at 
 her heart. 
 
 "Yes?" the woman eyed her indifferently for a mo- 
 ment, as the gaslight in the narrow "hall" flickered across 
 her face, and decided on the "Miss." 
 
 Yes, they had got a bed-sitting-room to let furnished. 
 She spoke rather doubtfully. 
 
 Margaret told her she would be wanting a clean 
 cheap lodging for a week or two while she looked about 
 for a situation. 
 
 Mrs. Scrannell eyed her suspiciously for a moment 
 or two. She had let for too many years not to feel doubt- 
 ful of everyone let alone young women who wanted a 
 clean, cheap lodging for a week or two. She was a color- 
 less woman who somehow made one instinctively in- 
 dulge in speculations regarding the likeness of the male 
 who has bestowed the dignity of Scrannell upon her. 
 
 There would be no men calling to see her? 
 
 The interrogation brought a blush to Margaret's pale 
 face, although she was quite innocent of the real thought 
 which it cloaked. 
 
 "Oh, no!" 
 
 The lady of the house seemingly considered the girl's 
 obvious color as a favorable sign, for she disappeared at 
 once into the back, and returned with a lighted candle. 
 Experience had taught her that they never blushed after 
 it got to "men" "gentlemen" was the female lodger's
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 69 
 
 euphemism, as tacitly observed and respected by land- 
 ladies, during peace, as it was pointedly ignored or openly 
 repudiated by the latter in times of strife; when such 
 lodgers were asked to take themselves off, bag and bag- 
 gage, or be took off by the perlice for bringing redispute 
 on honest women comin' in all hours of the night, in- 
 deed! Blushes meant "a man" generally "gentleman" 
 if employed in any shop, office, or hair-cutting saloon 
 and the singular stood for Respectability with a capital R, 
 by comparison with the plural, which Mrs. Scrannell was 
 well aware meant Trouble with a capital T, not to men- 
 tion with the police and her neighbors, who were zealous 
 for morality in other people. 
 
 Margaret followed her up two flights of narrow 
 stairs, and was invited to step in and have a look at them. 
 
 "They" consisted of one room, with a bed at one 
 end and a fireplace at the other. In the latter was fitted 
 a small kitchen-range, with a miniature gas-cooking ap- 
 paratus standing upon it. In the middle of the room 
 some dark-colored curtains hung from a bamboo pole: 
 they could be drawn across should the proprieties de- 
 mand such a thing. The furniture passed by abrupt stages 
 from the kitchen to the bedroom type neither "room" 
 being overcrowded in this respect. A deal-topped table 
 showed signs of wear, but it had been well scrubbed. 
 
 The woman hastened to assure her of their extraordi- 
 nary comfort and cleanliness, and inquired, in a tentative 
 voice, did she want to be done for. Receiving an answer 
 in the negative, she appeared relieved no doubt with 
 recollections of the stairs in the "doing for" part of the 
 program. 
 
 Seven shillings a week she was asking for the rooms, 
 which was dirt cheap at it. They had lately been occu- 
 pied by a most respectable party a press gentleman, 
 who, unfortunately, had required such doing for during 
 the day, since mostly he worked at night, that Mrs. Scran- 
 nell's varicose veins had been repeatedly subjected to cruel 
 and even incredible strains. The press gentleman had 
 been called away hurriedly to a more remunerative po-
 
 7 o "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 sition on a Glasgow evening paper, but, according to a 
 picture postcard to his late landlady, he had searched so 
 far in vain for such comfort at the price as he had en- 
 joyed at Beau View Terrace; and she opined to Mar- 
 garet: Though she said it herself, he was likely to search. 
 
 The girl paid a week's rent in advance, and went 
 back wearily to the station for her "luggage." Before re- 
 turning to number five Beau View Terrace she decided 
 to adopt the name of Margaret Young which would 
 not contradict the initials on her slender stock of linen. 
 
 Mrs. Scrannell answered the knock, and, seeing the 
 girl's tired eyes and face, asked her, not unkindly, to step 
 into the kitchen and have a bite of dinner with her. She 
 agreed gratefully; she was already becoming weak for 
 want of food, and she forced herself to eat most of the 
 hashed mutton that her hostess placed before her. 
 
 "Scrannell '11 be in in a minute, but you needn't go 
 for to put yerself out for Mm," his lady remarked, soon 
 after they sat down. 
 
 His latchkey opened the front door as she spoke, 
 and he appeared in the kitchen with a nod and a 
 "Mornin', miss," to Margaret, and a wheezy cough that 
 had in it something in keeping with the atmosphere of 
 wet earth, size, and fog which he brought with him. He 
 was a working foreman to one of the small "builders 
 and house decorators" who developed and decorated the 
 district, between intervals of recurring bankruptcies, 
 whenever they had a chance. A stout, red-faced man, 
 to Margaret's relief, he apparently found his dinner of 
 more substantial interest than he found a strange young 
 woman. He divided his attentions between a methodical 
 search among the hash for pieces of the gray-colored fat 
 that seemed to relieve his cough, and a dirty newspaper 
 on the table beside him, which he read with a stolid air. 
 
 At almost regular intervals, it seemed, he accom- 
 panied his reading by solemn if otherwise somewhat 
 spiritless suggestions to a Deity anent the advisability 
 of removing his eyesight. As these suggestions had been 
 consistently ignored since the age of at least seven, it
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 71 
 
 may be that they had lost all exact significance for Mr. 
 Scrannell, and were merely in the nature of a formula 
 he repeated unthinkingly, to express delight, disgust, ap- 
 probation, dissent, light or dark, hot or cold. At times, 
 on the point of utterance, he checked himself, obviously 
 in deference to the strange young woman present; at 
 others, habit was too strong for him, and the expression 
 in all its dispassionate piety passed from him unheeded 
 to the hash or the printed page. But, perhaps, his most 
 essential characteristic was his punctuality at meal times. 
 
 His wife seemed to possess the faculty of detaching 
 herself from her environment in a marked degree. She 
 ate thoughtfully and in silence for some time, having 
 relapsed into abstraction after a few inquiries as to her 
 new lodger's knowledge of the neighborhood. 
 
 At last her lord finished his plate by a dexterous 
 spiral movement with a piece of bread crust as he might 
 have wiped a joint in his plumbing operations and she 
 seized the opportunity to introduce Margaret to him as 
 "our new top floor, Alf." This she did from force of 
 habit experience having shown her the unadvisedness 
 of introducing anything or anybody to her husband in 
 precedence of his midday meal. 
 
 That oracle responded without enthusiasm, but, after 
 replenishing his glass from a large bottle of beer, he ex- 
 panded considerably, and hoped she would make herself 
 at home and comfortable-like. 
 
 As he said it, the incongruity for her of "home," as 
 applied to life with Mr. and Mrs. Scrannell, came drear- 
 ily to her, and it cost her an effort to compose herself 
 sufficiently to thank him without attracting attention. He 
 rose, and, sweeping from his waistcoat on to the table- 
 cloth particles of earthy matter and breadcrumbs, he took 
 a chair near the fire, and, after asking her permission 
 to smoke, produced a clay pipe that had seen much ser- 
 vice. 
 
 When he presently left to go back to his work, Mar- 
 garet, fearing a possible cross-examination at the hands 
 of Mrs. Scrannell, made mention of "shopping" she had
 
 ?2 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 to do, and, shortly after its master, she, too, left the 
 house. 
 
 The fog was thickening again as she found her way 
 to The Broadway, where the lights of the shops infused 
 cheerfulness through the pervading gloom. She pur- 
 chased some note-paper and envelopes, and, going into 
 the public library, wrote a letter to her aunt, stating that 
 she had reached London safely, that she would be sure 
 to write every week, and concluded by again telling her 
 aunt how much she loved her, and how sure she was she 
 had done the only proper thing under the circumstances. 
 Remembering that to post the letter in Wimbledon would 
 convey an idea as to her whereabouts, she went back 
 to the station, caught a train to Vauxhall, and posted 
 the letter there. 
 
 Evening was coming on by the time she got out at 
 Wimbledon on her return the journeys of a few miles 
 having taken her nearly two hours in the fog. As she 
 waited in the crowd at the foot of the steps leading from 
 the platform, a man turned his head and looked back a 
 moment over his shoulder. Such rays of the lamp as 
 reached his face scarcely penetrated the fog to where 
 he was standing, but she was so close behind him she 
 could almost have touched his back. 
 
 Her lover was standing in front of her. 
 
 When she realized it her heart began to beat so rap- 
 idly that she could hardly breathe. By the time she had 
 recovered he was halfway up the stairs and lost in the 
 darkness. She struggled through the crowd out of the 
 station after him. Once outside she hesitated a moment, 
 and then turned along the main street to the right, where 
 the lights from the shops enabled her to catch a glimpse 
 of the people on the pavement. The lights left off at 
 the foot of the hill. Just before she reached it she saw 
 his tall figure show for a fraction of a second below a 
 lamp, to be swallowed up again immediately. She was 
 sure; and she ran forward easily, since there was now 
 no crowd to blunder against in her excitement. He 
 walked fast, but, by running every now and then, she
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 73 
 
 kept close behind him all the way up the hill. She was 
 breathless by the time they reached the top. The im- 
 pulse to speak to him had been almost too much for her, 
 but something had held her back. Somehow she could 
 not. 
 
 The next moment he had disappeared. She struck 
 into a wall and stopped helplessly. 
 
 For a few moments she stood recovering from her 
 exertions in the choking atmosphere. A great darkness 
 had fallen upon everything: sound seemed to have ceased. 
 After some groping about by walls and curbstones she 
 felt the slope of the hill under her again. Notwith- 
 standing the sinister shadow that had silenced the friendly 
 voices of the familiar air and put away the homely like- 
 ness of the earth, contentment had come to her, and with 
 it a pleasant languor stole over her senses. If only she 
 could find herself in bed now, how she could sleep ! She 
 reached Beau View Terrace at last; and half an hour 
 later was deep in the profound slumber of physical weari- 
 ness.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 "HIS MOTHER" 
 
 IT was Christmas Eve. Margaret awoke in her new 
 surroundings, and stared at the strange wall-paper as 
 if she were striving to find, among the excesses of its 
 tempestuous and terrific flora, something that would ac- 
 count for her present situation, and its relation to her 
 past life. The continuity of things had been so broken 
 by her long sleep that for a moment recent events re- 
 mained in her memory like the confused phantasies 
 rambling through the inchoate panoramas of a dream. 
 As she lay there, collecting her thoughts, the sound of a 
 passing train a thing previously unheard by her in bed at 
 Midford brought with it a sense of allocation; and 
 reality with its burden of sorrows was with her once 
 more. A moment, and, figuratively speaking, she had 
 torn open the imaginary pack, and had dragged out the 
 one joy it contained. She found it instantly; and, at the 
 thought of his comparative proximity to her, she sat up 
 and looked at her watch. It was nearly nine. The fog 
 had gone. She rose, and shivered as she saw the shabby 
 furniture, the dirty windows, with the smear of smoky 
 dampness still clinging to everything in the room. 
 
 She had seen him again! She must find out where 
 he lived then she would know where to look for him : 
 so would she be able to satisfy some of the craving in 
 her soul that he represented. When the child came she 
 would have something of his to live for . . . She must 
 let her aunt know, of course, of her whereabouts before 
 it happened, in case anything happened to her. Her 
 aunt would take the baby, she felt sure. 
 
 Busy with such thoughts and her toilet, she contrived 
 
 74
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 75 
 
 to hold back her tears of yesterday, and, by the time she 
 had made a cup of tea and cooked a rasher of bacon in 
 the small frying-pan she had bought the previous day, 
 she was almost cheerful. 
 
 She threw open the window. The morning was mild : 
 a strong breeze from the west had swept the place clear 
 of fog. Breakfast over, she went out into a long, straight 
 thoroughfare of red-brick houses, mostly of the Beau 
 View Terrace type, on either side. Two or three green- 
 grocer's carts, on which were much mistletoe and holly, 
 stood about in the road; a greasy-looking man with a 
 greasy voice bawled at intervals, "English fat rabbits!" 
 a few women were cleaning their several doorsteps, and 
 left off a moment to stare up at her as she passed: she 
 reached the main road, and, eager with another and dif- 
 ferent curiosity, hurried by the long row of shops with- 
 out stopping to examine the for her many wonders 
 they contained. At last she found herself at the top of 
 the hill where two roads crossed each other at nearly 
 right angles. Here it was she had lost him in the fog the 
 night before. Thinking of that other Crossways where 
 he had found her, she followed the main road, and, 
 presently, came out upon the edge of a broad level plain 
 with trees and a windmill on the far side. A footpath 
 led across the middle of it, and this she followed won- 
 dering at the sudden transition into the country again, 
 and as to where it was he lived. At length she reached 
 the edge of a wide valley, thickly wooded, with the op- 
 posite hills clearly defined under the white light of the 
 December morning. She wandered on, down into the 
 woods of birch and oak: as solitary as Midford Holt 
 itself the place seemed. 
 
 As she followed a sandy ride that cut through the 
 wood the thud of hoofs behind her made her start and 
 turn round involuntarily. A man on a bright chestnut 
 cob was coming toward her at a hand gallop. She walked 
 on again hurriedly. As he overtook her he pulled up 
 into a slow trot to avoid smothering her with the loose 
 earth and slush of the narrow ride.
 
 7 6 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 She had turned her head again. For a moment she 
 stood stock still, impotent at the sight of him her wits 
 scattered by the rush of his coming; then she walked 
 on, but it was too late. He had recognized her, and, 
 snatching up his horse, James Burkett jumped down be- 
 side her. 
 
 "Margaret!" 
 
 His face, ruddy a moment before with health and 
 exercise, grew suddenly pale. 
 
 She stood before him, with her color coming and 
 going, her eyes fixed on the ground, helpless, speechless, 
 under the stress of her emotions her plans frustrated 
 at the outset. To her, discovery there seemed tantamount 
 to a discovery of everything. He saw her agitation, 
 and turned away to the cob, which had commenced to 
 nibble at the grass-grown ditch beside the ride. He 
 reached down mechanically and took hold of the 
 bridle; then he dropped it again and came back to 
 her. 
 
 At last her woman's wits were coming to her aid. 
 Smiling faintly she held out her hand, but words would 
 not come. 
 
 He took it; the underwood just there was thick; 
 the place altogether deserted save for the two. They 
 might be back again in Midford Holt, for any sign there 
 was of civilization. He stooped down and kissed her. 
 There were dark blue rings under her eyes, he noticed, 
 also that her face had gone very white. 
 
 "My poor girl! Whatever's the matter?" he be- 
 gan; and she read the fear in his eyes. 
 
 "Nothing, Jim, only ... I couldn't help it ... I 
 ... I got tired of Midford after you'd gone . . . and 
 I found the letters on the tree . . . and I felt I must 
 see you again, and ... I corned up to try and get a situ- 
 ation up here," she said; adding hurriedly: "I'm going 
 back again to-day ... but I'll be back again after 
 Christmas." 
 
 He held her from him a little, and searched her eyes. 
 She was in a torment of almost unendurable pain: the
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 77 
 
 misery which reflected itself in her face cut into his care- 
 less soul like a knife. 
 
 "Margaret," he said, grown very grave for him, "is 
 that all?" His voice was thick: he was face to face with 
 what might easily prove tragedy. He was man enough, 
 for all his light-hearted boyishness, to face it, and to face 
 it then. "Tell me, dear," he said very gently. "Now!" 
 
 A great thankfulness lifted her up, and, in a mo- 
 ment, all signs of her agitation had gone. He had un- 
 consciously lightened the load for her; her sacrifice would 
 be an easy thing now now that she could choose. 
 
 Therefore she spoke the lie without flinching; nor 
 would she let his evident relief hurt her again. 
 
 James Burkett straightened himself up and whistled. 
 "Phew! You gave me a bit of a turn, dear," he said 
 mirthlessly. 
 
 "Oh, Jim! I never meant to do! You know that, 
 don't you, Jim, dear?" 
 
 "Yes, that's all right, girlie, only . . . Well, dear, 
 if anything had happened to you I must have married 
 you for the sake of the kid and both of you, but there 
 would have been the devil to pay with my people the 
 guv-nor would have cut me off without a bloomin' bob, 
 ItwHbet!" 
 
 A lesser woman might have reminded him of the 
 tardiness of such remembrance. She was conscious only 
 of another difficulty his words had suggested : ought she 
 not to tell him? for his own sake? for the child's? If 
 he knew, and insisted upon marrying her, she saw the 
 hateful host of women who would pity him, and point 
 her out as one that had laid a trap for the man she loved. 
 His love would not stand a year of it, she knew only too 
 well. Out of the world in which he lived, away some- 
 where in the country, he might be happy enough with her : 
 she had no doubt of her ability to make him a good 
 wife. As it was, it was a hopeless muddle to her young 
 brain. The problem was beyond her, and attempt to 
 solve it, save by the plan her social intuition prompted, 
 only seemed to increase her bewilderment.
 
 7 8 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 "You'll be wanting to marry a lady, Jim, of course !" 
 Jim did not want to marry anybody. He was one 
 of those young men for whom life, like bread and butter, 
 tasted better and altogether different out of doors. Rug- 
 ger and cricket, since he had left Cambridge, were the 
 chief safety-valves for that superabundant animal en- 
 ergy which accumulated in the sedentary intervals of 
 city life. Racing provided for his mental recreation a 
 pleasant and sufficient hobby. Women acted upon him 
 either as aphrodisiacs, or as wet blankets that damped 
 the atmospheres of his exuberant masculinity. If he 
 gazed on the wine somewhat, until the inevitable color- 
 blindness ensued at times, he was no drunkard his lapses 
 from sobriety being the direct result of that boisterous 
 good-fellowship which a hardly contested game en- 
 genders or a "long-priced winner" inspires. Of such is 
 the kingdom of many young Britons. He would be ex- 
 pected to marry sooner or later; but, with a girl like 
 Margaret for his mistress, he was content to relegate 
 his conjugal destinies to a very indefinite future. If he 
 played with fire he must be prepared to take the risks 
 incidental to such amusement; and no sport was sport 
 unless there was some risk in it. Life was a game to 
 James Burkett; but he played it straight at least as he 
 understood straightness. His relations with the girl 
 who had given him her all had already aroused certain 
 uncomfortable doubts respecting his preconceived notions 
 of fair play. He began to realize, empirically, the 
 only method by which he could arrive at such a con- 
 clusion that, in the Social Handicap, woman is often 
 set to give too much weight away. That wasn't his fault, 
 however, and it was no use crying over it, though he 
 wanted to do the right thing, of course. In his way he 
 loved her. He told himself so, though he omitted to 
 tell her again he did not want to encourage her in the 
 idea of a possible marriage between them, however much 
 he wanted her body. But as his mistress . . .? Oh, 
 yes! he loved her right enough who wouldn't? 
 
 Her paleness had gone, and her cheeks were stained
 
 'THRACIAN SEA" 79 
 
 with a flush that flickered as the struggle went on within 
 her. 
 
 She was a very lovable little woman she was little 
 to his six feet of height: there was the very spirit of the 
 open air about her, somehow, thought James. 
 
 They were standing close together, and Margaret 
 wondered if he could hear her heart beating. Her 
 pulses seemed to be hurrying in unison with the stream 
 in the ditch beside them that broke the earth-silence with 
 its continual burden of small voices swelling into a flurry 
 of liquid song. 
 
 All around them a mist of birch twigs glowed, ma- 
 roon-colored, under the white skies of the winter's morn- 
 ing. Down there in the little valley through which the 
 ride ran one of the several wooded hollows that fur- 
 row the western slopes of the common they seemed as 
 completely isolated as they had been in those stolen hours 
 of passion in far-off Midford Holt. 
 
 "Margaret, you must let me see you as soon as you 
 return, to wish my little woman a Happy New Year, eh, 
 dear?" he said, smiling. "Tell you what, meet me to- 
 day week in the evening. In the Windmill Road. Half 
 past six, say?" 
 
 For a moment she hesitated, then she yielded it 
 would be for the last time. 
 
 At that he took her to him again, and kissed her into 
 the oldest of all obedience. 
 
 At last he loosed her, and, going to the cob, gathered 
 up the reins, while she moved instinctively to him with 
 something like a suggestion of playfulness holding the 
 iron ready for his lifted boot. 
 
 Her pure gray eyes clung to his as he settled him- 
 self in the saddle: a hasty look up and down the ride, 
 and he bent down to her, while she reached up and kissed 
 him good-bye. 
 
 He rode on down into the valley; and she retraced 
 her steps slowly, happy with the happiness that was soon 
 to be what the world would call her shame. He had 
 wished her a Happy Christmas as he rode away. Yes!
 
 8o "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 She meant to be happy this Christmas! The next . . .? 
 She would put such thoughts away from her entirely for 
 to-day and to-morrow. 
 
 She reached the open heath again, where the west 
 wind was singing, through the bents, a consonance of 
 that other song the stream was singing through the wood. 
 In her heart the Song of the World found the echo that 
 it finds in hearts that have not forgotten the primal dews, 
 where man and woman, calling to each other, climbed 
 first upon the hills that fed swift streams of sense that 
 were to feed deep waters of the soul. Her lips took 
 it up: she sang suddenly, as an autumn skylark wakes 
 the silent time of birds with echoes of the spring. 
 
 Wherefore she answered his shouted "Happy Christ- 
 mas!" and "Good-bye!" with a cheerful voice when he 
 cantered past her again, halfway across the heath. He 
 did not stop : he had explained to her that it was better 
 that they should not be seen together. Presently she 
 saw him pull up, and talk to some ladies, and the sight 
 slew the song in her heart with a thousand arrows of 
 jealous pain. Then she remembered that he had not 
 raised his hat: they would be his mother and sister; and 
 Margaret had the curiosity of her sex. 
 
 She trembled as she drew near to other women for 
 whom the world had given a right to her lover. The 
 younger of the two was, obviously, his sister. He kept 
 his back toward Margaret, and her face flushed and she 
 bit her lips at the sight. Neither of the two ladies no- 
 ticed the plainly dressed young woman who was wonder- 
 ing why she could not look at the elder of the two, as 
 she passed, even though she was his mother. The menace 
 of an acquired convention struck her spirit, and, somehow, 
 she felt herself a guilty woman who had lost her right 
 to happiness; while, as she hurried on, the glory of the 
 morning pale golden with sunlight now seemed to 
 mock her with its smile.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 AT KEMPTON 
 
 SHE passed the Christmas Day mostly in reading 
 one of her favorite old books. Mrs. Scrannell, with 
 considerable native tact, managed to inveigle her new 
 lodger into acceptance of a Christmas dinner, which the 
 girl, touched by the woman's way of attempting to do 
 her a kindness, ate gratefully in the solitude of her own 
 room. 
 
 Her landlady's married daughter came to Beau View 
 Terrace to spend the Christmas holiday with her parents. 
 That young woman had married above her, in one sense, 
 having lured Hymenward "the first floor," a former 
 lodger who had occupied that platform; through which, 
 from beneath, Hiris Hena, the only Miss Scrannell, had 
 sent with tremulous suggestion but with an otherwise 
 unfaltering resolution the virgin ecstasies of a certain 
 Virginian wooing, in which the moon had ultimately re- 
 duced to tender subjugation a coon of much original 
 hardness of heart below a more than Chesterfieldian pol- 
 ish of exterior. Inspired to heroinic efforts by the success 
 of the maiden in the ballad, Miss Scrannell had cooed 
 and twanged and gurgled through the lath and plaster; 
 and a mother's sacrifice for her daughter, from a scanty 
 score of half-crowns invested in pianoforte lessons, had 
 its reward at last. After a week of it the somewhat stolid 
 objective of the nasal fair one had softened to the extent 
 of asking Miss Scrannell for the pleasure of her com- 
 pany to a local music hall; after a month he had capitu- 
 lated utterly, and languished regularly at Sabbath night- 
 falls in the clasp of his betrothed. Her face, a perfect 
 81
 
 82 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 oblong, suitably framed, looked coyly down from the 
 wall above the instrument that had helped her voice to 
 victory. Photos of the bridal occasion were frequent and 
 familiar objects at number five and other houses in the 
 road had not escaped in which Mr. Albert Gurrick, 
 holding in a pair of very large hands a very small hat, 
 smiled dreadfully henceforth among the good citizens of 
 his age. 
 
 He was in the County Council. He escaped on this 
 Boxing Day from his official thraldom to a sanitary un- 
 derworld, where he presided over a menage for the sub- 
 terranean convenience of gentlemen, and joined his wife 
 and relations. There was, by now, another Albert among 
 the Gurricks, a green-eyed infant, by craniometry an in- 
 dubitable son of his sire. 
 
 Margaret, who had already made his acquaintance 
 on the previous day, attracted by baby cries, opened the 
 door of her room an inch, and listened, deeply moved by 
 the sound that has echoes longer than all others in the 
 ears of pregnant women. Ten minutes later she was hold- 
 ing him tightly in her arms, in a chair in the parlor, the 
 while the adult Gurricks and Scrannells discussed a pro- 
 gram of entertainment for the day. 
 
 They decided on Kempton Park, and invited her to 
 make one of the party, Mr. Scrannell opining that it 
 would cheer her up "to see em adoin' it." She could 
 only decline; but, seeing that they all meant it kindly, 
 she jumped at a chance of returning an amenity and sug- 
 gested she would mind the now quiescent baby. The other 
 women's evident relief at her suggestion was manifest: 
 there was sure to be an awful crowd, they averred. So 
 they settled it; and she inwardly blessed the little crea- 
 ture for a respite from loneliness. Presently they left 
 the house after instructing her in her duties; and she 
 gave herself up to a day of dreams; undisturbed by the 
 other lodgers, who were away. 
 
 At Kempton Park Captain Coe's "starred nap" and 
 minor planets being in the ascendant, the wealth of Mr. 
 and Mrs. Scrannell was largely augmented. Unfor-
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 83 
 
 tunately Albert, escaped from bondage for the day, in a 
 spirit of liberty impatient of all authority and which 
 said it would be free, disregarded the solemn injunctions 
 of his father-in-law to "follow Captain Coe," and specu- 
 lated obstinately on his own with disastrous results. 
 
 He fortified himself against his return journey 
 through a winter twilight peopled by his exasperating 
 failures to find even a single "haemorrhagic" winner, by 
 copious drops of Johnny Walker. His father-in-law, not 
 without similar depressing experiences in the past, felt 
 in himself a bounden duty to avert the saddening reflec- 
 tions of his son; more especially as he learnt that the 
 starting price of his own best investment that day had 
 been returned at just double the odds he had secured on 
 the field of action. The two were assisted toward for- 
 getfulness by an old friend of the family, met with as 
 they left the course, a maker of strange mirth and the 
 hero of innumerable innocent flirtations with half the 
 maids and matrons in the Beau View Terrace quarter. 
 Employed by a local dairy, his amours were as innocuous 
 as his professional commodity. 
 
 He would burst into poetic rhapsodies, his own com- 
 position, of an exuberance that confounded mere under- 
 standing, or into violent politics, on the slightest provoca- 
 tion, with woman or man who would listen to him; and 
 there was something in his fiery hair and merry eyes that 
 claimed many such victims. In effusions of ink he found 
 an antidote that purged his soul from the stain of his 
 master's milk: a poem a day was his minimum output. 
 "Joe the poiet," who was of Irish origin, also liked to 
 have his bob on, and "The Star Double," which had 
 failed lamentably on some score occasions when he had 
 supported it, had on this greatly materialized. He pur- 
 chased a bottle of Irish, therefore, at Hampton Court. 
 
 Mrs. Scrannell and her daughter preferred "inside." 
 On the top of the tram the three sportsmen waxed merry; 
 "Joe the poiet" accompanying the rush and whistle of 
 the wires with a concertina. 
 
 By the time they had arrived at Beau View Terrace
 
 84 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 they had acquired a thirst beyond the power of tea to 
 allay; and the evening grew fast and furious. 
 
 Margaret, lost without the baby, which had been 
 claimed by its mother, was induced to take a glass 
 of wine in the crowded little parlor; but the good- 
 humored gallantry of Joe eventually frightened her 
 away. 
 
 A shout of laughter, soon afterward, made her listen, 
 in that, to her, strange household. Joe had sat down 
 suddenly after replenishing his glass, and had bumped 
 the back of his head against the corner of the sideboard. 
 His voice roared from below : 
 
 "It's no respeckt ye have for a poiet at all, at all, ye 
 noisy devils! Suburrban women suckles barbarreous 
 young in me very presence, an oi can't knock me bhrains 
 ahinst yer mid-Victorian mahoguny without . . ." (Joe 
 read much contemporary fiction.) 
 
 Laughter drowned the rest, wherethrough Mrs. 
 Gurrick shrilled objections of only half outraged pro- 
 priety, since no one could be really offended with the in- 
 corrigible Irishman, and then joined in the laugh at her 
 surreptitious maternity. 
 
 The sentimental wife of a goods guard, who had 
 joined the party, and who was playfully enamored of 
 the red-headed son of Erin, appealed in a swift staccato 
 to him to come and sit alongside of her. 
 
 "Begor, it's done with ye, fer iver, ye Potipher hen, 
 ye, has this Joseph! Be quiut, an listen now!" 
 
 His concertina started "The Wearin' o' the Green." 
 
 Margaret shut her door softly, and sat down by the 
 tiny fire. It was all strange, unnatural, confusing, even 
 alarming to her . . . Mr. and Mrs. Scrannell, under 
 normal conditions, seemed incapable of merriment, yet 
 they could put off the grayness of their lives in this 
 startling fashion. The sense of an unreality in her po- 
 sition came upon her in spite of the noise below. She 
 shivered a little . . . Midford Holt seemed so far, so 
 very far, away. The west wind shook the blind. She 
 went to the window and looked out. Above the reddish
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 85 
 
 glow from a multitude of lights a few misty stars hung, 
 vague over the vague wilderness of houses. 
 
 The wind whispered to her that had, perhaps, been 
 whispering of late in the bare woods of Midford. She 
 looked at her watch. It was eight o'clock. It would 
 surely be safe for her to go out now. She put on her 
 things, and went downstairs. 
 
 "I'm going out for a little, Mrs. Scrannell," she 
 called. 
 
 Her landlady came to the door, her usually white 
 face flushed with the heat of the room and glasses of 
 wine. 
 
 "All right, Miss Young. I 'ope as 'ow that drefful 
 Joe ain't bin too noisy. 'Twas that kind of yer to mind 
 the baby; I don't know what we'd adone with 'im at 
 Kempton. Scrannell 'ad a good day, an feels a bit 'appy 
 like, but poor old Halbert gorn right down the slot," 
 she added apologetically. 
 
 Margaret reassured her, and went out. She turned 
 in a direction away from the main street, and wandered 
 through a maze of quiet roads. 
 
 Presently she came to some fields, and their damp 
 breath soothed her. In the distance lights shone brightly 
 on a range of hills ; closer great chimneys towered black 
 into the night. Two lovers came toward her, whisper- 
 ing, their arms about each other. Further on, against a 
 fence, a girl clung abandonedly to a man, her mouth mov- 
 ing slowly over his face, lost to everything but her own 
 sensations. She crossed a bridge : from the top the 
 strange light in the sky that was London seemed to come 
 closer to her. She stopped, and looked over at the shin- 
 ing rails. A train dashed through, surrounding her in 
 silver clouds of steam. Through them she saw lovers 
 locked in each other's arms; children asleep on the seats; 
 women with tired faces; men playing cards; a huge fat 
 man drinking out of a bottle. She watched the red tail- 
 light shrink to a speck, and resumed her walk. 
 
 A smartly dressed young man passed her under a 
 lamp. He stopped, and came back after her. Half
 
 86 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 frightened, she glanced at his dark face, with its bold 
 eyes and waxed mustache. 
 
 "Good evenin'." 
 
 He was walking beside her. The road was deserted. 
 She began to feel terrified out of all proportion to the 
 incident. Suddenly she stopped and stared at him. 
 
 "Please don't!" It was all she could say. 
 
 He muttered something, and went back again. Ac- 
 tually a hosier's assistant, he was, to her, like one of 
 the villains who appeared in theatrical posters on the 
 Shapston hoardings from time to time. At the bottom 
 of the bridge she began to cry. If Jim only knew what 
 her feelings were! . . . 
 
 As she passed a public-house a woman outside began 
 to scream words she had never before heard from a 
 woman's mouth, meaningless, horrible things that froze 
 her tears and blood. There came a crash of broken 
 glass and a shriek, and a man struck the screaming mouth 
 with his clenched fist. The woman fell down, coughing 
 horribly. Margaret, too unnerved to run, staggered 
 away from the patch of light where brutal faces peered 
 at the dark heap on the ground. 
 
 In her confusion, after this incident, she lost her 
 way. Two girls in black straw hats, with their hair in 
 fat rolls over their ears, overtook her, talking loudly in 
 unpleasant tones. 
 
 "Look wot she got along o' goin' wiv that ere soljer 
 feller. Done a guy, 'e did, soon as she told 'im she was 
 in trouble. Chaps is all alike soon as they've 'ad wot 
 they wants, em!" 
 
 "That's a fack! Still, I don't know as 'ow it was 
 'im, seem' as 'ow 'e 'ad to gie 'er a lift under the ear- 
 'ole, mor'n once, 'e did, fer gettin' blind along o' uvver 
 blokes in The Bell.' " 
 
 The shrill sibilants of the two girls passed on ahead 
 of her. What hateful world had she suddenly come to? 
 What hateful hideous world? 
 
 More men followed her. One,, who was drunk, cried 
 in imbecile tones across the road to her, "You are my
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 87 
 
 oney, oney suckle I I am ther b-e-e-e I" and then, catch- 
 ing his walking stick between his legs, fell with a thud 
 on the pavement; wherefrom he cursed her and every- 
 thing and everybody indifferently. 
 
 It was ten o'clock when she got back. Mr. Scran- 
 nell let her in. His wife had gone out to see their visi- 
 tors off at the station. Margaret wished him good- 
 night, and dragged herself upstairs. In her room she 
 lit the candle, and then fell down in a faint. 
 
 When she came to she was too weak to feel any- 
 thing but a great weariness. With an effort she un- 
 dressed and got into bed. In a few minutes sleep had 
 filled her senses. 
 
 With it came dreams, through which red-haired men 
 played concertinas, and vile women screamed dreadful 
 things. At times she fled from dark leering faces by 
 interminable dim roads: at others her lover galloped 
 toward her a moment and then was gone again. Once 
 her arms held a baby that was, and was not, hers, the 
 while she knew that his mother was watching her from 
 stern, accusing eyes. For a long time she dared not litt 
 her own, but, at last, tortured beyond endurance, she flung 
 up her head to face it out, and the dream burst with a 
 flash like a monstrous Christmas cracker. Even as she 
 woke she heard, from the middle of the flash, the Irish- 
 man shouting at her that his uncle was the clerk of the 
 weather. 
 
 The week dragged past. She spent the time as well 
 as she could "writing after" and applying personally 
 for various situations; and reading one of her father's 
 old books, in which a girl who had loved as greatly as, 
 and even more hopelessly than, herself was the heroine, 
 and which had now a sort of fascination for her. She 
 was soon to discover the difficulties which stood in the 
 way of obtaining a situation, difficulties which lay in her 
 inability to satisfy the ladies requiring a servant re- 
 specting her previous life, and her efforts were without 
 success. They all seemed to view her with suspicion. 
 
 At last the evening arrived when she was to meet
 
 88 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 him on the common. As the time approached she was 
 tormented with a thousand doubts and fears. Confusion, 
 that great weakener of high resolve, had had its way with 
 her. He might not come he might not want to see her 
 again. As she walked through the quiet streets toward 
 the common the stillness "sounded" like that hush which 
 follows the storm-wind's passing tumult and precedes the 
 storm; a stillness which had often impressed her in the 
 past when she had listened for the storms that at times 
 swept down Midford Holt out of the north. What if she 
 had overestimated her own strength? her meeting with 
 him had bound her with fresh chains about her soul. 
 She felt, too, a lonely wanderer in a hostile land, where 
 cold-eyed women sought to drag her secret from her, 
 where men stared at her with greedy eyes or spoke to 
 her with hateful familiarity, as if conscious of her un- 
 befriended state, and that she was an outcast and right- 
 ful prey. 
 
 The heath lay black under a sky ablaze with stars; 
 the night was darkly clear with that pellucidness which 
 is generally a presage of rain from the southwest. She 
 walked along the deserted road beside the common, 
 then turned to the left up the road to the Windmill, 
 where a solitary light was shining. There were no lamps, 
 but to the girl used to dark and lonely roads the place 
 seemed friendlier than the streets, and she thought little 
 of personal risks when she was on her way to meet him. 
 She had only room for one fear for the nonce, that he 
 would not come. 
 
 A figure showed suddenly dark against the darkness 
 of the heath; and the next minute she was in her lover's 
 arms again, blaming herself for ever having doubted 
 him. 
 
 They wandered from the road; and sat on a seat 
 on the hill overlooking the Queensmere pond, half hid- 
 den among the woodlands below. 
 
 "It seems almost like Three Trees, Jim, dear!" 
 
 Dreaming in his arms the girl forgot everything but 
 the joy of his caresses. To-morrow she would com-
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 89 
 
 mence again her struggle with the realities of her case 
 surely she was entitled to her short measure of hap- 
 piness . . . 
 
 It went on for a month.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 WIMBLEDON PARK 
 
 THERE are parts of Wimbledon Park that man and 
 nature have combined to make as desirable a residential 
 district as any around London, acclaimed as such by the 
 most exuberant imagination or the commercial cupidity 
 of house-agents and their kind. It has variety, and ex- 
 tent, and side by side proximity to the miles of open coun- 
 try that stretch, from where its great houses along Park 
 Side watch the heath and woods, to the sword-like gleam 
 of the spire on Richmond Hill. Again, far away to 
 the east, the blue hills of Kent lie lovely with light and 
 shade under morning and evening skies. 
 
 After Battersea I am frankly envious, in some ways, 
 of Wimbledon Park; of its grass-edged winding roads, 
 of its houses hidden away among old trees, in the more 
 secluded parts; of its old lawns where daisies, in shin- 
 ing galaxies, are still allowed to swarm; of its orchard 
 and other flowering trees; of its echoing voice of thrush 
 and blackbird and cuckoo song, its night-time sounds of 
 slow and reiterant owls; of the moonlight that seems 
 to fill its lake to overflow and flood the fields around; of 
 its woods, where that beautiful strange visitor that came 
 there long ago, the blue mountain anemone, may possibly 
 linger yet. 
 
 In passing, here let me say that such people as in- 
 habit my Wimbledon Park (as indeed other places in 
 this story) are not those in the directory; lest some 
 worthy folk imagine themselves indicated and, aggrieved 
 thereat, send minions of the Law of Libel hot upon my 
 90
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 91 
 
 impecunious trail. If much of this book has been written 
 in Wimbledon's Park or upon its common, it has been 
 written under hedges and trees, in the woods or the 
 grasses; myself thankful, in an age of Capitalism, for a 
 green place where I could make acquaintances unhin- 
 dered by difference of social position or opinion, and 
 for whom, if they have been sometimes refractory, I 
 alone have been invariably responsible. This without 
 letting the envy I have of the place extend to those who 
 can afford to dwell in it, the present occupiers of its ma- 
 terial houses and prosperities. I know nothing of these 
 latter, save that I have seen there many men I do not 
 doubt were brave, and many women my own eyes told me 
 were fair. I have lived so much of late in the iridescent 
 glass houses of a poet's imagination that I should be 
 loath to forget or infringe a certain ancient axiom. Stones 
 I have flung, indeed, at certain institutions my masters 
 before me have held to be things the better for attack; 
 at humans dwelling in houses builded of hands, no. 
 Let them, therefore, who live in such of brick and 
 stone, visit . me not with the broken bottles of their 
 wrath. 
 
 If there is tragedy in Wimbledon, and love and ha- 
 tred, and loving kindness, and spitefulness, and pity and 
 tenderness, if broken hearts are there, I do not know by 
 personal experience or hearsay. If there are not these 
 things it is an even stranger suburb than it has sometimes 
 appeared to me, under the influence of sunset skies or 
 that dream-druggery which takes all poets by the breast 
 at times, to fill them with the lusts of longing and cre- 
 ation beyond those of men plagued merely with the ele- 
 mental itch or of women wild for the wonders of ma- 
 ternity. 
 
 To resume. In the lowlands of the locality, east- 
 ward, the vulgar herd live their little lives: there are 
 born hewers of wood and drawers of water, to toil, and 
 breed, and pass into common clay. They move north- 
 eastward, whole regiments of them, in the morning, to 
 the great city: in regiments in the evening they return.
 
 92 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 Wonderful soldiers of industry, "well drilled and well 
 cowed" into obedience by the Commercial Colossus, who 
 knows no wasted lives that do his bidding; though at 
 his word they build the mausoleum of their own souls a 
 monument in one sense even as those which tower and 
 crumble slowly under relentless skies, where the Pyra- 
 mids point their moral of a ghastly human waste amid 
 the desert's dust. Some few are hooted in to work, and 
 hooted out again, at suburban factories nearer home. 
 For the most part it is an uncomplaining army that hur- 
 ries to and fro. They scatter largely during the day. 
 There is little opportunity for them to organize into 
 fiercer rebellion against the thing that strikes them at last 
 into a dumb indifference at their fate. They have neither 
 the circumstances nor the spirit of the great manufac- 
 turing places, where the Soul of Man is heartening itself 
 for the coming and inevitable grapple with the modern 
 Moloch. Miles of streets are practically empty of life 
 at midday, down there on the lower slopes, and in the 
 Wandle flats below. 
 
 As one rises toward the highlands of the district the 
 different strata, social and geological, are revealed, until, 
 in the altitudes of Wimbledon Park, the elite of its gen- 
 tility dwell in lofty isolation on a gravel soil. 
 
 There resided Bertram Burkett, Esq. the senior 
 partner in the firm of Burkett and Bowker, silk mer- 
 chants, of St. Paul's Churchyard in a large and sub- 
 stantial red-brick construction of the late Victorian style, 
 "Downlands" sign-written in plain gold on its gates, Re- 
 spectability suggested in its general aspect, and standing, 
 as if to mark its aloofness from the way of common 
 things (and quite unlike the manner of lesser domiciles 
 in so doing) in its own grounds. 
 
 The head of the Burkett household was as substan- 
 tial morally as he was physically, mentally, financially, 
 residentially. The honest pride with which his bosom 
 swelled was a substantial thing, which had grown in sub- 
 stance with his bank balance until it had spread to, and 
 added an increased stability to his anatomy in those re-
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 93 
 
 gions of his waistcoat that supported his substantial gold 
 watch-chain. 
 
 On more than one occasion he had seen in that same 
 gold chain, resting upon its aldermanic foundations, an 
 emblem foreshadowing the civic honors that one day 
 might be his a symbol of the time when the name of 
 Sir Bertram Burkett would be added to the roll of Lon- 
 don's mayoral celebrities, to the names of the men that 
 matter in the life history of the greatest, and richest, 
 city in the world. 
 
 A careful liver was Mr. Burkett as careful of his 
 health as he was of his dignity, which was considerable, 
 and such as befitted a man whom Fortune might (for 
 aught one knew to the contrary) be even at that mo- 
 ment contemplating as a suitable candidate for the afore- 
 mentioned ancient and honorable office. He was about 
 fifty-five, of florid aspect, and, if unimpressive in length, 
 he was eloquent of the other dimensions. He had a 
 great horror of vulgarity of any kind, and wore gold 
 pince-nez and very expensive trousers. Into the pockets 
 of the latter he had a habit of thrusting his hands, when- 
 ever those exceedingly white members evinced any ten- 
 dency to meet behind his back, or to perform certain im- 
 aginary ablutions apparently reminiscent of some ritual 
 of his earlier days that the appearance of those "fash- 
 ionable shades," for which the house of Burkett and Bow- 
 ker was so celebrated, was generally certain to evoke. 
 It was a great thing, perhaps even a glorious thing, 
 after all the horrors of history, that the refining influence 
 of Burkett and Bowker, and all that the firm stood for 
 in life, should have succeeded greatly. Without depre- 
 ciating Darwin's theory he was inclined to think there 
 might be more in Finality than many supposed. 
 
 He was a self-made man, and, though the contem- 
 plation of his labors in that direction afforded him a 
 never-failing source of gratification in private, in public 
 a feeling of modesty prevented him from lending the 
 moral principle of his life and works for the edification 
 of Wimbledon Park.
 
 94 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 After his death, when his own modesty would have 
 passed beyond the reach of earthly embarrassment, he 
 would see that such obligations to society were fulfilled. 
 In his will were provision and instructions for his Bi- 
 ography; in his private safe at Wimbledon were the ma- 
 terials for that important work, carefully compiled and 
 revised by himself from time to time. It would prove as 
 interesting to Posterity as instructive, he ventured to 
 think. When, in the privacy of his especial sanctum, 
 the library, he looked over or added to the precious 
 MSS., lost in the contemplation of his own greatness his 
 hands would wash themselves with a reckless abandon 
 born of the temporary removal of their burden of 
 twenty years' restraint, or they would fly to greet each 
 other with fervid clasp behind his back, conscious of 
 his mental oblivion as to their acquaintance. 
 
 His lady was a tall and dark woman, with an habitual 
 air of one who has repressed things so consistently that 
 she has included herself in the process without being 
 altogether aware of it. She was a loyal wife, who had 
 nobly seconded her husband in his social ambitions 
 even to the extent of cultivating a particular cough, by 
 which she warned him whenever his hands began to take 
 advantage of a fit of abstraction on his part. A devoted 
 mother, she had found more joy in her only son, in spite 
 of his aberrations, than in all the virtues of his immacu- 
 late sire; though she had, outwardly, suppressed all ideas 
 of such a thing excepting in those rare moments which, 
 I am told, all women are liable to experience at times, 
 when they dare to supplement the ancient maxim of 
 "Know thyself" with its correlative of the verb To be. 
 In his mother James had a sturdy champion; and it must 
 be confessed that he had given the poor lady ample and 
 frequent opportunities to exercise her defensive abilities 
 on his behalf. 
 
 Truth to tell, James Burkett was rather crude, not to 
 say vulgar, in his tastes. He voted the carefully selected 
 commonplaces, the refined amenities, of Wimbledonian 
 drawing-rooms, "Rot." The picked fruits of respectable
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 95 
 
 greengrocers, from whose gardens were always rigidly ex- 
 cluded any possibilities of fruition for a certain tree, 
 were, to him, stale, profitless, insipid. 
 
 The majority of the eligible young men in the set 
 of which the Burketts were leading luminaries were su- 
 perior to him in the more gentlemanly accomplishments, 
 but their financial prospects were, unfortunately, in a 
 lesser ratio. 
 
 James was rather wild, admittedly, but it was con- 
 fidently predicted that he would grow out of all that, 
 and settle down soon; and the analyzers of his character, 
 including many beside his own parents, watched assidu- 
 ously for the first symptoms of the sedimentary move- 
 ments prophesied. 
 
 And then a local bazaar saw him pressed into ser- 
 vice by his sister; and the Other Woman came into his 
 life.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE OTHER WOMAN 
 
 HELEN DARELL, with her widowed mother, occu- 
 pied a small house in the Glastonbury Road, near the 
 common. 
 
 They were both ladies, but they were in far from af- 
 fluent circumstances, if not actually poor. 
 
 Helen was a tall girl of a striking physical beauty. 
 Her hair was of a shining black: her eyes were large, 
 and, full of darkness, showed but little white round the 
 irises. Their usual expression was one calm enough to 
 veil an intensity of temperament from a world that of- 
 fered her the ordinary interests for girls in her own walk 
 of life. In a subdued light her face conveyed something 
 of the impression of mystery produced by a calm starless 
 night : one saw its calm and felt its darkness by some sub- 
 tle transposition of sense. 
 
 She was twenty-three, and "clever," being greatly 
 superior, intellectually, to the average man or woman. 
 She had as yet scarcely recognized this quality of her 
 mind being a girl remarkably free from excessive van- 
 ity, and more given to assessing intellectual values from 
 a high standard than from an ordinary one. She was 
 an example of a relatively late development to which, 
 perhaps, the fact that her nature had never as yet been 
 stirred to its depths had been largely conducive. 
 
 Since her father's death, which had occurred six years 
 before, Helen an only child and her mother, had lived, 
 for the greater part of the time, on the Continent There 
 Helen completed her schooling, became proficient in 
 French and German, and the two women lived quietly 
 96
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 97 
 
 and economically; while Mrs. Darell slowly recovered 
 from the shock of her husband's sudden death. At last 
 a longing to return to England even when England 
 meant a small house in the suburbs or the country had 
 been too much for them, and they had taken "Cloudes- 
 hill" on a three years' agreement, and settled down to 
 life in Wimbledon. 
 
 Before the great achievement in the intellectual life 
 of the world, her own capacity had seemed to Helen 
 Darell a small affair. She had never met the man who 
 would have insisted upon her possibilities and, at the 
 same time, have understood them. Such men as she had 
 known, in the restricted society her mother's limited 
 means had imposed, who had been smitten with her ob- 
 vious charm, had been men lacking in ideas, who had 
 failed to arouse passion in her. She saw them, with- 
 out emotion, as clearly as she saw their limitations. None 
 had confused her analytical faculties, and she had been 
 left, right through the idealizing period that heralds 
 womanhood, with the great ones of the earth for spirit- 
 ually intimate, but otherwise impossible, companions. 
 An abundant physical energy, and the fact that her father 
 had lived chiefly for sport, had also, in a great measure, 
 influenced her life. She loved a horse as she loved Shakes- 
 peare and Homer: the former was in her blood by a 
 direct, the latter by a more uncertain heredity. She 
 could not read the great Greek mind in the original, it 
 is true; but what had sufficed to inspire Keats' greatest 
 sonnet had sufficed for her ; humbly thankful, as for few 
 other things, as she was for Chapman's efforts. Such 
 girls are likely to find trouble in a womanhood that re- 
 quires more from its mate than men sporting or commer- 
 cial are likely to be able to give. 
 
 Her mother looked to suburban London as repre- 
 senting a possibly wealthy marriage for Helen. She 
 was a long way inferior, intellectually, to her daughter; 
 and had a firm disbelief in the arts where matrimony 
 was the objective: her husband's death in the field had 
 frightened her away from hunting circles. As she told
 
 98 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 her friends, she had never been the same woman 
 since. 
 
 There was little of real sympathy between the two 
 women. Mrs. Darell failed to understand, and was, for 
 that reason, in a fair way of becoming afraid of Helen. 
 Proud of the girl's beauty, her mind meant for her mother 
 dangerous things. While, outwardly, they lived together 
 amicably enough, inwardly there was generated between 
 the generations that embryo of tragedy easily quickened 
 in societies where Convention is exalted beyond its truth ; 
 aye, though the bases of such societies be large enough to 
 forgive the frantic lunacies of genius or broad enough to 
 measure the awful height of stars. Nevertheless, I can 
 sympathize with Mrs. Darell, who honestly meant well, 
 according to her lights. 
 
 Had Helen's intellectual powers developed earlier she 
 would, in all probability, have turned to a profession 
 as it was, she had scarcely ever considered any other 
 save that of matrimony. It was not that she was in- 
 dolent, but that her whole nature was still largely in 
 a state of abeyance ; and she had tacitly accepted the con- 
 vention of her mother and her class as regards a finan- 
 cially advantageous marriage. Of late the necessity for 
 such had been unpleasantly emphasized with tradesmen's 
 bills. 
 
 Her beauty was of a type that arouses antagonism 
 in feminine human nature by excitements wherein is 
 involved woman's recognition of a potential menace to 
 her own position in the hearts of her men folk. What- 
 ever may be said of woman's irrationality in her relations 
 with man, her instincts are seldom at fault in dealing with 
 her own sex in such matters; and her inherent maternity 
 which makes her, in one sense, view all men as her chil- 
 dren recognizes for such offspring, in the woman of 
 commanding beauty, a probable snare and a pitfall by 
 which the male child is taken captive to his own undoing. 
 
 When, therefore, Miss Phoebe Price, assisted by her 
 sister, had got the much desired James away from the 
 fair vendors of pincushions, photo frames, table centers,
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 99 
 
 etc., who were surrounding him, and she saw Helen 
 Darell arrive at the next stall to her own, and the lady 
 who had been superintending thereat depart after a few 
 words with the newcomer, Miss Price was conscious of 
 a very grave danger. As she watched Helen remove her 
 furs the enemy's beauty leapt to Miss Price's eyes like 
 a threatening thing; and she promptly detested her, who- 
 ever she was, with a hatred qualified only by the afore- 
 mentioned sense of maternal solicitude and fear. 
 
 "I'm sure James will like this one, Sybil!" she said 
 to his sister, as she held out a silver cigarette case to her 
 customer; who was hesitating, bewildered in the choice 
 of a purchase by the numbers of useful and useless articles 
 spread before him. He appeared, as in truth he was, 
 indifferent to bazaars and all their works, but he had no 
 doubt that the thing was got up in a good cause, and 
 spent his money virtuously. 
 
 His eyes wandered to the next stall, where Helen 
 stood watching him with her own dark ones, that light- 
 ened with something like a sympathetic smile as she 
 calmly returned his stare. The splendid lines of her 
 figure, set off to perfection by her close-fitting costume, 
 her shapely head with its wreath of shining black hair 
 above her clear, pale face, her beautiful hands, made 
 up a picture that most men would look twice at, and 
 James Burkett looked twice ; and then let Miss Price sell 
 him the cigarette case the third that afternoon and 
 looked again. 
 
 She was, by now, arranging a pair of worked slip- 
 pers, on which glowed roses red and roses white. He 
 watched her hands, and, somehow, they contrived to give 
 him the impression that they were strewing the flowers 
 about imaginary feet; and he felt a strangely romantic 
 desire to fill the slippers with his own. Miss Price was 
 forgotten, and that unfortunate young woman turned 
 away to hide her mortification and despair, feeling that 
 she could gladly, in the interests of morality, have 
 chopped off the offending hands with an axe. 
 
 Helen knew who he was by sight her mother hav-
 
 ioo "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 ing, some time before, pointed him out as one of the 
 most sought after among the marriageable young men of 
 his class. He was certainly a fine figure of young and 
 healthy manhood. Her woman's intuition had divined 
 the state of the other girl's feelings toward her, and 
 the righteous indignation so often mistaken for vindic- 
 tiveness which breathed in Miss Price's whole attitude 
 aroused Helen from her usual indifference: she was not 
 without her own share of habitual sex. 
 
 When she found him by her side, scanning the slip- 
 pers she had been handling, her gratification was consid- 
 erably greater than her surprise. He picked them up, 
 and stood looking at them vaguely. 
 
 She smiled slightly they would be too small for 
 him, she thought, she said aloud. James had a large 
 size in feet, and she could not resist the opportunity of 
 seeing whether his vanity was to be wounded in that di- 
 rection. It was not: but he replaced them doubtfully, 
 and picked up some others entirely lacking in romantic 
 suggestion. Her hands wandered to the discarded pair 
 again. 
 
 He didn't know? he thought the other pair were 
 large enough. They stretched out a bit, he thought? 
 
 Her hands did, again with a faint motion over the 
 roses, and held them out to him. 
 
 He took them from her, and said he would chance it; 
 and she placed them on one side, and held out a silver 
 cigarette case with a tentative gesture, gently brushing 
 it open. 
 
 He took it almost eagerly, and she turned and glanced 
 serenely at the wretched Miss Price receiving in ex- 
 change a look of primeval significance from that young 
 lady. 
 
 He lingered still; and again the beautiful hands re- 
 sumed their deadly work; this time moving lovingly 
 among an array of dark red roses "buttonholes." He 
 had already a yellow rose in his coat; she held out a red 
 one. He placed it beside the other, and, after a show 
 of criticism, discarded the yellow hoping her hands
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 101 
 
 would fasten the usurper. They did with just a sus- 
 picion of hesitation. She was a tall girl, and her eyes 
 were close to his. He would have liked them to have 
 been warmer and, with a woman's preternatural cun- 
 ning, she knew it. For a fraction of a second they be- 
 came so; then she was busy with his coat again. 
 
 As he raised his hat he was wondering if it had been 
 imagination or merely a reflection of something he felt 
 in his own eyes. 
 
 He was gone at last: and she swept the yellow rose, 
 as if unaware of it, behind the stall. Afterward she stood 
 upon it, crushing it with her heel, calmly and methodi- 
 cally. She was really laboring under a suppressed ex- 
 citement which made an act of vandalism a curious re- 
 lief. There had been a bit of a scene between her and 
 her mother that morning over some wretched bills. Be- 
 hind the dark eyes her mind was busy at first in intro- 
 spection analyzing certain feelings to which she had 
 previously been a stranger. She was not a coquette, and 
 the sense of power over other human beings, male and 
 female, had suddenly become more interesting than here- 
 tofore. Then her thoughts reverted to her late cus- 
 tomer. She might do worse ! He was largely an ani- 
 mal, but most men were that. She had no grievance 
 against Mother Nature for not selecting the vegetable 
 kingdom for humanity. That her own beautiful body 
 could captivate him was in itself a thing that appealed 
 more to her intellect as a curious phenomenon of hu- 
 man emotions than to her vanity. He was, at least, a 
 fine animal, and much desired by other women. When 
 she realized that the latter circumstance had a greater 
 influence with her than could have been the case for- 
 merly, she interpreted the sign aright as the forerunner 
 of that spirit of mischief, latent in every woman, whose 
 raison d'etre is somewhere in her own sex. She rather 
 welcomed it than otherwise, and smiled slightly at 
 her own thoughts, apparently unconscious of an angry 
 woman at the next stall. She had picked up the offend- 
 ing slippers meditatively (he had left instructions for
 
 102 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 them to be sent on with other purchases of his people's), 
 and, casually raising her eyes to those of the other girl 
 whom a whirlwind of hate had stripped of her gen- 
 tility her black eyes flickered a challenge to the blue 
 ones of Miss Price. As she grew wanton, so the 
 more she felt for her harassed mother; and mocked 
 her own hypocrisy from the creed of daughters duti- 
 ful. 
 
 "Mr. Burkett is greatly interested in bazaar work, is 
 he not?" she said. 
 
 Mr. Burkett's sister whose services had in the mean- 
 time been requisitioned by an admirer in another part 
 of the building returned in time to prevent what might 
 have been a most unladylike exhibition on the part of the 
 young lady addressed. 
 
 The cause of contention left the schoolroom in which 
 the bazaar was held; and went home wondering who she 
 was. He did not know her name, nor did he remember 
 having seen her before. He couldn't have seen her be- 
 fore he would have remembered her otherwise for a 
 certainty. 
 
 Afterward he inquired of his sister who she was. 
 
 "The girl with the white face and horrid eyes? who 
 had a stall beside Phoebe's? Helen Darell! Phoebe 
 told me she was making eyes at you in the most shame- 
 less way. I wonder how men can be so blind as not to 
 see through a girl like that. Any woman would." 
 
 "What the devil are you talking about?" 
 
 "Well, if you admire her eyes, she's up to them in 
 debt or her mother is!" 
 
 Inwardly he cursed Phoebe for a spiteful little cat. 
 
 Miss Price had sealed her own fate, as Helen knew 
 she would the prescience of women in these matters 
 being a dreadful thing. 
 
 James decided that he wanted to marry Helen Darell. 
 The opposition that he would meet with was fore- 
 shadowed by his sister's description of, and attitude 
 toward, that young lady. He did not mention her again 
 at "Downlands," but watched for an opportunity to re-
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 103 
 
 new his acquaintance with the horrid-eyed one: in which 
 laudable endeavor, of which she was perfectly well aware, 
 Helen, after a night of unusual tribulation and unrest, 
 determined that it would not be her fault if he failed to 
 succeed.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 JAMES BURKETT FALLS IN LOVE AGAIN 
 
 IT was not very long before opportune circumstance 
 facilitated matters. On his return from Sandown Park 
 one evening, a few days after the bazaar, walking up the 
 hill from the station, he overtook the dark divinity of his 
 latter nights and days. 
 
 "How d'you do, Miss Darell!" 
 
 "Oh good evening, Mr. Burkett!" 
 
 She walked faster, impelled thereto by his own stride. 
 Duty in a daughter. Duty in a wife. The sooner she 
 trained herself in the discipline of ready obedience the 
 better. 
 
 "What do you think of the results of your bazaar? 
 satisfactory?" 
 
 "Oh, yes! I hope you found at least some of your 
 purchases equally so?" She turned to him, smiling. 
 
 "Ah! The slippers! Yes, rather! Just the thing. 
 Not too small a bit! I wear 'em every night!" 
 
 Proximity to her worked in him riotously. He could 
 not think of her calmly. She was too deep for him. For 
 him the only way with such women was to carry them off 
 their feet, somehow. 
 
 She noticed the race-glasses he was swinging. 
 
 "I love racing! I hope you had a good day. San- 
 down, wasn't it?" 
 
 "You do? I didn't know you were fond of it, Miss 
 Darell." The fates were extraordinarily propitious : his 
 luck was in. He went on, "Yes. Backed a few winners." 
 
 "Bravo! Oh, rather! My father was very keen on 
 it." Then she broke out, "To see a good horse, giving 
 104
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 105 
 
 weight away all round, squander his field, or, better still ! 
 two good ones fight it out from below the distance, I 
 would sell my soul 1" Her voice rose laughing on the 
 note of exaggeration. 
 
 Her enthusiasm infected him with a more than glad- 
 ness. 
 
 Most women, when they have said a bitter thing, 
 like to listen inwardly a moment after having said it. 
 Indeed, it may be they speak other than secret bitterness, 
 at times, to provide a thrill for that exacting audience of 
 their own soul. 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 "Oh, yes!" Then she added as an afterthought: 
 "We have quite a collection of old prints of his at home 
 some of them quite good, I believe." 
 
 James became very interested in the late Mr. Darell's 
 collection of sporting subjects, and said so. 
 
 "You must pay us the compliment of an inspection 
 some day." 
 
 "I should like to," he replied. "I've succeeded in 
 getting together a moderate assortment myself. Women 
 don't take much interest in that sort of thing as a rule." 
 
 "I'm afraid I am perhaps lacking in the more femi- 
 nine accomplishments !" 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 She laughed. "Oh well, somehow the average 
 range of a woman's interests and outlook on life doesn't 
 greatly appeal to me. Convention can be carried too far, 
 don't you think, Mr. Burkett? I should scarcely like to 
 obliterate my own individuality at the dictates of a code, 
 shall we say?" Her inward ear was listening now with a 
 vengeance. 
 
 She knew him by report and intuition sufficiently well 
 to know that the most assertive phase of his individuality 
 would agree with her remark. For a little pitiful mo- 
 ment shame in her flickered up and went out, while she 
 was finding excuses in healthy animalism. There was 
 neither passion nor desire in her for this man. 
 
 "I should say not! Miss Darell. Rather not!"
 
 io6 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 Then, he added: "I say, I should like to call. May I?" 
 
 Her mother's face fretted over papers and figures. 
 With the recent failure of a brewery company Mrs. 
 Darell's income had fallen by something like a third. 
 
 She hesitated a moment. "Yes, if you would really 
 care to. We live at 'Cloudeshill,' in Glastonbury Road." 
 
 "Thanks, I will! To tea? One day next week." 
 
 "Tuesday, then." 
 
 "Right OP 
 
 He walked with her to the corner of the Glastonbury 
 Road; and they stood talking for a few minutes longer on 
 indifferent matters. It was with evident reluctance that 
 he said good-bye. 
 
 Helen was a smashing fine girl, by Gad! Quality 
 and breeding in every inch of her! None of the usual 
 bread-and-butter miss about her! Damn it! he would 
 go in and win her! Somehow he thought he could. As 
 he walked home he drew a vivid picture of her at the 
 head of her field with hounds running strongly. She 
 had mentioned that they were Rutland people; and that 
 the death of her father had caused Mrs. Darell to leave 
 the Shires. They had only been living in Wimbledon for 
 about six months. 
 
 Arrived at his own home he let himself in, and spent 
 the rest of the evening in his den dreaming about her 
 with a necessary adjournment for dinner. In the inter- 
 vals of examining certain memoranda inscribed on his 
 race-card, his eyes wandered thoughtfully to his slippered 
 feet resting on the rail of the fender. He had had a 
 good day; and yet his mind was not at ease. He was in 
 love with Miss Darell Helen he called her and she in- 
 spired him with a peculiar restlessness unlike any he had 
 previously experienced toward women. They were poor, 
 he surmised from one or two things she had said, and 
 the guv'nor might cut up nasty. She was a lady, any- 
 how that was something. 
 
 The warmth of the fire, after being out in the cold 
 air all the afternoon, presently began to have a soothing 
 effect, and, under the combined influences of tobacco and
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 107 
 
 physical comfort, James gave himself up to ardent and 
 more pleasantly hopeful reveries. I know of no more 
 glorious dreams for one of his years, if the world be 
 made aright, as who can doubt that it is, under their 
 influence. Sexlessness may have its moments of high ex- 
 altation, may even forget a sadness in the blood, its usual 
 concomitant. Perhaps the world is made awrong. If so, 
 James Burkett would never have guessed it by asexual 
 methods. 
 
 The following Tuesday he left the city early, and 
 reached "Cloudeshill" about four o'clock. Mrs. Darell 
 received him cordially, without any undue effusiveness. 
 Physically, she had been a smaller and plainer edition of 
 Helen in her youth; and, without any pronounced desire 
 to again enter the marriage-state, was chiefly ambitious 
 regarding her daughter's future. She knew the Burketts 
 were wealthy, and if as the daughter of a brewer she 
 felt herself superior to "tradespeople," she had a catho- 
 lic belief in the refining influence of Money. James was 
 an only son a match between him and her girl would 
 not be undesirable. 
 
 "My daughter is not in the habit of springing 
 strangers upon me, Mr. Burkett we are very quiet peo- 
 ple I hope we shall be able to entertain you! Helen 
 mentioned that you were interested in the old prints. She 
 is upstairs looking out several my husband collected in 
 his lifetime, poor man!" Here Mrs. Darell paused and 
 became lost in the past for a moment. 
 
 The late Mr. Darell, one day when out with the Cot- 
 tesmore, had crossed the boundaries into the Quorn coun- 
 try and into what men call Eternity at the same time his 
 horse falling on him at an oxer. It did not break his 
 wife's heart, but it broke her nerve to a very great ex- 
 tent. 
 
 James suitably expressed his sympathy with her at 
 the untimely end of the unfortunate huntsman. 
 
 "Yes, it was a great shock to me, Mr. Burkett!" Her 
 eyes wandered to a picture of a tall man on a bright bay 
 hunter. "I could not bear the sight of a horse for a long
 
 io8 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 time afterward; and Helen, who is my only child, gave 
 up her greatest pleasure for my sake. She was such a 
 fearless girl herself that I should have been in an agony 
 every time she was out ! She had had one or two spills 
 before Mr. Darell's dreadful accident. We went abroad 
 for years, and then we decided upon this place. It is 
 quiet and healthy, I believe?" 
 
 James believed that the health-giving properties of 
 Wimbledon were quite remarkable, and accompanied his 
 hostess to the picture. 
 
 "Carfax the horse that killed him," she said, by 
 way of explanation. "I suppose I shall have to waive my 
 objections to her riding any more. The temptations for 
 a gallop across the common are, I know, great ones for 
 her, though she has never said so." Mrs. Darell sighed 
 again. 
 
 "In that case I shall be delighted if you will let me 
 find a mount for her, Mrs. Darell. I think you may rely 
 upon my judgment," said James. Oh, to be beside her in 
 the open, with the wind all about them both ! 
 
 "It is awfully kind of you, Mr. Burkett! I am so 
 afraid that if left to herself she will take risks. The last 
 horse she rode had been turned out of training, and was 
 really not fit for a girl ! I know she had one or two very 
 narrow escapes." 
 
 Here the subject of their remarks entered the room 
 with a large parcel of prints. 
 
 "There! Mr. Burkett" (the usual salutations over), 
 "I think you will find several among these that will in- 
 terest you," she said, smiling. 
 
 "Mr. Burkett has just been kind enough to ask me 
 to let him find a horse for you some day, dear. 
 I was telling him about your temptations in that di- 
 rection, and that, though you had never expressed 
 your longings openly, I feared the sight of the gallops 
 on the common must prove too strong for you sooner or 
 later!" 
 
 Helen laughed, and, after thanking James, she said: 
 "Well, mother, I will not deny that I have been tempted,
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 109 
 
 but" turning to him "I am strong," she added. "Re- 
 tro me, Sat anas!" 
 
 James took it as a compliment: though he protested 
 against any analogy between himself and the Prince of 
 Darkness ; and the two went through the pictures together 
 close together; Mrs. Darell, from her chair by the 
 fire, interpolating a variety of remarks respecting the col- 
 lection. 
 
 Helen was looking perfect, he thought, as her dark 
 head bent in examination of dates and signatures from 
 time to time. As she stood up near to the light, to de- 
 cipher something on a print representing Fisherman win- 
 ning one of his innumerable races, his eyes clearly showed 
 his admiration, and her own, raised for a moment, seemed 
 to him to glow with a dusky purple splendor as the light 
 fell into their black depths. 
 
 Mrs. Darell saw the impression her daughter had 
 made. "I hope you will not think Helen unwomanly or 
 mannish, Mr. Burkett. Her father spoilt her somewhat, 
 I'm afraid! Her only doll that I can remember was her 
 Sheltie." 
 
 Mr. Burkett, who had just been thinking her the per- 
 fection of womanhood, awoke from his dreams. "Good 
 Lord, no! Mrs. Darell," he said, laughing. 
 
 Tea arrived; and the beautiful hands, that had al- 
 ready cast a snare about his feet, rapidly began to ex- 
 tend their sphere of operations about the rest of James 
 Burkett, until that young man was reduced to a state of 
 eager captivity. As a hostess she would be as perfect as 
 she would be as Diana! This was the woman for 
 him! 
 
 Mrs. DarelL had left the room, and the two were 
 alone together. The mysterious Unseen those influ- 
 ences that chafe under the restraint of a third human pres- 
 ence leapt into freedom about them. 
 
 "What a jolly little room!" said James, casting ap- 
 preciative glances about him as he spoke from the thick 
 Persian rug at his feet, to where a couple of masks
 
 i io "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 grinned beside a picture of Pocahontas, hanging above 
 a cabinet containing some old Worcester. 
 
 "The place is small, but quite large enough for us," 
 she replied. "We know so few people in Wimbledon: 
 I hope you will take pity on two lonely women, some- 
 times!" ' 
 
 James discovered a hitherto unsuspected capacity for 
 that quality inherent in his breast. "Whenever you will 
 have me, Miss Darell." Then, he added: "We have at 
 least one taste in common. If you would like an after- 
 noon's racing occasionally, perhaps Mrs. Darell would 
 let me take you even if she wouldn't care to come her- 
 self?" 
 
 "Mother hardly ever goes out in the winter her 
 chest is weak but / should like it immensely. It's aw- 
 fully kind of you." 
 
 James forgot to express his regret for the weak spot 
 in Mrs. Darell's health. "Don't mention it! I'd like to 
 take you !" he answered, with a spontaneity pregnant with 
 symptoms of another disorder. 
 
 The beautiful hands discovered an objectionable in- 
 clination to despondency in the fire, and reached down 
 for the tongs. He hastened to assist her; under his en- 
 ergetic treatment the flames leapt into being, and the 
 firelight flickered snake-like among the coils of her dark 
 hair, as she sat bending forward in her low chair, looking 
 into the blaze. 
 
 "A penny for them !" he said playfully. 
 
 "Eh?" She looked up at him, and answered with a 
 little shrug. 
 
 "Aren't you happy?" 
 
 "Why?" Don't I look happy?" 
 
 "You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. 
 Forgive me saying it. It's real admiration, not a mere 
 compliment!" 
 
 She flushed very slightly. "Am I?" Her eyes went 
 back to the leaping flames and watched them thought- 
 fully. Before he could amplify his last sentence she re- 
 sumed: "Do you know, it's strange to me, since men
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" in 
 
 profess to admire beauty so much, how ugly they have 
 managed to make so much of life" 
 
 "You mean er business, making money, and all 
 that sort of thing? Yes." He was feeling on rather un- 
 certain ground. 
 
 "Oh, for more of the joy of beauty in the world!" 
 She sat up suddenly: her eyes grown more wonderful 
 than ever, and full of a vivid, swift tenderness and long- 
 ing. 
 
 It was only a fancy, he supposed, but there was a 
 hint in them of something similar to something he had 
 once seen in those of Margaret Yeomans. Whatever it 
 was, it affected him to silence; while he began to envy 
 artist- Johnnies, poets, fiddlers, all the rest of that half- 
 baked, effeminate crowd, as he considered them. 
 
 "More of what Turner saw in the world, O God, 
 we beseech Thee !" She was smiling at herself through 
 her smile at him. She must have bitten her tongue, 
 had she said, "Titian" to this man. "You like 
 Turner?" 
 
 "I could love him if you do!" 
 
 "Could you?" The fire held her again. "At least 
 we have glorious sunsets on the common, at times, in 
 Wimbledon. I saw one, last November, from a hollow 
 over there in the woods near Caesar's Well that might 
 have made even me into an artist. I wish I could paint." 
 She sighed. 
 
 "I should have thought you could do anything!" 
 
 "No. I tried ... but it was not Art" 
 
 He was glad. He thought art was all right, but 
 rather rot. He did not tell her so, naturally. Also, he 
 was glad she did not seek to sound him on the matter. 
 He liked a good concert. He went to the Academy, in 
 the season, with his sister; and looked at the other women 
 chiefly. Of poetry he had dismal recollections, and a 
 healthy horror of hexameters and all the rest of it. But 
 he was still young, he remembered, with satisfaction and 
 a new belief in his aesthetic possibilities. 
 
 She had lapsed into her dreams again.
 
 ii2 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 There was something about her quite different from 
 the other girls of his acquaintance, thought James. 
 
 The return of Mrs. Darell put an end to more 
 personal topics, and the conversation became gen- 
 eral. 
 
 As he said good-bye he promised to call the follow- 
 ing week in answer to a suggestion to that effect on 
 the part of his hostess. "It is rather dull for Helen, I'm 
 afraid, sometimes," said Mrs. Darell. 
 
 It would not be his fault if that young lady suffered 
 from the tedium of existence whenever he could relieve 
 it, James Burkett told himself as he went home. 
 
 "I like him," said Mrs. Darell, and, after a mo- 
 ment's pause: "He is not clever, but I should say he has 
 good points." 
 
 "He is mostly animal, of course," said Helen reflec- 
 tively. 
 
 "My dear child, all men are like that, more or less ! 
 At least he is a healthy one ! Your beauty has evidently 
 made a decided impression upon him." 
 
