'
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 MRS. BAILLIE REYNOLDS 
 
 Qr CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE GIRL FROM NOWHERE 
 THE NOTORIOUS Miss LISLE 
 OUT OF THE NIGHT 
 
 12mo. Each, net $1.20 
 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 NEW YORK
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT 
 MARRIAGE 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. BAILLIE REYNOLDS 
 
 AUTHOR OF "OUT OF THE NIGHT," "THE GIRL FROM NOWHERE, 1 
 "THE NOTORIOUS MISS LISLE," ETC. 
 
 HODDER & STOUGHTON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
 
 Copyright, 1912 
 By George H. Doran Company
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 2132546
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 " To bear, to nurse, to rear, 
 To watch, and then to lose: 
 This have -I done! " JEAN INGELOW. 
 
 THAT Mrs. Brendon, being what she was, should be 
 content to dwell in a suburb, is perhaps a sign of her 
 greatness of mind. 
 
 We all know that the word " suburban " in the mouth 
 of the superior person, conveys a sort of reproach. It 
 is used to suggest cheap culture of the pretentious kind. 
 It serves as a label. The truth, that one suburb dif- 
 fers from another in almost every respect, is lost sight 
 of by the superficial critic, who likes to group things. 
 
 Thackridge differs from almost every other suburb, 
 not only in its social atmosphere, but actually in its 
 geographical configuration. 
 
 The fact that it stands upon a hill, and that the va- 
 rious suburban lines have in consequence swerved away 
 from it on either hand, has left it, as its inhabitants 
 joyfully affirm, " quite countrified." 
 
 One wears tweed suits and Norfolk jackets and very 
 thick boots in Thackridge. One finds real gardens, 
 and delightful, unsuspected houses, with their backs, 
 or sides, to the road houses which do not even sug- 
 gest a row of villas. They were not planned by a subur- 
 
 1
 
 2 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 ban architect : they are, for the most part, almost incon- 
 venient enough to be truly picturesque. 
 
 The house in which Mrs. Brandon had lived, since 
 her husband's death, was one of these. She had, in- 
 deed, inserted a hot-water supply and electric light: 
 but these things were alien to the plan of the long, 
 low house, invisible from the road, whose date was so 
 various that nobody presumed to dogmatise on the sub- 
 ject, but which boasted that its foundations were iden- 
 tical with those of the Abbot's house which had once 
 occupied the site. 
 
 Mrs. Brandon was just fifty years old on the morn- 
 ing when Oliver's terrible letter broke into the even 
 tenour of her way. 
 
 She was the widow of an Oxford Professor, who 
 numbered among his friends most of the prominent 
 men of his day. Her married life had been passed 
 in Oxford, but she was born in the Abbot's House at 
 Thackridge; and, this happening to be in the market 
 at the time of her widowhood, she bought it, and set- 
 tled down in it to live again in her only son's future. 
 
 She was herself a writer and journalist of no mean 
 ability : and her life was full of interests. Oliver and 
 she were and always had been the best of friends, un- 
 til Vivien Faulkner came into their lives. 
 
 The Faulkners were the great folks of Thackridge. 
 Sir Charles Faulkner was a railway director of the 
 Napoleonic kind. He had extricated the City and 
 Local Line from serious financial difficulties, and had 
 turned it into a gold mine. He had married an Amer- 
 ican heiress, and his sons and daughters were most of 
 them handsome. The eldest son's wife was a Lady 
 Somebody the eldest daughter had married a 
 young man who was not only a Member of Parliament,
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 3 
 
 but also a member of a county family, which counted 
 for far more in the eyes of her father. It was not 
 considered likely, in Thackridge, that Vivien would 
 have anything to say to Oliver Brendon, nor that her 
 father would sanction the engagement, even should she 
 herself be weak enough to desire it. 
 
 Oliver was six feet high, and quite nice-looking, 
 though not handsome. He had plenty of ability, but 
 his intellect resembled that of his mother more than 
 that of his father. Though not yet thirty, he was ed- 
 iting The Penman, a high-class weekly journal, which 
 was doing well, and likely to do better. 
 
 He was, of course, more or less eligible highly so 
 in the eyes of most Thackridge mothers : but the Faulk- 
 ners rose above the level of their immediate surround- 
 ings. Their week-end parties were quite smart. 
 
 Oliver, however, seemed unimpressed by any sense 
 of inferiority. Vivien was astonishingly pretty 
 pretty enough to take even a level-headed London editor 
 off his feet. He fell in love with unexpected severity ; 
 and the energy of his personality conquered the girl. 
 She accepted him, the engagement was announced, and 
 all Thackridge purred with delight. It was a kind of 
 victory for the suburb. Oliver was felt to have con- 
 ferred distinction upon the whole of local society by 
 aiming so high and shooting his bolt so successfully. 
 
 Mrs. Brendon made the best of it. She saw her fu- 
 ture daughter-in-law with the terrible clearness of ma- 
 ternal instinct, undisguised by the mists of passion. 
 There was no backbone in Vivien. She would be al- 
 ways a weight for Oliver to carry, never a lever to 
 raise him. She was sweetly caressing in her manner 
 to him now, because the incense of his devotion was 
 intoxicating her. Oliver's mother foresaw another
 
 4 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 manner, when novelty began to pall, and the bare bones 
 of real life to show gaunt through the roses of illusion. 
 Such a wife is a luxury which only a very rich man can 
 afford. 
 
 Oliver's wife could never, in the ordinary course of 
 events, be rich. Mrs. Brendon had a competence, and 
 this she supplemented by her own work. Her son and 
 she were very comfortable ; but Vivien had been reared 
 on a different scale. Sir Charles Faulkner, like many 
 another rich man, though he had accustomed his daugh- 
 ters to every luxury, was not at all inclined to portion 
 them handsomely. He had the notion which obtains 
 very largely among fathers in England, that they will 
 not have fortune-hunters after their daughters. The 
 system of give and take, which is usual on the Conti- 
 nent, has no place in their minds. Any man must be 
 fortunate who gets their daughter, and he ought to be 
 prepared to pay handsomely for the privilege. The 
 idea that a marriage between two young people should 
 also be a union of resources that each should con- 
 tribute towards the formation of the home is heresy 
 in the mind of the English father. 
 
 From this point of view, Oliver was a most accom- 
 modating son-in-law. He disliked the consideration 
 of ways and means. At school and at Oxford, his 
 mother had seen that he was well supplied with neces- 
 sary funds, and he had been too soundly brought up to 
 desire the unnecessary ones. Waste of money was a 
 thing he did not understand. He was not extravagant, 
 and he had always had enough for what he wanted. 
 He assumed that what sufficed him would suffice the 
 woman who shared his lot. 
 
 The engagement took place in the autumn. Oliver 
 was anxious to be married at once ; but Lady Faulkner
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 5 
 
 objected. She pointed out, quite reasonably, that Viv- 
 ien was barely nineteen, and ought not to be hurried; 
 and in the second place, she, Lady Faulkner, was plan- 
 ning a winter in Cairo, and wished her daughter to ac- 
 company her. If the marriage came off in the spring, 
 this was the last chance for her to have Vivien with her. 
 She demanded from the young couple this sacrifice to 
 duty. 
 
 It was, of course, impossible to resist so natural a 
 desire on the part of a mother. Vivien parted from 
 her lover with tears and laments, and clinging em- 
 braces and kisses that tingled in the young man's 
 blood when he thought of them, which was almost 
 always. He grew grave and thin, consumed with the 
 desire for the presence of the beloved object. He had 
 not wasted his youth on aimless flirtation, any more 
 than he had wasted his money on wine or fancy waist- 
 coats. He was in deadly earnest now. 
 
 Mrs. Brendon sighed a little in private. It is al- 
 ways a severe discipline to the middle-aged to look on 
 at the passions of youth the wasted fervour, the mis- 
 placed devotion. Oliver's mother, however, had the 
 sense to see that some such crisis as this was necessary 
 to her son's development. All had hitherto gone very 
 smoothly for him in his comfortable circumstances. 
 The only woman he had ever known intimately was a 
 woman who was eminently reasonable and sincerely 
 desirous of his happiness. It was well for him to be 
 for a time the slave to a young girl's caprice to hang 
 upon her letters, even to grow thin with the intense 
 desire for her presence. 
 
 It had been the lover's intention to run out to Cairo 
 at Christmas, for a glimpse of Vivien's lovely face. 
 His plans were foiled by a kind of crisis in the affairs
 
 6 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 of his paper. An article which the proprietor, against 
 the advice of his editor, had insisted upon inserting, 
 bade fair to produce a libel action which would set all 
 London buzzing. The storm gathered just at the time 
 when Oliver might have snatched those few days. By 
 the time the danger was safely over the Christmas va- 
 cation was also past. 
 
 It was very soon after this that the tone of Vivien's 
 letters began to alter. He felt that the prolonged 
 absence, the great distance, was drawing her out of 
 his reach. His mother noted that his anxiety for the 
 arrival of news grew more feverish; the relief which 
 a letter brought, less noticeable. She stood aloof, all 
 her heart sore for the son who had passed beyond reach 
 of her consolation. She asked no questions, she re- 
 ceived no confidence. She only guessed that things 
 were getting worse. 
 
 It was in March that the blow fell. Vivien wrote, 
 a short, broken, incoherent note, supplemented by a 
 letter from her mother, to say that she had changed 
 her mind. She had no apology to offer except the 
 obvious one that she had been very young and inex- 
 perienced. She could but beg and beseech pardon. 
 Mr. Railton had spent the winter at Shepherd's with 
 them. He was American. Lady Faulkner had no- 
 ticed from the first that he admired Vivien greatly, 
 but had thought little of it, as Vivien was very greatly 
 admired. He had, however, been unremitting in his 
 attentions. He had cancelled his whole programme 
 of proceeding up the Nile, in order to remain in Cairo 
 with them. As time went on she could not help feel- 
 ing sure that the girl had mistaken her own heart. Her 
 unhappiness was evident. At last things had come to 
 a crisis. Mr. Railton confessed to her that he could
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 7 
 
 stay no longer, as his feelings could not be commanded. 
 Vivien, on hearing that he was departing, had dissolved 
 in tempests of tears. The thing was done, and could 
 not be undone. It only remained to throw themselves 
 upon Mr. Brendon's mercy. 
 
 In view of the painful situation, Lady Faulkner pro- 
 posed, instead of returning to England, to remain 
 abroad rather longer than she had intended, and to come 
 back to Thackridge only just in time for the wedding, 
 which must be in May, as Mr. Bailton's affairs made 
 it urgent for him to return to the States, and he wished 
 to take his wife with him. 
 
 How Oliver first received this news his mother never 
 knew; for it chanced that she was away for the week- 
 end with her sister at Hastings, when the fatal letter 
 arrived. On her return to the Abbot's House, on Mon- 
 day afternoon, she found an envelope, addressed by 
 Oliver, enclosing the two letters, with no comment, be- 
 yond the message that he should not return home for 
 the next few days. 
 
 She sat down alone with her son's sorrow, and hated 
 herself for the feeling which, even in the first moment, 
 would intrude, that she was glad from the bottom of 
 her heart that Vivien had proved herself unworthy. 
 She knew that the blow was a staggering one ; but her 
 confidence in her son made her pretty certain of his 
 rising from it a better man because of his suffering. 
 She had no address, but wrote to him at the office of 
 The Penman to assure him of her love and sympathy. 
 She said no word against Vivien, commenting only 
 upon the force of juxtaposition in the case of the very 
 young. She guessed that Mr. Eailton was wealthy 
 enough to have dazzled the girl. 
 
 " How often," she wrote, " have I thanked God that
 
 8 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 I did not marry the man with whom I fell in love when 
 I was seventeen! I was saved only by the fact that 
 he got entangled with the daughter of his landlady, 
 and had to marry her. The day that I learnt that 
 news I thought my life was over. As a matter of fact, 
 I was rescued, by the skin of my teeth, from what 
 must have been a lifelong mistake." 
 
 Having despatched her letter, she could only wait 
 for news of her beloved with what patience she might. 
 For the first few days she was fairly tranquil, though 
 her heart ached continually for him. Then she began 
 to grow restless. Oliver was a sensible, capable fel- 
 low, true; but he had never been seriously in love be- 
 fore, and one never knows quite how such a man will 
 take disappointment. As a child, his temper had been 
 fiery and explosive. Moreover, the strain of his 
 fiancee's absence had brought him to a highly strung 
 condition of nerves, and unusual debility of body. It 
 began to seem likely to her, during her solitary reflec- 
 tions, that he might be suffering more than she had an- 
 ticipated. She wrote imploring him to give her an 
 address asking what he was doing. 
 
 His reply to this came by return of post. He was 
 merely sleeping in London, at his Club. He could not 
 face Thackridge yet palpitating, as it must be, with 
 the news of his rebuff. He begged his mother not to 
 be anxious, and not to put pressure upon him to re- 
 turn. He must wrestle with his bitterness in soli- 
 tude. 
 
 This should have reassured her, but did not. It was 
 not the course of conduct she would have expected him 
 to pursue. 
 
 She passed some miserable days. 
 
 Sir Charles called upon her, to apologise, frankly
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 9 
 
 enough, but with an undercurrent of exultation which 
 was quite perceptible, for his daughter's bad behaviour. 
 " In an older girl one might call it unpardonable," he 
 said, " but Vivien is young, and has always been ca- 
 pricious. I told your son at the time of the engage- 
 ment that I was by no means sure of her knowing her 
 own mind. He was confident, however, and there was, 
 as I need hardly assure you, no disposition on my part 
 to put any obstacle in the way of an alliance which I 
 felt would be an honour to our family." 
 
 Mrs. Brendon was glad to be able to bear this and 
 other exasperations in Oliver's stead. 
 
 She still wrote to him bravely and cheerfully, urging 
 him to come back when he felt he could, offering to 
 leave home for the whole summer, if he cared to do 
 so. " We could easily let this house furnished, and go 
 to some fresh place, farther afield, whence you could 
 get up to town every day." 
 
 The sympathies of Thackridge were strongly on the 
 side of the Brendons, if you trusted what they said. 
 Nevertheless, there was a lurking hesitation a kind 
 of disappointment that their hero had proved not strong 
 enough to keep what he had won. 
 
 " They will all be wild to see Mr. Railton, in a 
 month's time," said the lady of the Abbot's House, 
 with pardonable bitterness, to Mona Letts, the girl 
 whom she would have chosen for her daughter-in-law, 
 had such choice been given to mothers. 
 
 Mona laughed, and sighed. She may have felt that 
 Vivien's defection was her opportunity. But the de- 
 feated Oliver did not appear to claim the sympathy 
 which was his due. 
 
 "It is a good thing," she said, searching for any 
 consoling thing to say, " that Vivien is marrying an
 
 10 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 American. It will take her right away, out of his 
 sight, won't it?" 
 
 " Yes, that's true. I hope and trust he will not 
 want me to sell the Abbot's House. I had hoped 
 to end my days here, I must own." 
 
 " I heard from Vivi yesterday," went on Mona, 
 " such a ridiculous letter. She says she wishes she 
 could marry two men, and then she could have Calvert, 
 as she calls him, for one, and Oliver for the other 
 Calvert to take her motoring, and Oliver when she 
 wants to go to picture galleries. You see, she is not 
 serious: a mere child." 
 
 " It seems to me," said Mrs. Brendon impatiently, 
 " that half the sensible men in the world fall in love 
 with irresponsible children." 
 
 " If one could unite the two," said Mona reflectively 
 "Why should not the serious-minded girl have a 
 more fluffy exterior ? " 
 
 Mrs. Brendon could not help smiling at the fluffy 
 exterior. Vivien was fluffy, no doubt her head was 
 all over curls, bound with ribbon, and her clothes were 
 modelled upon old pictures. 
 
 " Well, Mona," she could not resist saying, " why 
 not cultivate the fluffy exterior ? " 
 
 This conversation took place about a fortnight after 
 the rupture of the engagement, and only a day before 
 the blow fell 1
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Shall I speak like a poet, or run 
 
 Into weak woman's tears for relief? 
 Oh, children ! I never lost one, 
 Yet my arm's round my own little son, 
 
 And Love knows the secret of Grief. 
 
 12. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 IT was a Saturday night. The weather, although it 
 was April, was still cold and wintry. Mrs. Brendon 
 had spent a tiring day over her bulbs, and, after din- 
 ner, had subsided into a comfortable chair before the 
 drawing-room fire, and was deep in a new book. 
 
 She had never been beautiful, but had come rather 
 near it in her youth, and was still quite pleasant to 
 look upon. Her hair was abundant, and hardly at all 
 grey. Her figure had thickened somewhat, but she 
 was not stout, and kept herself active by riding a 
 bicycle and taking long walks. The twenty years which 
 divided herself and her tall son in age might well have 
 been ten. They were often taken, in Switzerland, for 
 brother and sister, to her innocent pride and delight. 
 
 Her mind was more than usually occupied with 
 thoughts of Oliver that night. She was reading the 
 last new work of an author for whom the editor of The 
 Penman had predicted fame some years previously. 
 The result justified her boy's opinion. As she relished 
 the pithy sentences, the fascinating turn of the phrase, 
 she wished with all her heart that he were there to 
 share her pleasure. 
 
 11
 
 12 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 The late post rapped at the door, and very soon Drew, 
 her capable parlourmaid, brought in the letters. There 
 was one from Oliver, as she noted with pleasure. 
 Leaning forward, she stirred the already good fire 
 into a more inspiriting blaze, as though to prepare her- 
 self for the treat of seeing his fine, sensitive handwrit- 
 ing the script of a Greek scholar. 
 
 It was quite a short letter, dated from his club that 
 morning. 
 
 " MY DEAR MOTHER, 
 
 " This is to let you know that I was married 
 this morning, at St. Luke's Church, to Miss Carey, 
 who has from time to time done stenographic work 
 for me. 
 
 " We are now starting for Brighton for the week- 
 end. On Monday I propose to bring my wife to 
 the Abbot's House, until our plans for the future 
 are more decided. 
 
 " I realise, of course, that the step I am taking, 
 and the manner of it, must be a shock to you. 
 I do not see my way to soften the blow by anything 
 that I could write. Least said is perhaps best. 
 
 " But I assure you that I am still, in spite of 
 appearances, Your loving son, 
 
 " OLIVER BRENDON." 
 
 For some time Sybil sat with this letter upon her 
 lap, quite unconscious of feeling anything at all. The 
 first process of which her brain was aware was a con- 
 temptuous notion that this was a practical joke. The 
 next after a long interval was a secret joy that 
 Harold, her dead husband, was not there to have his 
 heart lacerated in this shocking manner.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 13 
 
 She leaned back in her chair, and her head fell 
 limply against the cushions. The colour had forsaken 
 even her lips. In her soft black evening dress, out- 
 lined upon the delicate-tinted chintz, she looked like a 
 dead woman. She had not, however, fainted. She was 
 fully conscious of her agony. 
 
 The clock ticked on. She looked up, after the lapse 
 of what seemed to her a very few minutes. An hour 
 had rolled by since she broke the seal and let loose upon 
 herself this flood of trouble. 
 
 This was her son's wedding-night. 
 
 The terrible finality of the thing was like the falling 
 of earth upon a coffin-lid, when they were filling a 
 grave. 
 
 Oliver, her high-minded, well-balanced son, a typical 
 Englishman of the better class, had allowed himself to 
 be ruined for ever by the inconstancv of a half-grown 
 child. 
 
 Everything that makes a man's life really worth liv- 
 ing the society of his equals, the respect of his 
 friends, the happiness of home he had sacrificed all 
 to the satisfaction of a baulked desire, the terrible de- 
 lusion of a vengeance which injured none but himself. 
 
 Of all the things which she had thought it possible 
 might happen as the result of his disappointment, this 
 had been farthest from her mind. 
 
 To many a mother comes a day when her own son 
 seems a stranger. She began to let her mind wander 
 over the members of her husband's family, in search 
 of some trait which should account for this unaccount- 
 able lapse. Harold himself had transmitted nothing, 
 she knew, that could result in this. What of his 
 brothers ? Well, certainly there was Herbert, who 
 had married Lallie Prince.
 
 14 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 Perhaps the most difficult relationship in life is that 
 between a woman and the wives of her husband's 
 brothers. No fact is more certain than that two 
 brothers will marry two women as far sundered as 
 the poles. These two are brought into an intimacy 
 which, but for the tie thus formed, would never, could 
 never exist. Lallie Prince, the wife of Herbert Bren- 
 don, had been in the ballet. Had she been an Indian 
 squaw, there could hardly have been less in common 
 between her and Oliver's mother than there was. Yet, 
 in their capacity as the wives of these two brothers, they 
 had to address each other by their Christian names, and 
 to sign themselves " Yours affectly." 
 
 . . . There was a pathetic irrelevance in such re- 
 flections at this moment. But for quite a long time 
 Sybil's thoughts ran on these lines. There was some- 
 thing alien in the blood which her son inherited, 
 something she could not understand but which had 
 made him capable of this social shipwreck. 
 
 After a long while she was conscious that Drew, 
 the parlourmaid, had entered, and was looking at her 
 doubtfully. 
 
 " Beg pardon, ma'am do you know that it is after 
 twelve o'clock?" 
 
 She started. Then she rose, and felt all her limbs 
 cramped and stiff as though she had occupied the same 
 posture for many hours. 
 
 " Is it so late ? " she said tonelessly. To speak 
 seemed an effort. 
 
 " Do you feel ill, ma'am ? " asked the maid with con- 
 cern. 
 
 She pushed back her hair from her forehead, and 
 suddenly all that she was feeling surged up to her 
 throat, until she could hardly breathe. " I've I've
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 15 
 
 had bad news," she panted, and burst into a flood of 
 tears. 
 
 " Mr. Brendon ? " cried Drew, in tones of horror. 
 
 " Yes, yes ! " For long the sobs came too thick 
 for utterance, but she brought it out at last. "He 
 is married ! He was married this morning ! Without 
 telling me ! Without asking me to his wedding ! My 
 boy, my only son ! I think my heart is broken ! " 
 
 The whole of Sunday the stricken mother lay in 
 bed, trying to realise the misfortune which had be- 
 fallen her. Its exact extent she could not yet know. 
 There still remained the final bitterness the actual 
 meeting with the typewriter girl who had consented to 
 a hole-and-corner marriage such as this. 
 
 Was it possible that she might be capable of being 
 trained into something dimly resembling a gentle- 
 woman ? Oliver's letter seemed hardly to hold out such 
 a hope. Had he felt able to say one word in her praise, 
 would he not have said it ? Had he foreseen any pos- 
 sibility of his mother's sympathy, would he not have 
 invoked it? 
 
 She read and re-read his bitter, reckless words. In 
 his unbearable misery he had taken his future with 
 both hands and hurled it overboard. 
 
 It was so unusual for Mrs. Brendon to be absent from 
 church both morning and evening that Mona Letts. 
 came round on her way home to know if she were ill. 
 Drew went upstairs to her mistress to ask what she 
 should say to the visitor. 
 
 Sybil reflected. To-morrow her new daughter-in-law 
 would be actually in Thackridge. There would be no 
 concealing the catastrophe. She might as well an-
 
 16 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 nounce it to Mona, and then she would be sure of the 
 whole village knowing it by slow yet sure degrees. 
 
 " Tell Miss Letts that I am suffering from the shock 
 of sudden news. Tell her that I heard yesterday that 
 Mr. Brendon is married. I do not feel equal to seeing 
 her. Thank her for her kindness in coming." 
 
 Standing in the low, square hall, thinking how much 
 she admired its restraint and distinction, Mona heard 
 the surprising intelligence. It was so amazing that 
 she could not refrain from showing her consternation. 
 She plied the parlourmaid with questions. Drew knew 
 only that Mrs. Oliver's maiden name was Miss Carey 
 and that they were coming home to-morrow. Mrs. 
 Brendon had never seen her, she was pretty sure of 
 that. It had been quite a surprise. 
 
 Miss Letts turned away sorrowful. She loved Mrs. 
 Brendon, she dearly liked the Abbot's House. She 
 could have loved Oliver with very little encourage- 
 ment. Had he but known how ready she was to sym- 
 pathise ! 
 
 But these are things that well-bred girls hide. How 
 can a young man know the eager kindness that may lie 
 hid under their calm expression? 
 
 She did nothing but wonder what kind of girl this 
 Miss Carey was. Had Oliver liked her before he fell 
 a victim to the fluffiness of Vivien? And had he re- 
 turned to his old love on being forsaken by the new? 
 
 It was matter of absorbing interest. 
 
 And they were coming here to-morrow!
 
 Misery! What shall I say, or do? 
 I cannot advise, or, at least, persuade. 
 Most like, you are glad you deceived me rue 
 No whit of the wrong. R. BROWNING. 
 
 THE hours of Monday afternoon crept on. 
 
 Sybil paced her drawing-room with restless step. 
 The place was gay with fresh flowers, the tea equipage 
 stood awaiting the travellers. There was no wedding 
 whiteness anywhere that seemed too much of a mock- 
 ery. 
 
 Every moment since the arrival of Oliver's letter her 
 self-reproach had been growing keener. She ought to 
 have interfered more in the privacy of his disappoint- 
 ment and misery. 
 
 From his earliest years, her plan had been to edu- 
 cate his judgment, then to stand aside and let him 
 judge for himself. He was brought up in a home 
 atmosphere lighted by sanity and warmed by affection. 
 He was never unreasonably punished, nor unreason- 
 ably indulged. Until now, the mother had had every 
 ground for believing in the success of her methods. 
 Her son was sociable yet home-loving, wide-minded but 
 not vague in his opinions, high-principled, and full of 
 good feeling. 
 
 It had seemed to her that if such a man, struck down 
 by his first great grief, desired to retire awhile even 
 from her loving sympathy, and bear his trouble alone, 
 it was her duty to respect his feeling. 
 
 17
 
 18 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 Now she was faced by the conviction that she should 
 have broken down every barrier, have gone to him and 
 taken him in her arms, have treated him like the un- 
 reasonable child which every man remains, so it seems, 
 to his dying day. 
 
 The thought that she had sat quietly here in the 
 comforts of her home, reading new books, watching the 
 blooming of her " Sir Watkins " and enjoying life in 
 her usual, comfortable routine, while he had been throw- 
 ing to the winds, in the madness of his aching heart, 
 every rule by which he had hitherto felt himself bound, 
 well, it was a horror which came between herself and 
 sleep, between herself and God. 
 
 He was not yet twenty-nine, and his life was over. 
 He was done for. 
 
 The sound of wheels broke upon her musings. By 
 a horrible coincidence, they were just then tolling the 
 church bell for a defunct parishioner. The slow knell 
 struck upon her ear in the gusts of the spring wind, 
 mingled with the rumbling of the station fly which 
 brought the visible doom of her son nearer and nearer 
 to her very door. 
 
 She trembled in every limb as she came out into that 
 hall which Mona Letts admired so truly. 
 
 She wore a long, graceful gown, of subdued colour 
 and rich, soft fabric. Her hair was well arranged. 
 She was hardly the mother-in-law for whom Oliver's 
 wife might feel prepared. 
 
 The cold drops of a sleet shower, and the wedding 
 couple, came in together. She saw a thin, pale girl in 
 a blue serge coat and skirt and a dark, plain hat. The 
 image of something showy and pretentious, something 
 a little in the inferior actress style, which had haunted 
 her fancy, faded. But she barely remarked her dowdy
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 19 
 
 daughter-in-law for the moment, so hungrily did her 
 eyes fly to the face of her son as, after paying the 
 driver, he turned and came slowly in, one hand in his 
 breeches pocket. 
 
 It was like looking upon a stranger. Not one trait 
 of her Oliver was visible, in the hard, lowering mask, 
 upon which the smile which was half a sneer sat so 
 oddly. 
 
 "Well, mother, this is my wife," he said harshly. 
 He rubbed his hands together. " I hope you have a 
 good fire, it's abominably cold." 
 
 Could she find a voice to answer him ? Could she 
 continue this scene, or should she break down there 
 and then, and throw herself weeping into his arms ? 
 
 Her reproachful pride came to her rescue. " There 
 is a very good fire," she said evenly, " and I am sure 
 you must both want a cup of tea." 
 
 She turned to the dumb girl, holding out her hand 
 in encouragement ; " Come," said she, " you look very 
 cold." 
 
 Taking the limp fingers, which felt like ice inside the 
 glove, she led her son's wife into the panelled room, 
 fragrant with freesias and hyacinths, rosy with fire- 
 light, saturated with the atmosphere of home. Before 
 the hearth, she turned and faced the new-comer, holding 
 her at arm's length and gazing into her white face. The 
 child looked scared to death. The fear, the shrink- 
 ing in her wide eyes, were painful to witness. The 
 tension of Mrs. Brendon's nerves displayed itself in a 
 little laugh. " My dear, please don't be so terrified, 
 I am not going to eat you," she cried rallyingly. 
 
 " What do you mean ? I am not afraid of you," 
 returned the stranger, in low, tense tones, charged 
 with some emotion which she could not fathom.
 
 20 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 "That is all right," she said, dropping with almost 
 a shudder the cold stiff hands she held. " Sit down, 
 take off your coat, make yourself at home. Have you 
 come up from Brighton to-day ? " 
 
 The girl paused a moment before replying. " To- 
 day ? Was it to-day ? " she said. " It must have been. 
 It seems so long ago. . . ." 
 
 Sybil set down the cream-jug and stared at the 
 strained features. It was not a common face. At 
 present the predominant expression of scared unhap- 
 piness was so marked as to prevent one from knowing 
 what kind of woman this would be, in her normal 
 aspect. Mrs. Oliver Brendon looked half-starved. 
 Her eyes were very dark, her hair, so far as appeared 
 under her not very becoming hat, was a pale, dull 
 brown. 
 
 At this moment Oliver entered the room; and as 
 he came, his wife flinched, visibly, as though she dreaded 
 a blow. This was preposterous. It made Sybil so in- 
 dignant that she almost spoke. Colour flamed in her 
 face. This slip of a typist, this little nobody, who had 
 secured such a prize, to sit there looking as if her hus- 
 band ill-treated her! 
 
 Oliver walked to the fireplace and stooped to warm 
 his hands at the blaze. " By George, Brighton is a 
 beastly place in the March winds," he remarked dis- 
 paragingly. 
 
 " Well, why did you go there ? " asked his mother 
 tartly. " Don't talk as if I sent you. Anyway, here 
 you are, back home again. Give your wife her tea, 
 and tell me what I am to call her." 
 
 Oliver took the cup of tea and handed it to the girl, 
 who had drawn off her gloves, revealing a pair of slen- 
 der hands, almost purple with cold, and a plain gold
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 21 
 
 ring upon the wedding finger. " What in the world is 
 your name ? " he asked carelessly, as he took a sand- 
 wish. " I've heard it, of course, but I've forgotten." 
 
 Two red spots appeared on the white cheeks; but 
 she turned to her mother-in-law and answered the ques- 
 tion to her. " My Christian name is Astrid," she said. 
 
 " Astrid ! That's an unusual name. I think I shall 
 find it easy to remember. Have you known my son 
 long?" 
 
 " Three years," was the reply. 
 
 There was an awkward silence. Sybil was fight- 
 ing valiantly, but how unexpectedly cruel of Oliver not 
 to come to her rescue ! 
 
 " I need not say," she observed, after a pause which 
 the married pair evidently were not going to break, " I 
 need not say how truly I wish you happiness. My son " 
 here she became aware that her voice was not to be 
 trusted " my son is all I have." 
 
 " Poor mother ! You're badly off," said Oliver, still 
 in his harsh, forced tones. " Well, what news in the 
 village since I left? Who was the bell tolling for?" 
 
 "Old Mr. Jnevett. He is gone at last. I feel 
 thankful for his poor wife and children." 
 
 "Yes, poor old buffer, he has had a long and diffi- 
 cult exit," said Oliver. "And the Colonel? Has he 
 been to see you often ? " 
 
 " My dear Oliver, you know the Colonel is in Egypt." 
 
 " By Jove I had forgotten it. You must have been 
 horribly lonely." 
 
 " Well, now I have you back," replied Sybil steadily, 
 in her thrilling voice ; " and my new daughter, to keep 
 me company." 
 
 Again there was a silence which seemed full of un- 
 uttered things. Then Oliver felt in his pocket, pulled
 
 22 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 out a paper and tossed it on Sybil's lap. " There's the 
 new Penman," he said. " I think it's pretty good." 
 
 She looked down at the paper, up at him. " Since 
 the paper was out, you might have taken a longer honey- 
 moon," she said. 
 
 " Oh, not this beastly weather," he flung back care- 
 lessly. 
 
 " If Astrid has had enough tea, I had better take her 
 upstairs," said Sybil, after a while. 
 
 The girl turned and cast a look at her husband, a 
 curious look which his mother could not read. As 
 the two ladies rose, he also arose, and taking his wife's 
 gloves and little hand-bag, he gave them to her. She 
 turned, without a word spoken, and followed her hostess 
 upstairs. 
 
 The communicating rooms which Sybil had prepared 
 were warm and bright with firelight. She chattered 
 kindly for a few minutes, showing the silent girl the 
 resources of drawers and wardrobes, and that the bath- 
 room was just across the passage. She spoke of the 
 difficulty they had had in arranging their hot-water 
 supply in the old house, and added the information that 
 she herself was born there. 
 
 Her daughter-in-law listened silently, but not alto- 
 gether unresponsively. She seemed to be putting pres- 
 sure upon herself to seem interested. Her one trunk 
 lay upon the stand, unstrapped. She declined an offer 
 of Drew's assistance in her unpacking. 
 
 "Well then, I will leave you to change. There is 
 plenty of time, you need not hurry. Put your toes on 
 the fender and rest after your journey. I dare say 
 the last two days have seemed crowded with experi- 
 ences," said Mrs. Brendon sympathetically. " I must 
 hear all about it, presently, must I not? . . . And
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 23 
 
 you will forgive me if I seem just a little unresponsive. 
 An only son's marriage means a great deal to a wid- 
 owed mother, and . . . and this was abrupt. ..." 
 
 She had to break off, biting her lip. 
 
 The girl, who had turned her back, and was stand- 
 ing with clenched hands, cried out suddenly " I never 
 knew Mr. Brendon had a mother ! " 
 
 "No?" Sybil paused a moment. This girl had 
 known her son three years. In all that time he had 
 never mentioned his mother! It seemed conclusive 
 proof of the slightness of their acquaintance. But at 
 this moment she felt that she dare not touch the sub- 
 ject. It was too horribly new, the wound was bleed- 
 ing " You must tell me all about it, later on," she 
 murmured, and escaped from the room. 
 
 In the drawing-room stood Oliver before the fire, 
 facing her, as he was wont to do. The awfulness of the 
 wreck and ruin that were there, hidden under the 
 happy guise of home comfort and wonted life, made 
 her feel so ill that she hesitated to enter. His ex- 
 pression drew her. Her boy was in danger, she felt 
 almost could she have told herself that he was 
 possessed by a devil. Her duty was to go to his 
 rescue. 
 
 She crossed the room, carefully closing the door be- 
 hind her, went up to him, and stood confronting him. 
 It was a look that besought his confidence. There was 
 no reproach in it. 
 
 "Well, Oliver?" 
 
 " Well," he replied doggedly. " I have consoled my- 
 self, you see." 
 
 She turned away. " The mother who had no place 
 in your confidence before the thing was done is doubt- 
 less outside your counsels now."
 
 24 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. " Oh, well, a man had 
 better be married," he said. 
 
 " No matter to whom ? " 
 
 " With one exception, women are just the same to 
 me." 
 
 " And you will punish this poor child for the fault 
 of a heartless little flirt ? Oliver, think what you have 
 done. What are you going to do with your wife? 
 What kind of future lies before you ? " 
 
 " Future ? None at all. No need to worry about 
 that," he answered lightly. " My future is all over." 
 
 " Your future ... but hers ? What of hers ? " 
 
 He made a scornful sound. " She must take her 
 chance, as other women, do." 
 
 She gazed upon him blankly for a few minutes. 
 " Is this my fault ? " she muttered, under her breath. 
 
 " Well," said her son, breaking the silence, " I think 
 I'll go and have a pipe before dinner." 
 
 " No," said Sybil firmly, " you will not. You will 
 stay and tell me about your wife. You have brought 
 her here, to your home, to your mother. Tell me 
 whether she is such a woman as I can receive as my 
 daughter-in-law." 
 
 He stood contemplating his well-kept nails, his eyes . 
 lowered. " She is quite a good girl, mother," he said 
 quietly, " if that is what you mean." 
 
 " It is what I mean. If that is so, if she is a good 
 girl, as you say, how came she to marry you in such 
 a fashion a fashion so disastrous to herself and to 
 me?" 
 
 "Well, I don't know. She has no relations, prac- 
 tically, except one or two aunts in Ireland. There was 
 no need to make a fuss."
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 25 
 
 " She tells me that she never even knew of my ex- 
 istence ! " 
 
 " Oh ! " he looked up. " She told you that ! Well, 
 apparently I did not mention it. Hang it all, mother," 
 he added with sudden irritation, " if I had let you 
 know, you would have stopped it, would you not ? " 
 
 " Yes. I should. It would have been my duty to 
 stop you if I could on hearing that you contemplated 
 any act of insanity, even a less tragic one than that 
 you have chosen." 
 
 His look changed. " Nonsense about insanity," he 
 said. " I married the girl to save myself from that. 
 She's all right quite good company when she comes 
 out of this curious attitude which she has adopted al- 
 most ever since the ceremony. I want you to take her 
 in hand, and get her some clothes and so on. She has 
 possibilities. Only she must be taken the right way." 
 
 "Which you, so far, don't seem to have succeeded 
 in doing," flashed Sybil. 
 
 "Oh, she'll be all right," he answered irritably. 
 " I shan't beat her." 
 
 " She looks as though that were what she expected." 
 
 " She expects the moon," was the curt response. 
 " When she finds she can't get it, she will settle down 
 all right. You won't dislike her, I promise you, 
 mother." 
 
 " I like her a great deal better than I like you, at 
 the present moment," she cried, as she fled from the 
 room for fear of a complete breakdown.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 My lord was pale with inward strife, 
 
 And Nell was pale with pride; 
 
 My lord gazed long on pale Maud Clare 
 
 Or ever he kissed the bride. CHRISTINA ROSSETTT. 
 
 MRS. OLIVER BRENDON made her appearance for 
 dinner, attired in a white silk blouse which had obvi- 
 ously been washed and ironed many times. It was 
 quite clean, but the lace which trimmed it had grown 
 limp and cottony, and it was far too loose for the un- 
 comfortably slim form which it covered. With it the 
 bride wore a black skirt, also of an elderly appearance. 
 A string of blue beads completed her toilette. 
 
 Sybil felt ashamed of her own grey satin and lace 
 and enamels. She knew her son had married a girl 
 without money ; but to be without money to the extent 
 of not possessing an evening frock, " even of any kind," 
 was an extreme she had not anticipated. 
 
 Fortunately, nobody was present to-night but herself ; 
 but she felt that the incongruous attire of his wife must 
 impress her fastidious son unfavourably. To the 
 woman's mind it showed one thing clearly enough. The 
 girl was no money-grabber. Had she been she would 
 have extorted some money to buy clothes ; she would not 
 have risked such a first appearance, before the critical 
 eyes of a mother-in-law. Oliver had said he wished 
 his mother to take her in hand and get her some clothes. 
 Sybil wondered whether so dowdy a g^rl would ever 
 buy or wear the right thing. 
 
 26
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 27 
 
 She felt quite paralysed by misery as the three sat 
 down, on three sides of the dining-table, to discuss 
 their well-served little meal. Where could she begin ? 
 How try to break down the wall, or bridge the gulf, be- 
 tween herself and this gauche girl from the unknown ? 
 
 " You have been typewriting professionally, my son 
 tells me ? " she asked presently. " How long have you 
 been in London ? " 
 
 " Six years," said Astrid unemotionally. 
 
 " And your home was ? " 
 
 " In Ireland." 
 
 Oliver raised his head. His mother caught his 
 glance guiltily. No questions as to his wife's antece- 
 dents must be discussed before the servants. With 
 obvious determination to change the subject, he began 
 to talk to his mother about Fire from the Cloud, the 
 book which was then making a sensation that very 
 book which she had been reading with such enjoyment 
 when his letter was brought to her. The mere thought 
 of it hurt her physically. Never again could she be 
 or feel as she had been before the terrible moment. As 
 she replied to Oliver's temperate but acute criticism, 
 she felt like Andersen's mermaid, dancing on the swords. 
 He addressed her as if his wife were not present. His 
 manner towards the unlucky girl was that of cold, civil 
 displeasure. Sybil resented it, and tried to include the 
 girl in the conversation. " Have you read it ? " she 
 asked, alluding to the book with an encouraging little 
 smile. 
 
 " No," replied Astrid. Apparently she had no wish 
 to converse. She let the monosyllable stand quite alone, 
 while her eyes were once more bent upon her plate. 
 Sybil noticed that she ate very little. 
 
 " Do you not care for reading ? " she asked, more
 
 28 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 coldly than she had previously spoken. A girl so en- 
 tirely without physical allurement should at least be 
 intelligent. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I like it ; but I have not much time for 
 reading," was the slow reply. 
 
 " You will have more time in future," suggested the 
 mother-in-law. 
 
 Astrid raised her eyes for the first time to her face. 
 " Do you think so ? " she said in a voice which im- 
 plied, " I doubt it." 
 
 " Of course mother thinks so," broke in Oliver. 
 " She has kept house for one man all her life, and she 
 knows it is a pursuit which leaves a very fair margin 
 for self-culture. You must get her to teach you the 
 ropes." 
 
 To this his wife made no reply at all; and after an 
 uncomfortable interval, he went on talking to Sybil 
 of the things which interested them both the new 
 editor of this paper, and the change of proprietorship of 
 the other. 
 
 At last the nightmare meal was over, and Mrs. Bren- 
 don rose from table and proceeded with her daughter- 
 in-law, not into the morning-room, where they always 
 passed the evenings when alone, but into the drawing- 
 room, in honour of the bride. 
 
 " Do you smoke ? " asked Sybil kindly. " If so you 
 will like to go and smoke with Oliver when we have 
 drunk our coffee." 
 
 " I don't smoke," replied Astrid. 
 
 Her lack of response was evidently intentional. 
 There seemed no doubt that this could not be her normal 
 attitude. Oliver was indeed half crazy with disap- 
 pointment, but he could not, in any frame of mind, 
 have chosen a companion so dull, so colourless, so al-
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 29 
 
 most surly, as the girl now appeared. She was in an 
 abnormal frame of mind either horribly shy, or bit- 
 terly disappointed or even bitterly resentful. The 
 latter was the explanation which came most readily to 
 Sybil's mind. Resentful but of what? 
 
 They sat down, on either side of the fire, facing each 
 other across the hearthrug. The post had just come 
 in, and a little brass tray of letters stood upon the 
 Moorish table at Sybil's elbow. She began, with a 
 murmured apology, to open and skim through her cor- 
 respondence. Silence fell. 
 
 There were one or two notes which demanded thought, 
 and the hostess lost herself for some minutes in con- 
 sideration of these. Meanwhile Oliver's wife sat star- 
 ing into the fire. Her shoulders were bent, her hands 
 fell limply over the edge of her lap, her thoughts were 
 apparently both absorbing and depressing. After a 
 furtive glance at her vis-a-vis, she raised her eyes to the 
 room in which she found herself. Slowly she consid- 
 ered it. From the mezzotints of the eighteenth century, 
 the secretaire, the bookcases, the grand piano, she trav- 
 elled on to lighter things tiny bow-legged tulip-wood 
 bibelots of the empire, with frivolous vases, and bowls 
 of blossoming bulbs a few photos, some curios in 
 silver, and finally an orange-coloured toy spaniel, curled 
 up asleep upon the sweep of his mistress's grey gown. 
 
 From the dog, that searching gaze naturally advanced 
 to the dog's mistress, smiling over a note held in daintily 
 kept fingers. 
 
 The waved hair was only slightly grey, the face fresh 
 and soft, almost unwrinkled; the eyes were still very 
 pretty, with shadowy lashes. It was the face of a 
 woman who knows her world and is assured of her place 
 therein a reposeful face, yet full of light and shade.
 
 30 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 It was probably the probing of those questioning 
 eyes which caused her to look up. " Well," she said, 
 " this is too bad of me ! To be reading letters when 
 it is my duty to make friends with you. Will you for- 
 give it if I ask some questions? I want to know all 
 about you." 
 
 Astrid made no reply. Her attitude seemed to im- 
 ply that, having put herself in a position which made 
 questions allowable, it was now too late to object. At 
 least, that was what was suggested to Sybil's mind by 
 the passive resistance of her daughter-in-law. 
 
 ''You tell me you were born in Ireland. . . . Oh, 
 I beg your pardon, let me give you a fire-screen is 
 that better? I am inconsiderate, for I love to stare 
 into the coals, and forget that others have sensitive 
 skins, or eyes well, will you tell me something of 
 your parents ? I conclude that you are an orphan ; in 
 fact, I think Oliver said so." 
 
 " Yes. Father and mother both died at the same 
 time. It was diphtheria. There was something wrong 
 with our house." 
 
 " That is very sad. How long ago ? " 
 
 " I was about twelve. Father was a clergyman ; he 
 had a parish in Ulster." 
 
 " Indeed ! Then upon his death there was no home 
 for you ? " 
 
 " "No. Mother had a sister, Miss !Nblan, my aunt, 
 who lives in Dublin. She is very badly off. Father 
 left just enough money for me to be educated. I lived 
 with Aunt Kathie. As soon as I was old enough I came 
 to London to earn my living." 
 
 The information was given as one gives something 
 that may not be withheld. " I have to say this, so I 
 may as well get it said," was the idea conveyed.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 31 
 
 " You are a brave girl," said Sybil kindly. " I am 
 very sorry for you. But now you must try and grow 
 used to the idea that your loneliness is over, and that 
 you have a home and a family." 
 
 A sort of shudder passed across the thin frame, and 
 Astrid gave a short, mocking laugh, or rather scoff. 
 
 Sybil looked at her in ever-increasing perplexity. 
 Something in her face suggested that it would be better 
 to be quite straightforward with her. After a hesita- 
 tion the mother went on : 
 
 " I must own that I was hurt and surprised that my 
 only son should marry without informing me of the 
 fact that his wife should be an utter stranger. But 
 now that you are his wife, you cannot be a stranger to 
 me at least, it is my earnest hope that we may be 
 friends." 
 
 The girl peered at her from half-shut eyes. She 
 seemed to suspect insincerity in this speech. Her lip 
 curled, and she made a curious gesture with arms and 
 shoulders as though retiring into her shell and shutting 
 the door. 
 
 Sybil made a supreme effort. " Oliver chose you, 
 and he has good taste," she said bravely. " I take 
 you on trust." 
 
 The girl's manner changed. Quite suddenly, 
 gripping the arms of her chair, she leaned forward to- 
 wards the other woman, her eyes all ablaze. 
 
 " Tell me what made him do it," she said thickly. 
 "What is the game? The thing behind? Why am 
 I dragged here, to his home, where I am not wanted? 
 What did he want with me ? That is what I demand 
 to know what I am going to find out." 
 
 It is hard to analyse Sybil's emotions during this 
 speech. She turned from red to white as she contem-
 
 32 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 plated the excitement which was shaking the speaker 
 from head to foot. 
 
 " I think," she said temperately, " that you are more 
 likely to be able to answer that question than I am. I 
 never so much as heard your name, until Oliver wrote 
 to me that he had married you. You say you have 
 been acquainted for some years. You probably know 
 more of him than his mother has ever done." 
 
 " I know nothing at all about him ! He is a stranger 
 to me, a complete stranger " 
 
 " Then forgive me if I enquire," interposed Sybil, 
 with dignity, " why, in that case, you became his wife ? 
 In my opinion, that is the question which needs an an- 
 swer most urgently." 
 
 As she spoke the bell pealed through the house, and 
 in a flash she realised what had happened. The Colo- 
 nel had returned, and had dropped in as was his habit, 
 to greet them and hear their news. He always came in 
 after dinner. He had been away, and Sybil was ig- 
 norant of his return; otherwise she would have in- 
 structed Drew to say that she was not receiving. Now 
 it was too late. She heard his voice in the hall, and 
 the cheery bark of his Aberdeen terrier. 
 
 "We have a visitor," said she, rising in vexation. 
 " I apologise, I had no idea he would come, or I w r ould 
 not have let him interrupt our first evening ! " 
 
 Before Astrid could reply Drew opened the door, and 
 Colonel Waring walked in. 
 
 " Hallo, Mrs. Brendon ! How are you ? I only got 
 back this afternoon from Cairo, and thought I would 
 run up." 
 
 Sybil had sprung from her seat and traversed half 
 the room to meet him. The high back of the chair oc-
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 33 
 
 cupied by Mrs. Oliver concealed the slight figure alto- 
 gether from view. He continued without pause. 
 
 " I was anxious to find out how Oliver was taking it 
 I saw the Faulkners, you know, at Shepherd's, on my 
 way down " 
 
 " O, did you really ? " said Sybil, with a gasp and 
 an unreal little laugh. "You must tell me all about 
 that later. Let me now present to you my daughter-in- 
 law, Mrs. Oliver whose acquaintance I have only 
 just made myself." 
 
 The Colonel stopped short. He was an erect, healthy 
 man of fifty-seven or thereabouts with white hair and 
 moustache, but an air of fitness and energy which for- 
 bade one associating the idea of age with him. His 
 honest grey eyes rested upon his old friend with a look 
 of startled sympathy, merging into a profound compas- 
 sion. 
 
 There was but the slightest pause before he said: 
 
 " I shall, of course, be delighted to meet your daugh- 
 ter-in-law." 
 
 " Astrid," said Sybil, applying her tongue to the 
 syllables of the name with firmness, " here is a very 
 old friend. I am glad he should be the first to wish 
 you joy." 
 
 Mrs. Oliver rose slowly from her seat and faced them. 
 Her mother-in-law, wincing from the anticipation of 
 the effect her appearance must create, had a shock of 
 surprise. For the first time it struck her that the girl 
 possessed a queer, elvish beauty, of the Rossetti type. 
 There was a spot of colour in either cheek, her eyes 
 were still aflame as when she uttered her challenge to 
 Sybil. 
 
 " Many congratulations," said the Colonel, taking her
 
 34 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 hand. " I may safely offer them. You are indeed a 
 young woman to be congratulated, not only upon your 
 husband, though I admit there is not much to complain 
 of there, as young men go ; but upon your relationship 
 to this lady, than whom I know none nobler no, not 
 in Britain." He raised Sybil's hand to his lips as he 
 spoke. 
 
 Astrid made no reply. Her look expressed bewilder- 
 ment. She sat down again upon her chair, while the 
 Colonel also seated himself and Sybil stood with one 
 slim foot resting upon the fender. 
 
 " Go, Astrid, to the smoking-room, and tell Oliver 
 that the Colonel is here," said she. 
 
 The young woman opened her mouth as though to 
 object, but thought better of it, rose, and left the room, 
 closing the door behind her. 
 
 Between those two a deep silence fell. Walter War- 
 ing was powerless to break it. He knew she dare not 
 speak, for fear of losing self-control. At last she haz- 
 arded a word, with quivering lip : 
 
 " Quick work, was it not ? " 
 
 " Amazing ! " said the Colonel. " He took his jilt- 
 ing hard, I suppose." 
 
 Her eyes swept him keenly. " So you understand ? 
 You feel that is a sort of explanation? You try to 
 kill one pain by starting another? There is a free- 
 masonry among men which enables them to under- 
 stand a thing like that. I cannot hope to do it. I 
 am outside." The vehemence of her anger caused her 
 to forget her grief, and speak on passionately. " If it 
 had been a ballet-girl something with yellow hair, 
 and white teeth, and artificial roses and lilies I be- 
 lieve I could have understood it better. But that girl 
 why that girl ? With the world full of girls ! "
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 35 
 
 " I doubt if Oliver's world is full of girls," said the 
 Colonel thoughtfully. "All the better for him, for 
 you, and for her. I suppose it was simply that he could 
 have her for the asking, wasn't it ? " 
 
 " I suppose it was ; but really you can hardly guess 
 how little I know about it. When he got the news of 
 Vivien's change of mind he went away from me I ex- 
 pect he had, deep down at the bottom of his heart, the 
 knowledge that I never liked Vivien, nor thought her 
 suitable. Had the girl he cared for died, he would 
 have come to his mother for comfort I know he 
 would but this was different." 
 
 " Yes, yes. How well you understand him ! " 
 
 " Walter, I don't understand him the least bit in the 
 world! It seemed to me that a man of his age, bred 
 to habits of self-control, and with strong principles, 
 would grapple with a trouble like his and get the better 
 of it. I did not like being cast out, but I determined to 
 bear it, and not worry him. I ought instead to have 
 gone to London, taken possession of him, whether he 
 repulsed me or not, and allowed him to pour out all 
 that was in his heart! He might have vented all his 
 misery on me. I could have borne it, I am his mother 
 . . . but I left him, as I have always done, to his own 
 good feeling. I said, * He is the result of my wonder- 
 ful, highly specialised training he will justify it.' 
 And this is the end of it all ! " 
 
 After a pause Colonel Waring asked, " What is she 
 like? Will she hold him?" 
 
 " She has never had hold of him, even for a moment, 
 as far as I can see. He seems quite unlike himself. 
 All that I can be sure of at present is that she resents 
 the way he is treating her." 
 
 " Is he not kind to her ? "
 
 36 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 " They do not seem to me to be at all on good terms. 
 No wonder ! How lie must despise a woman that could 
 consent to such a marriage! She told me almost di- 
 rectly she arrived that he had not mentioned my ex- 
 istence to her; and when I asked him her Christian 
 name he did not know it ! What is to be done ? " 
 
 He puckered his mouth in a silent whistle. " I 
 suppose they really are married, all fair and 
 square ? " 
 
 " Oh, beyond doubt. He would never affront me 
 by ah, yes, he has put a serious affront upon me, 
 but that would be unpardonable." 
 
 " When were they married ? " 
 
 " On Saturday morning." 
 
 "And this is Monday! He brought her here to- 
 day?" 
 
 " Today." 
 
 "Well," remarked the Colonel, after another inter- 
 val, " he's been and gone and done it, hasn't he ? " 
 
 Sybil raised her handkerchief to her eyes, and after 
 drying them, held it over her mouth, whose lines she 
 she could not control. 
 
 " They seem to be dallying in the smoking-room," 
 remarked the Colonel presently. " Is that a hopeful 
 sign ? " 
 
 " I don't expect she went there," returned Mrs. Bren- 
 don. " I suppose her to have gone up to her room." 
 
 " Well, but this is very serious " 
 
 " You may well say so." 
 
 " Shall I go into the smoking-room and make sure ? " 
 
 "Yes, do. See what you make of him. He may 
 say more to you than he will to me. I feel as if he 
 were some relative whom I had met this afternoon for 
 the first time."
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 37 
 
 " What makes it more pitiable is the fact that I don't 
 think Vivien at all certain to marry this man Railton," 
 said the Colonel slowly. 
 
 " Good heavens, Walter ! Don't say a word of that 
 to Oliver ! " 
 
 " Not quite such a fool, my dear. But I will own 
 that I came in to-night with an idea of heartening that 
 boy up. The thing was engineered by Lady Faulkner, 
 and the silly little girl was caught by the man's flattery, 
 and the presents he gave her. I believe the sight of 
 Oliver in the flesh would have disillusioned her. Rail- 
 ton is plain and rather stumpy, but with a Yankee 
 tongue. Told her a lot of stuff about the position of 
 woman in America, and how she would be a goddess 
 and a queen, and what a grand time she would have in 
 Newport. I don't believe for a moment that he is in 
 the Newport set." 
 
 " Oh, Walter, how perfectly dreadful it all is ! ... 
 When are the Faulkners expected home ? " 
 
 " In another fortnight, I believe. Railton wants to 
 get married at once. He is head-over-ears in love, and 
 has the sense to see that he must secure the volatile crea- 
 ture at once if at all." 
 
 Sybil raised her two hands and let them drop, with 
 a despairing gesture. "Well, he has rolled the stone 
 upon his own grave. As for me, if I had to choose 
 between Vivien and Astrid for my daughter-in-law, I 
 believe I should choose Astrid. Her father was an 
 Ulster Protestant. It is not a lovable type, but it 
 has backbone ; and the Faulkners have none." 
 
 " You are right, as usual," he said, rising with the in- 
 tention of seeking Oliver. As he turned to leave the 
 room the door opened, and the young man entered, with 
 a bundle of proofs in his hand.
 
 38 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 " Hallo, Colonel, you got back ? " he said, with a 
 slight start. " Been in in Egypt, haven't you ? " 
 
 " Yes. I am glad to be back again ; the heat was 
 beginning to be pretty bad an early spring. I have 
 just been presented to your wife, and must offer my 
 good wishes." 
 
 " Thanks. Where has she gone, mother ? " said 
 Oliver, coming to the hearth. 
 
 " I don't know, Oliver. I asked her to go to the 
 smoking-room to tell you that the Colonel was here." 
 
 " That young woman does not know her wifely duties 
 yet," said Oliver, with a smile which his mother did 
 not like. " I shall have to try and be a bit of a Petru- 
 chio, till I have tamed her." 
 
 " I can't see you in that role, my boy," said Colonel 
 Waring. 
 
 Oliver laughed. " My family seems to have settled 
 upon what kind of role I am fit for, very early in my 
 career," he remarked. " Perhaps I shall astonish you 
 all before I have done." 
 
 " I think that is accomplished already, Oliver," said 
 his mother softly. " Nothing that you could do would 
 astonish me now." She was sorry for her bitterness 
 immediately ; but it escaped there was no holding it. 
 
 Her son ignored her remark completely. With no 
 further allusion to his marriage, he sat down, and 
 began to turn over the galley-slips in his hand. " It's 
 a happy chance, your being here, Colonel. Here is an 
 article about Tetuan, and the man seems to me to have 
 made a serious mistake. If he is right in that respect, 
 I shall print the thing, for it is good. But I can't think 
 that what he says about the French garrison will hold 
 water. Give me your opinion."
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 39 
 
 With a glance at Sybil, the Colonel set himself to read 
 and discuss the article in question. 
 
 After a while the mother slipped away, mindful of 
 her guest, who seemed to have retired for the night. 
 
 She found the door of Astrid's room locked, and her 
 voice spoke through the panels. " What is it ? " 
 
 " May I come in ? I am anxious that you should 
 have all you want, and to tell you about breakfast, and 
 so on." 
 
 " I have everything, thank you. I can't very well 
 let you in just now." 
 
 " What time would you like to be called ? " 
 
 " I do not want to be called, thanks. I wake early. 
 What time is breakfast ? If you tell me that, I will be 
 punctual." 
 
 " But what time shall she bring your tea ? " 
 
 " I would rather not have any, thank you." 
 
 " But Oliver always has it." 
 
 " Of course. He will be in the next room, and will 
 tell you what time he wants to be called." 
 
 Sybil turned away, her face white. Astrid did in- 
 deed appear to require instruction in her wifely duties. 
 But the mother-in-law did not feel by any means ready 
 to impart such instruction. 
 
 Suddenly she felt old, and all alone in the world, as 
 she turned from that locked door.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 You shall see how the devil spends 
 
 A fire God gave for other ends! 
 
 I tell you, I stride up and down 
 
 This garret, crowned with love's best crown, 
 
 And feasted with love's perfect feast, 
 
 To think I kill for her at least, 
 
 Body and soul and peace and fame, 
 
 Alike youth's end, and manhood's aim. 
 
 R. BROWNING. 
 
 BEFORE she slept, there were words which Sybil Bren- 
 don must say to her son. 
 
 She must know whether he was going to town the 
 following morning, leaving his wife and herself to each 
 other's society; and above all she must manage to con- 
 vey to him the Colonel's disquieting information con- 
 cerning the imminent return of the Faulkners. 
 
 Before their arrival Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Brendon 
 must be safely bestowed in some home of their own, out 
 of reach of Thackridge tongues. 
 
 She waited until she heard the Colonel departing, as 
 he always did, upon the stroke of half-past ten. Then 
 she went down into the drawing-room and resolutely 
 took her accustomed place, with the plain intention of 
 remaining there for the present. Oliver had just 
 switched off the light of the little lamp which always 
 stood beside her chair. He switched it on again, with 
 the remark: 
 
 " Going to burn the midnight oil ? " 
 
 " No," said she, taking up her crochet, that she might 
 
 40
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 41 
 
 have occupied hands and eyes in the forthcoming inter- 
 view, " I won't keep you up long, but there are one or 
 two things I would like to know before you go upstairs. 
 Are you intending to go to the office to-morrow ? " 
 
 He stood upon the heathrug, his hands thrust into his 
 pockets, one foot pushing a coal to and fro upon the 
 hearth of white tiles. " I must," he replied. " I al- 
 ways go on Tuesdays." 
 
 " And will you leave your wife with me ? " 
 
 " Have you any objection ? " 
 
 " I have made up my mind to receive her, Oliver, but 
 we must come to some understanding. You have 
 chosen to marry this girl, and you are responsible for 
 her." 
 
 He did not answer for a time. At last, " Look here, 
 mother," he said, in an odd, suppressed voice, " I am 
 going to ask you a favour. You must guess that I 
 am feeling pretty bad about the way I have treated you, 
 and and other things. Will you let it all rest for a 
 few days say a week or two and give me time to 
 try and collect the scattered fragments of my old self ? 
 I know it is asking a lot, and you have had too much to 
 bear already but if you would just accept the situa- 
 tion for a week or two, and try to get on as well as you 
 can with with Mrs. Oliver perhaps I shall be more 
 able to look things in the face." 
 
 " I should be glad to postpone such a talk as this for 
 ever, Oliver," she replied, in a voice of pain which was 
 more pitiful than much anger. " But as to what you 
 suggest that you and and Mrs. Oliver should 
 remain here a fortnight there is a serious objection 
 to that. To begin with, it seems to me that you need 
 a longer honeymoon time to grow used to one an- 
 other, before you are ready to face the keen eyes and
 
 42 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 ears of this interested little suburb. The other objec- 
 tion is more weighty. The Colonel tells me that the 
 Faulkners will be back in a fortnight; and you would 
 certainly not wish to be here then." 
 
 He showed no discomposure. " I know they are 
 coming back in a fortnight," he replied. " That is the 
 very reason why I wish to be here, with my wife. 
 What I would ask you to do, is to see that she has 
 good clothes very good ones I would like her to 
 have a really swell turn-out for the wedding. Have a 
 taxi to-morrow and take her to town before anybody 
 sees her. It was unlucky old Waring coming in this 
 evening, but he is all right, he will not talk. Let her 
 have good boots, and good hats, and her hair properly 
 done. You are the person to persuade her." 
 
 Sybil was so astonished that it was long before she 
 could answer. This was the reason, then, for his ex- 
 traordinary marriage he wanted to flaunt his wife in 
 Vivien's face ! But in that case, why choose the type- 
 writing Miss Carey? Why not somebody showy? 
 
 " I have not much faith in my power to persuade 
 your wife to anything, Oliver," she replied at length. 
 " She is not easy to know." 
 
 " No, by Jove, she's not," replied the young man, 
 with a sudden wistful relapse into his own, almost 
 boyish home manner, which brought a lump in his 
 mother's throat. " Thought she was the kind of girl 
 you could do anything with," he said. " Shows how 
 much I know about it, doesn't it ? However, the thing 
 now is to try and pacify her as much as you can, until 
 after the Faulkner wedding. After that, she may go 
 to the devil, for all I cara" 
 
 With these horrible words, he turned and walked to 
 the door. Sybil bowed her head upon her hands. She
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 43 
 
 thought of the girl's sudden, vehement appeal. " Why 
 did he marry me ? What was his game ? " 
 
 He, her son, her upright, gentle-natured Oliver, had 
 sacrificed this poor girl to his own pique, his humilia- 
 tion -and sense of injury. 
 
 And it was foolish, fluffy Vivien who had twisted 
 him out of his place and broken him ; exposed his weak- 
 ness, laid bare his defects of character. 
 
 As long as his life had pleased him, and flowed 
 through easy channels, he had been so delightful and 
 so good that his own mother had no idea of the elements 
 of his nature. 
 
 "Well, mother," he said, coming back to the fire, 
 " will you do what you can with her ? " 
 
 " Oliver," she cried hotly, " you cheated that poor 
 girl you made her think you cared about her ? " 
 
 " I did nothing of the sort," he answered, with equal 
 heat. " I said, ' Will you marry me ? ' and she said, 
 ' Yes, certainly.' I mean to be jolly kind to her if she 
 behaves herself. But I can tell you she had better mind 
 what she is about." 
 
 Sybil rose, making half blindly for the door. " Oh, 
 Oliver, you make me shudder ! " 
 
 " I am sorry. I told you I am not fit to discuss 
 these things. I am not in my right mind not nor- 
 mal yet, by a long way. Do as I beg you let it all 
 rest for the present, and help me to make the girl pre- 
 sentable." 
 
 " I think it quite unlikely that she will submit to 
 the process." 
 
 " Mother, that's nonsense. She has jolly well got to 
 do as I choose." 
 
 " You don't know what you are talking about. If 
 you imagine that the modern husband can make sump-
 
 44 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 tuary laws and have them obeyed, it merely shows how 
 much you have to learn. I remember a friend of ours 
 once took a fancy to a girl who had many good points, 
 but a floppy appearance. He said he could easily per- 
 suade her to wear corsets after marriage; and married 
 her in that delusive hope ! Poor fellow ! His struggle 
 did not last long ! A determined girl will wear nothing 
 that she does not fancy." 
 
 " Tut, tut, there are ways and means," said Oliver 
 irritably. He turned away. " Then you won't try." 
 
 She wrestled with herself. Bad as things were they 
 might be worse if she insisted upon the newly married 
 couple leaving her at once. 
 
 " I will try, but I do not promise to succeed." 
 
 " ' 'Tis not with mortals to command success/ as 
 I know to my cost. Good night, mother. Can you 
 make up your mind to kiss me ? " 
 
 " Honestly, Oliver, I don't think I can. You seem 
 to me too wholly odious." 
 
 " That is apparently my wife's opinion, as well as 
 my mother's. I'm a lost soul! My fiancee jilts me, 
 my wife won't let me come near her, and my mother 
 won't kiss me. There remains only drink or suicide." 
 
 "Oliver, don't talk like that! Don't talk at all! 
 As you wisely suggested at the first, let us put off all 
 this discussion. I must kiss you, good or bad, because 
 you are my son, and nothing can alter that ! " 
 
 Next morning Astrid came down to breakfast 
 punctually upon the sounding of the gong. She still 
 wore her air of frigid composure. Sybil made spas- 
 modic efforts to talk, but Astrid's ears were evidently 
 on the alert for the sound of her husband's approach. 
 
 He entered, not more than five minutes late, and
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 45 
 
 went to where his mother sat presiding over the coffee, 
 kissing her with an air of spontaneous affection. Then 
 he turned, looked at his wife, and said drily, " Good 
 morning." 
 
 She flushed uneasily as she replied " Good morning." 
 
 " I hope you slept well, but you don't look it," went 
 on Oliver. " You have dark marks under your eyes." 
 
 " I drank coffee yesterday evening. It kept me 
 awake," she answered, with an odd mixture of fear and 
 defiance. 
 
 " When you get used to Thackridge air, you won't 
 find that coffee has any effect," said Oliver lightly, with 
 an air of wishing to soothe her. " If my mother has 
 time, I want you and her to have a great day in the 
 West End among the shops." 
 
 Astrid looked surprised. His conciliatory attitude 
 was unexpected. Her husband leaned across and put 
 a cheque in her plate. " That is for your trousseau," 
 he told her ; " it is not your first quarter's allowance. 
 You are to spend it all upon such things as you want." 
 
 The girl made a quick movement, pushing the slip 
 of paper from her. 
 
 " I have some money of my own. I will buy what 
 I want, thank you," she replied. 
 
 " What independence ! " said Sybil playfully. " I 
 am on your side, Astrid! Don't let him be King 
 Cophetua, or he will be unbearable ! But if he means 
 this for a wedding present, I suppose it would be un- 
 gracious to refuse it, would it not ? " 
 
 The large, sombre eyes were turned questioningly 
 upon the speaker. " Could I make a friend of you ? 
 Dare I trust you, in this terrible impasse wherein I am 
 landed ? " they seemed to be asking. 
 
 Sybil was still smiling.
 
 46 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 " I expect he did not think to give you much of 
 a wedding present, did he? Men are like that, when 
 they try to do things all alone ! " 
 
 Astrid looked down upon her hand, where her wed- 
 ding ring lay in solitude. " I don't want presents," 
 she faltered. 
 
 "You take yourself and life too seriously, young 
 woman. My father used to say t Never refuse money 
 when it is offered you.' I might add l Especially if 
 it is offered by your husband, who certainly ought to 
 have provided it before ! ' Put that cheque in your 
 pocket, and you and I will go to town and buy frocks 
 together." 
 
 Astrid nerved herself to speak. " I must go to town 
 to see about some work," she remarked. 
 
 " Work ! What kind of work ? " 
 
 " Another typewriting post." 
 
 Sybil looked grave. "What does Oliver say to 
 that?" 
 
 Oliver answered quickly " She knows I do not 
 wish it." 
 
 " Suppose you were to take a month's holiday ? " 
 suggested her mother-in-law. " Oliver has acted incon- 
 siderately, he has hurried you, and you look worn out. 
 Let us see what a month's rest and quiet here, as my 
 guest, will do for you. Will you think it over ? Stay 
 here for a month with me, and at the end of that time, 
 should you still wish to go to typewriting again, per- 
 haps we might persuade Oliver to take a different view 
 of the matter." 
 
 " I think that's an excellent idea, mother," said 
 Oliver placably. 
 
 Astrid looked earnestly upon him. 
 
 Sybil saw with wonder the hostility, the deep dis-
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 47 
 
 trust which her look embodied. From the son, the 
 stranger girl's eyes wandered to his mother, surprising 
 on her face the close questioning of a thorough bewil- 
 derment Astrid grew red, made an effort, and said 
 under her breath: 
 
 "'Very well, then, a month. That is, if you tell me 
 that at- the end of that month I shall be free to decide 
 as I think proper." 
 
 " You shall," said Oliver, quite readily. " You 
 shall go to the moon if you really want to, if you will 
 just play up now, and do as mother asks you." 
 
 With the words, he rose from the table, gathered 
 up his letters and left the room. Silence fell between 
 the two women sitting there together in their utter 
 incongruity. 
 
 "Well," said the mother-in-law, rising at length, 
 " I must go and give orders. What time would you 
 like to start ? There is a good train in about an hour's 
 time, and Oliver will send us up a fly from the station." 
 
 " Any time," said Astrid mechanically, " it is all 
 the same to me." She too rose; and after hesitation, 
 asked this question : " Should we have time to go into 
 the National Gallery, do you think \ " 
 
 Sybil paused, in act to leave the room. " The 
 National Gallery? I dare say. You want to go 
 there ? " 
 
 " I have never seen the new Van der Neer by day- 
 
 / t/ 
 
 light yet," said the girl timidly, but appealingly. 
 
 " You are fond of pictures ? " 
 
 " Yes." The reply did not sound enthusiastic. " I 
 suppose," she added slowly, " that Mr. Brendon will 
 not mind my doing my weekly half-column for the Art 
 Companion, will he ? " 
 
 " I should think not, certainly."
 
 48 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 " I should be sorry to lose that. It is half a guinea 
 a week," said Astrid unemotionally ; and turning aside, 
 she opened a newspaper, and glanced at it. 
 
 " Then we will start at a quarter to ten, and lunch 
 in town," said Sybil. 
 
 A little later, she made her way into Mrs. Oliver's 
 room, in order to ascertain, if she could, what clothes, 
 if any, the girl possessed. Astrid made no objection to 
 showing her poverty of wardrobe. 
 
 " I had no time to make clothes," she said, " for I 
 could not afford to lose my last fortnight's wages. 
 I had just bought a whole series of British poets, and it 
 made me very hard up." 
 
 " Well, we ought to be able to fit you out well, with 
 this cheque of Oliver's." 
 
 " Just as you like," replied the girl, with a sigh. 
 
 She was perfectly tractable, if also perfectly passive. 
 There was about her a stillness and restraint which 
 Mrs. Brendon rather admired. Her features, though 
 nothing remarkable, were by no means bad. Her hair 
 had distinct possibilities. Though she seemed to take 
 little interest in their shopping, what few remarks she 
 made were intelligent, and to the point. Her real in- 
 terest was no doubt centred upon the National Gallery, 
 and the new Dutch pictures which had just been added. 
 While they lunched together Sybil took her to a 
 restaurant, deciding not to face her Club friends until 
 the young woman was suitably gowned she explained 
 her keenness by saying that when she was at work she 
 hardly ever had a chance to see pictures by daylight. 
 Her knowledge of what was being exhibited in London 
 was, nevertheless, remarkable. 
 
 They had not completed all their purchases until past 
 four, when, after having tea, they returned to one shop
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 49 
 
 where Sybil had chosen a couple of frocks which needed 
 only very slight alteration to be ready for wear. The 
 alterations had been duly made and the bride, now 
 wearing a becoming hat, was attired in her street suit, 
 the result of the change being more pleasing than Mrs. 
 Brendon had foreseen. It was a comforting fact to 
 her mother-in-law that her under-clothing was in all 
 respects superior to her outer covering. 
 
 The second frock, for home evening wear, they car- 
 ried with them down to Thackridge ; and as soon as they 
 arrived home, Sybil found a good deal of pleasure in 
 seeing Astrid put it on. 
 
 Its drooping line set off the slimness of her build; 
 and the somewhat bizarre tints of the coloured embroid- 
 ery, which was a feature of the corsage, harmonised 
 with the light brown hair and soft, deep eyes. Sybil 
 added a Venetian necklace, and found herself quite 
 astonished at the effect which becoming dress will pro- 
 duce. She told her maid to do Mrs. Oliver's hair, and 
 Morris, the maid, was surprised at its abundance. The 
 general effect of the bride was really pleasing. Sybil 
 felt that, with one flash of joy, one charm of expression, 
 she might be a very taking young person. The fashion 
 of her countenance, however, did not change. The 
 tragic look, as of a gambler who has thrown his last 
 stake and lost it, was ever upon the sunless face. She 
 had said nothing all day long in allusion to her mar- 
 riage, and the elder woman felt that the time for confi- 
 dences had by no means arrived. There was an uneasy 
 conviction that, as the hour for Oliver's return drew 
 nigh, the cloud grew deeper that she and her 
 daughter-in-law, or she and her son, might get on ad- 
 mirably; but that for the three of them, there was no 
 such happy possibility.
 
 50 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 They were both in the drawing-room together when 
 he entered. A sudden storm of rain had brought him 
 into the house so wet that he had run up to change be- 
 fore facing them. He entered, ready for dinner, and 
 his eye fell upon the two, one on either side of the 
 hearth. Both were reading. His wife sat a little side- 
 ways, to catch the light upon her page. He saw her 
 profile, the turn of her shoulder, the soft full mass of 
 hair that shaded her face at the sides. The sight was 
 cheering. Something no doubt had been accomplished, 
 towards producing the effect he desired. He advanced, 
 in a good mood. 
 
 " Well, mother ! " he said, kissing her. Then he 
 turned to Astrid : " Well, young woman, how have 
 you been getting on ? Come and give me a kiss ! " 
 
 She raised her eyes, slowly and with an air of 
 abstraction, from the book she held. " Good evening, 
 Oliver," she said, without stirring. Sybil saw him 
 flush, but he kept his composure. " Deep in your book 
 eh ? " he said, sauntering up to where she sat. She 
 was in a large arm-chair, which she only half filled. 
 He sat down upon the arm of it. " What is it absorbs 
 you so ? " he asked, Avith an evident desire to be friendly. 
 
 She cast him a glance of contempt, rose, and moved 
 to another chair at some distance. " I am reading the 
 Life of Whistler," she told him. 
 
 Oliver let his eye rove about the room, glancing at 
 everything except his mother's face. For a moment she 
 thought he was going to resent the snub. He thought 
 better of such a course, however. " There's a very 
 able thing about Whistler's Nocturnes in this week's 
 Art Companion/' he said. " Would you like to see 
 it?" 
 
 " Thanks, I don't care to. I wrote it," she answered.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 51 
 
 He turned and looked steadily at her. " I did not 
 know you wrote for the Companion," he said. His 
 tone was mingled with incredulity. " The article is by 
 some one who does one every week ;. jolly good they are 
 too ; somebody who calls himself Dogberry." 
 
 " Do let me look, Oliver. Astrid told me to-day 
 that she wrote every week for the Companion," said 
 his mother, coming to the rescue. 
 
 He went out of the room, fetched the paper and 
 handed it to her. 
 
 " Astrid," said she, " you are just what I have been 
 wanting somebody who knows her way about among 
 the moderns. She took me to the National Gallery to- 
 day," she went on, addressing Oliver. " What she 
 does not know about that collection, is not worth know- 
 ing, I assure you." 
 
 There was a ghost of a smile upon the girl's pale 
 face. " But they are not modern," she said. 
 
 " We had better go to the Tate to-morrow," laughed 
 Sybil. 
 
 " Are you really Dogberry ? " asked the young man 
 of his wife. 
 
 " Yes, I am," was her answer. She added no more. 
 Beyond replying to direct questions, it seemed that 
 she declined to converse with him. Sybil began to 
 wonder whether she should have courage to probe into 
 the girl's mind, and find out the cause for her inex- 
 plicable attitude. She had married the man; he him- 
 self, who was certainly truthful, had assured his 
 mother that he had not deceived her with protestations 
 of an affection he could not feel yet she treated him 
 as though he had done her some unpardonable injury. 
 
 Deeply as Sybil, on her son's account, resented this, 
 yet she found herself surmising that the girl must have
 
 52 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 some reason, which seemed to her valid, for her con- 
 duct. Already she was sensible of feeling a certain 
 amount of respect towards this nobody from nowhere. 
 The idea of winning her confidence, though difficult, 
 did not this evening, as it had yesterday, suggest itself 
 as impossible.
 
 CHAPTEE VI 
 
 Loth to stay, yet to leave her slack, 
 
 He half turned away, then he quite turned back:; 
 
 For courtesy's sake he could not lack 
 
 To redeem his own royal pledge; 
 
 Ahead too, the windy heaven lowered black 
 
 With a fire-cloven edge. CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. 
 
 DUBING the evening Oliver made no further advance 
 to his wife. After dinner he read aloud to both ladies, 
 Astrid meanwhile busying herself over winding wool 
 for Sybil's crochet. When they went up to bed he made 
 no effort to detain them, but retired to his study to 
 smoke. 
 
 The situation was so odd that Sybil lay awake half 
 the night thinking it over. Why had Astrid married 
 Oliver? Having married him, why did she repudiate 
 him ? How could she acquiesce in the present arrange- 
 ment of things ? 
 
 The next few days brought no clue to such remark- 
 able behaviour. The two ladies continued their 
 shopping, saw a great many pictures, ordered several 
 gowns, to which the bride demurred as unjustifiable 
 extravagance, and by the end of the week found them- 
 selves in the position of being fairly good companions, 
 though certainly not friends. 
 
 Oliver had evidently made up his mind not to ruffle 
 the surface of the pool. He was polite now to his 
 wife, pointedly including her in the conversation. 
 Upon subjects which interested her she would talk a
 
 54 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 little; but she never volunteered a remark or suggested 
 a topic. With a skill which Sybil half admired she 
 avoided being alone with her husband, and sheered 
 away from any personal note in conversation. 
 
 For the first few days, until her clothes were ready 
 and she had found her footing in the house, her mother- 
 in-law invited no guests. But they were sociable peo- 
 ple, and well liked, so that there was no doubt that 
 Sunday afternoon would find the drawing-room well 
 filled with acquaintances, come to look at Oliver's wife. 
 
 She was unremarkable enough, as most people said 
 after seeing her in church at morning service. But as 
 she sat that afternoon, in a rose-coloured gown, upon a 
 grey couch, with a background of flowering trumpet 
 daffodils, there seemed at least no reason why a young 
 man should not have been attracted by her, even if 
 there was no such positive charm as to make one feel 
 that he could not have helped himself. 
 
 Colonel Waring was there, and Mona Letts, and the 
 Selbys. 
 
 The Selby family comprised two brothers, one of 
 whom, Martin, was on the stage, the other, Dan, a 
 somewhat erratic author. They lived with a sister 
 who suddenly, at the age of thirty-five, was going to 
 be married; and the question of what they should do 
 without her was debated by them as a perennial topic 
 of talk. 
 
 Sybil, anxious to see how Astrid would comport her- 
 self among strangers, introduced her to Dan, who was 
 big and burly, with fierce blue eyes and a short, fair 
 beard. He was easy to get on with, she reflected, and 
 she made the introduction with the side-note that her 
 daughter-in-law was an art critic and journalist. 
 
 "An art critic," said Dan, smiling down upon the
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 55 
 
 grave girl. " I am glad to know that it is Art that 
 gets the knocks; it can stand 'em. I could see you 
 were born to criticize something, and I was afraid 
 perhaps it was men." 
 
 There was something infectiously amusing about 
 the way this was said. It actually drew a smile from 
 Astrid. " I know nothing about men," she said. " I 
 should not be able to criticize." 
 
 " Pudge ! You know all about us. I see it in your 
 uncompromising eye. I pity Brendon. He must feel 
 like Feverel did, when the lady who adored his epi- 
 grams came to stay in the house and expected them 
 from breakfast onwards." 
 
 " I hate epigrams," said Astrid. 
 
 " What do you like, now ? " asked Dan confiden- 
 tially, leaning forward and looking round at her. 
 
 " Pictures," she replied. He looked pleased. What 
 kind? he wished to know. Soon they were talking 
 with interest. He was hearing that she had never been 
 abroad, nor seen any pictures but such as Dublin and 
 London could furnish. He made several remarks, with 
 a view to ascertaining whether she really knew what 
 she was talking about, and came to the conclusion that 
 she did. From pictures they rambled on to his books, 
 and the comedy he was writing. " We are all writing 
 comedies, you know," he said ; " there is not a novelist 
 in London who isn't. That's why there is not a play 
 to be had for love or money. Novelists don't turn into 
 playwrights, any more than single men in barracks turn 
 into plaster saints ; for the obvious reason that the nov- 
 elist is free, but the playwright is limited by the stage. 
 I may change my venue from Timbuctoo to Boston and 
 back again, and describe a railway journey every mile 
 of which is vital to the development of my story. But
 
 56 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 in a play it won't do. It all has to take place in some- 
 body's chambers, and all the women of the play have 
 to be got there somehow, and the method mostly adopted 
 is to take away their characters, because then you can 
 put them where you like. It gets monotonous." 
 
 " Yet you are trying to write one ? " 
 
 "Yes, of course. One is always trying to do what 
 one had better not. What I am trying to do is to be 
 original. I want to persuade the British public that 
 there may be an interesting plot which turns on some 
 other subject than the unfaithfulness of a husband or 
 wife. But my actor brother tells me I am a Utopian 
 idiot." 
 
 " The convention is very firmly fixed in the public 
 mind, I am afraid," said Astrid. " You see, review- 
 ers will not praise anything else. If you write a book 
 about people whose sense of honour is stronger than 
 their passions, they call it untrue to life." 
 
 " I wonder what the average reviewer knows about 
 life ! " cried Dan loudly. Oliver caught the remark. 
 
 " Hullo, Dan," he said smoothly, " go easy. I'm a 
 reviewer." 
 
 " Just so," said Dan, " which proves the truth of 
 what I say. You know nothing about life or any- 
 thing else, except the stuff they crammed you with 
 at Oxford." 
 
 " I shall have to turn Bohemian, Dan, and go out 
 with you in that caravan of yours." 
 
 " Do," said Dan eagerly. " Let's have a tour this 
 summer ! Your wife, here, seems to me to know every- 
 thing, but perhaps even she has never tried caravanning 
 and you and me and Tessa. It may be the last time 
 that Tessa ever takes the road ! I am sure Humphrey 
 Spence won't allow it after marriage. !Nbw, Mrs.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 57 
 
 Brendon, do tell jour husband that you must and will 
 go caravanning with me ! " 
 
 Tessa Selby struck in and saved Astrid from the 
 necessity of reply. " All right, old man," she said to 
 her brother. " We will. We will spend the month of 
 June in the van, and Humphrey can come down for 
 week-ends." 
 
 Astrid looked from the brother to the sister, amused. 
 Tessa was a plain woman, with a slim, erect figure 
 and a pleasant face. They seemed the kind of folks 
 one might make friends with. A look of response, 
 almost of eagerness, crept into the bride's eyes. " I 
 think caravanning must be very good fun," she said. 
 
 " It is, when you cook as I can," replied Dan, with 
 enormous complacency. " But Brendon will have to 
 shed all his lar-di-da tricks if he comes on board. No 
 superior persons allowed to travel with the Sarah 
 Jane." 
 
 Under the stimulus of the Selbys.Mrs. Oliver's col- 
 our rose, and those expressions flitted across her face 
 which her mother-in-law had thought would improve 
 her sad features. There was no doubt of her being, 
 in a quiet way, attractive when she smiled. She would 
 be more attractive when she filled out a little, and grew 
 more sure of herself. Mona Letts watched her wist- 
 fully. Her opinion of the bride was not high, since she 
 knew the shock which the news had been to her adored 
 Mrs. Brendon. She had, however, come prepared 
 to see some one impossible; and Astrid was certainly 
 not that. Mona asked for an introduction pres- 
 ently, and sat down, prepared to be friendly and pat- 
 ronising; but she obtained only monosyllables. The 
 light all died down and the expression became dull when 
 Astrid talked to an unsympathetic person; and Dan
 
 58 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 Selby pretty soon elbowed his robust way back to the 
 couch, and ousted Miss Letts with total unconscious- 
 ness that he was so doing. His brother Martin now 
 came up and pressed for an introduction. " I must 
 have a word with you, Mrs. Oliver, just to tell you 
 what an old ass my brother is/' he explained. " What- 
 ever you do, don't listen to the tosh he will reel you 
 off about the drama. He is as frightened of a good 
 strong situation as a teetotaller is of whisky. He 
 wants to get the public to drink lemonade, and wonders 
 the managers are not running after him in flocks, clam- 
 ouring for his work. I am trying, just now, to put 
 a little backbone into the play he is wrestling with 
 but he won't allow it." 
 
 " Yes an adventuress, with red hair, tea-gown, and 
 diamonds all the dear old outfit," said Dan, with 
 scorn. " I tell you they all know that adventuress 
 from her cradle to her grave, every crime she has up 
 her sleeve, and the very words with which she will 
 taunt her victim! She only exists so that actresses 
 who can't express any legitimate emotion may have 
 what they call a strong part. I don't like strong parts, 
 any more than I liked that strong haunch of venison 
 we buried in the garden last week, Martin." 
 
 " Oh, go along ; I can't think how you came to be 
 born masculine; you were cast by nature for the part 
 of the maiden aunt," said his brother. 
 
 Dan's blue eyes kindled. "Yes," he observed 
 thoughtfully, " that is one of my pet ideas. Every 
 truly great man has all the modesty, all the tenderness 
 of the woman in him. The true man is man and 
 woman too if one could teach that, what becomes 
 of the sex problem ? " 
 
 " If you get rid of the sex problem, what becomes
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 59 
 
 of novelists and playwrights ? " mocked Martin play- 
 fully. 
 
 When they were all gone, Sybil felt as if she had 
 undergone an operation. The worst was over, and 
 had not been so bad as she had expected. Whatever 
 else one might say or think of her, her daughter-in- 
 law was not socially impossible. The Selbys, on de- 
 parture, had expressed themselves warmly about her. 
 Mona Letts's pitying little hand-pressure and glance 
 did not worry her; for Mona was not likely to judge 
 Astrid justly. Colonel Waring had said simply, 
 " That is a woman with a good deal of character. I 
 wouldn't go bail for the sweetness of her temper, 
 though." 
 
 Sybil looked appealing into the eyes of her constant 
 friend. 
 
 " You don't find her outrageous, do you ? She would 
 pass muster ? " 
 
 " Decidedly. She is all right ; you needn't worry 
 yourself to fiddle-strings. Why do you ? " 
 
 " I don't. Why do you accuse me of such a thing ? " 
 
 " The girl looks so tragic, I feel sure you have been 
 worrying her, if not yourself." 
 
 " Indeed I have not. I get on well with her, much 
 better than Oliver does ah, I didn't mean to say 
 that; it escaped. Good-bye. Come and dine next 
 Thursday; we will have one or two to meet you." 
 
 When he had walked off, down the drive, she sighed 
 and went back to the drawing-room. Astrid was there' 
 alone. Oliver had withdrawn. 
 
 "Well, you liked the Selbys, I think?" she asked 
 cheerfully. 
 
 Astrid responded quite warmly. "Yes, I did. 
 They are people I feel I could get on with."
 
 60 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 " Why not carry out this idea of a caravan party ? 
 Should you enjoy it ? " 
 
 Astrid was gazing into the fire, her hands round her 
 knees. 
 
 " In a month's time I shall not be here," she said 
 quietly. 
 
 Her mother-in-law did not reply for a moment. The 
 desire to demand an explanation of this unnatural at- 
 titude of mind rose with force in her. She checked 
 it, however. She was on the way to obtain the girl's 
 confidence, she hoped; she had not, however, reached 
 the point at which it seemed that she dared ask for it. 
 She took another method. Laying her hand upon the 
 hair, she turned back the pale face and smiled into the 
 eyes. " Are you so sure of that ? " she asked playfully. 
 
 The girl's mouth quivered. Her eyes looked into 
 the sweet ones bent above her, with a sudden fire of 
 longing to speak out; but a will stronger than her 
 emotion held her back. " I have promised to stay a 
 month," she said hurriedly, twisting her head away 
 from the pressure of the too-compelling hand.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 I do hold that the merest gentleman 
 Will not start rudely from the stalking-horse, 
 Dismiss it, with a " There, enough of you ! " 
 Forget it, show his back unmannerly . . . 
 
 . . . She served not ill. 
 And, though I shall forget her in due time, 
 Her use being answered now . . . 
 Still, she has rights. R. BEOWNING. 
 
 MAY was cold and gusty, but with interludes of fickle 
 brilliancy. One afternoon, a fortnight after her first 
 arrival, Mrs. Oliver Brendon left the Abbot's House 
 and walked along the Ridge, to call upon the Selbys. 
 
 The sun was shining vigorously as she started, as 
 though eager, when the clouds gave him half a chance, 
 to show what he could do. The tossing wind was full 
 of exhilaration. It brought a tinge of colour to As- 
 trid's cheeks, and loosened her hair becomingly. A 
 fortnight of rest and country air and liberal diet had 
 had their due effect. She was just a shade softer, 
 rounder, and more girlish than she had been. She was 
 very young, and the hope of happiness dies hard in the 
 young. In spite of her uncompromising position, in 
 spite of the nightmare memory which lay behind her, 
 she was beginning to nurse a little secret fancy that she 
 might have been mistaken; to believe that there was 
 just a chance that her husband's attitude might have 
 been the result of his knowing nothing of girls, their 
 feelings nor their easily bruised emotions. 
 
 She had married him who was to her the one man 
 61
 
 62 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 the world held. She had anticipated that " the giving 
 and receiving of a ring" would be the gate of the 
 Elysian fields. She had found dust and ashes ; and the 
 unreasonableness, the apparent aimlessness of the suf- 
 fering she had been called upon to endure had stunned 
 her. 
 
 During this fortnight of waiting and healing she 
 was learning, with all the speed of an agile mind. 
 It had been borne in upon her that her ignorance of 
 the world and of men was phenomenal, surprising. 
 Everything was beginning to look so different, that 
 the necessity of overhauling and examining all previ- 
 ous convictions came urgently to her. After six years 
 of loneliness, after a fortnight's delirium of anticipa- 
 tion, during which she floated on clouds and lived in a 
 dream, after the awfulness of being flung back upon 
 herself in shivering desolation the temptation to cast 
 away all reserve and make a confidante of Oliver's 
 mother was increasingly strong. 
 
 She was his mother, she might understand him; she 
 might, as it were, translate him to his wife. Yet the 
 way in which he had acted towards this ideal mother 
 the extraordinary manner of his marriage made 
 the puzzle all the deeper and more obscure. 
 
 Since their arrival at Thackridge he had acquiesced, 
 without argument, in his wife's repudiation of him. 
 Yet he was kind; as the days went by he seemed a 
 shade kinder. He spoke to her with respect, he showed 
 a deferential consideration. The undying hope would 
 beat against the bars of the girl's will urging her to 
 tender some kind of olive branch, to make an attempt to 
 discover the soul of the man who was her husband. 
 
 But he had suggested a month's truce. A month's 
 truce, then, they would have. At the end of that time
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 63 
 
 she would know, she would confront him, and say out 
 boldly to him, " You married me, although you do not 
 love me at all, although you have no spark of affection 
 for me. Why did you do this ? " 
 
 Meanwhile circumstances forced upon her a position 
 which she resented because, had she felt justly entitled 
 to it, it would have been so pleasant to her. She liked 
 Mrs. Brendon, she liked the house and the pretty vil- 
 lage; and she liked the Selbys. It was hard to resist 
 the gentle urgency with which the pleasant details of 
 life were knocking at her door. The wild wind of 
 spring, the sunshine-gleams, the opening leaves and 
 flower-buds,, all conspired to call aloud in her girl's 
 heart, to sing the praises of what is normal and healthy 
 and fitting to youth and May. 
 
 The Selbys were by no means rich, and they lived 
 in a small house, far along the Ridge, with a large, 
 somewhat untidy, though remarkably productive gar- 
 den. Gardening was among Dan's hobbies, and hith- 
 erto he had had the capable assistance of Tessa, who 
 had been through the Swanley College course, and was 
 extraordinarily successful with her herbaceous borders. 
 
 That afternoon, the wallflowers, particularly the new 
 purple variety, made a velvet glow of colour all along 
 under the sunny wall, flanked by forget-me-not and 
 clumps of fragrant woodruff. 
 
 Dan and Tessa were eagerly awaiting the arrival of 
 " Mrs. Oliver," to whom the big man had taken a sud- 
 den and ardent liking. He was a sociable being, pop- 
 ular among all the girls in Thackridge, but had never 
 been known to take a special fancy to anybody. As to 
 Astrid, she seemed to say very little when they were to- 
 gether, leaving all the talking to him; but he had 
 formed a high opinion of her intellect, and Martin and
 
 64 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 Tessa had taken to teasing him mildly about his 
 " swan." 
 
 He quite declined to see anything curious in young 
 Brendon's sudden marriage. 
 
 " Take my word for it," he declared, " there is many 
 a man's heart caught in the rebound, and held firmly 
 too. Look at the immortal example the Romeo and 
 Juliet love affair. Romeo had been in love with the 
 grave and lofty Rosaline. He turned to the little girl- 
 ish Juliet and found his true mate there. Brendon has 
 done the opposite and far more sensible thing. He 
 turned from the fluffy little fool to the deep-souled crea- 
 ture who had sat under his nose unrecognised for two 
 or three years in his office. For the first time he looked 
 at her with eyes that had been opened to love whether 
 for her or another woman in the first instance does not 
 particularly matter and saw that she was good! 
 There you have it. He is much to be envied." 
 
 "What a pity you did not meet her first, Dan," 
 observed Tessa, pulling off her gardening gloves and 
 surveying the long border with a loving eye. 
 
 " I," said Da.n, with half a sigh, " am the man who 
 chronicles love affairs, not the man who has 'em. You 
 know what Norbert remarked: 
 
 ' We live, and they experiment on life, 
 Those poets, painters, all who stand aloof 
 To overlook the farther. Let us be 
 The thing they look at! ' 
 
 That's it, Tessa. I am the experimenter on life. I 
 look on, and the lovers are." 
 
 " I suppose we are," said Tessa calmly, " or I should 
 never have got engaged to Humphrey."
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 65 
 
 "Aptly urged! That you, nurtured by two such 
 men as Martin and myself, should pledge your future 
 to a young person who superintends the manufacture 
 of motor-cars, and thinks in petrol and carburettors! 
 One who likes good solid meals, served upon his own 
 mahogany, and sees no beauty in a crust beneath the 
 hedge! Now I believe Mrs. Oliver would really and 
 spontaneously enjoy the hedge-pot ! " 
 
 " I believe she would ! I mean to try and arrange 
 that trip," replied Tessa. " I want to be off on the 
 loose just for once more before Humphrey becomes my 
 most important interest! Besides, I always think 
 Oliver a bit of a prig editors of high-class weeklies 
 can hardly escape it and nothing brings a man down 
 so completely to his own level as a caravan." 
 
 "Nothing," chuckled Dan, waggling his big hands 
 in the pockets of his unspeakable coat. " She would 
 be a brilliant success and he would have to look up 
 to her, and it would be enormously good for him! 
 Ah, here she comes ! " he went on, with satisfaction, as 
 the girlish figure appeared, moving down the path with 
 something of a youthful swing. " Hullo, Mrs. Oliver. 
 Come and sniff this border! How's that for perfume, 
 eh ? Make the most of it, for the sun is going in per- 
 manently in about half an hour, and we are going to 
 have a stormy night ! " 
 
 Astrid's eyes lit up with pleasure at the friendly greet- 
 ing. 
 
 "You are wonderful people," she said. 'Mrs. 
 Brendon's wallflowers are only in bud, and she has a 
 very good gardener." 
 
 " Her garden's not so sunny as ours," returned Tessa, 
 when she had warmly saluted the girl. " Dan, do
 
 66 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 let's have tea out of doors! If I run and shout for 
 it, we can just do it before the sun goes in, and there 
 is not a breath of wind in the Haven." 
 
 " O do ! " echoed Astrid eagerly ; and Tessa ran 
 off to give the order, leaving Dan strolling at Mrs. 
 Oliver's side between the fragrant borders. 
 
 " I have brought back your book," said Astrid, " and 
 I want to talk to you about it I feel that it would 
 be merely conventional to say I like it; I much more 
 than like it. I feel towards it as I feel about you 
 as if I had made a new friend." 
 
 " I say," said Dan, " that's jolly good ! " 
 
 " I should like," went on the girl quite calmly, " to 
 be your secretary." 
 
 Dan laughed, with a wistful glance. " Ah," he said, 
 " that is one of the things we say when we know there 
 is no chance of being called upon to translate the wish 
 into action." 
 
 " Well," said Astrid, " of course, I knew when I 
 said it that there was no likelihood of your wanting 
 me. But I meant it seriously from my own point of 
 view. You know I am accustomed to work, and I 
 don't like being idle. I could not well work now in 
 Oliver's office, as I used to do; but I think I shall 
 work somewhere." 
 
 " Why," said Dan, half disappointed, " you are a 
 modern wife ! " 
 
 " Am I ? Why do you say so ? Because I do not 
 like to be idle?" 
 
 " When you have a house of your own, my dear, you 
 will not find much margin of time to do other people's 
 typewriting." 
 
 There was a pause. " Perhaps not," said she, after 
 a while.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 67 
 
 " I am making myself pretty miserable about my 
 work," he went on, talking to her quite without any 
 sense of shyness as they strolled the garden walks. 
 " You see, I have accustomed myself to the use of a 
 secretary, having Tessa. She is first-rate. But when 
 she is married, I can't think what will become of me, 
 because I don't believe I could grow accustomed to any 
 stranger. It will mean complete dislocation of my 
 work for a time at least. But mind," he added hur- 
 riedly, "you must not say this to Tessa not on any 
 account." 
 
 She lifted her eyes to his with a smile of reassurance. 
 " Of course not. She is so unselfish, and she must be 
 feeling it enough as it is. I am quite anxious to see 
 Mr. Spence. I do hope he will make her happy." 
 
 " There's very little doubt of it. He is marrying 
 her in spite of himself. She is, in many respects, 
 exactly what he previously thought he did not want, 
 but he is so in love with her that nothing matters. 
 Every week I like him better, and every week they 
 grow nearer to each other. As far as she is concerned, 
 Martin and I are both content. It is only our blamed 
 selfishness " 
 
 " O I don't wonder. She is just sweet. There is 
 a kind of fragrance about her, of graciousness and nat- 
 uralness, which one feels at once. The charm of sheer 
 personality! I do feel sorry for you, and I quite 
 understand how detestable the idea of anybody else to 
 work for you must be, after having had her." 
 
 " Well not the idea of anybody ... I mean, not 
 the idea you dangled before my eyes so brutally just 
 now! I could work with you right enough! I don't 
 mind betting that in a week I should feel as comfort- 
 able with you as if I had known you all my life ! "
 
 68 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 She laughed with sheer pleasure, and the colour came 
 up vividly in her cheeks. " That is a compliment ! 
 Thank you, sir, very much, for my good compliment! 
 But as you say, I might not have time " 
 
 "Aha! Didn't I say so? When it comes to the 
 point ! " 
 
 " Who can say 2 " said Astrid hurriedly. " I don't 
 know a hit what our plans are yet Anyway, Miss 
 Selby is not going to be married until August, is she ? " 
 
 " If o, thank Heaven ! And our caravan tour comes 
 first ! Come and look at our two peripatetic homes ! " 
 
 He guided her through devious ways, out into the 
 field, where, covered carefully in tarpaulins, the two 
 caravans stood. One was green and one was blue. 
 The ladies' caravan was the larger and more commo- 
 dious. Dan unlocked the door and let down the steps, 
 and Astrid climbed up with him and examined the va- 
 rious contrivances, the neat way in which beds and 
 tables let down from the walls, and seats had drawers 
 and lockers underneath them. Bedding and all furni- 
 ture was, of course, removed, and stowed in the house 
 for the winter. They had taken their holiday in this 
 manner every year for the past five years, and were 
 not tired of it yet. This year they were going to make 
 a variation, since they were beginning to tire of the 
 first fifty miles out. They were planning to send a 
 man with the vans to await them at a given starting- 
 point, so as to find themselves, from the very first, in 
 the heart of the country. 
 
 The notion was to the girl an absorbing one. They 
 sat upon a locker, discussing the humours of the road 
 in total forgetfulness of all else, their eyes upon the 
 corner of the green meadow, and the sunlight flickering 
 through the young foliage of the trees; until Tessa's
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 69 
 
 voice in urgent summons caused them to jump up, hur- 
 riedly put thing to rights, and return precipitately to 
 the Haven, a sort of summer-house where tea was await- 
 ing them. 
 
 After tea Dan's weather prophecy began to be ful- 
 filled. They went indoors, to fulfil the true purpose of 
 Mrs. Oliver's visit an inspection of a small but val- 
 uable collection of miniatures which was the most treas- 
 ured possession of the Selbys. 
 
 It was Astrid's purpose to make her weekly column 
 out of these miniatures, so the examination could not 
 be hurried, though she and Dan had wasted time so 
 culpably in the garden. She had to rush home in or- 
 der to write and post her article before dinner, so 
 there was small time for leave-taking ; for the exquisite 
 portraits were so fascinating that it was hard to tear 
 oneself away. When at last she did, the rain had be- 
 gun, and Dan accompanied her all the way home, talk- 
 ing to his heart's content, and more than ever impressed 
 with the talent and charm of Brendon's wife.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Passion sometimes would prevail, 
 
 Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain 
 
 A sudden thought of one so pale 
 
 For love of her, and all in vain; 
 
 So, she was come through wind and rain. 
 
 R. BBOWNINQ. 
 
 HAVING once begun, the rain continued, and the 
 evening drew in chilly and wet, a typical English May. 
 Astrid wrote her article at a great pace, hardly pausing 
 to know whether it was good, but with an inner per- 
 suasion of its being " all right," and went out, sheathed 
 in a cloak and protected by a big umbrella, to carry it 
 to post, at a moment when she should have been dressing 
 for dinner. As she turned away from the post office 
 she met her husband face to face. 
 
 " O," cried she impulsively, " you have no um- 
 brella!" 
 
 Oliver, who had been trudging along unrecognising, 
 halted, and stared at her half blinded by the rain, 
 which was coming down very fast. Humanity urged 
 the girl to suggest that they should share the um- 
 brella. He took it from her, and held it over the two 
 of them while they proceeded the short distance which 
 separates the Abbot's House from the post. 
 
 " You are out late," was his trite remark. His voice 
 was not trite, however. It had a cadence of excite- 
 ment which struck her. 
 
 70
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 71 
 
 " Yes," she replied, " I had to post my article. I 
 went down to the Selbys', to look at their miniatures, 
 and we got talking and I stayed too late." 
 
 She tried hard to make her voice sound natural, 
 but she was all kindled by a sudden hope. Was there 
 not something unusual, some feeling suppressed, be- 
 hind his slightly confused manner ? 
 
 " They've got some nice things." 
 
 "O yes, delightful. The Isabeys in particular. I 
 had never seen really good examples of him before. 
 The lady in the brocade " 
 
 " Mind the puddle," said Oliver, drawing her a lit- 
 tle to one side. " Yes you were saying ah, yes, 
 Isabey. They must be worth a good deal, that little 
 collection." 
 
 He was talking because he must say something. He 
 wanted to be friendly and conversational. All his 
 mind meanwhile was filled with the consciousness of 
 one thing only the fact that when he alighted at the 
 station that evening one of the Park grooms was busily 
 piling foreign registered luggage upon the cart. Lady 
 Faulkner and Vivien had returned. They were at that 
 moment in Thackridge. The idea was suffocating him. 
 
 The girl whose hand rested on his arm knew full well 
 that some absorbing thought was filling him to the 
 exclusion of everything else. She dared not seem to 
 be aware of it, however. She had no claim upon his 
 confidence, but she was aching to receive it. 
 
 He let her in with his latch-key, and she ran upstairs, 
 filled with a sense of the unbearable nature of the pres- 
 ent situation, and a wild desire that the strain might 
 soon be over. 
 
 He stood in the hall, slowly removing his overcoat, 
 .his eyes fixed unseeing upon nowhere, his whole being
 
 72 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 engaged in conjecturing as to where Vivien was at the 
 moment, and what she was doing. 
 
 His blank stare was fixed upon the drawing-room 
 door, and as he gazed it half opened, slowly and cau- 
 tiously. He stood like a man frozen to the ground. In 
 the aperture appeared a golden, fluffy head, and a white 
 gown, of the unusual make affected by the girl he loved 
 and by nobody else. 
 
 They stood confronting each other for two long sec- 
 onds at first the shock, he thought her an illusion, 
 conjured up by his intensity of longing. In another 
 moment, the reality of her broke upon him. She was 
 there there in person ! ... It was the beginning 
 of his revenge. 
 
 Calm and cool as ever in his life so he told him- 
 self he hung up his coat, took out his handkerchief, 
 and with an easy 
 
 " Why, Miss Faulkner ! " walked into the drawing- 
 room, and closed the door. 
 
 She was alone. Her hat and long coat lay upon 
 a chair, as in the sweet old days she used to fling them, 
 careless of where they fell. 
 
 " O, you horrid ! " she said, pouting. " You sim- 
 ply detestable! Miss Faulkner indeed! . . . and the 
 tips of your fingers ! . . . Ollie, are you really, truly, 
 not pleased to see me ? " 
 
 " Astonishment deprives me of the power of express- 
 ing any other emotion, just for the moment," he said 
 with frigid courtesy. " It is putting it mildly to say 
 that I did not expect you." 
 
 She laughed joyously. She was standing beside the 
 hearth, the slimness of her outline against the rosy, 
 glowing light standing there as if the intermediate 
 nightmare months had never been, and she had come
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 73 
 
 back to him as she went. " Of course you did not ex- 
 pect me. I reckoned on that! I thought to myself, 
 ' I will run away the moment I get home, and take him 
 by surprise, before he has time to remember that he is 
 angry with me ! ' . . . But you do seem to remember 
 it, without difficulty." 
 
 She turned away her face, and hunched one shoul- 
 der a little. He could see the distracting arrangement 
 of the ribbon that was twisted in her hair. 
 
 " Permit me to tell you how much you are mistaken, 
 Miss Faulkner. What right have I to be angry with 
 you ? I could not so presume." 
 
 He had now approached as near as he dared come. 
 He was so tossed to and fro by the agitation of his 
 thoughts that he hardly knew what he said or did; 
 only the dominant note, of his polite indifference, re- 
 hearsed so often whenever he thought of his meet- 
 ing with her stood him in good stead, and was re- 
 produced almost mechanically. He had pictured many 
 fashions of their first encounter: he had never pictured 
 this. That she should come straight over to the Ab- 
 bot's House, on the very evening of her return home 
 
 " O, you are in a rage ! Worse than I expected ! 
 I believe that I am frightened of you ! " said Vivien 
 defiantly. " However, you can't prevent my staying 
 to dinner, can you? I know Mrs. Brendon will let 
 me! She is lying down, and I told Drew not to dis- 
 turb her, so she does not know that I am here ! How 
 surprised she will be! And we will dine together 
 and by the end of dinner, let us hope you will be kinder 
 to me " 
 
 He broke in, because this was more than he could 
 stand. 
 
 " I trust Mr. Railton is well ? "
 
 74 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 She turned fully towards him, her clasped hands 
 held loosely before her. " Ollie," said she seriously, 
 " you have no idea at all of lots of things ! First, 
 you know nothing about girls, nor how many layers 
 there are in their souls " 
 
 " How many what ? " 
 
 "Layers! Layers of feeling, and of impulse! So 
 often, if you are a girl, you think that the thing which 
 is at the top is the thing you really most want to do; 
 and the thing which is right underneath is the one you 
 are tired of, and want to put away. And then then 
 nine times out of ten you find that the under- 
 most thing is the one that is strongest of all, and you 
 can't tear it out and " her voice faltered into si- 
 lence. 
 
 Oliver stood in a dreadful stillness. He fancied 
 he could feel his hair lift. A thought too awful for 
 contemplation was presenting itself to his terrified con- 
 sciousness. He had acted too soon 
 
 Beads of moisture broke out upon his forehead. 
 Every vein in his body seemed over-full. " How dare 
 you ! " he said under his breath. " What right have 
 you to come here talking to me like this ? Go home ! 
 You are shameless ! Go back to Railton, the man who 
 has a right to your confidence " 
 
 She shrank away as if in fear. " Ollie ! " She 
 wavered. " Ollie, don't you see that I am trying to 
 tell you . . . trying to beg your pardon? Ollie, you 
 don't know how different life seems, when you are away, 
 separated, in, a place so unlike England! You can't 
 think how all the dear old friends come rushing to your 
 heart when you are back again, in the midst of the real 
 home things, the things that are your life! I know 
 I have behaved disgracefully, and I am ready to eat
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 75 
 
 plates full of humble pie ! But if you say the word " 
 with her hands joined she came timidly a step nearer 
 to the man who had never repulsed her in his life : " if 
 you say the word, I will break it off to-morrow! I 
 want to! I don't love Mr. Railton one little bit! 
 You know, you know I don't. You must know how 
 it is, and who it is. . . ." 
 
 " Stop ! I know nothing of the kind ! " He could 
 hardly articulate, but at any cost he must cut her short 
 there. In all his succeeding life, the agony of that 
 moment stood out supreme. It was almost a relief, 
 since the worst must come, and could not be averted, to 
 hear the opening door and to see his wife enter. 
 
 She had dressed in haste, for she knew herself late, 
 and imagined that Mrs. Brendon was awaiting her. 
 Mrs. Brendon, as a matter of fact, having fallen asleep 
 after an afternoon of headache, was not likely to be 
 down yet. Astrid stood looking from her husband to 
 Vivien and back again; conscious of something tense, 
 something wild, in the atmosphere. 
 
 There was but one course possible for Oliver. 
 
 " Miss Faulkner," he said, in tones which he vainly 
 strove to render natural, " let me introduce my wife," 
 
 He had succeeded, then, in one of his objects. He 
 had married Miss Carey in order to be revenged upon 
 Vivien Faulkner, and he was revenged upon her. The 
 child looked as if shot through the heart Without a 
 word she sank down upon the chair near which she 
 stood ; and Astrid thought she was going to faint She 
 did not. All three of them preserved silence, while 
 she wrestled with the blow. Oliver was so absorbed in 
 the sufferings of Vivien that it never occurred to him 
 to wonder if Astrid thought the scene peculiar. As- 
 trid, in whose hand the key to the whole puzzle had
 
 76 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 just been placed, was too immersed in her own thoughts 
 to wonder at anything. 
 
 In a minute or two Vivien got slowly to her feet. 
 " I think you said your wife ? " she asked, lifting a 
 blanched face to him. 
 
 " My wife. I have been married a fortnight," he 
 said clearly. For the sake of this moment he had 
 wrecked his life. Was his triumph to be spoilt for 
 him because of a faithless little flirt's white cheeks? 
 
 " I hope," said Vivien faintly, " I hope you will be 
 very happy." 
 
 She crossed the room to where Astrid was standing, 
 and lifted her eyes, dark with pain, to see what man- 
 ner of woman this was. 
 
 " I dare say," she faltered, " that you have heard 
 about my being engaged to Oliver and jilting him. 
 He has found somebody more faithful. I am glad 
 of that; at least, I shall be. I am going to be mar- 
 ried in a fortnight and go away to America." 
 
 Oliver had collected himself. He went to where her 
 things were lying upon the chair and lifted them. 
 
 " I can't tell you how kind we think it of you, com- 
 ing so soon to see us even before we knew you had 
 returned," he said smoothly. " I expect the next fort- 
 night will be such a rush that you will have no more 
 time to give us ! " 
 
 She let him put on her coat as though hardly con- 
 scious of her surroundings. She took her large hat 
 and its pins, and went back to the mirror to adjust them. 
 
 The rain beat upon the windows in streams. 
 
 " I will take you home," said Oliver, as she turned 
 from the glass and approached the door. 
 
 Astrid, who had not spoken a word, moved forward
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 77 
 
 then, and held out her hand. " Good-bye," she said, 
 very low. 
 
 " Good-bye," said Vivien, stumbling over a sob. She 
 did not take the offered hand. She passed out into the 
 hall, where Oliver was putting on his coat and selecting 
 a large umbrella. 
 
 " Tell my mother," said he to his wife, " that I am 
 dining in town to-night. Nobody to sit up for me." 
 
 Astrid stood upon the threshold and watched him 
 depart, with Vivien. She made no reply. Her eyes 
 were fixed upon the twilight into which the two figures 
 disappeared. 
 
 It is only quite a little way from the Abbot's House 
 to the Park. Past the church, and one or two old 
 houses. Every step of the way, to Oliver, was full of 
 memories, memories of the most poignant kind. To 
 and fro, along this road, he had passed, in the moments 
 when life was golden, glorified by the kiss of a girl's 
 lips. To and fro had he paced, when the shrine was 
 empty and the girl far from his longing arms. Again, 
 he had walked there when he knew her untrue pic- 
 turing the face he knew, offered to the kisses of another 
 jnan. 
 
 And now what ? 
 
 She had come back to him. She had only been weak 
 and faltering, not base. The moment she was home 
 she had flown to what she had felt certain would prove 
 a safe refuge. She had come to ask to be forgiven. 
 . . . It was incredible! . . . But for his own mad- 
 ness, she would be in his arms that minute. 
 
 They were out together, in darkness and rain. He 
 had opened and closed the drive gate. The wind buf- 
 feted them. He found himself speaking, in a harsh
 
 78 A MAKE- SHI FT MARRIAGE 
 
 voice he hardly knew. " Let us get under the shelter 
 of the big trees." 
 
 Silently she went where he guided her. They stood 
 together, screened from wind and rain, in a haven of 
 dark silence. It was in his heart to seize her, to in- 
 flict some chastisement for what he was suffering 
 to cry out to her " You have destroyed me ! " There 
 was also present with him the desire to say to her 
 " Let us escape ! We are together, we love each other, 
 let me take you away, where nothing can come be- 
 tween us." 
 
 He believed that, should he say this, she would go 
 with him. For a few dizzy moments his mind played 
 with the idea. But he was bound. Even in this mo- 
 ment, when nothing else seemed to count, there was 
 a something which restrained him. Sub-consciously 
 he was aware that things were not yet so black that 
 they might not be worse. Something was it train- 
 ing, or was it innate in himself 2 held him back. 
 He could do nothing. They stood together with an 
 ocean rolling between. 
 
 The hateful part of it was that he could not speak, 
 for fear of breaking quite down. Tongue-tied he stood 
 there, until a little sound in the silence broke pitifully 
 upon his ear. Vivien was sobbing. 
 
 Holding the big umbrella in his left hand, he put 
 his right arm about her. His sudden pity gave him 
 voice. " Vivien, you must think of me as though 
 I were dead," he gasped. " I am dead. Your treach- 
 ery killed all there was of good in me. I am spun. I 
 have nothing left no future. But you have. You 
 must have thought you loved this this gilded ruffian. 
 Try and be happy with him your own choice." 
 