 "My beauty! Yes!" The usually level tones of her 
 voice vibrated slightly. "He looks upon me as a de- 
 sirable acquisition a suitable figure-head for the time 
 when he will want a household of his own!" 
 
 "Well, Helen, I am sure there is no need to complain 
 because you are beautiful ! You are beautiful, my dear 
 very! I watched you as you were standing under the 
 light. He was watching you too, and there was admira- 
 tion in every line of his face!" 
 
 "If I had been standing naked in a slave market there 
 would have been more, and, no doubt, he would have bid 
 for me with spirit against the other males," she said, her 
 voice calm and dispassionate again. 
 
 "Really, Helen, I think you are a little illogical and 
 unreasonable," said her mother plaintively. 
 
 "My dear mother, all women are like that, more or 
 less!" ' 
 
 Mrs. Darell smiled the retort was a fair one. 
 "Well, dear, I am only anxious for your future happi-
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 113 
 
 ness, as you know. And, since he died, our circumstances 
 have been getting worse and worse." 
 
 "Yes, mother, I suppose you are. I will marry him 
 if he asks me," she said suddenly. She spoke without 
 enthusiasm. "His people will probably object to it." 
 
 "The man is a bit of a snob, of the usual wealthy 
 tradesman type, apparently, from what I have heard. 
 His wife seems to be rather an innocuous sort of per- 
 son, from all I have been able to glean about her. Her 
 bonnets are rather awful I walked behind her the other 
 day, down the hill." 
 
 Helen laughed. "Dear old mater! already carry- 
 ing war into the camp of the Philistines !" 
 
 Mrs. Darell smiled deprecatingly. "Well, Helen, 
 I'm sure I thought you looked upon him as a possible 
 husband!" 
 
 "Did I, mother? Yes, I believe I did and do." 
 
 Her mother left her, and Helen sat on, gazing into 
 the fire dreaming the dreams that so many of her sex 
 have dreamed, in all probability, since the heterogeneous 
 units of mankind evolved the common idea of a certain 
 amount of individual freedom for their women, and that 
 sex's right to be considered apart, and distinct, from the 
 older conceptions of Property itself. 
 
 Did she love James Burkett? She did not. She would 
 sell herself to him sell her beautiful body and her soul 
 to him in return for a house and servants, and all the ma- 
 terial things she undoubtedly desired. She was too wise 
 to be under any delusion as to the true nature of what 
 she was preparing to achieve. 
 
 She had had many lovers mostly among hunting 
 men, though an artist in Paris and a composer in Vienna 
 had flung themselves at her feet. The artist had noth- 
 ing but his art; and the musical gentleman had a mistress 
 of Hungarian extraction and poignard proclivities, who, 
 upon discovering his worship of the English Miss, had 
 frightened away the faithless Herr with the poignard, and 
 enlightened Miss herself with proofs of his many amours 
 and dreadful drinking habits.
 
 ii 4 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 She had had several honorable proposals, and one 
 or two of the other kind. From one cause or another the 
 former had been unsatisfactory. The latter were from 
 married men, and included a certain noble lord: she 
 laughed at them with as much good-natured indifference 
 as contempt. She had an idea that very few husbands 
 were faithful but that it was the nature of the beast; 
 and, instead of feeling a spite against Nature, she was 
 wise enough to realize the futility of ignoring the stu- 
 pendous forces which that old lady was in the habit of 
 letting loose in all directions, with an utter indifference 
 to mortal susceptibilities forces which were, after all, 
 woman's chief weapon as they were her worst enemy. 
 In her philosophy, sex, once established, had better rea- 
 sons for itself, in existence, than in efforts to argue itself 
 out of it. 
 
 Taken all round, James Burkett was probably the 
 most eligible parti, from a financial point of view, that 
 Fortune had so far presented to her. She had never de- 
 ceived herself with the idea that she had ever fallen in 
 love with any of them. She reviewed the situation calmly 
 sitting there in the xhair he had recently filled. Yes, 
 he was mostly an animal, but a young one and they were 
 more easily trained when caught young and healthy, and 
 apparently without much vice in him. He would be 
 wealthy, and, possibly, a faithful husband once his af- 
 fections were legally protected from the attacks of other 
 women. 
 
 She was a "new" woman who would have laughed at 
 the idea of the male half of humanity being ruled by 
 feminine intellect. Her own splendid body was more 
 potent than a hundred intellects. She would have given 
 the latter opinion as dispassionately as she would have 
 admitted the limited tenure of such power. Also, she 
 was wise enough to realize the nature of the truth that 
 is in the axiom "A plain face is a great aid to Virtue," 
 without being unduly elated at the circumstance of her 
 own beauty. The possibilities for evil in her were very 
 considerable; the possibilities for good would be largely
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 115 
 
 hampered by certain peculiarities of her temperament, 
 and might never be developed into actualities unless the 
 inducing factor was such as would reconcile her whole 
 being. 
 
 This, then, was the woman whose existence un- 
 known to him a week or two before had now become a 
 thing which entered largely into James Burkett's own. 
 
 The next Tuesday found him again at "Cloudeshill." 
 On the Saturday week following he was chosen to play 
 in a county match on the ground at Wimbledon. Helen 
 was interested : fortune gave him another chance to shine 
 in the realms of the physical. 
 
 Her mother's nerves excused her from accompanying 
 her daughter. In the grandstand, with James for her 
 only companion (he had "changed" at his house to 
 be with her as much as possible), the two chatted 
 together while they awaited the appearance of the com- 
 batants. 
 
 The green of winter grass under gray and silver 
 skies : the west wind that poured into the ground, and 
 flushed her cheeks, and filled her lungs full with sweet 
 strong life, and moved the great elms about, and brushed 
 to quivering curves the broad black poplars' hair: these 
 things had their due effect upon her; and when James, in 
 his red and white jersey and clean white knickers, took 
 the field for the fray, he had more things on his side 
 than he had any idea of. 
 
 It was a hard game: ten minutes from the finish 
 neither side had scored. Burkett had borne himself well 
 through the struggle. Inspired to great efforts, he was 
 repeatedly prominent; and yet the one crowning triumph 
 had been denied him. She had had her tender and some- 
 thing very like tumultuous moments in the grandstand. 
 
 Then, right below her where she sat in her corner, 
 from a line out on his opponents' "twenty-five," James, 
 a fast man for a forward, jumped for the ball. Flinging 
 off two three-quarters in quick succession, he staggered 
 away from the fullback's unsuccessful tackle, steadied 
 himself with a wrench, and raced round to score right
 
 n6 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 behind the posts, even while two pursuers flung themselves 
 vainly upon him. 
 
 There was much enthusiasm and applause from the 
 crowd; and Helen clapped her, by now, something-very- 
 like-a-hero as heartily as any there. She felt quite happy 
 in him when, a minute after, he converted the try him- 
 self. There was no further score. 
 
 James had won the game for his side. She was quite 
 proud of him as they walked back from the ground to- 
 gether; he with the stains of conflict still upon him, she 
 with a wild medley of striving winds and men still work- 
 ing in her blood. 
 
 A visit to Kempton Park followed; and the two began 
 to reach those grounds of intimacy where the ordinary 
 amenities of friendly acquaintance may be said to cross 
 the frontiers into warmer realms. 
 
 During this time he had seen Margaret frequently. 
 As I have said, it went on for a month. Soon compari- 
 son was as inevitable as relentless. A being half Cleo- 
 patra, half Diana (he put the mortal half first) held 
 his thoughts; his arms held "a poor little filly." But 
 what the devil was he to do? 
 
 A week or so later, as he said good-night to Helen 
 by herself in the hall at "Cloudeshill" Mrs. Darell hav- 
 ing remained at the fire the girl said: "By the way, 
 you cut me the other night!" 
 
 "O h? I'm sorry, Helen! I didn't see you I" Her 
 name had slipped out, and she, only, noticed it. "Where 
 was it?" 
 
 "Near the station. You were talking to a lady." 
 
 Her hesitation before the last word was significant 
 to him; as was his pause before his next remark to 
 her. 
 
 "Oh er yes, I remember. A girl I was acquainted 
 with in the country somewhere, where I stopped once." 
 
 Her next remark was an irrelevant one. 
 
 He said good-night; and his suppressed ejaculation 
 found an expletive outlet. It was Margaret, of course. 
 He had met the girl there, by chance, the other evening.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 117 
 
 He must be more careful in the future. Women were 
 jealous as the very devil! Rotten luck! 
 
 Wherefore the shadow fell between him and his Mar- 
 garet, darker than the darkest of the nights that had hid- 
 den them under the aegis of its sable shade the shadow 
 of the Other Woman. 
 
 It was her own fault she ought to have been 
 stronger, and gone away once she had seen him again, 
 Margaret told herself. 
 
 The Other Woman had seen them standing talking 
 together one night in the Hill road, and James had ex- 
 plained it away; which meant lies lies about himself 
 and everything; and she felt his child within her at the 
 thought. 
 
 His sudden disclosure had thrown her off her guard, 
 and it was not Margaret Yeomans but primordial 
 Woman that wrenched herself from his arms, when he 
 had finished speaking, and stood trembling in the dark- 
 ness, blind with hate and misery, and hopeless, intoler- 
 able longing to keep her mate. 
 
 Slowly her brave, forgiving soul crept back into its 
 disordered kingdom. She grew quiet with the resigna- 
 tion of hopelessness ; and her efforts to save the situation, 
 as she had previously determined, calmed her. 
 
 His fancied coolness toward her, in the light of his 
 admissions, became an established fact. Presently he 
 would grow cold to her; and she would find no favor in 
 his eyes. The situation called for prompt action on her 
 part, and a dissimulation which would spare his feelings 
 and her own. 
 
 The Other Woman was a lady, and very beautiful. 
 That much she had, with the uncanny methods of her sex 
 in such things, extracted from the uncommunicative 
 James; also, that he wanted to marry the very beautiful 
 one, of course, she knew this without asking and 
 equally, of course, the very beautiful one wanted to marry 
 James. She had no doubt about these things; but she 
 could not resist expressing a doubt about the beauty of 
 the other, directly she had elicited the fact that she
 
 ii8 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 was dark, which gave her the opportunity to remind him 
 that she thought he preferred fair women at least, he 
 had always told her so. Also she had heard that dark 
 girls were treacherous and scheming, and "plotters." 
 
 She was only voicing what she certainly believed to be 
 a well-authenticated characteristic of dark girls a belief 
 that seems to be almost as general among fair women as 
 its converse is, apparently, among dark. 
 
 Although she hated her rival with the hatred of the 
 displaced in the affections of the male, her love was 
 greater than her hate. She hoped they would be very 
 happy, and told him so ; what time she wondered at her 
 own self-control, and if girls' hearts really did break in 
 real life. 
 
 To which James had answered, tentatively, that he 
 wasn't sure there was anything in it, and her hypothesis 
 respecting his relations with the Other Woman passed out 
 of the region of controversial things. 
 
 "I'll look out for you to-morrow evening at the usual 
 time, dear," he said, as they kissed each other good-night 
 in the friendly shadows of a wood near the road. He 
 had no desire to give up Margaret until he was definitely 
 bound to another. No doubt her present tantrums would 
 blow over. She was a very sweet-tempered girl generally. 
 
 She kissed him again passionately. "Good-night, Jim, 
 dear!" 
 
 They had reached the road, and, half whispering 
 "Good-bye," she hurried off the distant lamps leaping 
 before her eyes across a flood of burning tears. 
 
 So they parted: the unborn life which they had evoked 
 out of the mysterious mingling of sexual springs, which 
 should have been a tie to draw them closer together, was 
 to divide them ; the woman taking up her burden to pass 
 out of his life in a silence for his sake stronger than her 
 tears ; the man unknowing, unheeding, thinking chiefly of 
 the Other Woman as he went home to his dinner, and 
 as to how he could best solve the problem that the two 
 represented.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 119 
 
 He could have cursed himself for a fool for what he 
 did, away there in Midford Holt, but that his blood still 
 found a strong delight in her loving caresses, in hours of 
 a suitable environment, of course. He was fond of Mar- 
 garet, Helen or no Helen that was the devil of it. At 
 the back of his nature he knew himself polygamous. The 
 woman awakened in Margaret was a passionate one, and 
 her swift desire that he should enjoy her to the top of his 
 bent was purified by the spontaneous giving of a sweet 
 and generous womanhood. 
 
 Nevertheless, she had to be told how things were 
 going. Hence his reasons for enlightening her: I have 
 described with what result. 
 
 He waited for her the following night, but Margaret 
 did not come, nor did she the next, nor the next after 
 that, and, though he looked for her night after night, he 
 saw her no more. At first he was angry alarmed un- 
 comfortable sorry; then, as he realized that if she had 
 broken with him for good, in a fit of jealousy, it would 
 save him unpleasantness, he felt a sense of relief. After 
 all, it would have had to come to that sooner or later. He 
 wrote a note to the address she had told him of, but no 
 answer came. 
 
 In a few weeks the girl had become a memory of 
 passionate hours to him and little else. He devoted all 
 his time to Helen Darell, and, by a curious psychic process 
 of his own, felt an access of virtue in that he was faithful 
 to his new love his mistress having forsaken him. 
 
 For of such is the kingdom of Love with the James 
 Burketts of the world.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 WHITE CHRYSANTHEMUMS 
 
 As for Margaret timid, shy, with the bashfulness 
 of rustic girlhood among strangers she had become, in 
 a few weeks, a woman, fearful with the greatest fear of 
 woman in her heart, yet fearlessly facing the inevitable. 
 
 A few pounds all she had between her and starvation; 
 alone in a city whose name in her maidenhood had been 
 synonymous with Sin itself; she had made her great re- 
 nunciation. 
 
 She had written every week to her aunt, walking to 
 such places as Putney and Clapham and Tooting to post 
 the letters. She knew her aunt too well to suppose that 
 because of the shame she had brought upon them both 
 that good woman would prefer to remain in ignorance 
 of her niece's wellbeing. To disappear entirely from 
 Aunt Deb's ken would be to heap further misery on one 
 who had been as a mother to her. She told her aunt that 
 she would not return to Stoke Midford. 
 
 Aunt Deb, for the girl's sake, had given out the ex- 
 cuse which Margaret had suggested as a reason for her 
 absence. To lend color to it, she had spent her own 
 Christmas Day and Boxing Day in a small hotel-restau- 
 rant at Clapham Junction the most miserable Christmas 
 she ever remembered. She had tired herself out wander- 
 ing about the neighborhood in the forlorn hope of meet- 
 ing with her niece, but in vain; and returned to Stoke Mid- 
 ford but firmer in her already established conviction that 
 only the certainty of a certain "trouble" could keep the 
 girl away like that. She was prepared for the worst, 
 and already in the drafty passages of Clapham Junc- 
 120
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 121 
 
 tion station, in the mean streets of Battersea and Wands- 
 worth and Clapham, in her uncomfortable bedroom, that 
 cheerless Christmastide her imagination had pictured 
 Margaret's return with the inevitable baby (a boy, she 
 hoped, as it was inevitable), a dreadful cough, poor 
 thing ! looking horribly shabby and miserable and ill, and 
 altogether disreputable. 
 
 Also she had imagined herself exorcising, with ad- 
 mirable self-control, the demon of a natural and justi- 
 fiable curiosity; and, suppressing all reproach and scorn, 
 exercising the prerogative of Mercy and Forgiveness 
 assisted by the family Bible and many colored texts on 
 the walls, cunningly arranged so that escape from their 
 benign influence would be impossible. 
 
 Leaving Wimbledon, Margaret migrated to Balham 
 a place she thought would be prolific in the type of 
 household for which her services would be in most re- 
 quest. 
 
 She found herself in a road near the station, whose 
 inhabitants appeared to pursue a variety of trades and 
 occupations. 
 
 A blue paper stuck in the window of one house inti- 
 mated that "New-laid eggs strait from hants 1^4 each" 
 were to be had within. A little further on dwelt one 
 whose message to his age might be considered a modern 
 adaptation of the Fiat lux. On a dirty square of card- 
 board, fastened above his front door on the fanlight, was 
 dimly discernible the legend WINDOWS CLEANED 
 LIKE CRISTAL. The condition of his own had, ap- 
 parently, escaped his notice altogether; a circumstance 
 which betokened his affinity with many reformers in other 
 walks of life. 
 
 A stout elderly lady with a small black bonnet and 
 string bag, pinched, with black gloved fingers, the dis- 
 torted limbs of a number of crucified and disemboweled 
 rabbits arranged in a setting of parsley on a stall in the 
 "front garden" of the next house. The proprietor, in a 
 yellow-and-black-hooped jersey, watched with an air of 
 one in whom patience is a more frequently exercised vir-
 
 122 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 tue than that which is commonly supposed to rank next to 
 godliness. 
 
 A "real" shop followed outside which hung a board 
 displaying the ancient name of Smith, above a livid crim- 
 son hand pointing to various notices in the window be- 
 low, where MONSTERS id struggled with Rutter's 
 Mitcham Shag for recognition, and ices id and 2d were \ 
 vaguely reminiscent of forgotten summer days. Above 
 the door hung another board SHAVING i and i */ 2 ; 
 the artist who ministered to the facial requirements of 
 the neighborhood's male population appealing to a 
 widely diversified clientele from the rough and ready 
 removals of the "Penny shave," to the sybaritic lux- 
 ury suggested by the symbol with the additional frac- 
 tion. 
 
 A few dirty-looking houses, with curtains matching 
 the prevailing dirtiness that was their most noticeable 
 feature; and then a variegated assortment of furniture 
 overflowed into the muddy patch of mold in front of one 
 of them. A rusty chain mattress hung like a net above 
 bedroom crockery, fire-irons, and a battered meat-jack. 
 Beside the heap leaned a fine and large example, in oils, 
 of an unknown school, depicting three dirty and fleshy 
 females, in that entire absence of costume fashionable in 
 the Golden Age, who posed themselves with an obviously 
 affected air of modesty before a similarly attired Paris, 
 holding something between a Blenheim Orange and a 
 mangel. The artist had quite failed to grasp the char- 
 acter of Argive Helen's ravisher, as that individual was, 
 apparently, taking not the slightest interest in the pro- 
 ceedings of the ladies displaying their many charms be- 
 fore him, but was earnestly studying what, at first sight, 
 appeared to be a large fish, but what, upon closer inspec- 
 tion, proved to be a silver cloud. The lot was marked 
 With Frame Dirt cheap, 10/6. 
 
 Margaret stopped a moment, arrested by the, to her, 
 extraordinary and brazen immodesty of the scene; but 
 looking up, suddenly, she encountered the eyes of a 
 bilious-looking man in shirt-sleeves watching her from be-
 
 "THRACIAN SEA 1 " 123 
 
 hind a tower of kitchen chairs, and, blushing, she hur- 
 ried on. 
 
 At last she got clear of the more obtrusive trading 
 portion of the thoroughfare, and looked about for a 
 lodging. It was necessary that she should economize; 
 rooms should be cheap there, she thought. 
 
 In the window of a small but tidier-looking house, 
 with a well-cut privet hedge in front, was a card Bed- 
 room Furnished; and, over the door, a bright green board 
 bore the inscription "Rush. Gardener. Wreaths and 
 Crosses to Order." 
 
 She knocked; and Rush, Gardener, belied the first 
 part of the inscription by answering the door in leisurely 
 fashion, an emblem of his profession, however, in his 
 hand. He was a wiry little man, with honest brown eyes 
 and curly hair. 
 
 "About the bedroom? Yes, miss. The missus is 
 out, but yer can see it for yerself." 
 
 Margaret followed him up the narrow stairs. It 
 was a small room at the back of the house, overlooking 
 a well-kept piece of garden, with a small conservatory 
 and potting-shed. The room was poorly furnished, but 
 very clean. On a little table before the window stood 
 a gallipot filled with fine white chrysanthemums. 
 
 "Fancy o' the missus," he said, standing at the door, 
 and pointing with the trowel he was carrying at the flow- 
 ers. "Our little girl's room 'twas our little Jessie wot 
 the Diptherier took off when she wor five. Died with 
 white chrysanths in er and, poor mite, and missus sez: 
 'Joe, the docter sez when she come there'll be no more. 
 Twill be lonely fer ee, she sez, and me, too, Joe, when 
 ye're out and about orl day!' She died ten year ago last 
 Christmas as was, but the missus as never missed aving 
 them there flowers stuck in er room when they're in. 
 And didn't never mean to neither, but er old father, wot 
 wer in the Mutiny, bein took that hill last week with 
 assmer, she sez : 'Joe, I'm thinkin we'll let Jessie's room, 
 if we can find a nice clean respectable party, and give the 
 rent to father,' she sez. Thought I'd tell yer about the
 
 i2 4 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 flowers, miss, becoz if yer wouldn't mind em, twould be 
 a great relief to er but if yer don't like to ave em, of 
 course that'll be orl rite. We shouldn't like no one to 
 be made mournful-like becoz of em. If yer like the room 
 don't tell missus I mentioned it to yer. The rent, she 
 sez, ud be five bob." 
 
 Margaret instinctively felt she would be safe with 
 Mr. and Mrs. Rush. After sympathizing with him about 
 his lost child, and assuring him that she would have no 
 objection whatever to the flowers, she explained that she 
 was seeking a situation, and might only want the room for 
 a week. If he cared to accept her she was willing to take 
 it at once thereby avoiding certain questions that she 
 knew Mrs. Rush would put to her otherwise. 
 
 Mr. Rush thought he might take it upon himself to 
 let the room in the absence of his wife, so Margaret en- 
 gaged it then and there, and went back to the station, 
 where she had left her bag. 
 
 Mrs. Rush was a slight little woman, with rather sad 
 eyes and a cheerful manner, who had in reality a heart of 
 gold. She was not, of course, without her quantum of 
 that suspicion which seems inherent in all her sex toward 
 each other, and which is, perhaps, responsible to a great 
 extent for the (to a man) preternatural capacity for 
 "seeing through her," which woman possesses, when the 
 object of her scrutiny is one of her sex. It is fair to as- 
 sume that, where the suspicious is the practically univer- 
 sal mental attitude, it must sometimes be justified by facts ; 
 nor can it be urged against her that, when circumstances 
 prove the correctness of a diagnosis, her sex alone is pe- 
 culiar in that vanity embodied in the triumphant "I told 
 you so!" 
 
 She had arrived home by the time that Margaret re- 
 turned from the station, and met her new lodger with 
 an apparently open mind, but which was, actually, nothing 
 of the sort. The fact that her husband had let the room 
 in his wife's absence was, of course, a sufficient and valid 
 reason, in itself, for suspicion; not that Joe was a fool, 
 but men were so easily taken in. The girl's disinclination
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 125 
 
 to be conversative confirmed her in her belief that there 
 was something a belief that she imparted to Rush that 
 afternoon in the potting-shed. 
 
 The spirit of Prophecy was strong upon her, as well 
 it might be, seeing that only two nights before she had 
 dreamed that she saw the Crystal Palace on fire a 
 dream which, with its import that something was going 
 to happen, she had reminded him of, at the time. She 
 had, in fact, kept on reminding him ever since, and he 
 might laugh, but mark her words! 
 
 Mr. Rush smiled good-temperedly at his wife's acu- 
 men in discovering "things," through the faith that was 
 in her of the efficacy of dreams, and, although he was 
 skeptical about her interpretations, like her, he believed 
 that nothing was sent for "nowt," and chopped a wire- 
 worm in half as he replied: "Yer may be rite, missus!" 
 
 Margaret's unassuming manner and evident gentle- 
 ness of disposition had, however, favorably impressed the 
 childless woman; and when, late that afternoon, the girl 
 came down from her room, where she had been writing 
 about some situations, the poor thing looked so tired, 
 that an invitation to have a cup of tea before she went 
 out was prompted more by kindness of heart than any de- 
 sire to give her an opportunity to "talk." 
 
 She was beginning to miss her aunt sadly, and her few 
 words with Mrs. Rush had awakened the desire for com- 
 panionship of her own sex. At Wimbledon, the excite- 
 ment of looking forward at first to seeing her lover, 
 and then afterward to meeting him, had disguised the 
 harsher features of her case. 
 
 As she went down the dingy street, dingier and dirtier 
 than any she had seen in Wimbledon, surrounded by the 
 tawdry squalor of suburban slumland, her heart sank. 
 The twelve pounds she had brought with her when she 
 left Midford had nearly half gone. She had found that, 
 without a character, it was difficult to find a "place." So 
 far her powers of invention had been unequal to the task 
 of satisfactorily representing her past and present to the
 
 126 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 various "ladies of the house" she had interviewed. To 
 have given her aunt's name and address would have been 
 to divulge her whereabouts, and, perhaps, bring Aunt 
 Deb hot upon her trail; and she could not face Aunt Deb 
 yet. She remembered what her aunt had said about 
 God and Hettie Ryott. 
 
 She wandered about, making inquiries at various reg- 
 istry offices; and, at last, feeling tired out, directed her 
 steps toward the Rushs'. It was raining with the steady 
 methodical fall of a windless night, and the patches of 
 lamp-light, on the greasy pavements, emphasized the pre- 
 vailing dirtiness of everything as she walked up the road. 
 
 Mrs. Rush brought her a candle, and Margaret said 
 good-night, and went up the dim staircase to her room. 
 Strange fancies were beginning to wait for her now, as 
 she set down the light on the table, where the peculiar 
 smell of the flowers came strongly to her. 
 
 She dropped the blind, and sat on the bed, gazing at 
 the white flowers shining in the candle-light. For a" mo- 
 ment her courage failed her as she thought of the child 
 that had died in that room years ago; and she buried her 
 face in the bed and cried passionately. 
 
 If his child were to die, and she live! 
 
 At the thought she sat up, trembling with fear. The 
 thin, still flame of the candle beside the white flowers 
 seemed like the eternal passing of life into the great 
 Silence beyond, pregnant with invisible things as the room 
 around her seemed to be now. Into her own life were 
 being woven the strands of another a life that was 
 creeping, body and soul, into and out of her own. 
 
 Her face had gone suddenly very white: the room 
 rocked before her. Then the terror passed, and she sat 
 still and quiet, with strange rapt eyes fastened upon the 
 light and the flowers. Somehow, the image of Christ 
 was hanging above them now, as at an altar Christ who 
 was merciful to fallen women. 
 
 The next moment the lonely girl was on her knees 
 beside the table, praying wildly.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 MRS. GHOOLE 
 
 MARGARET had seen, the previous evening, on a 
 board hanging outside a shop, the particulars of a place 
 at Streatham, where a "Cook General" was wanted. 
 "Wages 16 and all found." 
 
 The morning was mild and clear, and, after inquiring 
 the way of Mrs. Rush, she set out across Tooting Com- 
 mon toward Streatham, determined to try her luck, with 
 a feeling of hopefulness she somehow attributed to her 
 prayers of the night before. 
 
 Sitting on a seat, she commenced to think out a new 
 plan of campaign. Presently a man came along and sat 
 down, remarking, as he did so, that it was a fine morn- 
 ing. She assented without looking at him so many 
 men had accosted her since she came to London that 
 she was getting used to it. He seemed, however, a pleas- 
 ant-spoken young fellow, she thought, and, gradually, 
 they commenced chatting on a variety of subjects. 
 
 With the freedom of his kind, he informed her that 
 his wife had left him some time before, when he was out 
 of a job; she had taken a place as a cook, and now re- 
 fused to come back to him, having taken up with another 
 bloke. He was looking out for a nice girl: he was be- 
 ginning to feel lonely: he told her. 
 
 She did not respond to the thinly veiled hint; but 
 the man's gratuitous information respecting his conjugal 
 difficulties had set her thinking. 
 
 He had solved the problem for her, surely! She 
 had never dreamed of such depths of deception before, 
 127
 
 128 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 but she was getting desperate; besides, it was for the 
 child's sake more than her own! 
 
 She rose suddenly, and, saying good-morning to him, 
 stepped out briskly, half afraid that he might follow 
 her and endeavor to continue their acquaintance. He did 
 not, however, and she concentrated her mind upon a 
 plausible story which might suffice for the mistress of No. 
 15, Plane Tree Avenue. 
 
 One result of her cogitations, when she reached the 
 main road, was to get on a car going to Brixton, in which 
 busy neighborhood she purchased a wedding-ring, at a 
 small pawnbroker's and jeweler's the shops in Streat- 
 ham overpowering her with their importance. She had 
 entered the shop with a feeling of guiltiness strong upon 
 her; but the man, apparently, thought nothing of her re- 
 quest, and she emerged with a sense of relief at a painful 
 ordeal over, her cheeks very red, the ring on her hand, 
 and fifteen shillings less in her pocket. 
 
 On the tram going up the hill to Streatham she found 
 comfort in the shopman's indifference; and, in the ex- 
 citement of her contemplated deceptions, she felt some- 
 thing akin to a feeling of assurance within her. She 
 would want it all, she told herself, if she was to suc- 
 ceed. 
 
 She found her way to Plane Tree Avenue, whose 
 umbrageous nomenclature had for its justification a num- 
 ber of youthful planes sprouting out of the pavement on 
 either side; and, walking hurriedly over the gaudy tiles 
 from the gate, she rang boldly at No. 15, a semi-de- 
 tached house of the usual red-brick villa type. 
 
 A red-haired young woman of ferocious aspect, in a 
 dirty blue print frock, opened the door, and stood look- 
 ing sullenly at Margaret. 
 
 "Yes, you can see 'er, I dessay. If you'll step in I'll 
 tell 'er. Wot name?" she said in answer to her inquiries. 
 
 "Oh, she don't know my name," replied Margaret. 
 "I've come about a place." 
 
 "Oh !" The blue print one looked unprintable things, 
 and, advancing close to Margaret as she shut the door
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 129 
 
 behind her, said in a voice of wrath: "Gawd! she is 
 a cow!" 
 
 Next leaving the visitor to digest that comforting 
 piece of information on the mat she shouted up the 
 stairs in a mocking voice: "Mrs. Ghoole!" Turning, 
 she made a fearful grimace, and then retired down the 
 passage to the kitchen; from whence, immediately after- 
 ward, came the sound of a plate dashed to its doom on a 
 stone floor, followed by a defiant chuckle and the voice 
 of the virago bursting into song: 
 
 "Yes, Jesus loves 
 The Bible tells me so!" 
 
 Margaret was so startled at the rapid succession of 
 events that she stood listening to the girl's singing 
 vaguely expecting that another crash would follow. In- 
 stead, a sharp voice suddenly said from the staircase: 
 "Well?" and Mrs. Ghoole, in a crimson dressing-gown 
 and carpet slippers, came noiselessly down the stairs 
 toward her, with an expression of such extreme spite- 
 fulness on her face that Margaret's heart sank within 
 her at the sight. 
 
 She saw, next moment, that the red-haired girl was 
 the cause, and breathed again as Mrs. Ghoole stood glar- 
 ing along the passage at the offending voice. Then she 
 darted at a door, and, opening it, waved Margaret into 
 the dining-room, and followed her, shutting the door 
 viciously. 
 
 "She goes at the end of the week, thank goodness! 
 the impudent slut!" said Mrs. Ghoole as she beck- 
 oned Margaret to a chair, and sat down herself. She 
 was a large stout woman, with eyes of a greenish mud 
 color set very close together in her head, and a quan- 
 tity of "various" hair that changed from light brown 
 at the roots to a golden chestnut tint toward its 
 ends. 
 
 Then Margaret, taking her courage in both hands, 
 played her cards boldly.
 
 130 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 "I don't know whether I should suit you, ma'am. 
 I'm married, and never been out to service before." 
 
 Mrs. Ghoole's eyes crept even closer together, and 
 she frowned. She was about to speak then she checked 
 herself. She "couldn't keep her servants" and Plane 
 Tree Avenue placed its own construction upon the fact. 
 Its remarks reaching her ears from time to time had 
 been as thorns in her flesh, and the area of the latter 
 being very considerable and easily inflamed, her neigh- 
 bors' sayings about her made her feel at times like a 
 gigantic pincushion. 
 
 Margaret, seeing that she was expected to offer a 
 further explanation, went on to say that her husband 
 had left her and gone abroad; and that she was looking 
 out for a place as Cook General, in which she was sure 
 she could give satisfaction. 
 
 Mrs. Ghoole eyed her closely, dividing her attention 
 between Margaret's narrative and sounds of stealthy 
 footsteps outside the door. 
 
 "Who can I apply to for a character for you, 
 Mrs. " 
 
 Margaret had the name ready, almost too ready, she 
 feared, as she said quickly, "Young. My name's Mar- 
 garet Young. I'm afraid I can't give you the name of 
 any one who'd speak for me ... I'm . . . I'm rather 
 proud and ... I don't want any of my friends to know 
 I'm going into service, ma'am." 
 
 Now Margaret, in spite of a country accent and coun- 
 try clothes, was of obviously superior stuff to the ordi- 
 nary "general," and Mrs. Ghoole saw in her an oppor- 
 tunity for scoring heavily in the interesting game of 
 "Servants"; which was one of the stock recreations of 
 her lady friends if friends they can be called whose 
 friendship is a thing of scandal, and slander, and calumny, 
 of petty recriminations and quarrels, and all that unchari- 
 tableness which is, to their order of femininity, both a 
 relaxation and mental pabulum combined. 
 
 It was possible that the girl was a thief; it was proba- 
 ble highly probable that she was no better than she
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 131 
 
 ought to be; it was equally probable that her husband was 
 a fairy tale. There would be risks, of course, but she 
 must be prepared to take them. There was just a chance 
 of her turning out a treasure. If she did, then Mrs. 
 Ghoole knew that she would be envied of all her neigh- 
 bors the consummation most devoutly to be wished for 
 in the delectable society in which she moved. As for 
 her "pride," Mrs. Ghoole felt herself quite qualified to 
 successfully eradicate that vice. 
 
 She seemed, anyhow, a very superior young person. 
 Therefore Mrs. Ghoole considered her lips tightening 
 until her mouth was a scarcely visible organ. 
 
 "How much wages do you want, Mrs. Young?" 
 
 "Sixteen pounds, ma'am." 
 
 "Well, you'd better leave me your address, and I'll 
 think it over. When could you come if I decided to en- 
 gage you? Next Saturday?" 
 
 "Yes, ma'am," said Margaret; and she wrote her ad- 
 dress on a piece of paper that Mrs. Ghoole produced 
 from her pocket. 
 
 That lady looked at the address; and Margaret rose 
 to go. As she opened the door the Voice shouted from 
 the kitchen: "And I shall be whiter than the sno-o-w!" 
 
 That decided Mrs. Ghoole, whose own white face 
 glowed with purple rage, as if in the words it had dis- 
 covered a personal affront. 
 
 "If I engage you now, will you be certain to come 
 next Saturday?" she said suddenly. 
 
 "Yes, ma'am." 
 
 "Very well, then, Mrs. Young, please consider your- 
 self engaged. I shall expect you next Saturday afternoon 
 at four o'clock." 
 
 Margaret walked down Plane Tree Avenue, inwardly 
 blessing the ferocious-looking girl with a taste for hymn 
 tunes, and reflecting upon her coming trials under the 
 amiable Mrs. Ghoole; yet, withal, with a great thankful- 
 ness in her heart.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THRACIAN SEA AND BEVERLEY BROOK 
 
 "BOB !" shouted James Burkett from the lawn at the 
 back of "Downlands," one afternoon in February. 
 
 Bob appeared round the corner from the coach-house 
 with some harness in one hand and a brush in the other. 
 
 "Yes, Mr. James?" 
 
 "Put Sunlight in the dogcart; make yourself respect- 
 able; and come with me to the station." 
 
 Bob hurried off; and Mr. James took a letter from 
 his pocket and read it through carefully. He had been 
 having the Devil's own luck lately. A fiver on the favo- 
 rite in a "Selling" at Kempton, played up on three other 
 races, had netted him over 300 as a result of the four 
 bets. Determined at first "to leave the lot down" on a 
 supposed good thing in a three-mile steeplechase at Wind- 
 sor, something had put him right off it on the day of the 
 race; and the good thing, after being out by himself, had 
 failed, for some unaccountable reason, as good things 
 have a playful habit of doing. James, who had been 
 cursing his folly and timidity, a moment later was con- 
 gratulating himself, as is the way of backers, upon his 
 superior judgment in having kept off it. 
 
 He had felt that the occasion had called for some- 
 thing to celebrate his good fortune, and the day before 
 had picked up a bargain in the shape of "Thracian Sea" 
 an eight-year-old gelding by St. Simon Samothrace, 
 who had won second class handicaps on the flat, with top 
 weight, and who, he had ascertained, jumped like a cat. 
 The horse had been used as a hack after getting a bit 
 slow; and his owner, being short of the ready, had parted 
 132
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 133 
 
 with him to James for 200 and a "contingency" if put 
 to the "other game." 
 
 James had satisfied himself as to the horse's jumping 
 capacity, and believed he would see his money back sev- 
 eral times over before the end of March, more especially 
 as the horse had recently been doing good work with a 
 string of his late owner's jumpers that were coming up 
 for sale. 
 
 He was due at Wimbledon station that afternoon, 
 James having decided to have him at "Downlands" for 
 a week, before sending him away to a trainer at Epsom 
 with whom he was acquainted. It was his initial venture 
 as an owner, and he looked forward with pleasurable ex- 
 citement to seeing his colors carried for the first time. 
 
 Bob reappeared; and James, as he drove to the sta- 
 tion, confided to his man particulars of their equine visi- 
 tor's pedigree and performances, and his hopes respecting 
 him for the future. 
 
 They saw the horse unboxed James, with boyish 
 eagerness to view his newly acquired champion, telling 
 Bob to take the horse's clothing off and looked him over 
 critically together. 
 
 He was quite a nice type of horse a bright bay with 
 black points and, for the time of year, looked in first 
 rate condition as he stood, quiet as a sheep, in the station 
 yard. In spite of his long career on the turf his legs 
 were still clean, and showed very little signs of wear; 
 and James was soon informing himself that he had got 
 hold of a bargain. 
 
 He had decided to race him for the remainder of the 
 jumping season proper; win two or three races with him 
 if he could; and then make a present of him to Helen 
 if he found him quiet enough for her to ride. 
 
 He left Bob with instructions to walk the horse home ; 
 and drove back to "Downlands." 
 
 When Thracian Sea arrived he put a saddle on him; 
 and a few minutes later was on the common, where, after 
 a couple of canters, he gave him a gallop at half speed. 
 Delighted with the way the old chap went and behaved
 
 i 3 4 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 altogether, James, that evening, at "Cloudeshill," un- 
 folded his racing plans to Helen, without mentioning his 
 ultimate objective. 
 
 She entered with spirit into the idea ; and he was de- 
 lighted with her keenness respecting Thracian Sea's 
 hoped for successes in his colors which, at his sugges- 
 tion, she was to select for him. He hoped she would 
 come out on the following afternoon and see the horse do 
 a gallop. 
 
 She assented with such evident interest that James 
 felt that he was making rapid progress in her affections. 
 The time was not far distant when he would be able to 
 ask her to be his wife, with a very good prospect of her 
 assent to that proposition as well. 
 
 He got back from the City by two o'clock the fol- 
 lowing afternoon; and, riding to the southern end of the 
 common, he hacked about the roads until he saw Helen 
 coming to meet him. 
 
 The west wind had brought a faint flush of pink into 
 her cheeks, and she looked radiant as she smiled her ap- 
 proval of his mount. 
 
 "Do you like him?" he asked, after her scrutiny. 
 
 "Oh, rather! He seems a quiet fellow, too ! What a 
 nice, kind old head he's got!" she added, playfully strok- 
 ing Thracian Sea's muzzle. 
 
 "Quiet? Quiet as a lamb! You could ride him!" 
 said James eagerly. 
 
 If there was one thing in the world she loved it was 
 a good horse. She sighed, and her eyes sought the man's 
 a moment and then wandered away across the wide sweep 
 of grass-land toward the Windmill. 
 
 She walked beside him half way to that landmark; 
 and then he turned and cantered back to the end of the 
 grass. There, pulling up, he turned again, and jumped 
 the horse off at score, shaking him up a bit before reach- 
 ing Helen, so that she could see Thracian Sea at his best 
 pace, which was very considerable despite the big weight 
 he was carrying. He still retained his action, and was a
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 135 
 
 beautiful mover when fully extended. James was blow- 
 ign more than the horse when he came back to her. 
 
 She laughed. "I thought you said you were very fit!" 
 "So I am; but the old beggar can go fast enough to 
 choke you! and I ride nearer fourteen than thirteen, 
 too!" he answered, highly elated with the result of the 
 
 gallop. 
 Wl 
 
 r hen young people discover they have one taste in 
 common it frequently happens, by some subtle process or 
 other, that such discovery is but the stepping stone to 
 others whereby they exemplify the unity that exists in 
 things sentimental as well as scientific. 
 
 They had reached the Windmill; and James remarked 
 casually that he loved the old common : it was the only 
 place between there and the City where one could breathe. 
 
 They stopped; and Helen said: "Rather! I love it! 
 I have made up my mind one day to explore the woods 
 across to Coombe, isn't it?" pointing to the wooded 
 hills to the southwest. 
 
 "Let me show you round, I know all the rides," said 
 James, dismounting as he spoke; and, Helen agreeing, 
 they were soon deep among the birch and oak woods that 
 clothe the western valleys and slopes at Wimbledon. 
 
 "Tell you what, Helen !" becoming suddenly confiden- 
 tial "I've thought of a great scheme!" 
 
 Amused at his tone, she laughingly answered: "Yes 
 . . . Jim?" and stood waiting looking at him where 
 he had stopped at the corner of a glade. 
 
 "I'll put a lady's saddle on Sunlight, and bring him 
 over to your place to-morrow afternoon ; and we'll have a 
 ride together across here and through into Richmond 
 Park! Mrs. Darell won't mind if I promise to keep you 
 away from any timber?" 
 
 Her face showed the pleasure that she felt at his sug- 
 
 ntion. "I should like it awfully! Mater won't mind, 
 aresay." 
 
 "Sunlight is an armchair to ride, my sister rode him 
 regularly at one time !" 
 
 Helen did not like armchair rides she would have
 
 136 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 dearly liked to have felt Thracian Sea under her at that 
 moment; but Sunlight was better than nothing, and sad- 
 dles were not unchangeable articles of horse furniture, 
 nor sore backs an inevitable corollary, she remembered. 
 It would not be her fault if they did not change mounts 
 for a spell, anyhow! If Miss Burkett saw her on Sun- 
 light probably on Miss Burkett's own saddle there 
 would be much heartburning in certain quarters openly 
 hostile to her now. That particular form of indigestion 
 in a rival would afford her considerable satisfaction 
 as things were. She realized that if she were to win 
 James for a husband it would have to be metaphori- 
 cally speaking over the bodies of many women. She 
 knew his sister was an active and untiring enemy, and al- 
 ways would be women knowing these things by some in- 
 fallible methods of their own. She knew that to make 
 Miss Burkett angry would be to obtain that advantage 
 which a cool adversary has over an excited one, and, in 
 addition, arouse James to champion her cause against his 
 family. She had already seen Miss Burkett under the 
 influence of anger toward her, and the sight had con- 
 firmed her preconceived belief that attempts had been 
 made to get James away from her and failed. If she dis- 
 liked Sybil and her chum, Phoebe Price, it was not simply 
 because they were enemies. Her attempts to analyze her 
 own feelings toward her sex at times completely baf- 
 fled her; and she was clever enough to realize that she 
 was subject to the antipathies common to women in gen- 
 eral, that are as potent as they are frequently justified 
 by subsequent events. Recognizing, also, that the two 
 girls detested her for similar reasons in Phoebe's case 
 the hatred of an unsuccessful rival adding fuel to the fire 
 she felt that more was to be gained by increasing it 
 than by any attempt on her part at conciliation. 
 
 Had Helen loved James Burkett all her other emo- 
 tions would have been subordinated to her passion, but 
 love was a thing unknown to her then. She looked upon 
 him as a prize which her own personal charms might 
 captivate for a time, but which would largely depend upon
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 137 
 
 her own generalship and skill as a strategist to reduce to 
 that degree of subjugation when she could enjoy the 
 full fruits of her victory. She was ambitious; and she 
 had mixed sufficiently with the opposite sex to acquire 
 the data necessary for an approximately correct esti- 
 mate of the essential male. The average man of her own 
 age was a child beside her in "worldly wisdom" women 
 frequently developing far more quickly than the other sex 
 in such things it was her more intellectual faculties that 
 were, as yet, disproportionately backward. 
 
 For a few moments, standing there in the loneliness 
 of the winter woods, she had looked at him through dif- 
 ferent eyes, and the desire to love her mate had flickered 
 up in her like the birth of flame. Could she love him? 
 Helen felt that she had answered the question when she 
 had asked it. No man had ever aroused her love: if she 
 met such an one, she knew instinctively that her strength 
 would be her weakness. There would be no asking ques- 
 tions then. She might not probably would not ever 
 meet him. Therefore she put all thoughts of such love 
 away from her; and, smiling inwardly, enjoyed the luxury 
 of despising herself even while she smiled. 
 
 They had reached the far side of the common, where 
 a sandy road crosses a little stone bridge, to wind round 
 into the Portsmouth Road at Kingston Vale. Along 
 Beverley Brook the flat strip of grass below the hillsides 
 stretched for nearly a mile unbroken save by a ditch or 
 two. They turned to the left, James with the reins over 
 his arm, and Thracian Sea following like a dog. They 
 wandered on beside the stream to the far end of the com- 
 mon, where a plank bridge continues the footpath across 
 the stream into the meadows below Coombe Wood. 
 Throwing the reins over the horse's neck he let him 
 graze; and then joined his companion, who was standing 
 in the middle of the bridge watching the hurrying dirty- 
 colored spate of recent rains. 
 
 The place was absolutely solitary save for themselves, 
 and, for a moment, James Burkett saw another picture 
 with a background of winter woods in which another and
 
 i 3 8 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 very different girl had played her part in his life and 
 passed. Helen raised her eyes at that moment, and saw 
 the curious look in his. He had the long sight of the 
 countryman: the narrower horizons of the town dweller 
 had not yet stunted his gaze. He had forgotten her for 
 the moment, and his thoughts had traveled past her far 
 into the west, where Midford Holt held the secret of his 
 first love. He had loved Margaret, somehow, quite 
 in a different way, of course, from Helen but he had 
 most certainly loved his little mistress of the wildwood. 
 
 She saw another woman in his eyes, as they caught 
 the yellow light in the sky above Coombe Warren. She 
 knew that his sudden fit of abstraction must be caused by 
 the influence of another: her own proximity to him and 
 the loneliness of their surroundings had sufficed to hold 
 his thoughts in a web from which they had not attempted 
 to escape otherwise. 
 
 Instinctively she remembered the girl she had seen 
 him with that night near the station. A woman of his, 
 of course. Well, she had nothing to fear from her as a 
 rival! only . . . She was surprised at a fit of jealousy 
 that was but the writing on the wall of her womanhood. 
 To be jealous of a girl who was obviously not on the 
 same plane as herself, and, therefore, a woman outside 
 of comparisons ! To be jealous of her for the love of the 
 man beside her? Did she really value James Burkett's 
 love? 
 
 "A penny for them I" she said suddenly the result of 
 her reflections. 
 
 He started slightly. "Eh? ... Ah? ... Yes! 
 Oh, / don't know ! Lots of things." 
 
 He lit a cigarette, and, jerking the match into the 
 water, watched it dart away down stream under the 
 bridge. Her voice had broken the spell; and his nature 
 clamored for her to the exclusion of all other things. 
 
 He loved Helen. There was no doubt of it. Mar- 
 garet? Oh, Margaret he was very sorry for Margaret 
 now. He would speak to Helen. It was a magnifi- 
 cent opportunity. He felt a strange nervousness, usually
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 139 
 
 foreign to him ; and puffed at the cigarette furiously. She 
 was very close to him leaning with her elbows on the 
 high rail of the bridge, and looking up at him from time 
 to time. 
 
 "I love you I" he said, and stared at the turbid water 
 below. 
 
 She did not answer ; and he turned and looked at her. 
 Her face was slightly flushed. 
 
 "Helen, I love you!" he repeated, and his voice 
 seemed thick like the stream. "Is there any hope for 
 me?" 
 
 "I thought your affections were otherwise engaged." 
 
 He was taken unawares, and thought of Margaret: 
 flushing, half with shame and half with annoyance. 
 
 His face was an open book to her, in which she read 
 his own share in a guilty intrigue with the girl she had 
 seen him talking to that evening. But there was other 
 information which she wanted for sufficient and varied 
 reasons. Therefore, before he could think of a reply, she 
 added: "Miss Price is a great friend of your family, is 
 she not?" 
 
 Her dark eyes had something like a smile in them 
 as they saw the look of relief that swept over his face 
 as he replied : "Oh, yes, but she's nothing to me only a 
 friend!" It was of Phoebe that Helen had been think- 
 ing, of course ! 
 
 Now Helen had no fear of Miss Price upon anything 
 like equal terms. For aught she knew to the contrary, 
 however, the said Miss Price might be the chosen elect 
 of her lover's family, in which case the forces against her 
 would be considerable. She turned her head from him 
 slightly, and did not reply. 
 
 "Only a friend, Helen!" He laughed lightly. "You 
 didn't suppose there was anything between us, did you?" 
 
 Helen did not, but she answered rather coldly: "I 
 had an idea there might be." 
 
 "No fear! . . . Oh, damn Miss Price!" 
 
 There was certainly a smile in the dark eyes now, but 
 they were turned from him; she laughed, but inwardly,
 
 140 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 and no sound came from her lips. Poor Miss Price 1 Her 
 love for James Burkett would be a thing he would un- 
 doubtedly use against her in the future ! 
 
 She remained a moment thinking; then stood up 
 straight and faced him. "Do you think I could make 
 you happy?" she said gravely. 
 
 "Don't you care for me?" he replied in an uncom- 
 fortable voice of tragic possibilities. 
 
 "I like you." 
 
 "Like me?" His words were almost an echo, through 
 which his disappointment clamored uncontrolled. 
 
 The answer which had apparently been so easy to 
 speak became an impossibility. For a fraction of a sec- 
 ond the lie hung upon her lips : her voice had grown stub- 
 bornly mute and would not speak it. Then, reckless that 
 she was risking everything with him, innate reaction, 
 suddenly become defiant, said: "I am sorry. I do not love 
 you, though I like you very much." She would, at least, 
 be true to her ideal in one way even if she perjured her 
 soul for ever afterward. She would keep her love for 
 the man who could arouse it. She must! 
 
 He was silent smoking fiercely; and thought again 
 of Margaret. If he'd ever loved Margaret at all it was 
 a stone certainty that he loved the woman beside him 
 now ! He was always thinking about her dreaming about 
 her. This was love right enough ! He, too, grew reck- 
 less the primordial mercury slipping faster and faster 
 through his blood. The light was going, and already 
 the stream and its banks were dusky the swirl of the 
 water against the timbers and the stones sounding in 
 unison with the riot in his veins and pulses beating fast. 
 
 Outlined against the patch of light that still stained 
 the western sky and projected itself upon the lower end 
 of the field on the other side of the brook, she was stand- 
 ing with her face in shadow; her eyes full of a something 
 he could not understand. 
 
 "Will you marry me, Helen?" 
 
 "Would you have me without my love?" 
 
 He was silent for a bit; then, his desire sweeping
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 141 
 
 aside the restraining hands of prudence, he blurted out, in 
 accents that ran through the whole gamut of emotions 
 from the aggressive to the pleading: "Yes! I would! 
 You might love me afterward! Helen? Will you?" 
 
 His arm crept out to her and drew her to him. She 
 did not resist suppressing an incipient rebellion within 
 her at his touch. 
 
 "Will you?" His face was close to hers a caress in 
 his voice and eyes. 
 
 "Yes!" 
 
 He kissed her once, holding her to him passionately. 
 
 With his arms round her, Helen wondered if she 
 would ever love him. Then, half angry with herself, 
 suddenly she returned his kiss. 
 
 He considered it a hopeful sign for the future. 
 
 If she discovered in his arms misgivings which had 
 previously been unknown to her, she surmised them as 
 but the result of a new experience. As yet too indifferent 
 to the physical influence of their passion to be readily sus- 
 ceptible herself, she had kept her former lovers at a dis- 
 tance, not from any respect for the Proprieties, but from 
 mere physical disinclination to tenderness with men. He 
 was the first man who had held her in his arms, and she 
 submitted to a necessity involved in her decision to become 
 his wife. She did ro with as good a grace as possible 
 an emotion of self-pity being followed by a vague con- 
 tempt of herself for such a feeling. To be too distant 
 with a man of his type would be to run the risk of losing 
 him altogether, for fear of offending her own suscep- 
 tibilities. Like a good general, she did not hesitate to 
 expose herself to attack when she deemed it expedient. 
 
 She had responded to her lover with as much spon- 
 taneity as she could assume, and he, being a man, had con- 
 ceived modesty as the restraining cause. For a moment 
 he contrasted her comparative coldness with the abandon- 
 ment of Margaret's love, and the latter became some- 
 thing bordering on that of an immodest woman. 
 
 As they walked slowly back through the twilight 
 woods James Burkett saw, in fancy, his late mistress
 
 i 4 2 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 standing there among the shadows. Remorse for his 
 thoughts about her came to him, bringing with it an un- 
 easiness which he could not account for, save that it had 
 its origin in the girl whose arm was at that moment within 
 his own.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THRACIAN SEA DOES A GOOD GALLOP 
 
 THE following afternoon he put his idea into practice, 
 and, with his sister's saddle on Sunlight, trotted round 
 on Thracian Sea with the cob to "Cloudeshill." 
 
 Mrs. Darell, nervously, if half playfully, admonittve, 
 received him; and presently Helen appeared in her rid- 
 ing habit. 
 
 Adjusting one or two details of length, etc., to her 
 liking occupied a few minutes; Mrs. Darell looking on 
 critically, with an affectionate regard for both in her re- 
 marks from time to time. Less intellectual than her 
 daughter, she was half in love with the young man her- 
 self. 
 
 Helen Darell was a fine horsewoman: there was 
 beauty in the way she sat her horse ; in the poise of her 
 beautiful figure, her hands with the reins in them were 
 beautiful in a double sense. She had established a per- 
 fect understanding between herself and her mount before 
 they had reached the end of Glastonbury Road; and Sun- 
 light with three stone less on his back than he had been 
 accustomed to carry lately needed no bidding when he 
 felt the turf beneath him. He jumped away from the 
 blood horse, and scuttled off as fast as his legs would take 
 him toward the distant Windmill Helen letting him do 
 all he knew to keep in front. 
 
 James had held Thracian Sea back a bit when he went 
 after the cob content to admire the woman he loved as 
 she galloped in front. Then, pulling out a little, he sent 
 the thoroughbred up to her and, drunk with the desire of 
 galloping, the two raced together side by side the pull
 
 i 4 4 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 in the weights enabling Sunlight to make something of 
 a show against his redoubtable opponent. James shouted 
 with laughter at the cob's desperate efforts to keep with 
 him, and legs going like lightning as they tore along. 
 
 "He's making yours gallop!" she cried in laughing 
 derision. 
 
 For answer, James let Thracian Sea out; and his com- 
 panion, after a vain recourse to her whip for a few 
 strides, gave up. 
 
 All horses gallop fast past trees, but the way Thracian 
 Sea, with his big weight, went away from her astonished 
 her so much that her longing to have a ride on him be- 
 came an inordinate desire an imperative thing. 
 
 Her calmness had gone when she came up to him 
 where he waited for her at the end of the gallop. Her 
 cheeks were flushed, her habitual reserve swept away in 
 that rush through the glorious air that streamed over 
 and around them from out of the west. The sun was 
 shining brightly in a pale blue sky, across which, from 
 about the afternoon sun, were blown white clouds edged 
 with gold. Helen looked the personification of Beauti- 
 ful Womanhood as she sat laughing, getting her breath, 
 and calling Thracian Sea names of admiration and en- 
 dearment. 
 
 "He is an old darling! I love him!" she cried, as she 
 brought Sunlight close up to him. 
 
 "Love me, love my horse !" he said, grinning. 
 
 She made him a little bow, and laughed, but regis- 
 tered a vow to try and love the horse for the sake of 
 the rider, and not the rider for the sake of the horse. 
 
 "Do let me, Jim!" she said, pleading. 
 
 "Let you what, dear? I'd let you anything!" 
 
 "Let me have a ride on him!" 
 
 He smiled at the eagerness in her voice and eyes. 
 "All right! We'll go over into Richmond Park, and 
 change there," he said. "You can send him a mile there 
 at his best pace, if you like !" 
 
 As they rode, chatting and laughing gaily, out of the 
 woods into the sandy road that crosses Beverley Brook,
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 145 
 
 they came suddenly upon his sister and her crony, Phoebe 
 Price. James raised his hat, flushing slightly as he did 
 so ; and Helen bowed, not very graciously. 
 
 The two girls returned their salutations with ill-con- 
 cealed disgust Phoebe's face striving to assume an un- 
 concern that was almost pitiful to witness. Sybil's grew 
 scarlet as she suddenly remembered that it was her 
 Sybil's saddle that was carrying the detestable creature. 
 They had heard the riders' voices, and, to a certain ex- 
 tent, were prepared for the rencontre, but the loathing 
 which filled the two young ladies' bosoms was too strong 
 to be entirely concealed. 
 
 "It's infatuation, dear, nothing more or less!" said 
 Sybil after the riders had passed. 
 
 Phoebe replied, rather weakly, that she supposed it 
 was. It is curious that it is always in such terms that 
 women describe these sort of things to each other under 
 similar conditions. 
 
 There was no trace of weakness in Miss Price's voice 
 at her next remark an emphatic opinion that the cause 
 of such infatuation used "pads" ; an opinion shared by her 
 friend, and which, apparently, afforded both young ladies' 
 feelings considerable relief, as they reverted to it on more 
 than one occasion during the remainder of their walk. 
 
 Said James to his companion when they were out of 
 hearing: "They're plotting mischief, depend upon it! 
 They wouldn't have trudged all this way unless they were 
 up to something it'd knock 'em up ! Spying on us, I'll 
 wager the artful devils!" 
 
 She replied with well-feigned regret: "I'm afraid I 
 cannot be counted among your sister's friends." She 
 would not trust herself to speak of the other girl. With 
 the certainty of feminine conviction, she knew as only 
 women do know that Miss Price understood her mo- 
 tives in her relations with the man beside her. Undoubt- 
 edly must Miss Price be considered an enemy. 
 
 They turned in at the Robin Hood gate; and, in an 
 unfrequented part of the park, the exchange of saddles 
 was effected without much trouble. If the "fit" left some-
 
 i 4 6 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 thing to be desired from Thracian Sea's point of view, his 
 new rider had no difficulty with him. 
 
 She was soon half a mile away, on a bit of beauti- 
 fully level going, slamming the horse along at top speed. 
 
 James remained seated on a fallen tree where she 
 had left him, and gave himself up to the delights of to- 
 bacco, and dreams in which the distant horse and rider 
 were the most prominent figures. He followed them with 
 his eyes until a shoulder of the hill, on which they had 
 dismounted, hid them from his sight. Then he forgot 
 even Thracian Sea, and yielded unreservedly to the mys- 
 terious madness of Love. If Margaret strayed anywhere 
 into the pictures of the past and future that his mind was 
 at work upon, her intrusion was only momentary, and the 
 memory of the swish of the other woman's skirts would 
 brush it out. 
 
 He was certainly not a poet, but he wisely refrained 
 from verse. His prose was limited; and his love or he 
 thought it was too expansive for words. As a matter of 
 fact, he found considerable mental effort necessary to 
 maintain a conversation with an educated woman, save 
 on such topics as sport; and mental effort was a thing for 
 which he had a great dislike. 
 
 "By God! I'll marry her first chance I get I" he said 
 aloud. "I must!" 
 
 Meanwhile, Helen forgot everything but her love 
 for Thracian Sea. As she felt his great sweeping stride 
 quickening under her she leaned forward, patting his 
 neck, and calling lovingly to the horse with a fondness 
 strangely unlike her voice's usual level tones. He an- 
 swered readily, seeming, through some subtle bond of 
 sympathy with his rider, to know that he was expected 
 to do his best. The beautiful hands crept a little further 
 forward; her dark hair blew out a little in the sunshine 
 they were flying now! and Helen could have shouted 
 with the joy or it all, a joy she had been a stranger to 
 for years. They swept round the corner of the hill, and 
 on for another half mile, and still the staying blood of 
 the famous "Cup" horse and greatest sire of modem
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 147 
 
 times maintained the break-neck speed with machine-like 
 regularity. Then she dropped her hands, and he slowed 
 down obediently into a trot. 
 
 She walked him about for five minutes under some 
 magnificent oaks, putting up an old stag who moved 
 slowly and majestically away. 
 
 The excitement of her gallop over the waking earth 
 had quickened her senses strangely. The trees with their 
 great black knees and arms ; the freshness of the youthful 
 year; the loneliness of the spot; all these helped her 
 paganward. 
 
 If only James had that saving grace of instincts which 
 idealize even brutality, for a woman, in him ! If there 
 be a malady of The Ideal, certainly there is a corre- 
 sponding asthenia of The Practical, a sort of debility of 
 common sense. 
 
 Once he possessed her, once she had borne him chil- 
 dren; and ... he would grow fat under a white waist- 
 coat, and settle down into a thorough-going methodical 
 alleviation of his appetites and requirements, into a well- 
 intentioned, bourgeois respect for his wife, a deference 
 to her before strangers, a yawning toleration of her 
 company by their own fireside. The wild was still in his 
 blood, but the "methodism" of the shop had corrected its 
 strangeness, its beauty, out of existence, and left a man 
 only ingloriously drunk at times with physical atavisms 
 a pagan who had forgotten their wonder while still pro- 
 pitiating his gods. There, with the sap rising, the buds 
 beginning, about her, a great longing for love touched 
 her sense and spirit. She sat still a whole minute, star- 
 ing at the brown earth and the green, while a thrush 
 over her head filled the place with his passionate pulse 
 of song. 
 
 Then, "Now, Thracian Sea, take me to your master 
 and mine !" she said, with a laugh, and put the horse into 
 a canter for a few hundred yards. Before reaching the 
 turn she called to him again, and again he responded gal- 
 lantly thoroughly warmed up to his work. As they 
 rounded the hill, keeping on the level going at the foot,
 
 i 4 8 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 she commenced to ride him hard with her hands, and, in 
 another minute, was pulling up beside her lover. 
 
 "By Gad, girl, you can ride!" he said as he assisted 
 her to dismount holding her in his arms a moment and 
 kissing her on the mouth ere he released her. "It's all 
 right, dear, there wasn't a soul in sight!" he added apolo- 
 getically. "I couldn't help it!" 
 
 The flush in her cheeks had deepened and spread to 
 her forehead, that was all. She did not reply but stood 
 gazing at the steaming Thracian Sea, whose large dark 
 eyes were looking intelligently, if somewhat excitedly, into 
 her own.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 PLANE TREE AVENUE, STREATHAM, S.W. 
 
 I HAVE said that Mrs. Rush had a heart of gold. She 
 possessed many admirable qualities; she also possessed 
 her full share of feminine obstinacy. 
 
 "Good-bye, my dear," she said to Margaret giving 
 the girl a motherly kiss, and feeling genuinely sorry at los- 
 ing her new lodger, from motives other than those con- 
 nected with the question of rent. 
 
 Margaret waved her hand as she turned round at 
 the gate, and went off to the station with a queer sensa- 
 tion in her throat at the good woman's parting words: 
 "Don't forget to come an 'ave a cup o' tea on Sunday, 
 mind!" 
 
 "There's something!" said Mrs. Rush emphatically 
 to her husband as she closed the door. 
 
 He smiled and shook his head. "Tis a good honest 
 lass as ever was." 
 
 "I've said it, and I say it again, and if I was to die to- 
 morrow I'd say it! There's something!" she repeated. 
 "Mark me words, Joe ! You may laugh, but dreams are 
 not sent for nowt! That clear it was too!" she went on. 
 "It woke me up with me 'eart goin ever so. The flames 
 was a shootin up something hawful! an all the people 
 runnin not arf they wasn't a mob !" 
 
 He went back to his geraniums ; and his wife remained 
 standing, lost in thought: her mind turning over the vari- 
 ous possible inferences to be drawn from the terrific 
 vision that sleep had vouchsafed unto her, which she had 
 immediately connected with Margaret, upon the entry of 
 that young woman into her scheme of things. 
 149
 
 150 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 The red-haired girl had gone her way; and Mar- 
 garet, upon reaching her new abode, was greeted with 
 the acidulated smile of Mrs. Ghoole herself. 
 
 She went through into the kitchen with her bag and 
 parcels; and her mistress began to instruct her in her new 
 duties, after, first of all, venting her spleen upon her last 
 servant whose insolence had been only exceeded by her 
 dirtiness. For evidence of the latter vice, Mrs. Ghoole 
 waved her hand in silent disgust toward the dresser, and 
 then, turning to the fireplace, swept an emphatic finger 
 along the top of the mantelshelf, and held it out indig- 
 nantly to Margaret. 
 
 The girl mentally contrasted the kitchen with her 
 aunt's, and shuddered. She would soon effect an altera- 
 tion, but . . . the memory of her cottage home home 
 no longer now rushed back upon her, and she forgot 
 Mrs. Ghoole and everything for the moment as her eyes 
 filled with tears. 
 
 Fortunately Mrs. Ghoole had left her to investigate 
 further, and her voice sounded from the scullery: "Come 
 here, Mrs. Young!" 
 
 The name awakened Margaret from her sorrows to 
 the necessities of the moment, and, brushing her eyes has- 
 tily, she obeyed. 
 
 "Come and look at this! Did you ever see anything 
 so disgraceful!" and Mrs. Ghoole pointed with a tragic 
 air at the gas stove, and from the gas stove to the sink, 
 and from the sink to the copper, half hidden under a heap 
 of bones, potato parings, tea and cabbage leaves the 
 mess surmounted by a draggled-looking blue straw hat 
 with a green ribbon, discarded by its late owner as unfit 
 for further service. Mrs. Ghoole lifted it gingerly by the 
 brim and dropped it again, as if in fear of some contami- 
 nation that it had inherited from its erstwhile wearer a 
 fear, perhaps, not altogether groundless. 
 
 Margaret's feelings, as Mrs. Ghoole showed her her 
 bedroom, were harrowed to a degree, but she noticed that 
 the wall-paper and ceiling were new and clean, and con- 
 cluded that the bulk of the dirt was of recent origin.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 151 
 
 Plucking up her courage, she flung the bed open Mrs. 
 Ghoole watching her intently as she did so. 
 
 Apparently what she saw in the girl's face determined 
 the advisability of conciliatory measures, for she said hur- 
 riedly: "I will get out the clean sheets and blankets, Mrs. 
 Young, if you will come down stairs a minute." 
 
 The mere instinct of personal cleanliness, which had 
 grown up with her from the days when a dirty pinafore 
 had become something of which to be ashamed, subordi- 
 nated all other emotions for a day or two, and she was 
 too tired when she went to bed to think or dream. 
 
 Mrs. Ghoole, recognizing the motives that prompted 
 the girl, left her to herself, and felt extremely thankful, 
 and even kindly disposed toward her at times. 
 
 A tea party revealed her treasure to the elite of Mrs. 
 Ghoole's acquaintances. 
 
 Finding herself the cynosure of eyes whose friendli- 
 ness she felt was only a disguise, Margaret, for the first 
 time, realized to the full the depressing sense of sailing 
 under false colors. 
 
 As she waited at tea the subject from time to time 
 of those condescending "kindnesses" which are prompted 
 by vulgar curiosity her gentle ingenuous soul shrank 
 from becoming the discussion of such people as these. 
 Instinctively she felt that her own guilty secret, were it 
 known to them, would inspire them with a cruel and fiend- 
 ish pleasure; and it was among their kind that her future 
 life would pass! In the passage and kitchen when she 
 left the room, she had recourse to her handkerchief freely 
 desperately struggling with the sobs that nearly choked 
 her once or twice. She regretted her fall bitterly yes, 
 bitterly she regretted it now, and longed for her old inno- 
 cent days in dear old Midford Holt. 
 
 A sense of the irrevocable burden that Mother Na- 
 ture has laid upon her daughters crushed her, deaden- 
 ing her feelings, and, for a moment, a chill dread of Life 
 struck into her brave heart and stopped her tears. It 
 would be so easy to go out of it all into the quiet sleep
 
 1 52 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 where there is no more sin or shame or sorrow for girls, 
 only an infinite rest. God would forgive her, surely, she 
 was truly repentant ! . . . 
 
 The next minute she was herself again, and her gray 
 eyes shone with the light of returning courage with a 
 light of battle in them for that other helpless life within 
 her, which, unknown to herself, invested her quiet beauty 
 with a transcendent glory of its own. As she moved 
 about the kitchen she crooned softly to herself as she had 
 crooned over her old one-legged doll at home years ago, 
 when she had been a little maid. 
 
 When she went into the room, in answer to the bell, 
 her face had on it an unconscious pride that made more 
 than one of the amiable ladies present long "to teach her 
 her place," but they had lost all power to hurt her now. 
 When Miss Elizabeth Grout remarked in a carefully se- 
 lected voice, ostensibly directed at the fireplace, that ser- 
 vants were becoming more and more unbearable every 
 day, her words failed even to attract Margaret's atten- 
 tion. 
 
 "Have you noticed that person next door lately, Mrs. 
 Ghoole?" asked a little woman who apparently suffered 
 from incipient frost-bite, the malady extending to her 
 voice. 
 
 "I never notice her, Miss Elaine !" replied her hostess 
 in tones of almost equal chilliness. "I think that is the 
 best way to treat those sort of people?" The meeting 
 became sibilant with many assents. 
 
 Miss Elaine skillfully arrested the development of a 
 globule forming at the end of her nose. Then she went 
 on: "Neither do I, as a rule, of course, only . . ." and 
 she relapsed into a frigid silence again. 
 
 "Sealskin jackets, indeed!" said Mrs. Ghoole with a 
 sniff. "I saw it come. From The Polar Co., Piccadilly 
 Circus. Three weeks ago." 
 
 "Where she came from herself, no doubt, originally," 
 said another lady. "Outside I mean, of course!" she 
 added, sniggering. Whereat all her hearers sniggered 
 too, with the exception of Miss Grout, who considered
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 153 
 
 such exhibitions of mirth unladylike, and who said: 
 "Now, really, Mrs. Matthews, don't let us be unchari- 
 table. Though I must say I don't think such people as 
 her ought to be allowed in church" 
 
 "Late every Sunday since she's had it, of course 1" re- 
 marked Mrs. Ghoole. 
 
 "Oh, of course!" echoed through the room in a gen- 
 eral chorus of replies. 
 
 "Supposed to be his wife, isn't she, Mrs. Ghoole?" 
 
 "Supposed to be!" and the lady addressed looked 
 round, and smiled with an air of superior wisdom. 
 
 "But we don't know anything," said Miss Grout. "I 
 don't like to think evil of anyone, only . . . Such people 
 are notoriously lax, I'm afraid!" 
 
 "What can you expect, my dear! The man is a low 
 betting man a bookmaker!" put in Mrs. Higgle, whose 
 husband was on the Stock Exchange, or, rather, just out- 
 side it. 
 
 "I wonder they allow it! It's a dishonest way of get- 
 ting a living," replied Mrs. Ghoole. 
 
 "It is, indeed!" said Mrs. Higgle. "Poor Mrs. 
 Thatcher, at number thirty-seven, was telling me that 
 her husband had owed him five pounds for ever so long!" 
 
 "And likely to owe it, / should say T' interrupted Miss 
 Elaine. "I saw a man mending their mat in the street 
 the other day, and it came right in half in his hands! It 
 all goes in drink!" she added her voice and general ap- 
 pearance conveying an impression of creaking ice under 
 a winter's moon. 
 
 "How dreadful! Poor Mrs. Thatcher! She seemed 
 such a nice, genteel little woman too! It's such a pity! 
 I wouldn't believe it myself, though, of course, I'd heard 
 things," said Mrs. Matthews. "But one day I was in 
 Perkinses Stores and I heard her order it! Three bot- 
 tles! She colored up ever so when she saw me. She said 
 it was her heart, afterward." 
 
 "Her kidneys she told me" creaked Miss Blaine. 
 "She has it in regularly. I felt there was something funny, 
 and I watched! And one day Perkinses man dropped the
 
 i 5 4 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 basket with the groceries in, and it was underneath in 
 the straw! The stuff ran all over the doorstep!" Miss 
 Elaine looked round with a deprecatory smile through 
 which her own enjoyment glittered like an icicle. 
 
 "The road is going down frightfully!" said Miss 
 Grout. "Pa talks of going to Kensington to live." 
 
 "Oh, indeed!" replied Mrs. Matthews. "That ac- 
 counts for it, Miss Grout. Mr. Matthews told me he 
 saw him in the Earl's Court Road, quite late the other 
 night, with a lady in a hansom, and I said it couldn't be !" 
 
 Miss Grout rose, and smiled through the silence that 
 followed with such an intensity of spite on her face that 
 Mrs. Matthews could scarcely contain her joy. For 
 months past she had smarted from a remark of Miss 
 Grout's respecting the vulgarity and ugliness of those 
 Matthews children. 
 
 "Good-bye, dear Mrs. Ghoole!" the outraged damsel 
 managed to get out at last. "I really must be going! 
 Thank you so much for such a delightful evening!" 
 
 Miss Elizabeth Grout's face was positively homicidal 
 as she crossed the road. She hesitated for a moment out- 
 side her own gate, then hurried away to number thirty- 
 seven, where the spitefulness in her eyes seemed to have 
 infected her fingers as she pressed the bell. 
 
 Margaret had escaped to the kitchen, and sat lost in 
 thought. A ring at the front door aroused her. As she 
 opened it Master Herbert Ghoole, a youth of twenty, 
 with a pasty-colored face and eyes like a fish, slipped 
 noiselessly in and stood looking at her. He held up his 
 finger and beckoned. As she went to him he reached out 
 and seized her. The suddenness of his action had so com- 
 pletely taken her by surprise that she was in his arms 
 before she could raise a hand to protect herself. In 
 another moment he would have kissed her, but the sound 
 of a doorhandle turning made him let go, and he swung 
 round and hung up his hat. 
 
 Margaret had vanished when he ventured to look 
 round again. The girl, with heaving breast and flaming 
 cheeks, stood trembling with fear and rage in the kitchen,
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 155 
 
 half expecting the wretch would follow her. She heard 
 his mother speaking to him, however, and the two go back 
 into the room. She sank down in a chair and covered her 
 face with her hands. The door opened again in a few 
 minutes, and he came out into the kitchen, ostensibly in- 
 quiring for his thick boots as he entered, grinning and 
 leering at her out of his muddy eyes. Then he stopped. 
 