 She burst out into wild sobs.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 79 
 
 " And you go and be happy with yours ! " 
 
 He groaned. That uncouth sound of suffering 
 scared her. She had never heard a man groan, and 
 she shrank away. 
 
 In the midst of what he was bearing, the thought 
 of the wretched girl whom he had sacrificed to his 
 vanity came to cover him with shame. 
 
 " Come," he said, " this is too awful, we must not 
 loiter here. We must say good-bye, and there an end." 
 
 She had utterly lost control by now, and was weep- 
 ing wildly, and gasping out reproaches. " Why had he 
 let her go, why had he not seen that he must fly to her 
 and protect her? Why had he left her to bear the 
 brunt of all ? " 
 
 The very nature of her complaints showed him the 
 gulf that lay between his conception of what love meant, 
 and hers. Yet she was Vivien! She was the sweet, 
 fresh, feminine thing which had kindled the manhood 
 in Oliver Brendon. They were sheltered from the 
 rain in the spot where they stood, and the darkness had 
 fallen. He shut the umbrella, and took her wet face 
 between his hands. 
 
 " Good-bye," he said, " think of me as though I 
 were dead. It is the only way. When you are half- 
 way across the Atlantic, you will have forgotten me. 
 But for the sake of the past, give me a last good-bye." 
 
 " Ollie, can't we do anything ? It is really true 
 you are actually married to that grave, pale woman ? " 
 " I am married." 
 
 He but just managed to articulate. The touch of 
 her lips was breaking down his resolution. The flash 
 of carriage lamps upon the gloom ended the pitiful 
 scene. Fearful of being seen and recognised, he picked 
 up and spread the umbrella, and piloted her with de-
 
 80 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 termination along the remaining short .bit of road, in 
 at the Park Gates. 
 
 " I had better not come to the door," he said gruffly. 
 " Good night." 
 
 A moment later he was tramping down the wet road 
 ,to the station. What should he do, where could be go, 
 to obtain a temporary oblivion?
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Go, with thy chosen mate! 
 The fashion of thy going nearly cured 
 The sorrow of it. I am yet so weak 
 That half my thoughts go after thee; but not 
 So weak that I desire to have it so. JEAN INGELOW. 
 
 TEN minutes after he left the house Sybil came down- 
 stairs, full of apologies. She had dropped asleep, and 
 Morris would not wake her. Her headache was quite 
 gone, and she was ashamed of her behaviour. 
 
 She found only her daughter-in-law awaiting her. 
 
 " Is not Oliver in ? I thought I heard him come," 
 she cried. 
 
 " He came in for a minute, to say he was dining 
 out, and nobody was to sit up for him," replied Astrid. 
 
 " Indeed ? Oh, it is with Colonel Hayes, I expect. 
 They are discussing the new Football Club," said Sybil, 
 without much anxiety. 
 
 The two ladies went into the dining-room and talked 
 together much as usual. Astrid described the minia- 
 tures which she had seen that afternoon at the Selbys, 
 and what a rush she had had to complete her " copy " 
 in time for the post. Beyond a slight absence of mind, 
 she betrayed no emotion. 
 
 She sat down quietly in the drawing-room until cof- 
 fee had been served and removed. Then Sybil, look- 
 ing up from the book she was just cutting, saw the in- 
 tense eyes fixed upon her with such meaning that she 
 dropped her paper-cutter, crying: 
 
 " My dear, what is it ? " 
 81
 
 82 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 Astrid spoke quietly enough. She made no move- 
 ment with her hands to describe what she meant. It 
 was difficult to say what produced the notion which 
 was conveyed to Sybil, of a very fury of feeling con- 
 trolled. 
 
 " I have found it out," she said. " I mean, I have 
 found out why your son married me." 
 
 Sybil did not interrupt, except by an " Indeed ! " 
 which showed she expected her to continue. 
 
 " He married me because he wanted to be revenged, 
 somehow, I hardly understand how, upon the woman 
 he loves. She has been here this evening " 
 
 "What!" 
 
 "Yes. Miss Faulkner has been here this evening. 
 Mr. Brendon found her here when he came in. I do 
 not know what passed between them, for they had been 
 some time together when I, not knowing that anybody 
 was here, came downstairs. She told me that she had 
 been engaged to him, and had jilted him. I think she 
 came to ask him to forgive her and to renew the en- 
 gagement between them." 
 
 " Oh, Astrid, impossible ! " 
 
 " No. That is how it is. I saw her, young and 
 golden-haired, and sweet and kissable, like the girl 
 in a story-book. The sordidness of life has never 
 brushed her curls. He loves her. He has gone away 
 because, after seeing her, he could not bear the sight 
 of me. That is how things stand. I have found out, 
 as I said I would. I determined to wait until I knew, 
 and now I know." 
 
 What was there for Oliver's mother to say? She 
 tried, two or three times, to open her lips. But she 
 was not equal to the cruelty of " What did you expect ? " 
 and with this exception she had nothing to reply.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 83 
 
 Astrid sat immovable. Her eyes were shining, her 
 lips feverishly red. But she was in full command of 
 herself. 
 
 " Now that you know, Astrid, what is your opinion 
 of the situation ? " faltered Sybil at last. " You see 
 that Oliver is to blame. Does it occur to you that any 
 blame rests upon yourself as well ? " 
 
 Astrid knit her brows. Then a bitter little smile 
 showed her teeth for an instant. 
 
 " You mean, for being such a fool as to think that 
 any young man could desire to marry me for myself ? " 
 
 " God knows I do not wish to be hard upon a mother- 
 less girl," said Mrs. Brendon. " But you must have 
 been aware that your marriage was a most peculiar one. 
 Any young woman, however inexperienced, however 
 without friends or advisers, must have known that 
 young men have families, and that they do not keep 
 their marriage, secret without some reason." 
 
 Astrid hesitated, as if weighing her reply. Then 
 she said simply, " I have known him for what seems a 
 long time now. I knew he trusted me. I trusted him. 
 That may have been foolish, but I don't think it was 
 wrong." 
 
 Mrs. Brendon flung away her book. " Could you 
 be frank with me?" she implored. "You say you 
 have known Oliver tell me how well you knew him. 
 What did your friendship amount to ? " 
 
 " By the time I married him it amounted to all the 
 world to me, and was the only thing I lived for," re- 
 plied the girl quietly. 
 
 "How did it begin?" 
 
 " They sent me, from the office where I was trained, 
 to do various bits of work for the Penman, At first 
 I never came in contact with him at all, I only saw
 
 84 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 him from time to time, when he came into the outer 
 office. Then he asked to have me sent to do a bit 
 of translation which was rather difficult, and my work 
 pleased him. After that I did more for him, and then 
 his secretary, a young man called Grant, got a good 
 appointment in Canada, and left, and Mr. Brendon 
 asked me if I thought I could take it on. I was very 
 pleased. Proud too. It was splendid pay, and he 
 said he would raise me." 
 
 "Splendid pay?" 
 
 " Two pounds a week. You try living on thirty 
 shillings, and see what your rise means ! " 
 
 "Yes? Well, what then?" 
 
 " It meant a great deal of interesting work, looking 
 up authorities in the British Museum and so on. We 
 got in the habit of talking about things, and were 
 friends. One day, long ago now, more than a year 
 ago, he was feeling bored and tired, and he asked me 
 to go out and dine with him and do a theatre. It was 
 a play that all the papers were discussing, and he 
 thought of doing a long article himself about it for 
 the paper, and said he would like my opinion. Well, I 
 refused." 
 
 " Refused ? " 
 
 "Yes. I said he was not to think me silly, nor 
 that I was imagining things. But I had to live alone, 
 and I have seen a good deal in my time. I know that, 
 even with the nicest men, girls have to be so careful. 
 In fact, in spite of what they put in books, I think it- 
 is the nicest men that you have to beware of. I hate 
 the other kind, myself, and I believe most girls do. 
 Besides, of course the other kind would never look at 
 me, or want me," she added, with a little laugh. " I 
 was never in danger from them, never followed about,
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 85 
 
 nor noticed in the streets, as some are. But there it 
 was ! His friendship was growing to mean so much to 
 me, and I determined not to spoil it." 
 
 " What did he say ? " asked Sybil, with interest. 
 
 "He was a good deal put out, and inclined to be 
 cross with me. I thought I had been a fool, and that 
 perhaps after that he would be afraid to talk to me 
 naturally. I had a good try to make it clear that I 
 trusted him all right, but that I had a rule and wouldn't 
 break it. Still, I went back to work next day feeling 
 very uncomfortable. However, he was nicer than 
 ever. He had always been nice, but after that he 
 really treated me as an equal. I was very happy, 
 not a wild, excited kind of happiness, but a 
 pleasant, everyday content; until there came a time 
 when he left off addressing a word to me that was not 
 business. I had grown, as I thought, to know him so 
 well by then that I soon made up my mind that it was 
 not I who had done anything wrong, but he who was 
 tremendously preoccupied. Looking back, I can see the 
 meaning of it all. That must have been when he fell 
 in love." 
 
 " Last autumn," murmured Sybil. 
 
 "Yes, last autumn. He grew moody and much 
 more difficult to please than of old. I had my own 
 idea about it, and I thought he was having difficulties 
 with the proprietor. I just did everything I could to 
 spare him, and took extra pains that no slips were 
 made, and called his attention to every trifling detail: 
 a word to be changed, or a phrase omitted. After 
 Christmas, when all the fuss was over, and the paper 
 was running beautifully, and the circulation going up, 
 I expected to see him recover. But though he was just 
 like his old self now and then, he was still moody, and
 
 86 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 sometimes very depressed. At last came a time when 
 he was so evidently suffering that I was in a dreadful 
 state about him. He never touched food all day, and 
 when I went in he would be sitting staring straight 
 before him, looking quite rigid. He said he could 
 not dictate, and he did not work, though the next day 
 was press day. I was alarmed. Remember I al- 
 ways thought of him as a man who lived alone. He had 
 never spoken a word to me on his personal affairs, nor 
 I to him. I thought he was feeling physically ill, and 
 was afraid he had some symptom which was frightening 
 him. Anyway, I was fool enough to wait until all the 
 clerks had gone, and then to march into the office and 
 ask him if I could do anything to help him. That 
 was wrong, wasn't it ? " 
 
 " My dear girl, how can I censure you, just for show- 
 ing womanly sympathy ? " 
 
 " That was the bandage I used to blind my own 
 eyes," said Astrid fiercely. " I called it womanly sym- 
 pathy. It was not. I was in lova . . . Do you 
 know," she went on, with a sudden cry, " that a lonely 
 girl must live for something, or go mad? O, yes, I 
 said my prayers, and went to church, and I did yes, 
 I did trust in God! But God has only given the 
 nun's vocation to very few women, at least in England ! 
 I wanted some kind of a life in this world, where He 
 had put me! I didn't know I was in love with Mr. 
 Brendon, but when you wake in the morning with noth- 
 ing to look forward to but the sound of one man's voice 
 and the little things he may say and do, and nothing to 
 look back upon when you go to bed but the memory 
 of them what does it mean ? It means that one man 
 has come to fill your whole life, and that, unless some 
 other image comes to supplant his, you are in love with
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 87 
 
 him. ... I could laugh now, thinking over my folly! 
 Of course, I never said to myself then any of the wise 
 things I am saying to you now ! I was just living on 
 from day to day, for the pleasure of serving him and 
 being with him. . . . And I hardly knew him. I was 
 in love with my own idea of him ! I thought of him 
 as absolutely good and upright and as knowing every- 
 thing and understanding everything " 
 
 " He did not know could not have known that 
 you felt like this?" cried Sybil, almost appealingly. 
 The tears were standing in her eyes. 
 
 "Know? Of course he didn't. How should he? 
 When I went in, that afternoon I ought to tell you 
 that I had borne it for three days, this was the last 
 and worst of the three he took it for what you said 
 womanly sympathy." 
 
 "Well, what did he say?" 
 
 " First of all he asserted peevishly that he was not 
 ill. I said it was no use his denying it, he was ill, and 
 he would be worse if he could not eat. We argued on 
 for some time about it, I trying to be patient with 
 him, but not giving way, and he by degrees growing 
 a little softer, as if he really was glad of somebody's 
 sympathy, even though it was only mine. After a 
 good while, he said, ' Well, I would go out and have 
 some dinner if you would come too. I am not good 
 company for myself. But you are so pious and proper, 
 you would not be seen sitting with me in a restaurant 
 on any consideration, would you ? ' I said, ' That is 
 only an excuse, and you know it. But if you are so 
 anxious for my company, shall I go and order some 
 dinner to be sent up here, and I will stay until you 
 have eaten it. I have a good many things to tidy up and 
 put away/ He burst out * Then you would not eat
 
 88 A MAKE -SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 with me ? ' I said, ' You give me a good salary, and 
 I pay for my own food; I don't want to sponge on 
 you.' He sat quiet a little while, and then said, ' I 
 wonder why I can't get on with girls why they won't 
 do things like this for me ? Why, I know dozens of 
 men, pretty average fools, some of 'em, and they only 
 have to hold up their finger to get girls to go about 
 with them, to suppers and theatres and what not.' I 
 could not help answering that, and I did so quickly, 
 hardly thinking what I said ' O,' I cried, ' the mis- 
 take you make is in coming to the wrong girl ! There 
 are heaps and heaps of the others, if you want them.' 
 He sat so still that I thought I had offended him deeply, 
 and I got scarlet. I went and stood close beside him 
 by the table, and as he still sat there, staring at the 
 floor, I mumbled something about being sorry if I had 
 hurt him. He raised his eyes to my face then, and said, 
 very slowly, ' But I don't agree. I think I have come 
 to the right girl. I didn't know it, but I have. Will 
 you marry me, my dear ? ' 
 
 Her voice died away. The look in her eyes showed 
 how she was visualising this the one scene of her 
 life. Sybil gasped, and shivered. " Go on." There 
 was no response. " O," she sobbed out, " try and tell 
 me the rest ! " 
 
 " Think of me," said Astrid in a whisper, " stand- 
 ing there in my office frock . . . and think of the pic- 
 ture he had in his mind's eye! Miss Faulkner! . . . 
 Well, I gulped out, ' Of all the things in the world that 
 I did not expect you to say ! ' And he answered, 
 ' Quite so. I have said it because I was so sure you 
 did not expect it. You have nothing of the flirt in 
 you.' I could answer truly, 1 1 have never flirted, with 
 you or anybody else.' He asked me if I thought I
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 89 
 
 could get on with him. ' We know each other pretty 
 well,' he said. 'You know I am not demonstrative.' 
 I said I liked him just as he was." The speaker broke 
 off, and turned to Sybil, laying her hand earnestly upon 
 her gown. 
 
 " I trusted him as if he had been God," she said. 
 " In my ignorance, I thought there could be but one 
 reason for his asking me to be his wife. I have no 
 money, I have not much in the way of looks I could 
 not see any reason for his request, other than the one 
 mighty, overpowering one, that he loved me. I did not 
 hold back much. I hardly knew where I was, or what 
 I was doing, I was caught up into heaven, as it were, 
 and all I knew was that if he wanted me, he must 
 have me. He told me that he hated fuss and publicity, 
 and asked me to marry him quite quietly and at once. 
 He wrote to my aunt in Dublin, Miss Nolan, and asked 
 her consent, stating his position. His lawyers and 
 bankers wrote to her also, I believe, and he said he 
 would settle something on me, I forget what. I see 
 now how idiotic I was not to make inquiries about his 
 family and so on. But what little sense was left me 
 was all expended upon behaving rationally as long as I 
 was in his employment. He told me that he had been 
 feeling very unwell, but that he should be better be- 
 fore long, and that after we were married he would 
 take a holiday. I thought he had made arrangements 
 to do that, and it seemed to me that, when we passed 
 the threshold of the church together, and I knew he 
 was my own, I could make him well whatever ailed 
 him, with the force of my devotion and my will to serve 
 him." 
 
 " Had you no friends of your own at all in Lon- 
 don?"
 
 90 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 " Only two or three girls, and he asked me to say 
 nothing of it to them. I only told my landlady, who 
 is very nice, but just a working- woman, not a person 
 likely to be acquainted with any one through whom 
 the secret might come out. She went to church with 
 me." 
 
 " Astrid, tell me candidly, how did Oliver behave 
 during your fortnight's engagement ? Did he give 
 you any cause to suppose that he was in love with 
 you?" 
 
 The girl reflected. " Perhaps not, to any girl less 
 besotted than I was. But I thought that his coldness 
 was my own fault. The day he asked me to marry 
 him, he took me in his arms, and kissed me many 
 times, with it would almost be true to say, violently. 
 He could not know, of course, the effect it would have 
 upon me. I almost fainted. I was afraid of my own 
 feelings, and I told him he must not do it again. It 
 made me feel like a housemaid, somehow, being kissed 
 in the office, when the other clerks were gone. He 
 said he had many things to arrange, and so had I, so 
 we did not spend our evenings together. Now that I 
 look back upon it, I see how each day of that awful 
 fortnight he must have repented his madness more and 
 more. I am sure that he was increasingly cold. But 
 I, poor fool, took it all for granted. I had the memory 
 of those kisses, and I lived upon it. Every look he be- 
 stowed was to me only an earnest of what was held back 
 of the tenderness he had to expend upon me, when 
 there was no chance of his being misunderstood. O, if 
 I had but known you then ! 0, if I could recall it all ! 
 . . . The self-contempt ! . . . I could kill myself ! " 
 
 Her head drooped forward upon her clenched hands. 
 As she sat so, elbows supported on her knees, the long
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 91 
 
 curves of her thin body bent together in her hu- 
 miliation, the pity in Sybil's heart was ready to melt 
 into a warmer emotion. Certainly her daughter-in-law 
 was capable of feeling, to a degree not bestowed upon 
 every daughter of Eve. 
 
 Mrs. Brendon, at fifty, was rarely moved by im- 
 pulse ; but under the goad of this one she rose from her 
 seat, crossed the hearth, moved a chair close, sat down 
 and put her arm round the bowed figure, while with her 
 other hand she drew the abased head to lean against her 
 breast. 
 
 " Do you think you can go on ? " she whispered. 
 " Try to tell me the rest . . . what you oan of the rest." 
 
 Astrid, with a shivering sob, made a momentary re- 
 sistance to the constraint of the compassionate arms. 
 It was but momentary. The thrill of that embrace 
 the consciousness of being understood and pitied, not 
 cast out, by the woman who had suffered through her so 
 deeply, was overpowering. 
 
 With a little moan she turned, put up her arms, and 
 clung to the human shelter; clung closer and closer, 
 feeling upon her forehead the touch of womanly lips, 
 like balm to the aching heart. 
 
 " The rest is too dreadful," she said at last. " I 
 can't tell it, you know. The morning we we were 
 married I felt just like Jane Eyre did on the morning 
 of her wedding-day : that it simply couldn't be true. I 
 should wake, and find I was still Astrid Carey, the 
 typewriting clerk trudging off to her daily task. Then 
 I got up, and put on my poor little white frock, and I 
 had a weak, timid hope that he might have sent me 
 some flowers. He had not. I told myself he was not 
 that kind of man. He had not given me anything, and 
 I was most proud of the fact I told myself he knew
 
 92 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 I was above that kind of nonsense. O, was I not a fool, 
 a fool, a girl who deserved to be humiliated, for being 
 such a simpleton ? " 
 
 Sybil could not answer. All her being was in an out- 
 cry. " That my son should have betrayed a heart like 
 this ! " She had no words, but she clasped the slender 
 body closer. 
 
 " He looked so strange when we got to church, that 
 I was on the point of asking him if he felt too ill to 
 go through it. However, he seemed in a great hurry, 
 and gave me no time to say anything at all. Then a 
 horrible thing happened. He had bought a wedding 
 ring so much too large that nothing would make it stay 
 on my finger; and directly after the service we had to 
 drive to the shop and change it. I knew by that time 
 that something was desperately wrong. Either he was 
 very ill, or an alarming thought he must be go- 
 ing mad. I was humble enough content that he 
 should be abstracted, should have his mind fixed, as it 
 seemed to be, upon the proof sheets of the Penman. 
 But I could not bear that he should be miserable as 
 well. As we were going down to Brighton, I made a 
 brave attempt to reach him to show him that I was 
 there if he wanted me, ready to help, to do or be any- 
 thing he wanted. . . ." 
 
 " He did not repulse you, surely, surely ! " 
 
 " O, he was quite polite," said Astrid simply. 
 
 There was a pulsing silenca Sybil's hand was 
 passing softly over her daughter-in-law's hair. The 
 coals sank together in the grate, and the spaniel gave 
 a contented sigh. The warm perfumed room seemed as 
 though it also suspired in a sympathy too deep for 
 words. 
 
 " When we got to the hotel, he actually went out by
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 93 
 
 himself, with the excuse of ringing somebody up on the 
 telephone, and stayed away two hours. During those 
 two hours, as I sat alone there, wondering where he was, 
 and why he had left me, a curious thing happened. I 
 felt as if I were alone with myself for the first time 
 since my engagement. You know that story in the 
 Arabian Nights, where they bandage a woman's eyes, 
 and lead her through mysterious places, and then at last 
 the bandage is taken off, and she finds herself alone, in 
 a strange house, with no idea how she could ever get 
 back to the life she knew ? " 
 
 She paused, lost in the painful memory, and her lis- 
 tener murmured an anxious, sympathetic adjuration 
 that she should go on. 
 
 " The bandage was off," continued the speaker, " and 
 I was most horribly afraid. The moment I began to 
 think sensibly, I could see that something was wrong 
 that everything was wrong. Why should my husband 
 be so miserable ? why should he go away and leave me, 
 just at the time when a girl has risked everything, and 
 is more in need of his help and comfort than at any 
 other time, before or after or so it seems to me ? It 
 was borne in upon me that he had proposed in an un- 
 guarded moment, that he had not meant it to be taken 
 seriously that he had married me because he had 
 said he would, and that now he was aghast at what he 
 had done. I can't describe to you how I felt when I 
 got as far as that. I looked back across the past fort- 
 night, and I could not recall one little circumstance that 
 could give me a gleam of hope. Why he had ever sup- 
 posed that he wished to marry me, of course I could 
 not divine. I only knew, with a cold, settled knowl- 
 edge, that he did not love me. ... He came back 
 from his walk in a different mood."
 
 94 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 " A better mood ? " 
 
 " I did not think so. He was friendly and brisk, and 
 said his business was now off his mind, and I had been 
 very patient, and we would have dinner and get warm 
 and enjoy ourselves. I felt like a stone, unable to re- 
 spond or to hide my blank despair. He had ordered a 
 very good dinner, and a bottle of champagne. He 
 wanted me to have some, but I do not like wine and I 
 am not used to it. I would not touch it, but he drank 
 it all. Then, you see ... after that, he wanted me 
 to sit beside him and let him caress me. But it seemed 
 as if I had seen too clearly to be deceived again. I 
 knew that he was not sincere. I knew he was forc- 
 ing himself to to behave as a lover might have done. 
 I can't tell you how it horrified me. ... I am very 
 ignorant, as I have told you. I know nothing at all, 
 but I believe there is an instinct God puts into a girl's 
 heart. The moment Oliver started that hollow pre- 
 tence at love-making, I knew that all I feared was true. 
 I was in danger, and must fight for my self-respect, for 
 everything I held most precious." 
 
 She was lying partly against Sybil's shoulder, and 
 partly on the cushions of the large chair, so that her 
 face was turned up to that of the elder woman, and 
 their eyes looked straight at each other. 
 
 "He was not the least bit tipsy O, no!" said 
 Astrid, answering an unspoken fear ; " don't think that. 
 He was a little excited, that was all. He understood 
 what I said. I admitted that I had sworn to be his 
 wife, but I declared that I would not fulfil my promise 
 until he had told me, openly and plainly, why he had 
 married me. I said I knew it was not for love, but 
 I could conceive of no other motive. I demanded to 
 know it"
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 95 
 
 " What did he say ? " 
 
 " O, he protested and blustered a bit. My poor lit- 
 tle starving heart was listening, listening all the time, 
 to seize upon any crumb of sincerity, any little trace of 
 true feeling for me hoping against hope that it would 
 turn out that I was making some odious mistake, and 
 that this really was at heart the knight without fear 
 and without reproach whom I had thought I married. 
 . . . O, you can believe I was not hard upon him. A 
 word, a look, I would have been in his arms what 
 do I say? I would have been at his feet! But he 
 could not say it. He could not convince me, Tie could 
 not even convince himself! That was the dreadful 
 part ! To see him ashamed, him whom I had thought 
 so high!" 
 
 "Yes? And then?" 
 
 " Then he tried the proprietor's attitude. He took 
 hold of me, and told me angrily that he was my hus- 
 band. His touch, which had turned me faint once be- 
 fore, only stiffened my resolution then. When he found 
 I was merely contemptuous, he soon gave up that ! Ah 
 well, I easily had the best of it His heart was not in 
 it, he did not want me, even in that lowest way ! O, the 
 degradation of it ! " Her face was turned towards 
 Sybil, and hidden in her breast. " I was fighting," she 
 sobbed, " for all that a woman has to defend. He had 
 no right to me, and he he knew it. He knew he did 
 not want me I did not attract him, not in any sense. 
 He is too much a gentleman not to see how disgrace- 
 fully he was behaving. He gave it up. Next day he 
 treated me as though he were deeply offended. It was 
 a ghastly day; I pray I may never spend such another. 
 I insisted that he must explain himself fully before I 
 could alter my manner to him. He said there was
 
 96 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 nothing to explain, that I must be cracked, that I was 
 behaving intolerably, but that he did not wish to be 
 brutal, and would give me a day or two in which to come 
 to my senses. I think he fancied that, if he brought me 
 here, I should not dare to carry on the feud. He 
 thought I should be afraid of you, and accept the situa- 
 tion because there was clearly nothing else to do." 
 
 " He doesn't seem to have been a very good judge of 
 character," said Sybil softly. 
 
 " O, it was simply that he had never thought about 
 my character, one way or the other. Now that I have 
 seen her now that I know what he was going through, 
 I can make allowance for him, though he has brought 
 me to this pass. The thing is ... what is to be 
 done?" 
 
 Sybil, in her heart, echoed the question drearily 
 enough ; and for a minute silence fell. 
 
 " I often think," presently went on Oliver's wife, 
 " that people don't make enough allowance for the igno- 
 rance of girls. I was brought up by people who knew 
 nothing about life. They prided themselves on that. 
 I lived my six lonely years in London filled with the 
 idea that I must be very careful not to find out any- 
 thing. I have learned more during the weeks I have 
 been with you than in all my previous existence. I can 
 see now how odd my conduct must appear in your eyes, 
 or in anybody else's. But I cannot feel that I was 
 altogether to blame for it, unless ignorance is a crime. 
 Don't think of me more hardly than you must. If it 
 was wrong what I did I am paying for it. Ah ! 
 Truly I am paying." 
 
 Sybil wanted to break in upon those words ; but when 
 she strove for a voice, it broke in her throat. She had 
 to compress her lips and hold her breath for fear of an
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 97 
 
 outburst of weeping; and in the pause the pathetic voice 
 went on, 
 
 " And don't think too hardly of him, either. How 
 could he know how far-reaching is the folly of igno- 
 rance ? " A note of bitterness crept in. " I believe 
 he thought me rather sharp, and clever, a girl who knew 
 better than to make herself too cheap who held back 
 in order that the magic word ( marriage ' might be ut- 
 tered, and now takes her position as his wife, and gives 
 nothing in return. Yes, that is how he thinks of me, 
 when he thinks of me at all ! ... And we are back at 
 the same question. Can anything be done ? Is there 
 a chance of saving him. or me ? "
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Nothing would be a lesson to u& if it did not come too late. 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT. 
 
 IT was long past midnight when Oliver Brendon let 
 himself in with his latch-key and secured the hall-door. 
 The night was cold and sharp, with a vivid light of 
 stars, as intense in the rain-cleared air as the sunshine 
 had seemed that afternoon in the Selbys' garden. 
 
 He came in quite listlessly, like a man who has 
 passed through all keen feeling, and reached the point 
 of mental numbness. There were no lights downstairs. 
 The whole household had retired for the night. He 
 went to his smoking-room and mixed himself a drink 
 from the tray put ready for him ; but there was no fire, 
 and he did not linger downstairs. 
 
 He went up softly, and, in accordance with an old 
 custom, knocked at his mother's door. He had always, 
 from his teens, possessed a latch-key; but long ago he 
 had accidentally found out that his mother, though she 
 did not sit up, lay awake when he was out late until 
 she heard his return. He therefore acquired the habit 
 of looking in, to let her know he was safe, and at times 
 to give her news of his evening's entertainment. 
 
 When he knocked to-night, he thought he heard her 
 customary low " Come in " ; and pushing open the door, 
 found the room dark and empty. He was so surprised 
 at this that he stood a long time staring at the vacant 
 bed. Had she gone away without warning, leaving 
 himself and Astrid alone together in the house ? The 
 
 98
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 99 
 
 thought was so distasteful as to pull him together, with 
 a slight shock. 
 
 Her evening gown lay across a sofa, her trinkets 
 strewed the dressing-table. She must be somewhere in 
 the house. As he turned away tiptoeing along the 
 passage he saw a slit of light glimmering along the edge 
 of the door of his wife's room. Pausing as he reached 
 it, he could hear the murmur of voices. They were to- 
 gether. 
 
 How much did Astrid know or surmise, from what 
 she had seen that night? She had heard Vivien con- 
 fess to having jilted him. Her acute intelligence would 
 put two and two together. She had declared that she 
 would know the reason why he married her. Well! 
 Now she knew. 
 
 Shrugging his shoulders, he went into his own room 
 and shut himself in with something of a bang to an- 
 nounce his presence. There was a communicating 
 door between this room and his wife's, through which 
 sound came with some distinctness, and he had no de- 
 sire to be an eavesdropper. Nevertheless, after audibly 
 striding to and fro, pulling off his boots, and throwing 
 them down outside in the passage, he remained motion- 
 less, with ears alert. 
 
 The voices had ceased altogether. He heard suc- 
 cessively two small sounds which might be a sob and a 
 kiss ; then the soft closing of the door and the rustle of 
 his mother's gown in the corridor. He listened after 
 that more acutely than ever. During the first nights of 
 their stay at the Abbot's House, he had caught such 
 minor sounds as testified to Astrid's sleeplessness 
 feet restlessly pacing, a window raised or lowered, the 
 spurt of a kindled match, the pouring of water into a 
 Jrumbler.
 
 100 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 To-night all was quiet. After hearkening awhile he 
 flung off his coat, went to the mirror and stared at him- 
 self. He remembered that he had always privately 
 thought himself rather a good-looking fellow, with his 
 well-modelled chin, olivart tints of colouring, and dark 
 hair growing so well upon the forehead, in a good curve 
 with a ripple where it rose above the brow. 
 
 It was a face of which strangers would ask, catching 
 sight of him in a row of guests at a public dinner 
 " Who's the distinguished young man with the profile ? " 
 
 Well, he was the young man who had wrecked three 
 lives because he was unable to bear his first disappoint- 
 ment. 
 
 To-morrow, he supposed his wife would wish to come 
 to some understanding. Well and good. Everything 
 was all the same to him. He no longer flinched from 
 the idea of a scene. What did it all matter, since he 
 was no longer free to marry Vivien ? Vivien, who 
 had been kissed and caressed by Railton, whose attach- 
 ment to himself had not stood the strain of a few 
 months' absence. 
 
 He felt, in a confused way, that his quarrel with 
 Vivien was not so much for acting as she had done, as 
 for being what she was. He was shamed through all 
 his nature, to have loved so slight a thing. 
 
 Yet he wanted her hungered for her. In imagi- 
 nation he still saw and felt her. She, who was in a 
 fortnight to marry another man, had that evening given 
 her old lover kiss for kiss. Never had she been so 
 wholly submissive eagerly submissive to his ten- 
 derness. He knew that she loved him better in his in- 
 dignation and scorn than she had done when he was at 
 her feet. 
 
 The storm of feeling had passed by and left him
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 101 
 
 passive. He contemplated his own case as though it 
 were another man's. 
 
 In spite of all that he had experienced that evening, 
 did he really desire to be free to marry this butterfly ? 
 Butterfly he might call her, yet she had made shipwreck 
 of him. He was on the rocks. Must he sink, and be 
 counted a total loss ? 
 
 He had a revolver, in a corner cupboard under lock 
 and key. 
 
 Why not? 
 
 He stood there, the well-fashioned product of a ma- 
 tured civilisation, the child of a love-match, the cher- 
 ished son of a mother who had never in his memory 
 done an unworthy action. Every safeguard which 
 science and morals have devised for the discipline of raw 
 passion had been present, not merely from his birth, 
 but even in the pre-natal causes which produced him. 
 If ever a young man should have exhibited an hereditary 
 bias towards higher things, that young man was him- 
 self. 
 
 Yet he had simply crumpled up at the first touch 
 of fire; as though the envelope of civilisation were a 
 mere paper contrivance, covering the sleeping brute 
 within, easily consumed, destroyed in a moment. 
 
 He saw himself a waster one of life's failures 
 without the excuse such derelicts can usually urge, of 
 adverse circumstances, a faulty training, a bad strain 
 in the blood. 
 
 The means of final exit from that stage whereon he 
 had cut so poor a figure was in the corner cupboard. 
 
 But there was his mother. Even as the thought of 
 her crossed his mind, he knew that he could not add 
 the final disgrace of his suicide to the disappointment 
 he had already caused her.
 
 102 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 His train of thought proceeded listlessly. If he 
 could not commit suicide, there was nothing for it but 
 to go on. Only the man who knows exactly what he 
 wants, is in a position to fight fate. Oliver had come 
 to the conclusion that he did not know what he wanted. 
 Vivien was no longer the Vivien he had wooed and won 
 last autumn. He still desired to have her, but his new 
 perception of her lightness broke in even upon his long- 
 ing, and sullied it. Of Astrid he thought with impa- 
 tience and distaste. He had supposed her filled with a 
 dog-like, undiscriminating affection, ready to come to 
 heel if he should happen to want her, but to efface her- 
 self when he did not. She had adopted an attitude 
 which he thought inexcusable, and rather shocking. He 
 hoped his mother had been reasoning with her for her 
 good. However, she too, like Vivien, had blundered 
 hopelessly by destroying his preconceived idea of her. 
 Nothing mattered. Everything was wrong. If As- 
 trid had been talked over by his mother, her submis- 
 sion had come too late. Viven's kiss, wet with Vivien's 
 tears, still tingled on his cheek. The other girl was a 
 weariness, a blank, a cypher. 
 
 Well, he had Byron's authority for supposing that 
 " love is of man's life a thing apart." He had only to 
 forget. 
 
 The attitude adopted by Astrid was perhaps after 
 all the best. She made no demands upon him. That 
 left him free to lead his own life. He had plenty of 
 brains, why had he suddenly supposed a woman to 
 be necessary to him? He needed the world of men, 
 where such vain toys do not count. 
 
 With such thoughts he flung himself down upon his 
 bed, and in less than five minutes was soundly and 
 heavily sleeping. . . .
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 103 
 
 The breakfast table next morning looked as inviting 
 as usual. When Oliver entered, his wife was on her 
 knees in the sunny bay window, collecting the puppies 
 and setting them to consume their dish of bread-and- 
 milk. Sybil, having made tea and coffee, was half hid- 
 den behind the columns of the Morning Post. 
 
 " Good morning, old man," she said, lifting her face 
 to his salutation with the utmost composure. "What 
 a nice morning after the storm ! Astrid says the lilac 
 is out." 
 
 Astrid rose from the floor, shook out her skirt, and 
 held out her hand with a smile. " Yes, both the pur- 
 ple and the white," she announced with triumph. 
 
 Oliver sat down puzzled. The two were so serene, 
 so comfortable together, they might have been the most 
 harmonious of home parties, and had it not been for the 
 murmured voices which he had surprised at so late an 
 hour over-night, he would have felt sure that Astrid 
 had altogether failed to realise the significance of Viv- 
 ien and her arrival. As it was, he doubted. His gaze 
 travelled from one to the other of the ladies of his fam- 
 ily with a look of inquiry which would have been 
 laughable had there been any person present with a 
 mind sufficiently detached for laughter. 
 
 " Heady for your tea, Oliver 3 " said his mother, put- 
 ting aside the paper and turning to her duties. " How 
 I do hate pouring out! Astrid, I shall have to turn 
 over this business to you, I think. Why should not old 
 age have its liberties ? I am sure we want some com- 
 pensation." 
 
 " I'll pour out for you, with all the pleasure in life," 
 said Astrid blithely. "But I don't know if I can 
 make such coffee as you do." 
 
 There was a new note in the voice a note of youth
 
 104 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 and affection. A curious feeling that the two women 
 had conspired and were in league against him, ruffled 
 his mind. Childishly he found himself thinking that 
 two against one would not he fair. 
 
 " What do you think has just come, Oliver ? " went 
 on Sybil, with admirable lightness. " An invitation 
 from the Park! It appears the Faulkners are back, 
 and they want us to go and dine." 
 
 " What ! " cried Oliver, startled out of his indiffer- 
 ence. 
 
 His mother looked up innocently. " Did you not 
 know they were back ? " she asked. 
 
 His glance flashed upon Astrid, helping herself to 
 bacon with complete calm. Then his mother really 
 did not know of Vivien's attack upon the fortress? 
 
 " O yes, as a matter of fact, I knew they were back," 
 he said as naturally as he could. " I saw the luggage 
 going up the village. But this seems very rapid." 
 
 His mother lifted the note at her side and read aloud : 
 
 " I have just learned, with equal surprise and 
 pleasure, of your son's marriage. Mr. Selby came 
 in last night after dinner to smoke with my hus- 
 band, and he says your daughter-in-law is charm- 
 ing. The days before Viv's wedding are so few, 
 there is no time for ceremony. Will you and Mr. 
 and Mrs. Oliver give us the pleasure of your com- 
 pany on Thursday to dinner, to meet Mr. Railton, 
 our future son-in-law ? " 
 
 The reader made a moment's pause and went on 
 easily. " Very kind ! and very flattering to Astrid. 
 The Park patronage will make you quite the fashion,
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 105 
 
 young woman! But I fear Thursday is a bad day 
 for you, Oil, isn't it? I think there is a meeting of 
 Directors, or something." 
 
 She ceased; as one who has opened the gate of re- 
 treat steps aside to let the fugitive slip past. Oliver 
 did not rush through, as she expected. He said noth- 
 ing for a minute or two. 
 
 It was a trying minute to Sybil, but she carried it 
 off easily. The cat had leaped upon Astrid's shoulders, 
 and the disentanglement of it kept her conveniently 
 occupied. 
 
 " I think," observed the master of the house at last, 
 " that I had better chuck the meeting, and take you 
 both to the Park. As I believe Astrid knows, I was 
 once engaged to Miss Faulkner for some weeks, and 
 if I refuse this, they will probably suppose that I am 
 sulking. What do you think, Mums ? " 
 
 It was Sybil's turn to be taken aback, but she rallied 
 in fine form. " I think you are perfectly right, if the 
 meeting can be chucked, as you so elegantly put it. 
 Then shall I accept, for all three of us? I will own 
 that I am dying to behold Mr. Railton." 
 
 If this was a game of bluff, the editor would show 
 that he could play it too. "Perhaps," he suggested, 
 " it will be dangerous to let Astrid see the man who 
 has already supplanted me with one lady ? " 
 
 The daring of this took away his mother's breath. 
 Astrid was ready, however. 
 
 "What I think of him won't matter much, as he 
 is sure to think nothing of me," she remarked with a 
 twinkle. 
 
 " Indeed ! And may I ask why ? " cried Sybil, feel- 
 ing all the value of an alliance.
 
 106 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 " Is it necessary to ask ? " said Astrid, still with the 
 same provoking little half smile. " Have another ris- 
 sole, Oliver ? " 
 
 He held out his plate. In spite of yesterday, he 
 had slept well and was eating his breakfast with some 
 appetite. He could not explain himself to himself. 
 As to his love tragedy, he felt that a reaction must 
 come, a moment when his present numbness would pass, 
 and he would feel all the pain. But meanwhile he 
 was conscious of a resentful and vexed curiosity as to 
 the state of things between his wife and his mother. 
 
 Was their innocence simulated or real ? 
 
 Once more there floated across his mind the memory 
 of the conversation he had interrupted over-night. But 
 whatever line his mother might have taken he felt sure 
 she had not reproached Astrid with her behaviour to 
 himself; for his wife's aspect was by no means chas- 
 tened, neither was it apologetic. She seemed happier 
 and more at ease than he had seen her since their en- 
 gagement. 
 
 He went to town so much intrigued that he had lit- 
 tle leisure for the contemplation of his own woe.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 I thank you that you taught me the stern truth 
 None other could have told, and I believed; 
 That vain had been my life, and I deceived, 
 And wasted all the purpose of my youth! 
 
 A. A. PBQCTEB. 
 
 CALVERT EAILTON stood on the long verandah which 
 runs round the south and west sides of Thackridge 
 Park. It was a mild evening, and, with his hands in 
 his pockets, he stood smoking the cigarette which in- 
 variably preceded dinner in his day's routine. 
 
 His eyes were fixed upon the darkening landscape 
 which lay under his gaze, beyond the grounds. His 
 expression was preoccupied, and not very content. 
 
 Through the long window, with a rustling of Parisian 
 skirts, came his mother-in-law to be. Lady Faulkner 
 was of those women who remain to their lives' end, hope- 
 lessly " parvenu." It has been said that a woman 
 may conquer society from the slums, but never from a 
 suburb. Do what you would with her ladyship dress 
 her by Paquin, hire the best of maids for her coiffure 
 she suggested back parlours and high tea. 
 
 " Come now, Calvert," said she briskly. " Haven't 
 you got over your sulk yet ? " There was a melting 
 of the voice over the pronunciation of the word " now.' 
 It was not broadly " naow," but it suggested that fatal 
 and unfailing sign of origin. 
 
 Railton tossed away his cigarette into a bed of tulips. 
 " What's the matter with me, anyway ? w he asked, put- 
 ting his hands into his pockets and facing her. 
 
 107
 
 108 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 She was a little taken aback. " Sir Charles told me 
 you were angry because I have asked the Brendons to 
 dinner." 
 
 " I think it was an almighty silly thing to do, if I 
 may say so." 
 
 " Calvert, I think I know better than you in this 
 matter! There was an engagement; and, though I 
 took her away out of his reach as soon as I possibly 
 could, still there is no doubt the engagement was known 
 all over Thackridge. You would think that Brendon's 
 horrid conduct his having married so soon ought 
 to have disillusioned Vivi quite completely. Yet you 
 know that ever since we came home she has been un- 
 settled, unsatisfactory. You and I have discussed it. 
 Very well, then! To-night she sees his wife, actually 
 there, actually married to him. They meet in a room 
 full of people the first awkwardness is over. She 
 must realise that the thing is final, and she will settle 
 down. It's her conscience that has been troubling her. 
 She's young, she's afraid she behaved badly. Well, let 
 Thackridge see that even if she did, young Brendon 
 has behaved worse! The man can't have been worth 
 caring about. Let her meet him once, face to face, and 
 his wife beside him she must be convinced that the 
 thing is final." 
 
 Railton see-sawed on his feet as he considered this. 
 " It sounds all right," he said at last, in his deliberate 
 drawl. " But if I'd been asked that young man's place 
 in the scheme of things just now, I'd have guessed the 
 background, right away. He has a most uncanny in- 
 fluence over my little girl ; and badly as I want her, I'd 
 like to have her make up her mind first." 
 
 " You're right about the uncanny influence," returned 
 the lady eagerly. " It was always just that.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 109 
 
 She never was in love with him how could she be? 
 They have not an idea in common. It was heart-break- 
 ing to see him taking her to look at the works of Old 
 Masters and the poor child trying to pretend they 
 interested her! Vivi has plenty of wits, but her 
 brains would go into my thimble! She is suited to 
 you exactly, but not to that solemn prig of a Bren- 
 don." 
 
 " It's me she's going to marry, anyway," rejoined 
 the man shortly, untroubled to all appearance by this 
 somewhat back-handed compliment. 
 
 He was a thick-set, bull-necked fellow, with sandy 
 hair and brick-red complexion ; but there was something 
 pleasant in his appearance. His grey eyes were small, 
 but very clear and steady. There was power about 
 him. 
 
 " I don't altogether understand Vivi, I own," went 
 on Lady Faulkner meditatively. " All the voyage 
 home, I made sure she was fretting. I thought her 
 father most unwise to insist upon her coming home 
 to be married. I quite expected there would be some 
 sort of a scene with her. But, you see, she has never 
 even tried to see him, or mentioned his name. The 
 only time she has ever spoken of it, was the night that 
 Dan Selby came in and blurted out about the marriage. 
 Vivi never turned a hair; and when I said, t Well, 
 this is surprising,' she said to me, ' I don't see that it's 
 any more surprising than what I have done.' You 
 would have expected her to be a bit taken aback. I am 
 sure I was. I think Sir Charles was, too. But not a 
 bit of it ! She didn't seem to care." 
 
 " She did care, though. She has been so contrary 
 this week, it has taken every bit of what I feel for 
 her to tide me through it, so I tell you. The sooner
 
 110 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 she is married and out of it all, the better for us both." 
 There was a ring of stern resolve in his voice which 
 made her ladyship quail. She had always quailed be- 
 fore him, from the very first. She had been his tool. 
 Now, the thought of having made a mistake, of having 
 incurred his displeasure, was beyond measure disturb- 
 ing. 
 
 " Calvert, you will see I have done the wisest thing. 
 It is partly for the sake of the neighbourhood, partly 
 for your sake, partly for the sake of poor Mrs. Brendon. 
 I hear all kinds of rumours about this girl he has mar- 
 ried in such a hurry. The mother is countenancing her, 
 however, and if I do, everybody in Thackridge will fol- 
 low suit. They must. That is doing a kindness, and 
 at the same time showing there is no ill-feeling between 
 us and the Abbot's House. If we not only do all this, 
 but set the child's mind at rest for ever, you will admit 
 that we have accomplished something." 
 
 He looked weary. " Anyway, it's too late to get dis- 
 cussing the thing, ten minutes before the arrival of our 
 guests," he replied with a sigh. " Yesterday I hoped 
 Vivi was going to solve the difficulty by being too ill to 
 appear. She told me she thought she would likely be 
 in for one of her worst headaches. But to-day she 
 seems to have changed her mind, so I suppose the only 
 way is to see this thing through." 
 
 As he spoke, Vivien herself suddenly ran out upon 
 the terrace from the window of the further drawing- 
 room. 
 
 Her white chiffon dress, and the wisps of turquoise 
 gauze twisted in her hair and about her waist, gave 
 her more of an old-picture aspect than ever. She was 
 smiling, her eyes were large and starry, and red spots 
 burned in her thin cheeks. She looked like a fragile
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 111 
 
 child or even like a dream. There was something 
 unsubstantial about her. 
 
 " Calvert," she cried, " Chauncey has come round to 
 know what time we want the motor to-morrow! Why, 
 what are you and mamma conspiring about? You 
 both look so guilty ! Were you talking about me ? " 
 
 She approached, and halted just beyond hands' reach, 
 like a butterfly about to take wing. 
 
 " What should we be talking about, except you, 
 Vivi ? " said her lover with a smile. He spoke with 
 an air of calm proprietorship, carefully assumed to 
 cover the fact of his knowledge of the insecurity of his 
 tenure. 
 
 " Tell me what you were saying," she demanded, 
 with a stamp of her foot. 
 
 " Calvert was saying that you felt unwell yesterday, 
 darling, but that you seemed better to-day," said her 
 mother fondly. " Indeed you look lovely, but don't 
 come out here in those thin clothes, it isn't prudent. 
 Make her go in, Calvert." 
 
 Calvert moved forward. He had only to do so to 
 ensure her backing, swiftly, tantalisingly, and always 
 smiling, in through the windows of the room. 
 
 " Well, I'm the picture of health," declared Vivien. 
 " But for goodness sake, Calvert, do go and tell Chaun- 
 cey what time you are starting." 
 
 " That all depends upon what time you are starting," 
 he replied steadily. She stood hesitating, swinging a 
 little bag which she held by a long blue ribbon. He 
 was absorbed in noticing the violet hollows under her 
 large, lustrous eyes. 
 
 " We'd better say eleven. Then you can have your 
 breakfast in bed," he said quietly, turning away and 
 leaving the room.
 
 112 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 " What does Calvert mean ? Why should you break- 
 fast in bed ? " asked her mother, surprised. 
 
 " Oh, Calvert thinks I'm made of barley sugar," was 
 the petulant reply. 
 
 " But you are really well, my darling \ " asked her 
 ladyship, with solicitude. 
 
 " Never better in my life," said Vivien defiantly. 
 
 Ten minutes later, most people had arrived. It was 
 a party composed of the more intimate friends of the 
 Park, and included the Selbys. The family from the 
 Abbot's House arrived, as it chanced, last. 
 
 Sybil had passed some agitating days, since Oliver's 
 bravado had led to the acceptance of this invitation. 
 She wished herself anywhere else on the face of the 
 earth than where she was ; but since she was there she 
 would carry things with a high hand. 
 
 Colonel Waring thought she had never looked more 
 distinguished, more herself, more in control of the sit- 
 uation than she did when she entered, and shook the 
 hand of the woman to whom she owed the wreck of her 
 son's life. 
 
 Lady Faulkner was not sensitive to nuances, but even 
 she perceived a part of the scorn which underlay the 
 gentle manner. The hostess looked with a queer eager- 
 ness at Oliver as he followed his mother. There was 
 usually but little likeness between the mother and son 
 in face. To-night, however, it seemed marked. He 
 came forward with a naturalness which the flustered 
 lady could not hope to imitate, and presented her to a 
 girl in white silk, with pale cloudy hair and deep eyes. 
 She had time to note that the bride was wearing her 
 mother-in : law's famous necklace of carved white corne- 
 lian gems, in setting of Eastern gold. She felt that 
 her greeting was not natural. It was unnecessarily
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 113 
 
 cordial, it struck the wrong note. It almost seemed to 
 say, " I am so much obliged to you for making an 
 unsuitable match once for all impossible." 
 
 Mrs. Oliver Brendon's answering smile had an aloof- 
 ness which to her overstrained nerves seemed almost 
 like contempt. By the time she had finished all the 
 greetings, Lady Faulkner had decided that Calvert was 
 quite right. The dinner was a mistake. 
 
 Calvert's eyes, meanwhile, never left Vivien. She 
 was acutely, hatefully conscious of it. But she knew 
 that everybody else in the whole room was likewise 
 watching, as Oliver slowly made his way to her, and 
 stood at last before her. 
 
 "How do you do?" he said, as though they had 
 met yesterday. " Won't you introduce me to the lucky 
 man ? " 
 
 Every one might mark the girl's cruel confusion. 
 The colour flowed in waves over her tell-tale face as 
 she turned to her fiance, and summoned him by a 
 glance that seemed to implore protection. He came 
 at once in swift response, and she managed to say 
 " Mr. Railton, Mr. Brendon." 
 
 Oliver had been rehearsing for that moment in a 
 way which would have been incredible to the other man. 
 He was ready with exactly the right thing, said in pre- 
 cisely the best way. He alluded to Mr. Railton's news- 
 paper business as making him no stranger to any Eng- 
 lish editor. He asked some trenchant questions about 
 newspaper owning in America questions which 
 showed his knowledge and intelligence. Then, with a 
 swift recalling of the necessary forms, he turned again 
 with a cordial smile to Vivien, whose complexion had 
 quieted down, and said: 
 
 " And now you must let me present my wife,"
 
 114 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 So bewildered was Vivien that she had almost said 
 aloud in her desperation, " But I have met your wife 
 already." As the words hovered on her lips she recol- 
 lected that all knowledge of her disastrous appearance 
 at the Abbot's House must be suppressed. The attack, 
 her barely averted slip, the memories of that awful 
 moment, rushed upon her together and almost broke her 
 down. The whole company might see her distress, her 
 tear-filled eyes, her changing colour, as she awkwardly 
 and with confusion greeted Astrid. 
 
 Her emotion was in no sense shared by Oliver's wife. 
 To him, the composure of the shy, inexperienced girl 
 he had married was like a miracle. He had not said 
 one. word to her as to her conduct on this occasion. He 
 had not once alluded to the scene upon which she had 
 intruded last week. Yet, had she comprehended every 
 detail of the circumstances, she could not have played 
 her part more perfectly. 
 
 Her calm was the calm of cordiality, or natural, 
 somewhat reserved courtesy. Her manner was exactly 
 right, her appearance far beyond anything he had dared 
 to hope for. 
 
 She was presented to Mr. Railton also, and she 
 greeted him with a smile which had some humour in it. 
 
 " To meet you is interesting," said she, with the 
 pretty condescension of a young matron, " since I have 
 suffered something at your unconscious hands." 
 
 " That so ? Explain, do please," said Calvert, con- 
 scious of sudden interest. 
 
 " For my sins I had to make a precis, for publica- 
 tion, of your exposition of the new International Copy- 
 right laws," she replied, with a low laugh. " My re- 
 spect for your intellect amounts to positive awe."
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 115 
 
 He smiled with real gratification. This was his 
 hobby. " Well, I admit to being a bit wrapped up in 
 the International Copyright question," he owned. 
 " And you made a precis of my Berne speech 3 I wish 
 I had seen it." 
 
 " I expect you did. It appeared in the Penman." 
 
 He looked earnestly at her. " Was that yours ? " he 
 said thoughtfully. 
 
 "But the person you really ought to talk to is Mr. 
 Selby," went on Astrid easily. " Here he comes 
 Mr. Selby the novelist, you know. I heard him say- 
 ing some astonishingly unkind things about American 
 newspaper owners the other day, and I think you ought 
 to set him right. Mr. Selby," as Dan approached 
 " Have you realised that this is the Mr. Railton of the 
 great Berne speech on Copyright ? " 
 
 Oliver had dropped his pretence of conversing with 
 Vivien, in order to listen. Completely though his wife 
 had baffled him hitherto, at least she was doing his will 
 that evening. At least he was reaping to its last ear 
 the harvest of the peculiar kind of vengeance he had 
 determined to take upon Vivien. He was sensible of a 
 curious uplifting, a sense of having achieved something 
 rather wonderful. Afterwards after this evening 
 he would have demonstrated to Vivien his independence 
 of her, his strength, his sovereignty, and then . . . 
 then he would have time and to spare in which to gather 
 misery's aftermath. Just now, he was controlling the 
 situation, and exultation shut out other feeling. 
 
 He looked at Vivien's face, he marked the violet 
 hollows beneath her eyes. He knew she suffered, and 
 he had an insane desire to laugh aloud and snap his 
 fingers in Railton's face. The signs of weakness in
 
 116 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 Vivien appealed to the innermost fibres of him, just 
 as the self-reliant strength of his wife repelled him at 
 the moment. 
 
 She stood now between Selby and Railton, and they 
 both talked to her. With one adroit stroke she had 
 brought together two men with a kindred interest, and 
 had handed them their pet subject to play with. 
 
 Their keenness in their topic was joined to their 
 pleasure in her society. Each of the two was lament- 
 ing inwardly that the exigencies of custom would oblige 
 their host to take in the bride to dinner. 
 
 The table, needless to say, was so arranged that 
 Oliver and Vivien were widely separated. Each 
 seemed to be in unusually good spirits. It was a viva- 
 cious dinner, which, at the Park, was rather a wonder. 
 Sir Charles was pompous and her ladyship uncertain, 
 so that, as a rule, the social atmosphere was not inspir- 
 ing. To-night, however, both Railton and Oliver were 
 sparkling; and Dan Selby, who sat after all, to his joy, 
 on the bride's other side, was in his happiest vein. 
 Vivien too was full of talk, feverishly merry. Oliver 
 hardly took his eyes off her during dinner. 
 
 Colonel Waring was Sybil's neighbour at table. So 
 loud was the general conversation and so frequent the 
 laughter, that presently under cover of it he ventured 
 upon intimate affairs. 
 
 " Well, how goes it ? " he asked, in a dropped voice. 
 
 She looked at him as a woman looks at a man whom 
 she trusts with very private matters. " I would tell 
 you if I could, but I am completely in the dark. He 
 is more and more a sealed book to me. He seems to 
 have fallen so far and so fast, that I catch myself think- 
 ing that, come what may, he never could be worthy of 
 the girl he has married."
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 117 
 
 "I always thought you a remarkable woman," he 
 replied, "but now I am convinced you are unique. 
 This is your only son, dear lady you say such a thing 
 of your only son?" 
 
 ' Yes, of the son of the man I always thought one 
 of the best in the world," she murmured. " As to As- 
 trid, I am completely in her confidence. We con- 
 sulted together the other day, and decided upon a plan 
 of action. It was a very difficult one, but sa far she 
 is carrying it out with a nerve, a brilliance, which is 
 truly wonderful. The disappointing thing is that it is 
 not succeeding. There is no sign at all of any awak- 
 ening tenderness for her in his manner." 
 
 He reflected awhile. "You think that she is really 
 desirous of winning him over ? " 
 
 Sybil hesitated. "What can one do? They are 
 married. Is it not best to try and find a modus vi- 
 vendi?" 
 
 " I have been thinking that perhaps the fact of your 
 being there is against the rapprochement you desire," 
 said the Colonel presently, having waited for the shel- 
 ter of a burst of laughter. 
 
 " You mean that I ought to turn them out ? I don't 
 think the moment has arrived. If I see that he is at- 
 tracted, that his view-point is changed, or changing 
 then I shall announce that I am going to fill the house 
 with visitors, and they must go." 
 
 " And what will you do when they are both gone ? " 
 he persisted, looking directly at her. 
 
 It is, however, easy to avoid meeting a look when 
 you are eating your dinner. Sybil showed no signs of 
 perceiving the drift of this conversation. " I never 
 have suffered from ennui," she replied, " so why should 
 I now?"
 
 118 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 " They might have my house," observed the Colonel 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 She smiled the least bit in the world. " Are you go- 
 ing to leave ? " 
 
 " I expect I shall have to, if you won't," he rejoined 
 sturdily. " I don't anticipate persuading you into quit- 
 ting the beloved Abbot's House," 
 
 " You told me I was unique just now. Permit me 
 to return the compliment. This is the first proposal 
 I have ever received at the dinner-table." 
 
 " At least you can't put an end to my importunities 
 by getting up and going away. You must sit still long 
 enough to look at the thing coolly." 
 
 " Coolly indeed ! The coolness belongs to you, I 
 think." 
 
 " Don't talk as if it was the first time the thing has 
 happened, dear woman." 
 
 " It's the first time for ever so long," returned Sybil 
 defiantly. 
 
 " Exactly, because I realised that so long as Oliver, 
 the idol, was on his pedestal, I had very little chance. 
 My time had not come. Now now may I be for- 
 given if I say that I think it has ? " 
 
 She leaned back, absently crumbling her toast, and 
 noting that the preoccupation of everybody with the two 
 young couples, left the elderly pair quite unobserved. 
 " If I could be satisfied that it was my duty," she slowly 
 murmured, " but I'm not ; and," with a swift smile, 
 " it is certainly not my pleasure." 
 
 " Thanks," said the Colonel grimly. " I am pretty 
 well aware of the fact, after all these years. But let 
 us leave it like this. You may possibly want me as a 
 weapon in dealing with these extraordinary young peo- 
 ple. If you do want me use me without scruple.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 119 
 
 At any moment that you may want to say ' You must 
 be out of the house in a month, for I am going to marry 
 old Waring, and he won't stand a joint menage ' 
 why, say it, and I shall have enormous pleasure in back- 
 ing you up." 
 
 " Well, Walter, I don't think it's likely," she slowly 
 responded, " but I won't say it is wholly impossible." 
 
 " Good." 
 
 " Only I do not intend to desert the poor child. 
 Oliver picked her up for his own base purpose, and now 
 he must not drop her again. My idea was, to forge a 
 chain about him which, when it came to the point, 
 he would find he did not want to break. But I fear 
 now that it is of no use. He is, definitely, not at all 
 attracted. Even to-day, when she is playing so glori- 
 ously into his hands when she is straining every 
 nerve to look and be all that she knows he wants 
 I detect a hateful, selfish satisfaction in him not one 
 gleam of pity ! Not one spark of kindness ! "
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 On entry I set down 
 
 The lamp, and turning saw whose rustled gown 
 Had told me my wife followed, pace for pace. 
 Each of us looked the other in the face. 
 She spoke. R. BBOWNING. 
 
 THE Park was so near the Abbot's House that, the 
 night being fine, the Brendons made the short transit 
 on foot, the Colonel accompanying them as far as their 
 gate. 
 
 They walked all abreast, and the Colonel chatted 
 cheerfully. Oliver did not open his lips. 
 
 When his mother and Astrid had gone upstairs, he 
 went into his study and switched on the light. 
 
 Closing the door, he walked with bent head to the 
 table, poured a dose of whisky into a tumbler, and held 
 it to the syphon. 
 
 Setting it down, he turned to the mantelpiece, found 
 his pipe, filled it absently, struck a match and lit it. 
 
 Then approaching the table, he let himself drop into 
 his chair, and pushed about the letters which lay on 
 his blotter, not opening any. 
 
 Vivien's face came between him and any sense of 
 outward objects: her pallor; her nervousness; the 
 appeal in her eyes when he had bid her farewell. 
 
 In his headlong rage, he had spoiled not one woman's 
 life, but two. If he had waited ! if he had waited. 
 
 His mind would picture it, would force upon him 
 120
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 the idea, the dream of what might have been, but for 
 his own folly. Had he taken the blow manfully, had 
 he held on upon his solitary road, leaning upon his 
 mother's affection what would have happened upon 
 a certain gusty, wet spring evening, when he had seen 
 that vision, through the half-open drawing-room door? 
 
 "Look in my face! My name is Might-have-been! 
 I am also called No more! Too Late! Farewell! " 
 
 His self-esteem was so deeply wounded that he did 
 not recognise himself. In taking up Astrid, as a 
 weapon, wherewith to wound Vivien, he had indeed 
 grasped a sword, but he had grasped it by the blade, 
 and it had cut him to the bone. 
 
 He could not forgive Astrid for having seen through 
 him. He could not forgive himself for his failure to 
 convince her. The memory of the terrible evening at 
 Brighton, when he had realised the folly of pretence, 
 the inutility of it, rankled in his memory. He felt that 
 his wife despised him. The result was, so far, only 
 to set him against her. There was a smarting sense 
 of grievance. He had been fond of Miss Carey. He 
 had honestly hoped that she might make him feel less 
 humiliated. The day when he asked her to marry him, 
 and felt her in his arms he had told himself that 
 here at least was devotion here was something to 
 fall back upon, a refuge from his torment of loss and 
 mortification. But he had never recaptured the mo- 
 ment. If he had thought of it now, he would per- 
 haps have felt glad that so it had been that he and 
 Astrid were naught to each other, and never could be. 
 But to-night, there was no thought of Astrid. She was 
 not above his horizon. All of him was centred in the 
 awful thought of Vivien's unhappiness.
 
 132 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 When he heard a light tap upon his study door, he 
 did not even speculate as to who it might be. He said 
 " Who's there ? " without detaching his mind at all 
 from what was absorbing it wholly ; and when in reply 
 to the question, the door opened and he saw Astrid, he 
 frowned, not because it was she, but because it was some- 
 thing, anything, which broke in upon his misery. 
 
 There was something in her expression, however, 
 which gave him a moment's anxiety. The repelling in- 
 difference of her usual manner was gone. She looked 
 deprecating, not sure of herself. 
 
 All his instincts sprang up then in self-defence. Was 
 she about to make some kind of appeal to him ? If so, 
 she had indeed chosen the wrong moment ! 
 
 " May I speak to you for a few minutes ? " she asked 
 timidly. 
 
 " Er of course." He was not aware of the un- 
 friendliness his voice conveyed. 
 
 Painfully affected by that hostile note, the girl wav- 
 ered a moment; then, closing the door, as if deciding 
 that having come, she might as well go through with 
 the rest, she seated herself at the table, facing him. 
 
 " I'm sorry if I disturb you. I would not speak to- 
 night, but I have to make a decision. Work has been 
 offered me, and I must either accept or decline it." 
 
 " Indeed ! " he replied, almost mechanically. His 
 alarm had been groundless. This was something quite 
 trivial, nothing to disgust or to freeze him. Uncon- 
 sciously, his released interest flew back upon its own 
 concerns. What was it that Vivien had been going to 
 say, there in the hall, when they were taking leave 
 when she had made a step forward, and paused upon 
 finding Railton clqse at hand? But he must collect 
 his thoughts, Astrid was once more speaking.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 123 
 
 " I promised, you remember, to wait a month. Now 
 the month is up." 
 
 The words stiffened him. Was this an appeal, after 
 all? His mouth hardened. 
 
 "Mr. Selby would like me to become his secretary. 
 His sister has hitherto worked for him, but she, as 
 you know, is to be married. They want me to begin 
 at once, so that Miss Selby will be there to show me 
 her ways, and also that she may be set free to give 
 more time to her own preparations. I should like to 
 try, if you have no objection." 
 
 Was this all? He could only feel that his indiffer- 
 ence was complete. " You really think you would like 
 it ? " he inquired, but not as though his attention was 
 fully fixed. 
 
 " I think I should. It it would be something to 
 occupy my mind. But there is a difficulty. They are 
 planning to start, in a few days, upon a caravan tour; 
 and as Mr. Selby always works when on these tours, I 
 should be wanted to go with them." 
 
 She paused, embarrassed. She did not like to add, 
 " You might not wish that," or " Would it have an 
 odd appearance for me to go away without you ? " 
 
 Evidently the point did not strike him. 
 
 " Well," he said dully, " why not ? " 
 
 For the first time she lifted her eyes directly to his, 
 and gave him one look. He was unaware. Though 
 his head was raised, and he faced her, he did not see 
 her. The effort which, urged by his mother, she had 
 so laboriously made, had failed to this humiliating ex- 
 tent. 
 
 " Then I have your leave to say ' yes ' ? " she asked, 
 trying to keep the indignation from her voice, as she 
 rose from her seat.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 " My leave ? " he repeated, with a curled lip. 
 
 Here was a touch of feeling a suggestion of her 
 having broken through the wall of his indifference. 
 Her tongue trembled with the things she might say. 
 She choked them back. She dare not let loose any 
 flood-gates. The distance between them must be pre- 
 served, all must be cold and formal. 
 
 " I am sorry to have troubled you with anything so 
 trifling," she said, in a suppressed voice. 
 
 But Oliver was bringing his mind just the surface 
 of his mind to bear upon the question now. He 
 began to see that his wife was suggesting a plan which 
 would afford him a certain measure of relief. Only 
 that portion of his attention was disengaged which could 
 bear upon himself, his own clamorous concerns. The 
 feeling uppermost at the moment was a wish that he 
 might never see this girl again as long as he lived. 
 Naturally he could not say so; but much may be ex- 
 pressed by the eye, and he was probably unaware of the 
 eloquence of his. 
 
 " I think it's quite a good scheme," he pronounced, 
 with an attempt at hearty concurrence. 
 
 This then was the end. What turned Astrid's re- 
 buff into an outrage was the fact that he had no idea 
 at all of being either unfeeling or insulting. Simply, 
 he could not take her into his consideration. 
 
 She saw how he caught at the beginning of a solu- 
 tion. A separation at first partial and temporary 
 but becoming permanent by degrees, and a recognised 
 thing. 
 
 The blow fell, and it was worse than she had ex- 
 pected. Feeling had been blunted, so she had believed. 
 Yet now a rush of feeling threatened to undermine her 
 control. This house ! How homelike it had grown in
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 125 
 
 one short month ! Her husband's mother ! How dear 
 the intimate companionship. How much she had 
 learned, how incredibly sweet it had seemed to receive 
 womanly kisses, to be enfolded in motherly arms, after 
 so long and empty an orphanhood. 
 
 It was over. She suggested separation and he caught 
 gratefully at the idea. It needed a wrestle with herself 
 to enable her to command a quiet voice. Surprise had 
 begun to succeed the relief in his face, when she said: 
 
 " I am glad you see no objections to my plan. Good 
 night. Sorry to have disturbed you." 
 
 " Oh, that's all right. Settle things as you like, and 
 come to me for funds, you know, of course." 
 
 He rose, and crossing the room, opened the door for 
 her. She had been in act to go, so it was a piece of 
 mere courtesy. Its effect, however, was that of a per- 
 emptory dismissal. 
 
 It was so awful to Astrid that only his own complete 
 absorption saved her from exposure. Her whole body 
 was shaking with the feeling she could hardly curb, as 
 she slipped past him and made her escape. The mo- 
 ment she heard the door close she took to her heels and 
 ran, her handkerchief to her mouth to muffle the gasp- 
 ing sobs ; stumbling blindly up the stairs, pausing mid- 
 way while she fought back a paroxysm, and then up 
 again, crawling like a creature mortally hurt to the 
 covert of her own room. She had meant to go to 
 Sybil, but that was for the time impossible. 
 
 She had received worse than curses, worse than blows. 
 She had had to face complete callousness. For a time 
 the violence of her own despair frightened her. 
 
 Her disappearance left Oliver puzzled. He had done 
 as she asked, given her liberty to act as she chose. Yet 
 she had not seemed pleased. Her manner, however
 
 126 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 quiet and self-contained, was nevertheless quite equal 
 to the expression of pleasure or displeasure. There had 
 even been something hurried, something that suggested 
 suppressed feeling in her departure. 
 
 It appeared to him that she had suggested the one 
 thing that might bring alleviation of the strain of the 
 present position. To have her away during the next 
 week the week in which Vivien would be married to 
 Eailton might possibly lessen what he would suffer. 
 
 He thought over what she had said : " The only 
 difficulty is that they want me to go away with them." 
 Well, it had seemed the best thing she could possibly 
 do. Why was it a difficulty? Now that he set his 
 mind to the subject, he perceived that it is, to say the 
 least of it, not customary for the newly married to sep- 
 arate within a month of marriage. That was what she 
 had in mind. She did not want to put him in an un- 
 pleasant position with regard to public opinion. He 
 felt a little uncomfortable as he realised that this had 
 never struck him. 
 
 He knew that his mind had been only half fixed 
 upon Astrid and her affairs. She had come upon him 
 at an unfortunate moment. With every desire that 
 she should not suffer unnecessarily, he had yet, in his 
 absence of any real feeling for her, hurt her uninten- 
 tionally. He had shown her that he was not seriously 
 considering the case she put before him. He felt sorry 
 for this, sorry and ashamed. He wished he could call 
 her back. He wanted to explain to her that he had been 
 stupid. Yet he did not know "^hat to say, nor how to 
 say it. 
 
 In his perplexity there crossed his mind the memory 
 of his mother. She was an able woman, a broad-minded 
 woman. He had often felt the benefit of her advice.
 
 'A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 127 
 
 Though he had arrogantly shut her out from his coun- 
 sels, flouted her, ignored her, in the selfishness of his 
 agony, yet he knew he had not alienated her. 
 
 He knew altogether, with the insight of real love, 
 that when he sought her she would be there. She dis- 
 approved of his whole conduct, she was utterly disap- 
 pointed in him he conceded all that! But she was 
 his mother ; and well he knew that, if he had admitted 
 her to the inner chamber where he and his sorrow sat, 
 she might have spared him the ruin he had brought 
 upon himself. 
 
 He admitted that he did not understand Astrid. 
 His mother, oddly enough, did. Why had he not 
 thought before of begging her to consider with him 
 the whole matter of his devastated life? 
 
 He rose, put out the lamps, and went upstairs to 
 Sybil's room. 
 
 There was a light, and he knocked without hesita- 
 tion ; but when he entered he felt sure that it was As- 
 trid whom she had expected to see, and not himself. 
 
 She was seated, in a becoming silk wrapper, in an 
 arm-chair, reading, and to the flash of surprise in her 
 eyes succeeded a deep concern. " Why, my boy," she 
 said, in tones of welcome. 
 
 He closed the door and approached her with bent 
 head. He was yearning towards her; he would have 
 liked to be kissed and consoled, as in the days of his 
 boyhood, but too much lay between them, and he could 
 not be natural with her. There was a while of silence. 
 Sybil knew better than to forestall a confidence. She 
 knew not what had prompted her prodigal's unexpected 
 return, nor what he had come to say. 
 
 He sat down, drawing up a chair near hers. His 
 head was drooped, his hands hung limply between his
 
 128 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 knees. " God help me, what a fool, what a scoundrel 
 I've been!" 
 
 The words stirred in her a gleam of hope. " You 
 need not despair on that account," she told him quickly. 
 
 He raised his heavy eyes a moment, and made an 
 impatient movement as if he were at his wits' end. 
 
 " But there is nothing to be done," he said. " Don't 
 you feel that ? There is simply nothing to be done." 
 
 She hesitated, and then replied, " You have that to 
 do which lies before us all to shoulder the conse- 
 quences of your own mistakes." 
 
 " If there were nobody but me to suffer," he said, 
 and faltered ; then, recovering, he hurried on, " I ought 
 not to have gone there to-night It was a rotten bit 
 of bravado. I am punished for it. Did you ever see 
 anything like the woe in Vivien's face ? It makes 
 well, there are some things you can't trust yourself to 
 say." 
 
 " I think, too, that you were unwise to go," replied 
 his mother pityingly. 
 
 He held a groping hand towards her. " Mother, 
 Fve behaved vilely to you. I have insulted and ig- 
 nored you. In spite of that, I come to you for rescue 
 from the intolerable mess I have made of things. Will 
 you help me ? " 
 
 She took the hand and held it lovingly. " I have 
 been doing my best, Ollie, all this last month," she said 
 very gently. 
 
 " I know, I know. But it is no good. The whole 
 thing has grown too awful. My one desire at this 
 moment is to be quit of it all. I feel ready to make a 
 bolt for it, to drop my name, sink my identity, begin 
 over again, in some country where nobody knows who 
 I am or what I have done ! "
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 129 
 
 "I can understand that," said Sybil tenderly. 
 "But, you see, a man cannot repudiate his responsi- 
 bilities." 
 
 He pondered a little in silence. "Astrid has just 
 been in to speak to me," he then said slowly. " You 
 are in her confidence. I expect you know what she 
 came to say ? " 
 
 " To ask you to allow her to be Dan Selby's secre- 
 tary?" 
 
 :t Yes. I behaved like a brute, as usual. My mind 
 was all astray. I am afraid I hurt her feelings." 
 
 Sybil sighed. " I am sorry." 
 
 " She said they wanted her to go away with them 
 for a time. It seemed to me like a reprieve. I can't 
 help thinking it would be the best thing possible. I 
 didn't consider appearances for the moment, and I told 
 her she could do just as she liked. But I want to know 
 what you think. Would all the world gossip if we 
 were to separate for a bit ? " 
 
 Sybil turned the question over in her mind. She 
 saw that the present position was strained almost to 
 snapping point, and it seemed to her that she descried 
 a way to lessen the tension for a time. 
 
 " Ollie," she said, " I have a suggestion to make. I 
 think it well that you should not be in Thackridge next 
 week during the time of the wedding. How would this 
 do ? Let Astrid go with the Selbys, as they suggest, 
 but say that you too would like to be of the party now 
 and again when you can get a day oif. Go to town, live 
 at your club, so that it may seem to the people here- 
 abouts that you are with your wife ; and take a day off 
 now and then to save appearances. You could go down 
 for a week-end and stop at an inn, as they probably 
 wouldn't have accommodation for you in the caravans.
 
 130 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 The fact of the Selbys being there would make the strain 
 less. You might find such a week-end quite agreeable. 
 Should it, on the other hand, try you more than you 
 feel you can bear, there is always the plea of press of 
 work to be urged. The Selbys are most unconven- 
 tional people, who will not trouble themselves too much 
 about your concerns. Tessa Selby has developed quite 
 a warm friendship for Astrid. I wonder if it strikes 
 you what a tribute I am paying to your wife's unusually 
 fine character when I say that I have not the least fear 
 that she would, by any hint or indiscretion, ( give 
 away* the distressing state of affairs between you? 
 You have given me a daughter-in-law whom I can trust 
 completely, Ollie. That is no light praise." 
 
 He made no reply. All mention of his wife left him 
 cold. A picture was stamped upon his mind: the 
 turned-down corners of a child's sweet mouth, the lonely 
 terror which had seemed to leap out and show itself to 
 him in the poignant moment of his good-bye to Vivien. 
 He was half beside himself; but he gathered that his 
 mother thought the caravan trip might be arranged. 
 That was a kind of respite ... as she said, the plea 
 of work could be urged. . . . 
 
 "Well? "said Sybil softly. 
 
 " Yes. It is better than nothing. It will be a re- 
 lief : a few days to myself. . . . Oh ! what made me go 
 there to-night, courting torture in that way ? " 
 
 Sybil found herself choking back words with diffi- 
 culty. It was not the occasion, she saw, in which to 
 urge Astrid's claims. His wife appeared to him at 
 the moment merely in the light of an insuperable ob- 
 stacle : an obstacle of his own creation which every im- 
 pulse of generosity, of remorse, of shame, of bare jus- 
 tice, impelled him to treat with consideration. She
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 131 
 
 rose, went behind his chair, and ruffled his hair in the 
 old way which lately she had quite given up. 
 
 " Ollie, the reason why the thought of Astrid is such 
 a thorn to you to-night is that you are telling yourself 
 that had you not been married, Vivien would have 
 broken her engagement to marry you. I want you to 
 understand that that idea is delusion pure delusion! 
 I have seen Mr. Eailton, and I ain glad I have, for I 
 am quite certain that he would never let her go. He 
 intends to marry her, and what a man like that intends, 
 he does. But I have more to say. He is the right hus- 
 band for Vivien." 
 
 " No ! " cried Oliver fiercely. 
 
 " He is. He loves her open-eyed. He sees she is 
 weak, inconstant, and vain. Those defects don't mat- 
 ter to him. They would have broken your heart. He 
 is of coarse enough fibre to understand her without de- 
 spising her; or perhaps I should say to go on being fond 
 of her although understanding her. He will rule her 
 with a rod of iron, give her all she wants, never trust 
 her for a moment. That is the treatment such women 
 as she require. You could never have done that. You 
 would have gone on all your life expecting from her 
 the fine feeling in which she is wholly lacking, and 
 having a fresh heart-break every time she proved her- 
 self so much less than you expected. My son, my darl- 
 ing ! Listen to me ! ... If there were no question of 
 Astrid, if you were free, unmarried, if all were undone 
 that is done, I would never lift a finger to help on your 
 marriage with Vivien Faulkner ! "
 
 CHAPTER XHI 
 
 To grasp the thing we long for, and with sorrow 
 
 sick and dreary, 
 Then to find how it can fail us is the saddest 
 
 pain of all. A. A. PBOCTEB. 
 
 " I'VE got that," said Astrid, in a business-like tone. 
 " In tune with his surroundings. Fresh paragraph ? " 
 
 Dan drew in a long breath. "M*yes, fresh par. 
 H'm! Go on." His voice changed to a curious re- 
 citing note, and he spoke as though he were reading the 
 words from a page before him. 
 
 " There was no east That is to say, the huge bulk 
 of the Hippodrome cut it off. On the north, there were 
 the dismal rows of windows in the jam factory, and a 
 smell of vinegar upon the air told that they were mak- 
 ing pickles. Beneath the bridge southward there flowed 
 no river, but a sooty wilderness of railway lines, flanked 
 by a great, gaunt engine shed, which cut away the sky, 
 almost to the zenith. The west alone lay open to his 
 gaze. In that direction only could his thought travel 
 or his soul take wing. The long, wet railway lines 
 seemed floating towards a horizon made fair by opal- 
 escent vapour, and mysterious by a dim suggestion of 
 trees far away. So level was the land that the metals 
 lay like a pathway running from where he stood straight 
 to the smouldering furnace wherein lay the sinking sun, 
 could one but have seen him." 
 
 He stopped, but his secretary made no sound nor sign. 
 She sat with pen poised, her back against a haystack, her 
 
 132
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 133 
 
 feet in the meadow grasses, and her face turned towards 
 a prospect of delicate beauty. The scents of early sum- 
 mer were in the air she breathed. The light was the 
 sunlight of such a May as England had not known for 
 years. Dan lay on his back. His hat was off, his 
 simple attire consisted of a flannel shirt and trousers and 
 a crimson cummerbund. 
 
 " Scratch out that awful ending," he said, after a mo- 
 ment's thought. " Scratch out ' could one but have seen 
 him.' Let it read like this l the smouldering furnace 
 wherein, veiled from curious eyes by tender films of 
 coloured mist, the sun lay a-dying.' r 
 
 For a minute the soft scrape of the pen, and then 
 Astrid's serious voice. " Lay a-dying," she murmured 
 abstractedly. 
 
 "That's all," said Dan suddenly, after a lengthy 
 pause. 
 
 "Not all the chapter?" 
 
 "All for this morning. Hang it, I've had two 
 hours!" 
 
 " You had better give me a bit more," she remon- 
 strated quietly. " It is a pity to leave off there. I 
 know the Professor is going to find Philip on the bridge. 
 Do bring him along, if you can." 
 
 Dan, who had sat up, threw himself pettishly down 
 again. "What a tyrant you are! Tessa never dom- 
 ineered like that" 
 
 " I'm not Tessa " briefly. 
 
 "No, by the powers, nor anybody but yourself. 
 Bother it all, where was I? Read me down the last 
 
 page." 
 
 She complied. He changed a word here and there as 
 
 her voice flowed on. Then, putting his heart into the 
 thing, he brought the Professor upon the bridge that
 
 134 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 looked west, and showed him some of the magic of a 
 London sunset. 
 
 In half an hour it was done, and he laughed his jolly 
 laugh as he sat up. " Indeed, and I'm thankful you 
 kept me to it," he told her. " That's a far better place 
 to stop. But why did you make me go on ? " 
 
 " I knew you had it ready and wanted to give it me, 
 but you thought I was getting tired and that we ought 
 to go back to lunch. Come," she added, hastily collect- 
 ing her things into a bag, " we must walk back briskly, 
 or Tessa's stew will be spoilt. It seems a shame to let 
 her do all the cooking, but I think your publisher will 
 bless me." 
 
 Dan took the bag, slung it over his shoulder, and they 
 left the field by way of a winding lane that went between 
 verdant banks, blue with dog violet and crowned with 
 hawthorn. 
 
 " What weather ! This is the fifth day ! " he cried 
 gaily. " To-morrow is Saturday, and our solitude is to 
 be invaded by Tessa's engineer, that rhinoceros Martin, 
 and the very fine gentleman your husband. It is a 
 grand idea of Humphrey's to have his car so made that 
 it can be slept in, or how should we have accommodated 
 all the crowd? However, I don't know that it would 
 have mattered. You and Tessa will be comfortable, and 
 we men can always rough it." 
 
 " No more dictation until Monday," said Astrid, 
 with something like a sigh. " However, it is a good 
 thing, for I shall have to help Tessa cook for such a 
 big party. Fortunately she says Mr. Martin Selby is 
 a fine hand at washing up." 
 
 " Of course the men wash up ! The least they can 
 do if the ladies cook for them ! We'll put on the Editor 
 to roll up his shirt-sleeves and join the happy band!
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 135 
 
 I'm simply longing to see Brendon rusticating. Hope 
 that isn't cheek, Mrs. Brendon ? " 
 
 " Of course not ! I too am anxious to see how he 
 comports himself. I have always known him as a 
 Londoner." 
 
 " This is no place for Londoners. He will have to 
 become the Compleat Tramp if he wants to get any fun 
 out of this. Ah ! here we are, if we may judge by the 
 perfume that arises from Tessa's casserole ! " 
 
 The two caravans stood in the corner of a sloping 
 pasture which dipped to the south-west. Below, in the 
 valley, a white road meandered towards the village, 
 where, two or three times a day, a branch train deposited 
 such travellers as had business in the sleepy, mellow, red- 
 brick-and-ivy place. As soon as the three had finished 
 lunch it was their intention to pack and wander slowly 
 down the valley, avoiding the village, so as to reach 
 their next camping ground, about a mile upon its further 
 side, in time for supper. 
 
 The cooking-tent was Dan's own patent, of which he 
 was very proud. Whatever the weather, the cook, as 
 a result of its scientific arrangement, was independent 
 of rain and draught. Tessa came out, with a fire- 
 scorched face beneath her lilac sun-bonnet, her skirt 
 pinned up, and wearing a large apron. 
 
 " Barely ten minutes late ! " said she approvingly. 
 " You are a reformed character, Dan. Dinner's quite 
 ready, if Astrid will give a hand with the dishing up." 
 
 They ate out of doors, under the big elms, in the 
 exquisite weather which made life a joy. 
 
 " I shall be sorry to leave this lovely camp," said 
 Astrid as she helped the potatoes. 
 
 " Oh, you're a born tramp ! " said Dan. " Isn't she, 
 Tessa?"
 
 136 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 " She's a splendid companion," replied Tessa with 
 energy. " I hope this won't be our last jaunt by many 
 and many. If only we can persuade Mr. Brendon and 
 Humphrey to like it as much as we do ! " 
 
 " Doesn't Mr. Spence like it ? " 
 
 "He has hardly had a fair trial," said Dan, with 
 amusement. " Tessa led him forth at Easter or, as 
 he said, at north-easter and he was a bit put off. It 
 snowed most of the time." 
 
 " Even I don't care much about caravanning when 
 it snows," said Tessa drily. 
 
 " It snows now," observed Astrid, catching in her 
 hand a drift of hawthorn petals which the lazy breeze 
 blew into her lap. " How delicious they taste ! If one 
 could do all one's cooking under a hedgerow, fancy the 
 flavours you could introduce into your sweets Creme 
 a la violette, Gelee d'aubepine, Pouding chevrefeuille, 
 and so on." 
 
 " Delicious ! " echoed Tessa, " And the gorse, I 
 always think it smells of almonds, don't you ? Gateau 
 d'ajonc ! How nice ! " 
 
 Astrid made a little grimace. " Gateau fleur d'ajonc 
 sounds less thorny to me," she laughed. 
 
 Dan fixed his keen, kind eyes upon her. Yesterday 
 was the first time that a glimpse of her native Irish 
 humour had escaped their guest. She had started the 
 expedition with a gravity, a shrinking quietude, which 
 had disturbed him. He had guessed that it was a 
 wrench for her to part from her newly-wedded husband. 
 In fact, it had surprised both him and Tessa that she 
 should have been ready to do so. The Brendons' circum- 
 stances were certainly not such as to make it imperative 
 that she should work for money. But Dan was modern 
 in many ways, though as inconsistent as the best of us.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 137 
 
 The idea of a young wife not wishing to be entirely de- 
 pendent upon her husband was to him by no means un- 
 intelligible. 
 
 " The Germans have a May drink, made of cowslips 
 and things," he remarked dreamily. " But the best of 
 all would be a primrose wine. To me the perfume of a 
 primrose wood is the most subtle, the most unmatchable 
 thing in nature. If one could capture it! But, like 
 all the more esoteric forms of joy, it cannot be had at 
 will." 
 
 " A la bonne Tieure," said Tessa, " I am grateful to 
 Astrid for the hint. We will make cowslip tea; the 
 fields round here are golden with the dear things," 
 
 " By the way, did the butcher bring out the letters, 
 as he said he would ? " asked Dan. 
 
 " Bless me, yes, he did ! Nothing of importance, I 
 think. Oh, yes, there was a copy of the North Middle- 
 sex Courier, which should contain an account of the 
 Railton-Faulkner wedding." 
 
 " I'll go and get it," said Dan, rising and entering the 
 ladies' caravan, which by day was laid out as a sitting- 
 room. 
 
 He returned with the local paper, and after a short 
 search found the column devoted upon this wonderful 
 occasion to the function, the presents, the costumes, and 
 so on. 
 
 " ' The bride wore an exquisite creation of ivory 
 charmeuse, veiled in pearl-sewn gauze, by Madame Cer- 
 isette.' H'm, h'm ! That's all Greek to me ' The brides- 
 maids were the Hon. Miss So-and-so. Don't know ^any 
 of 'em imported goods; let's get on to Thackridge 
 itself. ' The church was magnificently decorated with 
 the well-known products of Sir Charles Faulkner's mag- 
 nificent hothouses, and his head gardener, Mr. Macready,
 
 138 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 is to be congratulated upon the impressive effect ob- 
 tained by the massing of amaryllis, agapanthus, lapa- 
 geria.' Good Lord, what stuff! Is there no account 
 of the ceremony itself ? O yes - here at last. ' The 
 bride, who entered leaning upon the arm of her father, 
 looked lovely, in spite of her pallor. It has been known 
 in Thackridge for the last week that Miss Faulkner's 
 health had been unduly tried by the exertions which 
 must of necessity precede a somewhat hurried wedding. 
 It is not three weeks since Lady Faulkner and her daugh- 
 ter returned from Cairo, and Miss Vivien Faulkner's 
 friends were more grieved than surprised to hear that 
 the bride had actually left her bed in order to have the 
 ceremony performed. In spite of her temporary del- 
 icacy, the young lady, however, went through the trying 
 ordeal admirably. Her jewels were ' O, who cares for 
 her jewels ? f The sheaf of lilies which she carried 
 was arranged by ' some other tradesman, I suppose. 
 Where does it go on? Ah, yes, here is something 
 more ! ' We understand that the wedding was fixed 
 at so early a date owing to the pressing engagements of 
 the bridegroom in Xew York. Be that as it may, the 
 date of sailing has been postponed. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Railton did not leave the Park after the wedding yester- 
 day. We were told by Lady Guestling, eldest sister of 
 the bride, who most obligingly gave us a few moments 
 of her valuable time, that her sister would take a day 
 or two of rest after to-day's ceremony, and then leave 
 with her husband, to pass a week or two very quietly at 
 some seaside resort in England, before facing the 
 rigours of the Atlantic voyage.' Well, Tessa, what 
 d'you think of that?" 
 
 " I am not at all surprised. She looked very ill the 
 night we dined there," said Tessa composedly. " After
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 139 
 
 all, she has been through a good deal during the last six 
 months, enough to shake up an excitable girl. I am 
 glad that Mr. Railton is showing consideration for her. 
 I rather liked the look of him." 
 
 Astrid had sat listening without saying a word. She 
 had grown noticeably pale, and Dan, catehing sight of 
 her face, told himself that he was inconsiderate. He 
 was a little puzzled, however. How much did Mrs. 
 Oliver Brendon know, or care, about the story of her 
 husband's first engagement ? They had both been pres- 
 ent, apparently on the best of terms and in the best 
 of spirits, at the Park dinner the other night. The 
 feeling she might experience on hearing that the mar- 
 riage was an accomplished fact, would most likely be 
 relief. One glance at her face, however, told him that 
 she was profoundly stirred. Characteristically, she 
 said nothing, nor did she ask to look at the paper. 
 After some more talk, she quietly inquired whether Mrs. 
 Brendon's name was down in the list of guests, and 
 learned that it was. 
 
 " Not your husband," added Dan, 
 
 " No. He said he should not have time to go. He 
 is living in town, as you know, because he is working 
 very hard. The Congress of Foreign Journalists keeps 
 him busy." 
 
 " He has done wonders with that paper," said Dan 
 thoughtfully. " It must be a valuable concern by now, 
 I should think." 
 
 " It does very well," she replied. 
 
 " I don't think the last few numbers have been so 
 good since Astrid came off it," observed Tessa. 
 
 " O, Tessa, what nonsense ! " cried Astrid. 
 
 " If I were your husband, I'd appoint you sub-edi- 
 tor, at a good salary," continued her friend.
 
 140 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 " She's first-rate at sub-editing," agreed Dan. " Her 
 care is extraordinary, and she has a genius for punctua- 
 tion. There is literature oozing out of the pores of 
 her." 
 
 " 0, please ! " murmured Astrid, growing red and 
 rising to escape from his enthusiasm. " Tessa, you are 
 eating too many almonds and raisins, and we shan't 
 have enough dessert to last till Monday! I am going 
 to take them away from you, and wash up." 
 
 " I wash, you wipe," said Dan promptly. " I can 
 smoke my pipe the while." 
 
 " You'll find clean dusters in the locker, and the ket- 
 tle boils," said Tessa, stretching herself luxuriously, 
 and opening a novel. 
 
 " I shall boil the kettle again, and make tea now, and 
 put it in the Thermos," said Astrid, as Dan and she 
 proceeded to the kitchen tent to perform their duties. 
 " That will save our stopping to make tea as we go 
 along." 
 
 " Great thought Always said you were a born 
 tramp," was the satisfied reply, spoken with the stem of 
 his pipe between his teeth. 
 
 They washed, wiped, and chatted in full content. 
 He was beginning to think that his secretary was a more 
 interesting study than the plot of any of his tales. 
 But a sound instinct warned him that his studying must 
 be done with the extremest caution. Astrid was a 
 ready and, at times, an interesting talker upon imper- 
 sonal topics. On the subject of herself, " Trespassers 
 will be prosecuted " was written up all around. 
 
 He spoke no word now of the wedding, nor of the 
 bride's illness. But as his companion lapsed into si- 
 lence, and her preoccupation increased, he knew well 
 where her thoughts were.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 141 
 
 The caravan tour, when it had been ascertained that 
 the Brendons really were coming, had been extended, 
 and the plans slightly changed. The caravans had 
 been sent by rail to a spot in the West of England, 
 whence they could make their way by degrees to the 
 south coast. 
 
 They were moving towards the sea, but Astrid did 
 not know how near they were. It was Dan's little 
 surprise, which he was keeping for her. He had been 
 told, by an innkeeper the night before, that upon the 
 crest of the next hill they would have a fine view of 
 the Channel. He had heard her say that the Irish 
 Sea was all she had as yet beheld in the way of ma- 
 rine scenery. 
 
 It was late afternoon when they came upon it. 
 
 The breeze had dropped to nothing, the sky was 
 blue, with suggestion of haze which, so far, the wind 
 had kept at bay. The sun was beginning to stoop, so 
 that his light struck sideways upon the red trunks of 
 a grove of Scotch firs near. The green hill-sides sloped 
 richly, and where there was no grass, the soil was the 
 colour of terra-cotta. 
 
 One behind the other, the ridges rolled away beneath 
 their feet to where, beyond green pasture and red 
 earth, lay the blue ocean, just blurred at the meeting- 
 point of sky and sea. 
 
 They checked the horses, to rest upon the summit, 
 and the three of them stood silently, gazing their fill 
 upon the loveliness before them. Astrid was experi- 
 encing the power of nature to heal a sore heart 
 
 When she joined the Selbys, not a week ago, she 
 had thought herself so bruised, so deeply wounded, that 
 her life must creep always on a broken wing. 
 
 Lying awake at night she lived over again the short,
 
 142 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 conclusive scene in the library. Oliver's indifference, 
 his preoccupation, his carelessness as to where she went, 
 or what she did : the utter failure of her month of trial. 
 Only for the sake of Sybil Brendon had she lived 
 through those weeks of humiliation. She loved Oliver's 
 mother. -When her resentment flamed up hottest 
 against her husband, she told herself incessantly, " He 
 is her son. He must have something noble in him." 
 
 To-morrow she must go through the ordeal of meet- 
 ing him again. She had not seen him since their last 
 interview. A slight cold gave Sybil the chance to keep 
 her in bed to breakfast for the few days that intervened 
 before her departure with the Selbys. It seemed to 
 her that she had got past caring now, what he said, or 
 how he looked. Her heart was hard as a stone. But 
 this beauty, this unrolling pageant of summer, this glad 
 land, full of larks singing out an ecstasy which was in- 
 exhaustible of buttercup meadows and the delicate 
 fringe of wild carrot of cowslips and white may, of 
 little streams and great hills, of fan-like beeches and 
 woodland glades how could the heart of a girl re- 
 main hard therein ? 
 
 Ah, but a heart, if it be soft, will begin to crave! 
 Therefore she choked back her joy and checked the out- 
 rush of feeling. She held herself in with an effort 
 which whitened her cheeks and quickened her breath. 
 
 Dan saw it. With the insight which was developing 
 in him, he saw that the feeling was all there that 
 she would not show it. He wondered if her cold, hard 
 creed, the inheritance of her Ulster Protestantism, lay 
 behind whether on principle she kept all her tender 
 impulses thus in check. Something in the trouble of 
 her eyes, in the corners of her pretty mouth, gathered 
 in with mute pathos, caused him to feel a deep pity for
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 143 
 
 her. He would have been grateful could he have found 
 the smallest way to help her to offer consolation. He 
 believed that the times when she was really happiest 
 were those she spent in writing from his dictation. 
 
 He was beginning to develop a feeling of antagonism 
 for Oliver, because he had more than a suspicion that 
 he did not make his wife happy. This afternoon his 
 mind leapt to a conclusion. Of course, young Bren- 
 don had married without saying anything of his recent 
 too recent love affair. This his wife must have 
 discovered since. The astute romancer began, or 
 thought he began, to understand the willingness of the 
 newly-wedded girl to come caravanning without her 
 husband. 
 
 He sighed wistfully. Things happen very per- 
 versely. Here was a girl whom, had he known of her 
 existence, he would have sought out and made his wife 
 if she would have had him. Apparently she had been 
 for two years immured in Brendon's office, right under 
 the fine gentleman's nose, while he philandered with a 
 cheap little person like Vivien. 
 
 Dan felt as if the plot of a novel lay ready to his 
 hand a plot which he could not, dare not, use.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 We shape our deeds, and then are shapen by them. 
 
 To some frail heart a cruel gift we bring, 
 Turn from our acts away, and think to fly them: 
 
 Ah! Theirs the stronger wing! WILLIAM WATSON. 
 
 MRS. OLIVER BRENDON awoke next morning to the 
 memory that something that day had to be undergone 
 something from which all her nerves winced away. 
 
 It was Tessa's turn to lie in bed while Astrid got 
 breakfast, so she rose early, and went out to her work 
 with a sense of gratitude that she had something other 
 than her own destiny upon which to fix her thoughts. 
 
 The morning was perfectly beautiful, dew lay beaded 
 upon the may blossom and buttercups, and haze upon 
 the ocean at their feet. She had thought their late 
 camping-ground almost perfect, but this far surpassed 
 it. It was upon the edge of a wild moor with pines 
 and gorse a moor that flamed with the full effulgence 
 of the golden broom. 
 
 The man who had attended to the horses had built 
 and lit her fire, and she set to work methodically to 
 unfold the folding-table, spread the cloth, lay the tea- 
 things, cut the rashers, break the eggs, and do the vari- 
 ous simple things that were necessary. The years that 
 she had lived alone in London had given her a fine ap- 
 prenticeship in this kind of thing, and had her heart 
 been less heavy she would have enjoyed it thoroughly. 
 As it was, the thought of her husband's glance of dis- 
 
 144
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 145 
 
 taste, the memory of his unfriendly voice, the coldness 
 of his complete indifference, tortured her so that she 
 found a tear slipping down upon her bare arm, and 
 almost dropping into the frying-pan. 
 
 Upon one thing she made up her mind. She could 
 not meet him for the first time before the Selbys. 
 They were kind, unsuspicious people, but they would 
 not be able to help noticing the strain of the situation. 
 No ; much as she disliked the prospect, she would stroll 
 down the road that led to the village for half a mile or 
 so, and meet him on his way. He had been carefully 
 instructed as to his route, and had announced his in- 
 tention of coming by a train due at about three o'clock. 
 
 After breakfast, afraid of her own thoughts, she per- 
 suaded Dan to dictate for a couple of hours, while Tessa 
 went off with the man, Barry by name, to the village 
 with a market basket, to do the Sunday marketing. 
 
 Lunch, it being Saturday, was cold, and consisted of 
 tinned tongue and salad, which tasted delicious with 
 the farmhouse bread, West Country butter and clotted 
 cream. 
 
 It seemed to Astrid as if the morning took wings, as 
 though lunch were over almost before they had sat 
 down to it as if, with no time left for preparation, 
 she were launched upon this terrible mission the en- 
 counter with her husband. 
 
 Just as she was setting out, Tessa called to her from 
 the caravan to ask her to take Binks, who had been for- 
 gotten that morning, and was in need of a walk. As- 
 trid was too kind to refuse, but the request was not 
 very welcome ; for Binks was a big Irish terrier of most 
 pugnacious proclivities, and one needed to be wary 
 when he met with other dogs. However, his frenzy of 
 joy when she let him loose touched her heart. There
 
 146 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 were no canine enemies in sight, and they started for 
 their walk in great amity. 
 
 The way was beautiful. The road curved down into 
 the valley with long sweeps, and each turn disclosed a 
 new peep of the sea, dotted with distant sails. After 
 a little, she could see the coast further west, where in 
 a wide red bay nestled Donnouth Harbour, that popu- 
 lar watering-place. Even its big white hotels looked 
 beautiful, softened by distance and atmosphere, in the 
 radiance of the sunshine. 
 
 A pity indeed that all her heart should be full of 
 black trouble in the midst of such beauty! Yet her 
 despondency was too profound to be shaken off to-day, 
 in view of what lay before her. It seemed there was 
 no way out of her troubles but the way she knew she 
 could never take the way of self-murder. 
 
 Astrid was a fighter, one who would never surrender 
 to her own misery. Yet in that moment, could she 
 have avoided the sight of her husband by merely desir- 
 ing her own death, she felt she would have succumbed 
 to the temptation, so intense was her fear, her shrink- 
 ing, her unwillingness. 
 
 The tears, rushing into her eyes, obscured her vision. 
 For a while she stumbled on, too lost in her unhappiness 
 to brush them away: and so she missed the first sight 
 of a fat brown and white spaniel just appearing round 
 a bend of the road. 
 
 Her earliest intimation of his presence was his im- 
 prudent, rude, and challenging bark. Needless to say, 
 Binks waited for no further declaration of war. Be- 
 fore Astrid had time to say a word, he rushed upon the 
 impertinent foreigner, and seized him in that hold 
 which so seldom relaxed when once it had fastened upon 
 its prey.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 147 
 
 Astrid flew upon him, gripped his collar, beat him 
 with her fists, even took up a stone from the road and 
 pounded his head with it; but he held on, the howls 
 of his victim growing fainter by degrees. Finally the 
 girl saw there was nothing for it but literally to choke 
 him off his quarry. The handkerchief she drew from 
 her pocket was, however, ludicrously inadequate. With 
 the resource engendered by emergency, she unstrapped 
 her leather belt, buckled it about the sturdy neck, and 
 pulled as if her very life depended upon it. Absorbed 
 as she was, she quite failed to hear the hoot of a motor 
 approaching down the hill. Her back was towards it, 
 and her figure came between the chauffeur's view and 
 the two dogs who accounted for her presence in the 
 middle of the road. The man thought she was fas- 
 tening up a shoe, or something of the kind, and though 
 he slowed down, still went forward, with the invincible 
 belief of the driver of a motor that anybody will sooner 
 get out of the way than be run down. 
 
 Astrid saw and heard nothing whatever. Just as 
 the ferocious Binks succumbed to strangulation and 
 dropped the spaniel from his jaws, the off wheel of 
 the motor knocked her down, and she was flung into 
 the road. 
 
 The man pulled up at once, and the only occupant 
 of the car, an elderly gentleman, cried out in much 
 anger : 
 
 "You silly fool, what are you doing? Running 
 over a woman! What next, I wonder? What the 
 deuce are you thinking about ? " 
 
 " I'm very sorry, sir, the young lady was right slap 
 in the midst of the road. I couldn't see what she 
 was doing, but she was separating two fighting dogs, 
 it seems ! "
 
 148 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 While speaking, both had jumped off the car, and 
 hastened to see the extent of the damage. Astrid had 
 already managed to sit up, but was looking white and 
 somewhat dazed. The spaniel had lain down in the 
 road, faintly howling, and bleeding profusely; and 
 Binks had, to all seeming, succumbed in good earnest 
 to the constriction of the strap round his throat. 
 
 " Untie my dog ! Untie my dog ! " gasped 
 the girl, waving a peremptory hand, while with the 
 other she fumbled for something to stanch the blood 
 that flowed from her cheek, but could not find it, as 
 her handkerchief was at the moment lying soaked with 
 blood in the road. 
 
 " Dear, dear, this is most unfortunate ! My dear 
 madam, my dear madam, permit me ! " stammered the 
 stout gentleman, offering a clean handkerchief. 
 
 " Thank you," said Astrid, and was vexed to find 
 that her lips shook in a way which made it difficult 
 to articulate. 
 
 The chauffeur, meanwhile, had hastened to the aid 
 of the unfortunate terrier, had unbuckled the belt, and 
 was looking doubtfully at the limp form. 
 
 " Water ! " gasped Astrid. " There is a brook there ! 
 Throw some over him." 
 
 The chauffeur, anxious to atone for his misdeeds, took 
 off his livery cap, filled it with water, and dashed it 
 over the prostrate hero. After one or two applications 
 Binks showed signs of life. Meanwhile the elderly 
 gentleman assisted the girl to her feet, and she sat 
 down shakily upon the step of the motor, unequal for 
 the moment to the effort of getting in. 
 
 " Leave that brute and bring the water here," said 
 the owner of the motor gruffly. " Let me wash the 
 young lady's face, and see how badly she is cut."
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 149 
 
 " The dog's alive, miss," pleaded the young chauffeur 
 humbly, as he obeyed. 
 
 " Thank you very much," said Astrid, trying to 
 smile as she met his scared and apprehensive eyes. " I 
 never heard you coming, the dogs were making such a 
 noise." 
 
 " It was inexcusable, simply inexcusable," protested 
 the elderly gentleman, dabbing at her face with the 
 wet handkerchief. " A more recklessly careless piece 
 of driving it would be impossible to imagine. May I 
 ask where you would like to be taken, madam? The 
 car is, of course, at your disposal." 
 
 Astrid did not for the moment reply. To her own 
 surprise and indignation she felt a sudden dimness of 
 perception which suggested that she might be going to 
 faint. The voices of the two men came from a dis- 
 tance, the landscape began slowly to circle round. . . . 
 
 It was certainly no wish of his own, but a sense of 
 submission to the inevitable, which had induced Oliver 
 to take train for Dormouth Junction that afternoon. 
 
 His life, he felt, had escaped from his own control, 
 and he must trudge wearily along in its wake, as it 
 were, not knowing nor caring whither it led. His de- 
 pression had been increased that morning by an inter- 
 view with Mr. Marsh, the proprietor of the Penman, 
 which had left him vaguely uneasy. 
 
 The paper was going well, the rise in circulation was 
 steady and increasing. He had suggested a slight 
 change in the staff, not at all of an expensive or far- 
 reaching character the kind of thing which an ed- 
 itor would expect to have granted as a matter of course. 
 Mr. Marsh had hummed and hawed, and finally said 
 that he would rather leave things as they were ex-
 
 150 AMAKE-SHIFTMARRIAGE 
 
 / 
 actly as they were for a few weeks longer, in view 
 
 of the fact that he might be desiring further changes 
 before very long. He had added a warm eulogy of 
 Brendon's own work a eulogy which sounded per- 
 fectly genuine. But the interview had left the young 
 editor with something of the " rickety " feeling well 
 known to the journalist whose whole income and pros- 
 pects in life are dependent upon the whim of a rich 
 man who takes up newspaper-owning and lays it down 
 again at his own pleasure and inclination. 
 
 The trifling incident added to his sense of failure 
 and wretchedness. 
 
 The journey was very hot. The time of starting 
 had prevented his having lunch, and there was no 
 restaurant-car on the train. He reached the station 
 thirsty and tired, with a bag to carry. There was no 
 conveyance of any kind to be hired, and, after some 
 poor and inadequate refreshment at an inn, he pre- 
 pared to face a walk whose tedium was not mitigated 
 by any hope of compensation at its end. 
 
 The hill he had to climb exceeded his worst expecta- 
 tions. He was wearing his London clothes, and he 
 disliked walking in the country in London clothes. He 
 neared the top in a state of temper not far removed 
 from savage, though he had resolved to behave as civ- 
 illy as he could to the millstone that was about his neck. 
 
 He came upon a curious scene. 
 
 The white dust of the lane was intersected with a 
 trickle of blood. Just beyond stood a motor-car, on 
 the step of which reclined a girl in a blue linen suit, 
 upheld by a stout elderly gentleman. The chauffeur 
 was bending over what looked like a dead dog in the 
 road.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 151 
 
 Oliver forgot his ill-temper as he approached this 
 unlooked-for spectacle. 
 
 "Is there an accident? Can I help?" asked his 
 clear, well-bred voice. 
 
 Astrid started. She tried to speak. At the same 
 moment he drew near enough to recognise her. 
 
 One side of her face was bleeding, and her dress 
 was splotched with blood. Her hat was off, her hair 
 disarranged. 
 
 " Astrid ! Good heavens, what's the matter ? " he 
 cried hurriedly. 
 
 " Sir, I beg to apologise, if you are a friend of this 
 poor young lady " 
 
 " Her husband," said Oliver shortly. 
 
 " I am relieved and thankful. She was pluckily 
 engaged in trying to separate two dogs who were fight- 
 ing. My chauffeur came along, she did not hear him 
 hoot, and I am ashamed to confess that he did not 
 manage to stop quite soon enough, and your wife 
 was thrown down." 
 
 " Oliver I'm all right," said Astrid feebly. " I 
 don't know what made me silly all of a sudden. I 
 think it was seeing the dog killing the other. . . ." 
 
 " No doubt," said the gentleman, compassionately. 
 " Please lift your wife into the car, sir. I will drive 
 her wherever she wishes to go. My name is Wolfe. 
 If I may take her home quickly, I will go on and 
 send a doctor at once." 
 
 "A vet would be best," said Astrid, with a faint 
 smile. " I am all right. The dogs . . ." For some 
 reason she did not seem able to speak fluently. 
 
 "Are both the dogs yours, madam?" asked Mr. 
 Wolfe.
 
 152 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 She shook her head. Oliver, turning to examine 
 the animals, recognised Binks. " That brute ! He's 
 always fighting," he said irritably. 
 
 " I don't know where the spaniel comes from," fal- 
 tered Astrid. " He just appeared." 
 
 Oliver and Mr. Wolfe consulted, with the result that 
 it was decided to lay the wounded spaniel, who was 
 badly bitten, upon some grass in the motor, and, after 
 driving Astrid to the camp, to proceed to Dormouth 
 in search of a veterinary surgeon. Binks had more or 
 less recovered, though he looked limp and seemed cowed. 
 The chauffeur thought the spaniel came from the Park, 
 which at this point skirted one side of the road. He 
 knew that Colonel Bruce, the owner, kept spaniels of 
 that breed. 
 
 Oliver turned and went towards his wife, who still 
 sat on the step. His approach seemed to galvanise 
 her into action. She rose, holding on by the car, and 
 stood upon her feet. It was her intention to jump in 
 before he could reach her; but she had reckoned with- 
 out the effects of the shock she had undergone. A 
 twinge of pain in her side brought back the dizzy feel- 
 ing, and she was only half-conscious of Oliver's arms 
 lifting her up and of being placed upon the luxurious 
 cushions of the motor. 
 
 " Oliver," she murmured, as he sat her down, " lend 
 me your hankie, please." 
 
 He complied at once. " I've got some clean ones 
 in my bag," he said. 
 
 " This will do. Only to hold over my face until I 
 can wash it. We are not far from the camp." 
 
 The rush of cool air was reviving. In the five min- 
 utes which sufficed to reach the caravans, she had pulled 
 herself together wonderfully. She was able to thank
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 153 
 
 Mr. Wolfe for his kindness, and to explain what had 
 happened to Tessa and Dan when they rushed out in 
 surprise and anxiety. 
 
 Mr. Wolfe evidently thought a caravan a very bad 
 place for the wounded lady. So did Oliver, though 
 he held his tongue until the apologetic gentleman and 
 his subdued chauffeur had whisked away down the road 
 with the invalid spaniel. 
 
 In face of Tessa's evident affection, and readiness 
 to do all that was possible for Astrid's comfort, he felt 
 it would be churlish to suggest taking her to an hotel, 
 apart from the difficulty of getting her there. She was 
 tenderly conveyed into the ladies' caravan, the door 
 was shut, and Dan and he left to their own devices. 
 Dan suggested a smoke and a stroll until tea-time, and 
 soothed Oliver's difficulties about a doctor by explain- 
 ing that he was every moment expecting the arrival of 
 Humphrey Spence and Martin in Spence's motor, and 
 that as soon as the car came it would be at Oliver's dis- 
 posal. 
 
 " But I don't think you need be very anxious," he 
 said. " The chauffeur says the wheel barely touched 
 her, it just flung her down, and I think her faintness 
 was due to the strain she had gone through with those 
 two dogs. I told Tessa she ought not to be sent out 
 alone with Binks, I am the only person he obeys in the 
 one respect of other dogs, though he is obedient enough 
 in other cases. I am awfully sorry it should have 
 happened, but she will soon get over it. Tessa has a 
 little medicine chest for emergencies lint and so on." 
 
 By the time that he had changed, had a drink, a 
 comfortable smoke, and a stroll round in the exquisite 
 beauty of the moor, some of Oliver's load of depression 
 had evaporated. At any rate, the worst moment was
 
 154 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 over. Astrid and he had met, and the accident had 
 broken the awkwardness of their meeting. 
 
 " Mrs. Brendon was set upon meeting you," Dan told 
 him. " She hoped to get most of the way to the sta- 
 tion, I think." 
 
 Oliver had to cover his surprise as best he could. 
 
 He had not looked for such luxuries as deck-chairs, 
 nor a table for his food. " I thought you ate it out 
 of the saucepan, on the grass," he said to Tessa, when 
 she came out to lay tea. 
 
 " We shall teach you a very different tale," said 
 Tessa cheerily. " Of course, I should like to do things 
 like that, but Dan is wrapped up in creature comforts." 
 
 To Astrid also came the blessed sense that the worst 
 was over. She and Oliver had met. She had been 
 spared the dread of having to explain why she had 
 come to meet him, the unpleasantness of assuming a 
 quiet friendliness to mask her shuddering reluctance. 
 
 He had not been unkind. After the first minute of 
 rather disgusted surprise, he had done what he could 
 for her. 
 
 It was hard that she should have so disfiguring an 
 accident at the very moment of his arrival. It was 
 more a graze than a cut, right upon her cheekbone. 
 There was considerable gravel in it, but this Tessa 
 had washed out, and had bandaged it for the present 
 with a chin bandage which made her look like a nun, 
 though a nun with a worldly tress of fair hair escaping 
 over the forehead. 
 
 She lay down upon her little bed and closed her eyes 
 in sheer exhaustion, after the effort of putting on a 
 clean frock and having her bruises discovered and 
 treated. 
 
 Meanwhile, out of doors, Dan rigged up the ham-
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 155 
 
 mock for her, that she might come out into the sweet 
 air to have tea. 
 
 " Go and fetch her," said Tessa to the young hus- 
 band, when all was ready. " Help her down the lad- 
 der, and put her into the hammock." 
 
 Oliver rose. He stood staring before him at the 
 broom-edged rim of the moor, and the blue sky above 
 it. He looked at his pipe. It was half full, but me- 
 chanically he scooped it out, dropped it into his pocket, 
 and turned to his hostess. 
 
 "May I go in? I had better knock, I suppose," 
 he said. He could not help showing his nervousness: 
 and Tessa smiled. " O, cheer up, she's not dying," 
 she said shyly : and liked him the better for flushing up 
 so boyishly.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 "In love as in life, expectation avails us but little; through 
 loving we learn to love; and it is the so-called disillusions of 
 pettier love that will, the most simply and faithfully, feed the 
 flame of the mightier love that shall come, it may be, to illumine 
 the rest of our life." MAETERLINCK. 
 
 " WHAT a good thing it is," observed Tessa, as she 
 knelt before Astrid's berth to have her blouse fastened. 
 " that it is my morning to get breakfast ! I shall bring 
 you yours, and then have plenty of time to help you 
 dress before we start for church. I expect Mr. Bren- 
 don will want to stay and take care of you." 
 
 Astrid said nothing to this suggestion. She was 
 still feeling shaken and unwell. The motor-wheel had 
 struck her just upon the spine, and the blow had no 
 doubt been the cause of her faintness. This morning 
 she was very stiff, more so than on the preceding day, 
 though she was most unwilling to confess it. 
 
 The weather was once more gloriously fine, and she 
 could hear the laughter and chattering as Tessa and her 
 Humphrey prepared breakfast, chaffed Martin, and 
 banged upon the door of the caravan where Dan and 
 Oliver declined to be aroused so early. 
 
 She made a valiant attempt to eat the really tempting 
 contents of her breakfast tray; but her appetite was 
 poor. 
 
 Every nerve in her was waiting for the tap at the 
 door which would presently warn her that Oliver stood 
 outside, ready to help her into the hammock. When 
 
 156
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 157 
 
 at last it came, it found her so unprepared that she 
 shook in every limb. She must, however, invite him 
 in, and he came, grave and considerate, avoiding her 
 eyes, and extremely polite in his inquiries after her 
 health. 
 