 She advanced toward him with a look in her face that 
 appeared to astonish the youth. 
 
 "Herbert Ghoole, if ever you dare touch me again 
 I'll tell your mother and leave the house!" She spoke 
 quietly, but there was a note of passion ki her voice that 
 there was no mistaking. 
 
 He stood eyeing her sullenly. His mother had just 
 been expatiating on the merits of the new slavey. He 
 knew there would be trouble for him if she carried out 
 her threat; and he retired, swearing vengeance to him- 
 self. 
 
 Margaret locked her door carefully, before undress- 
 ing, that night, and for long lay restlessly tossing about, 
 in spite of her weariness. The excitement had unnerved 
 her, but she fortified herself at last with the assurance 
 that it would only be for a few months, and, remember- 
 ing the consolation that had brought her comfort earlier 
 in the evening, she smiled and fell asleep.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 DUSK ON THE DERBY COURSE 
 
 SUNLIGHT rattled a merry tune out of the old road 
 well-nigh deserted that afternoon as he whirled the dog- 
 cart (in which were James Burkett and Helen Darell) 
 Epsomward. At least, to the pair of mortals sitting be- 
 hind him, the ring of his hoofs had a joyous sound. 
 
 Thracian Sea was to have a good school over hurdles 
 at his new training quarters; and Helen had assented 
 eagerly to the proposal that they should drive over, and 
 see the horse do his work. 
 
 The roads round Worcester Park being more or less 
 "up," they had taken the main road via the Double Gates 
 at Merton. 
 
 Every gradation of social life, from king to coster- 
 monger, has passed along those undulating stretches. 
 There, every year, have some of England's fairest women 
 and bravest men hurried to and from the little Surrey 
 town; there, every year, the scum that accumulates in the 
 holes and corners of metropolitan degradation is drawn 
 southward along its course in Derby week, eddying in 
 and out and around divers pubs en route, to find its ob- 
 scene way at length to that Mecca of millions, with its 
 classic battleground, Epsom Downs. Than then and 
 there, nowhere shall you see greater social contrasts 
 side by side. Before the days of motors the frequent 
 drag, with, perhaps, "Blue Blood" of man and beast on 
 the bench and in the traces, moved genially among crowds 
 of humble and indeterminate vehicles manned and horsed 
 to match. There flickered in white lace "unconvention- 
 156
 
 'THRACIAN SEA" 157 
 
 ality" the rapid legs of sporting cockney cobs; there 
 strode, in heroic perspiration and pink or blue tights, the 
 cockney sporting biped, with a fixed and dreadful expres- 
 sion on his mottled face, and a stone jar or two perched 
 dizzily upon his fevered brow. 
 
 Fewer and fewer every year now are the drags; the 
 terrors of the taxi have played havoc with the sporting 
 tits; the bottle-carrying business has passed away, as a 
 thing more suitable for suicide than sporting wagers in 
 these days of Speed. The dust has given place to tarmac; 
 the curtained hansom is an anachronism now; but the old 
 spirit lingers yet, and still the penny-trumpet seller, the 
 man with the fearsome mask, and the vendor of the still 
 more fearsome cigar risk life and limb to find a gener- 
 ous customer among the motors that struggle up the 
 "George" hill at Morden coming home. Still the uncer- 
 tain cornet woos the morning and the evening with mem- 
 ories of Annie Laurie, Mary of Argyle, or the latest mel- 
 ody of the music halls ; still sounds occasionally the cheery 
 horn, through suburban streets and green fields further 
 out a challenge to the sober-minded to forsake sobriety 
 for the nonce, or a lure to the broken punter to leave the 
 depths of his despair for hopes of better days, when luck 
 will change once more. 
 
 You may have unpleasant recollections of Epsom, of 
 favorites badly "left"; of "four seconds beaten heads, 
 in one day"; of Toppings and Spindlers on the Hill, 
 whose business methods compared unfavorably with those 
 of the eminent firm of the same name at Flushing, Hol- 
 land. You may dislike the vulgarity and the crowd ; you 
 may object to the familiarity of the gentleman whose 
 stock in trade consists of a huge tin, containing a hetero- 
 geneous compound known as jellied eels, and who, appar- 
 ently unimpressed by your brand-new summer suit and 
 genuine Panama hat, informs you with a most disgust- 
 ingly confidential air: "I 'ave 'em as low as tuppence!" 
 
 The indescribable and objectionable odor which arises 
 from the fried-fish stalls, everywhere in evidence during 
 race week, and the equally in print indescribable and
 
 158 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 objectionable language may offend your sense of aes- 
 thetics. Your previous respect for The Cloth may have 
 received there a shock from which it has never properly 
 recovered. You may have seen elderly clerical gentle- 
 men, with shocking levity and remarkable success, eagerly 
 tempting Dame Fortune in attempts to find a mythical fe- 
 male known as The Lady from among three heathen 
 playing cards placed upon an opened umbrella, resting, 
 on the points of two of its ribs, on the ground beneath 
 some ancestral oak or chestnut near The Durdans. 
 
 You may have a thousand objections to its moral 
 and physical atmosphere, and yet in your heart of 
 hearts you have a sneaking regard for the old place 
 that time cannot destroy. You go there once or twice a 
 year, perhaps, and then only on race days. You like the 
 green of the paddock at "City" time, when the larks are 
 as thick on the downs as the "joints" of bookmakers are 
 on the Hill on the Wednesday. There you feel you like 
 to watch other things besides horses. The cloud shadows 
 sweeping over the hills; the solitary spire of Headley 
 Church up there against the sky, behind the rails and 
 furzes near the mile post. You feel you would like 
 to explore that far side of the course, and you wander 
 over there, away from the fried fish and the language, 
 and stand at the Derby starting gate where the green 
 stripe of the running track, that goes up over the hill out 
 of sight, is all shot with buttercup gold ; and the song of 
 the lark swells in a double sense above the distant 
 murmur of the stands and Hill. You dream, perhaps, for 
 the sudden transition from noisy humanity to silences 
 broken only by wind voices and the song of larks is con- 
 ducive to dreams; and you think of the equine heroes of 
 the past those makers of turf history, whose deeds and 
 misdeeds have so materially affected the lives of so many 
 humans, from the throne down to the filthy wretch you 
 have just passed, lying curled up in his rags by the rails. 
 
 The sun had set behind Ashstead; and the downs lay 
 darkling as the February twilight crept over their
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 159 
 
 rounded shapes. Northward the white mass of the grand- 
 stand was ghostly against the pervading gray. Far away 
 to the south, and lying like some great monster of a by- 
 gone age asleep upon the bosom of the sea, loomed dimly 
 the high hills above Betchworth. 
 
 Leaving the trap at the Downs Hotel, the two had 
 walked over to Henshaw's the trainer's place, and 
 seen Thracian Sea, with some stable companions, sent 
 two miles over hurdles at a good exercise gallop. There 
 was no mistaking the horse's aptitude for the game he 
 jumped like an old hand; and both the young people were 
 delighted. James decided upon the "Phoenix Maiden 
 Hurdle" at Sandown for his initial attempt; and, after 
 discussing further matters with Henshaw and saying 
 good-bye to the trainer, Helen had expressed a desire to 
 walk round the Derby Course. 
 
 They had reached the mile post, and stopped lean- 
 ing on the rails side by side. As they stood there in the 
 dusk the spirit of the place appealed strongly to them 
 both, and, when James drew her to him, the tenderness 
 in the girl's eyes was not assumed. If she could learn 
 to love him she should be happier than many women, she 
 thought. 
 
 And so from Thracian Sea they drifted by easy stages 
 upon the tides of that other sea whose waves have met 
 over so many heads and hearts a sea of calm waters, 
 where lies, for a favored few, a peace which passes all 
 understanding; tempest torn for the many, though the 
 sun shine never so brightly when the bark of Love puts 
 off from shore. Its depths are soundless; and charts 
 
 are ? Unreliable, shall we say? How many 
 
 couples, even ere the land of Single Blessedness is be- 
 low the horizon, have longed to return to escape from 
 the other passenger at all costs; some even preferring 
 drowning to a continuance of the voyage. And yet, in 
 that pilgrimage, undertaken as it is, and must be for quite 
 a long time to come, by imperfect beings, lies Humanity's 
 greatest institution, so far, whose justification a myriad 
 hearts have echoed when the sun of Life goes down into
 
 160 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 the infinite heart of that illimitable sea. Storms there 
 may have been; silent and lonely watches of the night; 
 mutinies and dangers of shipwreck, averted only by self- 
 sacrifice and forgiving love ; yet, with, in spite of all, the 
 man and the woman drawn closer to each other, as the 
 end of the voyage for them both draws closer too. 
 
 Marriage, apart from a young woman's sentimental- 
 ity, marriage as an abstraction, apart from its personal 
 side, had interested Helen. Now that the personal as- 
 pect was one which intruded itself upon her mental out- 
 look, she borrowed largely from the abstract to reconcile 
 her contemplated union with the man beside her. In 
 such speculations she walked round the mile and half of 
 turf that is perhaps the most famous battleground of 
 modern times. 
 
 Her companion's thoughts were widely different. To 
 him she represented something to be gained at all costs 
 one of the necessities of life, an object of primary im- 
 portance which no other woman could supply. He 
 scarcely noticed her silence he felt strangely quiet him- 
 self to be with her now was something approaching ec- 
 stasy for him. He even began to understand poets. 
 Presently he would have to come down to earth, and dis- 
 cuss ways and means; but now, at least, he could satiate 
 himself in the mute pleasure of being alone with her, and 
 letting love wrap his soul in mysterious things even as 
 the night was wrapping the silent downs in, what seemed 
 to him, a mystery as sympathetic as it was symbolical. 
 On the road home he would tell her of what had taken 
 place respecting herself at his home, of the "row" he 
 had had with his sister, and his plans for the future. For 
 the present dreams ! 
 
 When a young man reaches this state it is only in hu- 
 man nature that he should be extremely eager to possess 
 the creature (more or less divine) of such dreams espe- 
 cially when that person, in the flesh, has a habit of being 
 alone in his society in "waste and solitary places," and 
 that at times when the spirits of the dusk may be said to 
 invite, beneath the protection of their shadowy wings, the
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 161 
 
 exchange of all those little tendernesses dear to young 
 lovers from time immemorial. 
 
 He broke the silence at last with: "If Thracian Sea 
 is anything like as good as I think, I can win a thousand 
 on him in three races; and then, dear " 
 
 His words were but an introduction for unspoken 
 things. He slipped his arm round her, and stopped sud- 
 denly, looking tenderly into her eyes. 
 
 She returned his kiss, and then, infected with his 
 optimism as they walked slowly on, said: "Yes, dear? 
 And then ?" 
 
 "You and I will get married! Thracian Sea shall 
 pay for the setting up shop, dear, eh?" 
 
 "But suppose Thracian Sea fails in that important 
 item?" she asked. 
 
 "Oh well, we'll have to wait a bit, I suppose! But 
 the old devil won't fail ! I know all the horses that he 
 is likely to tumble up against in the races I have put him 
 in, and I tell you," he went on confidently, "I can win 
 three off the reel as easy as shelling peas, bar accidents !" 
 
 "But how about your people, dear? They don't 
 know me yet, and they may object to me." 
 
 "That's all right," said James. "The guv'nor would 
 sooner you were rich, of course; but you've only got to 
 show up in one of the firm's art shades, and you'll knock 
 him, right enough; and /'// bring the mater round. Sis 
 is catty rather; she wanted me to marry Phoebe Price, 
 but I spotted her game in time," he went on, with de- 
 lightful candor. 
 
 "Do you know, Jim, I have an idea that your people 
 will object to me," she said, her voice wistfully regretful. 
 
 "No fear, Helen! That'll be all right!" He wanted 
 it to be all right, and was a firm believer in the theory 
 that if you wanted a thing very much you generally got 
 it. Also, he didn't want to go into unpleasant details, 
 yet. 
 
 They had reached the Bell, and he looked longingly 
 at the white rails fading away in front. "Perhaps one 
 day, dear, you and I may cheer something of our own,
 
 1 62 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 first past the post," he said as he gazed up at the silent 
 and deserted stand. "Something in black and scarlet, eh 
 dear?" 
 
 She had chosen his colors for him black, with 
 scarlet chevrons, sleeves and cap and she wondered if 
 the enthusiasm she felt at his words was the forerunner 
 of love; life would be easy with James Burkett if the 
 pleasure of seeing his horse winning would suffice for a 
 woman's soul. And yet intellectually he was her in- 
 ferior, and always would be. She felt he would never be 
 able to give her, in such matters, the sympathetic com- 
 panionship for which she would crave. But, if man was, 
 in the main, both an unfaithful animal and a selfish, he 
 was not without his good points. When a woman de- 
 liberately tried to marry him for the sake of social ad- 
 vantage, as she was doing, it was surely not too much 
 to ask that she should exert all her refining influences to 
 reduce his natural propensities to manageable dimensions. 
 It was her duty to herself, and to her sex, and to society, 
 to do so she told herself, and inwardly vowed that he 
 should not find her lacking in her efforts in such direc- 
 tions. And yet the woman in her wanted too much, ex- 
 pected too much, she supposed. 
 
 James had stopped at the winning post, and was look- 
 ing back up the course. He was a fine specimen of a 
 man physically, and mentally up to the average. She had 
 an uneasy feeling that her own running for the Matri- 
 monial Stakes was not quite straight. She had her race 
 well won, as far as he was concerned half unconsciously 
 borrowing a metaphor which the associations of their 
 environment suggested to her. 
 
 They had tea; and then drove swiftly down the long 
 hill, through the lighted streets of Epsom, and the strag- 
 gling village of Ewell beyond out into the dark 
 stretches of road that lie between that place and Morden. 
 The night was very dark; and Helen shivered slightly 
 as she wrapped the rug closer round her. 
 
 "Cold, dear?" he asked, as he leaned nearer to her. 
 She was very quiet, and the click of Sunlight's hoof
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 163 
 
 strokes was the only sound. "What's the matter, dear?" 
 repeating his question. 
 
 "No, Jim. I'm all right! Thinking! That was all," 
 she added, looking up at him a moment. Then she went 
 on: "Have you spoken to your people, dear, about me?" 
 
 He laughed rather uneasily, she thought. "Yes, I 
 did, Helen. The other night after I got home. Sybil 
 had been talking." He flicked Sunlight's shoulder me- 
 chanically; and she stared at the trees that came gliding 
 through the rays of the lamp to meet them. "And Oh 
 you know what women are!" Sunlight quickened to a 
 sharp cut, this time, from the whip. 
 
 "And I was using her saddle." Helen completed 
 his penultimate sentence, and laughed a peculiar low 
 laugh of hers. 
 
 "Well, if you were there was no need for her to be 
 nasty over a bally saddle, was there?" 
 
 She looked at him steadily studying him. Then she 
 smiled. "There was every reason, Jim. Your sister is 
 a girl. And I am a girl, and and girls positively hate 
 each other for things like that." 
 
 He burst out laughing; and she hated him, but did 
 not tell him so. Instead, she said, calmly and judicially, 
 though she only half believed it: 
 
 "It is largely men's fault that sort of thing; they 
 have made us like it!" 
 
 He looked at her astonished. This was a new phase 
 of her; also, he was learning: Helen did not make re- 
 marks of this sort without weighing her words. 
 
 "Tell me, dear, I am curious to know. Do you hate 
 Sybil, and Phoebe, and all that mob?" 
 
 She hesitated. "You ask me for my opinion in confi- 
 dence?" 
 
 "Of course, dear! Honor bright!" 
 
 "I think I loathe some women, most women, Jim." 
 
 "Good Lord, girl, wh y r\ 
 
 "You ask me for my opinion in confidence?" 
 
 He laughed again. "Of course, dear! Honor 
 bright!"
 
 1 64 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 "I don't know!' 
 
 This was too much for Jim, and Sunlight started for- 
 ward with a jerk and squealed angrily. After his driver 
 had done laughing at his companion's disclosures, he 
 returned to the subject with: 
 
 "Anyhow ! the mater's on my side I" 
 
 Helen accepted his remark without comment, and 
 without believing it. She did not consider it necessary to 
 inquire into the state of Mr. Burkett senior's feelings to- 
 ward her. She was busily thinking out a plan of cam- 
 paign for the future. 
 
 "The guv'nor has cut up a bit because I have been 
 leaving the office early, lately." 
 
 Helen had considerable doubts in her own mind re- 
 specting the value of Jim's services in the old-established 
 firm of Burkett and Bowker. Her mental pictures of 
 him as a "business man" produced an effect of incon- 
 gruity for which her own ignorance of trade was not en- 
 tirely responsible. She knew his father by sight, and had 
 sufficient knowledge of the type to recognize in him the 
 successful man of commerce. When one day she had 
 seen the two of the-m together, the antithetic suggestive- 
 ness with which the sight had inspired her had left a 
 permanent impression upon her mind. 
 
 "It's a very old firm, yours, Jim, isn't it?" she asked. 
 
 "Rather! Thousands of years old that sort of 
 thing. It's antiquity makes me feel like a bloomin' 
 mummy in the British Museum!" 
 
 She looked up at him archly. "Do you walk about 
 with a pen behind your ear?" 
 
 He laughed at her quizzing struck with the truth of 
 her ideas as to his general condition at the office. He 
 found it difficult to remain still anywhere. "Oh, I'm 
 pretty busy sometimes ! Correspondence, travelers, don't 
 you know? I shall settle down all right after we are 
 married. I shall be a model young man then, quite ! Old 
 Bowker's a shocking old stick. Punctuality, business 
 habits, and that-sort of thing. If Thracian Sea wins me 
 that thousand I shall feel more independent," he said
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 165 
 
 rather irrelevantly. "I shall feel more justified in marry- 
 ing at once than if I had to ask for the money, somehow." 
 The dogcart rocked behind an ill-used cob. 
 
 Helen remained silent, analyzing emotions to which 
 his words had given rise. The sooner they were married 
 the better was the result of her reflections, a mental 
 decision rather than an emotional one. 
 
 As they drove past Wimbledon station, James saw his 
 mother in front. 
 
 "There's the mater! I'll give her a lift, and intro- 
 duce you !" he cried, suddenly pulling up as he spoke. 
 
 Mrs. Burkett saw them and stopped. 
 
 He jumped down, and brought his mother to Helen. 
 "Drive you home, mater," he said the introduction 
 over. He thought he saw an excellent opportunity for 
 establishing an acquaintance between them. 
 
 Helen got out of the dogcart, in spite of Mrs. Bur- 
 kett's protest, and insisted upon that lady taking her 
 place and rug. "I will walk up the hill, Mr. Burkett," 
 she said laughing knowing that he would not allow her 
 to do so; and matters were arranged by her taking the 
 back seat. 
 
 As the trap pulled up outside "Cloudeshill" the door 
 opened, and Mrs. Darell, with a shawl over her head, 
 came down the path to the front gate to meet them. 
 
 "I hope you have enjoyed your drive!" she called 
 out, then seeing someone else in the trap she stopped. 
 
 "My mater, Mrs. Darell," he said as he helped Helen 
 down; and, feeling that her son wished her to do so, Mrs. 
 Burkett assented to the invitations of mother and daugh- 
 ter to go in for a few minutes. 
 
 "Well, mater, what do you think of her?" said James 
 as they drove home. 
 
 "I like her, Jim, dear," said Mrs. Burkett after a 
 moment's pause, which to her son meant less than it 
 would have done to the subject of her remark had she 
 been able to overhear it. 
 
 James hesitated, waiting for some possible qualifi-
 
 1 66 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 cations. As none were forthcoming, he went on: "Don't 
 you think she is very beautiful, mother?" 
 
 "Yes, dear, she is a beautiful girl, and she seems a 
 lady." 
 
 "A lady! I should rather think she is!" he said, 
 bridling slightly. 
 
 "I asked them to call I thought you wished me to, 
 dear." 
 
 "Yes. Thanks, mater. You were a brick." 
 
 "I hope your father will like her." 
 
 "Why, don't you think he will?' 
 
 Mrs. Burkett did not answer. She had gathered 
 from previous remarks of her daughter that the Darells 
 were poor people. Mr. Burkett held decided opinions 
 upon poor people. From force of habit his wife gen- 
 erally reflected his opinions. She foresaw a probable 
 dilemma in which a passive attitude would be impossible. 
 
 "Do you love her, Jim?" she asked after a minute or 
 two. 
 
 "Yes, I do, mother, with all my heart!" 
 
 "Does she love you, dear?" 
 
 It was his turn to be silent now. He could not tell 
 his mother a lie about a thing like this. "Not like I do 
 her, I'm afraid," he said rather reluctantly. 
 
 Such an admission from him meant much to his 
 mother, with her maternal insight into his character. 
 The light that came with his words leapt to her mental 
 vision like a warning flash, in which the girl's predilection 
 for his society showed a dark and sinister thing. 
 
 "Why do you think she does not love you, dear? 
 Have you asked her?" 
 
 "Yes, mater."_ 
 
 "And what did she say?" His mother did not at- 
 tempt to disguise the anxiety in her voice. 
 
 "She said she did not love me," he answered gloomily. 
 
 "And you had told her that you loved her?' 
 
 "Yes. I asked her to marry me." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 James was more communicative with his mother than
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 167 
 
 with any other member of his family. "She said she 
 would marry me if " 
 
 "Yes, dear?" 
 
 "If I would have her without her love." 
 
 "Oh, Jim ! My dear boy, I do hope you are not mak- 
 ing a mistake !" 
 
 "Well, she was straightforward, mater, anyhow!" 
 
 "Straight forward!" 
 
 There was silence between them again. 
 
 "She has promised to be my wife !" he said defiantly. 
 The inflection in his mother's voice as she had echoed the 
 word had nettled him. 
 
 Mrs. Burkett sighed. She was regretting that she 
 had asked the Darells to call. Desiring above all things 
 her boy's happiness, she was at a loss how to proceed. 
 
 Feeling that his mother was troubled, he spoke hope- 
 fully. "That's all right, mater! Helen will love me in 
 
 time. She likes me very much now, only she's not a 
 
 She's not an effusive sort. We have many tastes in com- 
 mon," he added, as enthusiastically as he could. 
 
 His mother did not reply; and, as they turned in at the 
 drive at "Downlands," he said: "Don't mention indoors 
 what I have just told you, mater." 
 
 "Very well, dear," said Mrs. Burkett doubtfully. 
 
 "Jim drove me up from the stajtion," said his mother, 
 in answer to a question of her husband. 
 
 "Where's he been? He left the city again early to- 
 day." 
 
 "To Epsom, he said, with Miss Darell. He intro- 
 duced me to her," she added, feeling her daughter's 
 eyes fixed upon her. 
 
 Sybil Burkett sniffed audibly. 
 
 Mr. Burkett put down his knife and fork, and ad- 
 justing his pince-nez, studied his wife for a moment. 
 
 She understood his scrutiny to imply a request for fur- 
 ther particulars. "She seems a very lady-like girl," she 
 said in a voice of noncommital. 
 
 Her daughter's face hardened perceptibly. "So Jim
 
 1 68 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 has been talking you round, mater!" said that young 
 lady, without attempting to hide her sarcasm. 
 
 "Mrs. Darell came out as we drove up to "Cloudes- 
 hill," and I went in for a few minutes. I asked them to 
 call," she went on, ignoring Sybil's remark. 
 
 "I can't understand what Jim can see in her!" re- 
 torted Sybil angrily. "They are poor as anything. She 
 is a combination of a sort of glorified modiste's assistant 
 and a circus woman. Anyone can see that she only wants 
 Jim because she thinks he will be rich. It's infatuation on 
 his part! Phoebe was saying " 
 
 Mr. Burkett interrupted his daughter. "You asked 
 them to call, my dear?" he said to his wife. "Do you 
 think there is anything in it? as far as James is con- 
 cerned?" 
 
 She did not answer for a moment. The time was cer- 
 tainly coming when a negative position would be impos- 
 sible. "I'm inclined to think there is," she said in tones 
 of one who is unwillingly committed to a definite state- 
 ment. The poor lady was sorely troubled. 
 
 James came down late for dinner, and his enjoyment 
 of that meal was considerably below the average. There 
 was a strained atmosphere at the table that night, which 
 his sister's remarks, about some one else's remarks about 
 Miss Darell, aggravated to such an extent that it was 
 only with considerable effort on his part that he suppressed 
 the swear words with which he relieved his feelings when 
 he shut himself up in his den for the rest of the evening.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 HELEN MAKES ANOTHER CONQUEST ; SYBIL, A REVOLTING 
 DISCOVERY 
 
 MRS. DARELL and her daughter called at "Down- 
 lands" the following week and stayed to tea. 
 
 The occasion had infected Helen with sufficient ex- 
 citement to dissipate something of the calm that was the 
 usual condition of the distinctive atmosphere she seemed 
 like other celestial bodies to carry about with her. 
 The ordinary gaze of indifference with which her dusky 
 eyes viewed people and things in general was broken fit- 
 fully, from time to time, as though by the lights and 
 shadows of some storm sweeping across her soul within 
 an impression intensified by the clouds of sable hair 
 hanging like night above her eyes. 
 
 The wand of circumstance had stirred previously un- 
 disturbed depths of feeling in her nature. From a vortex 
 of emotions she had emerged at last with the desire of 
 becoming James Burkett's wife predominant a desire 
 inspired by motives which she neither disguised from her- 
 self nor from her mother in one mocking outburst of 
 revolt against the blind forces of a necessity which she 
 admitted and desired in the abstract, and whose approach 
 into the realms of the material things of her life filled her 
 with an illogical rebellion. 
 
 Mrs. Burkett received her visitors with as much cor- 
 diality and enthusiasm as it was her wont to show toward 
 anyone; and Sybil using her fear of her brother's 
 temper for the purpose like a pruning knife had lopped 
 off the hatred sprouting from her own feelings in the 
 169
 
 i yo "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 matter, and modified her demeanor into something ap- 
 proaching friendliness. She had at first attacked Helen 
 personally to James, in her endeavor to destroy the in- 
 creasing friendship between that girl and her brother, 
 but his "fearful explosion of disgusting language" had 
 warned her that such a course would only result in his 
 championing through thick and thin the woman who had 
 infatuated him. The saddle incident still rankled in 
 Sybil's breast; but the venom had, to a certain extent, been 
 rendered innocuous by the introduction into her system of 
 another virus that of a profound and unutterable 
 hatred, loathing, and contempt for her erstwhile bosom 
 friend, Phoebe Price. 
 
 That young woman, realizing the futility of her de- 
 signs upon the indifferent James, had left the field to her 
 rival's pagan charms as more in keeping with his tastes 
 and susceptibilities than her own refined and genteel ac- 
 complishments. 
 
 The rapidity with which a friendship sprang up be- 
 tween Phoebe and the Reverend Eustice Heugh, one of 
 the curates at St. Mordred's, aroused suspicion in Miss 
 Burkett's mind not a very difficult matter at any time. 
 The result of inquiries on her part was the revelation of 
 a "shameless duplicity, which had been going on for ever 
 so long," and a most fearful quarrel between the late in- 
 separables, in which Sybil accused the other of having 
 two strings to her bow, while professing an undying at- 
 tachment for James. Both young ladies not only made 
 use of the most unlady-like remarks to each other, but 
 showed a proficiency in the use of same that was as aston- 
 ishing as the scornful indifference, with which the vari- 
 ous epithets were received on both sides, was, apparently, 
 unassumed. 
 
 Phoebe's brother, who had been "greatly taken" with 
 Sybil, was immediately enlightened as to the real char- 
 acter of that person several of her remarks being re- 
 tailed with fiendish delight by his sister to the horrified 
 youth, a paragon of gentility who was in a west-end bank, 
 and who considered vulgarity of any kind in a lady as
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 171 
 
 something for which one might reasonably expect the 
 stars to fall. 
 
 The state of the campaign, so far, had, of course, 
 under the circumstances, gone largely in favor of Miss 
 Price; and the enraged Sybil smothered her mortifica- 
 tion before the indirect cause of her own troubles for 
 the time being, at least. 
 
 The drawing-room at "Downlands" was pleasantly 
 situated, with glass doors that looked on to the foliage 
 of a fine old cedar growing in the lawn, which sloped 
 down from the back of the house to a terrace garden 
 below; the background completed by a tree-clad ridge of 
 hills on the other side of the park. 
 
 Tea was served; the spode eliciting the remarks from 
 the visitors which it never failed to do on similar oc- 
 casions. Under the influence of the cup that cheers, Mrs. 
 Burkett expanded slightly toward her guests, and en- 
 gaged with Mrs. Darell in an exchange of those tenets 
 of the tea-table sacred to that important function among 
 British matrons. 
 
 "I hope you did not mind me using your saddle, the 
 other day? I sold mine when I gave up hunting, and I 
 was simply dying for a gallop." 
 
 "Not at all, delighted! I hope you found it suited 
 you," replied Sybil, with a sweetness which would have 
 deceived anyone but a woman. 
 
 "Your brother has saved me from a soul-destroying 
 ennui. We were absolutely lost in Wimbledon," said 
 Helen. 
 
 Presently the two men arrived from the city; and 
 Helen laid herself out for the conquest of Bertram Bur- 
 kett, Esquire. James had already noticed, with consider- 
 able satisfaction, that such silk as she was wearing was 
 one of Burkett and Bowker's most famous shades. 
 Nevertheless, it was with uneasy feelings that he con- 
 templated the result of the meeting. 
 
 All his doubts, however, were soon set at rest. Mr. 
 Burkett's hands became restive; behind the gold-rimmed 
 glasses his small eyes lighted up with half-forgotten
 
 1 72 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 smiles of former days, when his smile and manner as a 
 shopwalker had brought him fame in the retail, and laid 
 the foundation of his partnership in the ancient house of 
 Bowker and Bowker, as it was then. 
 
 Helen's magnificent eyes and Cleopatra-like beauty 
 wrought such havoc behind his ample shirt-front that his 
 usual pompous placidity vanished before his evident ad- 
 miration; and his son and daughter, with a kind of fear- 
 ful fascination, watched his white hands washing them- 
 selves in a manner which betokened the complete mental 
 oblivion of their owner to everything but the young 
 beauty he hovered round in effusive endeavors to en- 
 tertain. 
 
 She received his attentions with a charming grace of 
 manner of her own, in keeping with the role she had set 
 herself to play; and poor Mrs. Burkett, with her son's 
 words still ringing in her ears, saw in her husband's atti- 
 tude toward her prospective daughter-in-law a reason for 
 regret, and a future rod for their own backs. An innate 
 feeling of antagonism toward the girl, that she could 
 account for easily enough, was blended with a vague 
 dread at the dominating power of her beauty. A plain 
 woman herself she instinctively distrusted beauty in her 
 sisters; perhaps, because she recognized, in a way that 
 only plain women can, the truth contained in a previously 
 quoted saying respecting a plain face and virtue. 
 
 When at last his guests decided that they must really 
 go, Mr. Burkett insisted upon the brougham taking them 
 home to "Cloudeshill" ; and they left, after the worthy 
 merchant had extracted repeated promises that they 
 would call again. 
 
 James, delighted with the impression Helen had 
 created, informed his father that he had asked her to 
 marry him, and that she had consented omitting to men- 
 tion certain details which had evidently caused his mother 
 considerable uneasiness. 
 
 " Ton my word, my boy, you might have chosen 
 worse!" Mr. Burkett exclaimed, although somewhat 
 taken aback at the rapidity with which his son had
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 173 
 
 brought his wooing to a successful issue. "What does 
 your mother think?" 
 
 His mother thought many things, but she did not 
 venture to express her thoughts. "She is a very charm- 
 ing girl, and Mrs. Darell was very nice, Bertram," was 
 her only remark. She suppressed an involuntary sigh 
 from every one but her daughter, who looked at her 
 with newly awakened curiosity.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE WAY OF A MAID WITH A MAN 
 
 JAMES and Helen got into the last "special" for San- 
 down Park a few days later, and were soon deep in a 
 discussion of the entries for the Phoenix Maiden Hurdle 
 Race, to be decided there that day in which event 
 Thracian Sea was to make his debut "over the sticks," 
 and in the colors of his new owner. 
 
 He had handed her a race card, after having penciled 
 a big mark against: 
 
 3. Mr. James Burkett's THRACIAN SEA, B. g. by St. Simon 
 Samothrace. 
 (Black, scarlet chevrons, sleeves, and cap.) a. 11.7 
 
 Out of an entry of some dozen horses there would be 
 a field of eight runners according to his paper and 
 two of them had incurred penalties of 7 Ib. since the race 
 closed. 
 
 "Dear old Thracian Sea !" said Helen. "I do hope 
 he will win! I shall be most horribly disappointed if he 
 doesn't, dear, won't you?" 
 
 James was very optimistic. In a letter from Hen- 
 shaw, the trainer had informed him that Thracian Sea 
 had done well in a good stripped gallop which amounted 
 to a trial; and, the opposition not being very powerful, he 
 was confident that victory would be his at the first at- 
 tempt. 
 
 "I'm going to have fifty pounds on," he said. "Three 
 or four of 'em will be backed, and if I'm lucky I may get 
 five to one. If the old beggar pops up, I've got my eye 
 
 174
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 175 
 
 on two other races I've put him in, and if I can't win a 
 thousand on the three, I'm a Dutchman!" 
 
 By the time they reached Esher he would not hear 
 of defeat, and told the guard who unlocked the door for 
 them that Thracian Sea was a certainty, bar accidents; 
 that official registering a vow to invest half a dollar on 
 the strength of it. 
 
 Helen laughed at him, as they walked across to the 
 stands, for taking the guard into his confidence. "You'll 
 be lucky if you get evens, if you go on telling every one, 
 dear!" she said; and he laughed with her. 
 
 "Joking aside, I'm real keen!" he replied. "It's go- 
 ing to mean more to me than you, if things turn out all 
 right," he added wistfully his boyish eagerness sud- 
 denly clouded. 
 
 His remark struck at the root of her own gaiety; and 
 they walked on in silence, Helen strangely at a loss for 
 words. She was wondering if she would love this man, 
 and hoped that she might. 
 
 They reached the stand as the numbers were going 
 up for the second race a selling steeplechase; and 
 James left her to find Henshaw. 
 
 "I've got Weston to ride him," he said when he came 
 back. "Henshaw thinks it a good thing for him, bar 
 accidents !" 
 
 The sight of the horses jumping roused James to 
 feverish excitement, and it was with difficulty that he con- 
 trolled his feelings when at last the shouts of "Two to one 
 on the field!" opened the betting for the Phoenix Maiden 
 Hurdle Race. He had hurried from the paddock after 
 they had seen Thracian Sea put to rights and, going into 
 the ring, inquired the price of his horse in some half a 
 dozen places. 
 
 Two to one seemed the best offer anywhere the 
 fielders, apparently, showing no desire to open out. He 
 returned to the stand and imparted the news indignantly 
 to Helen. 
 
 "He can run for the stake! Two to one! It's an ab- 
 surdity! The first time out, too!"
 
 i 7 6 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 She sympathized with him, and suggested the only 
 course a waiting policy. 
 
 "Nine to four" was now the cry, and at that rate two 
 horses were soon in big demand, Firestick and Semi- 
 ramis ; while presently no money being about for him 
 Thracian Sea was well shouted at fives; a four-year-old, 
 Dream Maiden, at seven and eight to one ; and the others 
 at tens and hundreds to eights. 
 
 He went into the ring again, and after some little de- 
 mur, and an offer of 225 to 50 which he rejected, Taylor 
 laid him five fifties, and wished him luck in his first at- 
 tempt. 
 
 "I've taken two hundred and fifty to fifty, dear," he 
 said, as he took her arm and they found a favorable posi- 
 tion on the stand from which to see the race. 
 
 Thracian Sea cleared the preliminary hurdle like an 
 old hand and, with the sun suddenly appearing in the 
 cloudy sky and shining brightly on the pristine black and 
 scarlet silk above him, he cantered off to the start. 
 
 "A favorable omen, Jim," she said laughing. "The 
 high gods are propitious, and Phoebus Apollo smiles 
 down upon the Thracian Sea once more ! You ought to 
 feel that it is so, Jim I'm afraid you're half a pagan, 
 dear!" 
 
 "I'd be a bally Buddhist if it'd get the old beggar 
 home to-day," he replied, as he looked at the girl's eager 
 eyes straining at the distant horse, and with a warmer 
 light than usual in them. 
 
 She laughed softly, then cried: "They're off!" and 
 the flag fell to a good start the scarlet sleeves and cap 
 conspicuous in the middle of the field. 
 
 Breathlessly they watched the first hurdle. Thracian 
 Sea took it in faultless style; and their hopes ran high. 
 
 At the second, he made a bad mistake, and was a 
 long way last when they turned out of the straight. 
 
 "Oh Jim!" 
 
 James said: "Damn!" and put down his glasses. 
 
 The two favorites, Firestick and Semiramis, were 
 making strong running side by side, and jumping well.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 177 
 
 Along the back stretch Thracian Sea picked up a bit be- 
 tween the jumps, and at the pay-gate was within a dozen 
 lengths of the leaders the other horses now beginning 
 to drop away. As they swept round the bottom turn, 
 Helen cried: "Look, Jim! Look! He's going up to 
 them!" 
 
 James was looking his glasses glued on Thracian 
 Sea, who, as they came round the bend for home, ap- 
 peared closer to the leaders than he actually was. 
 
 "They're coming back to him!" she said excitedly. 
 "He'll win yet!" 
 
 "It's the bend! It's deceptive from here," he an- 
 swered gloomily. 
 
 As they came up the straight, first Firestick, and then 
 Semiramis was shouted the former on the rails; while 
 Thracian Sea was still some lengths behind, half hidden 
 by the two leaders. 
 
 "By Gad! the old beggar is coming!" cried Jim sud- 
 denly. "If he's with 'em at the last hurdle, he'll smother 
 'em for speed in the run in ! Henshaw told Weston to lay 
 off on him." 
 
 It was evident that it was going to be a race. Both 
 the favorites were, apparently, doing equally well as they 
 raced together, still side by side. Before reaching the 
 penultimate hurdle Weston pulled out wide of the other 
 two; and Helen cried: "Come on, Thracian Sea!" her 
 voice trailing away into the shouts that rose above and 
 around them. 
 
 From a man standing a little below them came a ter- 
 rific yell: "What price Thracian Seal Thracian Sea's 
 won it, for a monkey!" 
 
 Weston was riding all he knew, now, and nobly his 
 mount responded to his efforts every stride taking him 
 nearer and nearer to the struggling pair in front. He 
 cleared the last hurdle less than a couple of lengths be- 
 hind; and Helen, tense with emotion, clutched at her 
 lover's arm. 
 
 "He'll win it! He'll win it! I'm sure he will!" she 
 cried passionately. "He must!"
 
 i 7 8 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 James, knowing the angle, feared greatly, and did not 
 answer. 
 
 As the three horses swept by, Thracian Sea, from the 
 stand, appeared well behind; but she cried out exultingly: 
 "He's won! He's won!" and shook the arm she held to 
 emphasize her words. 
 
 James shook his head, and with trembling hands put 
 his glasses to the judge's box. 
 
 Number 3 had gone up. Thracian Sea had won. 
 
 "Phew! It was a near thing!" he said as the tension 
 relaxed, and the two stood gazing at each other for a mo- 
 ment. "Never felt so excited in my life before!" 
 
 "Neither have I ! But you silly old goose ! I told you 
 he'd won ! He was in front when he passed us ! He's won 
 half a length at least! You weren't allowing for the 
 angle!" 
 
 "I'll bet you a new hat he hasn't!" 
 
 321 had gone up on the board, and the words, 
 HEAD, NECK, followed. 
 
 He turned to her, and the curves of her beautiful 
 mouth shaped themselves into a pout. 
 
 "What size do you take, Jim?" she said laughingly; 
 but James was thinking of other things. 
 
 "I believe you love Thracian Sea more than his 
 owner!" he answered, with an expression on his face that 
 was only partly assumed. "Let's go and drink the brute's 
 health in a bottle of the best! Henshaw'll look after 
 him." And as they drank their champagne they heard 
 the "All Right" shouted. 
 
 The remainder of the program was of little in- 
 terest to either of them, and instead of staying for the 
 last two races, she insisted upon walking back with 
 Thracian Sea to the station plying the boy who was 
 leading him with those innumerable questions which only 
 occur to a woman. She produced from her pocket a lump 
 of sugar when they parted company from the horse, and 
 fed Thracian Sea with it lovingly. 
 
 "He be right fond of Miss, sir!" said the lad as he 
 watched her.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 179 
 
 A special was waiting; and the guard to whom James 
 had spoken previously came forward smiling, and found 
 them an empty compartment. James slipped a shilling 
 into his hand as he locked the door, and the man said, 
 with a broad grin, "Thanks for the other tip, sir, it came 
 of all right!" 
 
 "Did you back him?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. Ad 'arf a dollar on 'im! Five to one, sir! 
 Done meself a bit o' good." 
 
 "That's right! Don't forget to back him next time 
 he runs," James called to him as the train started. 
 
 "Well, dear? That's number one" he said as he 
 leaned back in the corner of the carriage. 
 
 "Yes, dear! law glad I" 
 
 "For my sake?" 
 
 She looked out of the window with thoughtful eyes, 
 i hen she said gently, "I wish I could love you, Jim." 
 
 "Kiss me !" he said peremptorily, leaning forward as 
 he spoke. 
 
 "Say please, sir!" 
 
 "Shan't!" said James, and relapsed into his corner, 
 whistling a tuneless dirge of his own composition. He 
 produced his race card, and with a fine show of indiffer- 
 ence began to study its contents. 
 
 Helen watched him from her seat opposite more 
 than a little vexed with herself. A sigh escaped her as 
 she turned her head again and looked out of the window 
 with unseeing eyes. 
 
 The dreadful "rune" left off. "Kiss me/' he re- 
 peated, but his voice had a note of pleading in it. 
 
 "We're running into Surbiton!" 
 
 The unearthly discord commenced again. 
 
 "Don't, Jim!" she said playfully putting her hands 
 to her ears, and making a grimace. 
 
 He looked at her hands, beautiful in their gloved out- 
 lines, and from them to her hair and wonderful, provok- 
 ingly inscrutable eyes. Then he turned his head and 
 stared at the houses flitting past. 
 
 "We're running out of Surbiton," he said in the
 
 i8o "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 voice of one dispassionately affirming the corollary to 
 her previous postulate. He looked across at her: and 
 she met the appeal in his eyes with a demure glance that 
 only half veiled other and indescribable things. 
 
 His lips pursed themselves up again, and he whistled 
 a few notes of grindstone timbre. 
 
 "Jim!" She stamped her foot. 
 
 He laughed at her a lazy, mocking laugh; and she 
 half rose threateningly from her seat. 
 
 "To stop the train in cases of emergency, pull down 
 the chain. Penalty for improper use, five pounds," he 
 read out. He was sitting in the corner with his back to 
 the window one leg thrown comfortably along the 
 cushions. 
 
 She looked at him judicially considering, then hur- 
 riedly out of the window. Green fields, trees, and a 
 waste of light gray sky! 
 
 He drew her down, and held her lips to his ; then she 
 released herself and resumed her seat a faint carmine 
 dyeing her clear pale skin. 
 
 He laughed joyously, like one who has quaffed deeply 
 of old wine, and thirsts for more. "He be right fond of 
 Miss, sir!" 
 
 "Behave yourself, Mr. Burkett!" she said with mock 
 austerity, as a signal-box whizzed past. "You will make 
 it impossible for me to come with you again I" 
 
 His face became serious. "Hang it all, Helen! I 
 didn't mean to offend you, dear!" 
 
 Her severity collapsed suddenly; the low music of 
 the laughter that rippled from her lips flooded his whole 
 being in depths of maddening delight. He jumped up 
 and, reckless of such things as signal-boxes, kissed her 
 passionately. 
 
 "Love me, Helen! I want you so!" he whispered. 
 "Say, I love you, Jim! Say it!" 
 
 "I love you, Jim!" she echoed. "Oh I will love you, 
 dear! I must, I must!" The words came in a gust of feel- 
 ing in spite of herself; and her eyes, grown strangely 
 moist and warm, had a great wonder in them.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 181 
 
 Again did Thracian Sea come forth to do battle in 
 the black and scarlet livery of James Burkett, Esq., this 
 time at Hurst Park. 
 
 "This is the second time of asking!" said that young 
 gentleman, as the numb&rs went up for the Thames 
 Ditton Hurdle Race, in which Thracian Sea was mulcted 
 in a 7-lb. penalty for his win at Sandown. 
 
 "I'm going to have the two hundred and fifty on him, 
 Helen, but there'll be no five to one this journey!" 
 
 He came back presently, and said: "I've managed 
 two to one in half a dozen bets. It's a doddle for him, 
 but I've told Weston not to show him up, if he can help 
 it. Our big coup will be at Sandown next month, and 
 
 then " He looked at her eagerly; and suburban 
 
 race courses assumed the characteristics of Arcadian 
 solitudes under the spell of the magic poetry of Youth 
 and Love. 
 
 His confidence in Thracian Sea's powers was infec- 
 tious; and Helen was filled with a sense of coming 
 triumph as she watched their champion cantering to the 
 post. 
 
 The race in its earlier stages was run at a wretched 
 pace none of the seven runners, apparently, being anx- 
 ious to go to the front; and as there were one or two 
 sprinters in the field, it was with a sigh of relief that 
 James saw Thracian Sea suddenly run through his horses 
 and the pace increase. 
 
 "Ah! There he goes!" he cried. "That's better! 
 One of those five-furlong brutes might have chopped 
 him at the rate they were going." 
 
 They were in the straight now, and Thracian Sea, 
 never putting a foot wrong, was soon leading his field 
 merrily over the last hurdle: from which point Weston 
 made something of a race of it with Dairyman, a sprint 
 horse who had been carefully nursed and brought with 
 one run. He challenged Thracian Sea desperately, and 
 held him for a few strides, but the latter went away again 
 and won cleverly by a length. 
 
 "Two lumps of sugar for Thracian Sea," said Helen
 
 1 82 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 oracularly, when James returned from the weighing- 
 room, and, producing them from her pocket, she de- 
 manded to be taken to her favorite; and fed him her- 
 self. 
 
 "Seven hundred and fifty pounds for James Burkett 
 and Helen, his wife plus the stakes! By Gad!" he 
 added suddenly, and stopped. 
 
 "What's the matter, dear?" 
 
 He remained motionless, evidently thinking deeply; 
 then he hurriedly turned the leaves of his race card. 
 
 "I've got a big tip for Thundersmoke in the last race. 
 Shall I ?" 
 
 "Shall you what, dear?" 
 
 "Shall I chance it? Play it all up on Thundersmoke, 
 Helen, eh?" 
 
 "Certainly not!" she said, decisively. "It would be 
 tempting Providence!" 
 
 "I believe it's a good thing," he answered doubtfully. 
 "And Thracian Sea might break down, or get whacked 
 at Sandown after all! Besides," he went on, "it's time 
 I got married and settled down. The suspense is getting 
 rather awful!" 
 
 "James, I will not marry you if you do! I feel sure 
 
 Thundersmoke will get beaten, and " The prospect 
 
 of a sudden termination to her maidenhood startled 
 her. 
 
 He did not answer, but left her and went down into 
 the ring. 
 
 While he was gone, a swift unquiet took her, and she 
 forgot even Thracian Sea in a flurry of self-questioning. 
 Oh, to be sure of herself ! Now! Forever. Half fear- 
 ing that he was going to back Thundersmoke, she stood 
 among the tenterhooks of irresolution. If he did, and 
 the horse won, he would hurry on the wedding: he was 
 not without a certain will of his own; and her own uncer- 
 tainty with herself was becoming unbearable and wearing 
 her out. At times, when she was with him, she loved 
 him, surely? and then, when she was alone, the doubts 
 would close in upon her again.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 183 
 
 By the time he came back it was not the defeat of 
 Thundersmoke, that day, she feared, but his victory. 
 
 He came back, still looking longingly at the entries 
 for the last race. He took up a position beside her with- 
 out speaking, and she turned questioning eyes to him. 
 
 "No, dear, I haven't. While I was hesitating they 
 "came for" him, and, from six to four, all the evens 
 were gone in next to no time. They're taking eleven to 
 ten. 
 
 "Shall we stop and see it?" She was feeling intoler- 
 ably strange and uncomfortable. Something, that was 
 other than mere curiosity to see if the "certainty" would 
 win, perturbed her into unaccountable excitement. 
 
 "Yes. I'll wager he'll walk in, now I haven't done 
 him!" 
 
 His tone was reproachful; and she bit her lips more 
 than once, while they waited for the flag to fall. 
 
 It was a two-mile steeplechase. Thundersmoke 
 rushed to the front at the water, and out-jumping 
 everything, began to draw steadily away. 
 
 "There he goes. Money for nothing, absolutely. 
 Damn!" 
 
 There was an expression of intense disappointment in 
 his face as he turned savagely from her, after speaking, 
 and watched the diminishing horses as they galloped out 
 to the far side of the course. She had a sense of guilt, 
 a longing to escape. 
 
 Thundersmoke, half a field in front, stood on his 
 head at the last fence. 
 
 "Good God ! Well, I'm " He seized her arm and 
 
 hurried excitedly from the stand. 
 
 His emotion hurt her more than his hand. The un- 
 expected which had just happened had been the last 
 straw to an overwrought woman. She had her weak 
 moments, like the rest of her sex. 
 
 In the cab he burst out: "God bless you, Helen 
 Darell, for keeping me off it!" 
 
 His words set at work a host of tiny devils that tor- 
 mented her with her own hypocrisy. Feeling that he
 
 1 84 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 would notice a strangeness in her, she made common- 
 place rejoinders, to his repeated ejaculations about the 
 fall of the favorite, which cost her an effort. With grim 
 persistency her mind filled with one idea, indefinable, 
 grotesque, that held the menace shadows have at times. 
 
 His demeanor toward her during the rest of the way 
 home was a blend of humility and respectful admiration. 
 
 When a woman has got a man down, it is only in 
 feminine human nature that she should kick him, at least 
 once or twice, just to see how it feels to the kicker. They 
 were not alone in the railway carriage, for which she was 
 devoutly thankful. She spent most of the journey won- 
 dering how she could best administer spiritual kicks to 
 the chastened young man sitting opposite to her. When 
 they got out at Wimbledon he was still scatheless, and 
 greatly impressed at her magnanimity. 
 
 For which mistake of his, Helen paid severe penal- 
 ties ere she could find sleep that night. Did Fate intend 
 her for this man? or had she sealed upon herself that 
 afternoon a destiny of impending and inevitable chains? 
 
 In the dark places of her dreams, ridden by a mock- 
 ing phantom a shadowy horse leapt innumerable fences, 
 a horse that was not Thundersmoke, but Thradan Sea.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 "NOW THRACIAN SEA, TAKE ME TO YOUR MASTER AND 
 
 MINE!" AND HOW THRACIAN SEA ANSWERED 
 
 HELEN DARELL AT SANDOWN PARK 
 
 FEBRUARY went its way through the first flowers of 
 choral woodlands : March set the copses flickering with 
 pale gold under the hazel boughs, and made the year 
 glad and mad with its boisterous breath. 
 
 James, who had the usual amount of superstition in 
 the sporting side of his character, had, by this time, strik- 
 ingly exemplified the power of auto-suggestion. In the 
 inception of his idea respecting Thracian Sea, he had 
 experienced at the most a moderate degree of hopeful- 
 ness. After the horse's second victory this feeling gave 
 place to a curious species of fatalistic belief, which no ef- 
 fort of his reasoning faculties could dissipate. If 
 Thracian Sea won the March Hurdle Race, he would 
 win the thousand pounds he had hoped for in the first 
 place, and Helen for his wife. If the horse did not win, 
 he would lose not only his money, but the girl he loved as 
 well. 
 
 This belief had grown in intensity as the fateful day 
 grew near, until he lived continually in a state of nervous 
 anxiety. His frequent visits of inspection to Epsom had 
 become a kind of religious duty, and Thracian Sea an 
 allegorical creature, who carried on his back the future 
 destinies of two mortals, and at least the future happi- 
 ness of one. At night, the creaking of a tree outside the 
 house suggested the straining of shoulders, back, or ten- 
 dons; the roaring of the wind in the chimney heralded 
 185
 
 1 86 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 a like infirmity in the larynx of Thracian Sea; the 
 snapping of a broken branch, and he expected to hear in 
 the morning that the horse had split a pastern at the 
 very least. A bloody nose in a street fight in Stamford 
 Street, conjured up a sanguinary vision of broken blood- 
 vessels and Thracian Sea pulling up half a mile from 
 home; an office boy at Burkett and Bowker's, who had 
 suddenly acquired an atmosphere of paregoric, through 
 which he barked painfully at frequent intervals, became 
 an elfin child fraught with bodings of a dire significance, 
 James expecting every morning to read, in the training re- 
 ports, that some of Henshaw's horses were coughing. 
 
 It is true that he had already won nearly a thousand 
 pounds with Thracian Sea, including the stakes, but he 
 determined to carry through his original program in 
 its entirety partly from a confidence born of his suc- 
 cess so far; partly from a vanity excusable enough in one 
 of his years; and, chiefly, because he looked upon the race 
 as a gift for Thracian Sea. 
 
 Discussing the matter with Helen, he described it as 
 "a case of picking up money." 
 
 She had at first entered into the idea of the thing 
 light-heartedly, but, as the climax approached, she, too, 
 felt herself imbued with something of the spirit which 
 had infected her lover. In addition, her own feelings 
 toward him had undergone a remarkable alteration 
 lately. A peculiar shyness with him at times, which she 
 had certainly never before experienced in her relations 
 with any of his sex, alternated with fits of reckless 
 abandon, during which she would avoid his society for 
 reasons which brought a blush for answer to her self- 
 questionings. After the Thundersmoke affair at Hurst 
 Park, she had taken herself severely to task. She was 
 not playing the game, and she determined henceforth, for 
 good or for ill, to be done with her doubts and encour- 
 age all the sympathy her nature was capable of toward 
 the man she had decided on for partner in the great game 
 of life. 
 
 At last the day arrived.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 187 
 
 A cold northwest wind screamed in their ears as they 
 got out on the exposed platform at Esher, but it was 
 otherwise fine, with occasional sunshine, and the gales of 
 the past week had made the going nearly perfect. 
 
 Helen shivered as she flung an extra coil of fur boa 
 round her neck, and plunged her hands deeper into her 
 muff. 
 
 They walked briskly across the park each obsessed 
 with the consciousness of their fate being inexorably 
 interwoven, somehow, with Thracian Sea's that after- 
 noon. As she leaned back against the wind that blew her 
 skirts against him from time to time, she suddenly 
 brought out from her muff three pieces of lump sugar. 
 
 "Three pieces of sugar for Thracian Sea!" she cried, 
 laughing, as the wind caught her and drove a loose end 
 of her fur into his eyes. 
 
 He dodged round behind her to the other side, and 
 held her tightly by the arm as another great gust swept 
 down upon them. "You can give him a ton of sugar if 
 he wins to-day, dear!" he shouted into her ear. "He's 
 yours!" 
 
 "Mine? Oh, Jim!" 
 
 "Yes, dear. My wedding present!" 
 
 Both had tacitly decided to avoid any reference to a 
 possible defeat for the "black and scarlet." 
 
 "Jim, you're a darling!" she said, and pressed the 
 hand within her arm against her side. 
 
 The first two races had been run; and they adjourned 
 to the paddock, where Thracian Sea was being saddled 
 in a sheltered corner. 
 
 "Now, Weston," said James, drawing the jockey on 
 one side, while Helen whispered her instructions into the 
 horse's ear, "I want to win this race to-day. Don't leave 
 anything to chance. Lay up well with 'em for a mile, 
 and then come right through: he'll stay at home all 
 right. Don't make too much use of him in the first mile, 
 but don't let 'em crawl. You understand?" 
 
 "Very well, Mr. Burkett. I don't think there's much
 
 1 88 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 danger, unless it's Night Swallow. I finished just be- 
 hind him at Leicester last week, and I should say he's 
 an improving sort. Firestick don't go." 
 
 "No," replied James. "They don't think theirs can 
 beat mine, even with a seven pound pull." 
 
 He had decided to work the commission himself, and 
 left Helen talking to the horse. 
 
 As she watched Thracian Sea walking round, she re- 
 peated to herself, mechanically, the words she had whis- 
 pered to him just before an echo of those she had used 
 to him on the memorable occasion of her gallop in Rich- 
 mond Park. They had become as prophetic to her now 
 as they had become familiar: 
 
 "Now, Thracian Sea, take me to your master and 
 mine!" 
 
 Her mind clung tenaciously upon the concluding 
 words, and it was with a feeling of mingled hopes and 
 fears, almost painful in its intensity, that she saw the 
 horse leave the paddock at last. 
 
 Meanwhile, James had gone cautiously to work, and 
 at the end of ten minutes had invested, altogether, 600 
 on the horse, and stood to win 500. 
 
 Thracian Sea had opened favorite, and there was, ap- 
 parently, no inquiry for anything else except Night 
 Swallow, a four-year-old, who was confidently expected 
 to improve upon his initial performance of the previous 
 week, when he had just succumbed to a good class handi- 
 cap hurdler at weight for age. The people behind him 
 were piling it on their candidate, but the bulk of the 
 public money was for Thracian Sea, whose gallant vic- 
 tory on the same course was generally remembered, 
 whose subsequent success had been achieved in irreproach- 
 able style, and who had "class" on his side. 
 
 Carried away by his emotions, it had been a point of 
 honor with James to stake the whole of the 750 he had 
 already won in bets. As the shouts went up: "Take 
 eleven to eight," he left off betting hoping that his 
 horse would go out a bit, as they were still backing the 
 second favorite; but the run on him continued and, at last,
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 189 
 
 in despair of doing better, he laid 150 to 100, and 
 went back to Helen. 
 
 "I've laid seven hundred and fifty to six hundred, al- 
 together," he told her. "There's a lot of money for 
 Night Swallow; but / don't care it's picking it up!" he 
 added, assuming a nonchalance he was far from feeling. 
 
 Night Swallow was now being shouted at seven to 
 four the other five competitors at anything from "tens" 
 to "twenties," and, practically, "running for the book." 
 
 Helen was very quiet; and James, after one or two 
 labored attempts at conversation, also relapsed into 
 silence. 
 
 The flag fell; and at a good pace the field came up 
 the straight Thracian Sea just behind Night Swallow, 
 as they passed the stands; the two favorites being some 
 three or four lengths from the leading horse. 
 
 James looked uneasily at his companion, whose hands, 
 as she held the glasses to her eyes, were quite steady, in 
 the pauses of the wind. Her face was flushed, and her 
 lips were parted slightly, but she showed no other traces 
 of excitement. 
 
 Feeling his eyes upon her, she put down the glasses 
 and turned to him smiling her eyes tearfully bright with 
 the sting of the gale. 
 
 Presently some one shouted: "There goes the favor- 
 ite!" and they saw Thracian Sea's scarlet draw to the 
 front, followed immediately by the blue jacket on Night 
 Swallow. 
 
 Weston was riding strictly to orders there was just 
 about a mile to go. As the leaders turned on steam, the 
 others turned it off, and the pair drew rapidly away 
 Thracian Sea leading on the rails. 
 
 Neither Helen nor her lover ever forgot the next two 
 minutes. 
 
 "I can't see for the bally wind," he muttered; but she 
 was too intent to hear him. 
 
 Into the straight they came, and still the St. Simon 
 horse was leading; but his adversary was going every bit 
 as well as he, and both were jumping faultlessly. Then
 
 190 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 a shout went up, as the blue jacket appeared in full view, 
 and Night Swallow ranged up alongside Thracian Sea. 
 As they reached the crowd, the noise, in spite of the wind, 
 became deafening, for Weston had asked the favorite to 
 go, and the younger horse held his own. 
 
 Held his own? He gained gained perceptibly! 
 
 James felt a horrible sinking sensation. "My God!" 
 he moaned aloud. He could look no more, and he shut 
 up his glasses mechanically. 
 
 Helen had put hers down now; and she stared wildly 
 and silently at the horse who meant so much to her to- 
 day. The wind in her ears rose to a shriek; pande- 
 monium howled below her: she heard nothing but the 
 unspoken words "Now, Thracian Sea, take me to your 
 master and mine!" If she had any distinct feeling 
 among the vortex of sensations in which she was en- 
 gulfed, it was sympathy for the man beside her. She 
 stretched out her hand, blindly groping for his arm. The 
 echoing words became a prayer as Night Swallow cleared 
 the last obstacle half a length in front. 
 
 Gallantly the old horse struggled, running on 
 straight as the proverbial gun-barrel under the whip. 
 He was holding Night Swallow at last. "He's coming 
 again!" James bellowed into the howling wind. The 
 stout blood of Galopin's great son was standing him now, 
 and he wanted it, with his seven pounds the worst of the 
 weights. 
 
 A hundred yards to go, and he had got to the other's 
 neck again, and began to peg him back inch by inch ! 
 
 Fifty yards ! 
 
 Twenty 1 
 
 He was level, and 
 
 A tremendous roar went up, and the wind seized it 
 and leapt with it against the grandstand, and over the 
 roof, and wailed away with it behind, where the police- 
 men and the cabbies and the loafers caught it up in pass- 
 ing, and shouted it to each other down the Portsmouth 
 Road. 
 
 "Thracian Sea!"
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 191 
 
 For Thracian Sea had won. Night Swallow had 
 reached the end of his flight he cracked under the strain 
 of the fearful struggle ; and, with a bull-dog courage that 
 would not be denied, Thracian Sea got up to win almost 
 on the post almost in the last stride. 
 
 James swung round to her and seized and shook her 
 hands. Then he ran down into the crowd and went to 
 lead his horse in. Helen stared after him and laughed, 
 but her face was very white. 
 
 He came back at last. The All Right signal was up. 
 She was still staring, watching with fascinated eyes th*e 
 unmistakable figure i hoisted in the frame. 
 
 "Come, dear!" he said; and they went inside and sat 
 down out of the wind; and the waiter received his order; 
 and a cork popped merrily up at the ceiling and fell on the 
 table and bounced on to the floor; and the wine foamed 
 joyously into their glasses and into their hearts and into 
 their eyes, and they drank to each other, and to the horse; 
 and Helen produced three pieces of by this time 
 rather dirty-looking lump sugar, and said: "Take me to 
 him, please, Jim," in the voice of one who will have no 
 denial. 
 
 He whispered something to her as they left the stand; 
 and she blushed furiously. 
 
 "Well, dear, when? Do tell me I" looking very dis- 
 consolate. 
 
 She considered a minute, then: " " 
 
 Apparently her answer was satisfactory, for his face 
 brightened wonderfully, and he commenced his weirdly 
 tuneless whistle fortunately inaudible, in the wild March 
 wind, to her, who had a certain march of Mendelssohn's 
 ringing through her soul. 
 
 Three pieces of sugar for Thracian Sea.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE OTHER MAN 
 
 MARCH had gone, with its trumpets that sound the 
 Titan onsets of charging skies and the searching archery 
 of hailstorms and swift rains. 
 
 One morning southern England awoke to the light 
 of a sudden and perfect peace in the heavens, and on 
 the earth the warm glamours of still weather that April 
 breathes at times. For weeks the town and country-side 
 basked in quiet beneath a kindling sun. The woods 
 and hedges filled with leaves and myriad song. Dust 
 and dense shadows grew upon the roads. In the stillness 
 that was upon the world one could almost hear the flow- 
 ers push upward, the leaves unfold. The cuckoo came, 
 and shook the placid air of woodlands with his cry: the 
 nightingale was heard, early for England, under cloud- 
 less stars and sun. The year had made haste quickly to 
 the passionate green places of the spring. 
 
 The Reverend Mervyn Ingestre walked bareheaded 
 into Kingston Vale. The wonder that was at work all 
 about him this April morning had touched him with a 
 strange reverence. He walked as one for whom mys- 
 teries awaited their unveiling close at hand, ahead, were 
 being unveiled that very moment, perhaps. He followed 
 the brook to the main road. Turning to the right, along 
 that highway, he reached a row of Lombardy poplars, 
 golden-bronze against the blue sky spaces above; into 
 which the first white clouds that had been seen for many 
 days were now creeping slowly from the south. 
 192
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 193 
 
 It was in the hour before noon, and he was seeking 
 material for a picture of April birch trees under a mid- 
 day sun. 
 
 Possessing, in the roots of him, the true artist's tem- 
 perament, circumstances, so far, had made him, to a 
 great extent, hardly more than an amateur in expression. 
 His religious faith had, in past years, claimed his pas- 
 sionate love for the Beautiful in ideas : he had loved the 
 beauty in wild nature vaguely, wistfully, at times, half 
 afraid of pagan snares therein that might betray. 
 
 Because of the faith that was in him he had resisted 
 the lure of the earth about him. To glorify his Maker 
 he had sung its praises in verse, had portrayed it in 
 color and in line. 
 
 In this, his twenty-sixth year, the spring had troubled 
 his blood as with the persistent wiles of a jealous woman. 
 During the recent spell of sunny, peaceful days, he had 
 grown uneasy, like a man who quested, half shame- 
 facedly, in calm weather through a land of song, for the 
 uncertain yet desirable favors of an earthly mate. An- 
 other desire, that of knowledge for its own sake, had also 
 awakened strongly in him. All through the past winter 
 he had studied in what had been to his devout soul for- 
 bidden books. Doubt had done its work, his peace of 
 mind had departed, his spirit had known much tribula- 
 tion in the gray waste places of Unbelief. 
 
 For consolation he turned more and more to his 
 artistic hobbies. In which search for solace he was only 
 partially successful: but his painting improved, or at least 
 he fancied it did. 
 
 He stood, thinking, for a few moments by the poplar 
 trees, wherethrough a rising wind rustled above his 
 head. There was a sign-post pointing up a narrow lane. 
 It bore the words, "Bridle path to Wimbledon." He 
 turned toward the woods he had but recently left, and 
 followed the path between hedges misty with the young 
 green of elm. At last, some way into the wood and a 
 little to the right of the track, he found a subject to his 
 liking.
 
 i 9 4 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 He set up his easel and canvas, and commenced upon 
 a group of birches in a sandy hollow. Painting rapidly 
 and with increasing confidence, as the work grew under 
 his hand he became absorbed in it to the exclusion of 
 troublous thought or emotion. 
 
 An hour and more he worked on undisturbed, with 
 nervous and sure hand and eyes, happy in a new power 
 of understanding and interpretation. With an artist's 
 rapture in creation he felt color and form find passionate 
 unity within his brush and reproduce their semblance, 
 for his joy in days to come ; felt the mood of the place and 
 hour caught in the net of his own nerves, and his nerves 
 gather to his hand light and shade, sunbeams and vagrant 
 airs, to fix transience henceforth in the magic mirror of 
 the painter's art. 
 
 Then, as he stepped back a pace or two, to judge of 
 the success of his efforts, the snort of a horse behind him 
 startled him and he turned round. 
 
 Helen Darell, bareheaded, and in a blue habit, 
 smiled at him and nodded. She and her mother had 
 recently attended St. Mordred's, of which church he was 
 one of the curates. He raised his hat, and stood watch- 
 ing her irresolutely, palette and brush in hand. 
 
 Helen turned Thracian Sea into the fern. "Good 
 morning, Mr. Ingestre. I didn't know you were an 
 artist! May I?" She commenced to study the canvas 
 intently, her lips left parted after speaking. 
 
 "Hardly that, I'm afraid!" he said. 
 
 Ere she came, his face had been slightly flushed with 
 the joy that was in him and the energy with which he 
 worked. Now his color had deepened perceptibly at 
 the sudden apparition of her great beauty in the lonely 
 wood beside him. The sunlight poured over her blue- 
 clad figure, her black hair: her face, her eyes, were for 
 him full of virginal, April fire. He had noticed her 
 beauty in the past; but they had never spoken together 
 before this. To-day she was transfigured, a woman who 
 had taken on strangeness, and a loveliness beyond mortal 
 women. His heart beat riotously. The colors on the
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 195 
 
 palette he held mixed themselves visibly, as he looked 
 down upon them, into rainbow things. 
 
 As he did so her eyes left the canvas a moment and 
 studied him swiftly. He was tall and slight in figure a 
 man with a fine face of somewhat ascetic type, sensitive 
 about the mouth and nose, his hair long and fine. It was 
 as dark as her own. Curates, hitherto, had meant but 
 small interest for Helen Darell. This one felt her gaze, 
 and he raised his face again. She saw a shyness in it, 
 that his dark eyes were full of intellect, and turned to the 
 picture. 
 
 "I wish / could paint as well, artist or no !" she went 
 on. "You've caught the very spirit of the trees already. 
 I hope you will let me see it when it's finished. I love 
 the birch woods at this time of year." 
 
 Thracian Sea shifted his feet, shook his bridle, and 
 his head went down. She leaned forward over the 
 horse's neck and stroked and patted its sinewy curve. 
 Mervyn Ingestre wrestled mutely with a desire to tell 
 her how much he longed to make a picture of herself 
 as she sat there thus before him. He compromised with 
 his desire by promising himself that he would paint the 
 one he was engaged on as he had never painted picture 
 yet. When it was done, perhaps she would accept it. He 
 wanted to ask her now. At last he found words to tell 
 her. 
 
 "And rob you of your labor of love ! It would be too 
 greedy of me!" Pleased, decidedly pleased, she wanted 
 him to press her to accept the gift. 
 
 "Not at all ! I have done many such studies." He knew, 
 even as he spoke, this last for a half truth only. "I, too, 
 feel the wonderful grace, the light that lives in the leaves 
 of the tree. Sometimes I have called her, 'My lady of 
 the woods.' Let me do this sketch for you, Miss Darell I 
 I assure you to do so would invest it with a an addi- 
 tional pleasure for me Do you paint, yourself?" 
 
 "I tried, and failed. No, it was no good, I'm not an 
 artist!" Then she answered him, "I must confess I 
 should like it, if you can spare it."
 
 196 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 They settled it. He would bring the picture to her 
 when it was completed. On no account was he to go to 
 the trouble of having it framed. 
 
 He realized that he must lose her in a minute or two : 
 such an experience as this might never be his twice. 
 Against his fear was the fear that she might urge him to 
 go on painting there and then. In his present condition 
 it was impossible : she would see his hand tremble at every 
 stroke. Coherent effort was out of the question, just 
 then. 
 
 Nor could he paint any more, afterward, when she 
 had left him. Instead, he sat down on his stool, and 
 stared with blind eyes at the light; his senses, his soul, 
 full of the magic echoes of a voice musical beyond bird 
 voices, of a memory that made the sunlight weak and 
 pale against the shape that filled his eyes. An incredible 
 sweetness had come to him the sweetness of a young 
 man's first love for a woman. He filled with the spiritual 
 ecstasy of a man who has known not carnal commerce 
 with the other sex. Such things, without love, were, in 
 his philosophy, unworthy of, incompatible with, the true 
 spiritual life; albeit there was more of passion in his 
 chastity than may be readily understood of many men. 
 
 Helen Darell, as she rode home to lunch, determined 
 she would pass that way on the morrow, or on the next 
 day of blue sky and sun. 
 
 As a matter of fact she avoided that particular ride 
 henceforth on such days, and there were many. Some- 
 thing in the curate's attitude toward her had given her 
 warning of possible complications, should they meet 
 often; and, she told herself, she would be sorry to spoil 
 the young man's peace of mind. She did not tell herself 
 she would be glad to do so, as well perhaps such in- 
 formation was not necessary. On gray days she went 
 that way. 
 
 When he called with the picture, she was out. She 
 had it framed; and hung it in her bedroom. 
 
 She next met him in the street, in company with his 
 vicar. She stopped and thanked Mervyn Ingestre; which
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 197 
 
 done, she praised his picture highly to the older man. 
 The latter spoke to her of her approaching marriage (it 
 had been postponed for a month, owing to a death in 
 James Burkett's family) , while Mervyn Ingestre became 
 interested in the slow passing of a carrier-tricycle, on 
 whose pedals a white-aproned youth leisurely rose and 
 fell. When they shook hands, at parting, she thought 
 the curate rather anaemic-looking. 
 
 She mentally contrasted him afterward with her stal- 
 wart betrothed; with the result that James seemed rather 
 coarse almost gross, in fact. She did not show him 
 the picture. He cared little for such art: sporting sub- 
 jects were more to his mind, as she knew. 
 
 The night before her wedding she took down the 
 picture from its place on the wall and held it tightly in 
 her two hands, the while she studied it closely and 
 thoughtfully, as though she were looking for some other 
 image below the paint. Ere she returned it to its place 
 she half raised the canvas to her lips, as if she were about 
 to kiss it. She refrained; and a great rush of color swept 
 from her throat to her hair. She went to sleep wonder- 
 ing if she would have blushed so had she obeyed her first 
 impulse, but without finding any enlightenment.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 A WEDDING AT WIMBLEDON, AND A JOURNEY WESTWARD 
 
 IT was her wedding morning, and Helen awakened 
 to consciousness and the significance of the day for her in 
 the dusk that precedes the dawn. 
 
 She sat up and yawned, stretching her lithe body 
 luxuriously, and then, slipping down into the warm bed 
 again, she lay very quiet. Presently she sat up again, 
 her dark eyes wide open now and luminous with the stuff 
 of dreams that a woman dreams only on that particular 
 day of her life. She rolled out of bed and went to the 
 window. 
 
 On the small lawn at the back of "Cloudeshill" dim, 
 dark shapes darted through the surrounding gray: black- 
 birds and thrushes were already at work, varying their la- 
 bors with an occasional note of music from bush and tree. 
 She opened the window wide and looked out drinking in 
 the air in draughts of delicious invigoration. The gar- 
 den was small, but surrounded by others old gardens 
 for the most part, with a wealth of fruit tree blossom 
 showing like patches of snow on the dusk. The morning 
 was very still, and, when a bird sang, the hush of in- 
 animate nature seemed to know an equal ecstasy of 
 silence. 
 
 Slowly the gray east opened like the petals of a rose; 
 the shadows grew into definite shapes; the dawn wind 
 stirred in the fruit blossom and in the girl's dark hair; 
 and then a hundred tiny throats swelled in a paean to 
 Apollo as the coming of the Sun god was heralded by a 
 rosy flush on a cloudy sky above. 
 
 The real cause of her rising thus early was Thracian 
 198
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 199 
 
 Sea since his Sandown triumph her own property and 
 stabled at "Downlands." 
 