 She could not say that she felt well, but was earnest 
 in her conviction that she only needed a few days' rest. 
 " It is all right," she said, " for the Selbys want to stay 
 at least a week in this camp, and I shall be able to 
 write from dictation quite well, even though I have to 
 be quiet for a time." 
 
 " You must see a doctor," said Oliver quietly. 
 
 " O no, please ! " she begged him. 
 
 " It is most disagreeable to me to go against you 
 in anything but sheer necessity," he replied. " But 
 somehow I must get a doctor for you. The difficulty 
 seems to be that there is no good doctor short of Dor- 
 mouth, and it will take some time to bring him. But 
 I will get Spence to go in his car." 
 
 " O, please don't ! Please!" 
 
 He looked distressed. " It seems to me that I must, 
 and as I said, it is plainful to me to thwart you," he 
 told her. " Could you try to make up your mind to 
 it?" 
 
 The tears rushed to her eyes. Hot shame at such 
 weakness only made them flow the faster. She 
 snatched a handkerchief and brushed them away. " I 
 beg your pa'rdon," she said half inaudibly. " Yes, I 
 am sorry to be so contrary." 
 
 " That's right. May I help you up ? Why, you are 
 moving with greater difficulty than yesterday ! " 
 
 " Of course, naturally, I should feel stiffer to-day," 
 she assured him eagerly. 
 
 " You must tell me if I hurt you," he directed, as
 
 158 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 he put his arm round her. " Let me lower you to the 
 ground in the doorway. Sit on the floor, and then I 
 can pick you bodily up and put you into the ham- 
 mock." 
 
 She was grateful for his strength and his impersonal, 
 grave manner. " Thank you," she said from her heart, 
 when she was carefully laid down among the cushions. 
 
 They all stood round her, full of anxiety, and Dan's 
 blue eyes were so wistful that she laughed at him. 
 "Why, Mr. Selby," she said, "I'm all right! Cheer 
 up!" 
 
 " I don't like it at all," said Dan gloomily. " You 
 ought never to have been asked to superintend that 
 incorrigible dog. Brendon will think we are not to 
 be trusted with you." 
 
 " He is more likely to think you ought not to be 
 bothered with an invalid," said she brightly. " This 
 hammock is simply luxury. Could I be in a better 
 place?" 
 
 " The thing to do," said young Spence to Oliver, 
 " is for me to put her in the car, you come along, and 
 I'll run you into Dormouth in three-quarters of an 
 hour, or less. I could make her comfortable with a 
 chair or something to raise her feet, and you could sit 
 in front with me." 
 
 " I believe it's the best thing," said Oliver, looking 
 at his wife with an appeal in his eyes to which she 
 responded at once. 
 
 " Yes, O yes, if you really think I ought ! " 
 
 " I do," he said, with manifest relief. 
 
 Dan's eyes, sharp as needle-points, travelled from 
 husband to wife and back wondering. 
 
 " I'll have the machine ready in half an hour," an- 
 nounced Humphrey, with eager goodwill, taking off his
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 159 
 
 coat and hastily getting into his oily overalls. " I left 
 her just as she was last night, so I must tidy her up 
 this morning. It goes against me to take out a dirty 
 car." 
 
 He ran to where the motor had been stationed, and 
 was heard whistling as he worked. Martin went to 
 help him, Dan joined Tessa to wash up. The Bren- 
 dons were left together. 
 
 In the blue above a lark sang. The white drift of 
 gulls' wings flashed in the sun, and the bees droned 
 among the gorse. 
 
 Astrid felt that she must make an effort to break 
 through the odious constraint which held them both. 
 With Sybil as her ally, she could venture more: alone, 
 her very heart quailed before the shyness she felt, the 
 reluctance to invite rebuff. 
 
 The necessity for establishing some kind of inter- 
 course was, however, pressing. After a pause, in which 
 Oliver sat with tightly-folded lips, gazing under the 
 brim of his Panama at the distant sea, she said as 
 naturally as she could, " Won't you tell me a little of- 
 fice news ? I have often meant to ask you how Prentis 
 has been going on ? " 
 
 He looked up with an obvious desire to respond. 
 Prentis was a brilliant but unreliable young journal- 
 ist, who did fine work when he was sober, but had 
 been the cause of some mauvais quarts d'heure in the 
 printer's room, by reason of the non-arrival of his copy. 
 Oliver told her a story of the way in which an excited 
 young member of the staff had dashed down Fleet 
 Street after having seen Prentis stroll up to the door 
 of the office, gaze blankly upon it, and turn away. 
 Knowing he must have the indispensable article one 
 of a series in his pocket, but guessing that he was
 
 160 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 too befogged to realise that he had not delivered it, the 
 energetic youth pursued him for a long time before he 
 caught him, in the act of pushing his article, neither 
 stamped nor enclosed in an envelope, into the slit of 
 a pillar-box. 
 
 The story made Astrid laugh. She knew both the 
 pursuer and the pursued, and the notion of the chase 
 was certainly funny. 
 
 " I miss the office," she said, with a sigh, giving 
 forth the words without reflection. 
 
 " I often wish you were back again," observed Oliver, 
 who had cut a sprig of gorse and was paring the prickles 
 from its stem with his knife. 
 
 The double edge in his remark occurred to him the 
 moment he had said it. 
 
 " I could hardly go back," faltered Astrid. 
 
 " No. You couldn't do that. Not only because of 
 of your relation to me, but because I don't quite 
 know what Marsh has got up his sleeve." 
 
 " Marsh ? " she said, with a quick, apprehensive look. 
 " Surely he is perfectly satisfied." 
 
 " So he says." 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 He told her the incident of the previous day. " You 
 know what these millionaires are. They are as keen 
 as mustard one week, and ready to sell the paper next 
 Saturday morning. I heard that Marsh was huffy at 
 not being in the Birthday Honours List. He may be 
 intending to pay out the Government for that slip by 
 changing the political colour of his paper who 
 knows ? " 
 
 " If he were to do that, you would resign ? " she 
 asked, with keen interest. 
 
 " I should have to. I could not edit a paper with
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 161 
 
 whose political views I was not in sympathy." He 
 had forgotten his constraint now, and was talking to 
 her as he used to talk in old days. 
 
 " Marsh is half American," he continued, " and has 
 a lot of American notions. You remember those ar- 
 ticles he would put in, by the fellow from California 
 about the decay of Great Britain, and with the 
 suggestion that as soon as she went under, her job would 
 be taken over by that devoted daughter country, the IT. 
 S. A. ? Well, he has always that idea at the back of his 
 mind. Anything that points to our national decadence 
 attracts him. I don't trust him a bit." 
 
 " It makes you anxious ? " asked Astrid wistfully. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. " I have always known 
 what it means to be a journalist. I am better off 
 than most. I walked almost straight from Oxford into 
 the editorial chair, simply because Marsh's son was 
 at Balliol with me, and recommended me to his 
 father." 
 
 "But look how well you have done! If Marsh 
 should be so foolish as to let you go, you would not 
 be long without something." 
 
 He smiled with scorn. " How many editorships are 
 there going ? You might count them on the fingers of 
 your hands ! How many young Balliol men ready and 
 competent to step in 
 
 "Competent?" cut in Astrid scathingly. 
 
 "Let us say, as competent as myself. Well! We 
 won't anticipate misfortune. But I don't like Marsh 
 in this mood. I had fully intended to engage ' 
 berry ' for our art criticisms, which I have never been 
 able to get properly done. We pay twice what you get 
 from the Art Companion." 
 
 The colour rose in the girl's cheeks, her eyes grew
 
 162 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 suddenly soft, and sparkled with pleasure. Oliver was 
 not looking her way, but out across the sea. 
 
 "But, you see, I don't like just at present to ask 
 for anything that sounds at all like a favour," he added. 
 
 Before she could reply, Humphrey came hurrying 
 up to say that the car awaited their pleasure. Tessa 
 and Dan appeared, and arranged cushions so that the 
 invalid might recline at her ease. Oliver lifted her 
 from the hammock this time without hesitation and 
 with real skill laying her down carefully in exactly 
 the right place. 
 
 He then took his own seat in front, beside Hum- 
 phrey, and they started off, gliding along so smoothly 
 that she was well able to endure the motion. 
 
 As they slid down the windings of the long hill, and 
 followed the coast road, Astrid's heart was full of re- 
 lief. She had not merely exchanged some natural con- 
 versation with her husband finding him unexpectedly 
 responsive she had also discovered that he liked her 
 " Dogberry " articles liked them well enough to wish 
 to secure them for his paper. This was indeed gratify- 
 ing. Compared with what she had suffered during the 
 past week, her present state was almost like happiness. 
 
 The blue sea, with hardly a wavelet curling in upon 
 the sand, seemed to laugh to her with unlimited prom- 
 ise. She longed to be well and able to go and bathe 
 in its sun-warmed shallows. 
 
 They arrived at Dormouth easily in three-quarters 
 of an hour, going softly all the way. Near the east 
 end of the town stood a new and palatial hotel, and 
 Humphrey suggested that Oliver should go in and in- 
 quire where the best doctor in the place was to be 
 found. 
 
 Oliver willingly consented, and strolled to the lounge
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 163 
 
 where groups of visitors, who had not gone to morning 
 service, were sitting about in subdued mood out of 
 a kind of unwilling compliment to Sunday. 
 
 The waiter whom he addressed thought that Dr. Gor- 
 don had changed his address lately, and went to ascer- 
 tain. Oliver sat down a moment, gazing out from the 
 open doors to the sunlit sea. 
 
 Down the wide stairs behind him there came a sylph- 
 like figure, in fantastically fashioned garments of great 
 elegance. Her maid followed her, with silk cushions 
 and a rug over her arm. The visitors all bestowed 
 upon her a most flattering rustle and soft movement 
 of general interest. This was the pretty, delicate young 
 bride, who arrived two days ago with a devoted bride- 
 groom, and went about in a Bath chair. Oliver was 
 too abstracted to remark upon the new focus of atten- 
 tion. 
 
 Vivien, as she came down, was looking round, from 
 end to end of the lounge, to find Calvert, whom she had 
 not seen since breakfast. She saw Oliver Brendon in- 
 stead. 
 
 For a moment she paused, and stood looking down 
 upon him. An awful fear shot through her. Why 
 was he there? There could be but one reason. He 
 had come to pursue her, to torture her, to make her 
 present discontent greater than she could bear. So far 
 as she could see, he was quite alone. 
 
 In a moment her resolution was taken. u I feel a 
 little faint," she said to her maid ; " I will go back to 
 my room for a few minutes." 
 
 " O no, ma'am ! go down into the lounge and sit in 
 the air; it will pass off," said the maid, offering her arm. 
 
 But Vivien could be obstinate, as Therese knew to 
 her cost. She faced about deliberately and began to
 
 164 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 make her way up again. Therese suspected some rea- 
 son for her flight. The maid turned her head, searched 
 the lounge, and saw Mr. Brendon. 
 
 " O, mon Dieu ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 " It is he, isn't it ? " panted Vivien. " He must not 
 see me. Let me go upstairs; you stay and watch, 
 Therese ; tell me what he does." 
 
 But the maid, much as she wished to watch, knew 
 better than to let her mistress, in her present shaky 
 state, go upstairs alone. If Mr. Railton came unex- 
 pectedly on the scene there would be a history! He 
 would make a history out of any trifle! She had al- 
 ways heard that in America the servants were as good 
 as the master and mistress, but if so, then Mr. Rail- 
 ton was a very exceptional American! She followed 
 Vivien back to the large, sunny, first-floor private sit- 
 ting-room, part of the suite engaged by the rich man. 
 
 Vivien was hardly there before she was sorry that 
 she had fled. The sight of Oliver aroused longings 
 which she could not stifle. He was there, he had fol- 
 lowed her, he must be in despair. Surely she might 
 do something to help him, or pacify him something 
 to show him how futile it was to war with Calvert 
 when he had made up his mind. 
 
 " If Calvert found out that he was here, he would 
 punish him somehow," she thought, with fear in her 
 heart. She was beginning to understand some of the 
 terrible power wielded by the plutocracy. 
 
 " Therese," she faltered slowly, " I will write him 
 a note to tell him to go away. You must take it." 
 
 "Attention, Madame" whispered Therese, beating 
 up the cushions on the sofa, " Je crois que Monsieur 
 est la " pointing to the door of an inner room with 
 a motion of her head.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 165 
 
 Vivien got up and walked across the room. " Cal- 
 vert, are you there?" she said clearly. There was 
 no reply. She went over to the writing-table and sat 
 down. The maid flitted to the door leading to the cor- 
 ridor, intending to close it. 
 
 "Ah, pardon, Monsieur," she apologised, drawing 
 back with a start as her master entered through it. 
 
 "Mais j'ai bien su qu'il etait lout pres, quelque 
 part," she muttered to herself. " Est-ce qu'il vient de 
 monter? En ce cas, Us se sont dejd rencontres." 
 
 Her watchful eyes were upon Railton as he entered, 
 and she saw his gaze fly to his wife and fix itself upon 
 her. 
 
 " Nearly ready for your promenade, young woman ? " 
 he asked with his air of calm indulgence. 
 
 Vivien's nerves were still uncertain, and she most un- 
 wisely started at his voice. 
 
 "I I was just coming," she said, closing the blot- 
 ter and rising from her seat. 
 
 " No hurry. Not the least in the world," he said 
 drawlingly. " Finish your note while I light a cig- 
 arette. Therese, I'll ring when I want you." 
 
 "Service, M'sieur" Therese vanished, and Vivien 
 stood up. "I am quite ready, Calvert. I was wait- 
 ing about for you. Where were you?" 
 
 " I had a letter to write. Sorry you waited. Did 
 you look for me downstairs ? " 
 
 " I haven't been downstairs." 
 
 " That so ? Well, finish what you were about, won't 
 you ? " 
 
 " No. I'm ready, if you are, we'll go." 
 
 " Good. Let me take your rattle-traps for you ; but 
 first, let me have a look at you. Why, I do believe the 
 sea air is giving you a bit more colour already."
 
 166 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 They stood, together in the brilliant sunlight that 
 poured in through the large windows. The man turned 
 up the girl's graceful chin with his hand, until her face 
 lay open to his keen gaze. His eyes seemed to plunge 
 into the depths of hers, to fasten upon her inmost 
 thoughts. The blood mantled to her fair face in car- 
 mine waves under the inquisition. She did not flinch, 
 nor oppose his action, though she was held only by 
 the light touch of his finger under her chin. After a 
 long look, which seemed to her to last for ages, he 
 stooped, without eagerness, but with a deliberation 
 which had the effect of force, and set his lips on hers. 
 She quivered, but dared not move. He resisted the 
 impulse which tingled in him to catch her to his heart. 
 He would not try her too far. 
 
 " Thank you, my dear," he said drily, as he raised 
 his head. " I was hungry for that, and you were very 
 patient with me. Now come along." 
 
 They walked a little way along the corridor. Sud- 
 denly he stopped, feeling in his coat, first one side, then 
 another. " Got no handkerchief, wait one moment," 
 he said, hastening back to the room they had just quitted. 
 She waited, numbed to a kind of stupor by the kiss she 
 had just endured, not suspecting anything. 
 
 Railton entered the sitting-room, opened the blotter, 
 caught sight of the sheet of paper, and the words so 
 recently scrawled " O, Oliver, why have you 
 come " 
 
 Very quietly he closed it again, and, after a moment, 
 during which he gazed thoughtfully at the floor, he 
 rejoined his wife in the corridor. 
 
 They passed together through the hall. The pres- 
 ence which had so disturbed Vivien was there no longer.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 " What matter what matter O friend, though the sea 
 
 In lines of silvery fire may slide 
 O'er the sands so tawny and tender and wide 
 
 Murmuring soft as a bee ? " 
 
 "No matter, no matter, in sooth," said he: 
 
 " But the sunlit sands and the silvery play, 
 Are a trustful smile long past away: 
 
 No more to me! " AJLFBED DOMETT. 
 
 DR. GORDON lived upon the sea front. When Hum- 
 phrey had deposited the husband and wife at his door, 
 he drove on, up to the station, whence Tessa had bidden 
 him bring a parcel of grocery stores. It was arranged 
 that he should pick up the Brendons, on the parade, as 
 he returned. 
 
 Oliver, when his wife had disappeared into the doc- 
 tor's room, that her injury might be examined and diag- 
 nosed, himself went out of doors into the sunshine. 
 His mind was ill at ease. Suppose the apparently triv- 
 ial accident were to have serious results that Astrid 
 were to become a chronic invalid ? As he reflected upon 
 the effects of such a state of things, he found that his 
 regrets were not entirely selfish. He was thinking, 
 partly, how it would irk a creature so independent, so 
 determined to stand alone, were she to find herself per- 
 manently disabled. 
 
 As the minutes wore on, they seemed to him unduly 
 prolonged. The doctor was taking a long time. He 
 hoped she was not being hurt. He could picture her 
 face, white and tense, and how she would suffer to the 
 
 167
 
 168 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 last extreme sooner than cry out. How did he know 
 this ? He did not pause to ask ; but during those mo- 
 ments of waiting there was born in him a vague feel- 
 ing of championship, as though he stood on Astrid's 
 side and protested against her being called upon to suf- 
 fer. 
 
 He looked at his watch. Only ten minutes, after 
 all. A very long ten minutes. He leaned against 
 the rail which edged the landward side of the prome- 
 nade and watched the open door of the doctor's house, 
 whence the man-servant had promised to signal to him 
 when Mrs. Brendon came out of the consulting-room. 
 
 A step sounded quite near him, and a man stopped 
 close at his side. He turned and found himself con- 
 fronting Calvert Railton. 
 
 " Mr. Brendon ? Is that you ? " said the American. 
 The words were friendly, almost intimate; the tone 
 was frigid. 
 
 Oliver was so suddenly snatched from thoughts not 
 at all concerned with the Railtons that he was for a 
 moment really taken aback. He stared at the speaker 
 in confusion, which only the knowledge of the cold, 
 watchful blue eyes upon him enabled him to control. 
 
 " This is astonishing," he stammered. " I thought 
 you had sailed." 
 
 Railton never removed his gaze for an instant. 
 " Did you ? " he said. Had his words been " You 
 lie," he could hardly have made his meaning more 
 plain. 
 
 " Changed your plans, I suppose ? " asked Oliver, 
 roused to answer with a demeanour to match. He spoke 
 as if the question did not interest him in the least. 
 
 " Our change of plans was pretty widely announced 
 in the papers," remarked Railton deliberately.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 169 
 
 " Indeed ? " said Brendon, looking him up and down. 
 " I own to a lack of interest in fashionable intelligence." 
 
 Eailton examined the cigar he was smoking, as though 
 something about its tip had become interesting. " Mak- 
 ing a long stay here ? " 
 
 Oliver, now fully alive to his meaning, and resenting 
 it with all his force, was determined not to enlighten 
 him. " I have no idea," he replied carelessly. " Are 
 you ? " 
 
 "Leaving to-morrow," replied Eailton at once, re- 
 placing his cigar in his mouth. "The place doesn't 
 suit my wife." 
 
 " Pity," was all that Oliver vouchsafed. 
 
 He did not change his attitude, nor move from the 
 spot. He thought Eailton impertinent and insuffer- 
 able, but he was not going to put himself out on that 
 account. The coast of England is free to all, and if 
 Eailton were such a Bluebeard that his wife must be 
 kept under lock and key, that was his concern, by no 
 means that of Oliver Brendon. 
 
 " How do you like that New Palace Hotel ? " pur- 
 sued Eailton, after a short silence. 
 
 " I know nothing about it." 
 
 "Never stayed there?" 
 
 "Never." 
 
 Eailton's eye again expressed disbelief almost as 
 offensively as if his lips had spoken it. But Oliver 
 hardly felt resentful. He was secretly relishing the 
 thought that poor Eailton imagined him to be in Dor- 
 mouth in pursuit of Vivien. He felt a momentary im- 
 pulse to remark that he personally had no use for other 
 men's wives, but he did not consider the American en- 
 titled even to the measure of relief which such a re- 
 mark might bring him. Let him think what he chose.
 
 170 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 At the moment the man-servant appeared at the op- 
 posite door, signalling to him that his wife's ordeal was 
 over. He turned to Railton, whose eye had remained 
 fixed upon his face, and who had therefore failed to 
 see the summons he had received. 
 
 "Well, good day to you, I have an appointment to 
 keep," he said, with a little nod, and strolled away 
 across the road into the doctor's house. 
 
 Eailton, after watching him disappear, walked back 
 some short way along the parade to the shelter where 
 he had left Vivien and her Bath chair facing the danc- 
 ing sea. 
 
 " Why, wherever have you been, Calvert," asked the 
 bride pettishly, " leaving me all alone ? " 
 
 " Sorry, darling, I caught sight of a man I know, 
 and I just passed the time of day with him." 
 
 She fixed her big, wistful eyes upon his face with a 
 suspicion which died away as she saw his composure. 
 " -Who was it ? " she asked. 
 
 " A very slight acquaintance. By the way, do you 
 like this place, Vivi ? " 
 
 " Yes, I do. It is sunny and gay, and plenty to do 
 and to look at," replied the spoilt child. 
 
 "And that thing they call a hotel, you can put up 
 with it ? " 
 
 "Why, of course, Cal. That's the worst of being 
 so rich, you are always thinking, wherever you are, 
 that you might do better and be more comfortable 
 elsewhere! Besides, there's no other really nice hotel 
 in this place, is there ? " 
 
 " I'm told the George III is comfortable, though 
 old-fashioned." 
 
 " But it's not so near the sea. I want to stay where 
 we are. I shall hate it if you are always so fidgety."
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 171 
 
 " I only want you to be happy, little girl." 
 
 " Well, let me get well here in the sun. I've planned 
 to have hot sea-water baths to-morrow." 
 
 He gave it up. To move her suddenly, after this, 
 would be to let her understand why. And he had told 
 Brendon that they were leaving next day. That ought 
 to be enough for him. He could hardly be down here 
 for more than the week-end. 
 
 After some meditation he suggested motoring to the 
 ruined castle, twenty miles inland, after lunch, and hav- 
 ing tea there. She assented, though without much en- 
 thusiasm. As she leaned back, scanning the passers-by, 
 her restless eyes, straying everywhere, told him her 
 secret most explicitly. 
 
 His heart was hot with wrath against the man who 
 could behave with such mingled folly and brutality. 
 Himself barely six weeks married, Oliver Brendon 
 could come to this place in pursuit of another man's 
 wife. 
 
 Well, there was a way in which he could punish him. 
 It had been confronting him for several weeks past, 
 but he had decided that he could not take it. He had 
 felt, beyond all things, constrained to behave well to 
 the man whose betrothed he had stolen away from him. 
 Brendon's present line of conduct, however, changed 
 the affair completely. 
 
 He had seen him in the hotel that morning. Com- 
 ing out from the writing-room, he had marked him 
 seated there, waiting. Going upstairs, he had sur- 
 prised his wife writing a note her maid in readiness 
 to carry it. He had actually read the beginning of the 
 note. Later, he found the man hanging about the sea- 
 front, probably on the watch for the appearance of 
 Therese, with a verbal message, if not a note. His man-
 
 172 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 ner, when addressed, had been such as to confirm every 
 suspicion. 
 
 His intention of injuring Brendon grew to a fixed 
 determination. 
 
 Meanwhile, Oliver had hastened across the road and 
 entered the house, so eager to hear the verdict, that his 
 meeting with Railton, and the consequent thought that 
 Vivien was in Dormouth, receded to the background 
 of his mind. As he entered, he was conscious of winc- 
 ing from the idea that he might have to hear serious 
 news. His quick steps lagged suddenly. 
 
 Astrid, white and nervous, was standing in the wide 
 passage, fastening her gloves. 
 
 She looked up at him with an air of apology. " I 
 am very sorry," she said with embarrassment, "but 
 the doctor wants to see you." 
 
 Her voice was unsteady, he could see how the awk- 
 ward situation was mortifying her. The doctor's desire 
 to see him made him sure that there was something se- 
 rious to communicate. 
 
 The compassion for his wife which he had so con- 
 sistently refused her hitherto rushed over him. Her 
 nervousness dissipated his own. 
 
 " Cheer up," he said, more gently than she had ever 
 heard him speak, " we shall cure you, whatever it may 
 be we'll find a way." He led her into the waiting- 
 room, which was empty, and put her into an easy chair. 
 " Keep up heart," he told her kindly, " I won't be long." 
 
 He went out instantly, as though to force himself 
 to face the news which awaited him before his cour- 
 age failed. 
 
 Astrid remained, her heart full to overflowing of a 
 totally new kind of unhappiness. Hitherto, Oliver's 
 behaviour had been so unfeeling that her pride had
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 173 
 
 upheld her. She would not pity him because, she 
 told herself, he did not deserve it. But if he was going 
 to turn kind kind to the woman to whom he was so 
 wholly indifferent she thought things would become 
 unbearable. 
 
 Dr. Gordon raised his eyes as the young husband 
 entered his sanctum. 
 
 " H'm ! Ha ! Mr. Brendon, I presume. Well, 
 Mr. Brendon, I have no wish to alarm you unnecessar- 
 ily." Oliver set his lips, and the doctor checked himself 
 and hesitated. 
 
 " Please tell me straight out," said Oliver, in a low 
 voice. 
 
 " My dear sir, there is nothing in the nature of aw- 
 ful news nothing to ' break ' to you," replied the doc- 
 tor, smiling slightly. " The point is that Mrs. Bren- 
 don seems to be suffering more than is accounted for by 
 so slight a blow. Her nerves are in a state of ex- 
 tremely high tension. I put down her condition to 
 shock. She was flung down, she tells me, and also she 
 was horrified at the dog-fight. She seems to have shown 
 great pluck and promptitude in separating the dogs, 
 but I cannot resist the conclusion that what she is suf- 
 fering is not altogether the result of the accident. I 
 did not like to ask her whether she herself could account 
 for the state of her nervous system. She tells me she 
 has been married only a few weeks." 
 
 Oliver looked at the carpet. 
 
 "There is a reason," he said quietly. "My wife 
 has been through a very trying time. I need not ex- 
 plain to you more fully, but circumstances have been 
 such as might easily conduce to a nervous state. The 
 thing is that she has so much self-control that I have 
 not been aware of it."
 
 174 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 " Exactly. She has imposed even upon you. She 
 has been controlling herself at the expense of her nerv- 
 ous system. If this blow should set up neuritis in 
 the spine, she may suffer tortures. If not indiscreet, I 
 should like to know if there is reasonable probability that 
 she will be more at ease in her mind for the future ? " 
 
 There was a pause. " I think I may promise it," 
 said Oliver then. " If I had realised how much it all 
 meant to her ! But I did not know. Now that I 
 know, I will make every effort. She is not at all what 
 you call hysterical." 
 
 " No. She has too much fortitude. That is the dif- 
 ficulty. She will never let you know what she wants 
 nor why she is breaking her heart. You must find out. 
 You are the only person who can." 
 
 " Am I ? " said Oliver doubtfully. 
 
 The doctor smiled humorously. "My dear sir, she 
 has married you. I am sure that she would not have 
 done so without adoring you, as I am sure that nine 
 young women out of every ten would marry the first 
 man that asked them ! There ! Be as horrified as you 
 like at my cynicism. I have a large practice among 
 the hysterical young ladies, who come here by the dozen ! 
 I was called in yesterday to the bride of an American 
 millionaire who has just arrived. Her nerves are all 
 to pieces, because, so he tells me, she thought she had 
 treated another man badly. I told her husband he need 
 not worry. Whatever man happens to be on the spot 
 will be the man for her. Out of sight, out of mind! 
 Before she has crossed the Atlantic she will have set- 
 tled down if he is kind to her; and he seems to be in 
 love all right. But for the creature with whom you 
 have to deal, it is far otherwise. She is a woman who 
 will cling to an ideal, and stand or fall with it. I
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 175 
 
 should say her happiness is entirely in your hands." 
 
 Again Oliver did not at once reply. His brain was 
 whirling. At last " I will do all I can," he said 
 simply. " Tell me what to do." 
 
 " Let her be happy, satisfied, content. She tells me 
 that she is caravanning, and at first I was inclined to 
 stop that at once. But she seems to be enjoying it, arid 
 the weather is perfect, so I do not think I would cross 
 her if I were you. Only see that she takes no chill. 
 Here are my prescriptions, and you can get them made 
 up at Evans's, just round the corner. I shall motor out 
 to see her in two days' time, and it is possible that I 
 might recommend a warm climate if this weather should 
 break. Could you manage that \ " 
 
 " Certainly. I have not yet had my annual holiday, 
 and I can take her anywhere you think best ; or if not, 
 my mother could. She is attached to my mother." 
 
 " Excellent ! And you think there will be no re- 
 currence of the distress or strain from which she has 
 evidently suffered ? " 
 
 " I think not. I hope not. I will do all I can." 
 
 " She had better lie in the hammock for the next 
 few days," said the doctor. " I have encouraged her 
 to think that, if she does that, the chances are that she 
 will be all right the symptoms will pass off but I 
 own to you that the contrary may take place the 
 pain may increase." 
 
 "You think she is in pain?" 
 
 " Undoubtedly she is in considerable pain, and has 
 been so since the accident. If you can induce a state 
 of tranquil happiness without apprehensions, for the 
 next week, it will probably turn the scale in her favour." 
 
 " I will do my best," repeated the young man, in a 
 tone expressing a fixed determination.
 
 CHAPTEK XVII 
 
 But did one touch of such love for me 
 Come in a word or a look of yours, 
 Whose words and looks will, circling, flee 
 Round me and round while life endures, 
 Could I fancy " As I feel, thus feels He! " 
 
 EOBEET BBOWNING. 
 
 As lie emerged from the consulting-room, for the first 
 time in his life Sybil's spoilt child arranged his features 
 with the view of producing, in another person, the ef- 
 fect he desired, of comfort and good cheer. 
 
 He went into the waiting-room with a smile which 
 he bravely maintained, in face of the appeal in As- 
 trid's eyes. 
 
 " It's splendid," he assured her undauntedly. " The 
 doctor thinks you ought to be all right by the end of 
 the week, if you do what you are told. How glad I am 
 that I insisted upon your seeing him ! " 
 
 He watched the thoughts sail by behind her eyes. 
 He saw her bewilderment at his sudden access of in- 
 terest in her; embarrassment followed hard upon it: 
 and behind lay a sorrow so infinitely deep that a con- 
 viction of never being able to reach it smote him sud- 
 denly and brought a lump into his throat. 
 
 " Will you sit here," he begged, " while I take these 
 papers to the chemist ? The doctor says it's only just 
 round the corner, and I will come back for you in half 
 a minute. Here," he felt in his pocket. " I have got 
 Cawthorne's new book, it came on Saturday for re- 
 view. Amuse yourself with that for a few minutes." 
 
 176
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 177 
 
 He received a wavering smile, half gratitude, half 
 uncertainty, as he ran off with the two prescriptions. 
 
 The chemist's shop lay a little nearer the Palace 
 Hotel than Dr. Gordon's house, in a street running up 
 from the sea. As he emerged from the side door, hav- 
 ing completed his errand, and came down towards the 
 sea front, Vivien's Bath chair, and Railton in attend- 
 ance, were just crossing the road. 
 
 They met face to face. He pulled off his hat and 
 bowed, but the idea of stopping to speak did not oc- 
 cur to him. He was chiefly preoccupied with the hope 
 that Astrid would not encounter these people. His 
 keen anxiety that no untoward happenings should now 
 disturb her, rose to the surface of his thought. He 
 had a moment of hot embarrassment, but was conscious 
 of nothing like despair. 
 
 He found his wife better prepared upon his return 
 to her. She received him with composure. He led 
 her out upon the parade, and they sat down to wait for 
 the reappearance of Humphrey Spence. He talked of 
 anything that came uppermost. " I'm to call at the 
 chemist's for the stuff in ten minutes. How did you 
 like the doctor ? He says perhaps he shall send you 
 abroad, and I told him I could manage that all right. 
 I could take my holiday any time now, with a fort- 
 night to arrange things." 
 
 Astrid reddened and looked extremely uncomfortable. 
 " O, I could not spoil your holiday ! It won't be nec- 
 essary for me to go away. I am having my holiday 
 now." 
 
 He was pulled up short. The thought of all his 
 previous behaviour to this girl rushed upon his mind. 
 How could he have thought that a readjustment of the 
 wretched business could be thus easily achieved?
 
 178 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 " You would rather I did not come ? " he said bluntly, 
 or rather, muttered it, with a mighty red face and down- 
 cast eyes. 
 
 " O no, not that ! But I mean O what is the use 
 of talking ? " she faltered, swallowing tears. 
 
 Here was vexation indeed ! The very kind of agita- 
 tion which the doctor forbade was taking possession of 
 her. What could he do ? He could not say to her, " I 
 beg and implore you to be happy, and I will pretend to 
 be fond of you, so that your recovery may not be hin- 
 dered!" 
 
 He bent down to her, his arms round his knees. 
 " Astrid won't you let me do anything at all to show 
 I'm sorry I was such a brute to you the other night? 
 I didn't know what I was saying. I was at my worst. 
 I want to tell you that. I feel such a hound I am 
 ashamed to talk to you won't you make it a bit easier 
 for me ? " 
 
 He knew she was retracing in fancy the long, bitter 
 series of slights, the coldness, the neglect she had re- 
 ceived at his hands. As he thought of it now, sud- 
 denly, from her standpoint, he grew hot all over, and 
 so humiliated that he bit his lip. " Ah ! " he said, " I 
 see that's asking a great deal too much. All right. 
 I'll stand anything you choose to put on me. Only 
 we must keep up appearances while we're with these 
 folk, I suppose." 
 
 " O don't! " was all she said ; and he felt a desperate 
 consciousness of his singular failure to induce that 
 mood of tranquillity upon which her medical adviser 
 laid such stress. The hoot of Humphrey's motor put 
 a stop to the distressing conversation. Astrid was re- 
 placed upon her cushions, and they went a short run 
 out upon the cliffs at the other end of the little town to
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 179 
 
 give her the view. Then they returned, called at the 
 chemist's, took up their parcel, and sped rapidly home- 
 wards. 
 
 They got back into camp just in time for lunch. 
 Oliver now, as a matter of course, possessed himself 
 of his wife, and carried her to the hammock. 
 
 " The doctor said she might sit up to her meals," he 
 announced in triumph. " But she is to keep lying down 
 mostly, until he sees her again." 
 
 Tessa was eager to know the treatment prescribed, 
 and professed herself quite equal to all that might be 
 needed in the way of applying embrocation and ad- 
 ministering medicine. Oliver, looking upon all around 
 him with a new eye, observed for the first time the ex- 
 pression in Dan's emotional face. The big man was 
 watching the fragile Astrid as if she interested him 
 profoundly. His gaze travelled from husband to wife. 
 He was tingling to beg Brendon to tell him, in confi- 
 dence, what the doctor had said, yet feeling that he had 
 no claim to know. 
 
 Oliver, however, had determined to take Tessa partly 
 into confidence. He himself must needs depart the 
 following morning, having made no arrangements for 
 absence. He hoped to be able to come down again be- 
 fore the end of the week, but go he must. Therefore he 
 must leave a competent lieutenant behind him. 
 
 He said nothing for the present, but threw himself 
 into the talk at lunch with a vivacity and keenness which 
 surprised the Selbys. He had been monosyllabic the 
 night before. They concluded that he must have been 
 much upset by the accident, and that the doctor had 
 reassured him completely. 
 
 It was quite curious how keenly he felt the necessity 
 of averting the unfavourable developments which might
 
 180 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 arise if lie were unable to compose Astrid's mind. He 
 bent his whole intelligence upon the question. He had 
 been terribly serious in his love-making with Vivien. 
 The possibility that he had been too serious now pre- 
 sented itself for the first time. Be that as it might, 
 he had the penetration to see that all serious avenues 
 of approach between himself and his wife were closed. 
 He might go to her and say, " I repent." But that 
 would bring them no nearer. She knew, for certain, 
 that he had never loved her. The fact of his regret 
 of his remorse, if you like to call it so might sadden, 
 but it could not melt her. It only emphasised the gulf 
 between them. 
 
 But as they lunched and talked, lightly and idly, there 
 came to him a gleam of hope, a gossamer suggestion. 
 He might take refuge in frivolity. He might establish 
 some kind of fellowship by medium of the kind of chafi 
 which makes for intimacy. 
 
 In old days, in the office, he remembered how he 
 had appreciated her humorous comments upon men and 
 things. Often her keen sense had seized upon some 
 article in a paper politically opposed, had seen its weak- 
 ness, had pointed out to him a line of ironical attack. 
 Hidden behind that fortitude which the doctor had 
 spoken of, there was a store of fun, could one but get 
 at it. 
 
 He considered this silently, while talk rolled on. It 
 happened to turn upon psychical subjects, which did not 
 seem at all suitable to his purpose. They were not far 
 from the old manor farm where the Screaming Skull is 
 kept, and they were planning a visit there. Oliver was 
 amused to find how every person present took the story 
 from his or her own point of view. Martin gave it as 
 his opinion that the occult was absolutely useless for
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 181 
 
 stage purposes. The inference seemed to be that it 
 was, in consequence, of no use at all. Humphrey said, 
 calmly and definitely, that all ghost-stories were rot. 
 Tessa fell upon him tooth and nail, and told him that 
 he was hopelessly ignorant, furthermore, out-of-date; 
 and in conclusion, obscurantist: which last accusation 
 was, as Humphrey pointed out, unanswerable, because 
 nobody could understand it. Dan following, gave it as 
 his view that you needed to treat such things in fiction 
 very sparingly. One story of the occult stimulates the 
 imagination. A series is always a mistake. 
 
 " Yes," mused Astrid aloud, " one sees that. The 
 supernormal is the exceptional. If it were not ex- 
 ceptional, it would cease to be supernormal, it would 
 belong to the ordinary course of things. A book filled 
 with ghost-stories destroys the exceptional feeling. In 
 tale after tale you foresee that a ghost will appear, or 
 something uncanny is just about to happen; and one 
 knows that this is never really so: the shock of such 
 an experience lies in the fact that it is unexpected." 
 
 " That's it," said Dan at once. " Of course, you put 
 the thing in a nutshell." 
 
 Oliver again observed, with a distinct feeling of 
 gratification, the respect for his wife's opinion man- 
 ifested by the novelist. " Martin says that stories of 
 the supernormal are of no use," he said, carrying on the 
 discussion. " What do you mean by no use, Martin ? 
 I conclude you must mean of no material use: you 
 can't make money out of it. But if these things occur, 
 it is surely useful to have some theory to account for 
 them." 
 
 " Well, but what nonsense it all is," cried Humphrey. 
 " A negro servant is murdered by his master, and his 
 skull concealed in a bricked-up well. The skull screams
 
 182 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 if you attempt to carry it out of the house. How many 
 negro slaves have been murdered since the world began ? 
 If they all took to screaming you wouldn't be able to 
 hear yourself speak." 
 
 " You might as well argue," said Astrid, at once, 
 " that the systems of wireless telegraphy would make 
 such a noise that we can't hear ourselves speak. The 
 conditions under which wireless telegraphy can make 
 itself audible have to be carefully arranged. The con- 
 ditions under which the supernormal becomes evident 
 seem to us accidental ; but as we don't know at present 
 what causes join to produce such results, they may be 
 just as scientifically regular as the flashes of a light- 
 house. It is because we don't understand that we think 
 of them as random things, arbitrary, fitful, and only 
 occasional." 
 
 " Their being occasional is what makes them so 
 fascinating," cried Tessa. 
 
 " The whole thing is fascinating," went on Astrid, 
 with manifest eagerness. " Doesn't it come over us 
 all, from time to time, the feeling of how clumsy human 
 ways of communication are ? I mean, of course, speech 
 and action. You never can put into words any central 
 thing that you feel. You know that you want some 
 other medium, some way for one soul to reach another. 
 I wonder that people don't go in for it much more 
 thoroughly than they do. The wireless telegraphy seems 
 to have given the key. If you could tune two souls to 
 one another exactly, they could converse without speech, 
 I believe." 
 
 " They have found out one or two things," said Dan. 
 " For instance, the moment at which you are likely to 
 receive the sort of message which I think you have in 
 mind, is the moment when you are perfectly passive
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 183 
 
 when your mind is pursuing no special train of thought 
 when you are awake, but mentally and bodily idle. 
 That is why so many cases of apparition occur when 
 people are in bed." 
 
 " They all occur either when you're asleep or when 
 you're drunk, Dan," observed Humphrey, with a grin. 
 
 " They never occur at all, to folks who live wholly 
 on the material plane," replied Dan scornfully. 
 " Tessa, I'm sorry for you. I've said so before, and 
 I say it again. You have to spend the whole of your 
 future life with a clod a mere clod. Reconsider it 
 while there is yet time." 
 
 " There isn't time," said Humphrey serenely. " She 
 doesn't want an action for breach of promise." 
 
 " You'd have no case," cried Dan at once. " She 
 became engaged to a creature who was, judging by ap- 
 pearances, a man. She finds that he is without spiritual 
 perceptions, the thing which differentiates man from 
 the brute. She breaks it off. Quite right too." 
 
 " You don't seem to understand that I have a mission 
 to reclaim Humphrey," remonstrated Tessa. " I do 
 not flinch. I mean to open his eyes to all kinds of 
 things by degrees." 
 
 " Brendon, I appeal to you," cried Dan. " Is such 
 a marriage likely to prove happy ? Husband and wife 
 in fundamental disagreement, the only hope being the 
 lady's determination to re-make the man according to 
 her own ideas ? " 
 
 "I back Miss Selby," said Oliver lightly. :< Yes. 
 If she takes enough interest in the man she will reform 
 him." 
 
 Humphrey sat up. "Do you take an interest in 
 me, Tessa?" he asked, in the voice which he knew 
 would inspire reprisals. "Poor Tessa! A friendless
 
 184 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 orphan, brought up by a mountebank and a scribbler! 
 Never mind, love, I will atone to you for all the errors 
 of your youth ! " 
 
 " Ha ! Is scribbler your word, sirrah ? " burst in 
 Oliver. " Then Dan and I are in league at once against 
 you! The pen is mightier than the sword, and with 
 it we defend our respective friendless orphans ! I am 
 already provided with mine," he added, waving a pro- 
 prietary hand towards Astrid in the hammock. " And 
 Dan will get suited as soon as he possibly can," 
 
 " Arrah thin, it's not much that your orphan colleen 
 will need you to be defmding her " Dan dropped into 
 an overwhelming brogue " if the pen is mightier than 
 the sword, it's hersilf can wield it with the best of 
 us." 
 
 " I know," returned Oliver soberly. " That's the 
 worst of it. When our friendless orphans are so com- 
 pletely able to take care of themselves, we begin to 
 wonder what there is left for us to do ! " 
 
 "And you find, as you ought to," burst in Dan, 
 " that it is themselves that do all you simply have 
 to accept the gifts they shower on ye, and own your- 
 self an inferior being." 
 
 " Here, shut up, Dan, before you make a complete 
 fool of yourself," said Martin, really nettled. " What 
 is the use of pretending you think yourself a woman's 
 inferior when you know you don't ? " 
 
 " It all depends on the woman, doesn't it, Dan ? " 
 asked Oliver, with intentional mischief. 
 
 " It does," cut in Humphrey, before Dan could speak. 
 "We love the modest, retiring creature, whose graces 
 and virtues cry aloud to us it is to her we render 
 homage, not to the violent person elbowing her way to 
 the front "
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 185 
 
 " Ah, but as your homage is all internal, we are none 
 the better for it," cried Tessa instantly. " We modest, 
 retiring creatures go without everything, even the knowl- 
 edge of your good opinion of us! Unless we stand 
 up and shout, we are merely shoved out of the way. 
 You sit at the tablecloth we have washed, beside the 
 meal we have cooked, upon the chair we have polished, 
 in the house we keep, wearing the clothes we have 
 woven, the stockings we have darned. You watch us 
 enter from the kitchen, red and heated, carrying the 
 heavy dishes, which we humbly present to you: and 
 your eyes fill with tears of sentiment as you murmur, 
 ' How charming a thing is woman ! ' But if we come 
 to you and say, ' Dear one, I have worn out my clothes 
 in your service, I have scrubbed and cleaned and 
 washed and mended and ironed, and I want a little 
 money for a new frock,' you say, ' O fie ! Go back to 
 your kitchen, my beloved, and be content to be the ob- 
 ject of a good man's affection ! ' Isn't that the way of 
 it, Astrid ? " 
 
 " I fully expect it will be Mr. Spence's way," said 
 Astrid slyly. " I am thankful to inform you it is by 
 no means Oliver's." 
 
 " O, of course, you daren't say otherwise while your 
 tyrant is within earshot," cut in Martin. 
 
 " Then perhaps this conversation had better be con- 
 tinued to-morrow when he is out of the way," sug- 
 gested Astrid. A few hours back she could not have so 
 spoken. Something new, something approachable in 
 Brendon, had given her the cue. He had expressed a 
 desire to keep up appearances. The consciousness that 
 she was " playing up " to him gave her boldness. She 
 glanced at him to see if she was doing right, and caught 
 his eyes full upon her, alight with approval.
 
 186 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 " I advise you to keep the firm's secrets, madam," lie 
 threatened. 
 
 " O," said Tessa, collecting the plates in piles, pre- 
 paratory to the washing-up, " you can do some of that 
 wireless telegraphy which Astrid was talking about. I 
 expect she spoke from experience. You will shoot her 
 a message -' Beware ! I am with you in spirit ! ' and 
 she will not dare to say anything she would not like you 
 to hear." 
 
 " Twaddle ! " said Astrid. " I shall just hang up 
 the receiver so that no messages can come through." 
 
 " O no, don't do that ! I might want to send an 
 urgent one," replied Oliver softly. 
 
 She knew he spoke to her only. 
 
 " Mixed metaphor ! " observed Dan peevishly, get- 
 ting up abruptly. " You are confusing the telephone 
 with wireless telegraphy I didn't expect such loose 
 thought from you, Mrs. Brendon." 
 
 " You can't expect my brain to be working quite 
 well after this admixture of motors, dog-fights, and 
 doctors," said Astrid, lifting a coaxing smile to him, 
 and wondering why his sunny temper seemed suddenly 
 overclouded. 
 
 " Certainly not," came from Oliver promptly. 
 " This conversation has been unduly exciting, and the 
 medical fiat is that the patient is to be kept quiet. Go 
 away, all of you! Dan and Martin can wash up 
 Spence and Miss Selby can wander away in the golden 
 gorse, and spoon as lovers use. I shall sit by the ham\ 
 mock and read my wife to sleep." 
 
 " Spoon, indeed ! " observed Humphrey cuttingly. 
 "After the way in which my betrothed has just been 
 spreading herself out, I shall have to begin by adminis- 
 tering rebuke from the heights of my male lordship."
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 187 
 
 " All right," returned his betrothed, " that will give 
 me nice time for a nap too. I want one worse than 
 Astrid, since I was up early, breakfast-getting." 
 
 Dan said nothing. He stood, his hands locked be- 
 hind him, looking wistfully down at Astrid in the ham- 
 mock. He had had her a week to himself. He was 
 surprised at the vexation it was to see her appropriated. 
 His head was full of a new development in his novel, 
 which he was longing to pour out to her. They were, 
 in a fashion, pursuing the thread of the plot, hand in 
 hand. It hurt him that she was not available, though 
 he knew that Oliver would be gone upon the morrow. 
 
 " That's the worst of having a married woman for 
 your secretary ! You only have the remnant of sympa- 
 thy she can spare from her husband," he reflected. 
 " Why do nice women go and marry ? First Tessa, 
 who was quite well off and comfortable until Humphrey 
 came worrying and then Mrs. Brendon. O, if I had 
 but known her when she was Miss Carey! Why 
 couldn't Brendon have brought her down to stay with 
 his mother before marriage ? " 
 
 The gaze he bent upon her was so fixed and troubled 
 that she asked him whether anything was the matter. 
 He hastily denied it, and half turned away, coming 
 back to add, " Only it is so rotten your having got hurt." 
 
 " But she is to be practically well again by Satur- 
 day," cut in Oliver, " by the time I come down again. 
 If they take care of you, do you think you could man- 
 age to get mended by Friday ? " he went on, addressing 
 her directly. " I might be able to get off then."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 The devil laughed at you in his sleeve ! 
 You knew not? That I well believe; 
 Or you had saved two souls: nay, four." 
 
 ROBEBT BBOWNINQ. 
 
 seemed dreary to Oliver Brendon upon his 
 return from the moorland camp in the west. He was 
 sleeping at his club, in order to keep up, as far as 
 Thackridge was concerned, the fiction that he was with 
 his wife. For the same reason, he could not allow him- 
 self the indulgence of going to dine with his mother. 
 
 His change of feeling, between his leaving London 
 for the week-end and his return thither, was marked. 
 Two things, both of some import, had occurred during 
 those short days. He had seen his wife again, after 
 the interview which had made any future intercourse 
 seem impossible: and he had met Vivien, face to face, 
 the wife of another man. 
 
 Had he been capable of analysing his emotions justly, 
 he would have known that of the two events, the first 
 had impressed him the more. The fact of his wife's 
 accident had produced in him a revulsion of feeling. 
 It seemed very pitiful that she, who had been so in- 
 jured, so insulted by him, should be called upon to 
 suffer bodily pain also. The fact that it was his pas- 
 sion for Vivien which had caused him to use Astrid 
 with such cruelty, made him ashamed. 
 
 Poor little Vivien! The picture of her small deli- 
 cate face haunted him during his journey up in the 
 
 188
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 189 
 
 train. She had looked at him curiously, he thought 
 not as though she were surprised at his being there: 
 though, if you came to think of it, their meeting had 
 been a remarkable coincidence. She had flashed at 
 him a glance of something half reproachful, half eager, 
 which at the moment he had disregarded, but which 
 rose to his mind afterwards. 
 
 He could not think that she looked happy; yet he 
 caught himself echoing Dr. Gordon's words. She 
 would soon forget! Railton was attached to her, and 
 could give her everything she wanted. By the time 
 she had reached New York, her former lover would 
 have become a memory. 
 
 Poor little soul ! He thought of her with a stirring 
 of the old rush of tenderness. Little Vivi, who had 
 opened up to him a new side of life who had caused 
 him to let himself go ! 
 
 There is no doubt at all that, having once let one- 
 self go, the re-coiling of the released spring, and its re- 
 fitting into its former socket, is a painful business. 
 
 As he entered his office on Wednesday morning it was 
 not, however, of Vivien that he thought. 
 
 Tessa, taken into his confidence respecting the neces- 
 sity of tranquil happiness for Astrid, had eagerly 
 promised to secure it as far as Dan and she were able. 
 Moreover, she had volunteered to write him a full and 
 true account of the doctor's report, after his next visit ; 
 and the said report was due this morning. 
 
 A pile of letters awaited him as usual. On the top 
 were three, all from ladies, and all bearing the Dor- 
 mouth postmark. The uppermost was addressed in 
 the straggling, childish hand he had learned to know so 
 well and to await so impatiently all last winter. 
 
 He turned scarlet, and raised his eyes to make sure
 
 190 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 of being alone. Why should Vivien write to him? 
 What was there to be said ? There could be no doubt 
 that her marriage should have put an end to all cor- 
 respondence between them. He held it with mingled 
 fondness and distaste. As he held it, his eye fell upon 
 the next letter in the firm, cultivated hand which he 
 had so prized when it belonged to his irreproachable 
 secretary. He opened that first. 
 
 It was very brief, but assured him that she no longer 
 felt pain, and was getting well fast. " I shall be 
 mended by Friday," was a phrase which gave him 
 pleasure. 
 
 Turning to Tessa, he found that she confirmed the 
 cheering account. The doctor had found his patient 
 much better than he had expected. There was per- 
 ceptibly less tension of the nerves, more ease, both of 
 mind and body. He was to see her again on Friday 
 morning. The weather continued ideal, and Astrid 
 was eating and sleeping better than before her ac- 
 cident. 
 
 He leaned back with a sigh of relief. Somewhat in 
 the same manner might one who had well-nigh killed 
 a man in a fit of mad rage, hear the news that his vic- 
 tim was out of danger, and that he would not have 
 the sin of murder on his soul. The sun, pouring in 
 through the high, smeared window of his room, instead 
 of being an annoyance, now seemed sympathetic. If 
 it was too hot to be pleasant here in London, at 
 least it was making summer for the poor girl down 
 there. 
 
 He continued to turn over his letters. One from his 
 " boss " he opened with misgiving. It merely asked 
 him to keep free from appointments between eleven 
 and twelve, as Mr. Marsh proposed coming to see him.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 191 
 
 His brow puckered. Marsh was up to something. 
 Was it something to which he would be unable to con- 
 sent ? With a shrug he touched his bell, and gave or- 
 ders that nobody but Mr. Marsh was to be admitted till 
 after twelve. 
 
 When the new secretary whom he disliked had 
 disappeared and definitely closed the door, he picked up 
 Vivien's envelope and opened it with a feeling half 
 eagerness, half shame. 
 
 " Oh Oliver, you are punishing me ! It was bad 
 enough to come down the hotel stairs, and find you 
 sitting there below me in the hall, when you had never 
 given me the least little hint that you meant to come ! 
 But it was cruel of you to disappear again without 
 speaking one word, or sending one line. 
 
 " I am tormenting myself, wondering what hap- 
 pened. Of course, Calvert thinks I knew you were 
 coming. I am certain he does, though he has not 
 said one word. I cannot help believing that he 
 found some chance to speak to you, and tell you to 
 go away. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I know it was best for you to go. But 
 why did you come? If you knew how desolate I 
 feel, how home-sick! Do, dear Oliver, send me one 
 word, only to say you have forgiven me, and wish 
 me well. Send it to the Post Ofiice, Therese will 
 fetch it. 
 
 N. B. Calvert is going to town on Wednesday, 
 for the day. If you get this in time (I have only 
 just found out he is going) you might perhaps 
 run down here, if only for half an hour, to forgive 
 me, and say good-bye. 
 
 " But I expect you had better not. He is sure to
 
 192 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 get to hear of it. I believe lie tips the hotel servants 
 to spy. If you should be coming, telegraph to the 
 Post Office, and I will meet you on the Parade, so 
 that you need not be seen at the hotel at all. 
 " I doubt if I shall ever be happy again. 
 
 " Your foolish 
 
 " VIVIEN." 
 
 A kind of despair came to Oliver as he read this 
 effusion. Flinging it on the table, he thrust down his 
 hands deep in his pockets, rose, and stared at the win- 
 dows of the opposite house. What madness ! And yet 
 he could see how it seemed to her ! She must have seen 
 him sitting at the table in the lounge at the Palace 
 Hotel while he was waiting to learn the doctor's ad- 
 dress. She had seen him, and had jumped to the same 
 conclusion as Railton that he must be in Dormouth 
 in pursuit of her! She had not seen the motor, nor 
 Astrid. Neither had Railton: and Oliver remembered 
 that he had said nothing that could enlighten him. 
 
 The grim jests of coincidence! It was really laugh- 
 able, if you came to think of it. 
 
 The point for him was, how to deal with the child- 
 ish letter ? He was full of pity, but in this mood Mrs. 
 Railton must not be pitied, nor petted. His first im- 
 pulse was to leave her appeal unanswered. But he 
 reflected that he could not well do this; for if no an- 
 swer came, she might conclude that he had not received 
 the letter : and further trouble would most likely ensue. 
 It was better to write, and in such a manner as to 
 preclude all chance of her desiring to continue the cor- 
 respondence. It was brutal, but it would probably ef- 
 fect a cure. 
 
 He sat down, seized a sheet of paper, and wrote
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 193 
 
 " DEAR MRS. RAILTON, 
 
 " Your letter has surprised me. In justice to 
 myself, I send a line in reply to explain my pres- 
 ence in Dormouth last Sunday. Let me assure you 
 that my intrusion upon your honeymoon was quite 
 unwitting. I had no idea you were staying in Dor- 
 mouth. 
 
 " I came to bring my wife to see a doctor. We 
 were staying about fifteen miles off, for the week- 
 end, and on Saturday afternoon Mrs. Brendon had a 
 slight accident. I went into the Palace Hotel for 
 about five minutes, to ascertain the doctor's address. 
 When Mr. Railton spoke to me, I was standing out- 
 side the doctor's house, waiting for my wife to rejoin 
 me. 
 
 " With my good wishes for your happiness, 
 " I remain, truly yours, 
 
 " OLIVER BRENDON." 
 
 He addressed the letter to the Palace Hotel: and, 
 after some moments' thought, put Vivien's letter to 
 himself in his own private portion of the safe, and 
 turned the key upon it. 
 
 After this, he settled down to the business of the 
 morning, with a determination that all should be done 
 in good time, so as to leave no doubt of his being able to 
 get off by Friday. 
 
 He had not much leisure for work, however. At 
 eleven o'clock exactly, Mr. Marsh walked into his room, 
 took off his hat, and drew up his chair as if for a long 
 talk. 
 
 Somehow, before he began, the young editor was 
 aware that what he had to say was something final. He 
 was palpably nervous. He faltered, chose his words
 
 194 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 carefully, alluded to his own age, to the uncertainties of 
 newspaper ownership, and the continual competition 
 and cutting of prices. At first Oliver thought it might 
 be merely a large reduction of his own salary, and be- 
 gan to calculate how much he could stand without re- 
 signing. But before long he was undeceived. The 
 murder was out. Marsh had sold the Penman. 
 
 " I must make myself perfectly clear, Mr. Brendon. 
 I believe, I may say I am sure, that the transfer of 
 ownership will make no difference to you. No differ- 
 ence at all, I may assure you. The purchaser author- 
 ises me to say that he trusts you will remain editor, and 
 conduct the paper on its present admirable lines " 
 
 " Without change of policy ? " 
 
 " I should say, its present lines as far as relates to 
 the various departments advertising, art, literature, 
 the Drama I think I may say no paper can beat us 
 in our reviewing. As regards the tone of the leading 
 articles, the purchaser has acquired the paper only on 
 condition that he possesses complete control." He 
 looked down at the table, and his own two pudgy hands 
 folded upon the blotter, as though lamenting that they 
 had let go what they held. " Complete control ! 
 There may be some alterations in policy," he concluded, 
 with a sigh. " On the reciprocity question, and so on. 
 But nothing that need entail any sacrifice of principle 
 on your part, Brendon. Nothing." 
 
 Oliver settled himself well back in the editorial chair. 
 
 " I conclude that the name of the purchaser is not a 
 secret ? " 
 
 " Oh no, dear me, no. Not at all. Why should it 
 be a secret ? It is a name I am proud to mention. As 
 you have known, my sympathies have always been with 
 that great and progressive country, the United States.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 195 
 
 The purchaser is the great newspaper proprietor, Cal- 
 vert Railton." 
 
 Oliver sat quite still. Up to this moment he had 
 had hopes. He might be able to influence a new owner 
 as he had undoubtedly influenced Marsh. It might 
 have been possible for him to hold his post, in spite of 
 the change. 
 
 But Calvert Eailton! His mouth curved in a bit- 
 ter smile: Railton was master, and had commissioned 
 Marsh to tell him he hoped that he would remain 
 editor, the new owner reserving complete control! 
 
 " So you have sold an English newspaper of high po- 
 sition to a foreigner ? " he asked quietly. 
 
 "Foreigner! O, come, come, Brandon! That's no 
 way to talk if you want to stay where you are ! The 
 Americans are not foreigners." 
 
 Oliver cleared his throat, for his mouth had grown 
 suddenly dry. 
 
 " There are reasons, other than political, why I can- 
 not possibly edit any paper owned by Railton," he said. 
 " When does the Penman change hands ? " 
 
 Marsh looked a little crestfallen. " You don't mean 
 that you will resign ? " he stammered. 
 
 Brendon smiled. " You don't mean that you didn't 
 expect it ? " 
 
 " I didn't ! I give you my word ! Reconsider it ! 
 You're young and hot-headed ! Reconsider it ! I dare 
 say he would raise your screw if you demanded it. He 
 won't find you easy to replace." 
 
 This time Brendon laughed out. " He has no doubt 
 a Yankee up his sleeve a smart young man wait- 
 ing impatiently to come over here, to ' speed up ' and 
 ' brighten ' the paper. In a few months he will be giv- 
 jng us columns with big headings ' Three great ac-
 
 196 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 tresses give their views on Divorce,' and so on. Well, 
 Mr. Marsh, you will, of course, see in my regret only 
 the natural mortification of the man chucked out of his 
 berth ; but I must express it nevertheless. I am sorry ; 
 and I am disappointed. The Penman was doing a good 
 work, and on the way to do a better. However, it was 
 yours and you had the right to throw it away." 
 
 Marsh did not speak for a minute or two. " I'm 
 sorry you take it like this," he said at last. His tone 
 was resentful. 
 
 " I will say no more, sir, and I apologise if I have 
 said anything unfitting. You won't expect me to give 
 up the work to which I have devoted myself so com- 
 pletely, without a regret, will you ? " 
 
 " Brendon, this thing can be arranged. Railton isn't 
 going to play the goat. If he had wanted an out-and- 
 out Yankee organ, do you suppose he would have 
 bought the Penman ? Why, his public would disappear 
 in three months ! He's too good a man of business to 
 be monkeying with a paper that way! Stay for six 
 months and try how you get on ! " 
 
 Oliver shook his head. Suddenly he leaned his arms 
 upon the table and said hurriedly: 
 
 " This thing is actually completed, is it ? Or is 
 there still a loophole ? If you are set upon selling the 
 paper, it is quite possible that my mother and I be- 
 tween us might acquire it, to save it from the degrada- 
 tion " 
 
 Marsh broke in with a wave of the pudgy hand. 
 " Useless, my dear Brendon : quite useless. The 
 thing is done. Mr. Railton had no time to waste. He 
 is leaving for New York almost immediately, and it 
 had to be arranged. If you resign at once, I fear it 
 will leave him awkwardly placed."
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 197 
 
 " That is his look out," said Oliver grimly. 
 
 ' You know, Brendon, you are quite a young man 
 You must let me speak ! As far as your opinion 
 of Railton goes, you are under a misapprehension. He 
 has a high standing. His firm bears as good a name as 
 any in the States. You would like him, and he would 
 like you " 
 
 Oliver turned a set jaw and blazing eyes upon the 
 late proprietor. 
 
 " If you want to know what Railton is I can tell yot* ' 
 in one word. He is a skunk. If he had had the feel- 
 ings of a man of honour, as we in England understand 
 the word, he would have done anything, foregone any- 
 thing, sooner than injure me again." 
 
 "Again!" 
 
 " Yes. He has done it once. He and I are enemies. 
 He has bought this paper with the deliberate intention 
 of ruining me." 
 
 Marsh, who had grown red, and started, as he heard 
 the first part of the accusation, now protested. " You 
 are altogether wrong, Brendon. Mr. Railton has been 
 trying to buy the Penman for nearly two years past. 
 He made me an offer last summer, which I declined. 
 He made me another some weeks ago, and then with- 
 drew it, I don't quite know why. He telegraphed his 
 final offer only two days back." 
 
 " Offering you more than the paper is worth more 
 than you are likely to get from anybody but a man 
 rich enough to pay for the satisfaction of a private 
 grudge ! . . . Ah, well, it is done." Leaning back, the 
 young editor flung his pen down upon the table as if 
 thereby renouncing all claim to authority over the Pen- 
 man. " No words of mine can undo it ! And now my 
 explosion is over, and we will come to business. I
 
 198 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 forget what are the exact terms of the contract between 
 yourself and me. I have an idea that it becomes void 
 upon your parting with the paper. I fancy you bound 
 yourself not to sell under three years; and we have 
 been together more than five years, sir! Therefore, I 
 suppose that I am free to walk out of this office to-day, 
 and not return. But if it be otherwise if I am in 
 any sort bound to give due term of notice to any new 
 owner, then I break my contract deliberately, and 
 leave Mr. Railton to seek his remedy in the Law 
 Courts." 
 
 Mr. Marsh stared. " You mean that you won't even 
 stay to bring out this number ? " 
 
 " This week's number is complete, all but the lead- 
 ers. I can write those from home, and will send them 
 in by Thursday night, as usual. I will not enter any 
 office that is owned by Calvert Railton." 
 
 Apparently Mr. Marsh was moved disconcerted. 
 " I wish I had know of this," he stammered. " I had 
 no idea there was anything personal between you " 
 
 " Had you taken me into your confidence, I could 
 have enlightened you," responded Brendon drily. 
 " But I do not think you would have hesitated to sell 
 at a fancy price, merely because I do not like the man 
 who buys. I have no right to resent your having done 
 this behind my back, though I may be allowed to own 
 that it has hurt me. I suppose we are all apt to set too 
 high a value upon our own services. But I believe I 
 may say, without vanity, that you owe the fact that the 
 paper to-day is a property well worth buying, in some 
 degree to myself." 
 
 " I grant it I grant that," said Marsh eagerly. 
 " I give you my word, Brendon, no thought of turning 
 you out ever entered my head. And I still contend that
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 199 
 
 you are mistaken. Railton spoke to me in the most 
 explicit way about hoping that you would stay by the 
 paper " 
 
 " He could afford to do that. He knew I could not 
 stay and keep an ounce of self-respect. Well ! I must 
 lose no time in looking out for a job. It is awkward 
 to have to do so without notice; but it must be done. 
 I suppose I may rely upon you to say something kind 
 about me, if I should be lucky enough to find anything 
 suitable ? " 
 
 " Tut, tut ! " said Marsh, in a bewildered way, look- 
 ing appealingly at his late editor. 
 
 The office boy knocked at the door. " Mr. Railton 
 wishes to know if he may come in, sir ? " 
 
 There was a moment's pause. Then Oliver said 
 quietly : 
 
 " By all means, show Mr. Railton in." 
 
 Calvert entered, with an air of quiet benevolence. 
 " Well, Mr. Brendon, I hope I see you well all the 
 better for your week-end at Dormouth, no doubt? So 
 it seems you and I are to be more closely associated in 
 the future eh?" 
 
 Oliver turned from his extended hand as though he 
 did not see it, and took down his straw hat from its 
 
 Peg- 
 
 " Mr. Marsh has informed me that you have acquired 
 
 the paper," he said temperately. " If you are leaving 
 London this evening, you will have much to arrange. 
 I will leave you together." 
 
 "Leave us together?" He fancied that for a mo- 
 ment Railton was genuinely taken aback. " It seems 
 to me that we shall find it difficult to arrange anything 
 without you, Mr. Brendon." 
 
 " 0, I think you underrate your business capacity,
 
 200 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 Mr. Railton. But in any case, I fear you must do with- 
 out me. My connection with the paper has ceased." 
 
 " Since when, if I may ask ? " 
 
 " Since you acquired it, naturally." 
 
 Railton sat down and passed his stumpy, carefully 
 manicured hand under his moustache. " You say 
 naturally" he remarked thoughtfully. " Well, there 
 is something to be said for your view. But I think 
 there must be some agreement which will interfere with 
 your plan for leaving us completely in the lurch ? " 
 
 " I am not sure about that. If there is, you have 
 your remedy. You can sue me for breach of con- 
 tract." 
 
 Railton looked steadily at him, with a movement of 
 dislike and enmity which surprised himself. Oliver 
 looked so handsome, with his jaw set and his eyes glow- 
 ing so handsome and so dangerous, that his heart 
 was filled with black envy. He removed his gaze from 
 the tall, alert figure, and dropped his eyes to the table. 
 They fell upon an envelope addressed to Ms wife. 
 
 " By the way," said Oliver, approaching the table, 
 and pushing the envelope towards Vivien's husband, 
 with two fingers. " I heard from your wife this morn- 
 ing, and that is my answer. Perhaps I may ask you to 
 take it to her, if you are going down to Dormouth to- 
 night?" 
 
 For a moment Railton lost command. " Damn you, 
 sir, you heard from my wife this morning ? " 
 
 Marsh rose hastily, for the two men stood confront- 
 ing one another like two dogs about to spring. 
 
 Oliver smiled slowly at the other man's agitation. 
 " I'll give you one word of advice before we part 
 send away your wife's maid," he said blandly. " Well, 
 good day to you."
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 201 
 
 He walked to the door. Eailton, darkly flushed, 
 made a movement to follow. Marsh, trembling with 
 fear lest there should be a row that might get into the 
 papers, laid a desperate hand upon his arm, clutching 
 it firmly. He could see in fancy the headlines before 
 him. 
 
 EDITOR AND MILLIONAIRE 
 AFFRAY IN A NEWSPAPER OFFICE 
 
 As the door closed on Oliver he panted with relief. 
 
 " Good heavens, Mr. Railton, I never knew there was 
 anything personal in your desire to buy the paper," he 
 gasped out. " I don't think I should have done it I A 
 fine young fellow ! Just married too ! Cast out with- 
 out a penny ! " 
 
 " It serves him right," said Railton, suddenly pale, 
 as he put the letter to Vivien into his pocket.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 But certain points, left wholly to himself, 
 When once a man has arbitrated on, 
 We say he must succeed there, or go hang. 
 Thus, he should wed the woman he loves most 
 Or needs most, whatsoe'er the love or need 
 For he can't wed twice. ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 ONCE out in the street, the fumes of anger, passing 
 by, left Oliver a prey to deep despondency. 
 
 Not for a moment did he regret the stand he had 
 taken. Were all to do over again, he would still have 
 shaken the dust of his beloved Penman from off his feet, 
 and fared forth into the world to begin life anew. 
 
 But one does not sever a limb, however inevitable 
 the operation, without pain nor without regret. 
 
 It had been his happy lot not only to enjoy the most 
 congenial of home lives, but also a rare thing in this 
 world to be able to earn his living by working at the 
 thing he liked best. 
 
 The power of discrimination, of selection the art 
 of putting things the delightful knowledge that he 
 was one of those who count in the formation of public 
 opinion that he had a rostrum and an attentive and 
 growing audience: all this had combined to please and 
 satisfy him. And now the gods, not content with spoil- 
 ing his home life, must take from him income and posi- 
 tion at one dire blow. 
 
 He was just a journalist now, like any other of his 
 kind. The men who had been so polite, so cordial 
 who had deferred so eagerly to his opinion at the Club 
 
 202
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 203 
 
 had come hat in hand to visit him in his editorial 
 sanctum these were his mates, his equals to-day. 
 He was down again in the crowd, to be hustled and 
 pushed and most likely rejected. 
 
 As he went out of the room where he had spent such 
 varied hours, the last object upon which his eye fell had 
 been a pile of Continental time-tables, which he had 
 procured that morning as he went to work, with the 
 idea of thinking out a tour for his mother, himself, and 
 Astrid. He had decided that Sybil must be of the 
 party. His wife and he were not yet capable of sup- 
 porting each other's unmixed society. He had got as 
 far as to say " not yet," however ! 
 
 The design upon the cover of the Belgian State Rail- 
 ways time-table dwelt in his memory as he walked ; and 
 there came to him with a pang the knowledge that, 
 workless though he was, he could take no holiday now. 
 He must try and " get in " somewhere before he thought 
 of foreign tours. 
 
 This brought him right up against the consideration 
 of how this reverse of fortune was likely to affect his 
 marriage. Oddly enough, he found himself wondering 
 what would have happened, supposing he had actually 
 done what he so nearly did, supposing he had eloped 
 with Vivien ? 
 
 Railton would have struck, as he had struck now 
 and Oliver would have been almost a beggar. After 
 reading the letter he had received that morning, he 
 knew how easily Vivien could have been persuaded. 
 
 He was thankful to have been spared that. 
 
 As he walked, more or less aimlessly, he was seized 
 with the idea that he would take the train down to 
 the west, and surprise Astrid, before Friday. Then 
 there flashed upon his mind the disturbing thought that
 
 204 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 she must hear nothing that would agitate or distress 
 her. He could not hasten to her with the story of his 
 troubles. Was it possible that he had desired to do so ? 
 
 Suddenly his mind was filled with the question as to 
 how he could keep the news from her. She was an 
 industrious newspaper reader, as becomes a practical 
 journalist; and would certainly come upon it when it 
 was made public, as it would be in a day or two. Some- 
 how or other he must communicate with Tessa, and get 
 her to see that such a calamity did not occur. He hur- 
 ried to his club in order to write a letter to Miss Selby. 
 It would not seem odd that he should write, since he 
 had to thank her for sending him the doctor's report. 
 He sat down and wrote hastily, telling her the bare 
 fact, not mentioning Railton's name simply that the 
 paper had changed hands, that he was no longer editor 
 that the thing must inevitably be announced, and 
 that Astrid was not to see it. He would break the news 
 at his own time, in his own. way. At all costs her re- 
 covery must not be retarded. He said nothing of his 
 own coming. He had not had time to think that out. 
 
 Presently, glancing at the clock, he perceived that it 
 was late. He went into the dining-room, lunched, and 
 sat down to smoke and reconsider his position. With 
 the exception of the two Marshes, father and son, he 
 had no personal friends in a position to help him. Pro- 
 fessionally, of course, he knew most of the journalistic 
 authorities. 
 
 Hitherto, however, the fact of his comfortable home, 
 and the congenial circle of personal friends among 
 whom he moved, had rendered him independent, so- 
 cially, of the men with whom he mixed professionally. 
 In his sudden reverse of fortune, he feiew this was a 
 bad thing. He had no reason to suppose himself un-
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 205 
 
 popular ; but be could think of nobody of wbom he cared 
 to ask a favour. 
 
 Not only are editorships few in number, but even 
 among such his own range was severely limited. He 
 would not care to edit any paper that was not literary. 
 In politics, too, he was antiquated enough to suppose 
 that the editor should be in sympathy with the views of 
 the paper he ran. 
 
 That he should again become an editor seemed, then, 
 out of the question. The point to consider was, what 
 could he do instead ? 
 
 Somehow, the thing did not seem real. The Penman 
 office had stood to him for so large a portion of his life, 
 that to be cut off from it in one stroke was hardly con- 
 ceivable. 
 
 He recalled the days, before his engagement to 
 Vivien, when he was wont to see, at her little table in 
 the corner of his office, the diligent bent head and busy 
 fingers of the secretary who was never in the way. He 
 recalled her gravity, her flashes of fun, her eager inter- 
 est in anything that concerned the fortunes of the paper, 
 her faculty for knowing the thing he wanted before he 
 asked for it. 
 
 His work had never seemed the same since her de- 
 parture. Until now he had, however, attributed this 
 fact, which was so evident, to a very different came. 
 He had thought that all the world looked black because 
 of his defeated love, his fiasco marriage, his own per- 
 sonal deterioration. Now he could no longer disguise 
 from himself how much it would have meant to him 
 to Me able to tell her, as he might have done in the old 
 days, without self-consciousness or embarrassment, of 
 the blow which had been dealt him, the bewildering 
 sense of bereavement which he was undergoing. He
 
 206 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 had an idea that she might have been able to suggest 
 something. She had always been able to suggest some- 
 thing. 
 
 Well! He must on no account confide in her just 
 now now when all depended upon her content. But 
 there was one person to whom he could go the mother 
 whom he had neglected, insulted, left outside the door 
 of his miserable heart. She would not blame, in any 
 case. She would help if she could, she would comfort, 
 without a doubt. 
 
 In the late afternoon he sallied forth and took train 
 for Thackridge. 
 
 It was a day to melt the heart in ecstasy. Two days 
 more and the world would burst into the full glory of 
 June. The grass was already deep in the meadows that 
 sloped away from the Abbot's House, down across the 
 valley to the distant ridge upon which passed the Great 
 North Road, blaring with motors and electric trams. 
 
 The beauty of her garden, the quiet and the song 
 of the birds, had induced in Sybil a fatal softness of 
 heart, that sense of something unbearable in the sur- 
 rounding beauty of the world which we all feel, now and 
 then, even at fifty. 
 
 The absolute solitude of her life was crushing her. 
 In one little hour she had lost her lifelong companion, 
 the young man who had been, as Walter Waring truly 
 said, her idol. Now she sat alone. Whether he turned 
 to his wife, whether he went astray after his early love, 
 or whether he sank lower yet, Oliver would never come 
 back to his mother any more. 
 
 Her ruin had been wrought as her son's had been 
 that day, if only she had known in one unforeseen 
 hour. Her heart lay empty, her love unclaimed: and
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 207 
 
 she felt rebellious and altogether miserable, for some- 
 how, at fifty, one cannot feel that life is quite over. 
 She was still full of health and activity, longing for 
 the kind of happiness which until lately she had always 
 known the delight of sharing in a man's interests, of 
 caring for him, helping him, loving him. 
 
 It was over. Had it happened naturally, happily 
 had she been able to transfer her hopes from Oliver to 
 Oliver's future son, she could have borne the physical 
 absence of the beloved. Gradually her point of interest 
 would have travelled on. This rupture, sharp and 
 fierce, was something different. Her son had done 
 worse than leave her. He had disappointed her. He 
 had cast upon her the reflected shame of his own deed. 
 He had made her feel that the woman whose son could 
 so act must have been a bad mother. 
 
 Humiliation is always worse to bear than sorrow. 
 
 That beautiful afternoon her thoughts were unusually 
 painful. Oliver had always sympathised in her garden- 
 ing interests, and this was the first year that she had 
 succeeded in arranging her succession border to the very 
 day, so that a new glory of bloom was born as soon as 
 the former passed away. 
 
 The thought that Oliver neither knew nor cared had 
 completely upset a calm which had lasted for three 
 days. She gave way to such weeping as made her feel 
 ashamed of herself. When Drew brought out the tea 
 she escaped down the garden walk, and stooping as 
 though to fasten a broken flower, escaped notice. Half 
 an hour later, Walter Waring, walking unexpectedly 
 through the drawing-room window, found her with tale- 
 tell eyelids. 
 
 He did not at once comment upon them: for his 
 Aberdeen, trotting at his heels, had his usual snarling
 
 208 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 encounter with the toy spaniel, and the two owners had 
 to patch up the quarrel, and assure the two dogs that 
 they were neither rivals nor enemies, but the best of 
 friends. 
 
 This accomplished, and fresh tea brought, the Colonel 
 drank with appreciation. Afterwards, leaning back in 
 his desk chair, he laid one of his muscular hands over 
 hers, and said firmly: 
 
 " Darling, this can't go on." 
 
 She did not pretend to ignore his meaning. She 
 raised her heavy lids with a wan smile. " It must go 
 on, Walter. By degrees I shall get used to it." 
 
 " I never shall, which is the important point." 
 
 She looked at him wistfully. 
 
 " Sybil," he said, " it is now or never. There is no 
 need to go over the thing again. I have waited pa- 
 tiently for this moment for the moment when you 
 shouljd, as I knew you must lose Oliver. If you 
 don't marry me now, I know you never will. But I 
 feel pretty sure that you had better. A woman with 
 a heart like yours was never meant to live alone. O, 
 my dear" leaning towards her, he possessed himself 
 of her hand, holding it in both his own " you might 
 make me so happy : and he does not want you now." 
 
 She made no answer, and he spoke once more, gently 
 but resolutely : " I have been patient. Now at last, 
 this is the end. If you say No to me this afternoon, 
 I shall not ask you again; and I shall leave Thack- 
 ridge." 
 
 " O, Walter, isn't that putting unfair pressure on 
 me ? What will become of me if you go away ? " 
 
 " I know what will become of me, if I do. I shall 
 be an old man, a downright old man, in a few weeks. 
 Whereas, if I may be with you always, I feel as if I
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 209 
 
 shall never know the meaning of old age, nor of weari- 
 ness of life. Don't you care about me at all. 
 Sybil?" 
 
 " I do. But I hardly know how much," she an- 
 swered, in broken tones. " I did not want you as long 
 as I had him. It seems, somehow, insulting to you, 
 to be ready to marry you now that I am left alone." 
 
 "Tut, tut!" said he fondly. "If I am con- 
 tent " He broke off, thinking for a moment, then 
 
 resumed " Sybil, I know all about you. I have 
 known you almost ever since your widowhood. I have 
 loved you all the time. You have always been kind to 
 me, have seemed to value my friendship, and to have 
 forgiven the fact that I made a grave mistake in the 
 early days by asking you to be my wife too soon. Now 
 it is almost too late. If quite, then I have made my 
 second and last mistake, my dear." 
 
 All in a moment she knew what the comfort of him 
 would be. A true, kind soul, to fill the emptiness of 
 her days one who understood her, and would never 
 be intrusive nor tiresome. 
 
 " O, Walter, can you be content with such a grudging 
 capitulation ! To have me take you because I have no- 
 body else in all the world to care about me ? " 
 
 " So long as you take me at all, darling You will ? 
 O, God bless you, I hardly dared to hope it ! " 
 
 He snatched her hands, and bent his fine head above 
 them, kissing them like a boy: and as he did so, Sybil 
 looked up, and saw her only son standing in the open 
 window. 
 
 She gave a little gasp. " O, Walter! There is 
 Oliver ! " She sprang to her feet. Her comely face 
 was still deeply coloured, her lips quivered with an 
 emotion half pain half pleasure. She hastened towards
 
 210 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 her son, who stood irresolute, then came forward to 
 meet her. 
 
 " Mother ! " he said " does this mean " 
 
 The Colonel answered for her. " Yes, Oliver, it 
 does. Your mother is to be my wife. I expect you 
 know I have always worshipped the ground she walked 
 on." 
 
 "I I suppose I did," said Oliver, a little hur- 
 riedly, hardly knowing how to take this news. " I 
 hope I should say why, I believe I must wait till 
 I have got my breath. This is so sudden, you see ! " 
 
 The sound of his voice, the look in his eyes caused 
 a throb of the mother's heart This was surely her 
 own Oliver, the real Oliver, her son and darling, come 
 back! Was the mocking fiend exorcised? If so, how, 
 and by whom? Had she been just five minutes too 
 soon ? Ought she to have waited yet longer ? Oh, she 
 might have known that he would come back that the 
 devil would be driven out of him! . . . Had she hurt 
 him, done something he could not pardon ? She trem- 
 bled at the thought, coming near to him with beseeching 
 eyes. A couple of months back she would have clung 
 to him, but now she doubted: and Oliver, with the re- 
 membrance of his own atrocious behaviour behind him, 
 was terribly shy. 
 
 "Yes, yes, our affairs will wait," breathed the 
 mother. " Come and sit down, Ollie ; have some tea ! 
 Is Astrid with you ? How have you found time to come 
 down and see me ? " 
 
 " Oh no, Astrid is not here. You have heard about 
 her accident? I have only run down just for a peep 
 at you," he replied at once. He spoke soothingly, for 
 suddenly it dawned upon him that his mother was ter- 
 ribly agitated and unlike herself. There was an appeal
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 211 
 
 in her look, as though she feared his displeasure, an 
 anxiety, a wistfulness, which struck him as infinitely 
 pathetic. 
 
 " I have been such an unexampled brute," he said 
 to himself, " she thinks that I am going to be angry with 
 her to raise objections. That would come with a 
 good grace from me after my own behaviour. I sup- 
 pose Astrid told you about her accident?" he added 
 aloud. 
 
 Sybil paused in the act of pouring out his cup of tea. 
 " She did mention having been knocked down by a 
 motor, but made very light of it. Surely she was not 
 seriously hurt ? " 
 
 " ~N no. But she had a pain in her back, and I 
 insisted upon her seeing a doctor. He hopes she will 
 be all right in a few days, but told me that she had had 
 a nervous shock, and ought to be taken great care of." 
 
 He spoke with his eyes upon the grass, munching a' 
 sandwich, and holding his teacup in his hand. He 
 made his voice as calm as he could. 
 
 " Tell us all about it," said the Colonel. " I have 
 heard nothing of this accident. To be knocked down 
 by a motor sounds alarming." 
 
 " It seems to have been going dead slow. She was 
 in the middle of the road, trying to choke that beastly 
 Irish terrier of Selby's off another dog, whom he had by 
 the throat. She actually did so, with the greatest 
 pluck, but was so absorbed that she did not hear the 
 motor hoot." 
 
 They went on pressing him for details, and he told 
 as much as he thought prudent, avoiding, however, all 
 mention of the word " Dormouth." 
 
 He described how he had come along the road just 
 after the accident, and found his wife sitting, half
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 faint, upon the step of the car ; and how concerned the 
 owner had been. " He is a Mr. Wolfe, a wealthy 
 bachelor who lives about twenty miles off. He has 
 twice been to inquire since, so they tell me." 
 
 " And I suppose you will be going down at the week- 
 end ?" said Sybil. 
 
 " I shall if I can get away. But I don't feel posi- 
 tively certain. I am very busy this week." 
 
 He hardly knew what he replied, for all the while 
 he talked his mind was working busily. His mother 
 was contemplating re-marriage. What difference would 
 this make to him ? 
 
 The allowance she had made him, since his Oxford 
 days, had been discontinued since he acquired his editor- 
 ship, on the understanding that the amount represented 
 what he now desired to contribute towards the house- 
 keeping. Instead of his mother paying him his allow- 
 ance, and his repaying it in the form of board-money, 
 it had been simpler to let it lapse. Mrs. Brendon had 
 complete control, for life, of his father's money. He 
 was not penniless. He had never lived up to his in- 
 come, and had some hundreds invested in one thing and 
 another. There was enough to keep him for a while, 
 but considered as the basis of an income the amount 
 was negligible. He had rested upon the thought that 
 his mother's house was open to his wife and himself 
 until they could make further plans. Now she was to 
 be married, and it was not to be supposed that the Col- 
 onel would see any reason for delay. She might not 
 feel able to continue his allowance she would cer- 
 tainly not want to have him and his wife quartered upon 
 her during the first few months of her new married life. 
 
 His eyes fell upon the face of Walter Waring, alight 
 with a joy, a fervour which seemed a little surprising.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 213 
 
 Oliver was still young enough to feel fifty to be the 
 bourne of all things. To begin life again at fifty ! It 
 sounded dreary. Yet the faces of the two people be- 
 side him wore the reflection of an ageless emotion. 
 
 With a pang, half jealous, half envious, he felt that 
 he could not select this moment to break to his mother 
 news so distressing as his loss of employment. He 
 knew her devotion to him. It was shown in every 
 look, every movement. The Colonel meant much to 
 her, but he was not Oliver, her only son. In the light 
 of their hopefulness, hope came to Oliver. It was, 
 after all, just possible that he might " get in " some- 
 where in the course of the next few days, or weeks, and 
 then he need not tell his mother of his change of fortune 
 until he could also tell her what his new work was. 
 
 He choked back all that he had come prepared to 
 say, and turned to the Colonel with a smile which had 
 no resentment in it. 
 
 " But let us talk of you and my mother," he said. 
 " I suppose now that she has given in at last, you won't 
 be letting the grass grow eh ? " 
 
 " It should be to-morrow morning if I had my way," 
 was the reply. " But women won't be rushed like that. 
 I feel I owe you an apology, Oliver, for I fear you'll 
 have to put up with my presence in the house that's 
 always been your home till now. But I know you will 
 agree with me that it would be cruel to turn your mother 
 out of the Abbot's House." 
 
 " Of course," assented Oliver promptly and warmly. 
 His demeanour had the effect of causing his mother's 
 tears to run over and slip down her cheeks. How 
 charming he was ! How dear ! He was just like his 
 old self, courteous, considerate, loving. 
 
 " No, not to-morrow precisely," went on the Colonel,
 
 214, A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 following up his own train of thought, " but as soon as 
 it can be done. In three weeks, eh, Sybil ? " 
 
 " In a month," said Sybil weakly. She was sur- 
 prised at herself for saying it. But the thing was to 
 be done, and she had a feeling that it would be well to 
 get it over. 
 
 Oliver was still shy; he could not face his mother's 
 eyes. He put out his hand and took hers, a very rare 
 demonstration on his part. 
 
 She grasped his passionately, fighting down her rush 
 of feeling. 
 
 It seemed like a miracle that he should have come, 
 just then, to take away her haunting scruples and give 
 her leave to be happy. 
 
 " You'll stay and dine, Ollie, won't you, dear ? " she 
 whispered, when she could trust her voice. 
 
 " No, mums, I mustn't. I am frightfully hard at 
 work. Besides, two is company there's no need to 
 complete the platitude, is there ? "
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 A lady! In the narrow space 
 
 Between the husband and the wife, 
 But nearest him, she showed a face 
 
 With dangers rife. JEAN INGELOW. 
 
 IT was Saturday morning. Astrid sat alone upon the 
 moor, keeping guard over the camp. 
 
 Her face was pale, and she looked as if she had not 
 slept. 
 
 It seemed to her as though years had elapsed since 
 yesterday. 
 
 Towards dawn of the previous day, the weather 
 changed, the wind rose, and her sleep had been visited 
 by dreams. In her dream she saw Oliver in rags and 
 bare-footed, standing upon the other bank of a river, 
 and forbidding her to cross. " I can swim, I can swim, 
 let me come to you," she had pleaded: and he had an- 
 swered, " What help can you be ? I don't want you. 
 Go away ! " 
 
 In the trouble caused by this dream she awoke, to 
 hear the rain pouring down upon the roof of the caravan 
 and the wind moaning in the fir trees: awoke to the 
 joy of knowing that it was not true ! Snuggling down 
 in the comfort of her bed, she had told herself that it 
 was only a dream. To-day was Friday, and Oliver had 
 said he was coming. She was well she could walk 
 without pain in her back she was counting the mo- 
 ments till he came. Would he still wear the new aspect 
 
 215
 
 216 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 of kindness and sympathy, or was it only her being hurt 
 which had evoked his pity, just for a minute ? 
 
 That day she would know. The rain would stop 
 oh yes, of course " Rain before seven, fine at eleven " 
 and she would take him to walk in her favourite 
 wood, and show him the little glen where, under the 
 moss, was a heap of grey stones which she was certain 
 was the remains of an ancient forest altar. 
 
 The rain had tried her faith severely, but it had duly 
 cleared off soon after eleven, gliding away over the sea, 
 with the farewell smile of a glorious rainbow, and 
 leaving everything gladdened and- refreshed, every 
 grass-blade a-glitter, all colour intensified in the lovely 
 dewiness. 
 
 In the first hotly poured glory of the sunshine, the 
 girl had run to the road to watch for the appearance 
 of the farmer's boy who brought the letters. 
 
 There was one in Oliver's writing, and for her. She 
 carried it out of sight of Dan and Tessa, and her fingers 
 shook as she opened it. 
 
 Then the glow and splendour of the day died, as the 
 sun slipped behind a huge purple cloud. Oliver was 
 not coming. 
 
 It was the only solution he could plan. He was in 
 all the discouragement of the man who, for the first 
 time in his life, looks for work in London. His 
 mother's marriage was heavy on his heart. He could 
 not see into the future, it seemed to him that all was 
 dark. How could he come to Astrid and hide all this ? 
 He felt that he could not. If he had to pass two or 
 three days in her company, what was there to talk 
 about, since he could not mention either of the subjects 
 which were absorbing him? And even if he did not 
 speak of it, he would not be able to conceal his depres-
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 217 
 
 sion, and she would be troubled. The only thing to do, 
 since she must not be disturbed nor distressed, was to 
 keep away. Knowing as his wife did, all the affairs of 
 the paper, it was difficult to make his excuses sound as 
 convincing as could be wished. He had to He pretty 
 roundly. 
 
 Poor fellow! He wrote out of a miserable heart. 
 To not a soul had he been able to mention his circum- 
 stances, except to the more or less uninterested ears of 
 men who ceased to be glad to see him the moment they 
 found out that he wanted something. 
 
 To have poured out the story to Astrid Astrid who 
 knew and loved the Penman almost as he did would 
 have been a supreme relief. But in his new-found and 
 slowly growing unselfishness, he forewent a strong de- 
 sire, because his conscience accused him of so much 
 unkindness to his wife in the past, that he would not 
 add to the sum of it by retarding her convalescence. 
 
 So, at much personal sacrifice, he did the very worst 
 thing he could have done. The loss of his appoint- 
 ment would have affected Astrid only inasmuch as 
 it affected him. She would have risen to the occa- 
 sion, put heart into him, overflowed with plans and 
 designs. Nothing could have hurt and distressed her 
 like his absence. 
 
 Being all unconscious of the nervous tendency in her 
 which the doctor had discovered, she was unaware of 
 the sudden change which took place in her demeanour, 
 directly she knew that Oliver was not to be expected. 
 She was, as always, courteous and gentle, and scrupu- 
 lous in the performance of her secretarial duties: but 
 the light had gone out of her. 
 
 The flow of spirits which had been increasing ever 
 since her husband's visit last week, disappeared. She
 
 218 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 had the look, the expression of a woman who could not 
 make a joke. 
 
 It was very obvious to Dan, and it cut him to the 
 heart. At all risks Oliver ought to have come down. 
 Even Tessa, who knew the young husband's motive in 
 part, though the full extent of the catastrophe was not 
 confided to her thought that he had made a great mis- 
 take. 
 
 Astrid's appetite was gone. They could see, at 
 lunch, that it was all she could do to swallow food at all. 
 The oppression she suffered was so great, that at any 
 moment it might have found vent in a storm of tears, 
 but for her relentless self-control. 
 
 She sat down after lunch, ready for her afternoon's 
 dictation ; and Dan, feeling that he ought not to notice 
 her unhappiness, prepared to do his part. But an 
 hour's blundering showed him that, for that afternoon, 
 detachment was impossible. He could not fix upon the 
 creatures of his imagination an attention already con- 
 centrated upon the high-strung girl before him. He 
 had to own that he was not in the mood ; and his secre- 
 tary became reluctantly conscious of the extent to which 
 his humour depended upon her own. 
 
 The fact did not now strike her for the first time. 
 She doubted the wisdom of her employment. A man 
 so sensitive ought not to dictate. He ought to shut 
 himself up alone and write down his own thoughts. 
 The presence of another person influenced him too 
 much. 
 
 She dared not, however, suggest that she was bold 
 enough to fancy that his inspiration depended upon her 
 sympathy. She contented herself with talking to him 
 seriously of the danger of taking it into one's head that 
 one cannot write, and doing it only when " in the
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 219 
 
 mood." " The mood comes," said Astrid gravely. 
 " The mood comes, if you wait upon it." 
 
 " It won't come this afternoon," returned Dan 
 shortly, " so we had better go for a stroll." 
 
 The stroll resolved itself into a kind of duel between 
 them, Dan wistfully seeking a confidence, Astrid deter- 
 mined upon being wholly impersonal. The novelist 
 returned from that walk with a new impression of 
 feminine reserve and feminine determination. He 
 knew Astrid too well not to see the restraint which she 
 was putting upon herself. He was growing baffled, 
 hurt, half angry: a dangerous mood for a man who as 
 a rule lived mostly in the clouds. 
 
 On Saturday morning, conscious of a temper that 
 was wearing thin, he removed himself out of sight of 
 the fixed white face and veiled eyes which tried his 
 patience so acutely. He went for a long walk, in the 
 hope, so he said, of finding a place near enough to the 
 heart of civilisation for him to get his fountain-pen 
 mended. Tessa set forth as usual to do the Saturday 
 marketing; and Astrid, who was not yet allowed to 
 walk far, remained in charge of the camp. 
 
 She sat among the gorse, thinking of last Saturday, 
 and her terror of apprehension. She lived over again 
 her own sensations when, sitting upon the step of Mr. 
 Wolfe's motor, she had seen her husband appear over 
 the brow of the hill. She thought, too, of the grip of 
 his vigorous arms, as he lifted her to and from the 
 hammock, each time with increasing ability and con- 
 fidence. 
 
 Oh, if she could but still the craving of her starved 
 heart! 
 
 That day, for the first time, she reviewed her posi- 
 tion as one grown desperate.
 
 220 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 As long as she was with Sybil she had not actually 
 despaired, not even after the terrible interview in the 
 library. Sybil had urged that Oliver was mad he 
 had been taken hold of by a passion which had mastered 
 him; but such passions are never lasting. He would 
 come back, one day, to wisdom and sanity; and would 
 be grateful to the woman whose existence had kept him 
 from wrecking his whole life. 
 
 Now, in her desolation, Astrid told herself that Mrs. 
 Brendon had never faced the truth. Oliver had al- 
 ready wrecked his life : that was done when he married 
 Astrid Carey. It was too late to save him. He had 
 made an honest effort to tolerate her he had duly 
 arrived to pass a week-end in her company. He had 
 shown his natural good-feeling by his sympathetic 
 anxiety for her at the time of her accident; but his 
 courage had not been equal to a repetition of the experi- 
 ment. 
 
 There was the conclusion of the whole matter. 
 
 With all the strength that was in her, Astrid that 
 morning wished for death. 
 
 The long, arid years of her life lay before her. She 
 saw herself the object of the negligent pity of the world. 
 A neglected wife! One whose husband chose solitude, 
 rather than her company. For the first time she began 
 to think of suicide as not altogether beyond the pale of 
 possible solutions. 
 
 Since the beginning of the week, she had not heard 
 from her mother-in-law. Sybil, as a matter of fact, 
 was waiting to hear from her. She concluded that 
 Oliver, upon leaving the Abbot's House on Wednesday, 
 would have conveyed the news at once to his wife : and 
 she awaited Astrid's letter with a curious nervousness.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 221 
 
 Her daughter-in-law's opinion had already grown to 
 mean something that mattered to her. 
 
 Oliver, however, had in his overwhelming concern 
 for his wife's unbroken peace, kept this news from her 
 as carefully as that of his own change of fortune. 
 
 Astrid was thus completely isolated from the only 
 creatures in the world who belonged to her, with the 
 solitary exception of the Dublin aunt, whom she had 
 not seen for five years. 
 
 A dim idea of going over to Ireland, without previ- 
 ously stating her intention to Oliver, came to her. She 
 had funds enough, and could easily reach. Fishguard 
 from Bristol, and so cross to Dublin. There, she could 
 in all probability earn a living of a kind. 
 
 If her separation from her husband were to be per- 
 manent, as now seemed certain, it was obvious that she 
 could not retain a post which would keep her in Thack- 
 ridge. 
 
 Lost in such dreary thought, she sat, her knees drawn 
 up, her arms resting upon them, and her brow upon 
 her arms, a very figure of despair. She heard a motor 
 humming along the road heard the engines stop, and 
 the distant sound of voices. At first she thought it 
 might be Mr. Wolfe, come to see if he could drive her 
 anywhere. He had taken her for a run, several times, 
 and she was growing to have a real regard for him. 
 Unattractive as he was at first sight, he was a man of 
 wide reading and abreast of his times. He happened 
 to be a constant reader of the Penman and thought it 
 ably edited. The discovery that Astrid was the edi- 
 tor's wife had disposed him favourably towards her. 
 
 A moment's reflection, however, told her that this 
 was not Mr. Wolfe's car, which had a somewhat un-
 
 222 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 usual kind of horn, so that she knew it from a distance. 
 Forgetting that she was in charge of the camp, she sat 
 where she was for some moments, without moving. 
 Then suddenly, feeling instinctively that some one was 
 approaching, she lifted her head and saw a figure in a 
 motor dust-cloak and veil, standing among the gorse at 
 a short distance staring at her. 
 
 For a long moment neither girl moved. Vivien 
 Railton stood still, Astrid Brendon sat motionless: and 
 they stared at each other without a word. Then, as 
 though stung by a sudden thought, without preface, 
 yivien burst out: 
 
 Is Oliver here?" 
 
 Astrid raised her arms, shook back her hair, and re- 
 fixed the comb from which it was in part escaping. 
 " No," she returned unemotionally. " He is in Lon- 
 don. Did you want to see him ? " 
 
 " I should think not ! " cried Vivien vehemently. 
 " Never again so long as I live ! " 
 
 Astrid lifted eyes of dull surprise to the flaming face. 
 " You seem upset," she remarked, picking a piece of 
 broom, and absently stripping its butterfly bloom. 
 
 " Upset ! I'm perfectly miserable ! Heart-broken ! " 
 cried Vivien immoderately. " I hate you ! What are 
 you doing here, living like a gipsy when your husband 
 is in London ? I little thought, when I got out of the 
 car to see if there were gipsies here, whom I should find ! 
 But now I have come, I will give you a piece of my 
 mind " 
 
 " Thanks ! I don't want it," replied Astrid un- 
 civilly. 
 
 " You're sure he isn't here ? " pursued Mrs. Railton, 
 advancing nearer, unrebuffed. 
 
 " Quite sure."
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 " Then I'll give you a message from me to him, and 
 see that he gets it " 
 
 " I won't ! Why should I give a message from 
 you to Oliver? I never heard of such a thing! Go 
 away ! " cried Astrid, roused at last. She sprang to her 
 feet and confronted Vivien with raised colour and 
 heaving breast. "You had better go away," she re- 
 peated. " We rent this bit of the moor, and it is 
 private." 
 
 Vivien stamped. " I won't go away till I have told 
 you what I think! Was it your idea, I wonder, that 
 he should give his letter to Calvert to bring to me? 
 Well, it was simply a fiendish thing to do! O yes, I 
 don't wonder at your being furious with Calvert! I 
 told him it was a mean, mean vengeance to take to 
 pay a man out by taking the very bread out of his 
 mouth ! But, you see, the whole thing was a mistake, 
 and if you would have a minute's patience I could 
 explain." 
 
 Astrid had gone from red to pale. Her heart beat 
 heavily, and she felt giddy. What was she about to 
 hear ? Whence came this disturbing vision of Vivien ? 
 Was it treachery to Oliver to listen, or might she glean 
 something that would enlighten her a little 2 Taking 
 the very bread out of his mouth! What could that 
 mean? 
 
 "I don't know what you are talking about," she 
 stammered. 
 
 " I dare say you don't know the whole story," replied 
 Vivien dolefully, " but please, please, do let me show 
 you that I am not so much to blame as you perhaps 
 think ! When I saw you sitting out here, with only a 
 caravan to live in, just for a moment I had the awful 
 thought that you had no other home that Calvert had
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 done this! I feel that he has turned you out, robbed 
 and ruined you both, and he wouldn't have done it if 
 he had know the real reason why Oliver came to Dor- 
 mouth last Sunday." 
 
 Astrid could only stare. 
 
 "Please, please don't be so miserable," pleaded 
 Vivien, abandoning all attempt at dignity and beginning 
 to sob. " Of all people in the world I did not want to 
 see, you are the very one; but as we have met, do let 
 me explain Ah, do! I don't want you to blame 
 me too much for all this dreadful trouble." 
 
 " I don't blame you," said Astrid, bewildered. 
 
 "Well, you see, it was like this," broke out Vivien, 
 apparently considering herself sufficiently encouraged 
 to continue. " When you came to Dormouth last Sun- 
 day you did come, to see the doctor, didn't you ? " 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Spence brought Oliver and me in the 
 motor." 
 
 " Then what Oliver told me is true. I saw him, but 
 I didn't see you. He came into the Palace Hotel, 
 where we were staying." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Well, he didn't see me, but I instantly thought he 
 must have come to Dormouth because because he 
 knew I was there. And Calvert saw him too, in the 
 hotel, and afterwards on the sea-front both times he 
 was quite alone. Calvert actually spoke to him, and he 
 never mentioned your being there, but seemed annoyed 
 at being spoken to. So, of course, Calvert thought as 
 I did. If he had not, I do assure you he never would 
 have bought the paper! He has always wanted an 
 English newspaper to handle, but he had decided he 
 could not buy the Penman because Oliver was editor.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 He only did it to punish Oliver for running after me ! 
 Oh, can you imagine anything so dreadful ? " 
 
 Astrid locked her fingers tightly together. Her eyes 
 were blazing. " Go on," she muttered. 
 
 " Well," said Vivien once more, this being apparently 
 the only narrative formula she had at command. 
 " You see, I was certain that Oliver had come after 
 me, although the real truth was, that he did not even 
 know we were there ! Anyhow, I wrote to him, a very 
 stupid letter : and what do you think he did ? Do you 
 know?" 
 
 Astrid shook her head. 
 
 " He handed his answer to Calvert, and asked him 
 to take it to me ! So that evening, Calvert came back 
 to me from London, very quiet you know he never 
 gets angry and he made me open the letter and read 
 it and let him read it. So, of course, he found out 
 about Oliver not having known I was here, and what 
 was worse, he found out that I had written to him ! " 
 She broke off, for tears suddenly gushed out and im- 
 peded her utterance. Astrid had not time to analyse 
 the feeling that was invading her. She only felt that, 
 come what might, she must hear all that Vivien could 
 tell her. Stepping forward, she grasped the tiny, futile 
 hand. 
 
 " Don't cry ! Be sensible ! Let me hear your side 
 of the matter! Sit down, and go on." 
 
 Vivien sat down as desired, staring doubtfully at the 
 other girl's flushed face. 
 
 " Has Oliver not told you what I did 3 " 
 
 " I haven't seen him since Monday, and it's not the 
 sort of thing you write," said Astrid, confused, but 
 hiding her confusion as well as she could. " Oliver
 
 226 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 can tell me his part when he comes you tell me what 
 Mr. Railton did, when he found out that you had 
 written to Oliver ? " 
 
 " He was terrible. I have never seen him like that 
 before. He had to go back to London the following 
 day, because, you see, Oliver having left him in the 
 lurch, he did not know what to do. We were to have 
 sailed to-day, but we must wait till next week now " 
 
 " How do you mean that Oliver had left him in the 
 lurch?" 
 
 " Why, you see, as soon as Oliver was told who had 
 bought the paper, he just walked out of the office there 
 and then ! He declined to set foot in an office that be- 
 longed to Calvert : and you can't wonder, can you ? " 
 
 " No," said Astrid, whose eyes were sparkling with 
 something remarkably like triumph. " You can't ! " 
 
 " Just what I told Calvert, but he said he would bring 
 an action ; only then he found out he couldn't, because 
 Mr. Marsh and Oliver had only had an agreement for 
 three years, and they had been together for nearly five, 
 and had not had a fresh one! So he has no remedy." 
 
 " I see. What will he do ? " 
 
 "He has cabled for one of his best men from New 
 York, and he must put things in train for him, in fact 
 he is not sure that he must not wait until he comes. 
 He would have got out of his bargain if he could, but 
 unfortunately, it had all been done, hard and fast, be- 
 fore they told Oliver, and Mr. Marsh quite declined to 
 reconsider the matter. But the thing that I know Cal- 
 vert really minds, is that letter of mine that Oliver has 
 got." Here the tears again began to flow. 
 
 Astrid looked hard at the weeping child, for she 
 seemed no more. There was compassion mixed with 
 the contempt of the full glance.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 " What in the world made you write to him ? What 
 could you hope or expect to accomplish, except to make 
 him unhappy ? " she asked curiously. 
 
 Vivien looked blankly up at her, with great blue eyes, 
 upon whose fringes the tears hung yet. "I I was 
 feeling so so home-sick ! " she gulped. 
 
 " I don't understand. Surely you love Mr. Eailton ? 
 I mean, you prefer him to Oliver ? You actually threw 
 Oliver over for him, didn't you ? " 
 
 " Yes, I did. And I am sure, if I ask myself, I don't 
 know which of them I like best. You see, I'm afraid of 
 Calvert, and Oliver was afraid of me. That was the 
 difference. But I did love Oliver, and what was worse, 
 I knew I had treated him badly: and marriage is a 
 a very alarming thing, you know, when you are a little 
 afraid of the man you have married ; and just at first, 
 after the thing was done and everything was for-ever- 
 and-ever-amen you know somehow, I felt as if I 
 couldn't bear it! I wanted Oliver to comfort me, to 
 say he forgave me, to tell me he was not unhappy 
 Oh, I don't exactly know what I wanted! But I can 
 tell you what I did ! I was fool enough to ask him to 
 write to me at the post office, and to come down and 
 see me while Calvert was away! Of course, I had no 
 idea that the business upon which Calvert went to Lon- 
 don had any connection with him, or that they could 
 possibly meet ! " 
 
 " I see. Have you told your husband what was in 
 the letter ? " 
 
 Silence. 
 
 " Did he ask you ? " 
 
 Still silence. Looking down, Astrid saw the delicate 
 Dresden china face flushed crimson. 
 
 " I told him a fib," said Vivien at last. " I told him
 
 228 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 that I had written merely to reprove Oliver for coming 
 after me when I was married." She spoke recklessly. 
 
 " And now I suppose you are afraid he may find out 
 that it was not true ? " 
 
 " Well, he has, partly. I had a maid called Therese. 
 It was she who suggested the post office, and that I 
 should tell him to send his letters there. Of course, I 
 see now why she did it it was to .get me in her power, 
 so that I should have to give her money, for her not to 
 tell Calvert. It appears that Oliver, when he gave his 
 letter to Calvert, gave him a hint that she was not to 
 be trusted, and she was packed off that very night. But 
 what I want you to do is to get Oliver to burn the letter. 
 If he doesn't, I know Calvert will never rest until he 
 gets it." 
 
 " I hardly know why Oliver should wish to keep it," 
 observed Astrid. 
 
 " You may tell him for me, that if it is in existence, 
 Calvert will have it somehow," remarked Vivien. " You 
 do not know what things these millionaires do. They 
 are always being blackmailed, you know, and they have 
 private detectives, and ways of doing things if you 
 only have money enough, you can get simply anything 
 done! Calvert says it makes him laugh sometimes, to 
 hear people say, l Oh, what nonsense ! Such things 
 can't be we live in the twentieth century ! ' He says 
 you can do things now that no feudal baron of the Mid- 
 dle Ages would have dared attempt. Something will 
 happen to Oliver. He will have his pocket picked, or 
 something of that kind. There will be no suggestion, 
 of course, of Calvert having anything to do with it. 
 Then, if the letter is not in his pocket, there will be a 
 burglary. Somehow, the thing will be done. I wish 
 you would ask him to burn it."
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 Astrid sat contemplating the little creature who had 
 spoilt Oliver's life. She hardly knew whether to laugh 
 or cry. To her sound sense and clear mind, Vivien's 
 lack of principle and confusion of thought was hardly 
 credible. She realised to the full what his mother had 
 meant when she said how unfit a wife Vivien was for 
 Oliver. She even believed that all his present suffering 
 was nothing compared to what he might have suffered, 
 had he found himself in the position which was now oc- 
 cupied by the American, a man far better fitted to cope 
 with it. 
 
 " O, don't be so severely silent," entreated Vivien, 
 after a long pause. " You don't know how wretched I 
 feel about Oliver and you! One thing on the top of 
 another! It always seems to happen so! But when 
 I heard from mamma last night, about Mrs. Brendon 
 being about to marry Colonel Waring at once, I felt 
 
 nothing but Oh dear ! Another blow for poor 
 
 Oliver!" 
 
 For a moment Astrid had much ado not to cry out in 
 her surprise. She knew all now! All the ill news 
 which was to have been kept from her which Oliver 
 would so carefully have " broken" had been, as it were, 
 flung at her, by the hand of the silly little flirt to whom 
 she owed her present luckless state. 
 
 With a great effort the shock was surmounted, and 
 Sybil's daughter-in-law realised that she must pretend to 
 have been fully aware of this piece of intelligence. 
 
 " Yes," she said quietly, " it does sometimes seem as 
 if everything comes at once." 
 
 " How wonderful you are, to sit there so patient ! " 
 cried Vivien. " In your place I should want to be tear- 
 ing Calvert's eyes out ! " 
 
 Astrid hesitated, then took a decision, and spoke
 
 230 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 boldly : " In my opinion, your husband has done a 
 mean act, unworthy of a gentleman. I have noticed that 
 such acts bring their own punishment. There is no 
 need for people to interfere. Unless he is a bad man, 
 which I don't think, he is already suffering a good deal 
 in his conscience." 
 
 " I believe he is," said Vivien dolefully. " He is 
 quite grumpy and preoccupied, not a bit like he used to 
 be in Egypt." 
 
 " Well," added Astrid, with a sudden sigh, " I believe 
 he will be much sorrier before he has done with this 
 business. He will live to wish he had never touched it." 
 There was a light of purpose in her eye. 
 
 " Oh," said Vivien, after a while, " you don't know 
 what a relief it has been to talk to you to have some- 
 body to whom to pour it all out ! I do hope you won't 
 think too hardly of me, and will tell Oliver how des- 
 perately sorry I am about it all : and do ask him to burn 
 the letter, won't you ? And write to me to tell me that 
 he has done it ? " 
 
 Astrid could make no such promise. She was now 
 chiefly occupied with the desire to get her visitor away 
 before the return of the campers-out. Fortunately, she 
 found Vivien quite as reluctant to meet the Selbys as 
 she herself could be that the meeting should take place. 
 
 As soon as Mrs. Railton fully understood who were 
 the other campers-out, and that their return was im- 
 minent, she almost ran back to her waiting chariot, and 
 directed the chauffeur to take a different road back to 
 Dormouth.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 All was lost then? No! a cricket 
 
 Some mad thing that left its thicket 
 
 For mere love of music flew 
 
 With its little heart on fire, 
 
 Lighted on the crippled lyre .... 
 
 Saves the singer from defeat 
 
 With her chirrup, low and sweet. 
 
 Did the conqueror spurn the creature 
 
 Once its service done? ROBERT BBOWIONO. 
 
 NOT a word of her visitor nor of her visitor's electrical 
 tidings did Astrid say to her companions upon their re- 
 turn. 
 
 Dan, closely observing as usual, gathered that there 
 was a change in her spirits since the morning, though he 
 was not convinced that it was for the better. 
 
 She was more talkative and seemed full of energy; 
 but she had silent periods, during which her broodings 
 were certainly serious, if not sad. 
 
 The afternoon was marked by the arrival of Hum- 
 phrey Spence and Martin Selby. The whole party 
 motored down to the shore, where all but Astrid had a 
 swim, and the evening passed with lively talk and a good 
 deal of gaiety. 
 
 On Sunday, Astrid asked Humphrey whether he 
 would motor her, after lunch, to call upon Mr. Wolfe, in 
 order to thank him for his diligent inquiries, and to 
 show him that her recovery was complete. 
 
 Humphrey was delighted, for the road thither was 
 charmingly pretty, and Tessa and he could roam to- 
 gether while Astrid made her visit. 
 
 231
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 They left the camp accordingly, soon after lunch, and 
 an hour's run brought them to Wellholme, as the place 
 was called. 
 
 It was a moderately good house, of the late Georgian 
 period, with most of the attributes considered necessary 
 in the days of Jane Austen. There was a shrubbery, a 
 sweep, a wide prospect, and a gravel terrace, where pre- 
 sumably the ladies of the family might have walked in 
 their sandal shoes without fear of wet. 
 
 Inside, the whole place spoke of the same date. Mr. 
 Wolfe was an only son, a man who had never been 
 either handsome or attractive, the child of elderly par- 
 ents, brought up at home, never sent to a public school 
 or university, with all the love of seclusion and dislike 
 of society, which such a rearing will induce in a man by 
 nature without self-confidence or social graces. 
 
 He had been the catch of the county all his life with- 
 out suspecting it. The sole alteration he had ever made 
 in his peaceful, out-of-date habits was the purchase of 
 that motor which had been the means of introducing him 
 to Astrid. 
 
 Upon his car, his garage, and his chauffeur he spent 
 considerable sums. His only other expensive hobby was 
 literature. Early in their acquaintance, therefore, Mrs. 
 Brendon and he had found themselves on common 
 ground. The man who was far too shy ever to open his 
 lips to the county girls he met, could talk eloquently to 
 the pleasing young married woman who had the literary 
 gossip of London at her finger-ends. 
 
 At sixty-five the old bachelor was interested in a 
 woman for the first time in his life. 
 
 She had heard some of his long-hidden ambitions, his 
 unfulfilled plans nothing but plans, because he had 
 never chanced to come across any one who could influ-
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 233 
 
 ence him sufficiently to enable him to realise them. Dur- 
 ing a long motor drive, he had said that he hoped this 
 was but the beginning of their acquaintance. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Brendon must do him the honour of being his 
 guests in the near future. He had always feared that 
 he had nothing wherewith to amuse a young woman. 
 But the motor and the library together hey ? Astrid 
 had assured him of her perfect content with such a com- 
 bination. 
 
 She heard now that Mr. Wolfe was at home, with a 
 new trepidation in her heart. She walked, at the 
 elderly butler's subdued invitation, into the faded, rose- 
 wood-furnished drawing-room, with lips set in firm re- 
 solve. 
 
 In her prettiest summer frock she stood in the sun- 
 shine in the big bay window with its maplewood pan- 
 ellings, and gazed across the lawns with eyes that saw 
 nothing outwardly. 
 
 Mr. Wolfe appeared, to welcome her with sincere 
 pleasure. His ugly face was quite pink with the satis- 
 faction it gave him to see her so completely restored. 
 He suggested that they should go into the library, and 
 she accepted with alacrity, for this was the one habita- 
 ble room in the house. 
 
 As soon as they were seated she turned to him and, 
 waiting till he had exhausted his very limited flow of 
 polite chat, she spoke. 
 
 " Mr. Wolfe, I am going to risk your good opinion of 
 me," she said, looking him steadily in the eyes, " by do- 
 ing something which is quite unwarranted by the short- 
 ness of our acquaintance. I am going to ask you to 
 talk business with me." 
 