 Since his memorable victory she had seldom missed 
 a morning gallop on the horse; and to-day she had de- 
 termined to indulge in the practice by an hour's ride be- 
 fore breakfast. He was to be brought round at seven. 
 The wedding was fixed for half past twelve; and her 
 mother had positively forbidden Thracian Sea at any 
 other hour Mrs. Darell exerting her authority for the 
 last time in a nervousness of anxious entreaty. 
 
 It was going to be fine, she told herself. It must be 
 fine ! The thought of a wet day for her wedding made 
 her shiver as she stood by the window in her night at- 
 tire. She looked at her watch. It was four o'clock. 
 She went back to bed, and lay there awake, alternately 
 dreaming and watching the square of sky showing 
 through the window. The clouds, in their soft gray folds, 
 seemed perfectly motionless now, as though the winds of 
 night, grown weary, had suddenly ceased their labors 
 and lay sleeping among their own Titanic pillows. 
 Never in her life before had she felt so much the infinite 
 mysticism embodied in that Eternal- Wonder poem the 
 Book of Nature. 
 
 At five o'clock her mother crept into the room and 
 kissed her, and informed her that it was going to be a 
 splendid day. Mrs. Darell was "all of a flutter" and 
 inclined to tears; wherefore, her daughter became in- 
 tensely practical and ordered her back to bed. 
 
 Her bath completed what the breath of the morning 
 had begun, and by the time she had finished her toilet 
 her healthy young body was as ravenously hungry as th'e 
 birds she was watching out there on the lawn appeared 
 to be. 
 
 She found her mother and Susan their only maid 
 already downstairs : the former fluctuating in subtle 
 transitions from cheerful tearfulness to tearful cheerful- 
 ness : the latter reduced by the importance of the occasion 
 to a semi-useless condition. She promptly commenced 
 circling round Helen.
 
 200 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 "Lor, Miss Helen ! Mr. James'll be that struck dumb 
 with ee for sure!" she giggled. 
 
 "Don't be an idiot, Susan, but get me something to 
 eat!" Helen surveyed herself critically in a mirror. 
 
 Her examination failed to reveal any flaw in her per- 
 sonal appearance, and, without vanity, she could claim 
 that her bridegroom would have at least one reason to 
 be proud of his bride that day. 
 
 At last she heard Thracian Sea's well-known snort 
 of welcome outside, and, snatching up her purse and habit 
 in one hand, and some lump sugar in the other, she ran 
 out bare-headed to her favorite. 
 
 Bob touched his hat with a grin as he brought the 
 horse to her. She fed Thracian Sea, and then, opening 
 her purse, took out a sovereign and gave it to his at- 
 tendant, saying as she did so: 
 
 "There, Bob ! Drink my health and Thracian Sea's, 
 but don't take too much, mind, whatever you do!" 
 
 "Gawd! She be an out an outer, an no mistake!" 
 he said to himself as she went back into the house and 
 he put the coin into his pocket. "I don't wonder that 
 she cut out that ere Price young woman with our Mr. 
 James. An a good job, too, for a more mischievious, 
 scandalarisin sort than } er, ther ain't in all Wimbledon ! 
 A-blabbin of me drinking outside the Rose an Crown that 
 day as the 'oss won 'is first race! A couple of arf pints! 
 Drinkin, indeed!" 
 
 He assisted her to mount, watched her ride up the 
 road, and then sauntered off to the nearest public house 
 there to wait until it was time to take Thracian Sea 
 back to his stable. 
 
 She had longed for this last gallop alone. Out on 
 the common, the glory of the morning rushed through 
 her soul as Thracian Sea broke into a canter across the 
 grass. The sun was well up now, and a soft south wind 
 streamed after her as she rode toward the Windmill. 
 She commenced talking to the horse, bending over and 
 stroking his muscular neck as she did so. His ears 
 pricked at the sound of her voice, and, instinctively, he
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 201 
 
 altered his gait. He was still in almost racing trim, and, 
 when she cried to him to "Go on!" he threw up his 
 head for a moment, and then, with it tucked into his chest, 
 settled down without any further encouragement to a 
 gallop of some thirty miles an hour. 
 
 Afterward she wondered why that ride was different 
 from any that she ever had subsequent to it. 
 
 She pulled him back into a trot, swung round to the 
 left, through the woods, crossed the main road and on 
 into Richmond Park where she let him out again, and 
 he tore along for a mile like a whirlwind. 
 
 As she turned his head for home her oft repeated 
 words held a curious significance for her. She had be- 
 come aware that there was in her still even though she 
 now felt that she loved the man who was so soon to be 
 her husband a shrinking from the surrender of her 
 virginity. 
 
 She was neither "innocent" nor "ignorant"; nor did 
 the contemplation of the marriage-state, as such, in- 
 spire her with any of those misgivings which attack some 
 women on their wedding day. It was not any general re- 
 pugnance against changing her condition that oppressed 
 her, but, as she trotted up the hill again through the 
 woods, she was conscious of an oppression against which 
 she strove in vain. (She had purposely avoided the 
 ride past a certain group of birch trees.) It was as if 
 from far away a warning was coming to her, bidding her 
 postpone the giving of herself to this man. A little while 
 ago it had been a case of selling herself to him, she re- 
 membered. She could honestly say that such was not 
 the case now, but . . . nevertheless, why was it that, at 
 the thought, she would have liked the advice of Mervyn 
 Ingestre on such matters? . . . 
 
 She reached the level going at the top, and Thracian 
 Sea dashed away again, but she pulled him up and walked 
 him back to "Cloudeshill." With a great mental effort 
 she put away the strange idea that was obsessing her at 
 last, and called to Bob as he led the horse away not to 
 forget to let him have as much corn as he could eat that
 
 202 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 'day. A bottle of port wine she had determined to re- 
 serve for his especial treat under her personal super- 
 vision after the wedding breakfast was over. 
 
 "The ceremony was performed by the vicar of St. 
 Mordred's, assisted by the Rev. Mervyn Ingestre." Thus 
 "The Wimbledon and Raynes Park Gazette" with the 
 usual panegyric on the bride's personal appearance, etc. 
 
 Helen, unlike most young women under a similar 
 ordeal, outwardly evinced none of those perturbations of 
 flesh and spirit common to her sex. If, inwardly, she 
 experienced any such feelings, her cheeks were flushed 
 only to a degree sufficiently becoming to enhance the pur- 
 ity of her pale skin, and her eyes wore their usual look of 
 calm. 
 
 James, responding to the usual toasts, as is generally 
 the case on these occasions, was a long time saying a 
 very little; and in spite of genuine efforts on the part 
 of his bride to be gracious to all and sundry, as became 
 her position, the consensus of opinion afterward at least 
 among the feminine element present at the function was 
 that she was "cold," in some instances amplified by the 
 addition that she was "deep." 
 
 One person at least who was present in the church 
 kept his opinion of the bride to himself, and that was 
 the Reverend gentleman who had assisted. 
 
 He had assisted to his own undoing, and, after it 
 was all over, his large, dark, and rather sad eyes had 
 clung unconsciously to Helen Burkett's in a manner which, 
 fortunately for him, escaped the notice of everyone else 
 save the object of his scrutiny. She colored slightly under 
 the intensity of his gaze; and he awoke to the fact that 
 he had been staring at her in a highly discreditable way, 
 and kept his eyes averted until the party left the church 
 when he could not resist another furtive glance at the 
 woman who had so violently disturbed the deep places 
 of his soul. 
 
 He was startled to find that she was in turn regard- 
 ing him with an expression which, to his present men-
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 203 
 
 tal condition, seemed strangely like a reflection of his 
 own. 
 
 The reception was over. Thracian Sea had drunk 
 her health in a bottle of old port being led out from 
 his box for that purpose, accompanied by Sunlight, who 
 also had his bottle and marking his appreciation of 
 the vintage and proceedings generally by landing his 
 stable companion heavily in the ribs, and scattering the 
 crowd of guests in all directions. Whereat Helen had, 
 of course, to go to him and remonstrate with him for 
 his unseemly behavior much to the horror of several 
 elderly ladies present, who expected every moment to see 
 the new made bride kicked to death before her husband's 
 eyes. 
 
 "A splendid creature I" said Mrs. Gunn, of The Myr- 
 tles a thin lady who had retired hurriedly to a safe 
 distance to Mrs. Lowage, of The Laurels a stout one 
 who had been too timid to approach the horses at all. 
 "A splendid creature, but wild and untamable as the 
 dreadful vicious racing horse itself! I am sure someone 
 will have their brains dashed out in a minute ! I envy 
 the man who has to manage her. It is a good match for 
 her from a worldly point of view," she added in the tone 
 of one inviting confidence. "He seems very fond of 
 her?" 
 
 "Fond! Why, he's infatuated with her!" replied 
 Mrs. Lowage, who had been a staunch supporter of the 
 Phoebe Price interests, and who, after emphatically ex- 
 pressing her convictions that James most certainly would 
 marry that young lady, had seen her predictions falsi- 
 fied for ever by the events of the day. She felt, there- 
 fore, that she had a right to be critical toward the whole 
 affair. "She is beautiful, I suppose, to those who admire 
 that dark, tragic kind of beauty, but those sort of girls 
 so seldom make good wives that my affection for the boy 
 himself and his family makes me nervous." 
 
 "Men are so easily taken in by the mere external 
 and transitory attractions, I'm afraid," remarked Mrs.
 
 204 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 Gunn. "They so frequently sacrifice the substance for 
 the shadow !" and Mr. Gunn would probably have sec- 
 onded her remark had he heard it his lady being not 
 infrequently likened to a shadow in their descriptions of 
 her by her friends and acquaintances. 
 
 If plainness of exterior were a reliable guide, indi- 
 cating the presence of internal beauties, Mrs. Gunn must 
 have had a veritable Pantheon of spiritual loveliness in- 
 side her. 
 
 "By Gad, wife! you are a ..." and James Bur- 
 kett stared across from his corner of the railway carriage 
 at his wife, at a loss for words to describe adequately 
 either his own feelings or her beauty. He had helped 
 himself rather freely to champagne during the day. 
 
 His bride flushed slightly and made him a little bow. 
 
 "It is meet that I should find favor in my lord's eyes," 
 she said, and studied with an interest wholly dispropor- 
 tionate to the subject a large enameled iron advertisement 
 of somebody's ink running down the station wall. 
 
 They had a compartment to themselves in the Ilfra- 
 combe express, at Waterloo, waiting to start on its jour- 
 ney to the west. 
 
 They had decided to spend the first three weeks of 
 the honeymoon at Ilfracombe, and return for Ascot. She 
 had been too uncertain as to whether she longed for a 
 quiet place or the reverse, in which to spend that critical 
 period, to offer any objection when he suggested the one 
 place he seemed to consider preferable above all others. 
 
 At last the train drew out from the station and was 
 soon rushing through the golden glory of the afternoon 
 sunshine. As they sped along the embankment across 
 the Wandle valley, toward Wimbledon, Helen's eyes 
 sought the distant trees of Wimbledon Park standing up 
 against the sky, and her mind instinctively reconstructed 
 the scenes of her past life enacted in that vicinity. 
 
 "I'll have Thracian Sea sent on next week," said 
 James, "if you're tired of me by that time. You will 
 be, I expect," he added rather dolefully.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 205 
 
 His wife aroused herself from her reverie and flushed 
 hotly at his words. She had at that moment been mutely 
 questioning her own soul as to whether she really did 
 love him or not. In obedience to a mandate she had 
 issued to herself respecting her future line of conduct 
 toward him she rose from her seat and sat down by his 
 side. 
 
 "Love me, Jim," she said in a low voice, and stretched 
 out her hand for his. 
 
 "We are running out of Surbiton!" There was a 
 sudden and unusual roguishness in her dark eyes as she" 
 spoke. Thinking hurt her vaguely before his face, 
 flushed as it was with wine and passion for herself. Like 
 Keats, she could have cried out for a life of sensations. 
 
 His hand closed on hers, trembling slightly as he 
 kissed her; and she leaned on his shoulder, wondering at 
 the enigma her own feelings presented. At Esher both 
 turned instinctively to the window as the name of the 
 station leapt past. Before the rush of memories of Thra- 
 cian Sea's gallant struggles up the Sandown hill, evoked 
 by the sight of the white rails and now deserted stands, 
 the more tender atmosphere of love was dispersed for a 
 while, and they fought the horse's battles over again. 
 
 Presently she asked: "Who do you think really joined 
 us together, Jim? God or Thracian Sea?" 
 
 He laughed at the strangeness of her question. She 
 did ask rum questions at times, he thought to himself. 
 Then, uncertain how she would take any levity on his part 
 and, realizing the difficulty of his position, he referred 
 her to an oft appealed to and popularly supposed to be 
 extremely erudite Principle : 
 
 "Goodness knows, dear!" he said. 
 
 Her dark eyes seemed to grow darker their habit 
 when she pondered deeply. 
 
 "God?" and she nudged his arm. 
 
 "Well . . . Yes, I suppose so!" he answered. 
 
 "But Thracian Sea must have his share of the credit," 
 she insisted.
 
 206 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 "Oh, rather I" 
 
 "Jiml" 
 
 "Yes, dear?" 
 
 "Do you believe in God?" 
 
 "Eh? Oh, yes, I suppose so! I don't worry my 
 head about that sort of thing as a rule, Helen. Why? 
 You don't want me to take religion, do you, dear?" 
 
 She was thinking of Mervyn Ingestre at the church 
 after their wedding. The man's pale face and dark 
 eyes recurred to her in a strangely persistent manner. 
 Her conception of curates as a class was the conventional 
 one. Mervyn Ingestre was refused admission thereto 
 when she attempted to classify him. 
 
 "But . . . Jim!" 
 
 "Yes, darling?" 
 
 "I suppose you think about it sometimes, don't you?" 
 
 "Ye-s," he answered, rather dubiously. 
 
 "What do you think of, Jim? Tell me!" she said 
 adding: "I really know very little of my husband's 
 tastes." 
 
 "Think of? Oh, lots of things! You mostly," he 
 replied tenderly. 
 
 "But other things, dear? Tell me." 
 
 He looked away, musing for a few moments, then : 
 
 "Well, then . . ." 
 
 "Yes, dear?" 
 
 "Oh, love and ... and . . ." 
 
 "But love means me, doesn't it?" 
 
 "Yes, darling, rather. Oh, / don't know! Thracian 
 Sea, and . . . Oh, lots of things, don't you know!" 
 
 James had really an aversion to thinking at all, except 
 on such matters as he had specified. His stock of sub- 
 jects was somewhat limited. 
 
 "But such things as Art, Literature, Philosophy, Sci- 
 ence, Religion?" 
 
 "I don't seem to have had any time for that sort of 
 thing, somehow, since I came down from Cambridge," he 
 said rather lamely. 
 
 "Did you do well there, dear?"
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 207 
 
 "Oh er yes, pretty fair that is ... No, beastly 
 badly!" he blurted out at last, deeming honesty the best 
 policy and fearing his wife would inveigle him into a dis- 
 cussion on a variety of matters which he classified under 
 the generic title of "Rot." Then he went on hurriedly 
 not without secret misgivings: 
 
 "But, of course, I shall get jolly keen on them if they 
 interest you, dear!" 
 
 Helen Burkett's intellect was . . . But I refrain 
 from a comparison of doubtful significance in these days 
 of intellectual femininity. Without in any way being 
 "blue," she was a woman of considerable mental culture 
 in which respect her husband was a veritable ignoramus 
 beside her. She had known him long enough to be able 
 to gauge the caliber of his mind, and she was not very 
 hopeful, but she replied: 
 
 "I hope you will, Jim. 
 
 "For what are men better than sheep or goats 
 That nourish a blind life within the brain." 
 
 "Shakespeare, isn't it?" 
 
 "No, dear Tennyson." 
 
 "Oh, yes, of course! I'm weak on poetry, rather," 
 said Jim. It was a particular species of "rot" which he 
 did not understand with the exception of some of the 
 more amorous types and he, therefore, felt safe in clas- 
 sifying it under that heading. He had an impression that 
 it was "effeminate," his ideas and ideals of "manliness" 
 being unconsciously humorous. The Physical was the 
 dominant note in them. Strength in which homo is 
 equaled or excelled by his nearest kindred, the largest 
 anthropoids, not to mention all or most of the larger ver- 
 tebrates; Speed in which even a "nine seconds man," if 
 he ever exists, will be hopelessly inferior to such insig- 
 nificant animals as L. timidus; Activity and Agility- in 
 which all the quadrumana, without exception, are his su- 
 periors. His conceptions of the Intellectual were equally 
 peculiar. The cunning of the city or racing sharp passed
 
 208 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 with him for such: he would have rated the ordinary 
 company promoter somewhere below Shakespeare in in- 
 tellect, perhaps, but certainly above such poets as Shelley. 
 Its Simian origin betrayed itself, and exemplified the 
 theory of Descent, in his sense of conscious humor buf- 
 foonery with him generally passing for that quality, al- 
 though the monkey house at Regent's Park, which is in- 
 finitely "funnier" than any human comicalities, was a 
 place that he had not visited since childhood. 
 
 "I've read 'Don Juan' !" he added, laughing. 
 
 "Naughty, Jim!" she said, pretending to be horrified. 
 As she said it she would have liked to have shocked a 
 certain person other than her husband by an exhibition of 
 wantonness. 
 
 "Have you?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Oh! Oh!" he laughed boisterously. "I am shocked!" 
 turning to her with a mock assumption of righteous- 
 ness. "I can see I shall have to act the stern moralist in 
 future and exercise a rigid censorship over my wife's 
 literary recreations !" 
 
 "Well, dear ... I suppose you think with Mrs. 
 Grundy that if women cannot be content with murder mys- 
 teries, forgeries, burglaries, robberies, arsons, and all 
 the other nice elevating amusements of that kind, without 
 wanting to read about things of passion which may pos- 
 sibly have something of the beautiful and romantic in 
 them, they had better not read about anything at all. Not 
 that I consider Don Juan possesses many such qualities, 
 but . . . There ij only one kind of immorality in litera- 
 ture for dear delightful British Respectability!" The 
 contemplation of her future existence in the tents of the 
 Philistines wrung her at times, but she recognized ^the 
 illogicality even for a woman of resentment against 
 a life of her own choosing. 
 
 She did not disguise from herself for a moment her 
 original motives toward him. She had determined to 
 "make him a good wife" to the best of her ability, but 
 she felt so her own intellectual superiority that she re-
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 209 
 
 alized that to sink her individuality too much would do 
 more harm than good. Also, she felt a little over- 
 wrought. 
 
 "I hope, Jim, you will not consider it an essential in 
 our matrimonial scheme of things for me to emulate the 
 achievements in the calumny-distributing line of, say, our 
 friend Miss Price, for example?" 
 
 James had become suddenly quiet at her remarks re- 
 specting things of passion thinking of Margaret. By 
 Gad! There was nothing narrow-minded about his wife, 
 thank God! he ejaculated mentally. At her last sentence, 
 therefore, he burst out angrily with : 
 
 "What! Has the infernal woman been telling lies 
 about you, dear?" 
 
 "Oh, / don't mind, Jim ! I thought it right to mention 
 it, however" seeing in the circumstance the germ of 
 possible trouble. 
 
 On rushed the express after a few minutes' halt at 
 Salisbury, where they procured and discussed the contents 
 of a tea-basket. 
 
 As the changing features of the landscape slid past, 
 man and wife sat side by side watching the lengthening 
 shadows and the slow transition of a glorious afternoon 
 into a still more glorious evening in long intervals of 
 silence. Through it the steady throb of the engine and 
 the rhythmical punctuation of the wheels over the rail 
 sections sounded to James Burkett like a sympathetic ac- 
 companiment to the music of his own pulses, as the train 
 bore them onward to the consummation of his desire. 
 
 To his wife the fleeting vista of the country-side, 
 the noise of the train became things unseen, unheard, as 
 introspection revealed to her 
 
 That strangest birth of silence 
 The silent birth of dreams. 
 
 On, to the ancient city of Exeter: on, through the 
 heart of dear old Devon, wonderful with hawthorn and
 
 210 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 fruit blossom past hamlets nestling among wooded out- 
 of-the-way corners of our English land; thickets 
 through which long beams of golden light burned upon 
 waves of wild hyacinth and the young green of fern : on 
 through the winding valley of the Taw and the falling 
 dusk, until the train slowed down into Barnstaple. On 
 again, over the river and along the low flat shores of 
 the estuary, across which the lights of Appledore began 
 to flicker now as darkness settled down upon land and 
 sea; up the steep banks of the line to the little station 
 at the top; and then a rush and a swerve through the 
 dark, and James got up and looked at his watch, and 
 bent down and kissed his wife; and, in a few minutes, 
 they were in a fly, under a sky ablaze with stars, and with 
 the lights of Ilfracombe shining below them. 
 
 "Tired, dear?'; 
 
 She squeezed his hand for reply, and sat silently star- 
 ing with her great eyes at the splendor of the night lis- 
 tening to the low echo of the sea and the voices of her 
 heart. 
 
 James felt her hand in his tremble as they pulled up 
 at their hotel.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 ODYSSEUS APPEARS IN NORTH DEVON 
 
 EVEN that large and, generally speaking, prosperous 
 class of people whose love is of that particular quality 
 which too precious to run the possible risk of being 
 wasted upon an unworthy object concentrates itself in- 
 wardly, suffer from a certain amount of Myopia as re- 
 gards their own faults and failings. 
 
 Love is a disorder proverbially accompanied by op- 
 tical derangement in the victim ; and the blindness induced 
 in young men and maidens suffering from the complaint 
 differs only in degree from that of more experienced per- 
 sons, who, according to some authorities, "ought to know 
 better." 
 
 Damsels of sweet seventeen and upward have seen 
 Mark Antonys in music masters, and imagined them- 
 selves budding Cleopatras; when, finding their hand 
 squeezed one day by, perhaps, a certain Mr. Spiggles, 
 of "Spiggles' Flower of London Linoleum" fame, they 
 have shed their few incipient scales of the Serpent of 
 Old Nile, and become Mrs. Spiggles and highly respecta- 
 ble wondering how they could have ever preferred Old 
 Romance to Oilcloth; until, visiting The Emporium years 
 afterward, they have suddenly discerned a Lancelot lurk- 
 ing in the knightly graces of a shopwalker, and have com- 
 menced reading The Idylls on the sly. 
 
 The immortal Mr. Weller has warned us against the 
 deadly darkness which falls upon the sight of man when 
 widows are about the latter, perhaps, possessing some 
 quality akin to the cuttlefish in their condition, which ren- 
 ders their machinations invisible. 
 211
 
 212 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 Under the mental and optical obscurity so largely in- 
 dicative of the presence of the disease, surly swains in a 
 fit of the sulks have appeared as Achillean heroes brood- 
 ing in their tents. Artists and poets falling in love at 
 first sight, and thereby losing their own entirely, as is 
 the nature of such foolish and "out-of-date" creatures 
 have discovered the beauty and the nobility of many 
 Aphrodites and Andromaches, to the infinite edification of 
 the young women's lady friends, and to their own ulti- 
 mate amazement or disaster. 
 
 Against the malady no prophylactic has as yet been 
 discovered. While the first attack renders some consti- 
 tutions immune from a second, in many instances it recurs 
 from time to time with such frequency that it can only be 
 regarded as a chronic form. In violent cases, where the 
 disease is deep-seated, the only drug capable of effecting 
 a permanent cure is one not to be found in the British 
 Pharmacopoeia, Disillusionment. Even then many suf- 
 ferers who have been healed by a course of this treat- 
 ment have stated that they preferred the complaint to 
 the remedy. 
 
 Helen Darell had fallen in love with James Burkett 
 for a reason she both knew and understood. Most cer- 
 tainly it was not that kind of love into which mortals fall 
 without any knowable reason or logical process whatever, 
 without any cause save a primal instinct springing from 
 some mysterious workings of flesh and spirit agents In 
 a conspiracy for disordering the sight of the sexes which 
 is probably coeval with human time itself, and, without 
 which, Humanity would, in all probability, have solved 
 all its problems by the simple method of ceasing to exist. 
 
 Before she had married him she had been under no 
 illusion as to his real nature and temperament: she had 
 determined to love him because she had early realized 
 that he would be incapable of inspiring love in her soul 
 without assistance from herself, and her own clear mind 
 wisely foresaw the necessity for making the best of things. 
 As she had determined to marry him for a reason so, 
 for a reason, she had determined to love him, and, so
 
 "THRAC1AN SEA" 213 
 
 far, she had succeeded. But, as she felt she could take 
 credit to herself for the results of her own will-power 
 so she had been ready to admit (to herself) his influence 
 over her when passion had awakened. However much 
 her own mind had to do with it, she could not disguise 
 from herself that he had been the instrument which had 
 awakened her, and, woman-like, to her the sense of his 
 sudden domination had invested him with a romantic ele- 
 ment previously lacking, and really non-existent, save in 
 a very slight degree, in his character. She had, so to 
 speak, done her level best to invite infection, and, at this 
 point, the disorder had obtained sufficient hold in her sys- 
 tem to attack and derange her sensual and psychic facul- 
 ties in the usual way. 
 
 Her marriage had altered both her life and her rela- 
 tions with him to the extent that her husband had become, 
 for the time, a being whom she was ready and anxious 
 to honor with all the forces of her nature physical and 
 intellectual. 
 
 When, therefore, on the morning following their 
 bridal night, after they had had a swim and strolled up 
 to the flagstaff on Capstan Hill, he had suggested a drive 
 along the wild and beautiful coast toward Lynton, she 
 had assented with a delight through which her longing 
 to be alone with him, among more romantic surroundings 
 than those of a crowded and fashionable watering-place, 
 shone a vital vivid thing, as she gazed half shyly at him 
 from beneath her crimson sunshade. He jumped up from 
 the seat on which they were sitting, with a laugh; and, 
 leaving her, hurried off for a luncheon basket and a trap 
 telling her to come on to the hotel at her leisure in 
 about half an hour. 
 
 She followed him with fondly passionate eyes until 
 he was out of sight, and then looked at her watch. It 
 was half past eleven, and a golden day drew to its con- 
 summation of noontide splendors beneath a cloudless 
 vault of azure heaven. On either side, to east and west, 
 stretched the North Devon cliffs and hills, the more dis- 
 tant shrouded in a purple haze. Away to the north the
 
 214 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 bright blue and green wastes of the Bristol Channel faded 
 into paler tints through which loomed the far-off coast 
 of Wales. 
 
 She sat on, letting her body steep itself in the sun, 
 her flesh still tingling with the salt kiss of the waves from 
 her recent bath. Through her white cotton frock the 
 rays filtered with a pleasant heat, and she leaned back 
 on the seat with all her senses quickening with the joy 
 of life. 
 
 Sea-wind and sun, and the sound of the tide below 
 curling in under a light northwest breeze ! It was very 
 good to be alive, and a young wife she had never lived 
 before and Jim had made her very happy ! She flushed 
 as she thought of her husband, and her beautiful eyes 
 glowed with a purple tinge between their half closed 
 lids as she gave herself up to the joy of life within and 
 without her. 
 
 Had she lived a thousand years before (and, in a 
 sense, she may have so lived) she had been one of that 
 tribe of women whose star-sign glowed upon still white 
 lips and sightless staring eyes, upon stark limbs stiffen- 
 ing in the stone-cold dusks of death, upon mothers stricken 
 childless of their sons; a woman around whose feet had 
 surged and broken in bloody fret the jealous rage of the 
 male, and whose path below her span of days had been, 
 ere her passing, heavy with crimson >mists the after- 
 glow of bloody love in death and death in love; a woman 
 for whom men had drained their veins for a smile and 
 lost their souls for a kiss. 
 
 As it was, most of the men who passed her, as she 
 sat there dreaming over the green-blue sea, turned to 
 look at her again. More than one retraced their steps 
 and took up various positions from whence they could 
 study the strange woman's beauty. An elderly wreck, his 
 face full of weariness and women and drink; a youth 
 with lofty forehead and weak eyes that peered uncer- 
 tainly from behind his glasses in the strong light; a gen- 
 tleman of sporting aspect in a suit of almost audible 
 checks; a fair-haired giant of the type that shines over
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 215 
 
 the Championship course from Putney to Mortlake at 
 about "No. 6"; all began their several worship at her 
 shrine at distances varying from ten to twenty yards. 
 
 Their adoration was unnoticed by its object: her soul, 
 flushed for flight from the strong wine of sun and sea- 
 sweet wind, had, on the pinions of Fancy, swept across 
 the sea spaces before her to a memory-land of dreams, 
 where she had lain in her lover's arms for the first time 
 and was content. Jim filled her skies : he was in the sun 
 and wind and sea; and his kisses lingered yet upon her 
 lips and eyes. That it was not James Burkett, her hus- 
 band, she stoutly refused to believe. 
 
 One of the male sex awakened her from her dreams, 
 and received both a smile and a kiss for his pains, al- 
 though in neither would her husband have found any 
 cause for jealousy or complaint. A sun-brown boy of 
 some three years old had approached the beautiful lady, 
 and, finding that his offering of sea shells which he held 
 out to her went unnoticed, he suddenly emptied his tin 
 pail full of them over her feet, and looked up at her 
 with round eyes and mouth which framed an unintelligi- 
 ble but evidently propitiatory word. 
 
 James had hastily collected the materials for their 
 impromptu pic-nic, and was critically examining the cob in 
 a comfortable Ralli car outside the hotel when she ar- 
 rived. He went in and fetched a coat for her; and they 
 were soon on the road to Coombe Martin. The long 
 street of that village passed, James unfolded his plans, 
 which were simple and such as greatly appealed to his 
 wife. They were: to drive as far as the Hunter's Inn, 
 put up the trap, and follow the cliff path above Heddon's 
 Mouth, over High Veer, and on toward Lynton, until 
 they found a convenient place in the cliffs in which to lunch 
 and spend the rest of the afternoon. 
 
 They reached the Inn by half past one ; and soon after 
 two o'clock they had passed the waterfall, and James 
 was unpacking the basket with hasty hands; declaring his 
 appetite to be something really awful.
 
 2i6 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 They had washed down their lunch with some rather 
 tepid claret; and, after smoking a couple of pipes, James 
 began to evince distinct symptoms of drowsiness as he 
 lay prone on the soft, sweet-scented turf. His wife sat 
 beside him, holding her sunshade over their two heads, 
 and bending her face to his from time to time in obe- 
 dience to his often expressed desire. Presently his eyes 
 closed; and she sat studying his face in silence for a while, 
 lost in her own waking dreams. 
 
 "Jim," she said softly. 
 
 He murmured something; and she sat quiet again. 
 
 "Jim!" she repeated in a louder voice, but no reply 
 came. 
 
 She bent over him, watching the easy rise and fall of 
 his broad chest under his thin summer shirt. He was 
 clad in gray flannels, without a waistcoat, and had thrown 
 his hat aside. He lay on his back, with his head resting 
 on a little hummock of turf his long limbs stretched out 
 lazily in the sun fast asleep. 
 
 Bees droned in the grasses and the cliff flowers; the 
 wind bore the cadence of the sighing sea beaches below 
 them up the face of the cliff to her ears as she sat listening 
 expectingly, to judge by the tense expression of her 
 whole attitude. 
 
 Suddenly an extraordinary change swept over the 
 girl's face as she gazed seaward. She turned noiselessly 
 and watched her husband for a moment carefully hold- 
 ing, with one hand, the sunshade so as to prevent any 
 sudden beam of the fierce sunlight from falling on his 
 eyes and thereby awakening him ; with her other she re- 
 moved her large straw hat. Then, shaking and throw- 
 ing back her head two or three times in pleasure, and 
 running her hand caressingly over and among the masses 
 of her shining black hair, iridescent in the sun, she gave 
 a curious laugh a wave of crimson dyeing her face and 
 throat above the neck of her white dress, as if overflow- 
 ing from the petals of the dark red rose fastened at her 
 breast. 
 
 She would not have awakened him for the world. In
 
 THRACIAN SEA" 217 
 
 the past she had often conceived such a scene as this 
 from a young girl onward until she had married the man 
 beside her. If there was something wanting in him to 
 complete the picture of her dreams, she would supply 
 it from her own imagination! Her face had grown al- 
 most fierce, and her great eyes glowed down upon the 
 prostrate James as if they would hypnotize the slum- 
 berer's brain into a prolonged sleep ; half unconsciously 
 she was hypnotizing him. She would not be balked of 
 her desire! It was just as she had wished it to be, while 
 he slept if he awoke he might break the spell with a 
 luckless remark. 
 
 The deep blue of the sky; the emerald, black, and 
 purple cliffs ; the flash of the sea-birds as they cleft with 
 sun-shot pinions the spaces of golden light above a sap- 
 phire and green sea, or rose against the pale violet haze 
 of distance; but for the modern note of their garments 
 the man and the woman might have, in their setting of 
 sea and landscape, provided a fair picture of a dark 
 haired Calypso watching a sleeping and youthful Odys- 
 seus in her magic isle. 
 
 Her ideals had been cast in heroic mold; and, as she 
 sat gazing at her sleeping love, his gray flannels changed 
 into a purple mantle, and James Burkett, Esq., of Wim- 
 bledon Park, into such an one as Laertes' immortal son. 
 Her hand sought his where it lay on the grass at his 
 side her fingers closing upon it with a great gentleness 
 for fear of awakening him. He stirred slightly at her 
 touch, and she sat rigid as a statue; the only life show- 
 ing in her the fire of passion in her eyes. Then, as he 
 slept on peacefully, her head bent down slowly over his 
 face her mouth trembling with longing above his slightly 
 parted lips. She resisted the temptation, lest her kiss 
 should arouse him : her burning eyes, blushing face, and 
 heaving breast reflecting the inward struggle as she raised 
 her head again. 
 
 She was no longer a nineteenth century young woman 
 with a husband in the city: she had forgotten a future 
 that wore white waistcoats: her soul had detached itself
 
 2i 8 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 from the commonplaces of everyday existence and flown 
 back into the past crouching by her lord on the un- 
 trodden coasts of the Ogygia of her dreams. 
 
 A botanist might have discovered something of an 
 analogy to her metamorphosis in the yellow flowers and 
 thick glaucous leaves of the Sea Colewort blowing close 
 to the sleeping man's head. That ancestor of the pro- 
 saic purple cabbage of our modern kitchen gardens still 
 grows wild on the cliffs of North Devon, and its domes- 
 ticated descendants, if left to themselves in the original 
 habitat of their progenitors by the sea shore, revert, in 
 a few generations, to their earlier type. 
 
 An hour passed, and another, and still the man slept 
 on; the woman, scarcely conscious of the discomfort in 
 her limbs produced by her cramped position, still clasp- 
 ing his hand and bending over him from time to time, or 
 gazing out to sea with her strange rapt eyes. She was 
 hardly aware of her own thoughts: only she dimly re- 
 alized that the future would could hold few such hours 
 as this, hours into which she was crowding a lifetime of 
 the emotions of an ordinary civilized "young lady." So 
 intense was her mood, so complete her exaltation in the 
 consummation of her ideal, that, had such a thing been 
 possible, and Hermes had appeared to her with an ir- 
 revocable mandate from Olympus, and Odysseus had 
 arisen and departed over the sea, she would probably 
 after a last farewell have haunted the spot for the re- 
 mainder of her days, living on the passionate memories 
 of an hour perpetuated by the scene of the occurrence, 
 rather than contemplate anything of the realities of an 
 existence which might have dimmed the ardors of what 
 once had been. 
 
 To a woman of modern conventional temperament, 
 Helen Burkett's feelings toward her husband would have 
 appeared as madly impossible as they were immodest. 
 Her husband himself would have been quite unable to ap- 
 preciate the character of the emotions he had inspired, 
 and, as she knew, might have unconsciously destroyed 
 their spell.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 219 
 
 At last the strain became too much for her, and, 
 trembling with eagerness, she suddenly bent down to his 
 upturned face, and her lips shut upon his and clung there. 
 As his brown eyes opened she started back again and 
 blushed furiously. 
 
 For a moment or two he lay still gazing up at her, 
 wondering, then he yawned and sat up; and a shadow- 
 less Odysseus stood at the cliff's edge in the sunshine 
 preparing to depart. 
 
 "I'm sorry, dear! I've been asleep!" He looked at 
 the sun and took out his watch. "Good Lord!" he ejacu- 
 lated, "it's five o'clock! It must have been the heat! 
 Have you been asleep, too?" 
 
 He felt rather irritable and bad tempered the result 
 of sleeping in the sun after consuming the best part of a 
 luncheon pie, innumerable sandwiches, and a bottle of 
 claret. 
 
 Odysseus vanished into thin air. "Ye-s, dear . . . 
 Part of the time." 
 
 "My darling! You must have thought me an un- 
 mannerly brute ! Why didn't you dig me in the ribs with 
 this, and wake me up?" and he held up an empty claret 
 bottle, to fling it next moment down the slope. 
 
 Ogygia became Hampstead Heath; and she turned 
 her face from him, biting her lip hard on words of an il- 
 logical anger. 
 
 Thinking that he had offended her, he went on apolo- 
 getically : "I am sorry, wife ! It was beastly rude of me !" 
 
 She turned to him her eyes tender again. "I pre- 
 ferred a a gentler method." 
 
 Something in her eyes that he had never seen before 
 arrested his attention, and he lay back again, meditatively 
 studying her profile as he slowly filled his pipe. 
 
 "Helen!" 
 
 Her eyes clung to his wistfully, then she rose and 
 stretched her aching limbs, and stamped one foot that was 
 utterly devoid of feeling, and waited as the blood crept 
 tingling back into it. 
 
 "Pins and needles !" she said, laughing down at him.
 
 220 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 James was thirsty. "Poor old dear ! You must want 
 your tea!" he answered. 
 
 "N-o, Jim." 
 
 The claret was all gone. He sighed. 
 
 The memory of Odysseus still lingered about him ; she 
 sank down again on the grass by his side. 
 
 "My poor thirsty Jim! And we're miles from any- 
 where I" She blushed Ithaca had been on the tip of her 
 tongue. Then she remembered, and felt behind her for 
 the basket. There was half a bottle of claret left, under 
 a serviette; she had put it by carefully for him after their 
 lunch wise in her prevision of the eternal thirstiness 
 of the male. At the thought her own throat became 
 parched. She drew out the bottle from its hiding place 
 triumphantly, and held it out to him, and followed it with 
 a glass. 
 
 James held the bottle up to the light, and, after a pro- 
 test from her that she didn't want any, they shared it 
 together. When he had lighted his pipe he felt com- 
 fortable again. 
 
 "Helen!" 
 
 "Yes, dear?" 
 
 "Kiss me again like that!" 
 
 His wife's face went scarlet, and she looked away 
 in silence for a moment. Then: "Why, dear?" 
 
 "Because I like it!" He laughed easily the sense of 
 possession strong in him and dulling the edge of his eager- 
 ness. 
 
 A sudden resolution took her, and she bent over him 
 her eyes full of a something he did not understand. 
 "Shut your eyes, Jim, and have another nap, and, perhaps, 
 I will!" 
 
 "No now!" 
 
 She drew back, and he laughed. 
 
 "All right!" and he feigned slumber. 
 
 As his eyes closed her own filled with their former 
 fierceness, and she kissed him passionately. She was star- 
 ing hard at his face now, and already the hypnotic in- 
 fluence she was endeavoring to exert over him was begin-
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 221 
 
 ning to take effect. He opened his eyes and murmured 
 something, then shut them drowsily and gradually 
 dropped off to sleep again. 
 
 She gave a little laugh of triumph and content: it 
 was to be as she had willed it! She would watch by 
 him until the sun went down into the heart of the western 
 sea! 
 
 Again had she forgotten everything but her dreams 
 and that Odysseus was once more by her side. The air 
 grew chill, but she heeded it not; the sea colors faded 
 into a uniform pale blue. An elderly gentleman, in spec- 
 tacles and knickerbocker suit, came along the path be- 
 hind where they were lying, followed by a lady of similar 
 age, in a rustling black dress, and with a muslin arrange- 
 ment flapping from the back of her hat. She was carry- 
 ing a number of plants in one hand; and her spouse had 
 a botanical vasculum slung behind him. 
 
 "B. Oleracea! Very common about here!" he called 
 out to his companion, as he caught sight of a lot of the 
 Colewort growing beside the path. He had not noticed 
 the two lying behind a bush in a slight hollow of the turf. 
 
 His more observant lady had, however, and her eyes 
 met Helen's as the girl raised them mechanically at the 
 sound of the voices. She was lying partly on her side 
 with her body raised on one arm the other resting on 
 her husband's chest with his hand clasped in hers. 
 
 "Very common, Horace!" the elderly lady in black 
 answered in a loud voice and with the accent sarcastic 
 of the British matron outraged in her sense of the Pro- 
 prieties and the eternal fitness of things. 
 
 Her tone, which would have instantly aroused the 
 goddess of battle in an ordinary woman, was lost upon 
 deaf ears. That part of Helen Burkett which did see 
 and hear them did not consider the matter of sufficient 
 importance to communicate to the other Helen, who, on 
 the storm-tossed wings of spirit, had leapt back a many 
 thousand years and crouched in fancy beside an unknown 
 lover sleeping beside an unknown sea. 
 
 The west became bright orange, shaded with dusky
 
 222 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 purple below, into which the sea faded imperceptibly. 
 The tide was making, and fell with a low sobbing sigh 
 at the feet of the great cliffs, as if the eternal voices of 
 the sea, weary with wandering through the endless 
 streams of ocean, expended their last strength in that 
 strange burden which the tide sings for ever to the shore. 
 In that mighty diapason is a very passion of pathos when 
 the sea makes moan at twilight when the strife of land 
 and sea has faded to a sighing breathing the spirit of an 
 immemorial regret. Then all the dead in the sea speak; 
 and the shore echoes back the mourning for her lost chil- 
 dren, children of the mighty Mother herself, between 
 whose knees and breasts the coils of ocean cling. 
 
 \Vhen the sea makes moan at twilight, the Mighty Mother 
 
 mourns 
 For her children dead that wander through the shadows of 
 
 green gloom, 
 
 And the burden of her calling through the sea-song's echo yearns 
 For their restless bones were part of her, the children of her 
 womb. 
 
 She sat on, watching with unseeing, far-off eyes ; and 
 listening to the tide. Of a sudden she missed the red disk 
 of the sinking sun, and she awoke from her dreams and 
 shivered slightly. She roused the sleeping man with a 
 kiss brushing his eyelids with her lips ere she did so. 
 
 He sat up with a start, feeling chilly, and stared at 
 his wife. 
 
 "Why, Helen, I believe you're a witch!" 
 
 She hungered to feel his arms about her, and shivered 
 again. When he drew her to him lazily she lay very still, 
 surprised at the tired feeling that had suddenly fallen 
 upon her, body and soul. 
 
 It would soon be over; and, somehow, she knew the 
 vision would never come to her again after to-day. Well, 
 she had had her romance, and she would do her duty to 
 him in the future: the life would be gray and colorless, 
 by contrast, but she would not forget what he had been
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 223 
 
 to her one golden evening beside the western sea. She 
 would settle down into a pattern of suburban respectabil- 
 ity and machine-made matronhood. 
 
 "I believe you're a witch, Helen I" he repeated. 
 
 "Why, dear?" 
 
 "I believe you hypnotized me, or something I I've 
 been to sleep for hours again!" 
 
 She had forgotten her own share in inducing his slum- 
 ber in the contemplation of the prospect that the future 
 held for her. With her awakened nature the yearning to- 
 ward the essential things of life peculiar to man, and 
 other than the necessaries to mere existence, was growing 
 rapidly upon her. She felt an irresistible longing to sat- 
 urate herself in that ineffable mingling with the mysteri- 
 ous Spirit of Beauty itself which makes the Ideal in 
 human life a passionate Reality and man different from 
 the brute which inspires and impels, or rather which 
 compels poets to be poets, musicians to be musicians, and 
 artists to be artists: the desire permeated her whole 
 being. For a moment she did not answer him ; then she 
 said: 
 
 "You were tired, Jim, that was all." 
 
 As a matter of fact, she scarcely realized her hyp- 
 notic efforts for such. The strain she had undergone was 
 beginning to tell upon her, and, overwrought with emo- 
 tion, she was conscious chiefly of a great weariness and 
 of all her strength leaving her. 
 
 "Kiss me, Jim," she said weakly. 
 
 He did so, once then many times. Odysseus was 
 about to leave her for the last time, and she clung to him 
 with a feeling almost akin to despair within her soul. 
 
 He was surprised at the change in her her whole at- 
 titude breathed submissiveness. It was already getting 
 dusk; and he felt her shiver once or twice in his arms. 
 
 He reached for her coat, and wrapped it round her. 
 "Come, dear! We'd better make a move you'll catch 
 cold!" 
 
 She protested strongly, incoherently, in a momentary 
 flare of passion. She could not tell him ! He would not
 
 224 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 understand, and would place a totally wrong construction 
 upon it all ! She grew hot all over, and, for a moment, 
 her desire glowed in her eyes like the mist of a far-off 
 fire at night. 
 
 "What's the matter, dear?" he asked tenderly 
 searching her face as he bent over her. 
 
 For answer she drew her husband's face down to 
 hers, and held his lips tightly to her own. He was sur- 
 prised to find how cold they had become. Her eyes were 
 closed: she lay like one in a swoon listening to the 
 echoes of the voices of a phantom sea. 
 
 James became alarmed she was so quiet and still; 
 but when he made to release himself from her she would 
 not let him go. 
 
 It was very late that night when they reached Ilfra- 
 combe. 
 
 Both woke with what promised to be a bad cold in the 
 head next morning a thing peculiarly trying in hot 
 weather. His cold made James irritable; Helen's made 
 her reminiscent and, as she knew herself responsible for 
 her husband's indisposition, submissive, since penitence 
 was beyond her.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 CALYPSO AND PENELOPE 
 
 IT was a week later. 
 
 All the previous day it had rained in torrents. It 
 was still pouring steadily from a thick, unnatural gloom 
 in the sky. 
 
 Their colds had reached the stage when breathing is 
 difficult and handkerchiefs soon become unpleasant things. 
 James was decidedly bad-tempered at times during the 
 morning. 
 
 A maid brought up a black-edged letter to their room. 
 As he held it in his hand, preparatory to opening the en- 
 velope, he said sardonically, "Well, here's something 
 cheerful, by the look of it!" 
 
 "Who's it from? Your cousins?" 
 
 It had been owing to the death of one of the latter 
 that their wedding had been put off, that had taken place 
 in the fateful month for marriage. 
 
 James read it through slowly. "No. It's poor old 
 Radleigh." (Death had put the squire down hard, one 
 evening, while he was in the act of performing that of- 
 fice for the red ball.) 
 
 "Radleigh?" 
 
 "Ah. Squire Radleigh. I stopped at his place at 
 Stoke Midford Ford Hinton, I mean, last autumn. He 
 was a rum old boy. Drank like a fish. A good old sort 
 in his way! rest his bones. He had a fit. He was play- 
 ing billiards." 
 
 He found a sudden inspiration in his concluding sen- 
 tence, and kept back the yawn that was beginning in him. 
 225
 
 226 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 At length she picked up a book and turned the pages 
 listlessly. 
 
 He watched her in silence, for a while, then he rose, 
 and left her reading at the window of their sitting-room 
 an occupation she varied by gazing out at the rain-ob- 
 scured sea and repaired to the billiard-room; where he 
 was beaten by the marker in three separate "hundreds" 
 a circumstance which did not tend to improve his temper. 
 
 The waiter was laying the table for lunch when he 
 went back to his wife, and, after consulting the wine list, 
 he told the man to bring up a couple of bottles of Pom- 
 mery. 
 
 "What a rotten day!" he said gloomily. "Hope you 
 didn't miss me, dear!" suddenly remembering that he 
 had been away from her for the greater part of the morn- 
 ing. "I saw you were busy with your book. What is it?" 
 
 She laughed. "No, dear. I ordered lunch early in 
 case it should clear up this afternoon. The book? Oh, 
 you wouldn't care about it, Jim Homer's Odyssey." 
 
 "Lord, what a girl you are!" he answered, with un- 
 pleasant recollections of Greek at Cambridge. James had 
 hated Homer with a deadly hatred. The one thing he 
 never could learn was Greek. One thing he never did 
 learn was that he had personated the wandering hero on 
 the cliffs near Heddon's Mouth in the county of Devon. 
 
 "I reckon they've got a young John Roberts here!" 
 he added irrelevantly. 
 
 "Why, dear? Did you tumble up against something 
 hot? I believe that is the correct expression?" 
 
 "Oh, / don't know! Rotten cold! Right off my 
 game !" he replied between intervals of blowing his nose. 
 
 He consumed a large quantity of champagne at lunch, 
 and, for an hour afterward, his spirits rose to an almost 
 boisterous degree, during which time he waxed playful 
 and amorous by turns. 
 
 Finding his wife inclined to be quiet, at length he 
 found a Racing Calendar and book of form, and, stretch- 
 ing himself upon a couch, commenced trying to find the 
 winner of the Royal Hunt Cup. After coming to the
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 227 
 
 conclusion that quite half of the entries had no earthly 
 chance whatever, and that it was practically a certainty 
 for about a dozen others, he threw the book down in dis- 
 gust. 
 
 "Come and send me to sleep !" he said, after silently 
 watching her face for a while. 
 
 She raised her eyes from the book questioningly, and 
 then put it down on the floor beside her chair. Obeying, 
 she came over to him and sat down beside him on the 
 couch. It was the seventh day of their honeymoon, and 
 already his pleasure in her society was beginning to wane, 
 she told herself. 
 
 "Talk to me, dear," she said gently; but the reaction 
 of the wine he had drunk was beginning to have a de- 
 pressing effect upon his spirits, and his powers of conver- 
 sation, never very great, were at their lowest ebb. He 
 thought of Thracian Sea, but the horse was a couple of 
 hundred miles away. 
 
 She waited patiently for him to begin conscious of 
 the fact that of intellectual sympathy between them there 
 was none. Indeed, she began to doubt if there ever would 
 be any, now. Yet, she was genuinely anxious to prevent 
 him drifting apart from her she would have done any- 
 thing in her power to help him acquire a knowledge of 
 subjects where they could meet on grounds of a common 
 interest. 
 
 He made an effort. "What shall I talk about, dear?" 
 
 She succeeded in repressing her smile. It was an old 
 trick of his which generally "came off" by throwing the 
 onus of the subject, as well as the choice of it, upon her. 
 
 "Whatever you like, dear," she replied in the voice 
 of one eager to listen to anything. 
 
 "Well, then . . . You!" in desperation, after a mo- 
 ment's pause, in which he revolved a number of subject 
 matters in his mind, and, ultimately, rejected them as un- 
 suitable. 
 
 "You silly boy!" she said, pleased in spite of the fact 
 that she knew it was his own dearth of imagination which 
 was responsible for the choice.
 
 228 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 "I say, Helen, I think you look rather ripping in white 
 in white with a red rose like you were that day on the 
 cliffs!" She was in darker clothes to-day. 
 
 "Do you, dear?" Her mind wandered eastward 
 through the rain, along the cliffs over High Veer, and she 
 picked up the thread of her dreams again. 
 
 He lay silent for a while. "Get me the cigarettes, 
 Helen, there's a dear!" 
 
 She rose to find the box, without success; and he 
 jumped up to aid her in the search. As he crossed the 
 room he picked up the open book; and Helen went into 
 their bedroom to unearth the missing cigarettes. James 
 threw himself on to the couch again, and, with the 
 Homer, still open, in his hand, lay staring at nothing in 
 particular until she returned with them. She gave him 
 a light, and sat down by his side. He suddenly remem- 
 bered the book he was holding and commenced to read 
 it. She had neither seen him pick it up nor noticed him 
 with it half hidden as it was beneath him in the couch. 
 Her face flushed scarlet, but he was intent on the lines and 
 did not notice her confusion. He read on for a minute or 
 two, then his mind wandered, and, dropping it beside 
 him, he looked up at her. 
 
 At his unspoken invitation she flung her arms round 
 him and kissed him tenderly. 
 
 It rained steadily right through the evening the at- 
 mosphere becoming more muggy and oppressive every 
 hour. 
 
 Helen could not sleep that night, and she lay watch- 
 ing the reflections of distant lightning far off over the 
 sea. Presently came a distinct flash the storm was work- 
 ing up from the northwest. Another followed, but this 
 time the whole of the night seemed riven from the zenith 
 to the sea split down a jagged line of pale blue fire. 
 She had pulled up the blind and opened the window to 
 let as much air as possible into the room in the stifling 
 heat. As the room lit up at the flash James stirred un- 
 easily in his sleep. The next moment the whole building 
 seemed to shake beneath a crackling peal of thunder, ap-
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 229 
 
 parently directly over the hotel, which rattled the win- 
 dows, and awoke a hundred echoes in the hollows of the 
 cliffs for miles in each direction. 
 
 Helen was not a nervous girl, but the sight and sound 
 had been so awful that she was on the point of awaken- 
 ing her husband, in sheer terror. After the crash he 
 had turned over in his sleep without waking, and kicked 
 off the single sheet that covered them it was still very 
 hot. 
 
 "Margaret, I can't help it!" 
 
 Her hand, which had been stretched out to waken 
 him, dropped nervelessly to the bed. He had spoken 
 the name quite plainly, and his voice, vibrant with long- 
 ing, had sounded to her startled senses like a cry in the 
 night across the silence that followed the thunder. 
 
 Again the room lit up revealing her sitting up in 
 bed and staring blankly out at the storm. 
 
 The name of the other woman had aroused such a 
 tumult within her that she had forgotten her previous 
 fears at the one raging without, where, like a brand in 
 the grasp of an invisible Titan, afire with the speed of 
 its terrific strokes, the lightning was gashing and splitting 
 the heart of the dark. In fact, the elemental strife 
 seemed a fitting background for her thoughts in keep- 
 ing with a conflict in which her whole being was involved. 
 She sat by the side of her sleeping mate with her legs 
 drawn up under her. Her eyes closed tightly she could 
 shut out the lightning; one thing she could not shut out 
 the thing that leapt at her out of the night and stabbed 
 and rived her soul with pangs of jealous pain. 
 
 Margaret was avenged. Odysseus was dreaming of 
 Penelope.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 MRS. GHOOLE LIVES UP TO HER REPUTATION 
 
 MR. GHOOLE, who was in the Meat Market, was a 
 striking contrast in every respect to his wife. He was a 
 little fat man, with a mottled red complexion and easy- 
 going habits the latter emphasized by a general greasi- 
 ness which had spread itself over him until he gave one 
 the impression of being well oiled throughout, both men- 
 tally and physically. Respected in Farringdon Street, in 
 Plane Tree Avenue but little deference was shown to 
 him; nevertheless, he was faithful in his martyrdom of 
 marriage, and seldom drank to excess. 
 
 He left home before six o'clock in the morning; and 
 Margaret had to get up at five to get his breakfast. He 
 had objected mildly to this at first, but his wife dismissed 
 his protest as absurd. The girl's willingness, and the re- 
 markable improvement in the condition of his eggs and 
 bacon and coffee, greatly impressed Mr. Ghoole in her 
 favor. Being a kind-hearted little man, he showed his 
 appreciation by a fatherly interest in the girl, which, at 
 length, revealed itself through one or two little acts of 
 kindness toward her to his irascible spouse. (She had 
 never forgiven him because she had overheard the red- 
 headed girl tell him his wife wanted a worm-cake.) 
 
 Mrs. Ghoole's suspicions were at once aroused and 
 she startled Margaret, one morning, by silently appear- 
 ing in the room as the girl was in the act of pouring out 
 his coffee. 
 
 Margaret's experiences of the past few months had 
 reduced her to a highly nervous condition, and she upset 
 some of it over the cloth. 
 
 230
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 231 
 
 That was enough for Mrs. Ghoole, who at once con- 
 cluded that she was carrying on with her husband. Of 
 the two evils Mrs. Ghoole chose the lesser, whereby he 
 was compelled to get his own breakfast, and Margaret 
 benefited by a couple of hours extra in bed. Determined 
 that she should not escape her share in the punishment, 
 Mrs. Ghoole henceforth took a fiendish pleasure in an- 
 noying her on every opportunity; and, finding Margaret 
 docile under the treatment, she introduced, by way of 
 variety, insults into her regimen as well. The woman's 
 maliciousness defeated its own object, as the girl became, 
 in the course of a few weeks, completely callous to her 
 mistress' gibes and sneers. 
 
 The one bright spot in Margaret's existence now was 
 her weekly visit to Mrs. Rush. She walked over to Bal- 
 ham every Sunday afternoon, and had tea with that good 
 dame and her husband her only outing during the week. 
 
 On the first of these occasions she provided Mrs. 
 Rush with a remarkable vindication of her prophecy. 
 Forgetting that she was wearing her wedding ring (which 
 she had kept in her pocket during the remainder of her 
 stay with them after her first visit to Mrs. Ghoole) , Mrs. 
 Rush plunged her into dreadful confusion at the tea ta- 
 ble by ejaculating: "Lor, I didn't know you were mar- 
 ried!" 
 
 Margaret explained as well as she could: she had 
 reasons for not letting anyone know before : but old birds 
 are notoriously indifferent to the attractions of chaff, and 
 Mrs. Rush was not to be taken in by the flimsy deceptions 
 which her visitor hastily scattered about her. 
 
 Mr. Rush, seeing the girl's unhappiness, adroitly 
 changed the conversation; and Mrs. Rush was too kind- 
 hearted to persevere in her inquiries. When Margaret 
 had gone, however, she turned to her husband with a 
 triumphant gesture, and exclaimed : "There ! I knew it I 
 I said so all along I Mark my words, there's something!" 
 and Mr. Rush was compelled to abandon his previous 
 position, and admit the correctness of his wife's prevision. 
 
 Mrs. Rush had succeeded in finding a new tenant for
 
 232 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 her room, but she was so fond of Margaret that one Sun- 
 day evening, some weeks afterward in the absence of 
 Mr. Rush she informed the girl that, if she were in 
 trouble of any kind, she would always find a home with 
 them. 
 
 Her kindness was too much for Margaret, who had 
 been all the week the object of Mrs. Ghoole's increasing 
 malignity, and, after a pitiful effort at self control, she 
 broke down completely and burst into tears. 
 
 Next moment the good little woman, in a passion of 
 baffled maternity, had taken the girl in her arms; and 
 Margaret sobbed out her secret into her sympathetic 
 ears. 
 
 If any of her neighbors had come into the room at 
 that moment they might have been reasonably excused 
 had they failed to recognize Mrs. Rush in the bright- 
 eyed woman stroking the weeping girl's hair as Mar- 
 garet sat, with her face buried in her hands, in the arm- 
 chair by the fire, with Mrs. Rush bending over her. Her 
 ordinary features had become suddenly transformed by 
 the light of a loving kindness, a great pitifulness, as hu- 
 man as it was divine. 
 
 She whispered something; and Margaret looked up 
 her gratitude at the motherly face above her, but was 
 unable to speak. 
 
 Wherefore, Mrs. Rush became positively cheerful; 
 and Margaret, half afraid to believe in her good for- 
 tune, ventured a doubt about what the neighbors would 
 think. 
 
 "Think, indeed! What's it got to do with them! 
 They're not to know you're not married 7 shan't tell 
 them ; no more will Rush ; nor no one else won't, my dear ! 
 And I simply love babies, and so do Joe!" Here she 
 broke off, and her own tears came as she thought of their 
 own little one that had grown like a flower in their sight, 
 and who, like a flower, in a few days had withered and 
 died in the room above. 
 
 Margaret instinctively knew the other woman's feel- 
 ings, and the two clung to each other crying steadily to-
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 233 
 
 gether for about a quarter of an hour; after which they 
 both felt considerably relieved, and, when Mrs. Rush 
 had taken her upstairs, and they had both removed the 
 traces of their grief, they sat down to tea; and presently 
 Mr. Rush came in, bringing with him a large bunch of 
 primroses for Margaret. 
 
 In vain now did Mrs. Ghoole devise fresh insults and 
 injuries for her willing slave. In vain did her son and 
 heir leer at her at breakfast, tea, and supper. She seemed 
 neither to hear the mother nor to see the son. She ac- 
 tually did not very often; her mind seemed to have de- 
 tached itself from her present life, and to have passed on 
 ahead of her into the future to other and happier things. 
 The fancies of a pregnant woman, that had haunted her 
 bedside of a night, had lost their terrors now; and as 
 the spring days lengthened her spirits rose wonderfully. 
 
 One glorious afternoon in May saw Margaret walk- 
 ing across Tooting Common to pay her weekly visit to 
 Mr. and Mrs. Rush. 
 
 Everywhere was the scent of hawthorn and the song 
 of birds. She sat down under a may tree, snow white 
 with blossom. Suddenly, from somewhere among the 
 dense foliage above her head, a thrush burst into a pas- 
 sion of perfect happiness and song. She looked up lis- 
 tening, scarcely breathing so intent was she on the mys- 
 teries that awakened within her to the sound. The tears 
 welled into her eyes as she listened: the bird was in- 
 terpreting to her a music that found an answering echo 
 deep down in her own soul. 
 
 A wonderful thankfulness filled her. God bless dear, 
 kind Mrs. Rush! No more horrors for her now she 
 would be safe from harm until she had brought baby into 
 the world, and baby would be safe too! The lonely girl 
 had already begun to talk to her unborn child. When 
 she had felt the first faint movements of its quickening 
 life she had sat down and listened, as she had, in a sense, 
 sat listening to the thrush just now. And yet with what 
 a difference. Before the unfolding limbs had sometimes
 
 234 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 been a kind of accusing thing claiming her for punish- 
 ment; but now . . . She could give herself up to all 
 the joys of anticipating the wonder that was coming to 
 her. 
 
 May passed; she had already given Mrs. Ghoole no- 
 tice that she intended to leave her service. Mrs. Ghoole 
 had received that intimation with a tightening of the lips, 
 and a narrowing of the eyes, and a "Very well, Mrs. 
 Young" meaning, of course, that it was very ill. How 
 ill it was she endeavored to convey by every means in 
 her power, short of personal violence, to her long-suffer- 
 ing drudge. Half starved, driven about the house upon 
 perfectly needless errands and duties Margaret's pa- 
 tience was sorely tried at times, but the period of her 
 probation was nearly over now. 
 
 Its end was nearer than she expected, but she was 
 not to escape without the last desperate effort of malicious 
 spite to wound her. 
 
 One morning, as she placed his breakfast before him, 
 Master Herbert Ghoole finding that his leers and winks 
 had failed to arouse even her annoyance ventured to 
 make a noise of kissing with his lips. Margaret half 
 turned, and looked down at him with a wondering con- 
 tempt that stung that young gentleman into a frenzy of 
 malignant rage. 
 
 A few mornings afterward (Mrs. Ghoole had her 
 breakfast upstairs) he seized her and tried to kiss her. 
 Maddened by his touch, she struck him in the face with 
 her clenched left hand her ring cutting his lip open. He 
 sneaked off to his room, cowed by the light in her eyes. 
 Afterward she heard him leave the house to go to busi- 
 ness as usual. 
 
 Shortly after Mrs. Ghoole came silently downstairs, 
 and, advancing toward Margaret as the latter was dust- 
 ing the room, screamed: "So, I have found you out, my 
 fine lady, have I ! What's the meaning of this? This!" 
 she shrieked, as she held out a piece of ribbon from some 
 of the girl's underclothing. "I found this in Master 
 Herbert's bed just now ! Get out of my house, you f aggit !
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 235 
 
 you drab! Out! you brazen hussy!" She ceased at 
 last, and stood glaring at Margaret in a paroxysm of 
 speechless hate. 
 
 For a moment or two Margaret failed to compre- 
 hend the nature of the charge the other woman had flung 
 at her. Then she understood it all, and the meanness 
 of what he had done surprised her, even after her ex- 
 perience in that household. He had crept into her room 
 when he had gone upstairs, and had taken the piece of 
 ribbon which she had left lying on the chest of drawers. 
 His mother had gone into his room after he had left 
 as, no doubt, he knew she was in the habit of doing and 
 found it there, there where he had put it himself. 
 
 Now Margaret loved James Burkett with a deep and 
 passionate love, and, after she put that love away from 
 her, in the flesh, for good and all, her faithfulness to its 
 memory had amounted to a constancy that would last as 
 long as life lasted for her. 
 
 Her purity of body and soul was not that of the in- 
 nocence of ignorance a negative thing but that of a 
 purity consecrated to a great and ennobling love for the 
 man she had idealized and served. Had the circum- 
 stances of her case been different she might have (prob- 
 ably would have being a healthy and essentially human 
 young woman), in the course of time, thought less and 
 less of her lover until he had become but as a background 
 to her life, and have taken another mate. 
 
 As it was, out of her own body and soul was growing 
 the heritage of their love. To her her unborn child was 
 a guerdon which had been vouchsafed to her a "satis- 
 fying" for that love-craving which is an integral part of 
 healthy human life. A weak girl had become, in ful- 
 filling her destiny, a woman whom no terrors could have 
 daunted that were faced for her child. She had found, 
 for all her weakness, a spiritual strength which, through 
 her, added its measure to that noblest monument of hu- 
 man time, the sublime vindication of Man's indomitable 
 struggle upward from the brute, his indestructible fruits 
 of victory over death. Margaret had sought, and she
 
 236 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 had found. Love had unlocked for her, with his magic 
 key, the armory of things tempered by his own master 
 smith in his own immortal fires and streams. To her 
 was given, perfect-fashioned, her panoply of proof a 
 courage which is not of the body but of the soul. 
 
 At Mrs. Ghoole's accusation her face flushed scarlet 
 and then went very white. She turned on the woman with 
 all the fury of an outraged passion. 
 
 "You vile woman ! You . . . you . . . sow! How 
 dare you say such a thing about me!" she gasped. 
 
 Her indignation was obviously genuine but Mrs. 
 Ghoole had reasons for "believing" it assumed. She saw 
 a chance of getting rid of the girl without paying her her 
 last month's wages she was due to leave in a week's 
 time. Therefore, "working herself up," she cried again: 
 
 "Leave the house at once, you impudent creature!" 
 
 Margaret went upstairs, and commenced packing her 
 things in silence, now that the first flush of anger had 
 given place to contempt. She came down again in a few 
 minutes with her belongings, and put down her bag and 
 parcels by the front door. 
 
 Mrs. Ghoole, who was standing near it, opened it, and 
 flinging them outside, attempted to push Margaret after 
 them. The girl was too strong for her, and she retreated 
 a step, glaring. 
 
 "My wages, please, Mrs. Ghoole." 
 
 "Not a penny more do you have from me !" screamed 
 the woman. "You have forfeited your right to them ! I 
 dismiss you at once! Leave the house, you brazen 
 har " 
 
 The next door opened, and Mrs. Slade, the book- 
 maker's wife, came out and looked curiously at Margaret. 
 She was a stout woman of middle-age, with a good-look- 
 ing face of somewhat vulgar type, and a good-natured 
 smile. Seeing the girl's flushed face and angry eyes, she 
 said: 
 
 "What's the matter, my dear?" 
 
 As Margaret did not answer, she went on in a loud 
 voice :
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 237 
 
 "What's she trying to do? Diddle you out of your 
 wages? That's an old trick of hers!" 
 
 Mrs. Ghoole was not prepared for this. The shot 
 evidently told, for she retreated down the passage shout- 
 ing: "Leave the house, you hussy, you!" while Mar- 
 garet stood on the step, holding the door wide open, un- 
 decided what to do. 
 
 "Go for a policeman, my dear ! That's what the last 
 girl did that she tried it on with !" Mrs. Slade called out. 
 
 "Thank you, Mrs. Slade, I will!" and Margaret gath- 
 tred up her parcels the string of one of which had 
 broken under the ill-usage it had received at the hands of 
 Mrs. Ghoole. 
 
 Her wages! Money she had earned for her child! 
 The vile woman would try and rob baby! 
 
 "Here, my dear! I'll look after your things!" Mrs. 
 Slade said, enjoying the situation immensely Mrs. 
 Ghoole's remarks about her having on more than one 
 occasion reached her ears. She looked sympathetically 
 at Margaret, and then across and up and down Plane 
 Tree Avenue, noting with amused satisfaction the win- 
 dows apparently opening themselves in all directions. 
 
 Mrs. Ghoole had by this time retreated to the front 
 room, and stood peering with baffled fury from behind 
 the curtains. She, too, observed the same peculiar phe- 
 nomena, and, after a moment's hesitation, she went to 
 the door and cried: 
 
 "Here! Come and fetch your miserable money! I 
 won't demean myself with quarreling with you about it, 
 it's worth it to get rid of you !" and, taking out her purse, 
 she counted the money on to the table. 
 
 Margaret collected it slowly, determined to see she 
 was not cheated out of a penny, and then, without a word, 
 left the room and the house. 
 
 Mrs. Ghoole followed her, and watched her take her 
 belongings from Mrs. Slade. 
 
 "If you have any trouble with her about your char- 
 acter, my dear, refer 'em to me! I'll tell 'em a thing 
 or two that '11 make her ears tingle! Enough to drive
 
 238 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 a girl on to the streets, she is!" concluded that lady as 
 she shook Margaret by the hand. "Good-bye, my dear, 
 and if you're in want of a place look me up!" she called 
 after her as the girl walked down the path. 
 
 "Thank you, Mrs. Slade. Good-bye !" Margaret re- 
 plied gratefully as she turned round at the gate. 
 
 Mrs. Ghoole had darted out to do battle with the 
 enemy, and the two women were standing defying each 
 other over the railing that separated the front gardens. 
 
 The last that Margaret ever heard of Mrs. Ghoole 
 was in the voice of Mr. William Slade, who had come 
 out to see what was the matter, as she walked away down 
 the road. 
 
 He was a man of few words, but in what he said, em- 
 phatic, and his voice was of a quality which penetrated 
 the houses for a hundred yards on either side of his own. 
 
 "You oughter be bloody-well burnt," and Margaret, 
 so far from feeling offended at his phraseology, rejoiced 
 exceedingly.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 LOVE LAUGHS AT A POET'S PIETY AND A PARSON'S POETRY 
 
 MERVYN INGESTRE had lived for an Ideal. Since he 
 had taken his degree, the poetic fervor of his tempera- 
 ment had expended itself upon the passionate mysticism 
 embodied in his own conception of the Faith he professed. 
 A poet himself, the poetry which had been antagonistic 
 to that Faith, as a degrading superstition, had been to 
 him, hitherto, the expression of a perverted genius ; and 
 such as the transcendent muse of Shelley a survival of 
 forces which, with the poison and beauty of the serpent, 
 were the more dangerous by reason of the insidiousness 
 of their action. A natural asceticism had surrounded him 
 from the influences usually potent in youth; and his life 
 had gradually become a thing every year more and more 
 consecrated to an abstraction. At twenty-six the World, 
 the Flesh and the Devil, if they had tempted him, had 
 tempted in vain. 
 
 With an income sufficient for his needs, his mind had 
 been able to follow its bent without let or hindrance. The 
 sterner aspects of human existence, which would have 
 destroyed the balance of his ideas respecting the relative 
 importance of the ideal and the actual, scarcely touched 
 his life at all, and it was allowed to remain undisturbed. 
 His faith was more a garment of dreams in which he 
 wrapped himself, body and soul, than a thing of works. 
 Dreaming, to which he was by nature addicted, had been 
 confirmed by habit; and, when he had been suddenly awak- 
 ened by the assertion of things in his own life which had 
 been in the past only a subject for contemplation in the 
 
 239
 
 240 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 lives of others, he was in considerable danger of losing 
 his moral and physical equilibrium altogether. 
 
 The beautiful temple which he had raised out of the 
 elusive materials of the soul had, so far, been a monu- 
 ment to his architectural abilities that he had, with an un- 
 conscious egoism, been content to praise by his mode of 
 life and thought. To appreciate its aesthetic perfections 
 had sufficed; to test its durability of construction had been 
 unnecessary; to deliberately expose it to the elements 
 which had no place in his life and which were so fraught 
 with disaster to the lives of others, would have been an 
 act of something like wanton cruelty from which his natu- 
 ral sensitiveness shrank instinctively. It was as nearly 
 perfect as his limited sense of proportion would allow, 
 but it had its inevitable weak place, and that in a part of 
 the edifice most dangerous to the longevity of any super- 
 structure, viz. in the foundations. He had builded on 
 the principle that the elasticity of the soul would adapt 
 itself to the strains of grosser materials under each and 
 every condition of atmosphere possible in his life. In a 
 sense it was threatening, unknown to himself, to become 
 top-heavy as he added year upon year to it, always reach- 
 ing upward, nor pausing to examine the condition of the 
 basement in the light of knowledge that time and a study 
 of human nature in the flesh alone can bring. 
 
 His ideals were high as his religion was by its own al- 
 legory in fact, by the time he had reached the age of 
 twenty-five he reached a point when descent to earth was 
 a laborious undertaking to be avoided as much as possi- 
 ble. He lived chiefly above the clouds in a tenuity of 
 ethereal space peopled only by the creatures of his own 
 poetic imagination and himself. There was, of course, 
 the inevitable "she," but she was something so ineffably 
 superior to mortal women, so radiant with the unearthly 
 luminosity with which he had invested her, that her out- 
 lines were vague as those of the sun at summer noonday. 
 
 Then, as indicated in a previous chapter, Doubt had 
 taken hold on him. 
 
 It had come slowly, at first in slight misgivings, un-
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 241 
 
 recognized at the time for symptoms of graver trouble 
 that was to follow, as slight as are the first beginnings 
 of the white plague in the lungs of Consumption. His 
 mind had viewed them at the time as but the attempt of 
 the powers of evil whereby his faith was to be undermined 
 and shaken a test of his belief in the accepted canons 
 and conceptions of his God. 
 
 The rejection of his Religion by men of undoubted 
 genius and purity of soul in one or two instances by men 
 of such character whom he had known personally; the 
 discoveries of scientific truths which he had for long been 
 content to deliberately ignore; had at length made him 
 pause and hesitate in his pursuit of The Holy Grail along 
 the narrow pathways ecclesiastic, and ultimately venture 
 into those dubious lands where dwell much perturbations 
 of the spirit for the Orthodox. 
 
 As commonly happens in such cases, the results were 
 disastrous to the peace of mind and body and soul of 
 the Rev. Mervyn Ingestre. Silently and fiercely he had 
 struggled with himself as a man struggles against hands 
 that seize him to fling him into an abyss. 
 
 At last he had sought for sympathy in a man with 
 whom, years before, he had studied the mysteries of their 
 common faith. 
 
 To his surprise, his friend, who had recently returned 
 from a long sojourn in the East, so far from evincing 
 any consternation, as Mervyn with much hesitation ex- 
 plained his troubles, had calmly informed him that he had 
 gone through much the same sort of phase himself; and 
 had, finally, come to the conclusion that if you "believed" 
 it was all right, and if you didn't you were no worse off. 
 As far as he was concerned, his friend had told him, he 
 had long since dismissed Religion as "bogey"; and so 
 far from experiencing any of the moral annihilation 
 prophesied of him, he had felt a better man in that he 
 had freed himself from at least one of the humbugs of 
 life, and its attendant necessities requiring his support of 
 "mumbo-jumboes" the majority of thinking men of the 
 English-speaking races already tolerated or ignored.
 
 242 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 His callousness toward the whole subject had, at first, 
 horrified the young clergyman. The two had been col- 
 lege chums, bosom friends until the other's life had taken 
 him out of England and they had lost sight of each other 
 as the years went on. Meeting by chance one day in 
 town, at a time when Mervyn's doubts were becoming too 
 painful to be borne, he had seized the opportunity to un- 
 bosom them to his old friend. 
 
 The latter's indifference had proceeded more from 
 force of habit than lack of sympathy, and, seeing Mer- 
 vyn's genuine distress, he had done his best to smooth 
 his difficulties for him. He was aware that his means 
 were sufficient to make him independent of his stipend 
 as a cleric for the necessities of existence, and he hinted 
 that if he did not believe any longer the truth of what 
 he preached he was not compelled to remain in the 
 Church. 
 
 His advice, although prompted by the best of inten- 
 tions, had served only to plunge the recipient into subtler 
 agonies as his doubts increased. 
 
 The other, who had been engaged in railway work in 
 Burmah, had given it, as his opinion, upon Mervyn's ques- 
 tioning him upon his own ideas as to the divine origin 
 of Faith, that, while everything might have A Divine 
 for a first cause, the capacity for evolving a conception 
 of Religious Belief with its attendant dogma was as much 
 within the scope of directly human faculties as was the 
 evolution of the Locomotive. His own original beliefs 
 had been destroyed by a study of Religion, Biology, and 
 History, and he considered that, so far from faith being 
 a spontaneous thing springing coeval with Mind, the evi- 
 dence was all in favor of its being of comparatively re- 
 cent date bearing in mind the probable antiquity of 
 man and the relatively modern period covered by his- 
 torical time. 
 
 Mervyn Ingestre had experienced what so many have 
 experienced before him. At first he had endeavored to 
 find a refuge in the Divine Authority of Holy Writ, but 
 his doubts were too insistent to be distanced by retreat;
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 243 
 
 and, for weeks, he had lived in a condition of mental and 
 moral misery. A love and longing for truth, inherent in 
 all poets worthy of the name, which had previously found 
 satisfaction in an implicit acceptance of Scriptural Law 
 as God's direct revelation to man, now began to assert 
 itself. There awoke in him a relentless desire for a criti- 
 cal analysis as to how much of that Law was the truth 
 of historical fact how much the expression of the poetic 
 faculties which interpret and visualize the sublime truth 
 of Imagination through the usual media. It was self- 
 evident to him that parts of the Bible were poetry of the 
 highest order. Among the sayings of Jesus, in the Book 
 of Job, were ideas which had seized and held his own im- 
 agination by the grandeur of their poetry, quite apart 
 from their value as revealed Authority. 
 
 One of the results of these searchings after truth was 
 a dim and then a distinct impression rejected by him 
 at first for blasphemy, directly after its inception that 
 the glory of the life of Jesus as a man was a greater thing 
 than the idea of Jesus conceived as the Son of God, in 
 the dogmatic sense. 
 
 Religious mystic as he was, Mervyn Ingestre was 
 bigoted only in as much as his bigotry was the outcome of 
 a passionate faith his was not the bigotry of an organi- 
 cally narrow mind. 
 
 He began to reason ; and he found Reason, if not ex- 
 actly as an impregnable rock, at least more impervious 
 than he now began to find that one commonly attributed 
 to Holy Scripture. 
 
 But a greater than either Reason or Faith was to 
 manifest itself unto him, and that was Love. 
 
 Now it was that Nature played him a scurvy trick 
 though, from her point of view, only a just retribution 
 for his neglect of her for other Gods wounding him 
 through the strongest part of his armor, ay, within the 
 very precincts of the house of his God himself. 
 
 Had this last blow been delivered at any weaker 
 point and under different circumstances he would, in all 
 probability, have recovered after a course of treatment in
 
 244 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 his psychic sanatorium. At it was, he repaired in an agony 
 of doubt to the topmost towers and stretched out implor- 
 ing hands to unresponsive skies. The radiance surround- 
 ing his former goddess had departed and left him in the 
 dark with a woman whose hair and eyes matched the 
 religious night which had fallen upon his soul. The upper 
 atmosphere in which he had breathed for so long be- 
 came charged to an extent suggesting analogies of the 
 electric storm lurking behind the clouds that had suddenly 
 enveloped his existence. As he searched the fabric of his 
 dream palace for a place of refuge the whole edifice 
 swayed and shook before his eyes, and then, as with a 
 crash of all the celestial artillery, it plunged with him 
 headlong to the ground. 
 
 When he rose from the debris he was morally a 
 wreck. His God had tempted him in a way that even 
 St. Anthony had surely never been tempted. He had as- 
 sisted to bind the woman by the most sacred of ties to an- 
 other man ties sanctioned, nay commanded, by his God, 
 and even as he did so, behold, his desire rose up between 
 those two whom his God had joined together. The lusts 
 of the flesh he could conquer: as a matter of fact, his de- 
 sire was a spiritual thing in which the carnal appetites 
 he had had occasion to denounce from time to time had 
 no discernible place. Love had come to him that was 
 all, and all it was literally. But if its advent was in 
 keeping with the seraphic manifestation which his fancy 
 had conceived as peculiarly its own, its course with him 
 was widely different from any of his preconceptions. In- 
 stead of rising serenely on ethereal wings, and floating to 
 the throne he had erected for it on high, it suddenly arose 
 like a storm in the night, its workings unseen until re- 
 vealed by its own terrific lightning flash, and struck down 
 his palace of preconceived ideals as ruthlessly as the elec- 
 tric fluid shatters a church spire occasionally. The latter 
 physical catastrophe had once or twice in the past sug- 
 gested to him things difficult of reconciliation, but, like 
 most expounders of "truths" in which the art of reconcil- 
 ing the irreconcilable is a sine qua non to successful ex-
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 245 
 
 position, his powers of sophistry had proved equal to the 
 occasion, and his faith had remained unimpaired in those 
 days. 
 
 But this thing was different. His faith had been an 
 exaltation pervading his whole being; there had been 
 room for an ideal of an earthly love, but it was identical 
 in essential characters with, and contained within, his 
 spiritual passion. 
 
 Love had come to him in his Holy of Holies, and so 
 far from approaching his Deity with the awe and rever- 
 ence he had expected as an inherent part of its nature, 
 it had tumbled his temples into ruins before his eyes, and 
 then with bewildering rapidity commenced to build unto 
 itself another of totally different materials scornfully 
 rejecting the earlier masonry as worthless rubbish. The 
 Lord Thy God is a jealous God! Thou shalt have no 
 other Gods but Me! But alas! Eros seemed to pre- 
 scribe exactly the same rules for his own worship ! 
 
 The Rev. Mervyn Ingestre was really a man to be 
 pitied. 
 
 At last he rose up from his knees where he had been 
 praying, determined to follow after the strange god no 
 longer and to return to his old worship and that alone. 
 As he made this pious resolution, a voice echoed in low 
 and indescribably sweet, though mocking, laughter 
 through his soul, and behold ! and the pale God of his 
 earlier days was brushed aside by the Cleopatra-like 
 shade of the owner of the laugh herself. 
 
 He failed to realize that the workings of the Spirit 
 of Love were not alone responsible for his undoing. The 
 intensity of his own peculiar temperament was the traitor 
 within the gates of his soul. To worship as he under- 
 stood worship both God and the Woman was impos- 
 sible; and already her apotheosis shone through the 
 shadow of his coming apostasy. 
 
 She was married! To love her was a sin which in 
 him, a priest of God, was seventy times seven a deadly 
 one! 
 
 He was a poet born though it must be admitted that
 
 246 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 up to this time his poetry had been a trifle "thin." His 
 technic left nothing to be desired; his ideas were 
 fraught with a nebulous beauty of a kind, and delicate 
 almost to a degree of effeminacy; but the true spirit of 
 Poetry the inward fire which breathes through and 
 transfigures the form of words and which makes poetry 
 the supreme expression of eloquent human emotions 
 was lacking. He had never noticed it before. But 
 now ! 
 
 He read through some of his compositions which had 
 pleased him at one time they had become suddenly in- 
 sipid, feeble, and commonplace; and, even as he read, the 
 echo of the woman's laugh floated again through his 
 senses and hovered over the pages of manuscript before 
 his eyes. 
 
 His pale face flushed and his hands shook as he did 
 it, but the next moment he had torn the paper into shreds. 
 
 In a revulsion of feeling he sat down and buried his 
 face in his hands. Her voice rose triumphantly in his 
 ears and then died away in a low caressing laugh. Under 
 the stress of the maddening emotions which suddenly 
 awoke within him his fortitude broke down, and he 
 slipped on to his knees and prayed. It was no good! His 
 prayers were incoherent, meaningless, and void. He had 
 lost his God; and she could never be anything more to 
 him than another man's wife ! 
 
 Never anything more? 
 
 He gave up the struggle with a groan. She was 
 already more! She was everything! Already the ideal- 
 istic tendencies of his nature tendencies which a poet 
 can no more escape than can a miser the desire to hoard 
 had commenced to reassert themselves, and he was un- 
 consciously preparing the ritual of his new worship in 
 the pagan temple that Love was building for him. And 
 her husband was a betting man ! It was sacrilege at which 
 he had assisted. Her calmness during the ceremony 
 was her ignorance. She had drifted into the marriage. 
 
 The night of her wedding he slept not at all, but lay 
 staring at the dark in an ecstasy of spiritual anguish.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 247 
 
 The next day he shut himself up in his room, and 
 plunged defiantly into the mythology of ancient Greece 
 devouring every scrap of prose and poetry, myth and 
 fable, connected with the woman who "made of Troy a 
 ruinous thing." 
 
 At Oxford his Greek translations had brought him 
 fame. The poet's soul of him had always recognized the 
 beauty of the pagan world, but it had been a recognition 
 tempered with abhorrence ; and now, with the zeal of the 
 extremist, he found himself conceiving excuses for Paris 
 and Leda's daughter. 
 
 It was inevitable that such lines of thought should 
 eventually develop along the planes of the Personal. 
 Suddenly snatching up a pen, he poured out his secret 
 passion to the dark-eyed mistress of his love. 
 
 "Thou art more fair to me than any dawn! 
 Before thine eyes the eyes of Eos pale 
 Into gray mists and cloud of earthly skies; 
 But, in the dusky portals of thy soul, 
 Old wonder dwells, wonder the amorous Night 
 First felt in darkness making darkness fair 
 As vestal fire of those white suns the stars 
 That saw rapt bridals whose communion 
 Begot The Infinite. 
 
 More fair than God 
 
 Thou art to me ! Than any God more fair ! 
 Helen that gave old Troy to death and fire 
 And sealed its nuptials with the hungry winds 
 In one great kiss of flame! 
 
 So, too, my soul 
 
 Leaps like a wind-blown fire before the breath 
 Of longing for thee ! thee, my soul's desire ! 
 And a great voice of more than music cries : 
 "Behold again the face of Helena!" 
 Faith, that was once a star to me, is slain: 
 As the day-star before the kiss of dawn 
 So dies all faith in me against the lips 
 That I have kissed, in fancy, many times! 
 Not all the laws of God can mine withhold 
 From thine in spirit! no, not though the cry
 
 248 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 Of Conscience ravished on the wings of Love 
 Sounds as it passes: Thief! Adulterer!" 
 
 He laid down the pen, and mentally contrasted the 
 lines he had written with his previous efforts, and it 
 seemed to him that the woman who had inspired them 
 was beside him gazing over his shoulder as he read, 
 first to himself and then aloud. As he finished, the 
 voice of her swelled to a note of challenge so it sounded 
 to him in fancy, and he started up and gazed round the 
 room like a man distraught. He could subscribe to the 
 poet's dictum concerning poets, that they "Learn in suf- 
 fering what they teach in song." Being at times a very 
 human young man, he could forget the compensating joy 
 that only poets know. 
 
 When night came wearied out with the struggle that 
 had been going on in his breast all day he slept; but the 
 Woman followed him into his slumber, and his dreams 
 added to the general conflagration in which his old faith 
 perished.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 THE APOSTASY OF THE REV. MERVYN INGESTRE 
 
 His vicar called in the morning; and Mervyn Ingestre 
 dragged a rough-edged mind back to the grindstone of 
 parochial matters the process both illuminating his 
 mental condition and reflecting it in his outward appear- 
 ance. 
 
 The Rev. Evelyn Choate, incumbent of St. Mor- 
 dred's, was startled at the strange demeanor of his curate. 
 There was a hectic flush in the young man's face, and a 
 general air of distraction about him altogether, quite at 
 variance with the Rev. Evelyn's previous experience of 
 him. Fearing that he was ill he inquired anxiously as to 
 his health, and the concern in his voice plunged the object 
 of his solicitude into still deeper confusion. 
 
 Merwyn, feeling that already he was infected with 
 the leaven of the Pharisees which is Hypocrisy, declared 
 it to be nothing, that he was all right, and protested when 
 the vicar suggested the postponement of certain duties; 
 but it was with a feeling of relief that he saw his visitor 
 depart. 
 
 The morning was magnificently fine : there was some- 
 thing pagan in the golden splendor of the day that ap- 
 pealed to him strangely. Through the open window of 
 his sitting-room the wind brought with it the scent of 
 may-flowers and the song of birds from the garden at the 
 back. To the soul's ear of his poet's nature there came 
 the sound of sunlight falling through the leaves: he 
 could hear the seethe of the world through it as she 
 turned, with her waves of hill and gorse, woodland and 
 249
 
 250 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 thick boughs, heather and high meadow-grasses, fern and 
 flowers. 
 
 He got his hat and stick and started off, determined to 
 try the effect of fresh air and exercise upon his disordered 
 mind. 
 
 As he reached the common he saw the well-known 
 figure of Swinburne on his morning walk from Putney 
 coming toward him. The poet's lines in that wonder- 
 ful piece of word music, "The Last Oracle," which had 
 at one time sounded as the rankest blasphemy in his 
 ears, came to him now with a new significance : 
 
 "Thou the word, the light, the life, the breath, the glory, 
 
 Strong to help and heal, to lighten and to slay, 
 Thine is all the song of man, the world's whole story; 
 
 Not of morning or of evening is thy day. 
 Old and younger gods are buried or begotten 
 
 From uprising to downsetting of thy sun, 
 Risen from eastward, fallen to westward and forgotten, 
 
 And their springs are many, but their end is one." 
 
 As he walked on across the heath, he found himself 
 repeating other verses from the same poem : 
 
 "Till the blind mute soul get speech again and eyesight, 
 
 Man may worship not the light of life within ; 
 In his sight the stars whose fires grow dark in thy sight 
 
 Shine as sunbeams on the night of death and sin. 
 Time again is risen with mightier word of warning, 
 
 Change hath blown again a blast of louder breath; 
 Clothed with clouds and stars and dreams that melt in morning, 
 
 Lo, the gods that ruled by grace of sin and death !" 
 
 Was it true? 
 
 "They are conquered, they break, they are stricken, 
 
 \Vhose might made the whole world pale; 
 They are dust that shall rise not or quicken 
 
 Though the world for their death's sake wail. 
 As a hound on a wild beast's trace; 
 So time has their godhead in chase;
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 251 
 
 As wolves when the hunt makes head, 
 They are scattered, they fly, they are fled ; 
 They are fled beyond hail, beyond hollo, 
 
 And the cry of the chase, and the cheer 
 O father of all of us, Paian, Apollo, 
 
 Destroyer and healer, hear!" 
 
 All around him was the sun: as he walked, the larks 
 in the tufted grass rose before his feet and leapt singing 
 into the golden air above. The level heath seemed as a 
 vast reservoir into which the beams were being poured 
 the ground itself seemed to exhale their volatile essence in 
 the sunbright vapor which shimmered above the grass 
 like dry steam. Dogs and children that he passed were 
 rolling in it; everything seemed steeped in an elemental 
 rapture inspired by the pagan God of Day. 
 
 "We arise at thy bidding and follow, 
 
 We cry to thee, answer, appear, 
 O father of all of us, Paian, Apollo, 
 Destroyer and healer, hear!" 
 
 The haunting music of the words infected him, up- 
 lifted him above the clouds of doubt and despair that 
 lurked about his soul. 
 
 Bah! It was a worship for brutes and children! as 
 the pendulum of his mind swung back to the recollection 
 of his former ideals. 
 
 Brutes and children ! Children? Christ's own words 
 came to him: "For of such is the kingdom of Heaven." 
 And there had been great men with the heart of a child. 
 
 Brutes? The poet who had written the words which 
 had affected him so strangely? The absurdity of the 
 comparison struck him and he laughed aloud. Mervyn 
 Ingestre was poet enough himself to recognize the pecu- 
 liar genius of the man a genius which had already 
 earned its place among the immortal lights that lighten 
 the world through the ages with the lamp of Song. 
 
 And now the genius of the poet had taken on the 
 mantle of the prophet as well. Was it not true that his
 
 252 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 whilom creed was one that withered away from the soil 
 of men's souls, was already a dead thing even, with the 
 majority of men? 
 
 Before, he would have seen in such a circumstance a 
 legitimate grievance against mankind, but now it seemed 
 to him man's indictment of falsehoods once glorified 
 before the sun, Truth's sentence on them at the tribunal 
 of Time. After eighteen hundred years of it what had 
 happened? Science and the spread of human knowledge 
 had entered the field, and the last hundred years had seen 
 a continual retreat of the forces of Theology which 
 threatened in a few more years to become a rout. What 
 if for justice man must look to man alone? 
 
 He was as astounded at the way in which he had 
 previously ignored the superstition beneath the spiritual 
 beauties of Religion as he was now at the manner in 
 which he overlooked the spiritual beauties which had been 
 so much to him in the past. Then he thought of Shelley 
 years before of the passionate heart of the poet burn- 
 ing with hatred of the blight of superstition which the 
 Creeds had flung across the skies and the eyes of men. 
 And the seeds that Shelley sowed were coming to fruition 
 at last? His mind became chaotic he could think no 
 more. 
 
 He stopped in his walk, and, removing his hat, stood 
 gazing before him at the sun-shot azure dome of sky. 
 The wind, increasing in strength with the sun as the 
 shadows shortened, stirred the plain of feathery grasses 
 around him into rippling waves. Through the soft warm 
 breath of May palpitated the song of innumerable larks. 
 His whole soul was in his eyes now the rays that slanted 
 into them seemed to meet and mingle with the light shin- 
 ing through them from within. 
 
 He was free! His doubts had suddenly vanished! 
 With the awakening of an earthly love had come a great 
 and hitherto unfelt love for his kind. Henceforth, his 
 life should be consecrated to his new faith his future 
 doctrine, Love for Love's sake. To minister to men in 
 their pilgrimage on earth ; to preach not the abstraction
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 253 
 
 of a supposititious Heaven, but a message of loving kind- 
 ness in man to man for the sake of humanity. The 
 woman who had enthralled him had, in reality, been his 
 liberator from the domination of a beautiful but selfish 
 ego. It was inherent in his nature that he should crave 
 for an ideal to live by, and for the moment she became 
 nebulous as her predecessor, as he raised his eyes to the 
 sun. 
 
 He walked on, and presently came to the group of 
 cottages by the Windmill. Sitting down on a bench be- 
 side the garden fence he basked in the glowing fragrant 
 air. 
 
 At the other end of the seat a man of about forty, 
 with his right arm in a sling and his hand swathed in 
 bandages, was sitting reading. He had the appearance 
 of an artisan of the better class; and Mervyn, under the 
 influence of his new impulse, found himself studying the 
 man's face with interest speculating as to the nature 
 of the book he was reading. He was very intent on the 
 pages, and had not noticed Mervyn's approach. The 
 latter took out his pouch and pipe, and proceeded to 
 smoke. 
 
 Smelling the tobacco, the reader looked up suddenly, 
 stared for a moment at the smoker, and then went on 
 with his book again. Presently he put it down, with its 
 bright red paper covers upward, and, after searching in 
 his pocket, produced a tobacco pouch, briar pipe, and 
 box of matches. He opened the pouch on his knee, and 
 then placing it on the book beside him commenced to 
 fill the pipe slowly with his only available hand. As he 
 placed his pipe in his mouth he raised his face and re- 
 garded Mervyn indifferently. It was an intelligent face 
 of strong character; the eyes large, and of a peculiarly 
 bright light blue. 
 
 "Let me give you a light!" said Mervyn, foreseeing 
 the difficulty for a man with one hand and a box of safety 
 matches. 
 
 "Thanks, it's kind of you," the stranger replied, 
 rather gruffly, Mervyn thought.
 
 254 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 He sat down again, rather closer to the other, and 
 said: 
 
 "You have had an accident?" 
 
 "Fingers off. Couple," the man replied laconically, 
 and then commenced puffing away at his pipe in evident 
 satisfaction. 
 
 "Oh ! That is bad ! How did it happen?" 
 
 "Caught 'em in some machinery." 
 
 "It must have been horribly painful!" 
 
 'Urt a bit. Pulled the tendons out. Gettin' all 
 right agin now." 
 
 Mervyn shuddered. The agony must have been ex- 
 cruciating. Then he said: "But won't it interfere with 
 your work in the future?" 
 
 "Will a bit at first, I expect, but it won't make a great 
 deal of diff'rence, 'cept in settin' a cut, maybe, or the 
 poppet-'ead center. I'm a turner. If I'd been a fitter 
 it'ud a been a bit rough." 
 
 "You seem to take it very philosophically." 
 
 "Got to. Accidents will happen. First bad un I've 
 'ad. Might a been worse like a mate o' mine. Went 
 round the shaftin'. Before they could stop the injin 'e 
 was smashed to pulp, pore b " 
 
 "How horrible!" 
 
 The man shrugged his shoulders. "Lots of 'orrible 
 things in this world, mister," he said. 
 
 "Yes, I'm afraid there are!" Mervyn was beginning 
 to suspect himself of an unworthy egoism in the past and 
 to feel in sympathy with a class that had previously re- 
 pelled him. Their frequent use of a sanguinary adjective, 
 and habits of smoking shag tobacco, had seemed disgust- 
 ing to his refined tastes. For the first time one of them had 
 appeared to him in the light of a man and a brother. 
 "What's the book you were so interested in when I sat 
 down?" he said, smiling. 
 
 The man who had lost his fingers laughed, and looked 
 at him a moment with a queer light in his blue eyes. A 
 hint of unfriendliness, that the young clergyman had 
 seen in his eyes and heard in his voice at the beginning
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 255 
 
 of their conversation, here momentarily returned. 
 "Wouldn't interest you, mister, 'The Curses of Chris- 
 tianity'." 
 
 "Oh, I'm not in the least bigoted now, though I 
 cannot say that I've read it," replied Mervyn, with an- 
 other smile, and conscious of the fact that until very 
 lately he had been very bigoted indeed. "Who's the 
 author?" 
 
 "Me. I wrote it. As a warnin' agin gammonin of 
 our side in the comin' fight. We've 'card quite enough 
 of the blessin's. I'm goin' through it, revisin' for a 
 second edition," he added, half apologetically, as if for 
 the vanity of reading his own work. "I " 
 
 "But surely," put in Mervyn, interrupting, "you do 
 not deny that the Church does an immense amount of 
 good among the poor?" feeling, as he spoke, how little 
 he had ever done himself. 
 
 The man laughed. "You speak more like a man ad- 
 vancin' a excuse rather than a reason for its existence. 
 Oh yes, the Church does a lot o' good I'll admit that 
 it oughter! It's the harm I'm a haimin' at the diddle, 
 the dirty bleedin' diddle!" There was more than a sus- 
 picion of a snarl in his voice, and his eyes had grown 
 hard suddenly. 
 
 Mervyn flushed. He was getting upon doubtful 
 ground. The man who had lost his fingers might be a 
 dangerous fanatic, an anarchist. He had heard the work- 
 ing classes were getting dangerous ; and that, save in the 
 country districts, the "touch-your-hat-to-the-parson's- 
 lady" days were passing away from their world forever. 
 He glanced at the man. The other seemed to have for- 
 gotten him, and sat staring at the distant landscape, after 
 having expectorated twice in quick succession. Presently 
 he began again, in quieter tones : 
 
 "I see in it a gigantic stew-pond for the big an' little 
 fishes of 'ypocrisy. The very kids are brought up on it! 
 Until we're prepared to look the f acks o' life in the face, 
 there'll be precious little 'ope for anything like a proper 
 improvement in the condition of the lives of the prole-
 
 256 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 tariat. The Church 'as told us to bear our burdens 
 patiently, and talks about the Blessed Truth glib enough. 
 Truth ! Why, mate, you an' yer friends get up in yer pulpit 
 witness-boxes and give evidence that 'ud make even a 
 county court judge kick and take action about!" He left 
 off and laughed angrily. Then he turned to his listener 
 with : "Sorry, mate ! No offense, only I'm a plain man. 
 'Praps this 'ere job makes me a bit touchy, too," and he 
 moved his injured arm. 
 
 His evident sincerity attracted his listener. Mervyn 
 felt that it somehow excused his violence. His own 
 timidity was leaving him, after the shock of the man's 
 first outburst. He felt himself being drawn out of his 
 shell of class-reserve by a certain frankness in the 
 stranger. He ventured to reply, "But the spiritual 
 truth?" 
 
 "Spiritual truth is right! If you think yer spiritual 
 truth justifies yer promisin' a lot of pore an' ignorant 
 
 b s eternal bliss, an' all the rest of it, in some life 
 
 everlastin' you do it. But what did they put a mate o' 
 mine, a laborer earnin' seventeen bob a week, when 'e 
 was in work, in the jug for, with 'ard labor, becoz 'e 
 cursed you an' yer God for a lot of most dispickarable 'oly 
 liars? Why, even some toffs got up a pertition agin it, 
 sayin' as it was only bad taste, was blasphemy. Bad 
 taste ! What about the other wangle, then ? An' you call 
 yerselves gentlemen, no doubt; an most of you are, in 
 some ways, if there's any meanin' to the word, that's the 
 rum thing about the bizness! No, mate, we shan't get 
 earthly justice till this life as the only one's insisted upon. 
 All that there leavin' God to settle up, an puttin' it off 
 to another world game, strikes at the very root of real 
 morality an' justice!" He paused for breath, and an- 
 other light. Between draws and puffs he resumed, "Ever 
 seen Swinburne goin' along over there (he pointed with 
 his pipe across the heath) for 'is arf pint, or whatever 
 'e 'as, at The Rose an' Crown? Nasty godless old man, 
 some of 'em calls 'im, about 'ere. Well, 'e's a toff, a 
 bloomin' haristercrat by birth. But'',e saw, long ago,
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 257 
 
 what a diddle it all was, not arf 'e didn't, saw a bleedin' 
 sight further than Tennyson nor Brownin' which way 
 the world 'ud 'ave to go I" 
 
 "Yes, I've frequently seen him I saw him this 
 morning." He remembered his own thoughts on the 
 poet, as he had crossed the heath, and was struck by the 
 coincidence of this workman's allusion. "You consider 
 him a prophet, then?" he asked, seeking an affirmation 
 in the other, for his own support in his recently acquired 
 heresy, where as yet the way was still uncertain in places 
 with negation's vague and shadowy grounds. 
 
 "I do, mate! I give you my word," came the answer. 
 Then the speaker once more: "An' as for teachin' us 
 patience ! Well, patience is a wonderful good thing in 
 its way, but you can 'ave too much of it. We've 'ad ! The 
 clarses above us think it's a splendid thing for us to be 
 patient they want us to be. If we wern't we might arsk 
 for another half-penny an hour! They want to provide 
 work for us. Oh they're most anxious to provide work 
 for us, I do assure you as long as they can make a profit 
 on it! An' the church 'as 'elped 'em 'elping us to be 
 patient, but we're beginning to suspect our mate of double 
 dealings. Shelley knew something when 'e talked of 
 Priests an' Liberty-sides ! I don't blame 'em for trying to 
 exploit us under existin' conditions they've got to, to 
 keep their own 'eads above water. But I blame our side 
 if we don't try an' beat 'em! Until we do beat 'em, the 
 rules of the game'll never be as fair as they might. Until 
 we're strong enough to 'it back, an' clever enough to know 
 'ow to 'it, the world'll go on sacrificin' us to a fetich of 
 Commercialism that they've made 'emselves. They, be- 
 cause it's bred in 'em; we, because we've got to. They're 
 usin' your religion as a charity to keep our mouths shut, 
 one moment, an' as a bizness method to exploit us, the 
 next. But, when they talk about the morality of it, they 
 make me sick. You know as well as I do, if you've been 
 about the world an' kept your eyes open, that Mammon's 
 the real God that's worshiped at the present day 
 Mammon, what breeds selfishness like 'errings do fry.
 
 258 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 Until we do something to destroy the possibilities for the 
 god of Greed, what real chance is there for better things? 
 Britons never shall be slaves! Don't make me laugh! 
 Why, ninety-nine out of a hundred of 'em are! Slaves 
 to a system of Capitalism as they've made 'emsehesf 
 Slaves? Less than the cogs in the gear of a machine, 
 mate! They'll always be slaves to 'unger an' thirst, but 
 they didn't make them. It's little good for the up'olders 
 of the present system to 'owl about us socialists as ram- 
 pacious robbers. Look up the amount of public common 
 land which 'as been collared an' enclosed. An' what does 
 Society Society which makes the laws which 'as all the 
 advantages of education which sets such store by good 
 taste, an which sends a 'ungry man to prison for takin' a 
 turnup out of a field, an' talks of right an' wrong what 
 does Society do? Why, honors the descendants of the 
 original thief ! The thief 'imself in 'is own life-time very 
 orften ! Oh yes, I know ! Their ancestors fought an' bled 
 for it, sez some. I'd like to fight some of 'em for it now 
 even with my one dook. I've bled a bit, an' gets less 
 nor a pound a week to feed me an' the missus an' kids on, 
 while I'm restin' after it. Demos is blind an' dirty an' 
 foul-mouthed? Yes, but don't forget Vs strong won- 
 derful bloody strong! If 'e 'adn't been 'e'd a-died, long 
 ago ! 'E's got a lot of learn, but 'e'll learn it, never fear ! 
 Now, it's like puttin' a fifteen-stun navvy, full o' fore-ale 
 agen a good 'ard-'ittin' skientific middle-weight, in 
 trainin'. It's a pound to a half-penny on the smaller man 
 ever time. But it ain't always goin' to be like that. Oh 
 no! Don't forget this, mate there are some lessons 
 which only adversity teaches some that most of the so- 
 called upper clarses, with their pamperfied souls an' 
 bodies, 'aven't never learnt yet nor never will, till they're 
 taught. Upper clarses !" He pretended to a mincing air, 
 then : "Jeames, to the physician's at once ! Fido is fever- 
 ish. It may be critical ! If anything 'appens, Jeames, an' 
 we har too late, I should nevhar forgive you ! Gawd 
 blimey! When you know there's arf of us men, women, 
 and children worse fed, worse 'oused, worse clothed,
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 259 
 
 than 'unters or lap-dogs ! Upper clarses!" He burst into 
 a laugh of derision, followed by what was to his listener's 
 ears the most frightful blasphemy. Then he checked him- 
 self and stopped. "Sorry, mister, I was forgettin'!" 
 
 He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and slowly and 
 thoughtfully commenced to refill it again. 
 
 Mervyn, who had flinched again at the man's ex- 
 pletives, nevertheless felt strangely interested in him. 
 There was a rough eloquence in his face and voice and 
 manner the eloquence of power. Evidently he was no 
 ordinary workman he had read and thought deeply. 
 
 Shrewd and intelligent with his intelligence, and his 
 father's before him, strengthened by the necessity for its 
 constant exercise in a highly skilled handicraft, and with- 
 out his more intellectual faculties having been perverted 
 by the moral color-blindness induced by the lust of gold 
 he was an example of a type rapidly increasing in 
 numbers with the modern facilities for acquiring knowl- 
 edge, and a vindication of the mental advantages to be 
 obtained by learning a trade. The mind which could 
 think, and had constantly to think in thousandths of an 
 inch, could think in stellar distances as well, as soon as 
 it was supplied with the necessary data. 
 
 Mervyn gave him a light, remarking as he did so: 
 "Go on. But why appeal to the Deity you deny, as you 
 did just then?" 
 
 "Not at all! / don't deny 'im! I deny that any of us 
 know anything about 'im in the way of a future existence 
 as you blokes want to make out. If it comes to that, 
 I daresay you, a Christian, 'ave sworn by Jove before 
 now, come!" he added after a moment's pause. 
 
 Mervyn laughed, and admitted it. The man had evi- 
 dently a sense of humor a thing in which he himself had 
 been sadly lacking, up till now. 
 
 He began again, after a few puffs at his pipe, "Now 
 to me, all yer talk about God in 'is 'eaven is downright 
 Hi diddle diddle, the cat an' the fiddle. You know as 
 well as I do that if there is anything certain in the uni- 
 verse it's the fack that there can be no endin' to space
 
 26o "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 an' time. Infinity and Eternity not only prove themselves 
 by reason of the absurdity of denyin' their existence but 
 from the nature of 'em they're impossible to conceive 
 except as abstrack terms used expedient. It's easier to 
 semi-imagine the Infinite than to semi-imagine Finiteness. 
 Why's it so? Because they're things outside the plane 
 of the human intelleck. Right bang outside it ! A senior 
 wrangler, or a fly-blow loafin' outside a pub either can 
 understand 'em as much or as little as the other. If it's 
 impossible to realize or understand Infinity an' no one 
 ever did yet on this earth, or ever will, I'm thinkin', 
 'ow much more impossible is it to realize or understand 
 the power which is responsible for its existence. Yet you, 
 with your creeds and your faiths and your fiddlesticks, 
 not only get up and deal out Eternity by the yard, as it 
 were, but swank it on us that we're all right forever if we 
 take your word for somebody else's word that Jesus 
 Christ was the Son of God an' a virgin woman. Fearful 
 blasphemy really, if you only knew it! An' some of you 
 draws yer thousan's a year on the strength of it! Most 
 men look upon a parson as a sort of glorified confidence 
 trick merchant, with 'is Thus saith the Lord for a gold 
 brick, an' it ain't to be wondered at ! Bah ! It'd be funny, 
 if it wasn't for the awful waste of real lives that goes' on, 
 an' nothin' said!" 
 
 Mervyn wondered what the Rev. Evelyn Choate 
 would think of his curate's present conversation and 
 mental condition ; and the man went on : 
 
 "There's unconscious self-deception, I'll admit; but I 
 say that no man shall get up and instruct me in the mys- 
 teries of a future life until 'e 'as studied something of the 
 undeserved miseries going on in this. If 'e 'as done so, 
 an' can still be honest when 'e talks Gospel Truths an' 
 what not good luck to 'im ! I can respeck 'is honesty if 
 I can't 'is intelleck. But 'ow many of 'em that talks about 
 Thus saith the Lord are anything but conscious humbugs 
 or men sunk in a ignorant superstition? "Thou shalt 
 not suffer a witch to live." 'Ow many thousands of pore 
 old women have been done to death cruel, on the strength
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 261 
 
 of that benign truth in the past? What price Mrs. 'arris 
 after that! "An' bloody faith the foulest birth of 
 Time" not my words, but Shelley's; words that'll be 
 read and remembered when yore dust an' mine is forgot! 
 The argument from faith ain't worth two-pennorth o' cold 
 gin! The Christian is certain of eternal life as the ulti- 
 mate of his ideal; the Buddhist an' there are quite as 
 many Buddhists in the world as Christians, if not more 
 of annhillashun. Are you goin' to advance that as a 
 proof that faith is in itself a truth what proves your 
 truths? An' as for Genesis, Darwin let that cat out of 
 the bag, an Tommy 'uxley saw as it jumped I" 
 
 He left off speaking, and after getting another light 
 for his pipe, which had gone out, sat silently smoking and 
 staring thoughtfully before him at the sunshine. 
 
 Mervyn felt that he must strike one more blow for 
 the cloth he was wearing although he had already de- 
 cided that he would not wear it much longer. He had, 
 to a certain extent, forgotten his own troubles in listening 
 to the man's discourse upon wider matters. 
 
 "At least the Church teaches men how to live and 
 die," he said quietly. 
 
 " 'Ow d'you mean? It teaches 'em to pray! an' 
 prayer makes a wonderful lot of difference, no doubt! 
 Considerin' the efficiency of prayer an' the number of 
 prayers that 'ave been prayed, it's a marvel there's any 
 relationship left 'tween cause an' effeck, ain't it, mate? 
 It appeals to their cupidity by promising 'em all sorts of 
 things after they're dead if they're such good boys in this 
 life as to believe what they're told. It teaches men to be 
 infernal hypocrites at the present day, as it taught 'em to 
 be infernal bloody cruel in the past. What price Smith- 
 field and The Inquisition? Teaches men to die?" His 
 eyes became suddenly stern and fierce. "We don't want 
 no teachin' that, mister! 'Ave you ever troubled to add 
 up the number of workin'men what lose their lives by 
 'orrible deaths every year? Coal mines railways other 
 trades! Those men take their lives in their 'ands six 
 days a week an' think nothin' of it! An' we ain't got
 
 262 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 automatic couplin's yet, nor some things for the miners, 
 what orter a-been long ago, for all yer morality! 
 Morality bleedin' swank!" 
 
 He ceased, and fell into a fit of abstraction. Neither 
 of them spoke for a while ; and then Mervyn, anxious for 
 more, said: 
 
 "Go on, I like listening to you!" 
 
 "Do you? Well, you're diff'rent to most parsons 
 then ! One or two of 'em I've 'ad an argument with about 
 religion seem to look upon me as a sort of moral mur- 
 der-er! Howsumever, don't take my word for it I'm 
 only a bloody working-man, though I've got a faith every 
 bit as strong as yores. Take men that 'er something 
 more than men great minds Darwin an' the rest of 
 'em. D'you think those men 'adn't or 'aven't got a faith 
 every bit as strong as yores? D'you think their faith 'ud 
 let 'em go on bolsterin' up what they believed to be a 
 gigantic lie? It's the plague o' lies that rots men's souls, 
 mate, an' Christ-cum-Capitalism's the worst lie that's 
 alive to-day. Oh yes! I know Truth's a thing of blood 
 an' iron an' hurts but it ain't the fault of Truth, it's the 
 fault of the people! They can't stand it they ain't 
 brought up to it! But they've got to get used to it, by God 
 they 'ave, if they want to make the world a better place 
 all round to live in. I'm leavin' 'eaven out, myself! 
 There's plenty to do 'ere an' we live 'ere, or want to. 
 Don't you think / think that man can live by bread alone; 
 but I say this: let 'is /deals be based upon truth. There's 
 plenty of known as-certain-able truth in the world to be 
 idealized, and it will be in time. Tons of it, an' the 
 world'll be a better an' cleaner place to live in ! Once the 
 truth of Capitalism's seen for what it is, I'm hopeful my- 
 self a downright optimist; the world of men is young 
 yet. History goes back, what, four thousand years six 
 thousand, an' it probably took millions to evolve that 
 from a fin," and he held out his undamaged hand. "It's 
 little I can do it's little I expecks to do, but it's up 
 agen me to do it, an' I'm goin' to ! If I can 'elp our cause 
 on a bloomin' inch, I shan't 'ave lived in vain; an' let me
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 263 
 
 tell you there'll be plenty of others to carry on the good 
 work. The world 'as got a long way to roll before the 
 last bloody bump an' she rolls into bits. The race an' 
 the genus what produced a Darwin ain't goin' to stop 
 short at the /deals of the liar, the 'ypocrite, the 'uckster, 
 an' the snob !" 
 
 He rose and picked up his book laughing at the ex- 
 pression on the face of his listener, while he readjusted 
 his injured arm in its sling. 
 
 Mervyn looked up at his big shoulders and rugged, 
 indomitable face. He had listened, carried away out of 
 himself by the spirit of what he would have termed 
 MHNIH, which seemed to pervade the man as he talked. 
 His own perturbations of body and soul, which had been 
 to him of such an overwhelming nature a little time be- 
 fore, had become small things against the foil of the 
 forces that this rough stranger personified. In him he 
 saw that irresistible mysterious vitality which makes men 
 great for good or evil the Voice which says there shall 
 be no marking time for the human ego either backward 
 or forward man shall go. 
 
 "Are you going back to Wimbledon?" he asked sud* 
 denly of the man. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I'll walk back across the common with you, if you 
 like. You interest me." 
 
 "Right O! Only don't try an' convert me, because 
 it's a 'opeless game!" he answered, laughing. 
 
 "Certainly not! You are more likely to convert me, 
 in my present state of mind!" 
 
 His companion whistled. "It's like that, is it?" he 
 said, suddenly grave. "Well, I've been tellin' you more 
 of what I don't believe than of what I do" he went on, 
 as they walked slowly along. "It's like this. I belong to 
 a society called The Regenerators. We've got a small 
 room in Merton, where we meet once a week for debates 
 an' one thing an' another. All we try to do is to let a 
 little more of the light of truth into the world, an' do 
 as much good as we can in a small way cheerin' people
 
 264 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 up a bit; 'elpin' the young men to study in their spare 
 time if they want to; 'elpin' the young women to keep 
 off the streets if they get chucked on to 'em through bein' 
 out o' work or bein' left by their chaps. 'Elpin' them 
 that's been on the loose of both sexes into a better state of 
 life if we can, an' they show as they're earnest in their 
 desire for reform. We bar no one that's straight with 
 the society Christians nor 'ethens. I talk a bit, some- 
 times," he added modestly, "Literature, Philosophy, Re- 
 ligion, Science anything to give the more educated of 
 'em an additional interest in life; an' I write a bit for 
 the Socialist press. I can't do much I've got a wife 
 an' three little 'uns, but I've 'elped to pull a few bodies 
 an' souls out of the gutter, an' I 'ope to pull a few more ! 
 If you're a man with leisure, an' want to do a bit of good 
 in the world outside yer own clars an' religion look 
 me up occasionally. You could be a great 'elp to us if 
 you're not one of the easily discouraged sort, an 'ave a 
 genuine love for your feller creatures. We're rough but 
 we're straight them that ain't 'ave three chances to be, 
 after that out they go! We're not sentimentalists; the 
 language is a bit thick sometimes, when they get excited, 
 an' their linen ain't everything, but swear words don't 
 damn a man very deep nor clean collars don't make one. 
 Mind you, we ain't cadgers. If you're well off, an' yer 
 'art's in the right place, you can do a lot but it's got to 
 be the true kind o' charity. We 'ave a whip round oc- 
 casionally for an extry bad case, an' you please yerself 
 whether you give or not. We're nearly all workin'-men 
 one or two clerks, but clerks ain't no good to us as a 
 rule, in fact they're generally agen us. For one thing, 
 they can't think for themselves except in collars an' cuffs 
 that choke their brains an' tie their 'ands to a desk; an' 
 they're as rotten with swank that they're gentlemen as 
 moldy ships' biscuit is full o' weevils. They'll never be 
 anything but Mammon's monkeys on the end of a string 
 till they get a proper union of their own an' discover 
 there's bigger things in life than countin'-houses. I'm 
 tryin' to get you it'll be a feather in our cap if we can
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 265 
 
 get a gentleman to join. But I'd not 'ave you under 
 false pretenses, at no price ! Come down an' see us, an' 
 form yer own opinion first!" His voice had grown very 
 eager. 
 
 "I will!" Mervyn gave him his card. 
 
 "I'm Bill Ridley. I work at Thompson an' Brown's, 
 eyedrawlic Injineers, Lambeth. 'Ere's the address of our 
 club an' society, I'm hon. sec.," and he fished out from his 
 waistcoat pocket a dirty card bearing the inscription : 
 
 The Regenerators, 
 Obligation Row, 
 Molehill Road, 
 
 Merton, S. W. 
 Wm. Ridley, hon. sec. 
 
 He held out his left hand, and Mervyn shook it 
 heartily as they parted at the top of the hill. 
 
 Mervyn Ingestre walked home through a wonderland 
 of dreams of a totally different aspect from the regions 
 of fancy in which he had been wont to wander in the past. 
 He began to wonder if this was the same world as that in 
 which he had previously lived. The perfervid religious 
 mystic had in a month or two gone over to the ranks of ! 
 From the poetry of his love, that had wrought such 
 havoc in his life, he had leaped in an hour to the no doubt 
 prosaic and dirty human beings who, under the high- 
 sounding title of Regenerators, asked for a share of it; 
 and, lo and behold, he felt already a better man. 
 
 When he reached home he sat down and wrote to his 
 bishop and, after lunch, went round to the vicar's. 
 
 The Rev. Evelyn Choate was shocked and horrified 
 when he announced his intention of leaving the Church. 
 He summoned to his aid all his arguments, but the young 
 man was as obdurate in resistance as, at one time, he had 
 been responsive to his superior's eloquence. 
 
 His apostasy was, to all intents and purposes, com- 
 plete and absolute.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 CUP DAY AT ASCOT 
 
 THE valley through which the little river Wandle 
 runs, before reaching Wandsworth on its journey to the 
 Thames, was stewing in the heat of a burning summer 
 day. Mean streets of, for the most part, modern red- 
 brick houses alternated with patches of waste land that 
 apparently possessed a certain magnetic property of 
 their own, by virtue of which they attracted a heteroge- 
 neous collection of iron-scrap, rubbish and refuse of all 
 kinds. Everywhere was evidence of that peculiar brand 
 of poverty which, after a few years' residence in a land 
 previously but little inhabited, and that by the more pic- 
 turesque, if dirtier, poverty of a by-gone generation, 
 seems to stamp a whole district with the spirit of a squalid 
 tawdriness itself. 
 
 The Rev. Mervyn Ingestre walked rapidly along in 
 the blazing sun. He was still the Rev. Mervyn Ingestre, 
 but the termination of his priesthood in the Church of 
 England as established was close at hand he was leav- 
 ing it for good and all in a few days' time. His chance 
 acquaintance with William Ridley had by now blossomed 
 into a firm friendship, and under the tuition of that 
 sturdy mechanic his knowledge of mankind had not only 
 increased considerably, but, as he stripped his soul of 
 dogma, he had been agreeably surprised to find himself 
 nearer to the spiritual presence of Christ. He had be- 
 come a fisher of men, and the waters in which he cast his 
 nets had revealed to him the fact that human life existed 
 at depths in the social sea, which, previous to his present 
 avocation, he had scarcely deemed credible or possible. 
 266
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 267 
 
 The warning which Bill Ridley had given him upon 
 introducing his Society of The Regenerators to his notice 
 had not been unnecessary. At first Mervyn was crushed, 
 discouraged, at the seeming hopelessness of the task 
 confronting him. But he persevered, and after a fort- 
 night he was rewarded with what he considered as his 
 first success. It was a common enough type of case a 
 drunken husband, a patient wife, and three little children. 
 The man was hard-working, but, when Saturday came 
 the bulk of his wages had gone in "booze" before he 
 reached his home in Merton. Mervyn had for thanks 
 (in his efforts to help the woman, whose brother was one 
 of the Regenerators) a black eye and the wife's eternal 
 gratitude; but he believed he had succeeded in helping 
 the man through the most difficult stage the "breaking 
 it off." The physical violence of which he had been the 
 recipient upon the first Saturday of his efforts had not 
 been without its results when he returned to the attack 
 the following week. The man had something of the 
 Britisher's love of sport in him, and when in the dinner 
 hour on Monday he met the parson with his damaged 
 eye in the street, he looked round furtively and, seeing 
 that none of his mates was about, he stopped and apolo- 
 gized. He also borrowed a tanner on the strength of 
 it, stating that he was broke to the world (he generally 
 was by Monday) , that he hadn't eaten anything since his 
 last "blind O!" and that he was beginning to feel very 
 hungry. For all of which things Mervyn had been pre- 
 pared by Bill Ridley and the culprit's wife. 
 
 "Or thirsty?" said Mervyn. 
 
 "Both guvner! But mostly 'ungry Horful!" 
 
 Mervyn produced a sixpence and, nodding affably to 
 the man, walked on without once turning round. 
 
 The man watched him. With the sixpence in his 
 pocket the temptation to revert to Vegetarianism, and 
 dine off a pot of four ale and half an ounce of shag, 
 became a terrible one. 
 
 The parson had trusted him, blimey if he hadn't! 
 he observed to himself as Mervyn's figure disappeared
 
 268 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 round a corner in the distance; and the coffee-shop had 
 his tanner instead of the pub. It may be that the six- 
 pennyworth of veal and potatoes that day chanced to 
 be particularly good value for the money, anyhow, when 
 George Ginger, instrument-maker and parson-basher, 
 came out, his face had a more dignified expression than 
 it generally wore. His wife was surprised at the com- 
 parative docility with which he received the news, when 
 he reached home that evening, that she "couldn't get a 
 penny more nor two bob on the things." 
 
 At every dinner hour for the rest of the week did 
 Mervyn Ingestre walk along the street where he had 
 met his subject for "regeneration"; and every day did 
 George tap him for a tanner. Every day after that 
 transaction had been completed did the borrower watch 
 the lender out of sight, but not once did the latter turn 
 his head. When Saturday came, the temptation to go 
 on the "blind" the desire to feel jolly to shout and 
 sing to be really and truly alive once a week swept 
 like a comet across the firmament of George Ginger's 
 imagination as he opened the tin containing his wages, 
 counted the money, and dashed the box into the basket. 
 
 When he approached the corner where a Red Lion 
 rose "red-lionally" in that half playful, half ferocious 
 attitude which all of that species apparently prefer to 
 any other, and invariably adopt upon appearing in public 
 or rather, outside public houses he was accosted by a 
 little boy who handed him a note from "the parson" 
 asking him, as a special favor, if he would mind calling 
 that afternoon at the club, and executing some small re- 
 pairs and adjustments to a microscope and magic-lantern 
 arrangement they were preparing for a show that even- 
 ing. 
 
 He read the note through, and looked at the boy, who 
 was to wait for an answer. As a result of his reflections 
 he said: "Orl rite, matey, tell 'is reverince I'll be there!" 
 
 The boy sped off, and George halted outside the pri- 
 vate bar the thought of "arf o' mild an' bitter: just 
 one little 'arf pint," being too much for him. He went
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 269 
 
 in and called for his beer half defiantly. Two or 
 three of his cronies hailed him jovially, but somehow 
 their witticisms seemed to have lost much of their charm. 
 As he finished his half-pint the barman waited and looked 
 at him expectantly, from force of habit, and George's 
 hand went down into his trouser pocket and closed on 
 the parson's note. 
 
 " 'Ave another. George!" cried one of his mates, 
 "I'm a-callin' !" 
 
 Now, it has been given as their opinion by some who 
 are able to speak with authority on the subject that the 
 workingman is largely apt to take himself at the valua- 
 tion of others, without troubling to inquire, by introspec- 
 tive methods, whether their estimate of him is a true one 
 or not. 
 
 Mervyn had touched Mr. Ginger in a weak place 
 when he had appealed to his skill for assistance. "The 
 parson" evidently considered he was something of suf- 
 ficient importance to be consulted not as he was at the 
 factory, where, to his employers, he was more of A 
 Number than a human being. He also remembered 
 that he owed the parson half a dollar the opportunity 
 would be a good one to discharge his debt by, perhaps, 
 an hour's work. The rate of pay appealed to him (who, 
 on piece work, was often unable "to make his bob") 
 and he clenched the note hard. 
 
 The next moment the swing doors slammed upon his 
 hurried "So long, mates!" and he was in the street again 
 making for home. When he reached his dwelling his 
 wife met him at the door with a look of mingled hope 
 and amazement the poor woman could hardly believe 
 her eyes. Her brother was in the parlor, anxious to 
 assist in the good work, if possible. George looked 
 rather sheepish as he entered. Without a word he 
 counted his wages, with the exception of three shillings, 
 on to the table. 
 
 Mrs. Ginger, thankful for small mercies, and half 
 afraid to believe that George was turning over a new 
 leaf, wisely said nothing, but made a great effort for
 
 2 7 o "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 future happiness for herself and the children by an appeal 
 to Mr. Ginger's stomach. Two newlaid eggs curled, on 
 some slices of boiled bacon, round an emerald isle of 
 green peas a ring of new potatoes completing the pic- 
 ture which she shortly placed before him, to his evident 
 satisfaction. 
 
 "Goin' to do er job fer the parson, Mary!" he said, 
 as the two men went out. "Sha'n't be long!" and he 
 wasn't. When he returned, the parson came with him, 
 and had tea. His visitor evinced such interest in his 
 wife and children that George felt a blush of shame to 
 think how he had neglected them in the past for the 
 society at the Lion, and positively glowed with good 
 resolutions for the future. He even began to doubt half 
 pints even when in large numbers were really essential 
 to the happiness of man. 
 
 Bill Ridley, who had heard of his adventures with 
 the family, had warned Mervyn to watch for a relapse 
 on the part of Mr. Ginger, but, so far, he had main- 
 tained in the mind of that gentleman sufficient interest 
 in other matters to keep him off the beer. Only a spirit 
 of emulation inspired by a religion ardent as that of the 
 Regenerators could have induced a refined and sensitive 
 nature such as Mervyn Ingestre's to persevere in the 
 case at first the man really did not seem worth it; but 
 when he saw the improvement he had effected, and the 
 gratitude in Mrs. Ginger's face, he felt encouraged and 
 that he had not lived in vain. 
 
 On this particular morning he had just been to a house 
 in Summerstown, where he had been making inquiries 
 in a very bad case of starvation, and he hurried on, 
 thinking out a solution, unheeding the heat of the sun. 
 Apparently he at last arrived at a satisfactory one. His 
 face cleared and he slowed down in his walk and, re- 
 moving his hat, wiped the perspiration from his fore- 
 head. 
 
 Half way up the hill he was constrained to stop and 
 rest under the shade of a tree; he was not physically
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 271 
 
 strong and it did not take much to knock him up. He 
 stood mopping his face and enjoying the relief of the 
 cool shade after the blazing sun up here on the hill 
 there was a bit of a breeze. 
 
 Suddenly past his startled eyes a dogcart containing 
 James Burkett and his wife, with the coachman sitting 
 behind, drove rapidly down the hill. He was standing 
 on the sidewalk, with the trees between him and the 
 road, and they had not seen him. Burkett, in spite of 
 the heat, was wearing a silk hat, and the strap across 
 his shoulder betokened his destination. Mervyn remem- 
 bered that Thursday was Cup Day at Ascot. Helen 
 his Helen Helen of Troy who had played such havoc 
 with his life, was so overpoweringly beautiful, in the 
 glimpse that he caught of her as she passed, that he 
 stood, with beating heart, staring after them like a man 
 suddenly bereft of his senses. 
 
 He had flung himself heart and soul into his new 
 pursuits, and, frequently tired out mentally and physi- 
 cally, had found therein a way of escape from disturbing 
 memories; but now he had been taken unawares, and all 
 his passion awoke at the sudden vision of her within a 
 few yards of him. He walked on, at last, to his rooms, 
 and sat down for half an hour overcome with the heat 
 and excitement. 
 
 At the end of that time he rose and, after looking at 
 the clock and at himself in a mirror, he went into his 
 bedroom and washed his face and hands and changed 
 his collar. 
 
 In less than an hour afterward he had caught a 
 special from Waterloo and was well on his way to Ascot. 
 
 The temptation had been too much for him. The 
 chance of seeing his divinity in the flesh, even under 
 such conditions as obtained on a racecourse, a place he 
 had previously looked upon with particular aversion; the 
 blue glory of midsummer in green places after the heat 
 in squalid streets; the sight of women, cool and beauti- 
 ful, after women bedraggled and weary and broken and 
 sottish; his whole nature cried out for a holiday, an
 
 272 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 escape. Fortune had been kind to him in that he had 
 seen them that morning by chance they had only just 
 returned to Wimbledon, he surmised, having heard that 
 the honeymoon was to be spent at Ilfracombe. As he 
 walked slowly along the crowded pathway from the sta- 
 tion, among hundreds of fashionably attired women, he 
 began to realize the difficulty of finding her among so 
 many. He had noticed that she was wearing a large 
 black and white hat and a cream-colored frock, but the 
 description applied to at least twenty others that he 
 saw between the station and the road. Here he hesitated, 
 considering, and decided upon making a survey of the 
 front of the stands. 
 
 As he reached the course, the police were clearing it 
 for the first race, and Mervyn found himself in the 
 middle of a perspiring, noisy, jovial mob, who surged 
 in and out of and around the canvas booths and book- 
 makers' "joints" shouting, laughing, betting, eating and 
 drinking: to an accompaniment of two steam roundabout 
 organs; the yells of outside bookies bursting themselves 
 in their philanthropic efforts to lay twenty to one out- 
 siders at six to one; and the stench of that peculiar char- 
 acter which denotes the presence in force of fried fish 
 of the humbler kinds. 
 
 A month ago he would have recoiled in horror from 
 any contact with such people, but the human sympathy 
 he had acquired during the past few weeks enabled him 
 to see another side to the picture. But for such scenes 
 as this, providing as they did an escape from the deadly 
 monotony of their ordinary existence, their wonderful 
 stock of cheerfulness must sooner or later become ex- 
 hausted, and he had already learned sufficient from that 
 "proper study of mankind," which includes woman, to 
 know that it was not the vices attendant upon happiness 
 or an abundance of animal spirits which were so much 
 to be feared, as those begotten of ennui, of misery and 
 despair. 
 
 And so he stood there pushed and jostled about 
 from time to time and, strangely enough, felt a better man
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 273 
 
 for it. A young woman in feathers and, it must be ad- 
 mitted, slightly in liquor, was standing next to him, sing- 
 ing aloud, in evident enjoyment, the words of the tune 
 the nearest roundabout was churning out of its iron lungs. 
 She was staring about her alternately singing and mak- 
 ing good-humored criticisms upon various people and 
 things, from the herring-like skinniness of some of the 
 runners cantering to the post, to the fatness of the police- 
 man's neck just in front of her. Her language was of a 
 kind more generally appreciated in Bermondsey than in 
 Belgravia, until, happening to catch sight of Mervyn 
 standing beside her, she stopped suddenly in the middle of 
 a rather lurid retort to someone in the crowd and, 
 hurriedly putting her hand over her mouth, she looked up 
 into his face with a roguish laugh. 
 
 "Sorry, ole dear! Didn't see yer 'oliness! No of- 
 fense, mate!" 
 
 Mervyn could not resist a smile at the mock dismay 
 in the girl's happy vulgar face; and she laughed and 
 went off again into the chorus of a comic song from the 
 steam organ. 
 
 "Eer they come! White Cap's a-leadin! Ther fav- 
 erit! No 'ee ain't! Ther faverit's wun nuthin! Blue's 
 a leadin, I tell yer! That's wot's wun it Hemper-ater! 
 A bleedin walk over! Gawd blimey!" 
 
 The crowd poured in a dozen little rivulets of people 
 on to the course as the horses swept by; and Mervyn 
 joined the main stream which, until the recent alter- 
 ation in the police arrangements at Ascot, ebbed and 
 flowed, between each race, up and down in front of 
 the stands. 
 
 He could, by so doing, see without being seen; and 
 after one unsuccessful search along the whole length of 
 the buildings, past the royal enclosure and back again, 
 his efforts were rewarded, and he saw the woman he 
 loved. She was siting on a garden seat on the lawn in 
 front of the grand stand, looking up over her shoulder 
 at her husband, who was standing behind the seat speak- 
 ing to her. She had a lace sunshade which she was
 
 274 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 holding away from her as she talked, and the sunlight fell 
 full upon her beautiful upturned face and throat. 
 
 Mervyn halted at the sight and remained stationary 
 amid the slowly moving throng parading up and down. 
 To have gone into the enclosure by the course entrance 
 would have been to risk a recognition that he dreaded 
 he remembered that his clerical attire would render him 
 conspicuous in such a place. He resolved to take up a 
 position behind the rails on the other side of the course, 
 opposite to where she was sitting, and where the back- 
 ground of people and carriages would make it extremely 
 unlikely that he would be noticed by anyone who knew 
 him. He found a vacant spot by the rails, and feasted 
 his soul on the Helen of his dreams. Her husband had 
 left her presumably to go into the ring and the sun- 
 shade prevented him now from seeing her face. Not- 
 withstanding, he felt a curious exaltation in watching her 
 figure, her every movement, and, when, once or twice, 
 he caught a glimpse of her face, his heart beat like a 
 steam engine with excitement. James Burkett came back 
 and sat down beside his wife; and Mervyn's gentle soul 
 was shocked and astonished at the fury of jealousy that 
 suddenly awakened within him at the sight. 
 
 The horses went down; and presently the sound of a 
 bell was the signal for the majority of the people sitting 
 about on the lawns to rise and look down the course. 
 She had put down her sunshade, and was standing up 
 talking to her companion a beautiful woman among 
 many beautiful women. She raised her glasses to her 
 eyes: Mervyn saw a flash of brilliant-colored jackets, 
 above a struggling crowd of horses, cross his vision: and 
 then he saw her put her glasses down and turn to her 
 husband with a laugh. He was ashamed to know that 
 her apparent happiness in the society of the other hurt 
 him. The two of them walked slowly up the lawn to the 
 stand and disappeared. He bought a card, and noticed 
 that there was an hour's interval before the next race 
 the Gold Cup and concluded that they had gone to 
 luncheon. At the thought he wandered away among the
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 275 
 
 coaches: after much consideration he had discarded the 
 idea of going into the enclosure where they were. 
 
 He found a tent where the viands seemed above sus- 
 picion, and ordered a plate of cold beef. As soon as 
 he had eaten it, in spite of the heat outside, he hurried 
 from the tent and took up his former position by the 
 rails again. 
 
 The minutes seemed of interminable length as he 
 stood watching the front of the stand, but at last she 
 appeared and, opening her sunshade, which was now a 
 beacon light to him, she strolled down the slope to 
 the rails and stood waiting by the gate. She was close 
 to him now only the width of the course separated 
 them and already the police were clearing off the crowd. 
 Her husband had rejoined her, and Mervyn saw the two 
 of them coming across the course toward the opening 
 in the rails close to where he was standing. For a mo- 
 ment he drank in his fill of her beauty, the next he was 
 staring over his shoulder away from them, and with 
 wildly beating heart. 
 
 "Here's the favorite, Jim!" 
 
 Mervyn had been standing motionless dimly wonder- 
 ing when his scattered wits would rearrange themselves, 
 and the sound of her voice from behind him galvanized 
 him into a mechanical movement which returned his head 
 to its original position, and stirred his whole being into a 
 kind of dreadful joy. She was standing on a coach 
 that much he divined from the direction from which her 
 voice came. 
 
 The Cup horses were leaving the paddock for the 
 parade, and the people were crowding to the rails to 
 see them. Feeling secure from observation in the midst 
 of such a number, Mervyn ventured to turn his head 
 slightly. The magnificent curves of her figure in its 
 cream-colored dress shone clear cut against the burning 
 blue of a heaven just behind and above him. The under 
 side of the sunshade was lined with old-rose color, below 
 which her pale face glowed with a softly beautiful light, 
 and which made a lovely background for her hair and
 
 276 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 eyes. She was studying the horses, through the glasses, 
 and her race card, by turns; her husband was talking 
 to another man on the coach. . Evidently keenly inter- 
 ested in the proceedings, even when the horses had can- 
 tered down she seldom relaxed her watchfulness of their 
 doings; and Mervyn heard her eager voice clearly 
 through the general shout: "They're off!" 
 
 She was happy, there was no doubt about that. 
 
 The field swept by on their two-and-a-half-miles' gal- 
 lop, with a thud of hoofs, and amid a chorus of confu- 
 sion; and he saw her turn and speak to some people on 
 the drag, and then from her coign of vantage watch the 
 various phases of the contest on the far side of the 
 course. She had put down her sunshade now, and, as 
 the favorite came round the bend into the straight, with 
 the race in hand, to a tumult of acclamation, her face 
 relaxed into a smile which plunged her unseen wor- 
 shiper in the crowd below into a very frenzy of mid- 
 summer madness. Emboldened by the fact of his posi- 
 tion being considerably below the level of her line of 
 sight, he was able to revel in his adoration to the top 
 of his bent, which is tantamount to saying that he was 
 nearer to God than he had ever been in his life before; 
 or, nearer to Bedlam according to the point of view of 
 the reader. When he saw they were preparing to leave 
 the coach, he resumed his former attitude and watched 
 them into the grand stand again. 
 
 Before the last race he left the course, and waited 
 about near the exit at the back of the stands. A wild- 
 looking woman halted a moment before him, gave him 
 a tract and, with a look and voice suggestive of much 
 self-satisfaction, remarked: "Remember, there is 
 Wrath!" Boys tried to sell him evening papers. A 
 loafer whined round him for a penny. Some girls arm- 
 in-arm passed him, cheeking him cheerfully. It was very 
 hot and dusty behind the stands. The sight of water 
 from a water-cart soothed him strangely. At last she 
 came out quite close to him, and walked on across the 
 road, gazing straight in front of her listening to some-
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 277 
 
 thing her husband was saying. Mervyn followed, and 
 found himself in the narrow pathway to the station, now 
 rapidly becoming congested with people, less than half a 
 dozen yards behind her. 
 
 The most delighted backer, as he found his way home- 
 ward after the racing, had not more glorious memories 
 of that Ascot Cup day than had the Reverend Mervyn 
 Ingestre, who had hardly noticed the races at all. 
 
 Like many backers of horses he had invented a "Sys- 
 tem" which, theoretically, looked right enough, which 
 was right enough in itself leaving human nature out. 
 But human nature is a factor which cannot safely be left 
 out of any calculations whether in a system devised by 
 a backer of horses for regulating his investments or in 
 one invented by a lover for regulating his conduct to- 
 ward his divinity. 
 
 Like backers of horses and all other mortals who seek 
 things in this world be they winners or women he 
 was to experience a sudden and unforeseen crisis cal- 
 culated to try the nerves of the strongest, under the cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 As they approached the station the crowd got closer 
 and closer. There was a shout and a scuffle in front, and 
 the next minute Mervyn Ingestre found himself beside 
 Helen of Troy, in the middle of an excited Ascot crowd. 
 The mass of people in front of him had suddenly halted 
 and then commenced a slight retrograde movement, while 
 the crowd behind, becoming thicker and thicker every 
 moment, had pressed forward until they realized that 
 something in the nature of an Impasse had occurred in 
 front. 
 
 A member of the "swell mob" had selected the spot 
 for an attempt upon his neighbor's gold watch, but had 
 been detected in the act by a friend of the victim, and a 
 desperate struggle with the thief had ensued. He was 
 at last secured by the police, who held him against the 
 railings as the crowd moved on again into the station. 
 
 Helen Burkett turned her head to look at the man 
 as she passed, and saw the clergyman by her side.
 
 278 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 The facilities for approaching her unobserved until 
 he could almost touch her had proved too strong for 
 the Reverend Mervyn Ingestre grown over-bold as a 
 result of his previous proximity to her that day having 
 gone undetected. He had gravitated toward her, or 
 the urge of his own emotions had thrust him to 
 stand beside her and steep his soul in the joy of her 
 presence. 
 
 She recognized him, and bowed ; and he raised his hat ; 
 and both flushed slightly Mervyn almost envying for 
 the moment the rascal in the hands of the police. He 
 wished himself anywhere rather than where he was 
 the sense of guilt suddenly strong within him. 
 
 Helen, the prey to an agitation, the result of her find- 
 ing him at Ascot, seeing that her husband had already 
 seen Mervyn, turned to James with: "You remember 
 Mr. Ingestre, Jim?" 
 
 "How d'you do!" James called out to him, nodding. 
 "Case of flagrante delicto! Did you see it? The scoun- 
 drel fought like a madman!" alluding to the fracas by 
 which they had just been detained. 
 
 Mervyn, with a great effort, became coherent. He 
 foresaw immediate contingencies which would require 
 all his presence of mind if he was not to make an ass 
 of himself. 
 
 "No, I didn't I was behind being pushed along 
 with the crowd. What was it? a pickpocket?" 
 
 "Yes! . . . What did you think of the Cup?" 
 
 Mervyn hadn't thought of the Cup at all and, fearing 
 a possible racing argument in which his ignorance would 
 have been so obvious as to evoke a sense of wonder at 
 his being there, he answered in the remark of a military- 
 looking man he had walked beside in the crowd, and who 
 seemed to be an authority in such things: 
 
 "Oh, a foregone conclusion!" 
 
 "That's just what I told him," said Helen of Troy, 
 very rapidly, "and he would back the French horse. He 
 thought the favorite wouldn't stay!" She hoped to start 
 her husband talking, knowing that he was in a mood
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 279 
 
 when nothing mattered very much that was said in re- 
 ply. 
 
 James looked gloomy. "Fact is, I didn't like his 
 breeding, over such a severe course," said that gentle- 
 man. 
 
 They were on the platform now and, feeling that he 
 was expected to reply, Mervyn said: "N-o?" 
 
 "Besides! did you see what Cafe Chantant had 
 done?" continued James; and Mervyn could only confess 
 that he hadn't. 
 
 "You forget, Jim, that Mr. Ingestre is scarcely likely 
 to interest himself to that extent in such matters !" inter- 
 rupted his wife; but James was in a mood when he 
 would have button-holed an archbishop. 
 
 A train steamed in and, in the scramble for seats which 
 immediately followed, Mervyn found himself pushed into 
 a corner of a carriage, with Helen of Troy and her 
 husband sitting opposite him. Already James had 
 marked him down as a man with an open mind and, pro- 
 ducing a book of Continental form, he handed it, open, 
 to his victim; and the latter had perforce to go through 
 the performances of Cafe Chantant in France at Paris, 
 Deauville, St. Cloud, Chantilly. 
 
 "Didn't that seem good enough?" asked James in the 
 voice of one justifying himself. 
 
 The luckless Mervyn, feeling Mrs. Burkett's eyes 
 reading him with dreadful facility, hazarded the opinion, 
 as he returned the racing guide to its owner, that per- 
 haps the journey had upset the horse an excuse which 
 was generally made, he believed, from what he remem- 
 bered of such subjects in the past. 
 
 James construed his remark into a vindication of his 
 own policy, and turned, with an eloquent expression on 
 his face, to his wife. "I got six to one, too!" 
 
 She smiled, first at him and then at Mervyn, and the 
 latter's belief in a conventional Heaven revived consid- 
 erably. 
 
 "My dear James, what does it matter now ! You had 
 much better have laid five pounds to four on the winner
 
 28o "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 than have taken twenty fivers about a loser/ Do you 
 mean to say that if the race were to be run over again 
 you would back the Frenchman? form or no form?" 
 
 Mervyn correctly concluded from the silence with 
 which he greeted his wife's remark that Mr. Burkett had 
 found her argument one too many for him a not alto- 
 gether unique experience, as a matter of fact, for that 
 gentleman since he had married the most beautiful 
 woman, not only in Wimbledon, but in the world ac- 
 cording to the ideas of the Reverend Mervyn Ingestre. 
 
 The latter always remembered that railway journey 
 as one of the supreme experiences of his life. As he 
 began to feel more at ease in the presence of the woman 
 for whom he would have leapt from the carriage head 
 first at her bidding, he discovered a sort of dreadful 
 solace in deluding himself with the idea that he was 
 reducing his passion for her to a merely friendly regard 
 by studying her at every available opportunity, by relent- 
 lessly comparing the actual woman who talked "Rac- 
 ing" like a man with her sister of his dreams. As is 
 not always so in such circumstances his last case was 
 worse than his first. So far from the prosaic surround- 
 ings of a carriage full of people, warm, and thirsty, and 
 rather cross, returning from Ascot through the hot even- 
 ing sunshine of midsummer, subduing the Dream of 
 Delight which she represented to the young man her 
 presence and close proximity to him dispersed the con- 
 ventional atmosphere of the situation, and invested the 
 commonplaces of her converse with an unearthly joy. 
 
 They got out together at Clapham Junction, and 
 found an empty compartment in a Wimbledon train. 
 
 The trap was waiting at the station for the Burketts; 
 and they dropped him at his lodgings, and hoped that 
 he would call and see them in their new home. 
 
 Mervyn, beginning to see the hand of Fate in it all, 
 thanked them and vaguely accepted the invitation, feel- 
 ing a guilty wretch for doing so. 
 
 He put the sugar into his tea three times, and his 
 hat under the sofa. He sat dreaming in the garden
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 281 
 
 through the softly falling dusk. When a sudden fit 
 of restlessness took him, he rose and went out on to 
 the common lying calm and silent under the summer 
 night. There he wandered about till the strokes of 
 twelve reverberated through the midnight stillness, when 
 he walked slowly back to his rooms and went to bed 
 nor could the slumber born of bodily weariness which 
 sealed his eyelids shut out from his subliminal conscious- 
 ness the wonder and the glory that was Her. 
 
 Love, being God, is lord of Days and Sleep: 
 
 Wide as the sundawn from the sundawn is, 
 And as the sun in heaven's own heart is deep, 
 
 The web wherein he weaves his mysteries: 
 Days crowned of sleep as suns enthroned of days 
 
 Grown golden with their lord's investiture; 
 Sleep crowned of dreams by silent starry ways 
 
 In night's imperial purple portraiture.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 WHEN WINDS AND WOODLAND WHISPER IN JULY 
 
 AT the sound of hoofs close behind him Mervyn In- 
 gestre turned his head and looked round vaguely at the 
 cause of the interruption, as he walked along, a man 
 wearily restless, across the common, one morning toward 
 the middle of July. What he saw had at once the effect 
 of startling him into considerable perturbation. He 
 halted and raised his hat, and remained standing irreso- 
 lute. 
 
 Mrs. Burkett pulled up Thracian Sea beside him. He 
 was certain that she flushed slightly as she did so, and 
 at the sight his heart began to beat painfully fast. 
 
 "Good morning, Mr. Ingestre ! I think it most 
 unkind of you: you said you would call and see us!" 
 
 She left off abruptly. The playful remonstrance in 
 her voice, with which she had commenced, had failed to 
 sustain its effort through the remainder of her words. 
 
 Helen Burkett was well aware that Mervyn Ingestre 
 was in love with her. She had known that many men 
 had been in love with her in the past, but, perhaps because 
 of that fact, and because of her belief in Byron's "Man's 
 love is of man's life a thing apart" a belief which had 
 been largely confirmed in her experience of the sex gen- 
 erally she had not hitherto attached the importance to 
 it that the average girl would have done. It had ap- 
 pealed to her vanity more than the men themselves had 
 appealed to her personally, but, somehow, she knew that 
 she could not include Mervyn Ingestre in the latter 
 category. She was half afraid to think of him. The 
 282
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 283 
 
 bravest woman shrinks when the capital sentence is about 
 to be passed upon her by her own heart. 
 