 He could only just stammer his pleasure in the idea 
 of serving her. He was evidently much surprised.
 
 234 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 " I am not going to ask a favour of you," said she 
 steadily. " Please bear that in mind. I am going to 
 make a business proposal, and you must not answer it 
 to-day, you must give me neither yes nor no, but think 
 it over quietly." 
 
 " You interest me, Mrs. Brendon," said Mr. Wolfe. 
 " Pray proceed." 
 
 He was no fool, in spite of his secluded life. His 
 little eyes were much on the alert as he looked at his 
 visitor, and acknowledged to himself that he was not un- 
 susceptible to the charm of her liquid dark eyes under 
 the brim of her rose-trimmed hat. 
 
 " Yesterday," she went on, in her usual clear, rather 
 cold tones, " I had a great shock. I heard bad news. 
 You too will call it bad news, for I know how highly 
 you think of my husband as an editor. The Penman 
 has changed hands, and my husband has been forced to 
 resign his post." 
 
 " You don't mean to say so ! This is indeed bad 
 news ! Had he no idea of it ? " 
 
 " None. The proprietor acted behind his back, be- 
 cause he knew how much Oliver would disapprove. He 
 has sold the paper to an American." 
 
 Mr. Wolfe stared. " An American ? " 
 
 " Yes. My husband felt that the tone of the paper 
 must necessarily be changed, and resigned at once. I 
 understand that the new owner is going to put in an 
 editor from New York. Now, can you not foresee what 
 will happen ? " 
 
 " Only that I shall discontinue my subscription to 
 the paper ! " 
 
 " Precisely ! Will not other readers also ? It is im- 
 possible that the Penman, with an American editor, can 
 retain its present public. It will be dead within a year.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 235 
 
 Now do you see my idea ? Do you remember the talk 
 we had, about it being the dream of your life to start 
 a paper ? " 
 
 He raised his head and looked at her keenly. 
 
 " Suppose my husband were to come forward and 
 perhaps offer to edit for the first year without a salary ? 
 You would want patience, mind you. You would have 
 to put in money enough to enable you to hold on. It 
 might be two years, it might be more, before you began 
 to make a profit. But there it is. Oliver has the reins 
 in his hands, he could retain for you the services of 
 most of his own men. They will all be glad to come to 
 him, for though I expect Mr. Railton will offer high 
 pay, he will not b likely to sign contracts; and that 
 is the very thing that I would advise you to do. Have 
 contracts for three years, get your men in good heart, 
 prepared to make a fight for it. I believe that within 
 the first year you would have captured the Penman 
 public." 
 
 She could see that the imagination of her host was 
 blazing. He sat looking at her with kindled eye. 
 " What an idea ! " he said slowly, " what a great idea ! " 
 
 She leaned forward. " I had no idea of this terrible 
 thing until yesterday. Nothing was further from my 
 mind than the bare possibility of my making such an 
 appeal to you! You know next to nothing of me, or 
 of my husband, except his work, which you admire. 
 You would have to go into things, to find out all about 
 us, to ascertain what Mr. Brendon would be prepared 
 to put into such a scheme, and so on. But I felt as if 
 I had to come and say it. There is my husband, a first- 
 rate man ! Here are you, longing to have an organ of 
 your own, and with the capital to back it ! You would 
 have an editor who knows, all there is to know about
 
 236 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 printing, paper, advertisements, distribution, all the 
 thousand and one things that one must know in order to 
 run a paper at a profit. I felt that, even at the risk of 
 your looking upon me as a scheming woman, I had to 
 put the thing before you ! "
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 We talked on fast, while every common word 
 Seemed tangled with the thunder, at one end, 
 And ready to pull down upon our heads 
 
 A terror out of sight. E. B. BROWNING. 
 
 ME. WOLFE asked nothing better than to have the 
 thing put before him in all its bearings. He found 
 that Mrs. Brendon knew almost as much of the working 
 of a paper as did her husband. Her knowledge sur- 
 prised him as much as it excited his admiration. They 
 talked on, not heeding the time, until the motor appeared 
 at the front door, and Tessa meekly begged to know 
 how much longer Mrs. Brendon was likely to be. 
 
 It was almost eight o'clock by the time they reached 
 the camp. The sun was very near its setting, the light 
 upon the moor was flushed with rose. The dazzle of 
 the sunset and the fact that she was sitting behind in 
 the car, with Tessa and Humphrey in front, impeded 
 Astrid's view. She did not see that beside Martin and 
 Dan, who were standing in the road on the look out, 
 there was a third male figure, upon whose face relief 
 succeeded anxiety as the hoot of the horn was heard. 
 
 She had no warning, nothing to break the shock of 
 seeing Oliver step forward and open the door for her to 
 alight. 
 
 The sudden sight of him demolished for a moment 
 even her fortitude. It seemed impossible that she could 
 conceal the disorder into which she was thrown. Her 
 
 237
 
 238 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 voice shook so that she dared say no more than " Oh ! 
 . . . You were able to get away . . . after all ! " 
 
 She had risen, and would have alighted but that he 
 stood there, looking at her with eyes of apprehensive 
 caution, as if he dreaded what she might say or do. 
 
 " Don't you want me to lift you out ? " he asked, cov- 
 ering his nervousness with a smile. 
 
 " Oh no, no ! " she earnestly assured him. " I am 
 quite well, I don't want any help." 
 
 He stood back as though snubbed, and watched her 
 step down. " That seems all right," he remarked, try- 
 ing for cheerfulness. He took from her the warm cloak 
 she wore, and as he did so, became conscious of the agi- 
 tation which thrilled her. He told himself he was a 
 selfish brute to expose her even to the disturbance which 
 his unexpected presence caused her. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Brendon, what do you think of her ? " 
 cried Tessa, coming to greet him with a smile and a ro- 
 bust hand-shake. 
 
 " You are wonderful you, or the doctor, or the 
 moorland air, or all three," he answered, with real grati- 
 tude. 
 
 " And where do I come in ? " asked Dan petulantly. 
 
 It seemed to him ages since the motor had rolled off, 
 carrying Astrid away for hours. Now she was back, 
 and here was this unwelcome husband, come to spoil 
 the exquisite evening hour, when Dan had hoped for 
 a quiet talk. Why couldn't the man keep to his word ? 
 He had said he was not coming, and must needs drop 
 in unexpectedly, just when one felt safe from him. 
 -"Where do I come in?" asked Dan. "I have been 
 contributing what little I could towards the convales- 
 cence." 
 
 " He has been doing my washing-up for me," ac-
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 239 
 
 knowledged Astrid gratefully, "and beating up milk 
 and eggs, and I can't tell you what beside. They are 
 both as good as they can be to the orphan within their 
 gates." 
 
 "Supper before anything," cried Martin. "Dan 
 and I have been obliged to turn our backs in order to 
 resist the temptation of f alling-to upon the lobster salad. 
 As for Brendon, I understand he has had no meals since 
 the day before yesterday, and is in a state of semi-col- 
 lapse from hunger." 
 
 " 0, I am so sorry, it is all my fault that we are so 
 late," cried Astrid, hurrying forward. 
 
 " You can walk ! " said Oliver's voice in her ear, with 
 an accent of satisfaction. 
 
 "Walk, indeed! I can run!" she retorted, suiting 
 the action to the word, and darting away from him into 
 the caravan, whither Tessa had retired to pass a comb 
 through her wind-ruffled locks. 
 
 He could not make out whether the little break in 
 her voice were a laugh or a sob. 
 
 A few minutes later they were all together round the 
 table, doing justice to the supper, with the exception 
 of Astrid, who could never eat when excited. Only 
 when she saw that her lack of appetite was drawing 
 upon her the attention of Oliver did she make a great 
 effort, and swallow food which threatened to choke 
 her. She already knew all that he had come to tell her. 
 It was a piquant thought. 
 
 She only dared watch him by moments, when his at- 
 tention was diverted : for his own eyes were continually 
 upon her. She felt for him. How awful to have to 
 come and confess reverse of fortune to the woman whom 
 you do not love, and whom you more than suspect of 
 Jiaving married you for your position J
 
 240 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 She appreciated the effort that his coming must have 
 been. There was encouragement in the knowledge that 
 she could make things easier for him. 
 
 Then, in the buzz of general conversation, she heard 
 him saving to Tessa, who sat next him, that he must 
 leave early next morning. 
 
 Well, what had she expected? He had come down, 
 as naturally he would, at the latest moment, so as to 
 have as few unpleasant quarters of an hour as need be. 
 
 Supper over, he begged them to excuse his wife from 
 her share in clearing away as he wanted to have a talk 
 with her there would be no time to-morrow morn- 
 ing. 
 
 Tessa wrapped up Astrid, though the night was beau- 
 tifully warm ; and together the husband and wife strolled 
 away, out of sight of the camp, into the long twilight of 
 approaching midsummer. 
 
 At last they were quite alone. They stood among the 
 clumps of gorse, their feet half buried in the flowering 
 thrift, while the aroma of hawthorn bloom was carried 
 to their senses by the little, wandering breeze. Oliver 
 stopped when they came to a suitable nook ; and they sat 
 down side by side. 
 
 She was not trembling now. She had braced herself, 
 and was prepared. Her quiet seemed to relieve him of 
 some of his apprehension. 
 
 " Astrid," he said, " I don't know what to do. The 
 doctor told me last week that you must on no account be 
 distressed or disturbed. And I have decided that I 
 must do both. The reasons I gave you for not coming 
 on Friday as I hoped to do were not true. I stayed 
 away because I hoped to spare you bad news. But I 
 have decided that I must tell you because there is no-
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 241 
 
 body else who can. I I you don't know how I 
 hate having to do it." 
 
 She sat with lowered eyes, but presently ventured a 
 look at him. He had his head turned from her, and 
 was picking bits of thrift and making a little bunch 
 of it. 
 
 " Don't be afraid, Oliver, I am quite well, and able 
 to take things as they come," she told him gently. " If 
 there is bad news I would rather hear it from you." 
 
 " Well, you see, it is not wholly bad now," he re- 
 joined. " There is some good to add, so I don't so much 
 mind. But it will be a bit of a shock to you at first, 
 I know. It is, shortly, that I have lost the Penman." 
 
 There was a perceptible pause. "Well," said she 
 softly, at last, " the only thing that I should really mind 
 about that, would be that you had lost it through your 
 own fault, and I don't think that is likely." 
 
 "You don't?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 He stared at the ground between his stockinged legs. 
 " In a way it was my own fault," he said slowly. " No. 
 I don't think I can say it was. Calvert Railton, having 
 injured me, chose to consider himself my enemy. He 
 bought the paper in order to turn me out." 
 
 " I'm not quite unprepared for this, Oliver. Last 
 week you remember you told me you thought Marsh had 
 something on his mind." 
 
 " Ah ! So I did. But do you realise what it means ? 
 It means that I am entirely dependent upon my mother, 
 except for savings of my own, which are not very con- 
 siderable." 
 
 " It means that you and I must earn each our own 
 living," she replied tranquilly. " That does not sound
 
 242 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 nearly as bad to me as I suppose it does to you. It is 
 what I have always had to face." 
 
 " It is just the one thing I had hoped you might not 
 have to suffer as my wife," he replied, in a very low 
 voice, which somehow expressed the depth of shame he 
 felt. 
 
 She had no answer to that. Sitting upright, she 
 lifted her eyes to the wonderful tender depth of the 
 slowly darkening sky. Oh, if only she were not his 
 wife! If she were just his servant, his faithful secre- 
 tary ! The bitterness went out of her like swiftly flow- 
 ing water as she realised that he was suffering. Her 
 heart swelled, but she sat on calmly. She must not let 
 him think that she was moved. 
 
 " Do you feel as if you could tell me all about it ? " 
 she asked after a while. 
 
 He told her then. He made a clean breast of his 
 having seen the Railtons at Dormouth on the previous 
 Saturday. 
 
 " I didn't tell you I had seen them," he explained, 
 " for the reason that I don't think it affected me very 
 profoundly. I looked on it as an awkward accident. 
 I was anxious about you ; and in my mind, the fact of 
 Vivien's marriage was well, it was final as far as I 
 was concerned. But, of course, when I got her letter, 
 I saw how likely it was that she should have supposed I 
 had come to the place with the object of seeing her. 
 I thought it right to disabuse her of any such idea, at 
 once and completely." 
 
 He gave her, then, a detailed account of the scene be- 
 tween himself and Railton at the office. He went on to 
 describe how he had thought of hastening to tell her all, 
 there and then, until he remembered that he must do 
 nothing to hinder her recovery : how he had gone down
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 243 
 
 to Thackridge to see his mother ; and how he found him- 
 self supplanted. 
 
 He spoke, as he went on, more naturally, more as he 
 had been wont to do when she was his right-hand man, as 
 he used to say. Her knowledge of the ins and outs of 
 his profession, her capacity to understand just how he 
 felt, and why, were infinitely soothing. 
 
 He avowed frankly that he had not dared to face her 
 with such a load upon his mind, for fear the temptation 
 to relieve himself by confiding in her should be too 
 great. 
 
 She assured him that she was not so weak-minded as 
 to be overcome by tidings of disaster. " I have no fears 
 for your future," she said quietly. " You are known, 
 your work is known, and held very high. As soon as 
 this gets about as soon as it is matter of common 
 knowledge that the Penman has changed hands you 
 will find that there are people eager to secure you. I 
 feel quite sure that it will be so." 
 
 He listened with pleasure. Her belief in him was 
 gratifying. Little as she had cause to trust him as a 
 man, she had not lost her confidence in his professional 
 ability. 
 
 " Ah," he said, " if you had been, as I have been, 
 scouring about in editors' rooms for a job, for the last 
 few days, you might be less sanguine. However, as I 
 told you, the news is not all bad. I don't think I could 
 have borne to come down and tell you if it had been. 
 But as things are, I felt I had to come. I've got a job, 
 of a kind." 
 
 She started. " You have ? " 
 
 " Not permanent ; but just a bit of luck. I went to 
 the Sentinel you know Cray has always been rather 
 a friend of mine 5 and the man who was going to the.
 
 244 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 front for them, as war correspondent, has just fallen ill 
 with appendicitis. I have got his job, and am off to- 
 morrow evening for Tripoli." 
 
 She locked her hands together. In the fast-deepen- 
 ing dusk he could not see the whiteness of her face. A 
 tide of feeling which it seemed impossible to fight 
 stormed at her heart. Her eyes grew dim. 
 
 " If we had a war of our own going on," he went on, 
 gazing out to sea, his chin on his hand, " it would have 
 been easy. I should have made my will and enlisted. 
 There would have been a chance of freedom for you 
 then." He turned with a start. Surely he had heard 
 her sob. His eyes eagerly sought the face he could 
 only see as a shadow he made a movement towards 
 her which he could not himself explain. " What's the 
 matter ? " he blurted out, in a voice tense with anxiety. 
 If only he knew what to do for the best, how to save her 
 pain! 
 
 There was but a slight pause before she answered ex- 
 ultantly : " There now ! And you said it would be 
 
 so hard to find work ! I knew better ! But " she 
 
 hesitated. It was not in her power to tell him of Mr. 
 Wolfe's designs. She had begged that good friend not 
 to let Oliver know that the proposal had been her own 
 suggestion. Mr. Wolfe, ostensibly, had not made up 
 his mind. When he had done so, and when the fact of 
 Oliver's severance from the Penman was publicly 
 known, he intended to come forward. But until his 
 offer had been formulated it remained indefinite. 
 
 " But ? What is in your mind ? " asked Oliver 
 gently. 
 
 " Does it n<5t seem precipitate ? Are you not clutch- 
 ing at the first thing that offers, without any real neces- 
 sity? You could afford, could you not, to wait for
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 245 
 
 work which is worthy of you. May you not miss some- 
 thing, perhaps ... by being out of the way ? " 
 
 He drew a deep breath. " Perhaps. There are two 
 reasons. One was that I was spared the humiliation 
 of coming to tell you that I was one of the unemployed. 
 The other was was well, that I suppose I am feel- 
 ing restless." 
 
 " Oh," she cried, as if his words reproached her, " of 
 course ! Of course ! Forgive me," she went on, speak- 
 ing fast, " I should have thought of that. I was think- 
 ing only of your professional future, not of your per- 
 sonal unhappiness. Yes, it is right, it is best. No 
 doubt it is the only way." 
 
 He was puzzled. She seemed quite collected, full of 
 common sense and that power of seeing round a subject 
 which he had always admired in her. He had been mis- 
 taken, then, when he thought he heard that smothered 
 sob ? The mistake had set going some current of feel- 
 ing which affected him oddly. Aided by her composure, 
 he left unsaid some words which had rushed to his lips 
 words of regret and a plea for forgiveness. He must 
 on no account upset or distress her. There was much 
 to be arranged, and he must keep the talk upon a busi- 
 ness footing. 
 
 " The main thing that you and I must discuss to- 
 night," he said, " is your future while I am away." 
 
 She broke in. " You must not trouble about me. I 
 shall manage very well." 
 
 He continued as if she had not spoken. " I went 
 down again to Thackridge yesterday," he said, " and 
 told my mother everything. I felt less unable to do 
 it because I had not to appear altogether in the light 
 of a beggar. We had a long talk, and the upshot of it 
 is that she wants you at the Abbot's House, if you will
 
 246 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 come. She is preparing for her marriage, and has no- 
 body with her. She said . . . she said she would 
 rather have you than anybody in the world." 
 
 There was a silence. Astrid could not have spoken, 
 and he was not able immediately to proceed. 
 
 " The arrangement," he went on at last, " is exactly 
 what I could wish. It would have the advantage of 
 allowing you to continue your secretarial work, if you 
 still desire it. The Colonel and my mother plan to 
 take a long holiday after their marriage, and you would 
 be left in charge of the house during their absence." 
 
 Again silence. A bird called from its nest among 
 the bushes. The murmur of the sea rose to their ears, 
 very far away and soft. 
 
 Astrid had been summoning all her fortitude. If 
 anything definite was to be said, this was the moment. 
 If she weakly allowed this suggestion to be adopted, 
 consented to the continuance of the present position, 
 simply because she had not courage to face things, then 
 she would be cutting away the ground from under her 
 own feet. Her pride forbade that she should accept 
 anything more from Oliver, even though it soothed his 
 conscience to give what he could. 
 
 " Don't you think," she asked him quietly, " that it 
 would be better to accept this break, which comes in 
 the natural order of things, and make it final ? I 
 don't want to say one word in bitterness, but we have 
 to look things in the face. I know you are sorry and 
 ashamed of the thing you did. But all the blame was 
 not yours, your mother showed me that. What hap- 
 pened could not have happened if I had had a woman's 
 proper pride. I waited a month because your mother 
 asked it of me. At the end of that month you told
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 me to go where I liked and do as I pleased. It is best 
 that I should do so." 
 
 Before she had got far with this speech she had real- 
 ised that to him it was quite unexpected. He turned 
 his face towards her with a start of hurt surprise, and 
 gazed upon her as, somewhat lamely, she faltered to 
 her conclusion. " So that is how you feel," he said, 
 in a low voice. " You want your liberty. But you 
 understand that I cannot give it to you completely ? " 
 
 " Yes, I understand that. No mistake that is once 
 made can ever be undone. But you would be free of 
 the responsibility of me, of the continual fret of my 
 presence, the the constant reminder of all that is so 
 very painful to you. You had better let me go." 
 
 " I can't," he said sharply, and the words, as he 
 spoke them, were a surprise to himself. " If you go, 
 it is against my wish, without my consent." 
 
 " It is quite a mistaken idea of duty and honour 
 that makes you think you are bound to keep me." 
 
 He was for the moment at a loss. Uppermost came 
 a feeling of irritation against her. She seemed born 
 to make him exhibit his worst feelings. "You mean 
 that you won't go on with the present state of things! 
 Why? Is it so much more unendurable this evening 
 than it has been any time during the past weeks ? " 
 
 " Yes." It was hardly audible. It was merely 
 breathed. 
 
 Her voice, coming to him from unseen lips, sent a 
 thrill through him, and he cried out like a petulant boy 
 "Why, Astrid? Why?" 
 
 Her two hands went up to her breast as she gasped 
 out, " Please, Oliver, have pity. I can't put things 
 into words. Have you no sort of idea what my life
 
 248 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 has been to me lately? I know you have suffered too 
 I know your heart has been filled with the thought 
 of of another woman's pain ; but just for a minute 
 try," her voice sank to a whisper, " try and think of 
 me." 
 
 He made some kind of a sound which was really 
 sympathy, but sounded like exasperation. He was des- 
 perate because he realised that he could show her only 
 the homage of respect; he could not comfort her. She 
 seemed so small, so lonely, sitting there on the ground, 
 he had the impulse to snatch her to him, to offer the 
 consolation of caresses. But her pride and strength 
 were about her like a barrier. He dared not touch her. 
 
 " I will think of you," he said, in an agitated voice. 
 " It shall be as you decide exactly as you decide. 
 Will you swear to me that it is your own wish and de- 
 sire to divide your life finally from mine ? If so, then 
 I go out. But it must be your own decree." 
 
 The moment was upon her. She thought that she 
 detected, in his excitement, in his curious irritation, 
 the hope of freedom, carefully held in the background. 
 Once convinced that she desired to leave him, he would 
 joyfully accept the measure of liberty available to him. 
 She summoned all her strength. Only a few words 
 and it would be over. 
 
 " I assure you that I think it best that we should 
 part" 
 
 He sat a moment as he was. Something in him 
 jumped like a tortured nerve as the slow words fell 
 upon the silence of the summer night " Very well. 
 We are to part," he said, with bitterness. " Let us 
 lose no time." He rose to his feet. The moon was 
 just sailing into view over the hill; and, holding his 
 watch to catch the light, he could read the dial. " If I
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 249 
 
 hurry, I may catch the last train to town from the 
 Junction," he remarked. 
 
 She also rose to her feet, and catching her hand, al- 
 most roughly, he swung her round so that the light of 
 the moon fell upon her face. It bore signs of agita- 
 tion which cut him to the heart "What a brute I 
 am ! I came down this evening, meaning to be so care- 
 ful of you," he said gruffly. " You are perfectly right. 
 I'm not worth sticking to. I haven't even got money 
 now. If there was anything I could do to show you 
 I'm not altogether the cad I have seemed to you ! But 
 every word I speak is making things worse for you! 
 Do you mind if I go ? I shall just get that train if I 
 run and I'm so awfully disappointed. I don't think 
 I had realised your contempt for me not altogether ! 
 You must do in all things as your judgment approves. 
 I have no claim . . ." He was down on his knees, 
 kissing her two hands ; and then, with a hurried " God 
 bless you ! " was gone, and she was left alone in the 
 moonlight, too amazed, too stupefied by his outburst, 
 to have the power of articulating a single word until it 
 was too late. 
 
 It was not until many hours afterwards that she re- 
 membered her intention of saying something to him 
 concerning Vivien and the letter which was causing 
 her so much anxiety. 
 
 She reflected that it was perhaps as well that the 
 subject had remained unmentioned. Oliver had most 
 probably destroyed the letter, and she did not so much 
 as remember the wild words spoken by Railton's wife 
 of the methods her husband might be likely to employ 
 in order to obtain possession of it.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 Peace, peace! such a small lamp illumes, on this high way, 
 So dimly, so few steps in front of my feet, 
 Yet shows me that her way is parted from my way. . . . 
 Out of sight, beyond light, at what goal may we meet? 
 
 D. G. ROSSETTI. 
 
 IT was a dull, heavy morning, threatening thunder, 
 when Oliver's leisurely night train drifted into Water- 
 loo. 
 
 He sighed wearily as he stepped out upon the pave- 
 ment. All night he had not slept a wink. 
 
 He was telling himself how many kinds of a fool he 
 was, to have wasted time in going so far, when he had 
 so much to do before his boat-train left for Southamp- 
 ton at seven-thirty that evening. 
 
 Why had he done it? That was what he had been 
 asking himself all night. He had spent time and 
 money, neither of which he could afford, to go and say 
 good-bye to a woman who had calmly decided never to 
 set eyes upon him again. His spirits were very low, 
 as he drove to his club, and even a good bath and break- 
 fast did not accomplish much in the way of cheering 
 him. 
 
 There were no letters for him, and when he had 
 breakfasted, he went out to buy certain things still 
 lacking to his kit. He had to go and consult a man he 
 knew who had been in the same sort of business, and 
 all this took up time. It was half-past two before he 
 
 250
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 251 
 
 was able to wend his way to the Penman office, in order 
 to pack and remove such of his things as were still 
 there. 
 
 Having ascertained that the new owner was no- 
 where on the premises he went up, to face a room full 
 of exasperated people, afraid to quarrel with their 
 bread and butter, but one and all ripe for mutiny. 
 
 " Why don't you start a paper on your own ? " was 
 their cry. " We are all here, ready to go on with you I 
 Another week, and we shall all be in the street, you 
 bet! Everybody has had his salary raised, and no 
 contract! That's a sure sign! We shall all be ready 
 for you, if you decide to go ahead." 
 
 The sub-editor, in particular, was confident that, 
 with Oliver in charge, they could capture the Penman 
 public. It really began to seem to Oliver a possible 
 development, should he return from Tripoli with no 
 more definite prospects than he had at present 
 
 Everybody turned to with a will, shovelling his 
 books into cases, packing his papers, and eagerly help- 
 ful in all ways. While they were busy, the hall por- 
 ter looked in. 
 
 " Mr. Brendon come ? Ah, there you are, sir. A 
 gentleman has been asking for you, sir. Gave the 
 name of Barrymore." 
 
 A sensation ran round the room like a flicker of 
 lightning. 
 
 " Jove ! " said young Prentis, with a smear of dust 
 across his intellectual brow, and a bundle of papers in 
 his hand. " Not the Barrymore ? " 
 
 " Mr. Barrymore of the Hermes, and the Birming- 
 ham Bulwark, he bid me say, sir. There was more, 
 but I forget the rest." 
 
 Sensation. No doubt about it. This was the
 
 252 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 Barrymore, millionaire and newspaper owner. And 
 he was inquiring for their late esteemed editor! 
 
 " Gent asked me to say, sir, that he will be at this 
 address until past five this afternoon, sir. I was to 
 give you this card, too, with a red mark on it, and to 
 say that, if you hand it to the hall porter on entering, 
 you will be shown up at once. He said, not to ask for 
 him by name, sir, as he is troubled with journalists to 
 a considerable extent." A shout of laughter greeted 
 this entreaty. 
 
 " Cheer-o ! Why not take your crew behind you, 
 Brendon ? " cried Prentis. " ' Enter the Editor of the 
 Penman and Staff ! ' Jove, what I would give to be 
 sent for by old Barrymore, I don't think ! " 
 
 " I heard it rumoured at the Institute last week that 
 Probert was going off the B. B." put in the sub-editor. 
 " I wouldn't mind betting he's going to offer you that. 
 And though it's not London, you have got to recollect 
 that the B. B. leads the whole caboodle of provincial 
 rags." 
 
 Oliver stood holding the card, on which was in- 
 scribed in pencil Room 17, second floor, Golden Ball 
 Hotel, Strand. His heart leaped with ungovernable 
 excitement. He looked at his watch. 
 
 " I shall just do it, boys. I can dine on the train all 
 right 
 
 " Go, with our blessing," urged Prentis. " Leave us 
 to deal with this chaos and old night, we'll see it 
 through. You get into a taxi and shoot off to the Gol- 
 den Ball forthwith. Take time by the fetlock, as the 
 wise say." 
 
 " Will you chaps really finish up for me ? The 
 labels to be nailed on the cases are all here, ready. 
 Well, then, I'll say Good-bye, and good luck to you all
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 253 
 
 till we meet again. Oh, by Jove, I was forgetting the 
 safe!" 
 
 He went to it, unlocked it, and opened also the inner 
 compartment which was his own. It contained a dis- 
 patch-box, on the top of which lay Vivien's letter, 
 hardly noticed by him in his haste. More because he 
 did not wish to pause to unlock the box than for any 
 other reason, he put the letter in his pocket-book, gave 
 the dispatch-box to the men to pack, and was ready to 
 be off. 
 
 In the taxi, try as he would, he could not prevent 
 his hopes from rising absurdly. This man Barrymore 
 could make his fortune : and this man had sent for him ! 
 The enthusiasm of his underlings, most of whom might 
 share in any of his good-fortune, had sent him off a 
 trifle exalted. He found himself wondering what 
 Astrid would say. He pleased himself by picturing 
 her expression of eye and lip as she received the tid- 
 ings : and chid himself for letting his mind dwell upon 
 her. He thought over the various organs owned by 
 Barrymore, and wondered which he should prefer. He 
 forgot that he was hungry and tired, that he was on the 
 eve of an expedition which would tax his fortitude and 
 somewhat humble his pride that he had bade a sad 
 farewell to his mother, and a final one, so she willed it, 
 to his wife. He was upheld by the glow of hope which 
 illumined the future. If Barrymore had a definite 
 offer to make, there were at least two good men in his 
 own office who would take on his present job for him. 
 
 The traffic in Fleet Street and the Strand was thick, 
 but in a few minutes he was at his destination, had 
 handed in the mysterious card, and was at once ushered 
 by a boy in livery, whom the porter summoned, up two 
 flights of stairs.
 
 254 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 What with the emotions lie had gone through the 
 preceding day, his night journey, the state of hustle he 
 had been experiencing ever since, and the mysterious 
 summons, he was in a state of excitement very unusual 
 in him. As they hastened along a wide corridor, a door 
 close to him flew open, a man ran out, and collided 
 with him with such force that Brendon went stagger- 
 ing some paces in order not to fall down. 
 
 " Confound ! " he exclaimed angrily, flushing with 
 annoyance, and turning to stare after the hastening 
 man, who with hardly an apology was walking away. 
 The hoy conducting him, who had been in advance, 
 seeing Brendon's red face and perturbed aspect, halted 
 a moment, wondering whether there would be further 
 developments : then, as if deciding that there would not, 
 he opened a door, and called sonorously: 
 
 "Mr. Brendon." 
 
 Oliver went in. A handsome, middle-aged man was 
 seated at a table reading the newspaper, with a tray 
 and decanters beside him. 
 
 " I trust I am not too late," began Oliver, somewhat 
 in a hurry. 
 
 The man stood up, and shook hands. He looked 
 curiously at the young man's raised colour and heated 
 aspect. " Dear me ! " he said. " ~No hurry, sir ! No 
 hurry at all. I fear you have been putting yourself to 
 unnecessary trouble." 
 
 " I hurried a bit," replied Oliver, conscious of a 
 sudden fall in his spirits, since this man was certainly 
 not Barrymore, whose features were as well known to 
 all journalists as those of his Most Gracious Majesty. 
 " I have been out of London, and only received Mr. 
 Barrymore's message a few minutes ago. I conclude 
 that as I am late, he has been unable to wait to see me."
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 255 
 
 " Not at all, not at all. He is at this moment dic- 
 tating to one of his secretaries. I will let him know 
 that you are here. He was most anxious to see you, 
 Mr. Brendon. I think I may take it upon myself to 
 say so much. I I understand you have severed all 
 connection with the Penman?" 
 
 " That is so, I am going abroad starting this even- 
 ing, in fact." 
 
 " Sit down. You look a bit fagged. Have a drink 
 while I go and summon Mr. Barrymore." 
 
 The man's manner was reassuring and kind. He 
 poured out a whisky and soda, for which Oliver felt 
 truly grateful. 
 
 " I understood you to say," went on the unknown, as 
 his visitor sipped his drink, " that you are leaving Eng- 
 land to-day. I hope that does not mean that you have 
 accepted permanent work ? " 
 
 " Not permanent," said Oliver, vaguely. He was 
 surprised to find that he felt quite stupid. Surely a 
 little hurry, a little agitation, could not have so dire an 
 effect. " Merely temporary," he added, and had much, 
 ado to separate the syllables so as to make the word 
 sound clear. 
 
 He saw the other man come near the table, rest his 
 hands upon it, and look curiously at him. "Do you 
 think you had better finish that ? " said he softly. " I 
 am inclined to suppose that you have had enough al- 
 ready." 
 
 " On the contrary," replied Oliver, stung to anger 
 by the insinuation and eager to show that he could 
 articulate properly, " I have had nothing all day 
 this will pull me together." He emptied his glass, and 
 set it down. 
 
 " I will go and tell Mr. Barrymore," said the other
 
 256 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 man. His voice came from a long way off. Suddenly 
 it seemed to Oliver that there was but one thing to be 
 done, and that was to yield for two minutes to the drow- 
 siness that was stealing over him. He saw the man go 
 out of the room, he heard the door close behind him. 
 His eyes also closed, as it were, simultaneously. He 
 would be sure to awake when that door opened again. 
 He had once or twice, after a long night's work, been 
 overtaken by momentary drowsiness before. This had 
 come on very suddenly. The chair was comfortable. 
 His dark head fell back against the cushions, and con- 
 sciousness left him. 
 
 He awoke, after a fashion. That is, he became par- 
 tially conscious. The room, he thought, was full of 
 people, moving, murmuring, quarrelling. He wanted 
 to speak, to reprove them, to ask them to go away. 
 After many efforts, he succeeded in making his voice 
 heard. The effect was extraordinary. Immediately 
 he was in solitude and darkness. He sat up. 
 
 One shaking hand to his throbbing forehead, he tried 
 to decide where he was. He felt about him. In a 
 chair : near a table : that was all he could find out 
 without rising. Then he had better rise. 
 
 Ah! That was a difficult matter. Weights of lead 
 seemed to hold him down. At first he really thought 
 that he was bound. But nothing held him except his 
 heavy limbs. He rose, and the world rocked. 
 
 He felt in his pockets for matches. There they were, 
 but he could not stand erect if he used both his hands. 
 He had to grope for the chair again, sit down, and make 
 many efforts before he could strike a light. 
 
 The flicker showed him a hotel sitting-room, and the 
 whole thing rolled back upon his dulled brain. How
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 257 
 
 long had he slept ? Had he missed his train ? What 
 could have happened to him ? 
 
 His brain was still far too bemused for him to reason, 
 but the one dominant idea that he had missed the boat- 
 train overcame him. He pulled out his watch, and saw 
 that it pointed to a quarter to twelve. 
 
 A quarter to twelve! 
 
 The match went out. He lit another, and saw the 
 door. With a sudden energy born of despair he rose, 
 crossed the floor, and managed to open the door and 
 pass out into the hotel corridor, lit from end to end. 
 All was quiet, he saw nobody. He could not remem- 
 ber in which direction the staircase ought to be. He 
 could not see clearly, but he thought he remembered 
 that it was a long way from the door of the room from 
 which he had just come. He started to run, staggering 
 and lurching ; and in a minute had, as it were, stepped 
 off into nothingness, and fell heavily, rolling over and 
 over down the wide stairs. 
 
 There was a confusion of voices, then. Somebody 
 came and took him up. He found himself in a chair, 
 in the hall. He heard a remote voice say contemptu- 
 ously, " Drunk as a lord ! Lor', there's a providence 
 watches over 'em ! " 
 
 He tried to speak, and his voice was so thick and 
 guttural that he did not recognise it. "I am hurt, I 
 am hurt," he repeated. 
 
 There seemed to be a consultation. " Can't keep 'im 
 'ere. Give 'im in charge." 
 
 " He come drunk, in the afternoon, went barging 
 into Number Twelve and near upset him." 
 
 " I am not drunk," repeated Oliver, in a thick 
 voice. Then came a policeman, bending over him.
 
 258 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 Then they helped him up, and he was taken somewhere, 
 he did not know where, nor how he got there, for be- 
 tween pain, and the as yet unspent force of the drug, he 
 was almost wholly unconscious. He knew they tried 
 to make him stand up and answer questions. He knew 
 that a doctor felt his pulse, for the result was to make 
 him cry out in pain, upon which the doctor possessed 
 himself of his wrist, and some others held him to pre- 
 vent resistance, while the doctor did something which 
 hurt vilely. After that, at last, they laid him down to 
 rest. The desire to catch his train had all faded from 
 his mind. He only wanted to be alone, quiet, in the 
 dark. 
 
 Another awakening. This time to full consciousness, 
 but only confused memory, and a dull sense of pain. 
 
 He saw the doctor plainly this time, as he came in, 
 and understood when he was told that he had broken his 
 right wrist. He eagerly assured the doctor that he was 
 suffering from drugs, not drink. The doctor listened 
 politely, but with evident lack of belief. The young 
 man had smelt too strongly of whisky when he was 
 brought in. Oliver further assured him that he must 
 have been robbed he had been decoyed to the hotel 
 to be robbed. The doctor called a warder, and they 
 examined the things taken from him over-night. There 
 was his gold watch, his sovereign purse, his handsome 
 silver cigarette-case, and his pocketbook, intact, with 
 four Bank of England notes in it. Even to Oliver's 
 own mind, the charge broke down. Why should thieves 
 decoy him to a hotel, drug him, and not proceed to rob 
 him? He felt so incredibly foolish that he ceased to 
 urge his innocence of the charge of drunkenness. 
 Brought up before the magistrate, he refrained from 
 repeating his story, or from saying anything which
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 259 
 
 might make the case of enough interest to get into the 
 papers. His name he could not withhold, since he had 
 letters on him, and a card-case. He paid his fine, and 
 found himself in the street, ill and sick, disheartened 
 and bewildered, the only thing that was clear to him 
 being that he had lost his job. He could not proceed io 
 the seat of war with a broken wrist. 
 
 What to do was a puzzle. At first he thought of 
 going to his club. But the idea that the account of his 
 being before the beak, fined for drunkenness, might be 
 known by the time the evening paper came out made 
 him flinch from that. 
 
 In his heart was a desire which amounted to positive 
 longing, to go to his wife. He remembered Astrid, one 
 evening at the Abbot's House, when Sybil had had a 
 headache. He recalled the tenderness without fussi- 
 ness, the soft movement, the knowledge of what the suf- 
 ferer wanted and would like. But, apart from her re- 
 pudiation of him, a caravan was no place for a sick 
 man with a broken limb. 
 
 It seemed to him that he had no choice but to go to 
 Thackridge. 
 
 He felt so utterly stupid and heavy-headed that he 
 was not even competent to wire to the Sentinel that a 
 serious accident obliged him to throw up his job. His 
 mother must do that. He hailed a taxi, and gave 
 orders to be driven the whole way. He had just sense 
 to go first to the club and pick up his luggage; then 
 he threw himself back upon the cushions, and tried to 
 force connected thought upon his aching brain, until 
 the agony became too keen, and he subsided into 
 semi-coma.
 
 He sorrowed, not as one 
 
 Who can command the gamut of despair; 
 But as a man who feels his days are done, 
 So dead they seem, so desolately bare. 
 
 AUSTIN DOBSON. 
 
 SYBIL had just finished lunch, and gone upstairs to 
 make ready for a motor drive with the Colonel. 
 
 The engagement into which she had entered so half- 
 heartedly was becoming by degrees a delightful thing to 
 her. Not only did her personal pleasure exceed her 
 expectation, but it seemed already to have had the effect, 
 which the Colonel had predicted, of causing Oliver to 
 realize that his mother did not exist wholly and solely 
 on his account. 
 
 During her son's last visit the visit in which he 
 confessed his change of fortune, and more than hinted 
 of a corresponding change of heart, she had been nearer 
 happiness than she had thought she could ever be again. 
 Oliver had been his own natural self. He had spoken 
 and felt just as he ought as she had always taken 
 for granted that his father's son would speak and feel. 
 
 Grieved though she was at his loss of position, and 
 perhaps still more at the manner of it, she yet felt that 
 the plunge he was about to take his going abroad, his 
 roughing it, his new sense of personal responsibility 
 would in all probability be the making of him. 
 
 He avowed to her his intention of journeying, in 
 spite of the short time at his disposal, all the way down 
 
 260
 
 'A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 261 
 
 to the gipsy encampment, to announce his new de- 
 parture to his wife. Knowing what she knew of 
 Astrid's carefully concealed heart, she hoped much 
 from that last farewell. The girl would appreciate the 
 feeling which had brought him so far, with so little time 
 for his final arrangements. She would have seen that 
 some strong force had drawn him to her, had made him 
 feel unable to leave England without seeing her. She 
 could hardly continue to believe in the complete indif- 
 ference of the man who acted thus. It might, in con- 
 junction with what she herself would be feeling, break 
 down her pride enough for her to send him away with 
 some kind of hope. 
 
 That hope stirred strongly in Sybil's own breast to- 
 day. She felt like a girl herself in her soft summer 
 raiment as she strolled down the garden path, waiting 
 for the sound of Walter's motor. To him she knew 
 that she was just the same beloved woman that she had 
 been twenty years before. Love, which could so tri- 
 umph over the years, might surely also prevail even over 
 the memory of past cruelty and heal the deepest wounds. 
 
 She heard the motor, and, turning, ran back with the 
 light foot of the woman who goes to meet her lover. 
 Quickly she passed through the house, her eyes filled 
 with the light that Walter loved to see in them the 
 light that had been so carefully hidden during all the 
 years of his dull patience. 
 
 It was not Walter. It was a London taxi-cab, and 
 when she came out upon the gravel, Drew and the driver 
 were both standing by the door, with their heads very 
 close together. She heard Drew say, " Oh my ! Oh 
 dear ! There must have been an accident ! " 
 
 An accident! When she looked back upon it after- 
 wards, she could hardly believe that in that first moment
 
 262 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 her thought flew, not to her only son, but to Walter. 
 She pressed forward ; and as she did so, the driver, lean- 
 ing into the interior of the cab, drew its occupant for- 
 ward, and with Drew's help lifted him out. His head 
 lay upon the man's shoulder, and his eyes were closed. 
 It was Oliver. 
 
 Oliver! Who should have sailed for Tripoli last 
 night ! 
 
 They got him, between them, into the hall, and laid 
 him upon a sofa. 
 
 His right arm was in a sling, his clothes were tum- 
 bled, his forehead and chin were cut and bruised, and he 
 was unshaven. 
 
 In terror the mother demanded where the man had 
 picked up his fare. He told her in the street, not far 
 from the Police Court, adding that the gent, when he 
 took him up, was leaning on a " copper's " arm. He 
 was conscious then, had given the address, and asked 
 to be taken to his club, whence they had carried the lug- 
 gage which he proceeded to produce. 
 
 The cab paid and dismissed, Sybil and the maid 
 speedily brought salts, brandy, and hot water; and in 
 a short while Oliver opened his eyes* Evidently he 
 knew his mother, for an expression of satisfaction 
 dawned on his face. He was persuaded to drink, and 
 the effects were soon apparent. He sat up, pushing 
 back his chair as though in a painful effort to make his 
 mind work. 
 
 " Mustn't forget," he said in a queer, stuttering way, 
 " wire to the Sentinel. Can't go. Accident. Wrist 
 
 broken. Send for " He paused, as if a terrific 
 
 feat of memory were necessary in order to continue. 
 " Tell them, send for P Prentis. Charles Prentis,
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 at the Penman. He'll go, in my place. Mother, do 
 you hear ? Am I talking sense ? " 
 
 " I think I understand. I am to wire to the Sentinel 
 that you cannot go, and suggest they send young Prentis 
 instead ? " 
 
 He looked satisfied. " That's right. Now I can let 
 go my head. It ... it's so mighty hard to k keep 
 it on my shoulders. Will it matter if I . . . let go ? " 
 
 " Not at all, dearest. Never mind about your head. 
 I'll see to that. But do you think, with our help, you 
 could walk upstairs to bed ? " 
 
 He agreed to try, and somehow the two women got 
 him as far as the bottom of the stairs. But there they 
 must have laid him down, had not the Colonel at the 
 moment arrived to the rescue. A few hurried words, 
 and exclamations, and he had grasped the essential fact 
 that Oliver must be got up to bed ; and in a short while 
 it was done. 
 
 The doctor, when he arrived, was anxious. There 
 was a high temperature, with delirium. The brain was 
 excited. The young man was in just such a state as 
 might develop into brain fever. The greatest care was 
 necessary, absolute quiet, a first-rate nurse ice and 
 other remedies. 
 
 The setting of the wrist was examined and improved. 
 Applications to lessen the pain were applied. The sick- 
 ness which supervened was a grave symptom. It was in 
 all probability the result of shock. They concluded 
 that Oliver must have been knocked down by a motor ; 
 but there was no mud on his clothes. 
 
 The telephone brought a nurse in a few hours' time ; 
 and Sybil and the Colonel were left in deepest anxiety
 
 264 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 to await the developments of the next twenty-four 
 hours. 
 
 It was some days before this anxiety was wholly re- 
 moved. The brain congestion passed off, to the mother's 
 profound relief, without the threatened fever. Never- 
 theless, there remained a condition of cerebral irritation, 
 which demanded great care and perfect quiet. 
 
 Sybil, after somewhat profound thought, decided not 
 to send word to Astrid. Her reasons for keeping her in 
 ignorance were many. Among the strongest was her 
 desire that Astrid should remain, at least for a time, 
 under the impression that Oliver had really left Eng- 
 land. She would not be expecting news from him for 
 several days, so that she would be in no undue anxiety ; 
 but Sybil hoped much from the parting, as she in her 
 own mind imagined it to have been, and the succeeding 
 absence and possible danger of the young man. An- 
 other reason was the fact of Astrid's own late ill-health, 
 and the doctor's warning respecting her nerves. If 
 things turned out very badly, and brain fever super- 
 vened, then it would be but just to inform the wife. 
 But to alarm her unnecessarily would be unwise and 
 cruel. She was presumably regaining strength each 
 day, and would be in a better state to bear the bad news 
 if bad it should prove to be. 
 
 Since Oliver's precipitate journey and return, Sybil 
 had had but one note from her daughter-in-law. Thus 
 it ran : 
 
 " MY DEAR MRS. BRENDON, 
 
 " Oliver tells me that you are good enough to 
 wish to have me with you for a time. I need not tell 
 you that that is what I wish also. Will you let me 
 know whether you would like me to come at once?
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 265 
 
 The Selbys are not thinking of breaking up the camp 
 until next Monday; but I can come when you want 
 me; Mr. Selby says he will spare me. Oliver also 
 told me of your approaching marriage, and I should 
 like to wish you happiness. 
 
 " I am, sincerely yours, 
 
 "ASTRID BRENDON." 
 
 Underneath a hasty postscript : " You deserve it ! 
 O, you do ! You do ! " 
 
 This letter was not wholly satisfactory to Sybil. It 
 was colder and more guarded than Astrid's letters had 
 been of late. It made her wonder what, if anything, 
 had transpired between the two. Oliver's words to her- 
 self, before going to take leave of his wife, had inspired 
 her with hope. He seemed to be filled with regret for 
 his unkindness to Astrid, and anxious to do all he could 
 for her. His tone and manner had seemed to express 
 more than what he actually said; They had led his 
 mother even to the length of hoping that " all he could " 
 might be something that Astrid's pride would allow her 
 to accept. Well! She had accepted this arrangement 
 which he had made for her that she should come back 
 to the Abbot's House. Sybil guessed she would be glad 
 to do this, because of her much-prized secretaryship. 
 She could imagine the gratification it would be to the 
 girl's fierce independence to know that she had this post, 
 which would prevent her having to apply for money to 
 Oliver. The mother-in-law pulled a wry face as she 
 reflected that it is possible to be too proud, and perhaps 
 wished her son's wife a trifle more malleable. 
 
 There was a thought floating about in the background 
 of Sybil's mind. Oliver had told her that the Selbys 
 were extremely fond of Astrid, thought nothing too good
 
 266 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 for her, made a great fuss with her : Dan had said that 
 dictating to her was in itself inspiring. 
 
 Would it be unnatural should the girl, so despised 
 where she should have been most treasured, turn with 
 thankfulness to those from whom she had obtained in- 
 stant recognition of her attractiveness, instant restora- 
 tion of her almost perished self-respect ? 
 
 Sybil liked Dan Selby sincerely; and the result of 
 her meditation was a conviction that something ought 
 to be devised for taking his perfect secretary away from 
 him. 
 
 She wrote a brief but affectionate reply to Astrid's 
 note, saying that the time suggested would suit very 
 well, and she would expect her on that date. As the 
 days passed, her own concealment of what had happened 
 caused her some mental disquiet ; but as there was, after 
 the first four-and-twenty hours, no danger, she held to 
 her resolution, thinking that, when the delirium passed, 
 she might obtain a clue to Oliver's own feeling on the 
 subject. 
 
 She was not surprised that almost his first coherent 
 words to her should be, " I hope you have not said any- 
 thing of all this to Astrid ? " adding, after a pause, 
 " On no account must she be distressed. When I am 
 all right again, she can be told, if necessary. But I 
 daresay she will have gone to Ireland by then." 
 
 His mind was evidently full of his wife, and his 
 mother listened with some surprise to his opinion as to 
 her probable movements. She had in her pocket her 
 daughter-in-law's letter, promising to come to her in 
 the course of a very few days. She did not say so, how- 
 ever; she waited to hear more. Oliver lay very quiet 
 for some time without speaking, his eyes open, evidently
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 267 
 
 thinking deeply. At last he said in a kind of helpless 
 depression, " I shall never see her again." 
 
 " !Never see her again, dear ? " she asked timidly. 
 
 " ISTo. She has done with me. One can't be sur- 
 prised. I rather wish those chaps, whoever they were, 
 had finished me." 
 
 This was a reference to his accident. Sybil eagerly 
 longed for more on that head, but did not dare put ques- 
 tions to him, as she was warned that he ought not to 
 talk. The nurse came in at the moment and depreca- 
 tingly begged that there might be no conversation. 
 
 The next day, however, the patient was stronger ; and 
 the day following, which was Saturday, Sybil ventured 
 to ask if he remembered the circumstances of his acci- 
 dent. 
 
 He replied a little huffed, that he certainly did. His 
 mind seemed in all respects perfectly clear, and his 
 mother was unprepared for the wild story he told. 
 Manifestly he was talking rubbish. That he should 
 have been decoyed to a hotel, drugged, and left help- 
 less, without being robbed, was so improbable as to seem 
 hardly worth considering. He told it all, however, 
 without the least suspicion that the truth of his state- 
 ment would be doubted. 
 
 Sybil, much bewildered, repeated what he said to the 
 Colonel and the doctor. The latter admitted that the 
 state in which Mr. Brendon had arrived home was quite 
 compatible with his having been drugged. Respecting 
 the truth of the rest of the story, the Colonel had only 
 to go to the Golden Ball Hotel and inquire, which he 
 did that very day. 
 
 Oliver's story received some confirmation, although 
 the authorities, to whom Mr. Barrymore was well
 
 268 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 known, denied that he had been to the hotel for some 
 months past. However, on the day named, a gentleman 
 had engaged a room for a private appointment, and had 
 been in a difficulty because the client whom he had 
 appointed to meet had unfortunately arrived too drunk 
 to transact business. The gentleman explained that, 
 not detecting an already advanced stage of intoxication, 
 he had offered a stiff whisky and soda> which the young 
 man, having finished at one draught, was then engaged 
 in sleeping off. The gentleman', who gave the name of 
 Brown, had engaged the room for twenty-four hours, 
 paying in advance. He therefore left the young man 
 there until his brain should clear, and went off, saying 
 he would return later. 
 
 The Colonel asked for a description of the man in 
 the alleged stage of intoxication, and felt no doubt that 
 it was Oliver. Mr. Brown, they said, had come back 
 early the next morning, to see if his friend were sober 
 enough to settle the matter in hand. They had had to 
 inform him that the person left in occupation of his 
 room having caused a disturbance in the middle of the 
 night, they had given him into custody. It was not at 
 all an unusual thing for them to let a room for business 
 appointments. 
 
 The hall porter and the man who stood at the hall 
 desk alike declared it their firm belief that Oliver had 
 rolled downstairs in a state of intoxication. When the 
 Colonel gave his opinion that a man who had broken a 
 limb should have been sent to a hospital, and not to the 
 lock-up, they replied that they had no idea of his having 
 broken a limb, and as a rule those who were " tight " 
 never hurt themselves seriously. 
 
 The whole thing left the Colonel both puzzled and 
 troubled. He did not like to make too much fuss about
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 269 
 
 it until lie could be quite satisfied that Oliver had not 
 behaved in a discreditable manner. A year ago he 
 would have been furious had such a charge been levelled 
 against the young man who stood so aloof from the 
 more vulgar forms of folly. But a man who will marry 
 his typewriter girl out of pique will also perhaps com- 
 mit other indiscretions. 
 
 It seemed inconceivable that any one should be de- 
 coyed to a room and drugged with no object. Was it 
 possible that some one had a reason for preventing Oli- 
 ver's going to the front? This suggestion was uncon- 
 vincing, because his enemies could not have foreseen his 
 broken wrist; and a few hours' delay would, without 
 that injury, have made little difference. 
 
 They hesitated to cross-question the invalid. When 
 first he told his story they had listened, disbelieved, and 
 waited for a time when his brain should clear. When 
 he repeated it, they pointed out to him gently that he 
 had not been robbed, and they wondered why he should 
 have been drugged. This produced vexation and quer- 
 ulous impatience. " Did they take him for a fool ? " 
 
 They relinquished inquiry until his convalescence 
 should have reached a more advanced stage. 
 
 Down in the west, the June days dawned and set in 
 splendour. But to Astrid there had passed away a 
 glory from the earth. 
 
 She lived, over and over again, her parting from 
 Oliver. She asked herself whether she had done right 
 or wrong. The question being quite unanswerable, she 
 wearied herself both by day and night to find an ade- 
 quate reply. 
 
 Tessa, who had been inclined to think that there was 
 a biggish rift in the Brendon matrimonial lute, was
 
 270 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 changing her opinion when she saw how the girl felt 
 the parting. Astrid bore her sympathy, though writh- 
 ing at the false pretences under which she accepted it. 
 She had a feeling that, since it was settled that the 
 parting between herself and Oliver was final, she ought 
 perhaps to tell these kind friends of hers that so it was. 
 They would have to know, sooner or later. 
 
 The prospect of telling, however, daunted her. It 
 must be later, not sooner. Her husband's absence, felt 
 to be inevitable, was paving the way for the future. 
 Soon she would have got over the sharpness of feeling, 
 and be able to mention these things calmly. Just now 
 she could do no such thing. 
 
 The week passed melancholy. Dan was in deep de- 
 pression. Though he knew that she would be at the 
 Abbot's House for the present, and was to come to him 
 every day, he saw that the brief business hours would 
 be another thing indeed wholly unlike the gipsy com- 
 panionship, the intimacy of cooking and washing dishes, 
 the long strolls, by sunset and moonlight, the everlast- 
 ing talks, concerning things literary and things per- 
 sonal. 
 
 It was hard on Dan. Oliver, by putting his wife in 
 a false position, was injuring more than herself and 
 him. Dan's very nobility made him suifer more. He 
 knew he was nothing to the one woman in the world 
 whom he would fain have attached to himself. He felt 
 the unusualness of Astrid as deeply as Sybil herself. 
 He viewed Oliver as the ordinary young Oxford prod- 
 uct, looking down upon the world from the height of 
 a well-taught but not much more than mediocre ability 
 a young man whom you could have matched over 
 and over again from among his own set ; Astrid he saw 
 as a bright particular star, beyond and above her sex;
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 271 
 
 a warp of sterling principle, with a woof of that Irish 
 humour which is more than half sad. 
 
 It might have done Oliver good, could he have known 
 the light in which Dan Selby viewed his mesalliance. 
 
 So the days slipped away, to the very last. As each 
 minute of it ticked by, Dan knew it was the end. The 
 whole expedition was etched in upon his memory with 
 fidelity as detailed as the fine touches of a mezzotint. 
 He knew that it was the fortnight of his life. He 
 would never have such another. The memory of the 
 small pale face, the characteristic movements, the clear 
 voice, with its cadence that was not quite English 
 they were with him until the last days of existence. 
 Let the future hold what it might, it never again could 
 hold just that. 
 
 Tessa saw and understood. She would have given 
 much that such a trouble should not have fallen upon 
 her brother. Yet she could not help knowing that he 
 would be a greater artist because of it. He had seen, 
 as in a magic glass, the vision of what a woman might 
 be. The woman was removed from him by a barrier 
 not to be broken. The whole thing was thus raised to 
 an Ideal. It was a sorrow, but a sorrow full of beauty, 
 a thing that might enrich his life and enable him to 
 put upon paper the impression of a wonderful experi- 
 ence. 
 
 Not yet. It was too fresh, too near, too actual. 
 Hereafter. 
 
 It is difficult to say which of the three felt most 
 acutely the strain of those last days. The two men, 
 Martin and Humphrey Spence, came down as usual for 
 the week-end, finding the party in another camp, a day's 
 journey nearer London. It was half pain, half pleas- 
 ure to Astrid to leave the moorland camp. She
 
 272 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 slipped away when she could, to sit in the very place on 
 the moor where Oliver had sat during their last talk. 
 She recalled his looks and words, and the evident morti- 
 fication with which he had received her last suggestion 
 an attitude for which she had been wholly unpre- 
 pared. She thought of him out in Africa, hot, weary, 
 thirsty, badly lodged 
 
 He need not have gone. He would not have gone but 
 for the disorder of his spirits. He had said so. 
 
 There was one glimmer of light. He would be 
 pleased when he heard that she had betaken herself to 
 Thackridge for a while, to help his mother. 
 
 " It is exactly what would please me most/' She 
 could hear the cadence of his voice as he said it ; and 
 she dwelt upon the way in which he had repeated hia 
 mother's words. " She said she would rather have you 
 than any one in the world." 
 
 There had been exultation in that speech. His 
 mother loved his wife. She knew she could not escape 
 from the knowledge of his being gratified that this 
 should be. 
 
 She had two minds. One, the inner and most cen- 
 tral, was convinced of his hopeless indifference; had 
 ^been convinced of it from the moment when she first 
 saw Vivien. The other, the one more easily influenced 
 by sense, still craved, still snatched at hope. The strug- 
 gle tore her. 
 
 So passed the last hours. 
 
 For the previous two days they had been upon the 
 road, and had reached the town whence the caravans 
 were to proceed by rail, like themselves. The silent 
 tragedy lived itself out, without one word. There were 
 the three two conscious, and the third unaware.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 273 
 
 Had Astrid known the state of Dan's heart, it is cer- 
 tain that she would have fled: but her pre-occupation 
 was far too deep for that. Tessa was on guard, unceas- 
 ingly. She never left the two together, and spent her 
 time in preparing conversation which should be imper- 
 sonal yet interesting a difficult thing, when personal 
 claims are crying in the heart, and nothing else seems 
 to matter. 
 