 She had, lately, found life with James Burkett rather 
 trying at times; and her resolutions to "make him a 
 
 food wife" to the utmost extent in her power had suf- 
 ered since the night at Ilfracombe when he had spoken 
 the other woman's name in his sleep. Since that incident 
 she had been afraid, but not ashamed, to think of Mer- 
 vyn. She had never mentioned the matter to James; 
 the next day, she had decided to dismiss it entirely from 
 her thoughts, and to a great extent she had succeeded 
 in doing so, but it had undoubtedly made her predeter- 
 mined task more difficult. 
 
 James had taken a smaller house, close to "Down- 
 lands" and in a very pleasant situation. Upon their mar- 
 riage his father had given him a partnership in Burkett 
 and Bowker's, and his means were ample. Helen was 
 not extravagant, and that ostentation and display which 
 are as the breath of its nostrils to a certain type of "better 
 class" suburban sociey had no charms for her, even 
 though she was well aware that she was envied by the 
 majority of the women of her acquaintance a tempta- 
 tion in itself to extravagance with many women, when 
 the means to increase that envy are to hand. 
 
 Those with eligible daughters had bowed to the irrev- 
 ocable, and showed themselves very friendly disposed 
 toward the young couple. They called and drank tea 
 with her, and criticized her taste, her complexion, her 
 character, her hair, her frocks, her furniture, her 
 servants, her garden, and her husband. She had en- 
 deavored to create a favorable impression; and the 
 verdict expressed in the general attitude toward her 
 was that she had succeeded. It was true that there might 
 be gipsy blood in her veins, and her eyes were against 
 her (with the ladies that is), but they could afford to 
 be magnanimous, and no one was really perfect. 
 
 Helen, bored to death at times, struggled nobly in 
 the part she had set herself to play, and acted the charm- 
 ing hostess to all and sundry. They praised her openly
 
 284 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 to her husband; and James was pleased, and settled 
 down into a pattern of propriety, and became quite a 
 model young gentleman altogether. 
 
 Her mind developed and expanded the more rapidly 
 now that the latent forces of her nature were released 
 from the stultifying influences of virginity. After the 
 first flush of passion had passed, the craving for intel- 
 lectual, spiritual sympathy and companionship, which 
 her husband was quite unable to give her, became more 
 and more acute. The commonplaces of conventionality 
 by which her social outlook seemed for ever hopelessly 
 restricted became a burden intolerable at times, and 
 she realized to the full "the inequalities of the woman's 
 position," even while she understood the price she must 
 pay for a home of her own. She was ready to pay it to 
 the full. But when she had paid? She asked herself 
 the question calmly, judicially, and concluded that she 
 fulfilled her duty to her husband to the letter. She strove 
 to interest him in a variety of subjects, with the net 
 result, she told herself, that he bought a billiard table; 
 and at her second attempt a motor-bike. 
 
 At least, she had Thracian Sea; who was in his own 
 stable now, with, for a stable companion, a thoroughbred 
 "cast off" which James had picked up for himself. 
 
 "We heard you had left the Church," she resumed 
 after a pause, during which Mervyn searched his mind 
 for excuses without finding any that his tell-tale face 
 would not have refuted as obvious untruths. 
 
 His color deepened at her words; and she busied her- 
 self with Thracian Sea's mane to escape a confusion that 
 threatened to become catching and general. 
 
 With a great effort he smothered his agitation and 
 nervousness. Of late he had been working desperately 
 to forget and subdue his passion for her, and he had 
 not succeeded without paying a physical toll. His eyes 
 were tired, his head ached, and he was actually feeling 
 unnerved, and weak, and ill, when she had startled him 
 by suddenly appearing at his side.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 285 
 
 Without attempting, therefore, to answer her first 
 charge, he was fain to reply to her last remark. 
 
 "Yes I felt I I felt that I could be of more use in 
 the world if I detached myself from any particular creed." 
 He gazed steadily up at her as he spoke, and his eyes 
 and words almost deceived her but not quite. While 
 she had no knowledge as to the real genesis of his action, 
 she knew that his explanation was only partial and prob- 
 ably concealed his true motives. 
 
 She noticed that he was looking ill, and she did not 
 attempt to check the anxiety she felt as she remarked 
 upon his personal appearance. 
 
 "The heat has been rather trying, and the work is 
 rather more exacting than were my duties at St. Mor- 
 dred's," he replied with a faint smile. "Are you off for a 
 ride, Mrs. Burkett?" he added, evidently anxious to 
 change the subject. 
 
 "Yes ! My usual constitutional ! Through into Rich- 
 mond Park and back again." She was feeling almost 
 desperate after a week of heat and inanity; she wanted 
 this man for a friend in the open. 
 
 As she cantered away, Mervyn became aware that the 
 struggle which had been going on within him for the 
 past couple of months, if not altogether in vain, had at 
 least utterly failed to eradicate his passion for her. In 
 a sense it was stronger than ever before Love taking 
 a fearful delight in inflicting his severest pains and penal- 
 ties upon those who resist his entry into their hearts. 
 
 He reached the shade of the trees and sat down in a 
 sequestered spot, listening to the summer wind in the 
 dense foliage of the July woods. It was a breezy day, 
 with white and gray clouds traveling across the sky 
 before a warm wind from the south. Here in the woods 
 the full tide of summer was apparent: the birds were 
 silent, and a drowsiness seemed upon all animate nature 
 the drone of the wind voices in the trees adding to the 
 effect. One great cloud alone went darkling. Just above 
 his head it shook the place with a sudden peal of thunder. 
 
 He certainly felt very sleepy and very tired, and his
 
 286 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 head ached dreadfully. He lay back against the seat 
 and gave himself up to the pleasures of rest. The green 
 was soothing to his eyes : from where he sat he could see 
 over a small valley thick with wood, and across the tree 
 tops on the opposite slopes. His mind followed the 
 woman who had just left him, away over the hills, and 
 on and on to the untrodden plains of an unknown land 
 miles and miles she seemed to ride, and always he fol- 
 lowed . . . 
 
 A blue titmouse flickered silently to the ground below 
 a thick mass of hazel and watched the man sitting there 
 motionless on the seat; a thrush, with great hops, ad- 
 vanced from the edge of the clearing and stood in front 
 of him, listening in that peculiar and intently curious 
 attitude of his kind. The man's eyes were closed now: 
 he was fast asleep. 
 
 She found him there an hour afterward, as she rode 
 slowly up the ride through the wood. 
 
 The seat was only a few yards from the track, and 
 Thracian Sea's hoofs and bridle gave plenty of notice 
 of his approach, but no sound reached Mervyn Ingestre's 
 tired brain through the thick slumber that ringed him 
 round. 
 
 She turned the horse toward the seat, through an 
 opening in the wood, and was about to speak to him, but 
 as she got closer she saw that he was asleep, and re- 
 frained. He had removed his hat, and the wind had 
 blown his long dark hair almost over his eyes. After 
 a moment's hesitation induced by a curiosity as strange 
 as it was disquieting in which she heard the voices of 
 all the winds in all the woods since woman first looked 
 through the thickets of old time toward her mate, she 
 rode on past him. The sleeping man had a powerful 
 fascination for her; and she blushed at her thoughts when 
 she told herself that it was a beautiful face she had been 
 studying. She pulled up at the corner of the wood and 
 looked back. He was still in the same attitude asleep 
 with his head resting upon his breast; and she continued 
 on her way home at a walk, a prey to the discomforting
 
 'THRACIAN SEA" 287 
 
 suspicion that she not only loved him but that she had 
 done so from the first, a suspicion which the sight 
 of her husband, when he returned home from the city 
 that evening, did nothing to allay. 
 
 "Helen!" 
 
 The word sounded like a caress, and Mervyn Inges- 
 tre sat up with a start and looked about him confusedly. 
 He had heard it very distinctly, and was surprised to 
 find himself alone in the quiet wood. Then he slowly 
 realized that it was his own voice that had spoken. He 
 had been sitting there dreaming of her, and had awak- 
 ened with her name on his lips. It was late afternoon, 
 but he sat on, going over his dreams again and again 
 the fumes of a strange drowsiness still upon him. 
 
 And then something on the ground arrested his 
 eyes, and he stared fixedly for a minute at a moist and 
 very green patch of short mossy turf, a couple of yards or 
 so in front of the seat. 
 
 In the middle of it was the distinct impression of a 
 horse's hoof. 
 
 He rose and examined it wonderingly, and then the 
 ground on each side. 
 
 The rider, coming up the hill, had turned from the 
 ride and ridden past the seat out of the wood, which 
 grew thinner toward the hill top, and so on to the open 
 heath behind. The higher parts of the woods contained 
 several springs which, even in the middle of summer, 
 oozed up in places through the soil, and in such parts 
 the marks showed very plainly. He returned to the 
 seat and gazed long at the imprint which had at first 
 attracted his attention. A closer examination revealed 
 what was to him, in his then state of mind, a startling 
 disclosure. About two feet to the side of the hoof mark 
 was another which had previously escaped his notice alto- 
 gether. It was faint, but upon closer acquaintance he saw 
 that it was complete and of the same size as the other. 
 
 It wanted neither the instincts of the Red Man nor 
 those of the Black tracker to discover from the position
 
 288 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 of the marks that the horse had stood there. He pres- 
 ently came across two others in similar contiguity, evi- 
 dently representing the impression of the animal's fore- 
 feet. 
 
 He was absolutely certain that the marks had not 
 been there before he went to sleep, and remembered 
 that the patch of moss had attracted his attention by 
 reason of its brilliant green color and unbroken velvety 
 appearance. 
 
 The inference was obvious some one had ridden by 
 as he slept, and halted there in front of the seat. Who 
 that someone was his excited imagination had already 
 decided, and, with all his powers of observation spasmodi- 
 cally quickened for the time, he traced the hoof prints 
 down the ride until he came to a damp piece of ground 
 where they were clearly defined. Close to them others 
 going in the opposite direction and obviously made by the 
 same animal, and that either a thoroughbred or a pony. 
 
 He felt somewhat rested from his long sleep, but his 
 head ached still, and the way home across the common 
 seemed inordinately long. Two or three times he experi- 
 enced a fit of shivering he could not account for. His 
 mind, too, began to wander curiously away from coherent 
 subjects and lose itself in a kind of haze, through which 
 rode slowly a shadowy woman on a shadowy horse. Once 
 or twice he staggered like a drunken man, and it was 
 with some difficulty that he let himself in when he reached 
 his lodgings. The old lady with whom he lived was 
 for a moment horrified by his speech and appearance 
 when she entered his room to inquire about his dinner, 
 but the next minute she was reproaching herself for her 
 suspicions. Mr. Ingestre was ill, there was no doubt 
 about that, and a doctor ought to see him which a doctor 
 did, half an hour afterward, and promptly pronounced it 
 typhoid.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 HELL 
 
 HELEN, after her meeting with Mervyn, had watched 
 that part of the common and the woods on her morning 
 ride, but, of course, without seeing any signs of the man 
 who had already become more to her than she would have 
 cared to admit even to herself. 
 
 As the London season drew to its close her husband's 
 duties in the city became lighter, and she was much more 
 in his society than during the month succeeding Ascot. 
 The approaching Goodwood fixture provided him with 
 a never-failing topic of conversation, and she felt thank- 
 ful for a subject of interest to them both into which she 
 could enter with something of his own enthusiasm. 
 
 "I wonder what made Ingestre chuck the Church?" 
 he said suddenly, one evening, in the course of a discus- 
 sion in which the Ascot form was introduced, as they sat 
 talking in the garden. "I wonder if we shall run up 
 against him at Goodwood?" 
 
 She had avoided any reference to their meeting with 
 him at Ascot, and her husband's words startled her, 
 though he did not notice it. She had casually mentioned 
 that she had met Mr. Ingestre one morning on the com- 
 mon. 
 
 "You have decided to go to Goodwood, dear?" 
 
 "Yes! I vote we stop at ... Where shall it be, 
 Helen?" he answered. 
 
 "Anywhere you like, dear, of course !" 
 
 "By the sad sea waves somewhere. Southsea, Bognor, 
 Littlehampton, Worthing, Brighton?" 
 289
 
 2 9 o "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 "Bognor, then I would prefer a quiet place." 
 
 "Right you are!" and he went back to the London 
 betting on the Stewards' Cup. 
 
 His mother called shortly afterward and joined 
 them in the garden. James had lost no time in informing 
 her of his progress in his fiancee's affections, before their 
 marriage anxious to remove from his mother's mind 
 the impression which his words on a previous occasion 
 had produced. Mrs. Burkett' s relations with her daugh- 
 ter-in-law became more cordial as she learned to under- 
 stand the girl better; but it was inevitable that she should 
 remember what James had told her, and her misgivings 
 at the time had not been entirely removed, even now. 
 Helen, feeling herself an object of suspicion, had been 
 the less inclined to ingratiate herself in the other lady's 
 opinion, more especially as she felt that lately, at any 
 rate, there had been grounds for his mother's mental 
 attitude toward her, and her pride revolted from re- 
 course to hypocrisy. 
 
 "Very sad about poor Mr. Ingestre, my dear, isn't 
 it?" Mrs. Burkett remarked suddenly as she sat, beside 
 Helen, watching the antics of a half grown bull-pup with 
 which James was playing on the lawn. 
 
 Helen, who had also been studying the dog, stared 
 blindly in front of her for a moment, and then turned 
 to the speaker with what had been to another only a 
 proportionate amount of solicitude and inquiry in her 
 face and voice. Mrs. Burkett, however, noticed her hesi- 
 tation, slight as it was, and the flicker of excitement that 
 still lingered in her dark eyes as she asked in level tones : 
 
 "Why? What has happened to him?" 
 
 "Haven't you heard? He is seriously ill with 
 typhoid. It appears that he has been going in for slum- 
 ming since he left St. Mordred's, and it is supposed that 
 he caught it somewhere down there among the poor," 
 down there meaning the less select lowlands of the dis- 
 trict. 
 
 James, who had looked up as his mother spoke, put 
 in:
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 291 
 
 "Why, we were only talking about him just before 
 you came in, mater! Poor old dear! That's distinctly 
 rough ! I was saying to Helen I wondered if we should 
 run into him at Goodwood. We met him at Ascot, don't 
 you remember? I told you at the time." 
 
 "Yes, Jim I remember," and Mrs. Burkett looked 
 curiously at her daughter's profile, as the girl sat leaning 
 forward in the garden-chair, silently gazing at him as he 
 spoke. 
 
 "Well! he won't see Goodwood this year, that's a 
 cert!" James went on. "Rotten luck!" and he flung a 
 stick along the grass and wached the ungainly pup go 
 scrambling after it. 
 
 "I met him one morning on the common, about a 
 week ago," said Helen feeling that she was expected to 
 say something. "Now I remember he was looking far 
 from well at the time." 
 
 "A curious young man, my dear," Mrs. Burkett re- 
 plied. "Rather uncertain I should imagine the poetic 
 temperament. He is a poet, I believe, and he paints as 
 well. The vicar was positively astounded, so he told me, 
 when Mr. Ingestre announced his intention one morn- 
 ing quite suddenly of seceding from the Church! It 
 was just after your wedding, too ! He had not only 
 always been considered extremely orthodox, but deeply 
 religious but nothing could make him reconsider his 
 decision. It almost seems like a visitation this illness 
 of his," she added, musingly serious, and very wide 
 awake. 
 
 Helen felt a strange desire to take up the cudgels 
 fiercely on Mervyn Ingestre's behalf, but checked herself. 
 "I daresay he found more opportunity for doing practical 
 good among the poor people he has been visiting lately 
 than when he was at St. Mordred's," she contented her- 
 self with saying remembering his words to her as she 
 did so. Her sensitiveness on the subject had already 
 persuaded her that Mrs. Burkett suspected her of some- 
 thing, in connection with the sick man, affecting her son's 
 interests nor was such belief without foundation in fact.
 
 292 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 Mrs. Burkett was a lady whose deeper emotions ed- 
 died always round a central object which was her only son 
 James. As is commonly the case in such instances, that 
 natural sympathy established between mother and off- 
 spring, which dates from the first quickenings in the 
 maternal womb of the child life growing out of the root 
 fibers of a mother's being, had been strengthened and 
 increased by the concentration of her devotional ener- 
 gies upon him as he grew to manhood, until her 
 nature was en rapport with his own to a remark- 
 able degree. Her mind was sorely troubled by an in- 
 stinctive dread of "something," as yet vague and ill- 
 defined, and which lost nothing of its terrors for that 
 reason. 
 
 Some of her remarks respecting Mervyn Ingestre 
 were news to Helen, who had, for a variety of reasons, 
 previously refrained from introducing him as a subject 
 for conversation before members of her husband's family 
 or their friends. 
 
 James, who had left the two ladies and taken the 
 dog back to his kennel, returned at that moment, and 
 stood beside them, idly humming the refrain of a comic 
 song. 
 
 "Well?" he said smilingly, after a pause, "how do 
 you two hit it off together, eh?" 
 
 It was an awkward question at the moment for both 
 of them, and only his mother answered. 
 
 "Oh, we've been discussing the gentleman who as- 
 sisted to unite you young people in the bonds of holy 
 matrimony!" she said with a natural irrelevancy, and with 
 a rather forced attempt at a laugh. 
 
 "What ? poor old what's-his-name ? Ingestre ? I'll 
 call and ask how he is ! Let's all stroll round together, 
 and Helen and I'll see you home, mater." 
 
 "Very well, dear," his mother replied; and Helen 
 rose and, glad of an opportunity to escape, went indoors 
 to put on her hat. 
 
 "How do you like our little nest, mater? Helen's a 
 great scheme in a garden!" and he took his mother
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 293 
 
 off to show her some of the improvements his wife had 
 already effected therein. 
 
 It was a new house, but the garden had some fine 
 old trees in it, notably a cedar standing close to the corner 
 of the house its great dark ledges of foliage hanging 
 over a part of the roof. 
 
 "You ought to be very happy, my dear boy!" Mrs. 
 Burkett remarked. 
 
 "Ought to be! I am happy! Rather! Helen's a 
 rippin' girl, mater, and clever as they make 'em! We 
 get on wonderful. Never had a quarrel !" 
 
 He found a pleasure in praising her cleverness before 
 others which afforded him some consolation for the 
 occasional awkwardness it caused between himself and 
 his wife. In the negation was much positive virtue for 
 married folk, after all said and done. 
 
 The tone of his words did something to reassure 
 his mother. 
 
 "She has a remarkable mind for a girl," Mrs. Burkett 
 answered. "You must not forget your own studies, 
 dear," she added, solicitous for his future welfare. She 
 was rather afraid of intellectually clever women those 
 cunningly clever she had met, before now, in battle, 
 and had on occasion defeated them. 
 
 "No fear! Next winter I'm going to be a regular 
 book-worm ! Philosophy, poetry, literature, all the bally 
 lot!" said James cheerfully it being then the month of 
 
 July- 
 
 His mother patted his arm affectionately. "That's 
 right, Jim! Remember, having a clever wife has its 
 disadvantages. Helen is not like other girls in some 
 ways. She she will require intellectual companionship 
 more and more as the years go on. I do hope you will 
 be blessed with children, dear it does make a differ- 
 ence !" she^ continued rather wistfully. 
 
 James was suddenly silent the thought of his beau- 
 tiful Helen one day presenting him with a pledge of her 
 love filled his careless mind and heart with something 
 akin to awe.
 
 294 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 She rejoined them the next minute, looking serenely 
 lovely, after a pitiful fight with herself in the bedroom, 
 in a cool summer frock and picture hat; and James 
 flushed with pride that a being so glorious should belong 
 to him body and soul. She seemed to grow more per- 
 fectly beautiful every day. 
 
 "My right ear burns with the fire of a true prophet, 
 and already the mantle of Elijah is descending upon 
 Elisha!" she called out, as she came down the garden, 
 laughing, and rubbing her left ear playfully. "Confess 1" 
 In reality she was in abject misery. 
 
 "Yes, my dear we have been talking about you," 
 said Mrs. Burkett gently. "I have been giving my boy a 
 mother's and an old married woman's advice." 
 
 Something in her tone made Helen's dark eyes flash 
 a look of gratitude at her. The girl took her mother-in- 
 law's arm tenderly, and they walked up the garden to- 
 gether, followed by James; who felt rather uncomfort- 
 able, and turned his attention to a host of Philistine 
 caterpillars desecrating the glories of a bed of scarlet 
 geraniums, until he heard his wife's voice calling out 
 that they were ready to start. 
 
 They reached the house where Mervyn Ingestre lived, 
 and James went to the door to inquire about the suf- 
 ferer's condition. Helen walked on slowly with Mrs. 
 Burkett, in poignant suspense; the necessity for concealing 
 her emotions adding a subtle agony to the situation. 
 They stopped and turned to meet him as they heard his 
 footsteps coming along the pavement behind them. 
 
 "How is he?" asked his mother. 
 
 James looked unusually grave. "It's touch and 
 go with him, poor old boy, I'm afraid!" 
 
 Mrs. Burkett was still holding the girl's arm, al- 
 though Helen, half unconsciously, had made a movement 
 to release it before he spoke. At his words a tremor 
 she could not control passed through her whole body. 
 
 Mrs. Burkett withdrew her hand without remark, and 
 they walked on in silence for a few paces. When she 
 spoke again she had taken her son's arm, and her sym-
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 295 
 
 pathy for Mervyn Ingestre had suddenly changed into 
 something very like hate. She was a Christian woman, 
 but she was also a mother and motherhood existed be- 
 fore Christianity. 
 
 Both women were walking through a part of Wim- 
 bledon Park previously unknown to either, but which 
 each recognized now under a title made familiar from 
 their earliest recollection by Biblical allusion, though it 
 does not occur in the ordinance survey for the district 
 in a word : Hell. 
 
 James wondered vaguely why they were so quiet, and 
 he said cheerfully: "Oh, well, he isn't dead yet. It's 
 about an even money chance, I should say!" he went on, 
 in the voice of one, who, after carefully weighing his 
 words, offers his solution of a problem with considerable 
 confidence in its correctness, and belief in its value as a 
 formula for even wider application. 
 
 His wife knew that her soul's happiness was at stake 
 in that small room where the fever-stricken frame of 
 Mervyn Ingestre was fighting, through the hot summer 
 dusk, the Shadow that would only cool to slay.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 CUP DAY AT GOODWOOD 
 
 IT was not a "Glorious Goodwood" from James 
 Burkett's point of view. 
 
 He laid odds on more than one occasion to see the 
 supposed certainty well beaten a long way from home. 
 There is something almost touching in the faith of most 
 backers of horses in their belief that "certainty" and 
 "odds on" are practically synonymous terms. It cannot 
 be the result of experience, it cannot be the result of 
 reason indeed, it is more easily explained as the result 
 of some temporary insanity to which even the wisest are 
 subject at times. Not the least injurious of its influences 
 is the demoralizing effect it produces upon the mind and 
 temper of the victim. James Burkett was an exception- 
 ally good judge of racing matters, but the gambler's 
 instinct, as apart from the sportsman's, was strong within 
 him. Though possessed of ample means to satisfy a 
 reasonable amount of indulgence in his favorite pastime, 
 he became greedy with it, and such greediness generally 
 brought a Nemesis of disappointment in its train. For- 
 tune, who had been lavish in her favors when Thracian 
 Sea had helped him to a home and wife of his own, 
 now after the Stewards' Cup had been decided ex- 
 erted the prerogative of a Fickle Goddess and was as 
 chary of her smiles as she had before been prodigal. 
 
 James backed the winner of that race at ten to one. 
 The fifty pounds profit that transaction had resulted in 
 to himself was promptly dissipated in the Gratwicke 
 Stakes. He laid fifty to twenty on the favorite, and saw 
 his horse disappear behind The Clump one moment, when 
 296
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 297 
 
 well leading his field, and his money the next, when they 
 again emerged to view. The animal was then dropping 
 rapidly astern, to an accompaniment of remonstrance 
 and execration of various character from his backers; and 
 unlimited offers of "ten to one the favorite don't win 
 it," which, if not entirely lost upon deaf ears, served only 
 to increase the bitterness of those who had previously laid 
 odds. 
 
 Then commenced a driving mist of rain, which swept 
 over the hills from the sea, wrapping Trundle Hill m 
 a murky pall, and completely blotting out the noble 
 panorama of the downs and Charlton Forest in the dis- 
 tance. 
 
 Helen was quiet and distraite to a degree. Her 
 mood, which had become more and more pronounced 
 as they got further and further away from London, on 
 their journey down to Bognor the previous afternoon, 
 had already evoked remark from her husband. The 
 shortness of her replies, which was, as a matter of fact, 
 the result of a feeling that she was playing the hypocrite 
 toward him, and which at first made him feel concerned 
 about her, now began to make him irritable, when he 
 turned to her after watching the wretched favorite pull 
 up last but one. 
 
 Half a pint of champagne revived him somewhat; and 
 he set himself to solve the problem presented by the last 
 race on the card. His deliberations convinced him that 
 there was one horse which represented something like 
 a good thing. Again he laid odds five pounds to four, 
 "just to pay expenses" and thereby increased the latter 
 item by that amount. The horse got badly away, and 
 was never within hail of the winner at any part of the 
 contest. 
 
 The fifty pounds he had previously won and lost had 
 been bookmaker's money, and his disgust had at least 
 been no greater in the losing than had been his exhilara- 
 tion in the winning thereof. The last race made him 
 a man with a grievance never a very desirable com- 
 panion, from a wife's point of view, when all the syrn-
 
 298 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 pathy of which her nature is capable is sixty miles away, 
 at the bedside of another man fighting for his life. 
 
 The evening before had been gloriously fine when 
 they arrived at Bognor. A bright blue sea, breaking 
 into silver white with falling waves, as the tide made 
 slowly across a stretch of golden sands, had held their 
 eyes as they looked out of the open window, while having 
 tea. The sight had appealed to James, who, ever eager 
 to be on the move, clamored to be off and away along the 
 shore. His wife, dreading the horrors of inaction, 
 agreed; but the clear-shining beauty of the evening, a 
 thing which, under different circumstances, would have 
 flooded her soul with the "satisfying" of that desire for 
 the Beautiful which was inherent in her, now beat upon 
 her eyes and brain like a last sunset for dying eyes that 
 know not peace nor hope. Her husband's little tender- 
 nesses as they walked on into the wind and sun that 
 streamed out of the west, until wind and sun went down 
 together, and they returned more slowly, through fields 
 of standing corn, to the little town became a mockery, 
 her surroundings things hateful in their beauty. She had 
 slept little through the night, and when the time came 
 to start for Goodwood she had become so curiously 
 phlegmatic toward such matters as Racing that James 
 began to feel there was something wrong that she was 
 sickening for a fever or something of that kind. Then 
 he remembered Mervyn Ingestre, and at the thought he 
 started with apprehension. There might be an epidemic 
 of it appearing at Wimbledon, and his wife might have 
 contracted it. He became downright alarmed, and, with- 
 out mentioning his fears, suggested that she was unwell 
 she had complained of a headache and that she had 
 better see a doctor before leaving for the course. She 
 had, however, so emphatically rejected his advice as to 
 reassure him somewhat, and he had forgotten his fears 
 in the excitement of the racing. 
 
 "Did you ever see such filthy luck?" he remarked, as 
 the last favorite "went down." The favorite in every 
 race had failed that day.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 299 
 
 She collected her thoughts, and answered with a 
 shrug, "The fortune of war, Jim." 
 
 "But, Helen ! the brute went right round when the 
 tapes went up! Must have been left twenty lengths at 
 least!" 
 
 The second day was a repetition of the first as far 
 as the general results of the racing were concerned 
 favorite after favorite "coming undone" hot-pots being 
 bowled over like nine-pins until backers became desper- 
 ate, and plunged to get it back, and only lost more heavily 
 still, and sank deeper and deeper into the mire of debt 
 and difficulties and general demoralization. At the end 
 of the day James Burkett was over a hundred pounds 
 to the bad, and his wife was awakened, from her self- 
 torturings, by his flushed face and the angry light in his 
 eyes, as they drove down through the park back to Chi- 
 chester. She thought it advisable to remonstrate with 
 him, as she had stipulated before their marriage that he 
 was not to go in for betting beyond his means. He cer- 
 tainly could not afford to lose at the rate of a hundred 
 pounds a day, and it was quite on the cards that he was 
 but beginning a bad sequence of losers, such as all must 
 experience at times. 
 
 He appeared rather crestfallen, as he replied. The 
 consciousness of having made a mess of it, by laying 
 ridiculous odds, was becoming more and more acute with- 
 in him every moment. 
 
 "Give it a rest, Jim, or bet in sovereigns till your 
 luck turns," she admonished. 
 
 "Yes, I will, Helen, only . . . There's that horse in 
 a selling to-morrow I told you of it's a cert ! He's 
 above plating really they've only put him in for a gam- 
 ble. 'Drury' Lane told me it was going to be his only 
 bet all the week," he concluded, wishing he had followed 
 the example of that gentleman of histrionic nickname 
 the wish reflecting itself transparently in his voice. 
 
 "Well, Jim, you must know by now that betting 
 is like the barometer sometimes it fluctuates slightly 
 sometimes it remains high for days together at set fair
 
 300 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 sometimes it is right down at stormy, when you cannot 
 do right. I do not think you can grumble at the results 
 of your investments, so far, this year. Now you are 
 probably in for a bad spell. Why not leave off in time, 
 and cut your losses? 'Drury' Lane may be right, or he 
 may be wrong, about to-morrow. Anyhow, if it is as he 
 says, you will probably have to lay odds again, and if 
 you are going to try and get out on the week on the 
 horse, and it gets beaten, it'll mean at least another hun- 
 dred on your losses!" 
 
 James admitted the logic of her remarks, which, how- 
 ever, only tended to make him more restless and irritable, 
 as is the way of backers generally, in whom patience is a 
 particularly uncongenial virtue. 
 
 The following morning, when they were preparing to 
 start for the course, and he was rummaging about for 
 a book of form, his wife failed to answer a question of 
 his, which she, in reality, had failed to hear, with her 
 mind tormented as it was with doubts and fears about 
 the sick man who monopolized her thoughts. The strain 
 she had undergone during the past few days had begun to 
 show itself in her face, and she was looking white and 
 ill, as he paused in his search and, repeating his question, 
 glanced across the room at her. 
 
 "Helen, I'm sure you're not well, dear!" he said 
 anxiously. "I hope you haven't been and caught poor 
 old Ingestre's complaint! There's a lot of it about, they 
 tell me!" 
 
 He was coming over to her as she spoke, when his 
 eye caught sight of the book behind some letters on the 
 mantelshelf, and he went to the fireplace to get it. 
 
 A dull red suffused her face and, clenching her hands 
 hard, she turned to the window and stared with blind 
 eyes at the sunlit sea. His association of her with Mer- 
 vyn Ingestre had stung her to the quick and lashed her 
 proud passionate soul into a tumult of guilty misery. 
 Had he seen the trouble in her eyes and face she would 
 then and there have told him the truth; as it was, the 
 moment passed, and he did not speak again until he had
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 301 
 
 found what he wanted in the pages of the racing guide. 
 She had recovered composure when at last he came close 
 and studied her. 
 
 "My dear girl, you look positively ill this morning! 
 I'm sure you'd better see a doctor. Or would you rather 
 not go to Goodwood? / don't mind, if you'd rather not! 
 What's the matter, Helen?" He took her hand in his, 
 feelingly. 
 
 "I'm a woman, Jim, that's all," she said, in a dull 
 voice. "All women are liable to their little disorders at 
 times. Of course we'll go I'm nearly ready!" 
 
 She went off to the bedroom to get something, and 
 he stared after her in silence, distinctly uneasy about her. 
 
 She looked at herself in the glass. Jim was right, 
 she did look ill. What she would look like after a day 
 or two more of this suspense she could pretty well guess. 
 She caught sight of a batch of telegraph forms he had 
 left on the bed, and the next moment she had torn off 
 one in obedience to a sudden resolve. She must find out 
 somehow learn the worst, or break down with the tor- 
 ture of it all. 
 
 James had gone to the smoking-room for a paper 
 when she went back; and she hastily wrote out a reply- 
 paid wire addressed for reply to the Bognor post-office. 
 As she folded it up and put it in her pocket, he returned. 
 
 "Look here, Helen, if you don't feel up to it, we'll 
 go and sit by the sea. Perhaps it'll do you more good 
 than going racing if you don't feel up to the mark." 
 
 The thought of Goodwood was peculiarly hateful to 
 her. "I don't feel really up to it, Jim, to-day but you 
 go at any rate. It's Cup day. I'll stay behind then, and 
 find a quiet place on the beach, if you like but I'm not 
 going to, if it's going to do you out of your day's rac- 
 ing!" 
 
 He hesitated. The Goodwood Cup was a great at- 
 traction; and the "good thing" in the selling race would 
 be sure to materialize at a decent price if he stayed away. 
 Things always happened like that. And the train started 
 in a few mwmtes.
 
 302 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 So matters were arranged. James Burkett caught his 
 train; his wife sent off her telegram, and then went slowly 
 down to the beach, where she sat listening to the sea 
 and preparing herself for the worst. She looked at her 
 watch: she would wait two hours. Once she knew that 
 he was going to recover if that was the answer to her 
 wire she would think no more about him in the future 
 than was proper in the wife of another man. If he died 
 
 The morning dragged on slowly and, in spite of the 
 warmth of the sun she shivered slightly when at last she 
 rose and walked rapidly to the post-office. The reply 
 was waiting for her. 
 
 Her heart seemed to stop beating as she tore open 
 the orange-colored envelope as so many hearts have 
 done at the feel of the flimsy fateful wrappers. The 
 next moment it beat wildly in her side, and her eyes 
 swam as she read the message: 
 
 "Crisis past, better to-day." 
 
 "Thank God! Thank God! Oh, my love! If you 
 had died!" The words burst from her in a passion of 
 thankfulness and fear, as she walked back to their hotel. 
 
 "Good angel!" 
 
 His words hurt her, but she said with a smile, "Why, 
 dear? Was the good thing beaten?" 
 
 "Rather! Six to five on! and never once looked like 
 doing it! Beat a couple of lengths!" 
 
 "And didn't you back it?" 
 
 "No, thank God! After nearly taking a level hun- 
 dred! I thought of what you said, and didn't have a 
 bet all day ! And a good job, too shouldn't have backed 
 a winner!" 
 
 She had told him, in answer to his inquiry, that she 
 felt better. The reaction had made her a different 
 woman. Her spirits, for the rest of the evening, as they 
 strolled along by the sea, were almost exuberant.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 303 
 
 She omitted to tell him the reason of her rapid re- 
 covery; and in the thankfulness which filled her heart 
 something of her old love for her husband revived. 
 
 They spent the next day in a small boat James fish- 
 ing, and making love to his wife; his wife making a 
 variety of good resolutions for the future. 
 
 The fish he caught were uneatable; the results of her 
 resolves are destined to appear in a later chapter.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 A NEW AND ORIGINAL CHARACTER INTRODUCED TO 
 THE READER 
 
 IN the public library at Streatham, where she had re- 
 tired for a rest from the blazing June sunshine, her eye 
 caught sight of the marriage columns in "The Times." 
 Margaret read through the announcements, wondering 
 wildly if she would find her lover's among the names. 
 She did not; but an idea had occurred to her. She asked 
 the assistant if she could examine the files of the paper 
 for the past few months. 
 
 Strangely excited, she searched through June with- 
 out result turning the pages with hands that trembled 
 not a little. 
 
 The issues for May contained but few announce- 
 ments, and her task was easier. Suddenly she stopped 
 and caught her breath with a gasp. 
 
 BURKETT-DARELL. On the 2Oth inst., at St. Mordred's, 
 Wimbledon, by the Rev. Evelyn Choate, M. A., James Bertram 
 Burkett, only son of Bertram Burkett, of Wimbledon Park, to 
 Helen, only daughter of the late Montague Darell, of Parham 
 Bridges, Rutland. 
 
 She swayed slightly, making a brave effort to control 
 her misery, and read and re-read the fateful lines me- 
 chanically a dozen times. With colorless face and pitiful 
 eyes, she hurried back to the reading-room and, blindly 
 picking up a magazine, sat down and pretended to read, 
 through a mist of silent tears. Although she had con- 
 templated his marriage as a thing inevitable, the sudden 
 shock of finding it already an accomplished fact was a 
 
 304
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 305 
 
 dreadful one for the girl. He had been married nearly 
 three weeks! 
 
 "Oh, my baby! My poor baby!" she began, to her- 
 self. 
 
 A spasm of hate and jealousy toward the Helen of 
 the advertisement, which even her gentle forgiving nature 
 was not capable of entirely subduing, followed; and, feel- 
 ing that her suppressed sobs were beginning to choke her, 
 she rose and left the building. 
 
 She found her way to a quiet part of Tooting Com- 
 mon and, throwing herself down in the shade of a tree, 
 broke into an uncontrollable fit of sobbing. 
 
 It was very hot, even under the trees, and gradually 
 her sobs grew less and less; she was too exhausted to 
 feel anything any more. She raised herself on her elbow 
 and lay staring with tired red eyes at the bright sunshine. 
 In the distance, two nurse girls were walking with some 
 children, and their happy laughing voices reached her 
 ears from time to time. 
 
 Her own unborn child stirred within her, and burying 
 her face in her hands she wept again. The thought that 
 another woman would bear him children and that her own 
 child would be nameless and fatherless was the last straw 
 to her load of bitterness. She lay and quivered from 
 head to foot as from a lash. Then, the very intensity of 
 her anguish produced a merciful numbness. Gradually 
 she dozed off into slumber worn out with the heat and 
 her own emotions. 
 
 When she awoke she was surprised to find that it was 
 nearly five o'clock. She rose and walked back sadly 
 across the common to Mrs. Rush's. Every little one she 
 passed seemed to look at her reproachfully, and awakened 
 in her a tempest of misery. As the time approached 
 when she would be a mother, a thousand doubts and 
 fears for her child began to assail her. Had she done 
 right to cut herself adrift entirely from its father? Well, 
 it was too late now! Besides, she must try and be 
 cheerful she had much to be thankful for! As she 
 thought of Mrs. Rush, the orphan girl's heart yearned to
 
 3 o6 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 the woman as to a mother. She trembled to think what 
 might have happened to her. 
 
 Mrs. Rush was waiting anxiously for her when she 
 arrived, and, noticing obvious signs of her recent dis- 
 tress, that good woman pushed her into a chair, and 
 brought her a cup of tea. Then she produced from her 
 pocket a baby's sock which she had been knitting. 
 
 "There! there! Don't you fret, there's a dear!" 
 
 Margaret felt too broken to respond except by a 
 silent pressure of the hand, as she took the tiny article 
 from her. She kept the news which the day had brought 
 her to herself. Mrs. Rush, after "clearing away," 
 brought out in an unfinished condition the fellow to 
 the sock that Margaret was still clasping tightly, and then 
 went on knitting in an ostentation of cheerfulness not 
 without its beneficial effect upon the girl. 
 
 "You seem determined that I shan't be miserable, 
 Mrs. Rush," she said, after watching in silence the bone 
 needles busily at work. "Indeed, I'm that ungrateful to 
 feel miserable at all, only ... I can't help it some- 
 times," she added. 
 
 "Of course not, my dear! But there ! 'Tis no use cry- 
 ing over spilt milk! Lor, my dear, we've all of us got 
 something to be thankful for, an' if we can't 'elp another 
 body now an' again when 'tis in our power to do so, we're 
 poor creechures, I say!" and Mrs. Rush's fingers went 
 faster than ever, as though her philosophy was a very 
 present help in time of knitting as it probably was. 
 
 "An' as for the folks what say an' believe nasty 
 things about their feller creechures all I can say is" 
 she resumed, after stretching out and examining the 
 stitches critically for a moment, "let 'em look to the moth 
 what's in their own eye, afore they starts a-talkin' about 
 the beam what's in other people's !" 
 
 The weeks went on. One evening one magnificent 
 evening toward the end of August, when old London sur- 
 passed herself in sunset effects, when the western sky 
 blazed with gold and green and purple, and fleckings of
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 307 
 
 cloud dappled the zenith like rosy-tinted waves across 
 a sapphire sea the youngster made his entry into the 
 realms of a separate existence. 
 
 The following evening, Margaret lay, with the soft 
 warm light of a great contentment in her eyes, looking 
 out at the sunset as tiny hands clasped and unclasped 
 themselves on her breast. A wonderful peace had fallen 
 upon her simple soul, and sin and shame and sorrow had 
 passed from Jher like the shades of night before the dawn 
 of a glory that was motherhood. 
 
 Mrs. Rush, good soul, moved quietly about the room, 
 alternating her visits to the bedside where she gazed, 
 with something in her eyes like a reflection of the light 
 that was in Margaret's own, at the girl's rapt face and at 
 the tiny pink scrap of humanity nestled against her with 
 adjournments to the landing outside the door, where she 
 wiped her eyes fiercely with a handkerchief from time to 
 time. 
 
 After one of these excursions, as she returned to the 
 room, the girl was saying half aloud: "He's like Jim! 
 Oh, he is like Jim!" and Mrs. Rush for the first time 
 learned the name of the author of the existence of the 
 little creature who, if he resembled anything more 
 than an exceedingly pink baby, resembled an extraor- 
 dinarily fat one. 
 
 He was a sturdy young man his protests when in- 
 terrupted in the most engrossing and important branch of 
 infantile education bearing unmistakable witness to the 
 soundness and capacity of his lungs. 
 
 Mrs. Rush, finding that Margaret and the boy were 
 "doin' nicely," determined to put into practice an idea 
 which had long been maturing in her mind. Margaret, 
 the day before her confinement, had confided the name 
 and address of her aunt to Mrs. Rush, with instructions 
 to write to Miss Deborah Yeomans, if anything happened 
 to her. She was to inclose a letter of the girl's, asking 
 forgiveness, and pleading for the little one if it survived.
 
 308 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 He was now a week old; and Mrs. Rush decided to 
 move in the matter on her own account without consult- 
 ing Margaret Therefore she wrote to Aunt Deb and, 
 after a brief account of Margaret's adventures and the 
 birth of her "lovely boy," invited her aunt to come and 
 see her niece if she would like to, and had forgiven her. 
 She stated that Margaret had become so endeared to her- 
 self and Mr. Rush that the girl could always find a 
 home with them, but added that she considered it her 
 duty to acquaint Miss Deborah Yeomans with the facts, 
 which Margaret, although she had written regularly to 
 her aunt, had refrained from mentioning. 
 
 When the letter reached her, Aunt Deb was not so 
 surprised at the news as Mrs. Rush had anticipated, but 
 the generous spirit which breathed through the words 
 evoked an answering echo in Miss Deborah herself. 
 She had long ago forgiven her niece, and immediately 
 dispatched an answer in which she not only said so, but 
 in which she poured a thousand blessings on the head of 
 Mrs. Rush for her goodness to the girl, and stated that 
 she was starting for Balham by the first train next 
 morning. 
 
 Mrs. Rush was delighted with the tone of her reply 
 to her letter and, after a little preliminary skirmishing, 
 she informed Margaret that she had received a most 
 kind letter from her aunt, and that the latter was coming 
 to see her. 
 
 The girl received the news with a burst of tears, but 
 soon calmed down, and thanked Mrs. Rush for her kind 
 efforts to restore her to Aunt Deb. 
 
 The next morning Mrs. Rush attired herself in her 
 "Sunday best" a plum-colored dress which appeared 
 only on state occasions while Mr. Rush received in- 
 structions, as he left to go to a job early that morning, 
 not on any account to appear until he had washed and 
 changed his working clothes. 
 
 At the sound of wheels stopping outside about mid- 
 day, she rushed to the window in time to see a statelier, 
 taller, older, darker and plainer edition of Margaret
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 309 
 
 descend from a station cab. She skipped downstairs, 
 after smoothing her dress and hair, and invited her 
 visitor into the parlor, where Miss Deborah seized her 
 hand, and, with tears in her eyes, and in a broken voice, 
 thanked her for all her goodness to her poor child. 
 
 Mrs. Rush begged her to be seated while she went up 
 to see if the girl was ready to receive her aunt glad her- 
 self to escape from a rather embarrassing situation. 
 
 She returned in a few minutes, and informed her 
 visitor that Margaret was waiting, overjoyed at the 
 thought of being restored to her "dear Aunt Deb," but 
 begging her to be careful not to over-excite her in any 
 way. 
 
 With features working, in spite of all her efforts to 
 appear calm and collected, Aunt Deb entered the room. 
 
 "Margaret! My poor darling! Thank God I've 
 found ee again!" and she bent down and kissed her niece 
 passionately, and pressed her to her bosom, and then 
 kissed and hugged the baby; which done, the two women 
 mingled their tears together for about a quarter of an 
 hour, nice and comfortably without any necessity for re- 
 straint, and to the infinite relief, apparently, of both. 
 Then Aunt Deb began wiping her niece's eyes, and Mar- 
 garet returned the compliment; and the baby, who had 
 been rather neglected during the process, began to make 
 himself heard in no uncertain voice; and Miss Deborah 
 felt constrained to call up Mrs. Rush, who was "enjoying 
 a good cry of her own" downstairs over the cat, to that 
 animal's considerable discomfort and annoyance. 
 
 The son of James and Margaret was the recipient of 
 much admiring criticism and lavish adulation as he 
 sprawled in a variety of undignified attitudes on the bed, 
 a target for a hail of nomenclature quite unknown to 
 the pages of the English Dictionary, and innumerable 
 caresses, bestowed on various parts of his anatomy by 
 each of his worshipers in turn. He took it all in very 
 good part, though in an excess of exuberant spirits he 
 playfully "upper-cut" his mamma, and steadied little 
 Mrs. Rush with a right swing in the eye.
 
 310 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 At length growing tired of their attentions, he com- 
 menced to make alarming sounds in his throat, and 
 evinced a most decided preference for the society of his 
 parent; whereupon, Mrs. Rush suddenly remembered 
 that she had "forgot the dinner" and fled hurriedly; 
 while Aunt Deb gazed at the blushing girl with mingled 
 looks of awe and affection. She had brought her hand- 
 bag with her when she came up to Margaret's room. 
 Now she opened it, and produced a number of those 
 various garments which invariably take definite shape 
 upon the expectation of the most important event in 
 human lives, and which are as much above proper de- 
 scription by a man as are above his capacity for ade- 
 quate appreciation the wonders of which they are sym- 
 bolical. 
 
 "O . . . h! Aunt! How did you ..." the young 
 mother gasped, as her relative displayed them carefully 
 upon the bed before her. 
 
 "Tush, my dear!" said Aunt Deb, with conscious 
 pride in her prevision and workmanship. "Trust an old 
 woman for being not quite a fool !" 
 
 Aunt Deb had been busy at the cottage in Stoke Mid- 
 ford. 
 
 "Why, aunt, you're not old!" said Margaret. 
 
 There I will leave them.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 AUNT DEB'S DIFFICULTIES, AND THEIR SOLUTION 
 
 IN the golden haze of a September sun Aunt Deb and 
 Margaret the latter fearfully clasping her baby as she 
 walked left Mrs. Rush's one morning soon afterward, 
 and went on to the common. 
 
 Aunt Deb had found a lodging close by. She had de- 
 cided to remain in Balham, for a time, at any rate. She 
 had something to impart to her niece which was of a con- 
 fidential and rather difficult nature. 
 
 They sat down on a seat Margaret too engrossed 
 with her precious burden to notice a certain uneasiness in 
 her aunt's manner; and presently the latter said: 
 
 "You remember Mr. Gates, dear?" 
 
 "Yes, aunt?" and the young mother went on with one 
 of those "imaginary conversations" between herself and 
 her offspring, which, if not always original, are always 
 interesting to at least one party concerned. 
 
 Aunt Deb coughed two or three times. "He he's 
 asked me to marry him, Margaret." 
 
 "Aunt!" 
 
 Margaret was too astonished to express anything but 
 the surprise in her voice for a moment, and she stared 
 at her aunt, who blushed like a girl under her scrutiny. 
 
 "Oh, aunt! I ... I am glad!" she burst out at last. 
 
 "Are ee, dear?" Aunt Deb's eyes had become very 
 soft and moist, and she seemed, somehow, to have grown 
 twenty years younger. 
 
 "And . . . aunt?'; 
 
 "I ... couldn't give him my answer until I'd seen ee, 
 my dear!"
 
 312 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 "Oh, aunt! You're too good to me! I don't de- 
 serve ..." Margaret felt a lump in her throat, and left 
 off abruptly. 
 
 "He was . . . rather fond of me . . . when I was a 
 girl, dear, and ..." Aunt Deb gazed through the mel- 
 low sunlight at a man and maid who had wandered 
 through just such another golden autumn morning long 
 ago. 
 
 "You must write and accept him at once!" said the 
 young matron, with an air of one having authority in 
 such matters. 
 
 Her aunt laughed at her eagerness, and suppressed 
 her own happiness out of consideration for the girl's 
 feelings. She had, after finding Margaret, written to 
 Mr. Gates informing him, in confidence, of her trouble, 
 and pointing out the impossibility of leaving her niece to 
 her own resources. 
 
 Michael Gates replied that he respectfully hoped that 
 Miss Deb would not go for to let that stand atween them ; 
 that his home was open to the girl, and freely she could 
 find plenty for herself to do in the farm and dairy; arid 
 that he was glad to think he could be of service to the 
 poor maid, nor need anyone know the facts of her 
 trouble. He was a bachelor of fifty, who, after being 
 rejected by Miss Deborah some thirty years before, had 
 felt no inclination to try his lot elsewhere with any others 
 of the sex, and who had henceforth devoted himself to his 
 horses and cows, with an occasional visit to the object of 
 his youthful affections. He was of the type best described 
 as "steady-going," and Aunt Deb, who at eighteen had 
 refused him perhaps because of that reason (perhaps, 
 also, because of certain sporting recreations of a pugilistic 
 nature, which were his only exuberance), had sadly re- 
 gretted as the years went on that he had not asked her to 
 reconsider her decision. Happening to call as he was pass- 
 ing through Midford (he lived at Hazley Parva, in the 
 north of the county, some twenty miles away) he had 
 asked after Margaret, and upon hearing that she had 
 gone to live in London, it had occurred to him that it
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 313 
 
 must be lonely for Miss Deb. He had expressed that 
 opinion with an inflection of his voice and an anxiety 
 which had made the poor woman's heart beat with quite 
 an alarming rapidity, and she had hurried off to fetch 
 him another mug of ale, uncertain whether to feel happy 
 or miserable. 
 
 When he repeated his visit shortly afterward, for 
 the purpose of presenting her with a sitting of Buff 
 Orpingtons, he had discovered her chicken-run to be in 
 such a deplorable condition that it was only neighborly 
 that he should drive over the following day and repair 
 it he had seen outliers as thick as rabbits, in the gorse 
 round the Crossways. 
 
 Miss Deb had other things beside fowl-houses that 
 wanted repairing her heart, for one; and between fear 
 of losing him again, and the impossibility of her situation 
 brought about by her niece's absence, she had suffered 
 considerably. 
 
 She had a shrewd idea that had it not been for the 
 girl's leaving her alone he might never have asked her 
 the question that he did ask her, upon the completion of 
 his self-imposed task, one evening as the sun went down. 
 The run had revealed, upon closer inspection, a need of 
 more extensive repairs than had at first seemed necessary, 
 and it is doubtful whether the surprise and regret at this 
 discovery were entirely genuine on either side. 
 
 Margaret, who had been indirectly the means to the 
 potentialities of happiness, now directly prevented them 
 from developing into the reality. 
 
 Aunt Deb produced from her pocket Michael's reply 
 to her letter and handed it to Margaret. The girl read 
 it with swimming eyes, hugging her child the closer as 
 she did so. As she returned it to her aunt she burst into 
 tears, in which remorse for the trouble she had brought 
 on the woman who loved her mingled with joy and thank- 
 fulness. She was for telegraphing; but Aunt Deb dis- 
 missed such methods as indecorous, and promised to write 
 by the country post that afternoon. She had waited 
 thirty years patiently she could surely refrain from in-
 
 3 i4 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 decent haste for a day! Indeed, she felt half annoyed 
 with Margaret at the suggestion ; but Margaret had com- 
 menced a lullaby above a pair of round blue eyes staring 
 with infantile wonder at his mother's face bending over 
 him, and poor Miss Deb forgot everything else in that 
 saddest of the whole range of human reflections "What 
 might have been." 
 
 "Good-bye, Mrs. Rush!" Margaret could scarcely 
 speak the words as she kissed the good Samaritan who 
 had succored her in her direst need. 
 
 "Now don't forget you'm both to come and stay with 
 us, and that you'll always be welcome!" said Aunt Deb 
 now Mrs. Michael Gates. 
 
 "Aye, that ye will be!" echoed her husband, whose 
 good-natured face showed his appreciation of the good 
 qualities of Mr. and Mrs. Rush. "An if so be should be 
 lookin' fur a nice purty little cottage with 'bout acre an' 
 ha-a-rf to ut, any time," he added to Mr. Rush, as he 
 shook hands with that gardener, "Ah'm yer man!" 
 
 Margaret had remained in Balham with the baby 
 until her aunt had disposed of the Midford cottage and 
 the marriage was over. At the end of October they had 
 come up to London to fetch her back to her future home; 
 and the meeting with Mr. Gates in the presence of Mr. 
 and Mrs. Rush had lost something of its terrors for her. 
 
 She leaned out of the window of the four-wheeler 
 as they drove away and waved her hand to them for the 
 last time. As she sat down again seeing that the girl's 
 eyes were full of tears Aunt Deb, who had taken the 
 baby, hastened to return it. She pressed her husband's 
 foot with her own as she did so, with that peculiar nicety 
 of adjustment which even the dullest of mortals instinc- 
 tively recognizes as a warning a proceeding which was, 
 probably, in its earliest inception, the first step in the es- 
 tablishment of Diplomacy as an institution. When Mar- 
 garet, with many blushes, ventured to look at him he 
 soon put her at her ease with : 
 
 "There, poor lass, need'st not worrit! Ah've no'ut
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 315 
 
 to do wi th' blamin o' ye, an I do-ant mean to let no un 
 else, sure-lie ! Ah'll look arter ye, my dear, 'tis not fur 
 no'ut ah've had many a mill in th' ould days on Stock- 
 bridge Down ! Th' nayburs 'ud best keep a civil tongue 
 in their yeds to ye if they knowed o-ut abowt ye, but 
 they do-ant! Let's have a look at th' baby, my dear. 
 Aye! Be'ant he a bonny un!" he added, turning to his 
 wife, and Margaret laughed through her tears, as he 
 placed a huge hand under its little head, and appealed to 
 the wide blue eyes by a series of most extraordinary 
 grimaces and weird and wonderful sounds. 
 
 She wondered what James would think of baby if he 
 could see him, and sighed. But she had deecided that she 
 must not think of James any more now, besides she 
 had his child. She was going to be happy again after all. 
 
 She had no right to be happy, of course. The world 
 is only kept respectable by the proper allocation of the 
 reward of happiness to those who really deserve it; and 
 there is always quite a sufficient stock of it on hand for 
 that purpose. It is only adding sin to sin for anyone who 
 has erred as deeply as Margaret to be happy. 
 
 She had escaped, in the first place, a life of misery 
 through the kindness of a pair of ignorant people: she 
 saw a brighter future for herself and her child than 
 she had ever dreamed of before in her coming life with 
 Mr. Gates and her aunt. Aunt Deb had risked something 
 for her how much, only a woman of her years and 
 placed in her position can understand. Margaret was 
 more beautiful now than she had ever been at Midford 
 sorrow had added an indefinable "something" which 
 had stamped a dignity of its own upon her. If Aunt Deb 
 felt a pang, as she saw her husband looking at the girl's 
 face lovely, with the loveliness of young motherhood 
 shining through its blushes and tear-soft eyes, as a rain- 
 blown rose in June the good woman knew as well the 
 satisfaction that lies in doing a generous and merciful 
 action. At first she was conscious only of her personal 
 disadvantages, compared with her niece, and the weight
 
 3 i6 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 of her years increased inevitably by the contrast; but the 
 emotions to which such feelings gave rise were but mo- 
 mentary, and the action which made her an old woman 
 one minute made her feel a young one the next. 
 
 Her husband's stolid soul was surprised at a mental 
 vision of the girl in Midford village, that he had wooed 
 thirty years before, suddenly appearing beside him as 
 he stood in the booking office at Balham station waiting 
 to take the tickets. 
 
 I am aware that Margaret's friends, by conniving at 
 her happiness, and thus becoming accessories, were guilty 
 of a crime which must alienate from them the sympathies 
 of many estimable Christian people. There are, among 
 the latter, those who possess the spirit of true humility 
 in such a marked degree that they most carefully avoid 
 appearing in any role which might conceivably challenge 
 comparison with the founder of their faith situations in 
 which such vanity might disguise itself under a garb of 
 Forgiveness and Mercy being obvious examples. 
 
 Upon the writer acquainting a gentleman of the above 
 denomination with the history of Margaret and her 
 friends, he gave it emphatically, as his opinion, that the 
 conduct of all parties concerned was highly reprehensi- 
 ble being a deliberate attempt to gloss over SIN. He 
 added: that as woman had been tempting man for count- 
 less generations it was notoriously so, he believed? 
 in all probability she would go on doing so for all time, 
 and inferred that she was so constituted by nature that 
 only the fear of punishment prevented her from down- 
 right promiscuousness. 
 
 Every man who has had a mother must realize the 
 truth and justice of his conclusions.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 THRACIAN SEA SULKS WITH HIS RIDER 
 
 THRACIAN SEA was turning sulky, there was no doubt 
 about it. He squealed as his rider pulled him round: 
 the horse had ideas of his own as to the most suitable 
 rides through the Wimbledon woods, and those ideas did 
 not at all correspond with those of his rider on this par- 
 ticular May morning. Also Thracian Sea did not like 
 his rider, and signified the same in the usual manner. 
 
 It was some time now since he had carried her her 
 of the beautiful voice which sounded in his ears like a 
 caress her of the beautiful hands which made his bridle 
 feel like one. Her hands did not wrench his mouth about 
 as if they were the dentist's. He scarcely felt her weight; 
 he had carried more to victory for her in the days when 
 she had been wont to whisper to him in the paddock 
 before the battles he had fought for her, and load him 
 with praise as sweet as the sugar with which she had 
 been wont to feed him after the struggle. 
 
 He could carry fourteen stone, of course; but four- 
 teen stone must behave itself at least, like a gentleman, 
 even if it couldn't be a lady. But fourteen stone handled 
 him like a lout : fourteen stone had hit him and Thracian 
 Sea was not going to stand that at his time of life. Years 
 ago, when he had been young and frivolous, it might 
 have been necessary. He was even prepared to admit 
 that it had been necessary on one or two occasions. There 
 was that little affair at Brighton, when the scent of a 
 particular kind of hay for which he had a weakness had 
 disturbed him ; when he had felt more like enjoying him- 
 
 317
 
 318 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 self on the downs, holiday making, than being bumped 
 and knocked about round that absurd corner just after 
 the five furlong post, on a course that was notoriously 
 a welsher's. Good honest horses like he was did not 
 need downhill zigzags to make them race he would have 
 raced straightway to the sun, and uphill all the way, had 
 it been within his power to do so. At Newmarket, on 
 the July course his favorite there might have been 
 grounds for complaint that day when that wretched screw, 
 to whom he was giving some fifty pounds, had stuck to 
 him so persistently all along the plantation, and the heat, 
 not the weight, had made him inclined to sulk a bit, just 
 below the distance. Jockeys of the baser sort, who 
 would have hit their own mother had hit him some- 
 times in a desperate finish, not knowing any better, but 
 he scarcely noticed that sort of thing at the time; besides, 
 it was all in a day's work. But this wasn't : he wasn't in 
 the shafts of a cab yet. 
 
 For months and months his beautiful lady had ridden 
 him now that the joys of battle were over and passed; 
 and he knew all her favorite rides and gallops by heart. 
 Then the man who was her husband whose acquaintance 
 with him had meant a last good-bye to his beloved New- 
 market had commenced to ride him again, and he ob- 
 jected strongly to the change. However, as fourteen 
 stone was her friend, he supposed he must put up with 
 it, especially as his lady seemed to expect that much from 
 him having stood by and talked to him while he was 
 being saddled that morning. Not being a family man 
 himself, he did not understand the reasons for the ces- 
 sation of their daily rambles together. 
 
 "You've been teaching the old devil some nice old 
 tricks, Helen!" said his rider to his wife when they re- 
 turned. 
 
 "I have? Why, Jim, he will do anything for me!" 
 
 "Well, he has been as sour as an old crab all the 
 morning with me, anyhow!" 
 
 It may have been imagination, but Thracian Sea cer- 
 tainly seemed to understand, then.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 319 
 
 The spring grew into summer, and a son and heir 
 was born to James Burkett, Esq. The summer passed, 
 and faded into autumn; and the child died. He seemed 
 a lusty infant enough, but his short earthly career termi- 
 nated in a fit of convulsions, and James Burkett turned his 
 face to the wall and wept. 
 
 His wife, as they stood by the tiny grave one stormy 
 September day when rooks and leaves and songs of death 
 were blown about the skies, felt as if the sheet anchor 
 of her life had parted. 
 
 Since that memorable Goodwood Cup day, when she 
 had waited in an agony by a smiling summer sea for news 
 of the man who had awakened the real love of her life, 
 she had put Mervyn Ingestre from her thoughts in so 
 far as such had been possible. When the wonder of 
 motherhood rose shining like another and greater sun 
 above her horizons the ghosts of her secret passion for 
 him had faded into what she told herself was but a place 
 of tender memories. 
 
 She had seen him seldom since his illness. When they 
 had returned from the Isle of Wight, where they had 
 stayed for a month after Goodwood, he was convalescent. 
 They met one day in Wimbledon soon afterward, and if 
 each betrayed a certain nervousness in the presence of 
 the other they had long been schooling their several 
 feelings against the rencontre. On the few occasions when 
 they had spoken since then their conversation had been 
 rigorously confined to the most conventional topics. 
 
 One November afternoon subsequent to the death of 
 her child, Helen, on her beloved Thracian Sea, overtook 
 him as he was walking back from Richmond through the 
 woods to Wimbledon. 
 
 As he expressed his sympathy his passionate love for 
 her, as woman and bereaved mother, was too strong to 
 be disguised, and her own voice broke as she thanked 
 him. 
 
 From pitying herself she began to pity him in deadly 
 earnest; and, as her own sorrow lessened, her love for 
 the lonely man who was so patient and silent in his strug-
 
 320 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 gle against herself grew to unmanageable and dangerous 
 proportions. 
 
 She was dreadfully sorry for James, of course he 
 had been completely crushed at the time by the death of 
 their child; and from that she commenced to imagine 
 it as a retribution upon herself for her own passion for 
 another man. A thousand morbid fancies haunted her, 
 and taunted her with the falseness of her position. And 
 still the natural and inevitable desire to see and to be 
 near the object of that passion grew fiercer and stronger 
 every day. 
 
 James, in blissful ignorance of his wife's condition, 
 strove carefully and tenderly to tide over her grief, and 
 his untiring efforts to bring her back to happiness served 
 only to add to her punishment. She had half expected 
 that his mother would warn him against Mervyn. As 
 time went on, and no mention was made of the matter, 
 either by Mrs. Burkett or her son, Helen concluded that 
 that lady had decided to maintain silence, for a while, 
 at any rate. Her mother-in-law, after the evening when 
 Helen's feelings had betrayed her when Mervyn was 
 lying dangerously ill, had been studiously kind and con- 
 siderate toward her. 
 
 As she sat reading and thinking by the fire, one cheer- 
 less afternoon toward the end of November, his mother 
 called, and the younger woman, who had been expecting 
 a request for an explanation ever since the telegram in- 
 cident, instinctively felt that her visitor had come for 
 such; nor was she wrong. 
 
 Gradually Mrs. Burkett worked round to Mervyn 
 Ingestre, and, after discussing one or two matters re- 
 specting his work among the poor and his defection from 
 the church, she said suddenly: 
 
 "Helen, I want to ask you a question about Mr. In- 
 gestre. Did you or Jim send that telegram from Bog- 
 nor last year when he was so ill?" 
 
 "I did!" 
 
 "Did Jim know that you did so?" 
 
 Her face flushed. "No!"
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 321 
 
 Mrs. Burkett was in a quandary. Without being sus- 
 picious by nature, his mother's passionate love for James 
 made her immoderately so where anything affecting her 
 son's interests was concerned. She was not a brilliant 
 woman : her moral sense was as narrow as were most of 
 her ideals: her life had, to a very large extent, crushed 
 her wider sympathies, which had eventually atrophied 
 under the slow weight of years. Where her son was con- 
 cerned she ceased to be Mrs. Burkett the conventional 
 wife of a conventional husband and became invested 
 with the aegis of her own passion and with the poten- 
 tialities for greatness which it inspired. The "larger" 
 part of her nature might be said to live again in him, or 
 rather in the bone of her bone and flesh of her imagina- 
 tion whom she had conceived, physically and mentally, to 
 be her son. So exalted a being had this largely mythical 
 personage become that his mother would have been only 
 expressing her honest conviction if stating that no living 
 woman was really good enough to be her boy's wife. 
 
 She had tried hard to like and love the girl he had 
 chosen for his mate, but from the first she had been nat- 
 urally prejudiced against Helen from what James had 
 told her before their marriage. She feared her: there 
 was an indifference to public opinion about her which, to 
 a woman who had lived as Mrs. Burkett had lived, in- 
 dicated a moral danger and presaged social disaster. She 
 admired her in a sense: had Helen not been her son's 
 wife she would probably have felt a great and growing 
 admiration for the girl as she improved in knowledge 
 of her mind and character. She would have seen in her 
 the visible awakening of a great and inevitable world- 
 force which must greatly and inevitably help mankind 
 upward toward that ideal of true moral and physical lib- 
 erty essential for development. Not all the opposition 
 and brutality of men "bestial by birth" ; not all that big- 
 otry of the Mrs. Grundy type which forces hypocrisy as 
 hot-beds do cucumbers; not all that wisdom of male ego- 
 tism which, because the cock bird of the domestic fowl 
 crows in undisputed possession from his midden, insists
 
 322 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 that Nature has ordained that man and woman 
 shall, by their own relations, help the development 
 of their species only along farmyard parallels: not all 
 these things shall keep Woman out of her own at 
 last. 
 
 If Helen Darell before her marriage had caused Mrs. 
 Burkett uneasiness, the discovery her mother-in-law made 
 after that event had filled the poor woman with a cease- 
 less and increasing dread. Then James had confided his 
 hopes to his mother, and the latter's doubts and fears 
 had, to a certain extent, subsided. The child's birth and 
 death had drawn the two women closer together; but now 
 her former fears had returned in force, and she had, at 
 last, determined to question her daughter and endeavor to 
 
 Erevent anything like a rupture between the girl and her 
 usband if things had not gone too far already. She was 
 even ready to believe the worst, and she had unconsciously 
 half convinced herself that Helen was carrying on an in- 
 trigue with Mervyn Ingestre. One result of such a frame 
 of mind had been a discovery of the telegram which had, 
 at the time, confirmed her fears, and now did so once 
 more. 
 
 But Helen Darell had developed in every way, and 
 the Helen Burkett who faced her questioner was soon to 
 destroy the suspicions if not the fears of the latter to 
 increase her respect, if to increase her dread. 
 
 Always a girl of high courage, she was now a fearless 
 woman who was learning by experience that the worst 
 things in life may be conquered by patience and courage 
 and whose passion for Mervyn Ingestre had aroused 
 in her soul the pride which was too proud to tell a lie to 
 save herself. 
 
 At his mother's last remark she had risen, and, after 
 walking slowly to the door, which was slightly ajar, she 
 closed it methodically and resumed her seat opposite Mrs. 
 Burkett. 
 
 "Please go on," she said quietly to the latter "you 
 wish to?" 
 
 "Yes, Helen, I ..." Mrs. Burkett paused.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 323 
 
 "You suspect me of loving Mr. Ingestre? Is that 
 not it?" 
 
 "Yes. I ... I think I have a right to ask ... to 
 question you, Helen . . . Jim's happiness is everything 
 to me!" 
 
 "I am quite willing to admit your right, mother, and 
 quite willing to answer you." 
 
 "Y-e-s?" 
 
 "I do love him. Your suspicions were justified." 
 
 Mrs. Burkett did not answer, but sat staring with dull, 
 hopeless eyes at the fire. 
 
 "Since you have questioned me," Helen went on, 
 touched by the mute misery of the other's face, "may I 
 ask if you have hinted anything of this to Jim?" 
 
 "No, Helen, I have not." 
 
 "Do you intend doing so?" 
 
 The mother looked at her helplessly, pleading for 
 the son. "You have . . . you have borne him a child, 
 Helen . . . You may have others," she said, in a low 
 broken voice. "I ... I only want to help you back to 
 him." 
 
 "Yes, mother, I know. Thank you for not reproach- 
 ing me. One cannot help those things, really." 
 
 "No . . . my dear ... I know." Mrs. Burkett's 
 pale face flushed. She had had her own secret, and the 
 other saw it flash for a moment to the surface and fade 
 as the glow faded out of her cheeks. "One has to fight, 
 that is all ... all one's life sometimes; but . . . but it 
 is the only thing, dear. It is our duty to ourselves and 
 to ... everyone." 
 
 She his mother had suddenly found reproach, 
 scorn, shame, which had appeared such potent things 
 with which to lash an erring wife, out of place with this 
 quiet, still girl with the fearless eyes, which, for all their 
 impenetrable depths, seemed impossible as a lurking place 
 for lies. Instinctively she read in them, as they stared 
 into the fire, another and a new chapter in the character 
 of Helen Burkett, and scorn of herself scourged her for 
 her previous suspicion.
 
 3 2 4 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 "Do you think I haven't fought, and will not fight 
 against it in future, mother?" 
 
 "Oh, I know you have, my dear . . . forgive me for 
 doubting you!" 
 
 "Yes, mother. You need not think I shall deceive 
 Jim. If ... if it gets too strong for me I shall tell him 
 myself. I would rather!' 
 
 "I will pray always for strength for you, child!" 
 
 Helen, since Mervyn had left the church, had begun 
 to doubt the efficacy of prayer. "The kingdom of God 
 is within us, I think." 
 
 "I have found prayer a great help, dear, myself!" 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "You believe in God, surely, Helen?" 
 
 "Of course I do, mother! Every one does, but . . . 
 but I do not think I believe in the God of the churches." 
 
 "You used to?" 
 
 "Yes, I suppose I did." 
 
 "Is it because he left the church that . . . that you 
 have changed?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Mrs. Burkett sighed. The prospect was anything but 
 a hopeful one for James. She was face to face with an 
 enemy to her son's happiness which haunted her night 
 and day a grim, specter-like thing against which, she 
 knew, the ordinary weapons of conventional platitude 
 would be powerless. Her own incapacity to avert what 
 she felt might prove a tragedy crushed her; and, for all 
 her prayers, and she prayed constantly to her God for 
 her boy, in her eyes the shadow hanging over his uncon- 
 scious head grew darker and darker every day. 
 
 Had he known everything it is extremely doubtful 
 whether he would have suffered a quarter of the misery 
 which tore his mother's heart as she walked back to 
 "Downlands" that November afternoon. 
 
 He was at that hour refreshing his mind, after the 
 strain of business, with a quiet game of "snooker" at a 
 favorite resort of his not a hundred miles from Cheap- 
 side.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 THE TEMPTING OF MERVYN INGESTRE 
 
 JAMES BURKETT would have ridiculed the idea had 
 anyone hinted to him the possibility that he was a nar- 
 row-minded young man. He rather prided himself upon 
 the width of his mind and views upon men and matters 
 generally. He was a sportsman, and sportsmen were 
 always broad-minded men : it was only Bible-bangers, 
 Teetotallers, Anti-gamblers, and people like that who 
 were narrow-minded. A man with the sexual habits of an 
 Australian aborigine, or with a mind like a cesspool, a 
 woman with as much native modesty in her as in the fe- 
 male of the domestic cat, might generally reckon upon 
 excuses, other than those provided by their inherent na- 
 tures, being found for them by James Burkett, Esq., if 
 they appealed to his "broad-mindedness." 
 
 He had afforded his wife considerable amusement 
 and not a little instruction in this phase of his character 
 on more than one occasion. 
 
 Once, during their holiday in the Isle of Wight the 
 previous year (after the memorable Goodwood meet- 
 ing), in the course of a ramble among the woods and 
 hills of that delightful offshoot of Hampshire, they had 
 come upon a young man with a green net, whom James 
 had at once contemptuously designated "a bug hunter." 
 The fine air of scorn with which he had volunteered this 
 remark and followed it with the information that the 
 damned fools went about smearing treacle on the trees 
 at night in the woods at Wimbledon they ought to be 
 locked up was wholly edifying to Helen, and she could 
 not resist the temptation to improve the occasion and
 
 326 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 the shining hour. She, therefore, somewhat to her hus- 
 band's disgust the man was shabbily dressed and James 
 was not entirely without his share of snobbishness had 
 interviewed the stranger, and evinced an absurd interest 
 in his captures, which he, rather shyly and evidently im- 
 pressed by his interrogator's beauty, had shown to her. 
 
 Men generally interested Helen Burkett as represen- 
 tatives of different types, rather than personally as indi- 
 viduals. The young man's statement, that he loved the 
 sport of collecting, had provoked a smile from James 
 the idea of such a childish occupation being termed a 
 "sport" being too much for that sportsman's gravity. 
 
 "And yet," said Helen as they walked on, "I daresay, 
 to him, there is as much sport in his hobby as there is to 
 you, Jim, in shooting half tame pheasants." 
 
 James laughed outright, and dismissed the idea as 
 preposterous. 
 
 "But, Jim ! He will get more lasting and healthy and 
 genuine pleasure out of his holiday, spent in such a way, 
 than the young men who lounge about on the front, bleat- 
 ing inanities morning, noon and night, making faces at 
 the girls, and killing time in an exchange of wit second- 
 hand from the music halls!" 
 
 James admitted that might be, but two blacks didn't 
 make a white, and he couldn't understand men going in 
 for such things. 
 
 A little further on they came upon another man col- 
 lecting a real live man this time, there was no doubt 
 about that. He was of the type "Military-looking" a 
 fine figure of middle-aged manhood. He raised his hat 
 as they overtook him, and remarked on the loveliness of 
 the spot and day. 
 
 James was rather doubtful. His clothes and general 
 appearance were anything but fashionable, but he stopped 
 and commenced talking with the other as the latter boxed 
 an insect he had just captured. He was evidently a gen- 
 tleman; and they wandered on together, chatting as peo- 
 ple do who meet casually in lonely places. 
 
 From English Lepidoptera his conversation drifted
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 327 
 
 by way of Indian ditto to Indian matters generally; and 
 Helen was very interested in India. 
 
 He was an old soldier, with many years' service in 
 that country, and his talk proved such a mine of infor- 
 mation to her that James began to feel frightfully igno- 
 rant, and not a little jealous at his wife's evident pleasure 
 in the stranger's society. 
 
 "My husband was saying, just before we met you, 
 that he couldn't understand men going in for what he 
 called bug hunting!" she said suddenly with a laugh. 
 
 The soldier looked at the slightly discomfited James, 
 and smiled. "It is a very fascinating hobby Entomol- 
 ogy. It adds a zest to life that somehow never fades 
 with years as most pleasures do. I've collected since I 
 was at school. It's wonderful how it enlarges one's mind 
 and enables one to properly appreciate that wonderful 
 thing called life apart from the sport of the thing." 
 
 James thought perhaps it did. Personally, he pre- 
 ferred billiards, or a good game of snooker-pool, in his 
 lighter hours. 
 
 The other laughed, and jocularly reminded him of 
 the precept respecting a good billiard player and a mis- 
 spent youth, as they parted company. 
 
 The trivial incidents recorded here were fated to have 
 a lasting influence on the lives of James Burkett and his 
 wife. She had, on more than one occasion subsequently, 
 used the stranger's remarks about "enlarging the mind" 
 and "billiards" as a spur to induce her husband to cul- 
 tivate his own intelligence in other places than billiard- 
 rooms to find an additional hobby as an antidote to 
 snooker and such amusements, which, she feared, but 
 sharpened his wits at the expense of what intellect he 
 possessed. She was wise enough in worldly lore to know 
 that the hobby horse was often a more valued possession 
 to the average man than his wife, and that, although 
 the animal was frequently ridden in an oft quoted and 
 barbarous fashion, in very many instances it carried man 
 away from moral and physical destruction. 
 
 Billiards, as the chief recreation of his spare mo-
 
 328 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 ments, however, did not appeal to Helen Burkett as a 
 wise or a profitable one for her husband. Her attempts, 
 the previous winter, to arouse in him a desire for the 
 knowledge of cultured people were, to a very great ex- 
 tent, frustrated by the billiard habit. At last it had led 
 to their first quarrel during which, as is generally the 
 case, nasty things were said on both sides; James closing 
 the subject by an adjournment to the billiard-room, and 
 informing his wife that it would take more than a bally 
 bug hunter to teach him anything. The Isle of Wight 
 episode had always been a rather sore one in his heart 
 with James, and she had just alluded to it again. He 
 had been rather rude to her, and she was, perhaps, feel- 
 ing a little hurt. Anyhow, the sarcasm in her reply, that 
 she was afraid it would, was too thinly veiled to escape 
 even her husband, and he went off in high dudgeon. The 
 subject was dropped by both of them for a time; but it 
 had made one of those little breaches which are dangerous 
 to future happiness between young married people one 
 of those little rifts, insignificant in themselves, but which 
 are the first signs of landslip. The next time she re- 
 turned to the attack he became so downright mulish (from 
 her point of view) that she began to doubt the wisdom of 
 her efforts, and, finally, came to the conclusion that they 
 must gang their ain gait for the future. 
 
 In their first child they had forgotten their differences, 
 and everything but that they were husband and wife. 
 After the little one died, and when time was beginning 
 to heal the wound of her grief, James Burkett, had he 
 been a wiser man, would have seized the opportunity to 
 show himself eager for a more intimate acquaintance with 
 the ideals and interests of his wife. He was, however, 
 too infected with that stupidity of egotism, which, by 
 some curious mental twist of its own, confuses proper 
 pride with the vanity which is begotten by ignorance upon 
 obstinacy. Also there were two or three handicaps on 
 in the city just then. His wife had not forgotten her fre- 
 quent repulses, and was, by now, skeptical as to the utility 
 of her former endeavors, and naturally chary of awaken-
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 329 
 
 ing further unpleasantness by again introducing the sub- 
 ject. 
 
 The death of her child had affected her more deeply 
 than she herself recognized at this time. It had pro- 
 duced an amount of mental prostration which, combined 
 with her non-success with her husband, was slowly but 
 surely allowing her moral sense to be more and more 
 dominated and influenced by her other senses. Mervyn 
 Ingestre had now his permanent place in her thoughts, 
 and she made no attempt either to disturb his position 
 there or to disguise from herself that he was becoming 
 more and more the supreme need in her future existence. 
 
 About a month after her confession to her mother-in- 
 law Thracian Sea bruised his frog on a stone, and went 
 dead lame for a few days as a result of that mishap. Her 
 favorite incapacitated, she decided, one afternoon, on a 
 walk across the common and through the woods to Bev- 
 erley Brook. 
 
 It was very mild and clear a winter's afternoon with 
 an almost summer temperature, though without any sun, 
 and when distant objects appear much closer than they 
 really are. She reached the edge of the plateau, where a 
 seat at the corner of a birch plantation overlooks a nar- 
 row wooded valley immediately below, that opens out into 
 the wider one, on whose further side are Coombe Wood 
 and Hill in the distance. The soft feel of the southwest 
 wind in her face, its sigh through the birches' myriad 
 hair; the utter loneliness of the place; awakened the poe- 
 try latent in her soul, and increased her longing to be with 
 the poet who was now, she knew, secretly enshrined 
 therein for good or ill. This longing was becoming a 
 passionate yearning, was becoming more and more intense 
 every day. She wondered where he was, what he was 
 doing. Then the fancy took her : she would try and write 
 poetry, though she had never even in her schoolgirl days 
 previously attempted such a thing. But to-day her 
 whole nature seemed to hanker for reconcilement; here, 
 in a world of quiet tones, yet where every tree, every 
 shadow, in the woods before her seemed to express, with
 
 330 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 a felicity of suggestion, its own mystic and sympathetic 
 accordance with nature's prevailing mood. In the clear 
 sweet air the winter green of grassy places had in it a 
 tender light : there were luminous and lovely shadows of 
 gray-blue above it under the winter trees. 
 
 She searched her pocket and found a piece of paper 
 and a pencil. She sat listening and staring in front of 
 her for a moment or two: the inspiration of the idea 
 came, and she had soon turned it into rhyme half sur- 
 prised at the facility with which the words arranged 
 themselves : 
 
 A VOICE IN THE SOUTHWEST WIND 
 
 Softly it comes, when the West, her sister, 
 
 The South, embraces, and as the twain 
 Kiss, they sigh and their secrets whisper 
 
 Each to each other. In joy or pain 
 They sob, or, laughing, they pause and listen 
 
 To a low, sweet song, with a wild refrain. 
 They weep, and their tears on the warm earth glisten ; 
 
 And the sound of their tears is the Voice of Rain. 
 
 She read and re-read the lines, smiling slightly to 
 herself. She wondered what her poet lover would think 
 of her first attempt. She would like to show it to him, 
 he ... 
 
 She crushed the paper into her gloved palm, and her 
 face glowed. 
 
 He was coming toward her by the narrow path lead- 
 ing out of the wood below, and had already seen her, no 
 doubt. 
 
 They had not met since the day when Mrs. Burkett 
 had questioned her about him. He was still some little 
 distance off : the path ran right by the seat on which she 
 was sitting. By the time he came up to her they had both 
 controlled somewhat the emotions which this sudden en- 
 counter had awakened. 
 
 They discussed one or two local matters of topical in-
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 331 
 
 terest. She was beginning to feel deliriously ten- 
 der toward him. She was taken off her guard; and a 
 great loneliness of spirit made her suddenly sick for 
 him. 
 
 "I have a confession to make !" she said at last. "I 
 have been trying to write poetry ! Just as you came up." 
 
 "Indeed?" He hoped she would ask him for his 
 opinion on it, and she did. 
 
 He praised the lines warmly; said, undoubtedly they 
 were poetry though "sister" and "whisper" were 
 scarcely proper rhymes. 
 
 His praise was very sweet to her: the technical error, 
 which she had not noticed herself, was forgotten in a 
 sudden rush of feeling for him induced by his proximity 
 and praise. 
 
 He had some of his own compositions in his pocket 
 would she care to see them? 
 
 She would like to very much. 
 
 He produced a batch of papers and envelopes, and 
 was on the point of handing some of them to her for in- 
 spection, when he stopped, and, flushing, extracted one 
 of them from among the others and returned it to his 
 pocket. 
 
 She knew it must be about herself, and, woman-like, 
 she found that it possessed more interest for her than 
 did all the others, which were on impersonal subjects. 
 She read them through afterward praising them in a 
 way which made the young man's mind and manner more 
 chaotic every moment. She felt she must see the other 
 one. 
 
 "Mayn't I see the ... the other?" She flushed as 
 she made the request, and then looked away from him. 
 
 His confusion returned tenfold; and they both heard 
 the ice breaking. Nevertheless, as is the way of lovers, 
 they rushed recklessly on. 
 
 He was the first to lose his head. He had seated 
 himself by her side as she read the poems. Now he 
 rose suddenly. His wild face and eyes, and his husky 
 half-fcightened voice, as he spoke, made her glad with a
 
 332 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 kind of terribly supreme and previously unknown emo- 
 tion. 
 
 "I cannot ... I must not show it to you ! It is about 
 yourself ... it was very wrong of me to write it ... 
 but I couldn't help it ... I loved you . . . directly I 
 saw you that day!" 
 
 He stood before her, trembling, silent. The words 
 had come in a torrent, and ceased as quickly. 
 
 Her curiosity respecting the poem helped her to stave 
 off for a little longer the madness which was creeping 
 over her. The poem? She must see the poem, at all 
 costs ! Even if ... 
 
 Therefore: "Perhaps it ... it would make you 
 easier if you ... if I were to read it?" Her voice, in 
 spite of herself, had grown dangerously soft and plead- 
 ing; and he thrust the paper out to her and turned blindly 
 away waiting, reckless, fearful. It was the poem he 
 had written after her wedding. 
 
 "Mervyn!" 
 
 He swung round and moved toward her, and all the 
 man in him leapt at his name spoken so from her lips. 
 Then he stopped appalled at what he had done. 
 
 Her glorious eyes and face were abject almost in 
 their utter surrender. Her own love for him had passed 
 beyond disguise or control. 
 
 She rose slowly, and gave him back the lines with the 
 air of a woman who would have given him everything. 
 
 "You have forgiven me?" 
 
 "I love you," she answered. "I think I always . . . 
 have loved you, Mervyn. I ... I would forgive you 
 more than that . . . anything!" 
 
 The dusk wherein the winds went whispering had 
 put away from them the little world of streets, a mile 
 away. Both had forgotten Wimbledon and suburban 
 things, the elaborate rituals of Commonplace, the gro- 
 tesque worships of Propriety and Good Taste in a land 
 that sees nothing indecent in promising, in the Name of 
 God, the poor and ignorant masses, that minister to its 
 own pampered flesh, chaste eternities of happier life. The
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 333 
 
 need to live had come upon these two to live, not merely 
 to exist. Her love for this man had completely taken 
 possession of her faculties for the while she had forgot- 
 ten everything but the desire of body and soul which 
 clamored throughout her whole being. To be with him 
 always, to minister to him, to bear him children, to lie be- 
 side him through the nights of earthly sleep, to sleep be- 
 side him at the last through the endless sleep of death; 
 before these things everything else was as naught. 
 Honor, shame, they had become things meaningless and 
 empty words before the eternal wonder that is Love. She 
 would have followed him to the ends of the earth. 
 
 They had walked, almost in silence, to Caesar's Well. 
 The common at this hour was completely deserted: the 
 shades of the December night were rapidly closing in 
 around them. On one of the seats within the ring of 
 dwarf pines which surround the well they sat down with- 
 out comment. 
 
 It was already nearly dark. Mervyn Ingestre awoke 
 to a sense of their position, and rose to go. Obediently, 
 unquestioning, she followed suit. As yet they had spoken 
 but little to each other, but the dusky hands of the night 
 were loosening the remaining bonds which still held back 
 the woman from the man she loved. As they reached 
 the shade of the trees she stopped. 
 
 "Mervyn!" Her voice was imperative with passion. 
 "Kiss me!" 
 
 They were both nearly of the same height. With one 
 hand she held his arm, and, with the other on his shoul- 
 der, she had half turned him to her. Her face glowed. 
 Her eyes were narrowed strangely. A sudden lust for 
 maternity was added to her need of him. 
 
 Then Mervyn Ingestre made his supreme effort to 
 save the woman he loved. At her touch he, too, had 
 forgotten everything but his love for a moment. He 
 had made one involuntary movement to take her in his 
 arms, but had checked himself. He remained motionless 
 and did not answer. 
 
 For a fraction of a second she doubted him he did
 
 334 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 not could not love her as she loved him. Her love 
 was stronger than his. Then, in his white set face and 
 stricken eyes, she read the fierceness of the struggle that 
 this man's strong, austere chastity of soul was making 
 against the call of the flesh, and she felt not so much a 
 sense of shame as a sense of awe. Her hands dropped, 
 and her head. Helen Burkett never forgot the strange, 
 solemn song of the southwest wind in the pines as it swept 
 over her bowed head while she waited the word and 
 pleasure of the man whose will had become law to her. 
 The old, old desire of the Woman to tempt the Man was 
 whispering to her. Instinctively she knew that if she 
 made her demand a second time, in this, his hour of 
 weakness, his strength must fail him. The wish to see 
 him as she saw herself flicKered up in her, and she trem- 
 bled with the fury of her own longing and temptation. 
 Then something of his example infected her, and she 
 raised her head. 
 
 "Does your husband love you, Helen?" he asked 
 huskily. 
 
 "As much as he loves anything, I suppose !" she an- 
 swered in a voice of revolt. She did not want James 
 introduced just now he jarred. Then she remembered 
 what he had been to her at one time. Therefore in ex- 
 cuse of herself: "Nearly as much as he loves billiards 
 or betting!" she added with a hard little laugh and a 
 gesture of hopelessness. 
 
 Mervyn Ingestre's experience of women was limited, 
 but her attitude was too eloquent for him to misunder- 
 stand. The elemental man in him rioted drunkenly 
 this glorious woman, the Helen of his dreams, was his 
 for the taking. His own love flung itself into the scale 
 and their two fates hung doubtfully in the balance. Then 
 the inherent spirituality of the man conquered; and the 
 woman walked on obediently by his side, holding his 
 hand with fierce tenderness her soul a place in which 
 baffled passion, hate, admiration, despair, and exaltation 
 fought among themselves until weariness dulled her 
 senses and coherent thought became possible.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 335 
 
 "I want to tell Jim ... I feel I must ... do you 
 mind, Mervyn?" 
 
 The suddenness of her remark and question startled 
 him. He was silent a moment, then: "Certainly, Helen 
 it is the only thing." 
 
 "We can be ... friends?" she half whispered a 
 great fear seizing her. She had already forgiven him 
 for his rejection of her. 
 
 "Oh, my dear ! My dear ! Help me !" 
 
 Reaction had set in, and with it weakness. He was 
 shaken terribly. At his words there came thankfulness 
 to her, for she knew by them that she had never been, 
 in his eyes, as a woman who had forgotten shame. 
 
 She had finished; and James Burkett, with a dull 
 flush mantling his forehead, turned from the window, 
 where he had been staring out into the darkness of the 
 garden, as his wife made her confession in quiet passion- 
 less tones, and came close to her. 
 
 "What are you going to do, Helen?" he demanded 
 fiercely. "Leave me?" 
 
 "I am your wife, Jim ... I will do as you wish me." 
 
 "Please yourself!" He was too angry to feel any- 
 thing but rage. "Would you rather be my wife or his 
 mistress?" Wounded vanity stabbed him, and he seized 
 her arm roughly and glared into her eyes. 
 
 She shrugged her brooding shoulders. "I am your 
 wife . . . because " 
 
 "Because what?" 
 
 "Because he ... would have me remain so." 
 
 "Oh, yes! I daresay! I'm not having any of that 
 game I'm not quite a fool !" he burst out. 
 
 "Jim! Please do not take that tone with me! You 
 insult me!" 
 
 "Well, of all the cool cheek! I think you take the 
 cake, Helen!" 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "What I say! I wonder you have the brazen assur- 
 ance to tell me ! You asked him to kiss you ! I wonder
 
 '336 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 your pride would allow you to tell me such a thing to my 
 face!" 
 
 "My pride ? My pride would not allow me to deceive 
 you, Jim!" 
 
 He let go her arm. "Do you ask me to believe that 
 he refused?" he snapped, with fine sarcasm. 
 
 A dangerous light leapt in her dark eyes. "I ask 
 you to believe nothing, Jim, that you do not want to. 
 Only . . ." 
 
 "Only what?" 
 
 "It is your own fault if you wrong him and me by 
 believing that I would tell you a deliberate lie!" she 
 could not disguise the scorn in her voice, and, somehow, 
 it hurt him. 
 
 "But the shame! the wrong you have done mel" 
 
 "Jim, have you never wronged a woman?" 
 
 At that he flinched, and the flush in his face deep- 
 ened. He resorted to bluster again. "Damn him and 
 his blasted poetry!" He strode savagely back to the win- 
 dow. 
 
 She came aftei him. "He, and his poetry you cursed 
 just then have saved me from myself, and you from 
 having an adulterous wife, Jim. You may not understand 
 that, but it is so." 
 
 There were pitiful things in the strong man's face 
 as he sat down in a chair and stared with dull eyes at his 
 wife. His strength was helpless against this intangible 
 power of love which eluded all his efforts to grapple 
 with it. 
 
 "You asked me if I would sooner be your wife or 
 his mistress. Were I to consider merely myself in the 
 matter I would sooner be his ... woman than any other 
 man's wife ! That is how I love him !" 
 
 James did not understand the pride which is in lov- 
 ing. Such a statement from his proud beautiful wife 
 somehow she had never looked so proudly beautiful as 
 she did just now seemed impossible, and he stared at 
 her incredulously. 
 
 "I see you doubt me ! Do you suppose that I that
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 337 
 
 any woman would tell you that if it were not true?" She 
 laughed bitterly. 
 
 He began to have an uneasy feeling that he was not 
 showing to advantage. The irony of the thought struck 
 him, but strangely for him, cooled his temper. She was 
 coming out of it all better than he was the impression 
 grew uncomfortably; and it vaguely dawned upon him 
 that there was a greatness in his wife's character which 
 was bigger than anything in his own. 
 
 "Jim ... I am going to ask you to let me see him 
 . . . sometimes?" Her voice trembled with passionate 
 entreaty. 
 
 "And if I refuse?" 
 
 "He ... he will not let me disobey you." 
 
 "Is that the truth?" 
 
 She flashed a look at him and did not deign to reply. 
 
 "And what if I agree to that arrangement?" 
 
 "I swear to you, Jim, that I will never speak of love 
 to him, and I will tell him of my oath to you ! He will 
 not speak of love to me that too I will swear for him. 
 If it ... gets too strong for me I ... I will tell you 
 first, and ask you to release me from my promise. I 
 swear to you, Jim, by ... by our, your dead child!" 
 Her self-control went all at once the strain had been too 
 much. She broke down, and, slipping into a chair, burst 
 into a passion of terrible tearless sobs. 
 
 Then the better part of James Burkett came to the 
 surface. 
 
 "I will give my consent, Helen, to what you ask. 
 Willingly I give it!" He leaned over her bowed head 
 and stroked her hair. His wife should see that he could 
 be generous! "And, Helen . . . I will win you back! 
 or ... You shall not be ... a wife to me until I do!" 
 
 She raised her head, and her eyes thanked him, though 
 she could not speak for her sobs. Then she grew sud- 
 denly quiet. 
 
 "I am your wife, Jim, and will be so till . . . till 
 the end, even if I am not fit to be!" She drew his face 
 down to hers and kissed him.
 
 338 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 Two years ago another woman had used the same 
 words to him, and the coincidence struck him painfully at 
 his wife's caress. Two years ago another woman had 
 kissed him in just such a way. A superstitious dread a 
 premonition that there was a kind of retributive justice, 
 slowly but surely working out its ends fell heavily upon 
 him. 
 
 The shock to his own vanity and self-esteem had 
 shattered his confidence in himself in a way that had 
 never happened before.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 HELEN BURKETT DECIDES TO HUNT AN OLD TRAIL 
 
 IT was a trying time for Burkett and his wife. It 
 may be that circumstance has in it the power to make 
 cads of most men. Few folk would have blamed this 
 man if he had forgotten that he had at least been taught, 
 by such example as his college and university career 
 could provide for him, the obligations of a gentleman. 
 
 After her confession that had ended on a note of 
 heart-break and weakness, she had become possessed by 
 a feeling of futility that to some extent made her posi- 
 tion with her husband easier to bear while it made things 
 harder for her to contemplate. At first all the more 
 primitive part of her nature was in revolt but it was 
 revolt against two men, and the resultant faction had no 
 prospect for her of aught save civil war and the long 
 weariness of aimless strife. Her lover had rejected her: 
 she could not forget the hateful ignominy that filled her 
 blood at the one thought above all others that makes 
 the last woman born as non-moral as was the first, and 
 in a flash. 
 
 Repugnance toward her husband was followed by 
 hopelessness; and an awkward enough acquiescence in 
 his proximity at times, but one made as easy for her by 
 the man she had married and come near to hate as was 
 within his power. All the best in Burkett came out, and 
 she hated herself sharply when he slept in his chair one 
 night before a cold grate, rather than cause her more 
 uneasiness than she knew he had read in her eyes during 
 the evening. In his best way he tried to spare her every 
 possible annoyance at his hands, for which she thanked 
 
 339
 
 340 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 him in a heart that hated him for being her husband. 
 For the first time in her life fear haunted her, for days 
 and nights at a stretch, fear of him, the man she had 
 married. Gradually a sense of the futility of it all made 
 her almost callous; until Christmas, with its festive spirit, 
 mocked both of them from the near future. 
 
 As they sat at breakfast, on Christmas Eve, her 
 husband's strained face appeared to her through the 
 thickness of The Times. She saw it plainly, for all the 
 paper screened it from her eyes. There came upon her 
 a swift desire to make an end, to escape. The air of the 
 room grew tense with her emotion. James put the paper 
 down on the table. She flushed at the man's obvious 
 efforts with himself. They caught themselves staring at 
 each other. She could face him and the trouble in his 
 eyes: she could not face her own thoughts that came 
 while he was in the same room. She rose, red in the 
 face, and went quickly upstairs. She did not return until 
 she had heard the front door shut very quietly, it 
 seemed to her as he went off to business. 
 
 The servants had by now, no doubt, begun to notice 
 that things were strained between her and their master. 
 That day a baffled woman lay on the couch before the 
 fire, piecing together the vulgar ends of it all; while, at 
 intervals, a parlor-maid suddenly become smug-faced 
 to her overstrung mistress brought to her tidings of 
 happiness and goodwill and peace toward men, in sundry 
 shapes of many Christmas cards. 
 
 In the afternoon his mother called. Her face took 
 on tragedy as soon as the girl who showed her 
 into the room had shut the door behind her. James 
 had not told her of his wife's confession; but she knew 
 instinctively that a crisis was in the air that boded disaster 
 for her boy. She was not without tact, but she was not 
 aware that Christmas, and all that appertained to the 
 spirit thereof, had become hateful things to the woman 
 in bondage; who answered her seasonable greeting with 
 a queer voice and strange eyes and flushed face that 
 somehow between them motioned her to a chair before
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 341 
 
 the fire. Helen felt that control over herself was leav- 
 ing her and his mother was the last woman in the world 
 she wished to be with just then. 
 
 "Hasn't Tim got back yet, Helen?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "His father was home soon after two. They closed 
 early." 
 
 "Oh?" 
 
 "Yes." Mrs. Burkett would have given ten years of 
 her life to have been able to have acted Santa Claus to 
 her son's household just then. Changing the subject 
 from Burkett and Bowker, she hinted at such possibilities 
 by the time a few more Christmases should come round. 
 
 Her daughter-in-law did not respond, but sat staring 
 hard at the fire. 
 
 His mother feared the worst had happened, and a 
 chill fog began in her throat. Speech failed her, and 
 tears brightened in her tired eyes. 
 
 Helen did not see them, but sat staring on; she could 
 hardly bring herself to look at his mother. And this sort 
 of "life" she had got to accustom herself to for years 
 and years and years. At that moment she could have 
 wished the man who had aroused a madness of love in 
 her had been a man arrogant, brutal even, in his desires, 
 who would have taken her away as his own legitimate 
 spoil of sex-conquest. The artist, too long latent in her, 
 and now struggling into first expression, craved for vital 
 kinship with one for whom the world was a place through 
 which men still quested for the high peaks of passion 
 that come and go through sunsets and the starry veils of 
 night. She glanced at her visitor, and knew that she could 
 feel: but between the lives of the two stretched that dif- 
 ference of things, concerning which, one of the two 
 women felt life was too short to attempt to cross, and 
 the other knew she could not ever hope to pass. Helen 
 saw the narrow morality of the world about her as a 
 wide waste place that held her from the promised land. 
 Too clever not to know that its observance was largely 
 due to dearth of imagination, and to the cold unbeautiful
 
 342 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 lusts that bind men's souls to the huckster's mart, she was 
 too estranged by perturbation of spirit to appreciate the 
 homelier virtues of loving kindness, domestic sacrifice, 
 and purity of heart, that persisted in spite of its con- 
 ventions and comfortable creeds. His mother's troubled 
 face, when she had glanced at it, irritated more than it 
 hurt her. 
 
 "Helen, I see you wish to be alone, dear. I will 
 go." She felt afraid lest she should aggravate the girl. 
 She could feel for her, to a certain degree, in her 
 struggle. 
 
 Helen rose. "Yes, mother. Don't think me rude. I 
 fancy you understand." 
 
 Mrs. Burkett sighed; and went quietly away as Helen 
 let her out. She could not turn at the gate. She was 
 crying bitterly. 
 
 Soon after she was gone Helen put on her hat and 
 winter cloak, and walked down into the town. She did 
 not meet her husband, and supposed he was spending the 
 afternoon with some city cronies. 
 
 She turned at the station bridge, to see Mervyn In- 
 gestre hurrying toward her, a little ragged girl running 
 by his side, with her frightened dirty- white face stained 
 with many tears. 
 
 He was looking round behind him, apparently for 
 a tram. Before he reached her he saw Helen Burkett, 
 and raised his hat, with a faint smile as he did so, and 
 was for passing on. 
 
 She stopped him, and glanced at the frightened face 
 of the little girl. 
 
 "What is it?" she asked quickly. 
 
 "Her mother has just died. A shocking case, in Col- 
 lier's Wood or Lower Tooting, somewhere," he told her 
 in a low voice, so that the child could not hear. 
 
 "Let me come with you !" He hesitated, and she added 
 hurriedly, "It will do me good, believe me." 
 
 He was startled at her earnestness when she re- 
 peated, "Let me come, Mervyn. I must. They may want 
 a woman," she urged.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 343 
 
 "I dare not take you, Hel Mrs. Burkett! It would 
 be too painful for you!" 
 
 "Too painful? You do not understand me, I 
 see." 
 
 They got into a tram together, without speaking 
 further. Twenty minutes later they stood by the broken 
 straw mattress on which lay the wreck of what had once 
 been a living woman. 
 
 Another child was huddled up in filthy rags in the 
 corner. She was holding a piece of an old sack tightly 
 round her while she slept. It was bitterly cold and damp 
 in the room where the dead mother lay. 
 
 Mervyn Ingestre did not look at the woman he loved. 
 He knew she had shuddered and cried out; and that she 
 was now rapidly taking off her gloves and cloak. He 
 gave the child, that had come with him, some money, and 
 sent her off on an errand for coals and wood and bread 
 and bovril, all of which he knew she could get close at 
 hand. 
 
 Two women who dwelt in the same house had fol- 
 lowed them up the dirty street and saw them enter. They 
 now came to the door of the room and stood staring 
 awkwardly. 
 
 Helen turned to them. "You know what we shall 
 want. One of you get some hot water, and one of you 
 go for some sheeting quickly. Here is half a sovereign." 
 She took out her purse. "You shall have another if you 
 do as I tell you. Has the doctor been?" 
 
 "No, lidy. It'll be a kyse forve' parrish, pore 
 soul!" 
 
 "Well, tell them, of course." 
 
 The women went off, and she turned to her com- 
 panion. Her face was grave collected, now that the 
 shock had passed. 
 
 "Mervyn, people live like this and die! She has 
 starved to death ! . . . I must have known, and yet I did 
 not know till now!" She left off speaking, and then went 
 to the heap of rags in the corner, and bent down over 
 the still sleeping child.
 
 344 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 He saw the pity in her face and attitude, and never 
 had she seemed so wonderful a woman as then. 
 
 "Had we known we might have saved her. The child 
 had been to William Ridley's place, and Mrs. Ridley sent 
 her up to me this afternoon. That was the first we heard 
 of it. Lots of them die like this, I'm afraid. It is too 
 awful," he said sadly. 
 
 She came and stood beside him by the dead, and he 
 saw that she had been crying over the heap of rags in 
 the corner. 
 
 An hour later they left the wretched slum, into which 
 a brown fog had crept like a loathsome thing, foul as 
 the roadway and broken pavement above which it 
 hung. 
 
 She said good-bye to him at the top of the hill, and 
 walked swiftly home. The thing she had just seen put 
 away her own trouble. 
 
 The girl's face as she let her mistress in puzzled and 
 vaguely annoyed the latter. 
 
 James was lying stretched on the couch by the fire. 
 She glanced at him, and was going over to him, a woman 
 chastened in spirit, when a strangeness in his face stopped 
 her. It was dark red, and a half grin lurked about his 
 red eyes and mouth. He was drunk. 
 
 "Cheer O ! Helen, ole girl ! Happy Chrishmas !" 
 
 He laughed outright, and his laugh was at once lick- 
 erish and mocking with the sardonic acid in it. 
 
 Her own face was dull red as she stood and stared 
 at him. 
 
 He got up slowly, and then turned on her quickly. 
 In his hand was a piece of mistletoe, and he held it over 
 her a sudden and stupid solemnity in his face and ac- 
 tion. Then he laughed again. 
 
 "Ah, ah! Helen, ole girl. Jush one, for your own 
 hushban, eh?" 
 
 She was shocked at his face after the thing she had 
 left in the Lower Tooting slum. 
 
 All in ignorance of where she had been, her eyes, as
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 345 
 
 she shrank back from him, stung him to the swift anger 
 of drunken men. 
 
 "You won't? Won' I you, my dear! I shay you'll 
 kiss your hushban under mishletoe when he ashks you. 
 Come!" 
 
 She was a strong woman. Had it occurred before 
 her chastening of spirit she would have struggled away 
 from him in a frenzy of hate and repulsion. As it was, 
 after a vain attempt to prevent him, he got her in his 
 powerful arms, his eyes gone mad at her resistance with 
 strong desire and drink. He kissed her repeatedly. Then 
 he let her go, and turned'sullenly satisfied, to the couch. 
 He threw himself down, and fell asleep. 
 
 She had hurried to their bedroom and quietly turned 
 the key. His violence had brought it all back again. She 
 sat down on a chair and covered her face and eyes with 
 her hands. She must escape from him at all costs. Life 
 with him would soon become impossible. All at once 
 anger with her husband had left her, and with it hate. 
 Contempt, in its turn, was gone. All her faculties now 
 grew quiet and cunning. A sense of an invincible strength 
 of love for the other man filled her. She would win him 
 for her own. She would leave her husband but not 
 yet. Mervyn should see she had tried her best to live with 
 the man who had married her, as James Burkett's wife. 
 James had lost all power to frighten her now. In the 
 roots of her being she knew she would bear him no more 
 children she knew it. 
 
 If the other would not come to her she would seduce 
 him. She knew him instinctively for a man pure of 
 women, and the thought intoxicated her as she sat there, 
 thinking, thinking, thinking, with changing but indomita- 
 ble eyes. 
 
 James awoke sober from his drunken sleep before 
 bed time. He was surprised to find she had taken it 
 quietly and that she was apparently anxious to forget it 
 when he apologized as if ashamed. Afterward he 
 thought he had taught her a lesson. 
 
 They spent Christmas Day amicably together with his
 
 346 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 family at "Downlands." Mrs. Darell, who had found 
 another tenant for "Cloudeshill," had left Wimbledon to 
 keep house for her brother, who had lost his wife. She 
 made one of the party. Helen did not tell her mother of 
 the turn events had taken.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 PHOEBE'S REVENGE 
 
 MRS. GUNN and Mrs. Lowage who have been al- 
 ready introduced to the reader were the leaders of two 
 schools of thought in "literary" Wimbledon. Both wrote 
 novels with alarming facility; and each made a point of 
 waging a relentless war of scathing criticisms against the 
 creations of the other excepting on those occasions when 
 they happened to meet, when they mutually observed a 
 strict armistice and became even friendly. 
 
 If neither could be said to have added greatly to the 
 world's art, they had not been without their influence 
 upon a section of Wimbledon society, which had divided 
 itself into The Gunns and The Lowages: to which di- 
 vision some Wimbledonian households bore frequent and 
 eloquent testimony permanent "separations" having oc- 
 curred in one or two instances. 
 
 Mrs. Gunn's methods were principally "subjective"; 
 the "objective" being systematically adhered to by Mrs. 
 Lowage. With the latter, Virtue always rose triumphant 
 at the proper moment, and Vice, after gnashing its teeth 
 frightfully, generally hurled itself down dreadful abysses 
 which yawned in the most unexpected places, where one 
 would really never have thought of looking for them 
 and was seen no more. Her heroes were in the nature 
 of a Type, visualized by their creator into permanence, 
 until they might almost be said to represent a distinct 
 species. They frequently had eyes blue as June is in the 
 Austrian Tyrol, and iron frames as commonly as piano- 
 fortes. Her villains were so extraordinary villainous 
 that it was really wonderful how they managed to dis- 
 
 347
 
 348 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 guise their real nature at all, under any mask smaller 
 than a railway arch even from her heroines, who were 
 almost too good for this world and never noticed the 
 great chunks of villainy sticking out in places until the 
 mask fell off, just after the hero entered, and all was 
 revealed. 
 
 Mrs. Gunn's masterpieces "Love's Liquorice" and 
 "The Vivisection of Vivienne," which had created quite a 
 sensation, had been publicly denounced by her rival as 
 "pornographic"; and respectable Wimbledon had in- 
 dorsed her opinion to the extent of denying any ac- 
 quaintance with them, except from hearsay, and reading 
 them in private. 
 
 Mrs. Lowage's magnum opus written as a whole- 
 some corrective to the pernicious influences of "Liquorice" 
 and "Vivisection" had evoked from Mrs. Gunn the 
 critique that Mrs. Lowage in "Sir Harry Montacute's 
 Honor," was still weltering in the flood of her own il- 
 limitable inane; and respectable Wimbledon, while the- 
 oretically rejecting her opinion in public, had privately ac- 
 cepted it. 
 
 In Mrs. Lowage, Phoebe Price (now the wife of the 
 Rev. Eustice Heugh) on the occasion of the wedding of 
 James Burkett and Helen Darell, had found an ardent 
 sympathizer. Phoebe had loved James with as much 
 love as she was capable of feeling for anyone ; and she 
 hated her successful rival in the affections of that young 
 gentleman with a very considerable hatred. 
 
 The Rev. Eustice still met Mervyn Ingestre casually, 
 and one day he had mentioned to his wife that he had 
 seen Ingestre and Mrs. Burkett together on more than 
 one occasion. His remark had set Phoebe thinking; and 
 at last her chance came for revenge. 
 
 At one of Mrs. Lowage's "at homes" she had adroitly 
 turned the conversation upon the subject of Mervyn In- 
 gestre, and a few carefully worded hints respecting a 
 certain consolation he found in his work among the lower 
 orders had at once commanded the attention of her audi- 
 ence. No name was mentioned at the time, but her indi-
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 349 
 
 cations pointed too unmistakably to one woman for any 
 doubt to exist in the minds of her listeners more than 
 one of whom had a personal animus against Helen Bur- 
 kett. 
 
 To do Mrs. Lowage justice she tried to stop the 
 scandal, and even went so far as to publicly remonstrate 
 with Mrs. Heugh. She might as well have tried to stop 
 the sea. 
 
 Here then was the reason of Mervyn Ingestre's inex- 
 plicable conduct! The wicked woman had cast a spell 
 over him on her own wedding day ! Now she was seek- 
 ing to "assist" him while he expiated his fault which was 
 hers! 
 
 A dozen ladies at once jumped to similar conclusions, 
 and promptly proceeded to compare notes. Mervyn In- 
 gestre and Helen Burkett were a marked man and woman 
 for the future. Confirmation of Mrs. Heugh's remarks 
 was soon to hand; and innuendoes became definite 
 charges; and definite charges were followed by con- 
 viction of guilt, after the evidence of the suborned wit- 
 nesses of calumny. People began to talk openly, and it 
 soon reached James Burkett's ears to the secret delight 
 of the originator of the scandal, whose objective was 
 not so much his punishment as that of the woman his 
 wife. 
 
 Now James Burkett trusted his wife. She had told 
 him of all her meetings with Mervyn since her avowal to 
 her husband. As a matter of fact, such meetings had 
 been few and perfectly open nor had anything of love 
 been hinted at on either side. She had told Mervyn of 
 her confession to James and her husband's consent to their 
 meeting; and Mervyn had tackled an unpleasant situation 
 and seen James personally. He had passed his word of 
 honor there should be no word of love spoken betwee'n 
 him and Burkett's wife. No one, by nature inherently 
 vile, could know Mervyn Ingestre and believe him capa- 
 ble of willful deceit or baseness. There were a purity and 
 honesty and an utter absence of guile about the man which 
 were too self-evident to be mistaken; and James, though
 
 350 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 naturally inclined at first to abominate all thought of the 
 other, had, after their interview, felt considerably re- 
 lieved. He couldn't understand what any woman could 
 see in Mervyn to be so infatuated especially when that 
 woman happened to be James Burkett's wife. He con- 
 cluded that it was an infatuation which would pass; and 
 he determined to show Helen that there was more in him 
 than her lover poet or no poet. She would soon grow 
 sick of "slumming." And his drunken lapse had, no 
 doubt, shamed her into playing the game with him. 
 Whatever her faults, she was too good a sportswoman at 
 heart to drive her own husband to drink. In his better 
 moments he had doubted if it had been quite a gentle- 
 manly or even manly thing to do. Losing their baby had 
 perhaps unhinged her a bit. But there you were ! Good- 
 ness knows he had used her lightly enough as a rule, but 
 there were times with fillies when the curb rein had to be 
 used 1 She had been docile and easy enough to manage, 
 after it He had taken it in time. She had taken a 
 woman's fancy, a whim, for the curate fellow. Women 
 were so damned sentimental and all that. And it would 
 save him going in for all that art rubbish and book- 
 worming if she had someone she could gush over such 
 dry things with. 
 
 But, and it was a big but the thought of being 
 taken for, and spoken of as, a "complacent husband" was 
 too much for his vanity. He couldn't have people talk- 
 ing about him behind his back! With his mother's as- 
 sistance he had traced the scandal to its source the easier 
 as his wife had immediately put her finger on the right 
 spot, and his inquiries had proved her correctness; but 
 the poison of calumny did its work. He became irritable, 
 suspicious, at last, of everyone. He experienced a curi- 
 ous shrinking from telling her about the talk that was 
 going on; he feared, yes, actually feared (he did not re- 
 member having ever feared anything before as he feared 
 his wife) the quiet questioning of her wonderful eyes 
 which would read him like a book, and, after a half scorn- 
 ful query as to whether he doubted her, her remark which
 
 'THRACIAN SEA" 351 
 
 would follow it, she was not aware that he was in the 
 habit of studying, or respecting, or valuing the suscep- 
 tibilities or opinions of the good people in question. 
 
 He must take every opportunity of getting her away 
 with him whenever he could. The chance of a few days 
 with the Steyning and Henfield Foxhounds presented it- 
 self: they could find a common pleasure in a day or two's 
 hunting together: it was too good to be lost. 
 
 She did not want to go just then she had made an 
 arrangement with Mervyn to assist in some readings at 
 The Regenerators but she at once acquiesced in her 
 husband's suggestion that they should start for his friend's 
 place near West Grinstead that day week, and wrote a 
 note of explanation to her lover. 
 
 At "Downlands" poor Mrs. Burkett had been under- 
 going a purgatory of anguish and suspense for her son. 
 He had told his mother of Helen's statement to him 
 and Ingestre's interview and promise. Mrs. Burkett, 
 knowing the girl's character as she now did, felt herself 
 powerless, and unable to help him except with her sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 On Thursday morning there came a letter for James 
 from a man who suggested a week-end run on their motor 
 bikes to North Wales. The weather was fine and mild. 
 The idea appealed to him: Helen should see that he 
 could trust her. The afterthought appealed to his feel- 
 ings of magnanimity. He wasn't one to play the spy 
 over his wife. 
 
 "He wants me to go for a run round North Wales on 
 the puffer this week-end, Helen," he said as he put the 
 letter down. "I daresay you can spare me!" He would 
 chaff her out of her nonsense. It would all help. He 
 wanted to go, and she was less likely to object if he used 
 a little "sarc." 
 
 "Yes, Jim. Certainly, go by all means." She paid 
 no attention to his banter. She even went off and found 
 his maps and road books for him. 
 
 So it was agreed. 
 
 When he had left the house she picked up one of
 
 352 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 the maps, then another, and another, thoughtfully. For 
 a long time she studied them closely in silence. Then she 
 said of a sudden, "That's it!" and went on with her study, 
 but this time only around one particular place on the 
 map.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 A STRANGER COMES TO STOKE MIDFORD 
 
 GAMMER POLGREAN'S Christmas had been prophe- 
 sied as her last among her neighbors. Bronchitis took 
 her for the first time in all her years, and she for long 
 lay in desperate case her brave old eyes growing dim- 
 mer and dimmer after each succeeding struggle for 
 breath. Twice it seemed that she had fought in vain, 
 that the tired heart had stopped, but the Gammer was not 
 done with yet. 
 
 Mrs. Gates and Margaret, from Lonesome Mr. 
 Gates' farm, at Hazley Parva hurried to her aid. Dur- 
 ing her convalescence she averred that it was her determi- 
 nation to nurse the baby that had kept her alive. At the 
 turn of the year the danger was passed; and ere January 
 was half through she had her desire. Mrs. Gates re- 
 turned to her husband: Margaret remained at Midford, 
 indifferent to gossip now that she could nurse the old 
 woman back to health, who had stood by her in sturdy 
 championship after her flight from the land of her own 
 people. The thought that the baby had been begotten 
 in their loved Midford Holt pleased the Gammer im- 
 mensely; and she startled the girl, after hearing sundry 
 confessions, with a flurry of hope, by insisting that her 
 man would be glad to return to her yet, in due season. 
 
 On the Friday afternoon when James Burkett sped 
 
 toward the Welsh mountains she was sitting by the par- 
 gray shawl. Beside 
 the hearth-rug, was the child. With occasional chucklings 
 
 lor fire wrapped in a great gray shawl. Beside her, on 
 
 he waved a dappled gray horse by its sole surviving leg, 
 353
 
 354 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 Margaret was in the kitchen tidying up, and washing baby 
 clothes. 
 
 Gammer sat peacefully watching the child, crowing 
 and clucking to him from time to time. Presently, after 
 a careful examination of the fire-guard, her eyes closed 
 and she fell into a doze. 
 
 A woman with a veil, in walking costume and thick 
 boots, turned into the road that ran through Stoke Mid- 
 ford from the south, and approached the hamlet. She 
 studied the cottages carefully right and left of her. A 
 woman came to the door of one of them to stare at the 
 stranger, who, after a glance in her direction, walked 
 on, and the other went back into the cottage. 
 
 The woman in the veil was walking more slowly now. 
 There were only two other cottages ahead of her, the first 
 a few score yards from the cluster she had just come 
 through, the second some distance further up the valley. 
 
 As she reached the first cottage a baby boy, with yel- 
 low hair and brown eyes, appeared in the open gateway. 
 He clutched at the green palings for support with one 
 hand, while he threw a one-legged horse before him into 
 the road, chuckling to himself as he did so. Then he 
 began to advance into the open on slow, unsteady feet. 
 He saw the woman with the veil and stopped. He began 
 to laugh. Then he fell down. 
 
 The woman with the veil hastened to his aid. As she 
 did so she heard an aged voice somewhere in the cottage 
 call out : "Jimmy ! Jim-mie ! Where's he to, Margret, 
 the raresk'll, he be arf agen, to be sure ! I just dozed a 
 bit, dearie 1" 
 
 A young woman came hurrying through the open 
 door. By this the woman with the veil had picked up the 
 truant and was brushing the grit out of his little palms. 
 His mother thanked her shyly, and the woman with the 
 veil said: 
 
 "What a dear little boy. How old is he?" 
 
 "Eighteen months this month, ma'am." She had 
 picked up the horse. Now she picked up her baby boy,
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 355 
 
 and stood shaking her head smilingly over his solemn 
 face that stared at the stranger. 
 
 "Dear little chap! Good-bye, baby!" The woman 
 with the veil waved her hand to him, and walked away. 
 
 The mother stood by the gate watching her go, be- 
 tween whiles gently pinching the child's cheeks and nose. 
 Then she went back into the cottage, and shut the door 
 behind her. 
 
 The woman with the veil walked quickly past the 
 remaining cottage, scarcely looking at it. 
 
 When she reached the cross roads, further on, with- 
 out hesitation she turned to the right, and approached 
 the great belt of purple-brown beech woods. She had 
 studied the district carefully, on the map, and had re- 
 membered the roads and the lie of the land. 
 
 Some half a mile further on a fallen tree lay along 
 the grassy strip beside the road. She sat down and lifted 
 her veil, after glancing up and down the road. The 
 place was very lonely: the woods thick before her and 
 behind. It suited her mood, and she was soon deep in 
 thought. Once she brought out from her pocket a piece 
 of paper and a pencil, and made a quick calculation, going 
 over the figures twice, thrice. Then she tore the paper 
 to small pieces and dropped them behind the trunk. 
 
 Her face had brightened with a curious smile. Did 
 he know, she wondered. In the child's face she had seen 
 her husband's: the girl was the girl she had seen him 
 with that night, some two years before. Margaret: the 
 Margaret he had spoken of in his sleep. And she had 
 called their child Jimmy after its father, the man her 
 husband. Gradually she filled in the picture that came 
 before her dark strange eyes. Her child the child she 
 had borne him was dead: there was no jealousy in her 
 eyes, but the light of thoughts that had in them the prom- 
 ise of a great hope for the thinker. Then she spoke out 
 aloud : 
 
 "Now, my dear, my own love, we shall come together 
 in the end! Do you hear, Mervyn You and I! . . . 
 He shall not part us for ever, or for long. Oh, my lover,
 
 356 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 my own true love, I want you so ! No, Mervyn, you do 
 not know how much I want you. But one day, sweet- 
 heart, one day I will be your wife. I will love you as 
 few women love as women love when they worship a 
 man as I worship you. You are worth it, my beloved. 
 Oh, God, how I love you, Mervyn ! I love you, love you, 
 love you!" Her voice sank from a note of exaltation 
 down into a whisper through the last sentence. Her face 
 was transfigured, rapt, with passion and tenderness. 
 
 For an hour she sat there thinking, dreaming, whis- 
 pering to herself; undisturbed in that lonely road between 
 the high beech woods, from which the light went slowly, 
 leaving, as it went, blue, beautiful shadows among the 
 trees. 
 
 At last she rose from her seat, and looked at her 
 watch. Then she pulled down her veil, and continued her 
 journey, walking swiftly and confidently toward the town 
 of Shapston. 
 
 When she reached the grass country beyond the woods 
 a horse came whinnying to a gate as she passed. She 
 stopped, and stroked his muzzle. She thought of her 
 own horse, who had unwittingly carried her into the land 
 of bondage. The time was coming when she would have 
 to forget him, when she would ride no more. As she 
 walked on her chief regret was one about a horse. For 
 a little she played with the fancies such regret evoked. 
 Then she put them from her, and forgot everything but 
 the man she loved. Soon she was going on a quest where 
 no horse could carry her; a hunting whose quarry was 
 her soul's satisfying, her heart's desire.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 HER TAME POET SAYS GOOD-NIGHT TO HIS DIVINITY, AND 
 TO HER MOTHER-IN-LAW 
 
 As James Burkett let himself in, by the front door 
 of his house, his mother came to him from the drawing- 
 room. 
 
 "Jim, your cousin Harry and his wife, from America, 
 are here. I've come on with them from 'Downlands.' 
 They're off to Birmingham first thing to-morrow." 
 
 "Oh?" Something in his mother's face made him 
 add, "Is Helen there?" 
 
 "No, she was out when we called, and she hasn't 
 come back yet." 
 
 "Hang the girl!" James wanted his visitors to see 
 Helen as his wife and as their hostess. "She's down 
 there with her tame poet, regenerating some of the great 
 unwashed, spouting away to a lot of engine-drivers or 
 something ! I wonder she's not tired of the thing by now. 
 There's no end of a mess of papers about the house she's 
 been fiddling about with for days, for some penny read- 
 ing or other they're up to. Thank goodness we're off out 
 of it, for a bit, to-morrow!" They were to start for 
 West Grinstead on the following morning. 
 
 His mother could see he was annoyed at his wife's 
 absence. 
 
 "I'll run down to the place and bring her back, Jim. 
 It'll not take me long. I can get a bus, and a cab at the 
 station. She didn't know they were coming, of course, or 
 I don't suppose she'd have gone out this evening." 
 
 James looked doubtfully at her. "Will you, mother? 
 Thanks awfully, you're a brick !" He wanted his tea. 
 
 357
 
 358 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 They went into the room and James began to enter- 
 tain his guests as well as he could. His mother, after 
 apologizing to them for having her son's tea brought to 
 him, went off on a search for the lady beautiful of the 
 house. 
 
 She reached The Regenerators. There was a light 
 in the club room. She knocked at the door. William 
 Ridley opened it. 
 
 "Yes, ma'am?" 
 
 "Is Mrs. Burkett here?" 
 
 "Yes, ma'am. Come in." 
 
 Mrs. Burkett, senior, stepped into the room. At the 
 far end was a typewriter on a table covered with papers. 
 Helen was sorting out some of the latter. On a bench 
 at one end of the table a young man, in a tram-driver's 
 uniform, stared at her in respectful wonder. At the other 
 end of the table Mervyn Ingestre sat writing rapidly. 
 
 Helen looked up, and caught sight of her mother-in- 
 law. 
 
 "Half a minute !" She packed up a lot of the sheets 
 and put them on one side. Then she came across the 
 room to the other. "Yes, mother?" 
 
 "Helen, Jim's cousin Harry from America's turned 
 up unexpectedly with his wife. Jim wants you to meet 
 them: they want to meet you very much, dear. I said 
 I'd run down and find you as you didn't know. I've a cab 
 outside. Perhaps you won't mind coming back with me? 
 They're off early to-morrow morning." 
 
 "Certainly!" She went back to the table and showed 
 some of the papers to Mervyn Ingestre. The latter had 
 risen and bowed to Mrs. Burkett when she entered. 
 Helen was soon ready. She pulled on her gloves, and 
 said good-night to Mervyn and to the young man. Wil- 
 liam Ridley opened the door: Ingestre saw them into the 
 cab, and said good-night again. 
 
 Mrs. Burkett was pleased with the success of her 
 journey and at the girl's ready acquiescence. She would 
 be back with her in under the hour. In the present state 
 of affairs she dreaded anything which might aggravate
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 359 
 
 either her son or his wife in their relations with each 
 other. Now in the cab she began chatting amicably about 
 their visitors. 
 
 Helen answered her with as much interest in the sub- 
 ject as she could summon up, and with as much attention 
 as common politeness required. For the greater part of 
 the time she was wondering what his mother would feel 
 if she knew about the girl Margaret and the child Jimmy. 
 Since her newly acquired knowledge of women in the hum- 
 bler stations of life, Helen had come to the conclusion 
 that James was in ignorance of the truth of the matter. 
 She knew that girls had a certain "pride," in these things, 
 more commonly than was generally supposed, which made 
 them bear their trouble in secret and in silence, rather 
 than bring worry or disgrace on the man they loved. She 
 believed that this had been the case with Margaret. Some- 
 thing in the young mother's eyes had revealed her nature 
 sufficiently to the other for the latter to judge correctly 
 as to her conduct toward the man who had got her into 
 trouble. 
 
 As for herself, with the secret in her possession, she 
 was content to wait a while. Mervyn, James both 
 should see she had tried hard to remain as wife to the 
 man she had married. Her one fear was that any hasty 
 action on her part might send Mervyn away for ever. 
 His passion for her must grow, as those hours of weari- 
 ness induced by the too often thankless nature of his self- 
 imposed tasks accumulated. She v/ould make herself in- 
 dispensable, necessary, to him her society the one thing 
 peaceful,, with such peace as a poet would long for in his 
 
 She must carefully prepare Mervyn first She would 
 let him gradually understand how much she, too, was 
 suffering. Then, when the time was propitious, she would 
 refuse to remain the wife of a man she had ceased to 
 love, and who had a child alive by another woman. There 
 were moments in her life when she felt a sickening aver- 
 sion for her husband, a frantic desire to escape from him 
 for ever. Shame indescribable stung her through long
 
 360 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 secret hours of self-loathing and contempt. It was part 
 of the price she must pay, and only she knew that she 
 paid in full. She even felt a ghastly pleasure in her pun- 
 ishment at times now that she might hope: when that 
 day came when she would have her desire she felt it 
 would be sweeter, fuller, for her having passed through 
 those places of the spirit's purgatory, set darkling for that 
 pilgrimage peculiar to her sex.
 
 CHAPTER XLI 
 
 BETWEEN THE HILLS AND THE SEA 
 
 THE sea wind streams up the valley, singing through 
 the bents on the hillsides and rustling the dry dead leaves 
 of the previous year that still cling on the oaks in the 
 more sheltered places. Spring is coming, but there are 
 few signs of her yet for the eyes the other senses are, 
 however, kept well aware of her approach. There is no 
 mistaking that sweet soft "difference" in the air down 
 here in this little coombe that widens out into the bigger 
 valley in front; with the great swelling breasts of the 
 down rising up behind it, and curved so that the top is 
 completely hidden from view. There is no mistaking the 
 song the thrush is singing that is, reader, if you are not 
 too entirely "civilized" to be susceptible to such "trivial" 
 things or that of the blackbird, his sable congener, who 
 mocks his song and embellishes it with a dozen conceits 
 of his own. I will not say there is no mistaking the song 
 that is, apparently, falling from the soft gray-white sky: 
 in a sense the lark is incomprehensible God. 
 
 Only a singing bird nice, roasted? Maybe. To 
 some folk, still, these things are more than fine clothes 
 or fine houses or motor cars or music halls, or the wisdom 
 of crowds and cities, which has said that Simplicity is 
 the sign of fools, and that a rich rogue is a finer figure 
 than a poor fool; that luxuries are the true necessaries 
 of life ; that the ultimate of true wisdom for the individual 
 and for the race is to be found in the development of 
 man's capacity for dominating and exploiting his fellows 
 by superior "business ability" ; that neurosis, dyspepsia, 
 and failing eyesight are insignificant trifles when weighed
 
 362 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 in the balance against the advantages and refinements of 
 Commercialism tubes, trams, motor buses, lady clerks, 
 and that sharpening up of the wits which produces, in the 
 few, a morbidly active secretion of business acumen, and 
 in the many the slow perversion of the swift spirit of 
 man to the automatic pulses of the machine. 
 
 Here there is no smoke nor sound in the air from 
 the breath of cities. Here in this quiet valley through 
 the hills to the sea; here, where the thrush sings and 
 the blackbird mocks his song; here, where Earth is busy 
 about her arrangements, her preparations for her com- 
 ing domestic duties silently and gladly getting ready for 
 her bridal, to the multitudinous music of the spring; here, 
 where the violets show like a mist of blue along the edge 
 of a hazel copse, and the purple orchis is lifting its 
 spike through a wave of lush grass that sweeps up and 
 out of the valley to the edge of the copse a wave of 
 dark green against the lighter downland turf: here is 
 nothing but 
 
 Round a spur of the down, to the northward, a small 
 red-brown something comes, running straight for a bit 
 of broken land and tangled brake lower down the valley, 
 on the other side of a chalk road which crosses it at that 
 point. Here, from the copse we can study him he has 
 not seen us, and he keeps straight on. 
 
 One, two, one, then two more, then others a little 
 further off white and black and tan they come, hard 
 upon him, and running now almost mute. He is a good 
 game fox, and hounds have made a point of more than 
 eight miles over and through the hills. With wonderful 
 skill and courage this dog-fox runs, picking his way his 
 brush almost as clean and light as when he went away 
 from his favorite gorse an hour ago. Two "young uns" 
 lead the pack, a low whimper trailing behind them as 
 they run; an old hound, Traveler clever and game as 
 any ever pupped swinging along steadily a yard or two 
 in their rear. A splash of scarlet catches the sun, now 
 shining brightly through the clouds; black coats show 
 nearer the copse side : the thud of hoofs, the loud breath
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 363 
 
 of horses ridden hard, the creak of straining leather, 
 the clink of bridles: there is no mistaking her as she 
 thrusts her favorite along for all he is worth, a big 
 man on a fiddle-headed chestnut close at the bay's quar- 
 ters, on the further side. 
 
 Instinctively Thracian Sea knows that she wishes him 
 to get away from the chestnut that she wishes him to 
 struggle, struggle, struggle, until that echo of hoof- 
 strokes, just behind, fades away to the rear. He knows 
 these things, and if his sight is getting dimmer, if there 
 is a curious burning sensation in his lungs right through 
 to his withers, if the tongue that is hanging out of the 
 side of his mouth seems to be getting too large ever to 
 go back again, he gallops on. 
 
 Her face is flushed; there is strangeness in her dark 
 eyes as a cloud shadow darkens the grass of the valley 
 ahead of her and the sunlight burns like a patch of molten 
 silver on the distant plain of the far gray sea. Hus- 
 band and wife, together, side by side. Better so? Who 
 can say? She has looked into her husband's eyes, and her 
 own had a challenge in them. 
 
 He had seen the challenge in them, away back, at 
 the top of the downs, and, because of it, has fought it 
 out with her all the way down the slope into the valley. 
 
 Now she looks over her shoulder at him again 
 swiftly. This time he does not see. Be glad of that, 
 James Burkett, for her heart, her soul, are in her eyes 
 now; things implacable; aversion; defiance; and some- 
 thing other than all these something that no husband 
 who has once loved his wife would care to remember 
 or be able ever to forget. Perhaps because of that 
 other thing for which there is no name, she calls on 
 Thracian Sea once more. 
 
 Thracian Sea is nearly done no one, not he, not 
 even his lady above him, knows how near he is to the 
 end of his powers. He shows little signs of it save that 
 he hangs a bit up the hillside to the left. Twenty miles 
 and more has he galloped with his beloved mistress this 
 day; and the last mile or two from that beech clump
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 which shows against the sky at the head of the valley 
 it has been a cracker. 
 
 James on his second horse can hold her no more, 
 for all his fresher mount and hard riding. She half 
 turns her head as he shouts something to her. The 
 quarry has reached the stone wall, built of beach cobbles 
 in the Sussex manner, this side the road, and is over a 
 few yards in front of the leading hounds. As they scram- 
 ble after him Traveler suddenly gives tongue, and when 
 they appear in sight again he has rushed past his younger 
 comrades and closes rapidly with the pursued. 
 
 At the sight and sound Helen calls on Thracian Sea 
 for yet another effort. The wall is not high though it 
 is higher than it looks at this distance. Suddenly James 
 cries out to her a sharp cry with a note of fear in it; 
 but neither she nor Thracian Sea ever falters. 
 
 Something like a light of triumph is in her face as 
 her husband drops back beaten; then she gathers her 
 horse together, and Thracian Sea answers unflinchingly. 
 He rolls a bit, it is true, but he will do it, never fear! 
 
 From the top of the wall tiny sparks break into 
 flower, and there comes a puff of powdered mortar: in 
 the field beyond there is a flurry of red and white and 
 black and tan as Traveler pulls down his fox and the 
 others rush into and break him up : more sparks, and fly- 
 ing dust in the road where Thracian Sea's life closes 
 with one or two frantic hoofstrokes tearing up the flints 
 and chalk: and the next moment James Burkett has scram- 
 bled over the wall, and, with a scream like a wounded 
 beast, slips on to his knees by his wife's body lying limp 
 and motionless beside Thracian Sea. She is clear of her 
 horse, across whose dappled flanks the last faint ripple 
 of the ebbing wave of life has passed and shuddered into 
 stillness; his neck is broken gallant old Thracian Sea. 
 
 She is lying on her back with her eyes closed, a thin 
 froth of blood oozing from her nostrils and mouth. 
 There is a look on her face which for a moment freezes 
 the man bending over her into a passive attitude of hope- 
 less despair, and the next makes him kiss the bloody froth
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 365 
 
 from her lips with a passion of tenderness dreadful to 
 behold. 
 
 Some hours later James Burkett comes out of a house 
 in a little Sussex village, half hidden in the hills, where 
 they have taken her, and stumbles slowly up the white 
 chalk road fading into the darkness of the hillside and 
 the night. 
 
 At last he reaches the top of the down, his face 
 strange and old. To him, up here in the silence of the 
 hills, the world seems very old and dark. Tragedy has 
 taken hold on him and spoken to him drawn him on one 
 side as it were, with words which beat like the echo of a 
 dirge through the man's stricken brain. Four words that 
 hold scarce a meaning for him now he stares dully in 
 front of him as if the horror which they held for him 
 had lost its power to wound him any more. He sits 
 down on the short turf, and for an hour gazes thus at a 
 light shining down there in the darkness below. 
 
 The sound of a sheep bell drifts past him on the 
 night, a beautiful sound, softly sweet and clear. Of 
 a sudden his head droops, and the tears stream through 
 his hands as he buries his face in them. 
 
 Her spine is broken! Her spine is broken! 
 
 The specialist from London has examined the un- 
 conscious woman, given his verdict to the wretched man, 
 his instructions to the nurses, and is now down there in 
 the quiet by her bedside, watching in that passionless 
 way which had chilled James Burkett to the bone, and 
 at last had driven him out to escape from everything 
 which emphasizes the dreadful, fatal words. 
 
 Escape? There is no escape from them, and he rises, 
 and, with unsteady feet, goes blindly down the rough and 
 slippery way toward the village. Once he clings to a 
 telegraph pole like a man drunk and stupid. Midnight 
 shivers from the old church tower on the opposite hill- 
 side, and the sound of the clock striking sounds to the 
 man like a passing-bell. 
 
 Her spine is broken! There is no hope. She may
 
 566 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 live for a little while, but her spine is broken! In a 
 vague, incoherent fashion his lips frame the fragment 
 of a prayer. Then the words again. Her spine is 
 broken ! 
 
 The poison of calumny has done its work; and Phoebe 
 is avenged. 
 
 Half way down this quiet borstall, under a peaceful, 
 windless night, a strange crackling laugh loses itself in 
 the darkness and silence of the hills, as the man's self- 
 control goes from him utterly. He staggers as his foot 
 strikes a stone, and he falls face downward on the turf. 
 Oaths, blasphemy, obscenity follow all mixed up in one 
 ghastly medley of execration, as he curses Phoebe, God, 
 himself, Mervyn, everything.
 
 CHAPTER XLII 
 
 AT SUNDOWN IN SUSSEX 
 
 THE glass doors faced south-west; and to the east- 
 ward, above the green shapes of the hills, the sky shone 
 in its ineffable purity of stainless blue through the golden 
 evening air. There were two or three old yews along 
 the garden wall, and in one of them a thrush was sing- 
 ing. The glass doors were wide open, and every note 
 came clearly into the room where lay the woman in bed, 
 whose eyes were always closed, and who hardly seemed 
 to breathe. 
 
 A nurse stood by the glass doors. She was wonder- 
 ing how long the woman would lie there thus, and how 
 long, therefore, her present case would last. She was 
 well paid; and her patient, poor soul, gave her no trouble. 
 She was an elderly woman, the nurse, with a tired face ; 
 and the peace of the countryside soothed her. 
 
 It was a glorious evening the west ablaze with 
 golden light. She stood watching the slowly lengthening 
 shadows creeping across the downs, and from the old 
 church tower, with its background of yew trees, above 
 the end of the village. After a while, she turned to the 
 woman in bed, and studied at close hand her white face, 
 on which the golden light was now resting. Then she 
 went out of the room. She had been gone some quarter 
 of an hour, when something happened in the room, whose 
 quiet, since she left, had been disturbed only by the clock 
 within it and the thrush without. The bedclothes moved 
 perceptibly. The woman whose eyes were always closed 
 had opened them at last. 
 
 She opened them on the square of golden light that 
 
 367
 
 3 68 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 filled the doorway. At first her gaze was meaningless, 
 that stared out at the splendor on the western world. 
 For some minutes her white face was as quiet as were 
 her eyes. Then, like a shadow creeping into it, the sense 
 of things came to her; and her eyes rested intelligently 
 on the old church tower. Like a shadow the remnants 
 of warm, loving womanhood rose under the white skin, 
 rose as it were in piteous revolt against its dreadful 
 doom, its ghastly ending and slow wait for death. Her 
 face worked horribly: tears blinded her: her appearance 
 became an awful thing in its utter abandonment and 
 despair. She needed not to be told; she knew the thing 
 that was come to her that held her there while she died. 
 At last, as if relenting, pain, physical and excruciating, 
 shuddered through her; and rebellion passed and left a 
 resignation whose hope of liberty and peace was waiting 
 for her up there, on the down, where that long shadow 
 started from the perpetual twilight of the trees. 
 
 She lay watching the light go off the hills, and listen- 
 ing now to the thrush singing outside in the garden.. The 
 joy of life was in the bird's song the joy of a life which 
 she would never know again. Presently it ceased, and 
 then commenced again from the bottom of the garden. 
 A blackbird answered, and the room echoed, then 
 silence. The cessation of the music hurt her vaguely, 
 and her mind seized upon the only sound the slow 
 ticking of the bedroom clock as if to fit a meaning to 
 its ticks. Too late ! Too late ! Too late ! it seemed to 
 her to say mocking the happiness of the bird's song. 
 She looked out and saw nothing but the shadows, and 
 closed her eyes again. She would not look at the 
 shadows, thev spoilt the golden light. Too late! Too 
 late! . . . She felt drowsy, and dozed off into a half- 
 sleep. 
 
 Suddenly, from the dark shelves of the yew tree's 
 foliage just outside the window, like water rippling from 
 the mossy ledges of a cave, a nightingale poured forth 
 his stream of melody; and she awoke and stared through 
 the tears which started to her eyes.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 369 
 
 It was getting quite dusk . . . She was a child again, 
 who had tried to reach a thrush singing in an old yew, 
 and the thrush had changed into a nightingale ... A 
 child who had watched a big red sun slip down behind 
 a hill, and she had followed it, wondering, until it grew 
 dark and she had been lost for ever so long . . . 
 
 The song seemed to be coming from a great way off ; 
 and presently she heard another sound the song of the 
 hounds in their kennels at Barleythorpe . . . She had 
 followed the sun, and the hounds . . . she would follow 
 the bird! After thousands of years it was still lamenting 
 for the child Itylus the old legend flickered through her 
 brain. 
 
 "The small slain body, the flower-like face." 
 
 The words came to her through the far-off song. 
 Her eyes were open very wide, and she listened. The 
 child? Her child. Jim's. The old, old wonder, which 
 draws the woman's thoughts to the man who has made 
 her a mother, stirred through her now . . . 
 
 It must be getting very late ... It was quite dark 
 . . . Where was Mervyn? Where was Jim? Perhaps 
 Jim had gone to look for the child? ... It was out 
 there in the dusk, somewhere, calling . . . calling with 
 its baby voice . . . She would follow, and find the 
 child . . . follow . . . follow ... on Thracian Sea 
 . . . follow until she found . . . 
 
 She shivered. It was very cold, and the pain in her 
 side hurt her. 
 
 "Mervyn!" 
 
 She gasped once, twice . . . Her head, which she 
 had raised slightly as she listened, fell back. 
 
 Helen Burkett followed her child.
 
 CHAPTER XLIII 
 
 ARGYNNIS PAPHIA, AND A "BUMBLE BUSH" 
 
 BEHIND the farm where he lived at the back of the 
 dairy was a patch of lush grass speckled with the dan- 
 delion's golden stars. Beyond the grass was a line of 
 elder trees white and sweet with their masses of bloom. 
 
 They marked what was, to him, a deep ravine, 
 through which ran a narrow path worn by the passing 
 of human feet. In this ravine grew a dense green forest 
 of nettles and the pale spreading umbels of cow-parsley. 
 It was a perilous path for baby feet, its descent and 
 opposite ascent being worn smooth and hard, with pol- 
 ished gravel stones sticking up in places. All sorts of 
 strange creatures lived among the nettle and cow-parsley 
 forest. Bears there were woolly ones which some- 
 times emerged with a rapid, sinuous gait, halted a mo- 
 ment on the sun-warm path, and then resumed their 
 noiseless way into the green depths on the other side. 
 
 Once, as he slipped down into the bottom, a soft 
 brown and yellow thing had moved among the nettles 
 at his side. His hand had seized it in the wonder and 
 joy of the moment forgetting the stings that turned into 
 little white blisters. It had commenced to run, as the 
 mice ran in the great barn, but no mouse had ever looked 
 like this thing looked just before his hand closed upon 
 it. For its brown and yellow back had opened like a 
 fan, and below shone a scarlet brighter than Mummy's 
 flowers in the pots by the front porch, and on the scarlet 
 were great spots of black and darkest blue. He had 
 cried out with delight and wonder and nettle stings, and 
 hugged it to his breast, and it had fluttered and fright-
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 371 
 
 ened him so that he dropped it; and behold! his little 
 blue frock and tiny hands were smeared with brown and 
 yellow and blue and scarlet-colored dust like flour: and 
 the tiger moth, largely the worse for his caresses, scuttled 
 off into the heart of the forest on her trembling damaged 
 plumes. Once, too, a great fierce wild animal had glided 
 past him as he descended, and he had scrambled up again 
 hurriedly and, with frightened unsteady feet, had rushed 
 back through the dandelions to the dairy, calling 
 "Yat-mummy!" the name of the dreadful creature at 
 the top of his voice; and Jack, the fox terrier, had been 
 forthwith dispatched on the track of the fearsome thing. 
 He had never forgotten the day when, for the first 
 time in his short life, he had climbed the opposite side 
 of the ravine and looked over the other side into a new 
 and unknown world. Beyond, in the shade of the elder 
 trees, stretched more lush grass and dandelions, until 
 the grass gradually grew shorter and, further on, left 
 off altogether in what the farmer considered a bit of 
 "bad land." Baby thought differently. As far as his 
 eyes could see was a wonderful wall of purple thistles 
 more than twice his own height, and on and above the 
 thistles was such a sight as made his little heart almost 
 cease and then beat wildly with excitement as he drew 
 toward them his brown eyes and ruddy lips wide open 
 in surprise. Everywhere were fluttering things of white 
 and red and brown and orange and blue that hovered 
 above the flowers or sat upon them, basking in the sun, 
 and opening and shutting their wings. They were fairies, 
 Mummy had told him, though they were not like the 
 fairies in the book she had given him, except for their 
 wings. But there were different kinds of fairies, he 
 supposed as Pompey and Mary, the mastiffs, were dif- 
 ferent from Jack. And on that day in which he had 
 first reached the thistle wall he had seen the queen of 
 them all. She was larger and different from the others. 
 Her wings, when she shut them over her head, were cov- 
 ered with little silver moons, like the moon in the sky 
 before it grew big and round. She did not sit on the
 
 372 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 thistles, but on a solitary bramble bush which grew 
 among them. Her real name was Paphia she was 
 named after Venus. He knew nothing of that lady 
 (though he knew a red and white Venus who came and 
 "mooed!" for Mummy every day, and Mummy would 
 take him and show him the warm milk he liked so much 
 come streaming and frothing out of the red-and-white 
 one's udder into the pail). He was always to have his 
 milk from Venus (Mummy said so). As for the butter- 
 fly, he called her u Fae-ey Keen," and when she suddenly 
 leapt into the air on her silver wings when he called 
 out her name and rose higher and higher until she faded 
 away into the blue sky, he sat down to think, and wait to 
 see if she would come back. She did not ; and he began 
 to cry. He must not go close to her, he supposed, though 
 the other fairies did not seem to mind it they even flut- 
 tered about his brown face and little white hat, until he 
 grew angry with some of them, and then threw his hat 
 at a big ugly one, and forgot his tears and laughed as 
 they all rose up like a cloud and then settled down again 
 to their flutterings among the thistles. 
 
 He did not forget his "Fae-ey Keen," however. He 
 told his Mummy when he got home; and Mummy had 
 told him that it was her right enough; and he dreamed 
 of her when he went to sleep. And in his dreams she 
 grew so large and so bright, and her wings made such 
 a noise, that she woke him up, and he found the sun 
 was shining on his face as the wind flapped the window 
 blind to and fro. 
 
 He had been to the thistles many times since then. 
 He would sit there and watch and call for her, but she 
 never came. Once he had sat there until he went to 
 sleep, and he dreamed that she came and settled on his 
 face and kissed him quietly and softly as Mummy came 
 and kissed him every night, when she thought he was 
 gone to sleep but he wasn't but it was only old Pom- 
 pey's tongue licking him. 
 
 Perhaps to-day, as the sun was shining so warm and 
 bright, she would be there, and he scrambled through
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 373 
 
 the ravine where the nettle forest grew it did not seem 
 anything like so deep as it used to be, and the nettles 
 seemed to be growing shorter every day and hurried 
 on to the thistles. 
 
 His eyes grew brighter and brighter, and bigger and 
 bigger, when he saw the bramble bush. 
 
 "Fae-eyKeen! Goo!" 
 
 Then, remembering that she did not like him to talk 
 to her, he slipped down on the ground and sat silent, 
 throbbing with delight 
 
 She had come back! 
 
 She sat fanning her wings with the moons on them, 
 then fluttered a little way along the branch, and he 
 scarcely dared to breathe. 
 
 Presently he began to think he might creep a little 
 closer, and he commenced to crawl along on his hands 
 and knees. 
 