 It is probable that there are no more pitiful battle- 
 grounds than these of victorious silence. The future was 
 as puzzling as the present to these three ; for Dan was 
 fearing future intercourse, yet longing for it : Tessa's 
 heart was sore for his lonely life, and torn with doubt 
 as to how she could put a stop to the secretarial arrange- 
 ment, and Astrid was determining to go away to Ire- 
 land or perhaps Australia, the moment that Sybil ceased 
 to need her. 
 
 And after all, there was nothing nothing said or 
 done. 
 
 All the pathos lay in what was left unsaid and un- 
 done. Nobody but Tessa and her brother would ever 
 know what those days had meant, and no word on the 
 subject could ever pass between them. 
 
 Dan held out manfully. His masculine density 
 failed to detect the delicate stratagems of Tessa. When 
 it turned out that he could have no final stroll with As- 
 trid, because Tessa had forgotten something which he 
 must fetch from the town, he took it as a part of a gen- 
 eral scheme of " rottenness " a perversity of fate 
 which was just now evilly disposed towards him. He 
 knew nothing of the sisterly tenderness with which her 
 heart was charged. 
 
 If Astrid's heart had wavered, or her allegiance been
 
 274 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 for a moment in doubt, all might have gone otherwise ; 
 but in those days Dan might almost as well not have ex- 
 isted as far as she was concerned. 
 
 Thus the desperate situation was surmounted. Dan 
 travelled to town in a smoking-carriage, and left Tessa 
 and Astrid free to discuss wedding details. The two 
 weddings upon her immediate horizon were a source of 
 some interest to Mrs. Oliver. 
 
 Up to the very door of the Abbot's House, the kind 
 escort accompanied the secretary. 
 
 Her modest luggage was taken from among their own. 
 Tessa leaned forward from the cab, and said gaily, 
 " Good-bye, my dear, or rather au revoir ! see 
 you to-morrow or the next day ! " 
 
 Dan, standing on the doorstep, uncovered his rough 
 head, and held out his hand much as he might have held 
 it in the sacrificial flame. Astrid took it, and let it 
 fall. " You have given me a good time ! I shall never 
 forget it," she faltered, not looking at either of them. 
 " I will let you know as soon as I find out how much of 
 me Mrs. Brendon wants. Then we can make arrange- 
 ments. Good-bye for to-day." 
 
 " Good-bye," said Dan, in a most commonplace tone. 
 He added no other syllable. Then he took his seat by 
 his sister, and as they drove out of the gates, Tessa said 
 with interest, " Just look, Dan, how that Dorothy Per- 
 kins has grown ! It was only put in last year ! " 
 
 " Jove, yes. A good three feet already, I should say ; 
 and it's only June ! " 
 
 His own words startled him. Was it only June ? 
 What was he to do with the rest of the year with the 
 rest of his journey along the long, dull road ?
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 You have the fair face: for the soul, see mine! 
 I have the strong soul: let me teach you here. 
 I think I have borne enough, and long enough, 
 And patiently enough, the world remarks, 
 To have my own way now, unblamed by all. 
 
 R. BROWNING. 
 
 ALAS for Dan Selby ! Astrid had liked him very 
 much, when she was at leisure to consider him. Of late 
 she had found him wearisome. 
 
 Since her final parting from Oliver, her interest in 
 Dan's novel had faded, her work had become mere rou- 
 tine. She could not however fail to be aware that this 
 withdrawal of her sympathy had been very disappoint- 
 ing to the novelist. The knowledge had made the last 
 few days of their tour difficult and unpleasant to her. 
 
 But now it was over. Now she could feel that the 
 tension was relaxed. When Dan and she met again, 
 she would have come to a clear decision, her plans would 
 be made, and she would have to face the unpleasant mo- 
 ment of avowal the breaking to him of the news 
 that his second secretary also was about to forsake him. 
 This would be distasteful, of course; but it would be 
 definite; and she need not worry over it at this mo- 
 ment, when her whole being was centred in quite an- 
 other direction. The sound of his cab wheels had 
 hardly died away before there sprang into the fore- 
 ground of her heart the mingled feelings, the sickness 
 of excitement which her return to the Abbot's House 
 
 275
 
 276 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 must bring. In a few minutes she would have news of 
 Oliver, and she would see Sybil. 
 
 It was now ten days since Oliver had left England. 
 She had not expected to hear from him direct. Her 
 dismissal had been or he had chosen to think so 
 too definite, she supposed, for him to let her know his 
 address, or even of his safe arrival. To what end 
 should he have done so? She did not intend to write 
 to him. 
 
 His mother, however, would no doubt be in posses- 
 sion of the much-desired knowledge. Astrid carried 
 in her bag Mr. Wolfe's letter, containing, in proper 
 terms, his offer to finance a weekly paper of which Mr. 
 Brendon should be editor. 
 
 Astrid and he had had a good deal of correspond- 
 ence. Everything had been satisfactorily arranged be- 
 tween them. Now the urgent matter was to forward 
 the glad news to Oliver himself. Her whole mind was 
 possessed with the overmastering desire to put the let- 
 ter safely in the post. 
 
 It excited some wonder in her that Sybil was not in 
 the hall to greet her, and she asked Drew eagerly where 
 Mrs. Brendon was. 
 
 Drew seemed confused. "Mrs. Brendon's upstairs, 
 ma'am. I will let her know at once that you are here. 
 Would you go into the drawing-room a minute, 
 ma'am ? " 
 
 Astrid did so, with a faint surprise that the sight of 
 her should seem to be causing the parlourmaid agita- 
 tion. Any such thought however was but transient, 
 and was soon merged in the keen memories with which 
 the sight of that room was fraught for her. 
 
 How she remembered her first entrance ! The gown 
 Sybil had worn, her own impression of almost fabulous
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 277 
 
 beauty and luxury in the surroundings : and the fierce, 
 shy girl, shivering with apprehension and resentment, 
 while her husband asked her what her name was ! . . . 
 Then there was another picture. Herself, clad in her 
 very first pretty gown, the room filled with guests on a 
 Sunday afternoon, and Dan Selby making friends . . . 
 last of all there flitted by the memory of a princess in a 
 fairy-tale, all white and blue and golden, standing in 
 the glow of the fire, while the rain beat upon the panes, 
 and Oliver looked from the girl he loved, to the girl to 
 whom he was tied. 
 
 With that thought came, as usual, the conviction of 
 her own powerlessness. She might remove mountains, 
 she could never capture the heart of the man who loved 
 Vivien. The sound of the opening door found her with 
 the quivering shadow of such thoughts playing over her 
 face. Sybil greeted her with a look which awoke in 
 her vague anxiety. There was deep affection in the 
 embrace in which she found herself folded; but she 
 noted that Oliver's mother was nervous. She concluded 
 that her dismissal of her husband was known, and not 
 approved. She was only too anxious to pour out her 
 vindication. There was a limit, even to her self-efface- 
 ment. 
 
 " Why, you are looking well, Astrid even very 
 well," said Sybil with approving voice. " I am glad. 
 You have quite got over the effects of your accident ? " 
 
 " Yes, wonderfully," was the reply, a deep blush 
 heightening the pretty colour which fresh air had im- 
 parted to the white cheeks. " It was quite slight, really. 
 Oliver made too much of it. He was very, very good 
 to me " 
 
 She did not complete the sentence. In speaking of 
 him she found it hard to control her voice. The one
 
 278 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 urgent question must be put; but she had to be con- 
 tent, for a while, to answer affectionate inquiries con- 
 cerning her accident, and to-day's journey, and all the 
 other small topics of the first ten minutes of meeting. 
 At the first pause she managed to ask, pretty quietly, 
 " I hope you have good news of Oliver ? Where is he 
 now?" 
 
 Sybil had of course expected and been prepared for 
 some such inquiry ; but not so soon and not quite in that 
 form. She coloured, and looked embarrassed, as she re- 
 plied drily: 
 
 " So you still take some interest in the poor fellow ? " 
 
 Astrid looked her squarely in the eyes. " I expect 
 he told you, before he sailed, that we had agreed to sepa- 
 rate permanently ? " 
 
 " isT no. I don't think I understood quite that. 
 My impression was that it was you who ordained it and 
 he merely submitted to your wish." 
 
 " That's not fair Oh, it's not fair," said the girl, 
 in a low tone. 
 
 " From what I heard, I own I was surprised when 
 you wrote and said that you would come to me. I be- 
 lieved I had seen the last of you," went on Sybil. 
 
 " Does that mean that you would rather I had not 
 come ? " The question burst out swiftly. 
 
 " Indeed, no ! But I feel rather in the dark as to 
 why you came." 
 
 " He is abroad that makes it safe we shall not 
 meet and I hoped you really wanted me. I wished 
 most earnestly to be of use to you . . . because I love 
 you." 
 
 She received a smile and a hand-pressure, both un- 
 doubtedly sincere. But she felt there was a reserva- 
 tion in the mind of her mother-in-law.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 279 
 
 " Mrs. Brendon," she pleaded, in a voice whose 
 pathos struck her hearer with a great pity, " you know 
 there is a limit one cannot go on for ever " 
 
 " Go on with what ? " 
 
 " With a position which is wrong, and false a po- 
 sition which is a perpetual humiliation. I tried, you 
 know I tried, for a whole month ..." 
 
 " I know you had much to bear, my dear. But, after 
 all, a month is not so very long, when the happiness of 
 two whole lives is at stake." 
 
 " If there had been a chance a hope ever such 
 a tiny one I would have served seven years! But 
 there was none." She hesitated a moment, then hur- 
 ried on "You don't consider, you can't know, what 
 these last weeks have meant, to me. It was infinitely 
 worse it got worse steadily. Here, during the awful 
 month, it was easier. His manner never changed, it 
 was always hard and cold. But after my accident, his 
 manner did change. He was kind even tender with 
 me. He was penitent, I was a thing he had hurt, he 
 wanted to show me that he was sorry. . . . Can't you 
 see how much worse that was ? . . . Remember, I love 
 him ! I could hide that from him while we were ene- 
 mies ; but when he wanted to make it up, I lived in ter- 
 ror of losing control, of letting him find out that I was 
 perpetually offering a devotion he did not want. I was 
 miserable when he was there, worse when he went away. 
 So, when he came and said he was going abroad, I 
 felt the thing had got to end, somehow. How could I 
 be left for weeks and months like that feeding on a 
 hope that most likely was without any justification 
 a shameful, monstrous hope, that not even my self-re- 
 spect could strangle ? It was better to know the worst, 
 and be done. . . And it was the worst. He was hon-
 
 280 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 est with me. He had nothing to say. He just accepted 
 my decision, and went off. He was sorry for me, and 
 ashamed of himself. That was all. There was no 
 more ; and it is better to know it definitely. I " her 
 voice was half strangled with a sob " I think I have 
 suffered enough." 
 
 Sybil answered softly, "He thought so, too. He 
 said he only got what he deserved." 
 
 Astrid was weeping. She repeated to herself, as she 
 mopped her wet eyes, " It was so unbearable so un- 
 bearable. I had to escape. I only wonder I did not 
 kill myself. I think I should have, but that I thought 
 I saw one last way to be of service to him." 
 
 "To Oliver?" 
 
 " Yes. You have heard of Mr. Wolfe, the man whose 
 motor ran me down ? " 
 
 " Of course I have." 
 
 " I know that he had always longed to own a paper, 
 only he knew nothing of the journalistic world, and was 
 so afraid of hitting on the wrong editor. He liked the 
 Penman it was exactly his idea of what a paper 
 should be, with a few differences in detail. So I 
 thought I would try what I could do ... and he is 
 going to finance a weekly, and make Mr. Brendon edi- 
 tor, if he will consent." 
 
 Sybil sat gazing upon her, incredulous. 
 
 She had done this! She, this young, insignificant 
 typist, had saved Oliver at the moment of his deepest 
 need ! She had seen what she might do, she had, more- 
 over, done it. 
 
 "Don't you think it a good idea?" pleaded Astrid 
 wistfully, puzzled by her silence. "We shall have 
 practically all the Penman staff, and, I believe, in a 
 few months, the Penman public too. I have the letter
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 281 
 
 here with me," drawing it out as she spoke. " I want 
 you to put the address upon it, because he must not 
 know that I had anything to do with the transaction. 
 I should hate to suppose that he knew. He might think 
 I was trying to worm myself into his favour, or some- 
 thing like that. Will you take the letter, please, and 
 add the address, and I will run to the post with it." 
 
 Sybil had not failed to note that manifestly uncon- 
 scious use of the " we." Her mind was in a ferment, 
 and she was glad that the news was of so surprising a 
 nature as to make her emotion seem quite natural. 
 
 " The boy is just going with the letters, in a quarter 
 of an hour," she said. " He can take it. I will ad- 
 dress it for you. But I can hardly think coherently, I 
 am so surprised. What astonishing luck! Or rather, 
 what astonishing good sense on your part ! Child, you 
 are constantly surprising me, but you have never done 
 it so effectually as now ! What will Oliver say ? " 
 
 " He will say yes, of course ! Mr. Wolfe is very 
 wealthy, and a bachelor. He is the best backer any one 
 could possibly have." 
 
 " I wonder what he will think ! " sighed Sybil. 
 " Poor fellow, his pleasure will be a good deal clouded, 
 I fear, by the fact that he cannot share it with you." 
 
 Astrid's eyes fell, and her mouth grew hard. " I 
 think you are mistaken," she replied coldly. 
 
 "Well," said Sybil, with a rainy smile, "we will 
 put off further discussion until we have had tea. Come 
 upstairs, I have put you into the room next mine, I 
 thought you might like a different one. You shall un- 
 pack and I will send off this letter. We will wait tea 
 a quarter of an hour, for Colonel Waring." 
 
 They went upstairs together, parting at the door of 
 Astrid's room. Hardly was she shut in, when Sybil
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 fled, her knees positively shaking under her, the letter 
 in her hand, along the passage to Oliver's room. He 
 was sitting up to-day, for the first time, and also shaved 
 for the first time since his accident. He was weak and 
 depressed. The depression seemed to increase with his 
 convalescence. The future looked dreary enough. 
 
 His mother received rather grumpy replies to her 
 inquiries. He felt injured, because she had been called 
 from the room by a maid, and had left him to his soli- 
 tary reflections. 
 
 " Oliver," she said, " I have a letter for you. It was 
 sent to me, to be forwarded to you, abroad. Did you 
 ever hear of a Mr. Wolfe ? " 
 
 His face darkened. "You mean the man whose 
 motor knocked down Astrid ? " 
 
 " Yes. The letter is from him, I am told." 
 
 "What on earth " said Oliver irritably, as he 
 
 took and opened the envelope. Evidently his eyes 
 were held by the first few lines. He read on, with an 
 expression of mingled incredulity and excitement. It 
 was a long letter. When it was done, he rested his 
 arm on his knee and leaned forward, staring into the 
 fire. " Well ! " he said, in tones of stupefaction. 
 
 " Is the news momentous ? " asked Sybil. 
 
 " Read it," he bade her : and his voice trembled with 
 excitement. " Read it ! Why, I can't believe it ! It 
 would alter everything ! " . . . Then his head dropped 
 into his hands, and he concluded dreamily. " What 
 does it matter after all ? She doesn't care ! " 
 
 His mother spoke clearly. " To whom do you re- 
 fer ? Who does not care ? " 
 
 " Astrid, of course." 
 
 " I did not know there was any t of course.' I 
 thought it might be Mrs. Railton of whom you spoke."
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 283 
 
 " I have had enough of the Railtons, thank you." 
 
 " Why should you conclude that Astrid doesn't 
 care ? " 
 
 " I have told you already, she has given me the 
 chuck." 
 
 " Did she do that for her own sake, or for yours ? 
 Are you sure she wished it, or only thought that you 
 did?" 
 
 He turned towards his mother, examining her face 
 closely. It showed signs of perturbation. " What do 
 you know about it ? " he asked slowly. 
 
 " Not much. If I knew, I should not ask to be in- 
 formed. What I really wish to be told is the state of 
 your mind, if you know it, which I doubt. Suppose 
 that it depended merely upon your own wish, would 
 you want to have Astrid with you always? In plain 
 words, do you love her, Oliver? If you don't, she is 
 entirely in the right, and it is best for you never to 
 see her again." 
 
 There was a pause. " I see what you mean," said 
 Oliver slowly. 
 
 " And you have no answer ready ? " 
 
 He still stared into the fire. " Have I ? I am not 
 quite sure." 
 
 " Exactly. But it is your place to be sure. Until 
 you are, please don't be putting the blame of your sep- 
 aration upon your wife. Now let me see this letter 
 which is exciting you so greatly." 
 
 He handed it to her absent-mindedly, without speak- 
 ing. 
 
 She read it and could not resist a little cry of tri- 
 umph. " Oh, Oliver, this will take the wind out of 
 Railton's sails!" 
 
 His eyes kindled. " It will that. I should like to
 
 284 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 write to all the boys to-night all my old crowd, and 
 tell them to be on the jump. Why, I could start the 
 whole thing in a week or two I have got it all in my 
 hands it only needs to wait until we have done some 
 flaming advertising you see, he leaves that entirely to 
 me ! If only I had her here ! I say, wouldn't she be 
 keen!" 
 
 " I think she would." 
 
 " You have always appreciated her, mother." 
 
 " I have always thought her much too good for you." 
 
 " And I looked upon her as a negligible quantity," he 
 replied dreamily. The enthusiasm of his new idea 
 faded, and his weakness reasserted itself. " I don't 
 feel as if I could touch this without her," he faltered. 
 
 " Oh, nonsense, that is only because you are feeling 
 ill. You will be getting stronger every day, more es- 
 pecially now that you have this to work for." 
 
 " I wonder if I dm in love with her," he uttered 
 slowly, as though thinking aloud. " She seems shut 
 up too tightly to be loved. Her scorn of me hurts. I 
 always feel as if she were thinking, t What a skunk 
 that man is, what an unspeakable brute ! ' But I am 
 always wishing she were here, for all that." 
 
 " It would distress you to hear that she was ill, or 
 or for the sake of argument dead ? " 
 
 He sprang to his feet. " Mother! " 
 
 She was frightened at the emotion she had provoked. 
 " Sit down, Oliver, sit down, you are not strong 
 enough " 
 
 " You have had bad news ! " 
 
 " Nothing of the kind ! I assure you, boy " 
 
 1 You are trying to prepare me for something ! 
 Something serious ! She is in danger, or or lost to 
 me, somehow ! "
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 285 
 
 " Indeed, indeed, no. I am sorry I made such a 
 stupid remark. I only wanted to try and find out 
 what you really thought. You do not like to think that 
 she is completely lost to you ? " 
 
 " Oh, don't torment me," he said brokenly. " You 
 can see how I feel." 
 
 " Yes," she said thoughtfully, " I do see how you 
 feel." 
 
 " But there is something something you are keep- 
 ing from me ! I know there is ! Mother, I demand to 
 hear it ! You are trying to prepare my mind to hear 
 something I shan't like, but it is far worse to keep me 
 on tenter-hooks like this. Tell me the worst ! Does she 
 want to be legally free ? " 
 
 He was working himself into a state of excitement 
 which she felt was dangerous. " Oliver, be quiet, at 
 once. I give you my word my oath, if you will 
 that to the best of my knowledge and belief, Astrid is 
 well and safe, and there is no fresh news about her." 
 
 She succeeded, at last, in calming him. The en- 
 trance of the nurse, with his tea upon a tray, made a 
 break, and she succeeded in escaping, telling him that 
 she had a visitor to tea downstairs, so could not stay to 
 take her own with him. 
 
 She left him to digest the surprising news. 
 
 Her heart beat fast as she hurried downstairs. She 
 knew not how to deal with the situation. It behoved 
 her to walk warily. She could not help fearing that, 
 were Astrid to become aware of Oliver's presence, she 
 would flee from him. 
 
 The Colonel was in the drawing-room, standing on 
 the hearth-rug, with his back to the flowering begonias, 
 as though a fire burned there. Astrid had not yet come 
 down. Sybil ran to Walter as to a refuge.
 
 286 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 " Oh, dear man," she said, " what am I to do ? 
 Counsel me ! " Dropping her voice, " They are both 
 in the house and neither knows of the other's presence." 
 
 " Well, well, dear me ! That sounds difficult. What 
 is the exact state of things between them ? " 
 
 " Briefly, that each is longing for the other, and 
 each is persuaded of the indifference of the other. I 
 don't know what to do. Shall I tell him she is here? 
 Shall I tell her he is here? Shall I tell both or 
 and here is the fourth and last possible course, the one 
 I prefer shall I tell neither, and send her into the 
 room to fetch something ? " 
 
 He whistled softly. " Oliver is pretty shaky still, 
 isn't he?" 
 
 " He is weak, certainly. But I don't think it would 
 hurt him." 
 
 " She would have to know about this this curious 
 affair of his being in that hotel." 
 
 " Well, but as far as we know, there is a mystery, 
 but no disgrace. I do not believe he had been drink- 
 ing. He told the exact truth about it all " 
 
 She paused, because the Colonel was looking con- 
 scious and worried. 
 
 " It's a very queer story," he muttered obstinately. 
 She regarded him uneasily, for the thorn that pricked 
 him was hidden from her. She had just now nobody 
 of whom to be jealous. Walter loved her, Oliver had 
 come back to her. The Colonel, however, was tor- 
 mented every day by the green-eyed monster. To have 
 Oliver in the house ill exacting a great deal of his 
 mother's attention, had been a final trial of the patience 
 of this most patient suitor. That small, unworthy 
 jealousy coloured his thoughts of Oliver. He knew it ; 
 his nature was thoroughly sweet ; and when he saw her
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 287 
 
 look distressed he was ashamed and wondered at him- 
 self. " He might be more likely to tell the whole thing 
 to her than to anybody else eh ? " he said encourag- 
 ingly. 
 
 " You think so ? I half believe that you are right." 
 To his remorse she seemed to be choking back tears. 
 " He was the victim of some kind of trick," she said, 
 achieving composure with an effort. " I don't believe 
 he understands it himself. But of one thing I am sure, 
 since since the last half -hour. He he does love 
 Astrid!" 
 
 The tears came. 
 
 " Well," expostulated he helplessly, " but that's what 
 you wish, isn't it ? " 
 
 She nodded mutely. 
 
 " If she is er getting to care for him, would it 
 put her off, do you think ? " he inquired awkwardly. 
 " I mean, would she think the worse of him if she hears 
 of this escapade ? " 
 
 " She will have to know, Walter, that he did not go 
 to Tripoli." 
 
 " That's true. Well, do as you think right. How 
 can I advise ? A woman's instinct in these matters is 
 surer than a man's." 
 
 She wiped her eyes, and sat down to her tea-table 
 with a smile, summoned on his account. 
 
 " I always thought my daughter-in-law wonderful," 
 said she, " and to-day I find she is more almost 
 miraculous. She has done a thing that nobody else in 
 the world could have done ; and done it so that he will 
 never feel an undue sense of obligation." 
 
 " What has she done ? " 
 
 " Mended his fallen fortunes. Oliver is an editor 
 once more with capital to back him, a free hand, and
 
 288 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 all he could have dreamed of in his rosiest moments ! I 
 must tell you about it, though very sketchily, for she 
 will be downstairs in a few minutes." 
 
 She told him of the use Astrid had made of her ac- 
 quaintance with Mr. Wolfe. There was the offer, in 
 black and white. She herself had seen it. " It has put 
 new heart into him already," she exulted ; " and her one 
 desire is that he should not know he has her to thank for 
 it. She is great don't you think so, Walter ? That 
 word seems to describe her." 
 
 " She's a vast improvement upon poor little Mrs. 
 Railton," replied the Colonel somewhat obtusely. " By 
 the way, I met Sir Charles this morning. He tells me 
 the young folks have not yet sailed. Railton is kept in 
 London, I suppose, by this Permian business, which I 
 gather the baronet knows nothing of. He said some 
 financial business, and he was evidently annoyed at his 
 son-in-law's plunging into that kind of thing on his 
 honeymoon. Vivien is in London. I thought he 
 sounded a bit querulous, as though he had a suspicion of 
 her not being very happy, though naturally he said 
 nothing of the kind. I kept my tongue between my 
 teeth, of course. Poor little Viv has been sacrificed to 
 her ladyship's ambitions. It is a pity." 
 
 " Not for Oliver," said Sybil firmly. 
 
 "Well, I agree with you. She would not have 
 suited him." 
 
 "He would have begun at the top," returned Sybil 
 dreamily. " His wedding day would have been ecstasy, 
 his honeymoon delirium, with perhaps one or two 
 glimpses of consciousness. The first twelve months dis- 
 illusion, and the rest of life regret ! Now, with Astrid 
 he may go on all his life, discovering new points in her 
 which he had not suspected. ... Oh ! Don't you feel
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 289 
 
 that about her yourself ? You see her only as the young 
 business woman, the typical secretary; or as the rigidly 
 controlled, neglected wife. I see her, in a vision, wear- 
 ing the crown of love and joy and motherhood. I see 
 her fine nature in flower, and her deep heart responding 
 nobly to each fresh call upon it. In most girls the heart 
 develops before the brain. With her it has been the 
 other way only think how interesting ! " . . . 
 
 Her reverie was broken off as the subject of these 
 meditations slipped into the room. 
 
 Colonel Waring stood up and found himself looking 
 at Oliver's wife with new eyes. Astrid's colour rose at 
 sight of him, and colour was extremely becoming to her. 
 She did not look happy, but her face seemed full of un- 
 uttered possibilities. Perhaps the glamour of Sybil's 
 prophecy hung about her. Certainly he found himself 
 impressed. 
 
 She carried a pile of knitted socks in her hands, and 
 was obliged to put these down in order to give him greet- 
 ing. She was evidently embarrassed by the necessity of 
 offering him her congratulations, but she did it prettily, 
 encouraged by his evident complacency. 
 
 " I forgot you would be here," she said, with smiling 
 apology, " or I would not have brought this hosiery into 
 the drawing-room. It is just vainglory on my part. I 
 wanted Mrs. Brendon to see what I have accomplished ! 
 See" turning to Sybil "I have succeeded in copy- 
 ing your pattern, and I made Oliver four pairs of socks, 
 sitting on the step of the caravan, knitting like a true 
 
 gipsy-" 
 
 " The nomad life is a very becoming one," said the 
 Colonel. " I should hardly have known the white-faced 
 young London lady." 
 
 He was repaid by a vivid blush. The girl sat down
 
 290 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 close to her mother-in-law, and took up her cup. She 
 wore the simplest of summer frocks, but it was fresh, 
 and nicely put on. He watched her, and encouraged her 
 to talk, asking for details of their tour and of the acci- 
 dent with the combative dogs. Sybil, as she listened to 
 her, thought that she never said a word too much. 
 
 When the tea-drinking was over she rose, with the 
 instinctive feeling that the Colonel and Mrs. Brendon 
 were better company for each other without a third. 
 
 " I will go upstairs and finish unpacking," she ob- 
 served, with a demure smile, " and take my knitting with 
 me. I had to bring it in and boast, because I took up 
 the art late in life, and Mrs. Brendon said I should 
 never do it properly." 
 
 " Child, I am beginning to think you could do any- 
 thing you try to do ! " cried Sybil. " Oliver, in his re- 
 duced circumstances, may be thankful to have a wife 
 who can knit such socks as these ! " 
 
 " I wish," said Astrid, with added colour, " that 
 they had been done in time for him to take abroad. I 
 might have given Jbim two pairs, if I had thought of it, 
 that night he came down to say good-bye ; but I was so 
 surprised at his news, and he stayed such a little while, 
 there was no time to think. Well, I will take these and 
 put them away in his drawer upstairs." 
 
 Sybil, with a smothered exclamation, half rose from 
 her seat. 
 
 Astrid, carefully refolding her work, saw nothing, 
 and her mother-in-law sent a wireless telegram over her 
 head to the Colonel. 
 
 "Shall I let her go?" 
 
 He turned and regarded Astrid, hesitating, anxious, 
 doubtful. Both held their breath. 
 
 The girl's almost unduly slender figure was outlined,
 
 A MAKE-SHI FT MARRIAGE 291 
 
 in its white gown, against the dark gloss of the mahogany 
 secretaire. Turning, she looked up with a smile, put- 
 ting back a strand of hair with one hand. For the first 
 time the Colonel saw her attractiveness, and saw it in a 
 flash. He bent over the traj, as though seeking a lump 
 of sugar for his tea, and muttered to Sybil : 
 
 " Let her go ! Say nothing ! " 
 
 In a helpless silence, hardly knowing what the result 
 would be, they watched her walk silently across the car- 
 pet, open the door and disappear, while the latch fell to 
 softly behind her.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 " And what you leave," said Nell, " I'll take! 
 And what you spurn, I'll wear. 
 For he's my lord, for better or worse, 
 And him I love, Maud Clare! 
 
 " Yes, though you're taller by the head, 
 More wise and much more fair, 
 I'll love him till he loves me best, 
 Me best of all, Maud Clare ! " 
 
 CHBISTINA ROSSETTI. 
 
 WHEN Oliver had finished his tea his appetite was 
 wretched he somewhat peevishly dismissed his nurse 
 and began to pace up and down his room, with a mind 
 fired with ambition, but a heart as heavy as lead. 
 
 He was like a man suddenly awakened. The offer 
 from Mr. Wolfe had supplied the whip to his dormant 
 energy. The words his mother had spoken about Astrid 
 had aroused his conscience. 
 
 The days which had elapsed since his accident had 
 been as it were blurred. Thinking was a trouble, so 
 he had not urged his mind to thought. The main facts 
 pf existence, as they presented themselves to him, were 
 intensely disagreeable. He had wrecked his own private 
 life, and Eailton's malice had wrecked him profession- 
 ally. He had made a genuine effort to win free of his 
 financial misfortune, and fate had let fall upon him a 
 wanton blow a mysterious accident for which he was 
 wholly at a loss to account. 
 
 292
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 293 
 
 Somebody had hoaxed him, it seemed ; who had done 
 it, or for what reason, he could not guess. 
 
 Thus he had winced away from any consideration of 
 realities. He was ill, he was also out of work ; but his 
 mother was there. He was for the present safe and un- 
 troubled. 
 
 To-day the coming of the letter was like a trumpet 
 call. This state of things must not continue. He 
 would be well soon, and it behoved him to see about va- 
 cating his mother's house and going elsewhere. 
 
 Dimly, all through his illness, he had known that he 
 wanted Astrid. Now that this new chance had come to 
 him he was sure of it. His fancy, now wholly disen- 
 gaged from Railton's wife, lit up a picture of a future 
 which his own wife might share. The justice of his 
 mother's reproof was so obvious that he was humiliated 
 to think it had not struck him. After the way he had 
 treated Astrid he had no right to put upon her the onus 
 of decision until he had done penance, until he had 
 shown her explicitly that his one great desire was to be 
 forgiven. 
 
 His pride and temper had sent him flying from her 
 in a precipitate rage that night when they had sat to- 
 gether upon the moor. His silly bravado had led him 
 to insist upon catching the last train, when who knew ? 
 Had he stayed, had he made confession to her of what 
 he felt, she might have pitied him. As in all his deal- 
 ings with her, so in those last moments, he had showed 
 at his worst. 
 
 The memory of the feeling which had then shaken 
 him made his cheeks hot even now. He had known, 
 moreover, that some strong emotion had been at work 
 also in her. If he could have laid down his pride, 
 maybe it was his chance, his moment, lost now !
 
 294 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 To the best of his knowledge Astrid must be in Dub- 
 lin, for the caravanning expedition came to an end last 
 week. 
 
 What would she have said had she known of his ac- 
 cident? Would she have been sorry for him? He 
 almost hated her for her strength, and yet he 
 loved her too. She was inexorable; and a strong, 
 almost violent desire was growing in him to shake her 
 resolution. 
 
 If he could succeed in effacing from her memory 
 those awful hours in the Brighton hotel he would have 
 made a conquest indeed. As he recalled his behaviour 
 then it seemed what no woman could pardon. Yet, 
 perversely, the worse it looked, the stronger his desire to 
 show her how different he really was from what he had 
 then appeared. 
 
 Possessed with the new energy inspired by Mr. 
 Wolfe's letter, he found writing materials and began a 
 letter to her. He wrote hurriedly, blindly only thus 
 could he venture. If he reflected, failure was inevit- 
 able. He must storm the fortress, and he set down a 
 few lame yet desperate sentences, which seemed like 
 drops boiling over from the turmoil of his heart. 
 
 Then, suddenly, the afflatus left him. What were 
 words ? How could he tell her, on paper, the vehemence 
 with which he desired her presence? . . . How could 
 one write fluently with one's left hand ? 
 
 Flinging down his pen, he strode petulantly to the 
 window, and stood staring forth vacantly, with a mist 
 before his eyes. 
 
 He saw his mother and the Colonel come out from 
 the drawing-room window just below his own and stroll 
 away across the lawn, arm in arm. 
 
 The sight was to him still new and still unpleasant.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 295 
 
 It intensified his loneliness. Wandering back to the 
 table, he sat down and rested his aching head upon his 
 arms. 
 
 The handle of his door turned softly, and someone 
 came in without knocking, walked a few steps forward, 
 stopped, and cried : 
 
 "Oh! I beg pardon!" 
 
 He raised his face, and confronted his wife. 
 
 Evidently she had had no idea of finding the room oc- 
 cupied ; quite as evidently she did not know upon what 
 young man she had intruded until he looked up ; for she 
 paused in the act of flight. 
 
 For a long moment each stared into the other's eyes ; 
 then Oliver pushed back his chair and rose, thereby 
 displaying the sling and bandages which held his right 
 arm. 
 
 She started, checked the movement she had made to 
 depart, and flashed a glance round at the various ac- 
 cessories which showed that this was a sick-room. 
 
 " Oliver, you are ill ! You are hurt ! You were not 
 able to go abroad ! Why oh, why have they not told 
 me?" 
 
 As she spoke she came a few steps nearer, and, be- 
 ing satisfied that she did not mean to run away, he 
 yielded to a sudden dizziness and sank into his chair 
 again. 
 
 " Why should they tell you ? " he asked, turn- 
 ing so white that she came quite near, in deep anxiety. 
 " What did it matter to you ? " 
 
 The moment he had said it he wondered at himself. 
 The bitterness had escaped, he had not meant to wound ; 
 he had said, as usual, just the thing he had better not 
 have said. " Oh, I didn't mean that ! " he added, with 
 a rush, imploringly. As he spoke he held out his left
 
 296 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 hand to greet her, noting as he did so that she was not 
 wearing a hat, but was evidently quite at home. " Why 
 did you come ? " he demanded eagerly, almost in a 
 whisper. 
 
 She seemed not to have seen the hand ; she was look- 
 ing everywhere hut into his face. " Your mother 
 wanted me," she stammered. " I came to help her, and 
 you, as I thought, were miles away! It is far more 
 wonderful that you should be here than I. Won't you 
 tell me how that happened ? " indicating his arm. 
 " What have you done ? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing much. Broke my wrist," he an- 
 swered, hurrying over the words as though he had 
 something far more vital to impart; but she held him 
 to the subject. 
 
 " How did it happen ? Was there an accident ? " 
 
 His face grew dark and troubled. "I well, I 
 don't exactly know," he admitted uncomfortably. 
 " That sounds idiotic, doesn't it ? But the fact re- 
 mains that I can't explain it to my own satisfaction. I 
 have given up trying to explain it to my mother, be- 
 cause she shows me openly that she thinks I am romanc- 
 ing." 
 
 Astrid's mind gave one swift leap to a conclusion. 
 " But tell me," she urged, too anxious to feel self-con- 
 scious. " I shall understand, I am sure I shall ! Were 
 you waylaid and robbed, by any chance ? " 
 
 He looked at her in evident surprise. " What makes 
 you suggest that ? No, not exactly, but pretty near it. 
 I was decoyed to a hotel and drugged " 
 
 She exclaimed, almost before the words were out of 
 his mouth, " I knew it ! I felt sure of it ! Oh, why 
 did I not warn you ? " 
 
 This was sheer bewilderment. " What on earth do
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 297 
 
 you mean ? " he asked wonderingly. " I was not robbed 
 of anything." 
 
 "Not of anything? Oh, Oliver, are you sure? 
 What had you in your pockets ? Any any important 
 letter, or anything ? " 
 
 " Important letter ? " Evidently this suggested noth- 
 ing to him. 
 
 " It must have been done to get the letter," she urged 
 timidly, beginning to reflect that, having said so much, 
 there were admissions which she must make. " She 
 said Mrs. Railton said that he would do something 
 to get it back." 
 
 " Mrs. Railton ! " He half rose from his chair, but 
 sank back with a gasp of sheer surprise. " Mrs. Rail- 
 ton a letter ! Could it be that ! It sounds too pre- 
 posterous ! " He turned to her urgently. " Open the 
 drawer in the dressing-table, on the right! Is my 
 pocket-book there ? " 
 
 Nervousness was forgotten. She flew to find it. 
 
 " Open it, please. The letter was there. It was just 
 inside, and had the Dormouth postmark. I know it 
 was there, for I slipped it in when I was turning out the 
 safe, the very moment before starting for that beastly 
 place." 
 
 " It is not here now," said Astrid, pulling out the 
 contents. " Here are two letters from from me. 
 No others." 
 
 "Well, I'm blest!" he remarked weakly. "That 
 was what it meant, was it ? Why couldn't he write and 
 ask me for it? No, I see. That would have been to 
 give himself away, and offer me a chance to score." A 
 moment's reflection turned his mind upon another point. 
 *' What do you know about it ? How came you to sus- 
 pect ? " he asked in wonder.
 
 298 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 He had seldom seen her awkward and embarrassed, 
 but she was so now. The colour rose in her down-bent 
 face. " I met Mrs. Eailton one day, quite by accident. 
 She was motoring past the camp. She wanted me to 
 give you a message to ask you to burn the letter, be- 
 cause she said her husband was determined to have it, 
 and and she had not told him the truth about its con- 
 tents." 
 
 Oliver smiled, a little grimly. " Well, he knows the 
 contents now, and I do not suppose they will please him. 
 Poor little girl ! I was a fool not to burn it." 
 
 Astrid's heart began to swell with the miserable ache 
 which the thought of Vivien always caused her. 
 
 " So you and she had a talk," said Oliver, with an ill- 
 assured laugh. " Why did you not warn me ? " 
 
 Astrid thought he might have guessed why she should 
 have avoided such a subject, but she answered as calmly 
 as she could : 
 
 " I didn't seriously believe what she said ; and I 
 only saw you for such a short while after that. Such a 
 short while, and so much to hear and to be said. . . . 
 If I had feared any real danger for you, of course I 
 would have spoken." 
 
 " Would you ? " His voice dropped, as in sympathy 
 with hers, and sounded low and wistful. 
 
 As for her, the thought of her position, banished for a 
 while in the discovery of his injury, was now returning 
 to overwhelm her. 
 
 " Your mother let me come without telling me you 
 were here," she murmured in an explanatory way. 
 " You will understand I should not have come if I had 
 known " 
 
 " I told her not to tell you of my accident," he re- 
 plied, " because I was afraid of distressing you, and I
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 299 
 
 was fool enough to think it might distress you. But I 
 did not suppose you would come here at all, wherever 
 you might suppose me to. be. I understood you to re- 
 fuse all further intercourse." 
 
 This seemed to require a word of defence from her. 
 " Your mother," she said almost inaudibly, " has been 
 very good to me." 
 
 " You came for her sake ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Since you are here," he said after a pause, " there 
 is something I must tell you. I I suppose you will 
 feel you cannot stay, now that you know I am here. 
 But before you go I must show you " 
 
 " !N~o ! " she replied, in a panic. " I cannot wait. I 
 had better go at once " 
 
 He was conscious of but one thing a fixed inten- 
 tion that she should not leave him. She was still stand- 
 ing near him, on his left side. He put out his hand and 
 grasped a fold of her white gown. 
 
 " You are to look at this first. I insist ! " 
 
 " What is it ? " she stammered miserably. It was 
 cruel to prolong her pain. 
 
 " It's the future," he said, with a glow of triumph. 
 " When you opened that door and came in I was just 
 thinking I would give anything to have you here, so that 
 I might tell you all about it. You came like an answer 
 to a call." 
 
 She stood where she was, for the reason that she felt 
 quite unable to resist the constraint of his hand ; but she 
 hated herself for her weakness. As she leaned against 
 the table, her eyes, downcast, fell upon a sheet of paper 
 with words traced laboriously upon it in a large script, 
 very unlike Oliver's cultivated hand.
 
 300 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 She could not help seeing what was written ; in fact, 
 the first word was her own name. 
 
 . . . Such words ! All in a moment the universe was 
 a blaze, the air a whirl of flame. 
 
 Those lines had been penned before he knew that she 
 was in the house. They were true ! He meant them ! 
 . . . What then ? . . . 
 
 He was so possessed with the idea of the news he had 
 to tell her that her sudden agitation and its cause were 
 alike lost upon him. Still he held her dress, growing 
 bolder as she seemed to yield, till he had drawn her 
 down in a kneeling position at his side upon a stool 
 which lay beside his chair. 
 
 She fought for composure, for something resembling 
 her usual manner. " What what is it that you have 
 to show me ? " 
 
 " A letter," he said eagerly, removing his hand from 
 her to thrust it into his coat pocket. " Jove, I shall be 
 glad to get the use of my other hand again ! " 
 
 " Let me," she murmured, leaning over him with a 
 desperate courage. 
 
 " Thanks, yes. Put your hand in there. Is there a 
 letter?" 
 
 She drew out the letter she herself had so recently 
 brought into the house, and the full extent of Sybil's 
 treachery was apparent. She shot a glance at him, but 
 he evidently had not as yet connected its arrival with 
 her own. 
 
 " Open it, read it," he told her excitedly, " and hold 
 it so that I can read at the same time." 
 
 She could not see what she was doing, but she took the 
 paper from the envelope with trembling fingers and, 
 leaning nearer, held it before his eyes. As she did so 
 his arm went round her, and he held her close.
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 301 
 
 He was calling her name, as lie had done upon the 
 sheet of paper on the table. "Astrid, Astrid! If I 
 could have these last months over again ! If there was 
 a chance that I could make you fall in love with me ! " 
 
 " That could never, never happen," she sobbed out, 
 making no effort to free herself, letting her head sink 
 down upon his shoulder. 
 
 " Never ! " He drew in his breath sharply. " Is 
 never the word ? Not if I did any penance you might 
 set me?" 
 
 " Never, never ! " She was actually in tears, and 
 was hiding her face against him in a rush of emotion 
 which disposed for the time being of all the claims of 
 pride and prudence. She felt just the primitive bliss 
 of finding herself in the arms of the man she loved. 
 
 His masculine intelligence was puzzled by the con- 
 tradiction between her words and her actions. She 
 cried " Never ! " and clung to him. Her surrender was 
 moving him far more deeply than he had foreseen. 
 Something new awoke in him, something almost agonis- 
 ingly sweet. The cold girl, " who seemed too closely 
 shut up to be loved," had become weak and helpless, 
 adorably in need of him, a creature to be sheltered and 
 comforted. 
 
 He would not speak, fearing to put an end to the mo- 
 ment, which, for all he knew, might be only an access of 
 pity, the prelude to a long farewell. He succeeded in 
 slipping his right arm out of its sling and using that, 
 too, to enfold her more closely; and at last, unable to 
 bear the uncertainty, he bent his lips down to the small 
 ear among the tumbled hair and whispered : 
 
 " Never ? Do you still say it ? " 
 
 " Of course I do ! I must ! A thing can't be done 
 over again if if it has been done already ! "
 
 302 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 He started, and cried out as though the words had 
 been a sword. " Oh no ! Oh no ! " he exclaimed, as 
 if rejecting a dreadful idea. " You could not ! You 
 could "not ! " 
 
 "Oliver, look back! Think! Why else should I 
 have married you ? Why else should your indifference 
 have cut so deep so deep ? You knew, you knew ! " 
 
 There flashed upon him the words spoken by the 
 Dormouth doctor spoken and scorned. He an- 
 swered like a man horror-struck. " I never knew, be- 
 cause I never thought, because I didn't care. Didn't 
 care! . . . My God! How you must have suffered! 
 How I have made you suffer ! What can I do ? Con- 
 found it, I could put a bullet through my own fool 
 brains ! . . . And yet you are here here, against my 
 heart ? Oh, what's the use of talking, what can I say ? 
 Do women forgive these things, even these ? Ah ! don't 
 you see can't you feel that I can never let you 
 go?" 
 
 " But," she told him, " I will go, I must go, unless 
 you can say just one thing ! " 
 
 He wondered. " What thing ? What is it I am to 
 say? I repent? Well, I do say it, I want to say it 
 in act, not word. Forgive me ! I do say that too 
 say it from the bottom of my heart. Astrid, I have 
 been a callous brute. If another man had done what 
 I've done, I should implore you to have nothing to do 
 with him. I'm at your feet; I repent. Forgive me! 
 Is that what you want ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " No ? What a determined little word, though so 
 low I can hardly hear it ! What else, then, must I say ? 
 What is it you want to hear ? Not surely not that I 
 love you? "
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 303 
 
 She showed him her face then, quivering with a 
 beauty, a new life, that made him feel as though his 
 heart turned over in his side. She let her eyes look 
 into his, as if she would show him her very soul. 
 
 " Love you," he faltered stumblingly, hardly able to 
 say the words he would. " Do you need telling that ? 
 Don't you see that I simply can't exist without you ? "
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 " Since God willed 
 
 That putting out his hand to touch this ark 
 He found a woman's hand there, he'd accept 
 The sign too, hold the tender fingers fast, 
 And say, ' My fellow-worker, be my wife ! ' ' 
 
 E. B. BBOWNING. 
 
 SYBIL and the Colonel sat together under the syca- 
 more, looking at the roses, but they were not enjoying 
 the evening hour. He in particular was bored and un- 
 happy, and this is hardly to be wondered at, since his 
 wedding-day could not be regarded as fixed, so long as 
 Oliver needed his mother. At this moment he knew she 
 was not thinking of him. Her thoughts were in the 
 house, where so much was passing, where, as she hoped 
 yet dreaded, the future of her only son was being de- 
 cided. 
 
 An hour had gone by. Whatever might have hap- 
 pened was doubtless over. When Astrid made the in- 
 nocent suggestion that she should take the socks upstairs 
 and put them away, it seemed to her mother-in-law like 
 a special leading. Now that she had put all to the test, 
 she told herself she had been rash. Things go wrong 
 so easily. 
 
 As the slow moments dragged along her depression 
 grew more and more marked. At last the Colonel, al- 
 most impatiently, advised that she should go and find 
 out what was passing. 
 
 " What is the good of your body being here with me 
 
 304
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 305 
 
 when your whole mind and soul are in Oliver's room ? " 
 he asked pettishly. 
 
 Sybil had not even the grace to apologise. " I can't 
 help it, Walter," she replied callously. " You ought to 
 be every bit as anxious as I am. If they have made it 
 up, we'll be married next Wednesday." 
 
 " Do you mean that ? " 
 
 " I do. Seriously. It is a promise." 
 
 " Well, then," with sudden alacrity, " er don't you 
 think you had better go in at once and find out what 
 they are up to ? " 
 
 She laughed at him, but she patted his hand affec- 
 tionately. "All right," she said, "anything is better 
 than this suspense." 
 
 Just as she rose from her seat she saw Drew coming 
 out of the house. " If you please, ma'am," said the 
 maid as she reached her mistress, " a gentleman has 
 called to see you." 
 
 " A gentleman ! Who is it ? " 
 
 " He wouldn't give his name, ma'am, but he said he 
 hoped you would see him. I am pretty sure it is the 
 American gentleman who married Miss Faulkner." 
 
 Sybil's heart jumped. Was there some new compli- 
 cation in the situation ? She murmured a few explana- 
 tory words to the Colonel, and they went to the draw- 
 ing-room together. 
 
 Calvert Railton was standing with his back to the 
 light when they entered. Afterwards, when he had 
 taken a seat, Sybil saw that he was looking harassed 
 and worn. 
 
 " I think it kind of you to see me, Mrs. Brendon," 
 he said quietly. " I am here to inquire after the health 
 of your son, Mr. Oliver Brendon." 
 
 Sybil's mien was frigid.
 
 306 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 " My son is confined to his room," she said, " as the 
 result of an accident." 
 
 " I am truly sorry to hear that. It was told me by 
 a member of his late staff," said Mr. Railton in a 
 subdued way. " I trust, however, that he makes satis- 
 factory progress towards recovery ? " 
 
 " Thank you, yes." 
 
 " I don't wonder, ma'am, that you should receive 
 me without enthusiasm," said the millionaire, almost 
 humbly, yet with a dignity which Sybil felt herself 
 constrained to admire. " I feel a special regret that 
 Mr. Brendon should be sick, because I have a matter 
 on my conscience in which he is concerned." 
 
 "You allude," said Sybil, after a slight hesitation, 
 "to your purchase of the paper of which he was 
 editor ? " 
 
 " I do. I bought that paper for an unworthy reason, 
 and I have had the mortification, since I acquired it, 
 of finding that I was under a complete misapprehension, 
 and that Mr. Brendon had not been guilty of the con- 
 duct of which I suspected him at the time." 
 
 "Indeed!" 
 
 " That is so. I have behaved in a way of which I 
 feel ashamed, and I saw no way out of that but to come 
 and say so, and ask you to convey to Mr. Brendon my 
 apologies and regrets." 
 
 " That is good of you," said Sybil gently, but still 
 coldly. " I can, I hope, set your mind in part at rest. 
 My son is starting a paper almost at once a new 
 paper, to be financed by a very wealthy man who has 
 long admired my son's work, and now comes forward to 
 back him." 
 
 " Is that so ? " slowly said Mr. Eailton. He stared
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 307 
 
 upon the carpet like one too much surprised to rally at 
 once. " Is that so ? " he repeated mechanically. 
 
 " For that reason I do not think you need feel that 
 you have done him any lasting injury," went on Mrs. 
 Brendon. " In fact, I fear it may be the other way. 
 It is likely that his new paper may injure the Penman 
 severely, if not mortally." 
 
 " I think that quite possible, ma'am," was the an- 
 swer. "Your son has great ability." He raised his 
 clear, steady little eyes and surveyed Oliver's mother. 
 He admired her immensely, both mentally and phys- 
 ically. As he encountered her gaze something of com- 
 prehension, of sympathy, seemed to leap out and meet 
 him. He smiled the pleasant smile which showed his 
 ,fine teeth. " I don't seem to have played a very suc- 
 cessful hand, this game," he remarked quaintly. 
 
 She rewarded him with an answering smile. 
 
 " Since you are so frank, Mr. Railton, you encourage 
 me to be the same. I deplore the step you took. Any 
 such action, dictated by motives of revenge, is pretty 
 certain to recoil upon the doer. Your cruel use of your 
 large fortune might have spoiled finally two young lives, 
 already injured by your action in Egypt, in attracting 
 to yourself a young, easily influenced girl whom you 
 knew to be engaged to another man. Mercifully, you 
 have not done half the harm that at one time I supposed 
 you to have done. I may assure you that I do not 
 bear you any ill-will, and I do not think that Oliver will 
 in the future, even if he does so now." 
 
 " Well, if he doesn't now he must be a plaster saint, 
 which I don't think he is," observed Calvert ingenu- 
 ously, breathing a sigh of inward satisfaction at the 
 thought that his victim's mother knew nothing about the
 
 808 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 theft of the letter. " But you are right about the re- 
 coil, ma'am. Eight every time. Money is a tempta- 
 tion. Sometimes I think it is a curse. I have been 
 paid for the way I have treated Brendon, and I shan't 
 forget my lesson. I shall consider carefully what you 
 have told me, and if you think that your son would give 
 me a short interview, I might be able to put an offer 
 before him. I have come to the conclusion not to handle 
 a British newspaper, and I might very likely make an 
 arrangement with Brendon's backer to buy back the 
 Penman at about half what I gave for it. I don't want 
 it, and that's the truth." 
 
 Sybil was too surprised to be able to answer at once, 
 and it was left to the Colonel to say, heartily if tritely, 
 that this seemed to him an excellent idea. " If it could 
 be carried through at once," he said, " the fact that 
 Brendon ever resigned the editorship need not become 
 known." 
 
 " Mr. Railton," said Sybil when she had collected her- 
 self, " I think you the most wonderful man I ever met. 
 I had heard that Americans are ' like that/ but I don't 
 think I believed it. I am a woman who has lived such 
 a hole-and-corner existence that, except for those one 
 meets when travelling, I have never known an Ameri- 
 can." 
 
 " I would have been extremely sorry, Mrs. Brendon, 
 if I had lowered your opinion of a great nation by 
 showing myself as a bad specimen," replied he gravely. 
 
 She rose impulsively, her hand outstretched, and 
 they exchanged a cordial greeting. 
 
 " Oliver will not be equal, I feel sure, to seeing you 
 this evening," she said ; " but if you can give me a 
 time when you could come to-morrow I would send a 
 message up to the Park "
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 309 
 
 " Many thanks, I am not at the Park. My wife and 
 I are in London, and I will give you my telephone 
 number." He took out a little almanac from his 
 pocket and consulted it. " If you think this business 
 could be fixed up during the next forty-eight hours," 
 he said, " I would wire for accommodation upon the 
 Lusitania. I am anxious to be back on the other side. 
 Will you see if it can be done, Mrs. Brendon ? " 
 
 " I will do anything that lies in my power," she told 
 him warmly. 
 
 He did not linger long. He had the art of coming 
 to say a certain thing, saying it, and taking his leave. 
 Even the Colonel, who had previously thought him de- 
 testable, had to admit, when he was gone, that he was a 
 fine fellow. 
 
 " I ask you did I not say I liked him from the 
 first ? " cried Sybil triumphantly. " But I am sorry 
 for him," she added almost immediately, with the 
 thought of Vivien in her mind. Her voice was sym- 
 pathetic. She had an idea that the future might show 
 that Railton had been, after all, the good genius of 
 Oliver's whole life. She sighed for the disappoint- 
 ment which had traced new lines upon the millionaire's 
 face since his wedding-day ; but she told herself that a 
 man so brave and so determined would in the end attain 
 his heart's desire. 
 
 As soon as the door closed upon him her mind flew 
 back to the two upstairs. 
 
 She turned to Walter for a parting word of encour- 
 agement and stole away to Oliver's room, her heart beat- 
 ing fast and her courage failing. 
 
 On the landing, at the west window, the nurse was 
 seated, with her sewing. Sybil approached her, on tip- 
 toe.
 
 310 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 " Is is Mrs. Brendon with Mr. Oliver ? " she asked 
 desperately. 
 
 The nurse smiled. " I don't think I'd disturb them, 
 ma'am," she said demurely. " I went in softly, to give 
 him his tonic, and they were both sitting in one chair. 
 They didn't see me nor hear me, and I came away 
 again." 
 
 " Thank God ! " The tears came uncontrollably, al- 
 most blinding her as she turned and fled downstairs 
 again, and to the shelter of Walter. 
 
 
 
 " But you must go up," he said later, " because you 
 must tell Oliver of this suggestion of Eailton's about 
 the Penman, and he must write to Mr. Wolfe to-night." 
 
 " Of course, you are right," said Sybil bravely. " I 
 must go in ; but I am afraid ! A woman is an odd crea- 
 ture. More than anything else in the world I have de- 
 sired the reconciliation of Oliver and his wife ; and yet 
 I feel as if I could not bear the sight of it ! " 
 
 " I'll take you away you shall not see it any 
 oftener than you wish, I can promise you," he assured 
 her, with remarkable cheerfulness. 
 
 She was smiling, yet her eyes were wet as she knocked 
 at the closed door. She did not knock very loudly, and 
 her summons was unheard. Softly she opened the door 
 and looked in. 
 
 Astrid, at the table, was busy with pens and paper, 
 Oliver, his chin propped on his hand, was sitting very 
 close by, dictating. 
 
 An impulse of vexation arose in Sybil. Surely he 
 need not be using her as his secretary already ! Could 
 he not allow a decent interval to elapse ? 
 
 She heard Astrid's voice : " If Prentis is already 
 out there for the Sentinel, he can stay out there for us,
 
 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 811 
 
 and we can keep his job here for him till he comes back. 
 I could do it meanwhile, couldn't I ? " 
 
 " Of course you could, if it wouldn't be too much 
 for you. You are not strong yet, you must remem- 
 ber." 
 
 " What nonsense ! I am as strong as a lion ! Well, 
 who next ? " 
 
 " No more," he said. " You mustn't tyrannise over 
 an invalid : there are other things in the world than the 
 paper, you know ! My attention is wandering. I can't 
 keep it fixed, because my heart is full of you. An idea 
 has just rushed into my mind, and I must tell you. 
 We should be mighty silly to begin the publication of 
 a new thing in the off season. The first number must 
 not come out before October at the earliest. That leaves 
 us time to take a real holiday first. Where shall we 
 go?" 
 
 His voice dropped, and his mother saw the expression 
 of his eyes, as he leaned towards his wife. It was dusk 
 in the room, and Astrid had placed a portable electric 
 lamp on the table for her writing. Its radiance made 
 their two faces clear as in a picture. 
 
 " Oh, Oliver ! " said the girlish voice, which had 
 taken a new note, and vibrated with an indescribable 
 cadence. 
 
 Sybil saw them lean closer, closer, till their lips met. 
 
 She slipped noiselessly away and closed the door. 
 
 Always in future she should have that picture before 
 her. The beautiful purple dimness of June after-glow 
 the window open to the whisper of the trees. Within 
 the room the circle of light, and in its radiance just 
 two faces, leaning closer. 
 
 She had learned her lesson. What place soever the 
 mother may hold in the heart of her son, his progress
 
 312 A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE 
 
 or his backsliding, or his success or his failure must be 
 determined by the woman he loves. 
 
 She could not speak of it as yet, even to the Colonel, 
 who had come quietly upstairs and stood at a little dis- 
 tance, awaiting a summons to enter. 
 
 " Is it all right ? " he asked. 
 
 She answered, " It is beautiful. They are quite ob- 
 livious of everything but themselves. We must wait till 
 they awake from their dream." As they went down- 
 stairs together she added, " Whatever Oliver may have 
 been doing at the Golden Ball Hotel, it is quite certain 
 that she has forgiven him." 
 
 " Ah, well," replied Walter, in tones of frank curi- 
 osity, " if she knows what he was after, I hope she 
 will tell us. I confess that I particularly wish to hear." 
 
 Sybil laughed delightfully. 
 
 " Just like a man," she told him. 
 
 THE END
 
 University of California 
 
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 OCT 10 
 
 1988