 She fluttered a little way from him, and he lost 
 sight of her. That was too much for him. A wild 
 desire to rush after her and touch her seized him, and 
 he sprang up just in time to see her dart away 
 through the sunshine and disappear as she had done 
 before. 
 
 He sat down again suddenly: his round eyes shut 
 themselves up once or twice and then looked very solemn- 
 ly at his little brown leg above his sock, where a thin red 
 line began to break out into tiny bright beads of blood. 
 Fae-ey Keen was well protected when she sat on her 
 bramble throne, and her trusty bodyguard punished dar- 
 ing little boys who ventured too near their sovereign 
 lady. 
 
 His eyes and face screwed themselves up and his 
 mouth opened very wide. He commenced to howl 
 steadily. 
 
 A voice called: "Baby! Baby! My precious! Mum- 
 my's coming!" 
 
 He listened a moment. His "Boo-hoos" grew dis- 
 tinctly louder. 
 
 Footsteps sounded on the path through the ditch; a
 
 374 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 woman's shadow fell over him : the next minute, Mummy 
 had gathered him into her lap and was dabbing the in- 
 jured leg with her kisses and handkerchief. 
 
 She looked a very pretty young woman, as she rushed 
 round the corner of the dairy and, with frightened, gray- 
 blue eyes searched the waste land on the other side of the 
 elder trees. She was dressed in a blue cotton frock, with 
 a white sun-bonnet above her sun-browned face. 
 
 As she carried her darling slowly back wiping the 
 tears from his cheeks and listening to a tale of woe in 
 which "Fae-ey Keen" and a "bumble bush" had proved 
 his undoing with her soft, bright eyes and a rosy flush 
 in her face, she had ceased to be a very pretty young 
 woman and had become a very beautiful one. 
 
 At least one man would have thought so, had he seen 
 her, but he was a hundred miles away. 
 
 They reached the shade of the trees, and she sat 
 down and examined the scratch again for any prickles 
 which might have remained. Presently she began to 
 sing, and he liked to hear Mummy singing, and listened, 
 chuckling. 
 
 "There was a man so wondrous wise, 
 He jumped into a bumble bush . . . M 
 
 Here the chuckles moderated considerably. 
 "And scratched out both his eyes. . . . ' 
 
 Here the chuckles ceased entirely. 
 
 "And when he found his eyes were out, 
 With all his might and main, 
 He jumped into another bush 
 And . . . 
 
 scratched 'em in again!" 
 
 Here the chuckles commenced again and swelled into 
 shouts of childish glee.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 375 
 
 There was, perhaps, a hidden meaning a moral 
 contained in the burden of her song. 
 
 One man, at least, might have discovered it, had he 
 heard her singing, but he was a hundred miles away.
 
 CHAPTER XLIV 
 
 MERVYN INGESTRE TAKES THE HILL WAY 
 
 FOR a year after Helen's death Mervyn Ingestre had 
 labored unceasingly among his chosen people. 
 
 The bond of their common sorrow had drawn James 
 Burkett and himself closer together, and they had become 
 firm friends. Together, on the anniversary of her death, 
 they had made a pilgrimage to her resting place in the 
 little Sussex churchyard. 
 
 When he had heard the news of her accident, his 
 grief was too great to find an outlet through the ordinary 
 channels of emotion. His heart had suffered, physically, 
 by the shock, to an extent from which he knew it would 
 never recover. He had remained like one who fears to 
 live refusing food, light, everything, for days. When 
 death had taken her, the need to look his last on her face, 
 to follow her to her grave, roused him. He had cursed 
 himself as the cause of this awful thing curses alter- 
 nated with prayer to the God he had forsaken to spare 
 her pain and punish him. 
 
 Her husband had met him with the dull red eyes of 
 drink and grief and spiritual disaster a man gone sullen 
 in his despair, dangerous to himself and men about him. 
 When Mervyn asked the other for permission to see her, 
 as she lay waiting, in the last clothes she would ever 
 wear, for that last journey up that quiet hillside, James 
 had motioned him toward the room, with, "Yes, go in 
 go to the Hell you've helped me to, Ingestre! It's all 
 one now, man." 
 
 While he knelt by the open coffin, James came to him 
 
 376
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 377 
 
 and said, "Well, between us we've killed her. I'm past 
 feeling anything more now. I " 
 
 Mervyn Ingestre rose from his knees. The anguish 
 on his face touched even her husband, worn out as he 
 was. The latter held out his hand, and the two men ex- 
 changed the clasp of friendship over the white silence of 
 the woman they had both loved according to their differ- 
 ent natures. In that handclasp Mervyn knew how much 
 the other had need of him. 
 
 James had started drinking, had been as near to going 
 to the dogs as is good or bad for any man : but gradually 
 the larger, saner ideals of the stronger mind had exerted 
 their influence for good, and James Burkett pulled him- 
 self together. A husband's natural feelings had, at first, 
 made him reject Mervyn's efforts at friendship, even 
 while he felt the need of a friend. But, as he grew 
 to know and appreciate the inherent nobility of the 
 curate, as he still considered him, he turned to him for 
 comfort instinctively, and the evil things which were 
 closing in upon him were beaten off. 
 
 The wretched woman who had started the scandal 
 had had her revenge, and the fruits of her vengeance had 
 been exceeding bitter to her taste. The first time she 
 had seen James Burkett after his wife's fatal accident she 
 had read the drink in his eyes as a curse, when he pushed 
 past her without a word. She had begun to love him in 
 desperate earnest the Rev. Eustice being a harmless, 
 finicking man who soon palled, to his wife. She was not 
 a bad woman or a great one. She would have kissed 
 James Burkett's hand had he struck her down : his hatred 
 would have killed her morally, but for the intervention, 
 unknown to her, on her behalf by Mervyn Ingestre with 
 the bereaved husband. 
 
 A year had done much to soften James Burkett's grief, 
 as he stood with Mervyn Ingestre beside his dead wife's 
 grave. A typical downland yew touched the headstone 
 with its shade ; violets grew thickly upon the grass inside 
 the marble framework of her tomb. The song-thrush
 
 37 8 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 and the missel-bird sang there through all their seasons 
 of singing-time, in that ground of sleep, where Time 
 seemed soft and slow, and gentle with his hands, on 
 church and trees and tombs. 
 
 For a year, as I have said, Mervyn had labored not 
 to forget, but that he might do something in the world 
 which it pleased him to think she might have liked him to \ 
 do. He purchased the cottage wherein her life had 
 closed using it as a convalescent home for his "par- 
 ishioners," and repairing there frequently for a pilgrim- 
 age to her grave. 
 
 Then he paid the price of his altruistic efforts. His 
 weak heart was weakening; and after the second attack 
 he determined to hear the worst, and heard it, un- 
 flinchingly. The next might probably would prove 
 his last. 
 
 For which reason, Mervyn Ingestre set his house in 
 order, appointed William Ridley as one of his executors, 
 and made a will, in which he left half of his property to 
 him in trust for The Regenerators. On the day he heard 
 the news from the doctor and which he knew was prac- 
 tically his death sentence he went to Sturrington and 
 made arrangements for his own burial beside her, and 
 spent an hour by her grave communing with the dead. 
 
 In vain did William Ridley and his friends attempt to 
 persuade him to give up his work : he toiled on with in- 
 domitable heroism through failing health and strength 
 nursing himself, but only so much that he might last out 
 his days for active service. As a matter of fact, at times 
 he yearned for sleep beside the grave in Sturrington 
 churchyard. 
 
 One sweltering June night in the year following her 
 death, as he returned from a search through the slums of 
 Pimlico after one of his people, he read the message on 
 the wall of Victoria station. He had but recently come 
 through a bad bout of influenza. A drop of brandy 
 pulled him round, and the momentary faintness passed. 
 He purchased a small bottle of the spirit against a re- 
 currence of the trouble ; then he took his seat in the last
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 379 
 
 train for Pedbury Road, the nearest station to Sturring- 
 ton, and closed his eyes and rested himself from his 
 labors. 
 
 It was near midnight when he got out and commenced 
 his walk through the hills. He decided to walk his 
 bodily weariness had passed after his long rest in the 
 train, and a curious sense of exaltation buoyed him up 
 as he left the little station and felt the mysterious pres- 
 ence of the hills coming to meet him. There was a half 
 moon and the sky was full of stars. Out here the air, 
 after London, seemed powerfully sweet and pure, and at 
 times he rested beside the dim scars of the track, and 
 drank in the freshness of the night. He would like to 
 rest here at the last, among the silences of the great hills 
 here where the night wind as it moved softly through 
 the beech and yew and hawthorn seemed to whisper to 
 him of the dead woman. 
 
 At length, after he had covered some two miles, the 
 track dipped down into a vast hollow, dark with yew and 
 juniper bushes, climbed the opposite down, and from 
 thence gradually descended to Sturrington church. He 
 had frequently been that way in the day time, and knew 
 the actual depth and width of the valley before him: at 
 night it appeared as a great stream of darkness, on which 
 the moonlight hung like a silver mist, winding among the 
 hills. The descent was rough and dangerous in the dark: 
 in the bottom, under the trees, the gloom was so intense 
 that he was compelled to strike most of a box of matches 
 before he found his way through the track losing itself 
 in ruts and chalky gullies cut by the rains. 
 
 The steepness of the ascent tried him severely. He 
 was compelled to rest several times, and more than once 
 he had recourse to the brandy. At last he was over the 
 top, and a great wave of fresh air revived him. The 
 night was thinning over the eastern downs, and dawn, 
 with its strange workings in the sky, would soon begin. 
 Half a mile, and he would be beside her, and after that 
 he did not greatly care. He could see the dim outlines of 
 the clump of yews and of the church tower above them.
 
 3 8o "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 An owl -was sending, from somewhere in that patch of 
 shadow, slow hoots that reached him plainly across the 
 open ground. 
 
 The next minute he sank on his knees in the soft thick 
 turf. A dreadful pain in his side doubled him up and 
 he lay gasping. His courage deserted him, and in its 
 place came the fear that he would not reach his goal 
 making him cry out between his gasps with more than 
 the fear of death. He bit desperately at the cork of the 
 small bottle in which strength for his last effort lay : his 
 teeth chattered, and to the northward the great stars 
 whirled madly before his failing eyes. 
 
 "My lady Helen! . . . help me ... for 
 Christ's . . ." 
 
 His senses were leaving him he could not reach her! 
 Then his terror lent strength and purpose to his trem- 
 bling hands. 
 
 "Christ help me . . . for her sake!" 
 
 At last he had got the cork out of the bottle, and 
 he gulped down the remainder of the brandy. 
 
 He gasped with the pain, but he was on his feet once 
 more a ghastly grin on his distorted face. Two steps, 
 three, four ... he would have to make some hundreds 
 yet. The distance mocked him hideously such a little 
 way . . . He set his teeth . . . The stars went out, and 
 he fell senseless. 
 
 The minutes passed, and he stirred and rolled over on 
 his back. His eyes opened : above him the stars described 
 narrower and narrower circles and finally came to rest. 
 He lay quiescent, wondering if he was in the land of the 
 living everything was so profoundly still. Even the 
 wind's tiny voices in the heath bells and among the great 
 flowered spikes of viper's bugloss, scattered about the 
 down around him, seemed hushed. He spoke and listened 
 to her name: "Helen." It was scarce above a whisper, 
 and he repeated it louder. He was alive ... he might 
 reach her yet ... he would reach her ! It was deathly 
 cold; and when he raised his hand to his head his fore- 
 head felt like ice and wet The action, slight as it was,
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 381 
 
 was an effort, and he moaned. The pain had gone . . . 
 only a great weakness that maddened him lest it would 
 never pass. Presently peace came into his face, and he 
 lay as if listening. His lips moved, and the last lines of 
 the poet dying came from them to an audience of the quiet 
 stars and hills and the quieter woman, who had inspired 
 them, sleeping a few hundred yards away in her sepulcher 
 within the chalk. 
 
 "Dear, is it Death who calls me with your voice? 
 I seem to hear you calling, far away 
 As mothers call tired children home at night. 
 And I am tired more than the way of men 
 Weary, with weight of my desire to share 
 Peace with you, more than in the ways of men 
 I may find peace, where peace is none for me. . . . 
 
 Beyond the waves of pain that drowned you, dear 
 Oh, love of mine ! is there a further shore ? 
 Or any ford across his stream of sleep, 
 Where Death waits watching? 
 
 Yes, I hear you call! 
 
 And I will to you ! If such ford there be 
 Oh, love of mine ! wait for me by the tide !" 
 
 He got up on to his feet, and moved toward the dark 
 patch ahead. He went cautiously, as one who suspects 
 hidden dangers in the path a look of cunning resting 
 strangely on his spiritual face: he must circumvent the 
 enemy who would keep him from her . . . Gradually the 
 distance lessened, and at last he had reached the low wall 
 of the churchyard. 
 
 He knew every inch of the ground now, and it was 
 getting lighter. Through the mist which was settling on 
 his eyes he could see the glimmer of white marble where 
 she lay. His feet were like lead, and perforce he had 
 to go round by the gate to climb the wall was an im- 
 possible effort for him. Along the wall, in places, were 
 brambles, that clutched his clothes. The ground was un-
 
 382 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 even, hummocked by moles, and covered by long grass 
 and nettles, but he reached the gate at last. 
 
 As he entered, a great thankfulness filled him, and he 
 moved more quickly along the fine shingle of the path 
 that led to her grave. The tombstones, the scattered 
 mounds of the dead, seemed friendly things that waited 
 there with welcome for him. He turned the corner of 
 the church: her grave was as white fire to his eyes: for 
 a moment he saw her standing before him in the Wimble- 
 don woodland. 
 
 His foot slipped on the loose path, and he fell a few 
 yards from her. 
 
 "Helen!" 
 
 He called to her passionately, and his voice leapt, 
 startling in its indescribable yearning, into that stillness 
 which comes upon the earth, sometimes, just before the 
 dawn. His heart beat madly with its last excitement : in 
 his eyes was the light of the morning and a great triumph. 
 He crept forward through the loose stones, whispering. 
 
 "My lady! I have come . . . Thank God! Oh my 
 dear! my love! I ..." 
 
 His head bent down and he kissed the cold marble. 
 
 So died Mervyn Ingestre. 
 
 A low moon floated far along the west 
 
 A golden sail upon the early blue 
 Of twilight fading slowly from the breast 
 
 Of gulfs in skies that let the morning through ; 
 But when the dawn wind woke, more swiftly pressed, 
 
 And in her passing ever paler grew 
 
 Until she was not ; and the first bird sang 
 A low note, lost in leaves about his nest; 
 
 Then, till the air that hearkened to him rang, 
 
 He cleft with song the shadows as he flew. 
 
 They found the young man there, some hours later. 
 One of his "parishioners" a broken woman who had 
 been expected to live decently on the "one and tuppence" 
 per day her hands could earn; and who had, at times, so 
 far forgotten decency as to supplement such wages by
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 383 
 
 her body's at night (when times were hard) closed his 
 eyes, without so much as a suspicion that the dead man 
 would have had any objection to her so doing. She did 
 it very decently and reverently and tenderly. She actually 
 cried a good deal as she did it and she had not touched 
 a drop of gin for a month. Perhaps the absence of any 
 such suspicion in her was not entirely due to her igno- 
 rance of spiritual things. None of The Regenerators, 
 when she told them, had, apparently,, any misgivings on 
 the point: William Ridley even thanked her. 
 
 There was much talk of it, however, when it reached, 
 and was discussed at length among, the better educated 
 and wealthier sections of Wimbledon society that had 
 known the dead man. It was spoken of as a rather dread- 
 ful thing, whatever there might have been between him 
 and Helen Burkett. "The woman was a com-mon pros- 
 titute, my dear!" said one lady, who was a specialist in 
 adjectival subtleties. Her formula was felt to contain 
 at once a tonic and a sedative for respectability, after 
 the shock its nerves had suffered from the scandal, and 
 as such was duly appreciated. The common people were 
 losing their Faith fast, and look what it led to strikes, 
 and all this labor unrest, and disrespect for their betters. 
 No doubt Mervyn Ingestre meant well, but the ex- 
 ample ! He had been a deliberate encouragement 
 
 for them toward irreligion, and this had been the end of 
 it. And his mother, poor lady! It was almost a mercy 
 she had not lived to know it.
 
 CHAPTER XLV 
 
 JAMES BURKETT was a clever man where racehorses 
 were concerned. If there was one thing he was clever 
 at, it was backing them. But James Burkett was a 
 gambler as apart from a speculator and success with 
 "the gees" eventually made him sigh for other worlds 
 to conquer; and James Burkett was in the city. From 
 betting to Stock Exchange "speculation" is not a very far 
 cry. "Burkett's Luck" in the square mile became pro- 
 verbial. 
 
 The years went on, and he prospered exceedingly. 
 He had had "facers," of course, but he generally recov- 
 ered from them quickly, until he began to have a sublime 
 faith in his cleverness and his luck. At one time he be- 
 came quite a rich man. 
 
 Then the tide turned, and he "ran up against it" with 
 a vengeance. He lost steadily, and smiled to himself. 
 It would soon come back again. But instead of coming 
 back it kept on "going down" with a most irritating per- 
 sistence, and James began to get angry, and lost his head. 
 He started plunging, and one day found that he had 
 nearly reached the end of his tether. It was not a pleas- 
 ing prospect. Indeed, at this time he was in a pretty bad 
 way. His life, when things were going right, was a good 
 one enough for a man of his tastes, although, as the years 
 slipped by, his round of pleasures and amusement had 
 lost much or most of their earlier charm. 
 
 He was already infected with one of the curses of his 
 age that forerunner of decadence which is a want of en- 
 thusiasm in Life itself, for itself. Already he was given 
 
 384
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 385 
 
 to that supremely fatuous occupation of the so-called 
 "worldly wise" killing time. He had (or so he be- 
 lieved) exhausted the pleasures of life. Favored with 
 the means, as few are, to live a full life to learn of the 
 eternal wonder of a wonderful world he was often 
 "bored to death." He had heard that "The Kingdom of 
 God is within you" as he had heard many such sayings 
 unhearing, neither would he understand. The "good 
 things" of life had been his for the asking. He had 
 known a great sorrow, but Time had been kind to him and 
 healed the wound; and he chiefly showed his gratitude to 
 the healer by vain attempts to slay the slayer of us all. 
 He was a man, and therefore not without the imagination 
 which makes man different from the mere animal, and 
 without which nothing great or good was ever done of 
 man yet; and that, his noblest possession, was left to 
 atrophy and waste. The material pleasures which had 
 appealed to him provided his punishment for the neglect, 
 and still James Burkett, man of the world (it was his 
 boast that he was a man of the world) pursued his course, 
 wondering why it was the world, which had seemed such 
 an inexhaustible mine of good things, returned so little of 
 real satisfaction for his labors. There had been moments 
 in his life when a grim, sarcastic voice had asked him if 
 he was not a damned fool, but the idea seemed so gro- 
 tesque that he put it down to liver or whiskey or both 
 men of the world were not fools! He rather prided him- 
 self upon his contempt for spiritual things the perver- 
 sion which is the heritage of such contempt resulting in a 
 weird collection of "wisdom" as his outraged mind 
 aborted from lack of proper nourishment. 
 
 It never occurred to him that his were pseudo-ideals 
 monstrosities begotten by Materialism upon itself, to 
 which he acted foster-mother until he had spent his 
 mental energies upon them, when they departed, and left 
 him full of emptiness. He had always had a dislike for 
 thinking, except upon material things. As the years went 
 on he sometimes wondered how it was that men, with 
 whom he was brought into contact from time to time, dis-
 
 3 86 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 pensed with what was becoming a necessity to him, 
 namely, a ready made Time-killer for their leisure hours. 
 He "thought the matter out carefully," and came to the 
 conclusion that they were either "dead slow," or "stupid 
 asses," people who were satisfied with a humdrum exist- 
 ence, not "live men." He rather pitied himself as a re- 
 sult, and was inclined to think he was thrown away upon 
 the world. He would have been honestly surprised had 
 anyone implied that there was a possibility of the world 
 being thrown away upon him. 
 
 He was now thirty-nine and, except for his recent 
 excesses in the way of "liveners," a healthy-living man 
 physically in his prime. And yet . . . Lately he had 
 felt that there was a good deal wanting in his life. He 
 had not married again in spite of the strenuous sympa- 
 thy that had been shown to him by the mothers and 
 daughters of his acquaintance, and the earnest efforts that 
 had been made to induce him to change his condition. 
 
 There had been other women, certainly, but ! One 
 
 drank; one left her protector, after taking away with her 
 all she could lay hands on. 
 
 He ought to have married again, he supposed, but, 
 somehow, other women had not appealed to him, as 
 wives, after Helen. And now he was feeling too unset- 
 tled altogether to think of marrying. He was not a for- 
 tune hunter. If things improved, he must think about it 
 seriously. 
 
 One afternoon in late September, as he rode slowly 
 home from the Shooting School at Worcester Park, where 
 he was wont to keep his hand in at clay pigeons, rabbits, 
 and such strange wild-fowl, he told himself that he had 
 been drinking too much whiskey lately; or rather his 
 practice that afternoon had told him as much some of 
 his shots being worse than rotten. His nerves must be 
 getting into a pretty bad state. He wasn't the man he 
 was. His mind wandered back through the years. It 
 was now more than thirteen years since poor old Helen 
 died. He thought of his long dead wife, and the tears
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 387 
 
 came into his eyes he was feeling rather hipped. He 
 had never really got over it, and . . . Here he blew his 
 nose hard and furtively wiped his eyes. Then there was 
 that last crash, when he dropped it so heavily in Ameri- 
 cans. After that, disgusted with everything within the 
 metropolitan area, he had returned entirely to his old 
 love and laid a thousand to eight hundred on the favorite 
 for the Sellinger. He returned from Doncaster that 
 much the poorer, and decidedly the worse for liquor. 
 No ! He wasn't the man he was ! He had lost much of 
 his egotism, and, since his financial disasters, a good deal 
 of his self-confidence. 
 
 A letter was awaiting him when he reached "Down- 
 lands" whither he had returned a year or two after his 
 wife's death and its contents were destined to greatly 
 affect his future life. The writer urged him strongly to 
 back Laodice's Love for the coming Cesarewitch, for all 
 he was worth; and, after reading the reasons advanced 
 why he should do so, James Burkett sat down and drank 
 his tea thoughtfully. 
 
 He was in pretty low water though, thank God, not 
 in the hands of the Jews, yet. Twenty to one he could 
 average, no doubt. Five hundred at that rate would 
 mean ten thousand if it came off. If it didn't he would 
 never bet again beyond occasional fivers, and as for 
 Stocks and Shares, they could go to Hell, for him. He'd 
 "had some" lately! 
 
 Mrs. Burkett watched her son's face carefully. She 
 had altered little since that day when the woman lying 
 in that Sussex hillside had confessed to her her love for 
 that other man sleeping now beside her in their endless 
 calm. She had striven, as only a mother can, to help 
 her boy bear his loss; and James owed more to her than 
 he ever realized, in the dark days of his life when only 
 she and dead Mervyn Ingestre had kept him from going 
 to the dogs. Her husband entered as she asked him if it 
 was good news he had just received, and the talk drifted 
 to Mr. Bertram Burkett's coming retirement from city 
 life.
 
 388 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 James was to continue as an active partner in the firm, 
 with a son of the late Mr. Bowker (now some years de- 
 ceased). The responsibilities of the position were a 
 never-failing topic with his father, and he was soon in- 
 volved in listening to the great merchant's plans for de- 
 veloping certain markets for which his son had as little 
 aptitude as he had inclination. By now he loathed the city 
 and all that was therein. 
 
 Mr. Burkett senior had had his disappointments. 
 His earlier hopes of civic celebrity had long since gone, 
 and with them the precious manuscript. The tragedy of 
 his son's marriage had rather frightened the pompous 
 citizen the scandal had hurt his pride more than it 
 had hurt James' and he had since viewed the rising gen- 
 eration of women with doubtful eyes. Mr. Burkett's 
 ideal woman was of the "submissively-receive-man's-hom- 
 age-and-be-thankful" type. His attitude toward them was 
 a compound of Old Nobility-and-shopwalker-courtesy - 
 which attitude afforded him a vast amount of satisfaction, 
 inasmuch as in their acceptation of his attentions he saw 
 reflected his own accomplishments in such matters, and it 
 pleased his vanity hugely. He was frequently rude to 
 the female servants, and one day had "damned" a poor 
 old woman for falling against him in a fit, as he left the 
 office. But he was getting old himself, and as, with in- 
 creasing years, his watch chain got further away from 
 him even as his hopes of the mayoral chain of office 
 receded his increasing "chest" measurements and vari- 
 ous disappointments made him, perhaps, inclined, like 
 the best of men and women, to be irritable at times. 
 
 James listened with a show of attention to his father's 
 flow of commercial rhetoric, from whence it transpired 
 that the orator had evolved and perfected a scheme 
 promising much for the further glorification of Burkett 
 and Bowker, and which would also completely take the 
 wind out of the sails of a rival house, might even even- 
 tually lead to the latter being completely stranded. His 
 thoughts, were, however, far away on a distant range of 
 hills, where Laodice's Love, a four-year-old, in at seven
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 389 
 
 stone seven, had, in the early morning on the previous 
 day, satisfactorily answered the question put to him over 
 the full Cesarewitch distance running right away from 
 Cheops and Sugarcandia, his stable companions, and a 
 stranger, which (the writer of the letter stated) was 
 none other than Bay Actaeon. 
 
 After he had retired to bed that night James Burkett 
 lay for hours turning that and other matters over in his 
 mind. Ere he fell asleep he had decided to have 500 on 
 Laodice's Love providing certain inquiries, that he in- 
 tended to make on the morrow, satisfied him.
 
 CHAPTER XLVI 
 
 "THE RISING SUN" AT BEERMINSTER 
 
 "THE RISING SUN" at Beermmster was rapidly be- 
 coming impregnated with its usual Saturday night at- 
 mosphere, and the cacophony of multitudinous noise. 
 
 The "Public," the "Private," the "Saloon," were all 
 well represented by their regular clientele: the swing 
 doors of the "Bottle and Jug" flapped with almost 
 rhythmical emphasis. In the "four-ale" department St. 
 Saturday had already entered into the souls of his votaries 
 through the libatory mediums common to his cult. The 
 nasal shrillness that from time to time cleft the confusion 
 of the Private Bar bespoke the presence of the eternal 
 feminine. The Saloon echoed with increasing frequency 
 the throaty half chuckle, half cough of Solly, the local 
 bookmaker, established in a comfortable armchair in 
 the corner of the bar, behind an Aspidistra plant on the 
 table before him. 
 
 It was the first Saturday night in that October, and, as 
 such, burgeoned with its particular crop of football argu- 
 ments and racing aphorisms anent the coming Cesare- 
 witch, the prospects of the various league teams and 
 players, the results of that afternoon's sport, staple 
 growths of the pub-loving Britisher's brains in his idle 
 hours. 
 
 The great god Sport! greatest of all modern gods 
 save Mammon immanent in the exalted in the land as in 
 the lowest, from the throne to the gutter, from the mon- 
 arch to the wild beasts of the Boro' and Bethnal Green. 
 More minds on every Saturday in the year seek him than 
 turn Heavenward on the Sunday: he claims his victims 
 
 390
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 391 
 
 from "Nobility," gone broke racing, to the over-zealous 
 plebeian athlete of path and river and ring. In every pub- 
 lic house is his worship. The ancient shape of Ely, loom- 
 ing across the fens, sees generations of his pilgrims in- 
 vade Newmarket's sweet-scented uplands to the temples 
 of the god standing beside the bush-harrowed verdure of 
 the Rowley Mile. 
 
 Superior people; apostles of the cult of The Emi- 
 nently Respectable; imposing and almost oppressively 
 important dignitaries of the other established religion 
 of Abnegation ; Culture with a capital C ; Dissent with a 
 capital D; the Philistine, with an enormous capital; the 
 poet, without any capital at all; have all been known to 
 affect a fine contempt for the British Sportsman and his 
 ways but in vain. The god continues to flourish exceed- 
 ingly. The stars in their courses, it was hinted, nay, 
 publicly stated in the Press, fought invincibly for the 
 royal house of England on Epsom's famous Downs, when 
 Minoru and Louviers struggled home locked together; 
 the head victory of Edward the Seventh's colors was 
 quoted as incontrovertible proof thereof. 
 
 "The Rising Sun" was essentially a sporting house. 
 There it was that Duster Durran had been first intro- 
 duced to a certain noble lord who had "put it up" for that 
 afterwards world-famous celebrity in his first match at 
 the N. S. C. If the Duster's visits to "The Sun" became 
 fewer and fewer, as in the fullness of time his fame as 
 middle-weight champion of the world increased, the fre- 
 quenters of that hostelry remained loyal to his memory. 
 On those rare occasions when he forsook the irradiance of 
 the Cafe Royal for the lesser orb of his humbler days 
 the "Sun" rose in more senses than one to the occasion. 
 The Duster did the thing in style: after his victory in 
 Kansas City over Australian Jimmy Creek (it was cur- 
 rently reported and believed that the Duster had thereby 
 pocketed ten thousand in "red-hot") Moet and Chandon 
 had flowed, literally in streams, through every bar in the 
 house. The sports of the neighborhood who resided in 
 the more outlying districts had found many strange rest-
 
 392 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 ing places ere they eventually succeeded in reaching their 
 homes. These things were in the great traditions of the 
 house. 
 
 On this particular evening, a little before eight 
 o'clock, James Burkett entered and pushed his way 
 through the crowded saloon to the bar, where he called 
 for a drink. As he drank his Scotch, he looked round 
 the place until his eyes rested upon the red face of the 
 afore-mentioned Solly, whereupon he called out to the 
 bookmaker above the hubbub of voices. The latter rose 
 from his chair and, smiling recognition, worked his way 
 over to him by the bar. 
 
 The two men conversed together for some five min- 
 utes more Scotch being ordered by James Burkett: 
 after which the latter shook hands with the red-faced one 
 and departed for London. 
 
 The bookmaker went back to his corner and resumed 
 his former position. From long custom Solly's chair had 
 become sacred to him. He was a drunkard who never 
 got drunk, and a good-hearted, amiable animal. 
 
 "Who was that, Sol?" asked one of the men sitting 
 round. 
 
 "James Burkett." 
 
 "What the owner of Peckham Rise?" 
 
 "Yes. The man that had The Gargoyle, Percote, 
 There You Are, and a lot of good uns in his time. I re- 
 members his first horse, Thracian Sea a good horse on 
 the flat. He bought him, and put him to the other game, 
 and won several races with him. Broke his back at the 
 finish, and Mrs. Burkett's, out hunting years ago. 
 He's bin a reg'lar gambler in his time has Burkett 
 Racing and Stock Exchange. Bin having a shock- 
 ing time lately in the city from what I've heerd. Stands 
 to win a packet over Layodyses Love for the long 
 race, and wanted to know if I'd lay him another twenty 
 hundreds." 
 
 '|Anddidyou?" 
 
 "No. I've heerd something once or twice lately. 
 Not about Burkett about the horse. Done a big thing,
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 393 
 
 they tell me, and yet no one seems to want to bet he's 
 the first," and he nodded toward the door. 
 
 Someone reached for the "Evening Standard." 
 "Laydikies Love. Twenties, taken an' offered." 
 
 "Um!" Solly looked doubtful, and the conversation 
 drifted back to the local jumping meeting held there that 
 day, and which had been the reason of James Burkett 
 being in the neighborhood. He had won a hundred 
 pounds that afternoon, and stimulated with success after 
 a long spell of disasters, he had taken it as a good omen. 
 The old gambling instinct reasserted itself, and he 
 promptly decided to play up his winnings on the Cesare- 
 witch horse, which he had already backed to win him ten 
 thousand pounds. He had called at Solly's place after 
 racing, and learning that that gentleman had not then re- 
 turned from another larger meeting some distance away, 
 but that he would be found at "The Rising Sun" later on 
 in the evening, James had decided to remain in Beer- 
 minster and interview the bookmaker, with whom he had 
 had many transactions in the past. 
 
 When he reached his club on the following Monday 
 the best offer he could get was sixteen hundreds, which 
 he booked, and went home feeling hopeful once more.
 
 CHAPTER XLVII 
 
 A CESAREWITCH FINISH 
 
 IT was Cesarewitch day at Newmarket. 
 
 The heath lay shimmering under a pale October sun- 
 light, but James Burkett's hopes had sunk to zero as he 
 walked languidly across the grass to the stands, and a 
 deep gloom had settled upon him, little in keeping with 
 the glamours of the autumn day. The jockey engaged for 
 Laodice's Love had been badly kicked while at the post 
 for the last race on the preceding afternoon; and, with a 
 large field of runners for the big race, the prospects of a 
 suitable pilot being found for the horse were extremely 
 remote. He was not an easy one to ride, and was likely 
 to prove too much of a handful for any ordinary light- 
 weight. 
 
 Confirmation of his fears was soon forthcoming when 
 he reached the ring a rumor being current that a stable 
 apprentice was to have the mount, a lad of little experi- 
 ence, and who would have to put up some pounds 
 overweight. Laodice's Love was being shouted every- 
 where at twenty-five to one and even thirty-three. The 
 horse had "come" in the betting during the past few days 
 until it had once touched a hundred to eight. For which 
 reasons James Burkett went to the bar and drank three 
 brandies and sodas in rapid succession. There he cursed 
 himself repeatedly for not getting rid of his bets when 
 they would have shown good hedging. 
 
 When the numbers went up for the Cesarewitch he 
 tried to extract some consolation from the fact that the 
 lad had managed to do the weight, but he was not in a 
 condition of mind to find much comfort in anything, and 
 
 394
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 395 
 
 watched, with sullen helplessness, his horse as it cantered 
 and finally disappeared with the rest through the distant 
 Ditch. His money was as good as gone he might as 
 well make up his mind for that; and he again adjourned 
 to the bar to fortify himself against the coming debacle 
 which he was convinced would follow. The bloody kid 
 wouldn't be able to ride one side of him that was a 
 certainty. 
 
 As he watched the white flag on the Ditch, by the 
 Running Gap, he felt utterly sick at heart and downright 
 miserable. His luck had been enough to settle anyone. 
 
 The heat that excessive drinking produces filled his 
 membranes, inside and out. His eyes, his lungs, were 
 hot. His lips were cracked. His tongue craved cool and 
 liquid things with an insatiable and nauseating thirst. His 
 stomach seemed to smolder with revolt against the long 
 outrage of his ways. Disgust was busy in his whole being. 
 He was a man ashamed, a poisoned man, a man who 
 forced himself to vomit, a man losing his birthright of 
 clean blood, as much from ennui as from weakness of 
 will. His spirit shook in him with the palsy of life-weari- 
 ness on a journey through lands where spring was some- 
 thing that had ceased to be. Happiness was beginning to 
 mean for him now, Drink. If one could always be "well- 
 oiled," one might escape the grayness of a sober world, 
 whose very sun was wearing out at a rate beyond 
 hypotheses, even those of the most pessimistic philoso- 
 phers. He stood there, above the green finish of the 
 Rowley Mile, muttering curses to himself, and wondering 
 if there would be time "for another" before the flag 
 fell. 
 
 The white patch, motionless in the windless haze, 
 suddenly flickered down. "They're off!" sounded in his 
 ears like a knell. He caught a glimpse of colors flashing 
 past the Gap, as the field swept by. When the moving 
 specks rose up out of the heath, as they came on to The 
 Flat, he looked in vain for any sign of the white cap on 
 Laodice's Love. 
 
 On they came; slowly, it seemed at first, then more
 
 396 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 rapidly, as they approached the commencement of the 
 rails. 
 
 Something in scarlet was leading the rest were 
 bunched together. At last he caught a glimpse of Lao- 
 dice's Love in the middle of the mob of horses. 
 
 An outsider was shouted then the favorite, as they 
 came over the top of The Bushes hill; and as they com- 
 menced the descent he came through on the rails, and 
 the shouting began in earnest. 
 
 Then James Burkett, who had been staring unsuccess- 
 fully and savagely through his glasses, suddenly cried out. 
 
 Had anyone heard him amid that babel of excite- 
 ment's noise, they would have looked hard at him, per- 
 haps have pitied him. It sounded like a cry of pain, the 
 cry of a man tortured, who has forgotten shame and 
 everything but his hurt. 
 
 "Like a shot from a gun," the boy riding Laodice's 
 Love had dashed his horse out of the ruck. Clear in 
 the middle of the course, he came on in hot pursuit. The 
 brute swerved, but the lad straightened him and then, 
 riding frantically, kept him at it. 
 
 The favorite had stolen two or three lengths, and 
 was still well leading as they came into the Abingdon 
 Mile bottom. As they rose out of the dip, up the last 
 ascent, James shivered with excitement if only his rider 
 would keep him going, Laodice's Love might do it yet! 
 By God ! the little beggar could ride damn his eyes if he 
 couldn't! God bless the little ! 
 
 He had closed with the favorite, and, riding like a 
 madman, had taken the lead. 
 
 It was too much for the overwrought man on the 
 stand. He yelled insanely till his wind failed him. Then 
 his mouth dropped, and he stood staring idiotically at the 
 struggle going on before his red unhappy eyes. 
 
 And then half way up the hill the boy began to 
 weaken, and backers howled and screamed and swore. 
 It was obvious that the jockey on Laodice's Love was 
 beaten though the horse was not. The favorite's rider, 
 seeing what had occurred, rode desperately, and James
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 397 
 
 cursed, horribly, obscenely, at the unfortunate lad on 
 Laodice's Love whom a moment before he had been 
 ready to exalt to the skies. 
 
 Blast it all ! When victory was well within his grasp I 
 
 The favorite had drawn level and, running on with 
 great gameness, got his head in front again. 
 
 Then the youngster made a last effort. He could 
 scarcely lift his arms; his face was deathly white; before 
 him was a gray mist through which the winning post 
 quivered like a sprung lath ; beside him, riding for all he 
 knew, was the crack jockey of the day; but he never gave 
 up until the reins slipped from his useless hands and he 
 swayed forward over his horse's neck to topple over 
 the next minute right in the way of the field. 
 
 Through the general uproar they galloped over him : 
 then police and crowd had surged round the body lying 
 a few yards past the winning post. 
 
 "Thank God!" 
 
 James Burkett stood staring at the number board. 
 The boy had won! God bless him! Then he realized 
 that there had been an accident, and he went in and had 
 another brandy and soda. There was a dreadful wait; 
 Burkett drank again and again. He dared not go out. 
 He tried to smoke a cigar after many attempts to light 
 it. A man who knew him called to him as he came to the 
 bar that they had carried the boy to the scales. 
 
 "All right!" 
 
 When the shout shook his aching brain, he staggered 
 away to the back of the stands and cried huskily for a 
 cab. 
 
 He felt dazed and ill: the excitement had been too 
 much for him in his then condition: his head was burst- 
 ing: he must have quiet: he wanted to get away from 
 the noise anywhere where it was quiet, where he could 
 cry unobserved. He did in the cab all the way to the 
 top of the town. 
 
 When he reached the hotel he went straight to bed 
 and, completely knocked up, fell asleep, even while he 
 wept.
 
 398 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 The next day he got out of bed and promptly got 
 back again. 
 
 Half an hour afterward the doctor came. When he 
 had examined his patient he informed him that he must 
 stay where he was, and positively forbade any excitement 
 racing was out of the question. 
 
 He went away; and James was left wondering. He 
 was in a bad way. The doctor had looked grave when 
 he said "The drink." His thirst was maddening and 
 he was to drink barley water! 
 
 He spent the day drinking it, making good resolutions, 
 and dozing into unquiet sleep. More than once he wept 
 during this day. 
 
 When the doctor saw him on the Friday he pro- 
 nounced him better, but insisted upon rest and quiet; and 
 James felt little inclination to disobey his injunctions. 
 
 The next day he was told that he might go out for a 
 quiet walk. Toward noon he found his way to the Race- 
 course Side. He had been told that the boy who had 
 ridden Laodice's Love to victory was lying at the cottage 
 hospital with a fractured skull, and, as he returned, he 
 called there to inquire after the lad. He guessed the 
 cause of the accident, and his regret for the unfortunate 
 jockey was heightened by the gratitude he felt toward him 
 for the money he had so narrowly won by the horse's suc- 
 cess. He had, before the race, been contemplating, not 
 the acquisition of a little fortune, but the best means of 
 raising the wind to the tune of 600 which he had "thrown 
 away." 
 
 He was told the boy was unconscious. While he 
 stood talking to one of the nurses about his chance of 
 recovery the door of the ward opened. 
 
 What he saw made him start and then abruptly leave 
 the building. 
 
 Kneeling by the side of the injured boy's bed was 
 Margaret Yeomans! 
 
 The light was on her face, and a look of such in- 
 describable anguish that James Burkett trembled and 
 choked as he walked rapidly away.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 399 
 
 How or where he spent the next few hours he could 
 but vaguely remember, afterward. He wandered about, 
 trying to think coherently, but his wits seemed to have 
 left him at the sight of Margaret's grief-haggard face, 
 and his brain whirled stupidly about in a kind of delirium. 
 
 As it grew dark he became quieter, and realized that 
 he was some miles from Newmarket, in the Swaffham 
 Lane, near the starting post of the Beacon Course. 
 
 He flung himself down on the grass by the roadside. 
 Through the phantasmagorial aftermath of drink, excite- 
 ment, and "nerves," the idea which had its beginnings 
 in his vision of the woman kneeling by the bedside in 
 the Newmarket hospital ward had taken definite shape 
 out of chaos, and its persistence in his overwrought mind 
 had now but one meaning for James Burkett. His reason- 
 ing faculties dispersed at the sight of her returned but 
 to clothe the thing with the life of conviction, until it 
 stood before him a living truth. To use his own ex- 
 pression in description of the effect it produced upon him, 
 there was no rabbit hole too small for him to have 
 crept into. 
 
 The boy he had blessed and cursed; the boy who had 
 put 1 1, 600 into his, James Burkett's, pocket by what 
 he, horseman himself as he was, knew to have been an 
 almost superhuman effort which might cost the lad his 
 life this boy was his own son! Margaret's child! It 
 was no idea now it was certainty! He knew it. 
 
 The past was clear to him now. Margaret, for his 
 sake, had gone away and borne her shame in silence. 
 
 He had seen the boy ride before in minor races of 
 which he had won one or two without interest or second 
 thought For an apprentice, he was too heavy to get 
 much riding. His weight restricted to a very great extent 
 the number of mounts in which the boy's five-pound allow- 
 ance could be utilized. 
 
 His imagination, quickened into abnormal activity by 
 the startling turn events had taken, now credited Mar- 
 garet and her boy with a knowledge of his financial 
 losses, and a noble conspiracy between mother and son
 
 400 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 to extricate the man who had wronged them both from 
 his difficulties. His losses, he knew, had been common 
 knowledge in the racing world of late; and no doubt 
 the boy his boy, and his blood stirred strangely at the 
 thought had, by heroic efforts, reduced himself so much 
 to do the weight that the inevitable weakness resulting 
 from such courses after a long and punishing race on a 
 notorious "slug" like Laodice's Love had brought about 
 the catastrophe. He knew the boy's recent riding weight, 
 and remembered the rumor before racing that J. Young 
 would have the mount at about seven stone nine. He 
 knew what those two pounds might mean to a growing 
 lad, and shuddered. 
 
 And she had called him "James," of course! Poor, 
 brave, loving, little Margaret ! If the boy died . . .The 
 thought maddened him he dared not think of her life 
 and his own in the future, if the boy died. 
 
 In that hour the old James Burkett died. It was a 
 different man that walked sorrowfully and slowly, at 
 first, then rapidly back to Newmarket through the quiet 
 autumn night. 
 
 When he reached his hotel he composed many letters 
 to her, and at last dispatched a man with one to 
 the hospital, with instructions to leave it for the boy's 
 mother. 
 
 That night, although sleep was mostly out of the 
 question for him, and fear and shame haunted his bed- 
 side, the enemy, which had been rapidly undermining his 
 health of late, tempted him in vain. 
 
 The answer came next morning as he played with 
 his breakfast. It ran: 
 
 "Dear James 
 
 "I got your letter and thank you for your kind offer to help 
 my poor darling, but Mr. Gates has been very kind and I do not 
 want for money or anything. But thank you very much, dear 
 James, all the same. I will write and explain everything in a 
 day or two, only I am too upset now, I cannot write any more 
 or see you just now neither. Except to say that I know I did
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 401 
 
 wrong not to have told you about my poor Jimmy being your 
 boy, but I could not somehow, and I thought it was for the best. 
 I have taken the name of Mrs. Young. 
 
 "Yours affectionately, 
 
 "MARGARET YEOMANS." 
 
 "P. S. I forgot to say Mr. Gates is my aunts husband."
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII 
 
 THREE TREES AGAIN 
 
 As yet James Burkett had not seen Margaret, to 
 speak to her. He had understood from her letters, after 
 poor little Jim's smash up, that their meeting was too 
 much for her just then she was too upset to think of 
 anything but the boy; and he had wisely bided his time. 
 
 For Margaret knew certain things, of which (or so 
 she believed) James was in ignorance, and she felt that 
 if Jimmy died she could not meet his father, or even think 
 of his love for herself again. He had told her, in his 
 letters, that his wife had died many years ago. 
 
 Then, after a week in which the stricken mother 
 scarcely closed her eyes, the danger grew less and less; 
 and the youthful James' healthy young vitality triumphed, 
 and she could think of James the man. She did think 
 of him very often, during the days that brought her boy 
 back to health and strength. 
 
 James had written to her frequently. She had taken 
 Jimmy away to the seaside, to recuperate; and his father 
 had more than once expressed the hope, in his letters, that 
 he might be allowed to make her his wife, as soon as 
 possible. 
 
 James the man had spoken to his father and mother, 
 and made a clean breast of the whole affair. Mr. Bur- 
 kett had been horrified beyond measure at what people 
 would say; but his wife had agreed to see Margaret; and, 
 after a while, the two, seeing their son was set on the mar- 
 riage, withdrew all opposition. He had hinted to Mar- 
 garet that his mother would like to see her, which piece 
 of diplomacy, he concluded, would do much to bring her 
 to him, but it had the opposite effect. 
 402
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 403 
 
 When Margaret read his increasing desire to marry 
 her, her heart filled with such happiness as seemed too 
 good to be true : when she heard of Mrs. Burkett's wish 
 to see her she was seized with a panic of sudden fear and 
 shame, and told "dear James," in a rather incoherent 
 letter, that she could not face his mother. 
 
 From which moment Mrs. Burkett decided that it was 
 her bounden duty to make the young woman's acquaint- 
 ance ; and at last the two had come together at Brighton. 
 As a result of that interview Mrs. Burkett had hence- 
 forth assisted her son to the utmost extent in her power. 
 
 With trembling hands that fumbled continuously with 
 her brown hair, and with much color in her cheeks, Mar- 
 garet had awaited "his mother," and when her visitor had 
 been announced (Jimmy had been sent to bed) the poor 
 thing was in a state of the most dreadful confusion. But 
 Mrs. Burkett was getting an old woman, and her arms 
 ached to feel the children of her own boy about her. She 
 held out her hand to Margaret and the latter took hold 
 of it as if she was afraid it would bite. Wherefore Mrs. 
 Burkett conscious chiefly of the flight of time, as only 
 the old are had decided to dispense with unessential 
 ceremony; and when "his mother" said: "Kiss me, my 
 child," in a very kind, though rather sad, voice, Margaret 
 had forgotten her fears, and begged for forgiveness. A 
 woman's tears, no doubt, frequently deceive a man they 
 seldom deceive another woman. Margaret's were too 
 genuine to have deceived anybody, and "his mother" 
 found a strange satisfaction in soothing the warm, 
 sobbing, and still young body which her arms enclosed. 
 To be stiff and formal with Margaret she found was im- 
 possible one might as easily be stiff and formal with the 
 wild flowers of similar name. 
 
 The sleeping Jimmy had been discovered to his grand- 
 mother's admiring eyes, which had immediately recog- 
 nized, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the work of her 
 own son in the boy's upturned face. She had suddenly 
 become weak and foolish, and Margaret had been so 
 tenderly solicitous and thoughtful altogether that Mrs.
 
 404 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 Burkett had not only thanked her, and blessed her, 
 and kissed her many times in return, but had de- 
 cided there and then that the sooner the two made 
 themselves respectable the better it would be for very- 
 body. 
 
 When James had confessed to his father his doubts 
 as to his capacity to carry on successfully his share in the 
 firm, Mr. Burkett had reluctantly agreed that he should 
 go his own way, and assist a low racehorse trainer: no 
 doubt he would develop into a sort of ostler eventually. 
 But Mr. Burkett, in secret, had, by now, grave misgivings 
 as to his son's ability to steer the good ship Burkett and 
 Bowker once he had left the helm ; in which he was wise 
 in his generation. Also, he was better away from Wim- 
 bledon: there would be no end of a scandal if he brought 
 home a country wench for a wife, and a half-grown lad 
 with her. 
 
 The worthy merchant retained a sleeping partnership, 
 and matters were arranged by the introduction of fresh 
 blood into the concern much to the satisfaction of the 
 recalcitrant James. 
 
 It had transpired from Margaret's letters that Mr. 
 Gates had let some of his land, for some years, to a 
 trainer, who had been so far successful that he now re- 
 quired assistance. This much James had learned from 
 her; and he had suggested that he should marry her and 
 go into partnership with the man. Jimmy had been ap- 
 prenticed to him ; and it was in consequence of Mr. Gates 
 overhearing a part of the conversation respecting James 
 Burkett in "The Rising Sun" at Beerminster (whither 
 he had gone for the races with his friend the trainer) , to- 
 gether with the remarks respecting that same trainer's 
 horse, Laodice's Love, that Margaret had determined 
 to tell her boy her secret and his own history. For the 
 trainer had not been in the public house during the talk 
 of Solly and his friends, and when he returned with Mr. 
 Gates to Hazley Parva that night, and in accordance with 
 their custom the two went into the latter's place for a 
 parting glass and a pipe, they had discussed the subject
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 405 
 
 at some length in the presence of Aunt Deb and Mar- 
 garet. 
 
 And then, some days afterward, the wildly excited 
 Jimmy had come over to his mother from the trainer's, 
 with the news that he was to have the mount on Laodice's 
 Love next day in the Cesarewitch, through a mishap to 
 the crack jockey who had been engaged to ride him he 
 had just been telegraphed for, and was to be off by the 
 last train that night. 
 
 Now Margaret had long felt that the time was at 
 hand when she ought to acquaint Jimmy with the name of 
 his father and the particulars of his birth. He was 
 getting a big boy now, only he was so thin, which worried 
 her; but then, Jimmy had told her that he was all the 
 better for that it wouldn't do to let himself get fat. 
 And now poor James, his father, was going to be ruined 
 at the very least, if Laodice's Love did not win. She had 
 seen his name in the racing papers which found their way 
 over from the trainer's to Lonesome. She had often 
 seen her boy ride the horse in rough gallops. Perhaps 
 that Helen Darell was extravagant; perhaps he had had 
 great troubles and had gone in for gambling dreadful; 
 perhaps a thousand things. She wondered if James 
 was happy with his wife if he had boys growing up like 
 hers. And perhaps, from what Mr. Gates had heard, 
 poor James' home would be sold up! It seemed to her 
 that Providence had decreed that her Jim should be the 
 means of saving his father; to which end Hicks had been 
 kicked at Newmarket that very afternoon. Jimmy must 
 win the race on Laodice's Love to-morrow! She would 
 summon up her courage and tell him it would make him 
 ride so that nothing could beat him ! 
 
 And so, as she walked with him through the dark- 
 ness, across the deserted downs to the training quarters, 
 with many tears and blushes, and holding his arm very 
 tightly, she told him all. 
 
 The boy, a light-hearted youngster, had often ques- 
 tioned his mother about his father, in the past. From 
 her evasive replies and the fact that his questionings
 
 4 o6 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 caused her evident distress, he had long ago surmised 
 that there was a trouble in his mother's life which ex- 
 tended to his own, and thenceforth he had avoided the 
 subject. 
 
 Like a good boy, he at once did his best to comfort 
 her and cheer her up. Having learnt that his father 
 stood to win heavily upon the horse and that he had 
 been having a bad time, he promptly conceived the ro- 
 mantic idea of saving him from ruin by riding such a 
 finish on Laodice's Love as should make his father rich 
 and himself famous. He had ridden the horse at exercise, 
 and once in a trial when he had pleased his master by 
 winning cleverly, for which reason he had been given the 
 mount. As has already appeared he was near to losing his 
 life in the attempt; for, denying himself of everything 
 but the merest morsel of food (heroic in a lad of his 
 years), and sweating himself blind on the morning o'f the 
 race, to get down to Laodice's seven stone seven, the poor 
 boy was overcome by the weakness resulting from such 
 drastic methods by a growing lad, and fainted away in 
 the saddle as he reached the winning post. 
 
 Margaret, as soon as he was out of danger, had been 
 filled with pride at his gallant achievement, but had mod- 
 estly refrained from mentioning these details in her 
 letters to James, until he had slowly extracted them from 
 her prompted thereto by his own convictions. 
 
 As for James Burkett his exaltation in his son had 
 been increased by remorse and shame in himself; and 
 something better than his youthful passion for Margaret 
 came back to him. After his wife's death he had thought 
 of her often. He had concluded that she had probably 
 married, and when, on the occasion that he had paid a 
 visit to Midford for the purpose of seeing her, if pos- 
 sible, he had learnt that strangers were living at the cot- 
 tage, he had refrained from making inquiries about its 
 previous occupants. 
 
 Not since his above-mentioned visit had James Bur- 
 kett been in Midford Holt until to-day.
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 407 
 
 He had walked from Shapston, where he had left the 
 train. As he reached the Crossways, where they had met, 
 he halted, and the girl who had directed him there those 
 sixteen years ago stood before him again in fancy as he 
 thought of her Margaret, his Margaret, Margaret 
 with the soft, shy, trustful eyes and blushing cheeks of 
 awakening womanhood. 
 
 And he was going to marry her now if she would 
 have him. For in spite of his repeated and urgent wishes 
 to that effect, Margaret was strangely coy, or something. 
 She would not give him a definite answer stating that 
 she was afraid he might wish to change his mind that 
 perhaps it was only because he was "sorry," and a thou- 
 sand other things. Women were uncertain creatures at the 
 best of times they never knew their own minds two days 
 together. Then his conscience smote him for such 
 thoughts about her, and he felt suddenly small beside the 
 greatness of this one's unselfish love. By Gad! He was 
 a rotter beside her ! All men were ! 
 
 He walked on. In the west were twilight-purple bars 
 of cloud the gates that darkling close on day; in the 
 east the pale blue-gray skies of a winter evening. It was 
 very mild, even up here in the hill country, and for days 
 there had been no rain. Midford Holt lay dusk and still, 
 with its tattered remnants of the departed year of the leaf 
 still clinging in sheltered places, where the sturdy oaks 
 carried their faded autumn trappings through the winter, 
 until their new bronze livery invested them once rrpre 
 with spring. Higher up, toward Moulton Ridges, the 
 myriad birch trunks showed clean and white and clear 
 above the ocher-colored bracken beneath. 
 
 He walked swiftly up the bridle-path through the 
 failing light. Up above him up there on Three Trees 
 Margaret was waiting for him with their boy. The old 
 place seemed very dear and familiar as he looked about 
 him. Here it was they had wandered together in those 
 far off days. Change, it seemed, came here but seldom 
 or not at all. Here, by this matted thorn, they had stood 
 together and kissed each other many times. Down this
 
 408 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 same old grass-grown track had they walked together, 
 that night when they said good-bye. The old, forgotten 
 landmarks came back to him reproachfully as he thought 
 of what this woman had been to him. 
 
 And then, as he came in sight of the distant trees a 
 dark blur against the sky James Burkett stopped, filled 
 with sudden awe. For the film of self which had so long 
 obscured his eyes was falling away, and he saw himself 
 as he was. It was not a very great, or a very good sight 
 to look upon. The Colossus which had for so long 
 filled the horizons of James Burkett shrank and dwindled 
 until it became a thing small and of poor account against 
 the boundless skies of a woman's love. 
 
 With uncovered head, he walked humbly up the knoll, 
 where the three pines kept their vigil through night and 
 day, nor ever ceased communing with the hills and winds 
 and stars in their strange, mysterious undertones which 
 seem to tell of things old as the world unheard, and un- 
 beheld of men. 
 
 It was now quite dark, but he could see their figures 
 and the outlines of Jimmy's bicycle against the paler 
 sky. He called out, "It's me, Margaret!" The boy had 
 seen him and, after pressing his mother's hand a moment, 
 he came down the slope to meet him shyly holding out 
 his hand. James, with a choking sensation in his throat, 
 grasped it and shook it warmly. Then he took his boy in 
 his arms and kissed his forehead. "God bless you, Jimmy 
 boy, you've saved your father and risked your life to do 
 it!" he said, quickly, and so that Margaret should hear. 
 
 At last, still holding his son's hand, he stood before 
 the woman who had given herself to him on this self- 
 same spot sixteen years ago. 
 
 yery simply, and with an unconscious and pathetic 
 dignity, the lad, whose life had begun there, lifted his 
 father's hand and placed it in his mother's. James the 
 man took the two of them into his arms. . . . 
 
 With the natural reluctance of the human boy to wit- 
 ness scenes of emotion in which his elders are concerned, 
 the youngster had turned to his bicycle, feeling that his
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 409 
 
 part was done, and that he had best leave them a little. 
 After cheerfully ringing the bell once or twice, to buck 
 them, and himself, up a bit, he jumped on one pedal and 
 disappeared into the darkness to an accompaniment of 
 crackling bracken stems and the hollow, drumming sound 
 of the tires, as he careered about a little way below 
 them. 
 
 "Margaret!" 
 
 He raised her hand to his lips, and kissed it rever- 
 ently. He wanted to kiss her lips, but something held 
 him back. 
 
 She had suggested that they should meet here. Now 
 that she was with him once again, such a crowd of 
 memories swept over her as made her silent to the verge 
 of awkwardness with him. He did not understand, of 
 course, a man wouldn't but her long years of chastity 
 had made her shy of men. At his touch her overwrought 
 womanhood sought relief in a passion of sobbing. 
 
 It was, in reality, the simplest and the best method of 
 reconciliation. If only in common humanity, it was im- 
 perative that he should take her in his arms and kiss her; 
 and once she found herself there, if her sobbings did not 
 immediately cease, they became sufficiently manageable 
 to make it possible for her to return his kiss. After that 
 she, apparently, found kisses more comforting than tears, 
 for the latter subsided in volume as the former increased 
 in number; and at last, James said: 
 
 "Margaret, you are not a fit wife for me you are 
 worth twenty such men as I ! but if you will marry me I 
 will try my level best to make you and Jimmy happy. We 
 can live near your aunt, farm a bit of land, and settle 
 down nice and comfortable. If not for my sake, for 
 Jimmy's, say 'Yes' !" 
 
 She said "Yes," of course, she had wanted to say 
 "Yes" a thousand times, at least, since Jimmy began to 
 get better, but she had been afraid afraid that it was 
 only because he was "sorry" which made him ask her. 
 But a wonderful thing had come to her James really 
 and truly loved her now; he had told her so, time after
 
 410 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 time, in his letters, although she had found a sort of 
 dreadful pleasure in tormenting herself by suggesting 
 reasons to show that he was deceiving himself. But now 
 her own heart told her so, and she was wise enough not 
 to question that. 
 
 The crackling of the bracken and the drumming of 
 the tires had ceased Jimmy was practicing upon the 
 smooth turf beside the bridle-road further down the 
 Holt: the sound of his bell reached their ears from time 
 to time. 
 
 James thought a minute, and then asked her another 
 question, which put her all in a flutter again. At last, as 
 she seemed to experience considerable difficulty in coming 
 to a decision, he hinted that she had better leave it to 
 him. 
 
 She looked up at him with her gentle, loving eyes, and 
 sighed with relief. 
 
 "Yes, dear. Tow say!" 
 
 "Very well. To-day week!" 
 
 "0-h, Jim!" 
 
 "Never mind about 'Oh, Jim' that'll be all right! 
 It isn't as if we're strangers we're old married people 
 really. You've been a true wife to me, if ever any woman 
 has!" He had told her of the events which led up to the 
 death of his wife. "Sooner the better, I say!" he con- 
 tinued. 
 
 Thereupon commenced a battle of arguments for and 
 against, which ended as it was certain to end, both 
 parties being, in reality, of one accord in Margaret 
 promising to become his lawful wedded wife on that day 
 week. When he expressed a hope that by this time next 
 year there might, perhaps, be a little Margaret in exist- 
 ence, she became one big blush all over; and he rallied 
 her at her confusion but seeing that it caused her 
 genuine distress, it dawned upon him that he was putting 
 his foot in it, and he wisely tried to look at it from a 
 woman's point of view. He so far succeeded a result 
 of his recent awakening that he was surprised to find 
 how much deeper the whole question of children, the
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 411 
 
 pain and the burden, the wonder and the glory, went 
 down into a mother's being than into a man's. 
 
 "Sorry, Margaret! Forgive me, dear, it was only a 
 man's beastly thoughtlessness!" 
 
 For answer, she reached up to him and, drawing his 
 face down, kissed him passionately. Her nature, all too 
 long a-hungered for its natural joy, the right of child- 
 bearing to the man she loved, leapt to his touch: her in- 
 herent maternity, which she had stifled, in spite of more 
 than one offer of marriage, yearned to him as to its re- 
 lease after long years of bondage. That night, ere she 
 lay down to sleep, she thanked her God with fervent 
 prayers, and with deep humility asked that she might yet 
 bring other children to her husband. 
 
 The boy's bicycle bell sounded through the dark he 
 was getting impatient. 
 
 It was time they thought about starting back for 
 Shapston, she supposed; and James struck a match and 
 looked at his watch. She had come with Jimmy from 
 Hazley Parva by train to Shapston. The boy had 
 brought his bicycle for the double purpose of saving his 
 legs if he got too tired walking he was still rather weak 
 from his accident and of showing it to his father; and 
 James, informed of this by Margaret, insisted upon 
 thoroughly examining it when they reached Shapston. 
 There he put them in the train for Hazley; and remained 
 himself for the night at an hotel. 
 
 James Burkett's interview with Aunt Deb had been a 
 rather shame-faced affair on his part, and he had had the 
 grace to carry himself humbly in the presence of the 
 homely woman upon whom he had brought much tribula- 
 tion in his younger days. 
 
 Said Aunt Deb to herself, after he had gone: "Well, 
 well, it's been all for the best! He'll be able to appre- 
 ciate her, now!" and, small as had been her experience of 
 men in his walk of life, she was not far from the truth. 
 
 He had quickly formed a liking for sturdy Michael 
 Gates a man of simple honesty, if a rather rough one;
 
 4 i2 "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 and he had completed arrangements with Michael's 
 friend, the trainer, to their mutual satisfaction. Out here 
 on the hills James Burkett felt a new man, and looked 
 forward with confidence to his future career. 
 
 The wedding had been a very quiet one. Mr. Ber- 
 tram Burkett had brought his wife from Wimbledon to 
 be present at the ceremony, and the old gentleman had 
 thawed rapidly before the unaffected sincerity with which 
 the "yokels" had endeavored to please and interest him. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Rush had come from Balham, to be enter- 
 tained for a week or so by Aunt Deb and her husband. 
 They were, by now, old friends with the folk at the 
 farm having paid Margaret a visit at least once every 
 year. 
 
 And Margaret? But I will not attempt to do justice 
 to Margaret in her blushes and bridal. Suffice for me 
 to say as the fact sufficed for her that her bridegroom 
 was more than satisfied with her; and incidentally that 
 "his mother" wiped her eyes surreptitiously during the 
 day; that Aunt Deb suffered largely from the same com- 
 plaint; and that Mrs. Rush was voluble, prophetic, and 
 fiercely tender and tearful by turns. 
 
 Gammer Polgrean had gone to her rest, only three 
 years before. After the cottage had become her own 
 property Margaret had let it. For her honeymoon the 
 tenants had obligingly found quarters elsewhere. That 
 James and herself should inaugurate their lawful wedded 
 life by a stay in Midford, all the sentiments required. 
 Margaret felt, in addition to her own emotions, that it 
 was her duty to Gammer Polgrean. 
 
 That old woman, toward her end, had listened long 
 and respectfully to the rector. Margaret had lived with 
 her, on and off, during her closing years. Only her bodily 
 strength failed her: she kept all her faculties, and often 
 teased her companion with sly allusions to the Holt and 
 certain goings on that had been there in the past. She 
 was proud of Margaret, and woe betide the man or 
 woman or child that dared to speak ill of one she looked
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 413 
 
 on as her daughter. To the last she insisted to the latter 
 that her man would be glad to come back to her. On 
 her death-day, the Gammer provided the natives with 
 one more exploit by which to remember her. She flatly 
 refused to die in her bed, like a Christian woman. With 
 Margaret to assist her she walked a mile and a half into 
 the Holt. Nothing Margaret could say against it could 
 turn the indomitable old soul from her wish ; so she asked 
 the woman who now lived at what had once been Aunt 
 Deb's cottage, to let her son follow them in case help was 
 required. When the Gammer's strength gave out, and 
 she was compelled to rest, Margaret sat down beside her 
 and supported her with her arm. The old woman began 
 to doze ; and Margaret beckoned to the boy to run back 
 for the pony and trap he had promised to have ready. 
 While he was gone and Margaret was tearfully waiting 
 for his return, the Gammer woke up. She tried to speak, 
 and managed to say, "Kiss me, dearie!" as Margaret, 
 frightened, flung loving arms round her. Ere help came 
 she had died quite peacefully; and Margaret knew that 
 she had had her wish. 
 
 It was their wedding night, and James had driven 
 her over from Hazley. They had left the trap at an inn 
 near the bottom of the northern slope of the downs to 
 be taken back next day and walked up to Three Trees. 
 Jimmy had remained at Lonesome. 
 
 It was very dark and clear: beside and through the 
 black, cavernous roofs of the pines, the star-fire burned 
 on its endless flight through time and space just such a 
 night of stars as it had been that other night, those six- 
 teen years ago, when the man and the woman, standing 
 there now, had called up that other life which was to part 
 them for so long, and bring them together again in the 
 end. 
 
 Not purer the clear white rays, in James Burkett's 
 sight, than the light in the gray eyes of the woman he 
 held against his heart For purity was the star-fire of 
 Margaret's nature: sweet and clean as the west wind
 
 4H "THRACIAN SEA" 
 
 which swept its song from her beloved Three Trees she 
 was, and in her thinking dwelt no evil thing. She was of 
 the tribe of women who, being pure at heart, irradiate the 
 darkness caused by evil done of men and women upon 
 each other. She would not have had the courage to 
 face "his mother," those sixteen years ago, but she would 
 have given her own life freely for "his mother's" son 
 she loved. If the former be held as foolishness in her, it 
 shall be by wiser folk than the writer of this tale. 
 If her hats were sometimes dowdy, he has not noticed it 
 when he has seen the woman in her face and she has 
 more faces than dowdy hats, he does most solemnly aver; 
 since there are many Margarets in the world. Sometimes 
 she meets him in a London street : he has seen her, a soli- 
 tary woman, upon the fells : he has seen her feeding her 
 baby behind some south-coast breakwater at excursion 
 times. 
 
 "O hi" 
 
 Her hand clutched his arm, and they stared up above 
 them at it the pale green scratch of fire, that had torn 
 the zenith across and was now slowly fading from the 
 skies. For Margaret, the meteor was an omen of glad 
 tidings. Long after all trace of it had vanished she 
 stood, with her face resting against her husband's breast, 
 gazing up at the heavens; since, when you saw a shooting 
 star, there was a baby born, and people who wished then 
 were supposed to be lucky. 
 
 "Stargazing little wife?" he asked presently, after 
 looking down into her eyes, that, full of dreams and stars, 
 seemed now as if magnetized by the unearthly splendors 
 of the evening planet's slowly sinking fires, that crept 
 earthward down the west. 
 
 She lifted her head a little, and her shining eyes clung 
 to his. 
 
 "They seem to draw closer, Jim, if you look at them 
 the stars." 
 
 He raised his head obediently, and looked. Far away 
 behind him, his dead wife went to dust beside her lover,
 
 "THRACIAN SEA" 415 
 
 on that other hill. He wondered "where she was," and 
 the thought touched him strangely at that moment. (It 
 was not until long after, that Margaret told him of the 
 veiled lady who had lifted Jimmy up that day by the cot- 
 tage. He never guessed it was his other wife.) Then 
 his mind came back to the present. Margaret had no 
 cause for jealousy: Helen was becoming but a sorrowful 
 memory. He was happier now than he had ever ex- 
 pected to be again. All desire for drink had left him; 
 and thankfulness for escape from his old, unsatisfying 
 life was strong within him, as they walked, very slowly, 
 down the dark bridle-path through Midford Holt. 
 
 To Margaret, he was her own dear husband, and a 
 man only less wonderful than the man who had spoken 
 to her by the Crossways, sixteen years before. 
 
 They stopped by the dim roads, for her to kiss him, 
 ere they went on to Gammer Polgrean's cottage. 
 
 THE END
 
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 enjoy this vigorous narrative of a voyage from New York around 
 Cape Horn in a large sailing vessel. The Mutiny of the Elsinore 
 is the same kind of tale as its famous predecessor, and by those 
 who have read it, it is pronounced even more stirring. Mr. 
 London is here writing of scenes and types of people with which 
 he is very familiar, the sea and ships and those who live in 
 ships. In addition to the adventure element, of which there 
 is an abundance of the usual London kind, a most satisfying 
 kind it is, too, there is a thread of romance involving a wealthy, 
 tired young man who takes the trip on the Elsinore, and the 
 captain's daughter. The play of incident, on the one hand the 
 ship's amazing crew and on the other the lovers, gives a story 
 in which the interest never lags and which demonstrates anew 
 what a master of his art Mr. London is. 
 
 The Three Sisters 
 
 By MAY SINCLAIR, Author of "The Divine 
 Fire," "The Return of the Prodigal," etc. 
 
 Cloth, izmo. $j.j5 net. 
 
 Every reader of The Divine Fire, in fact every reader of any 
 of Miss Sinclair's books, will at once accord her unlimited praise 
 for her character work. The Three Sisters reveals her at her 
 best. It is a story of temperament, made evident not through 
 tiresome analyses but by means of a series of dramatic incidents. 
 The sisters of the title represent three distinct types of woman- 
 kind. In their reaction under certain conditions Miss Sinclair 
 is not only telling a story of tremendous interest but she is 
 really snowing a cross section of life. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 64-66 Fifth Avenue 
 New York
 
 NEW MACMILLAN FICTION 
 
 The Rise of Jennie Gushing 
 
 By MARY S. WATTS, Author of "Nathan Burke," 
 "Van Cleeve," etc. Cloth, ismo. $1.35 net. 
 
 In Nathan Burke Mrs. Watts told with great power the story 
 of a man. In this, her new book, she does much the same thing 
 for a woman. Jennie Gushing is an exceedingly interesting 
 character, perhaps the most interesting of any that Mrs. Watts 
 has yet given us. The novel is her life and little else, but 
 it is a life filled with a variety of experiences and touching 
 closely many different strata of humankind. Throughout it 
 all, from the days when as a thirteen-year-old, homeless, friend- 
 less waif, Jennie is sent to a reformatory, to the days when her 
 beauty is the inspiration of a successful painter, there is in the 
 narrative an appeal to the emotions, to the sympathy, to the 
 affections, that cannot be gainsaid. 
 
 Saturday's Child 
 
 By KATHLEEN NORRIS, Author of "Mother," 
 
 "The Treasure," etc. 
 With frontispiece in colors by F. Graham Cootes. 
 
 Decorated doth, izmo. $1.50 net. 
 
 " Friday's child is loving and giving, 
 Saturday's child must work for her living." 
 The title of Mrs. Norris's new novel at once indicates its 
 theme. It is the story of a girl who has her own way to make 
 in the world. The various experiences through which she passes, 
 the various viewpoints which she holds until she comes finally 
 to realize that service for others is the only thing that counts, 
 are told with that same intimate knowledge of character, that 
 healthy optimism and the belief in the ultimate goodness of 
 mankind that have distinguished all of this author's writing. 
 The book is intensely alive with human emotions. The reader 
 is bound to sympathize with Mrs. Norris's people because they 
 seem like real people and because they are actuated by motives 
 which one is able to understand. Saturday's Child is Mrs. 
 Norris's longest work. Into it has gone the very best of her 
 creative talent. It is a volume which the many admirers of 
 Mother will gladly accept. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 64-66 Fifth Avenue 
 New York
 
 NEW MACMILLAN FICTION 
 
 Metzel Changes His Mind 
 
 By RACHEL CAPEN SCHAUFFLER, Author 
 of "The Goodly Fellowship." 
 
 With frontispiece. Decorated cloth, izmo. $1.25 net. 
 The many readers who enjoyed The Goodly Fellowship have 
 been eagerly awaiting something more from the pen of the same 
 author. This is at last announced. In Metzel Changes His 
 Mind, Miss Schauffler strengthens the impression made by her 
 first book that she is a writer of marked originality. Here again 
 she has provided an unusual setting for her tale. The scene is 
 largely laid in a pathological laboratory, surely a new back- 
 ground for a romance. It is a background, moreover, which is 
 used most effectively by Miss Schauffler in the furtherance of 
 her plot. Her characters, too, are as interesting as their sur- 
 roundings a woman doctor, attractive as well as sensible, a 
 gruff old German doctor, suspicious of womankind, and a young 
 American. Around these the action centers, though half a dozen 
 others, vividly sketched, have a hand in the proceedings. Of 
 course Metzel Changes His Mind is a love story, but not of the 
 ordinary type. 
 
 Landmarks 
 
 By E. V. LUCAS, Author of "Over Bemerton's," 
 "London Lavender," etc. Cloth, izmo. $1.35 net. 
 Mr. Lucas's new story combines a number of the most 
 significant episodes in the life of the central figure; in other 
 words, those events of his career from early childhood to the 
 close of the book which have been most instrumental in building 
 up his character and experience. The episodes are of every 
 kind, serious, humorous, tender, awakening, disillusioning, 
 and they are narrated without any padding whatever, each 
 one beginning as abruptly as in life; although in none of his 
 previous work has the author been so minute in his social obser- 
 vation and narration. A descriptive title precedes each episode, 
 as in the moving-picture; and it was in fact while watching a 
 moving-picture that Mr. Lucas had the idea of adapting its 
 swift selective methods to fiction. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 64-66 Fifth Avenue 
 New Tork
 
 000037088 2