AAABEL 
 GHANNICE 
 
 DOUGLAS 
 
 mm 
 
 ia
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 MRS. VIRGINIA B. SPORER
 
 Hmabel Cbannice 
 
 BY 
 
 Hnne Bouglae Sebgwicfc 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE RESCUE," "PATHS OF JUDGEMENT, 
 "A FOUNTAIN SEALED," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 ZTbe Century Co. 
 
 1908
 
 Copyright, 1908, by 
 THE CENTURY Co. 
 
 Published October, 1908 
 
 THE OE VINNE PREM
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 2040465
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 'ADY CHANNICE was waiting 
 for her son to come in from the 
 garden. The afternoon was 
 growing late, but she had not sat down to 
 the table, though tea was ready and the 
 kettle sent out a narrow banner of steam. 
 Walking up and down the long room she 
 paused now and then to look at the bowls 
 and vases of roses placed about it, now 
 and then to look out of the windows, and 
 finally at the last window she stopped to 
 watch Augustine advancing over the lawn 
 towards the house. It was a grey stone 
 
 3
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 house, low and solid, its bareness unalle- 
 viated by any grace of ornament or struc- 
 ture, and its two long rows of windows 
 gazed out resignedly at a tame prospect. 
 The stretch of lawn sloped to a sunken 
 stone wall; beyond the wall a stream ran 
 sluggishly in a ditch-like channel; on the 
 left the grounds were shut in by a syca- 
 more wood, and beyond were flat meadows 
 crossed in the distance by lines of tree- 
 bordered roads. It was a peaceful, if not 
 a cheering prospect. Lady Channice was 
 fond of it. Cheerfulness was not a thing 
 she looked for; but she looked for peace, 
 and it was peace she found in the flat 
 green distance, the far, reticent ripple of 
 hill on the horizon, the dark forms of the 
 sycamores. Her only regret for the view 
 was that it should miss the sunrise and 
 sunset; in the evenings, beyond the sil- 
 houetted woods, one saw the golden sky; 
 but the house faced north, and it was for 
 this that the green of the lawn was so 
 dank, and the grey of the walls so cold, 
 and the light in the drawing-room where 
 
 4
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 Lady Channice stood so white and so 
 monotonous. 
 
 She was fond of the drawing-room, 
 also, unbeautiful and grave to sadness 
 though it was. The walls were wain- 
 scotted to the ceiling with ancient oak, so 
 that though the north light entered at four 
 high windows the room seemed dark. The 
 furniture was ugly, miscellaneous and inap- 
 propriate. The room had been dismantled, 
 and in place of the former drawing-room 
 suite were gathered together incongruous 
 waifs and strays from dining- and smok- 
 ing-room and boudoir. A number of 
 heavy chairs predominated covered in a 
 maroon leather which had cracked in 
 places; and there were three lugubrious 
 sofas to match. 
 
 By degrees, during her long and lonely 
 years at Charlock House, Lady Channice 
 had, at first tentatively, then with a grow- 
 ing assurance in her limited sphere of 
 action, moved away a'll the ugliest, most 
 trivial things: tattered brocade and gilt 
 footstools, faded antimacassars, dismal 
 
 5
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 groups of birds and butterflies under glass 
 cases. When she sat alone in the evening, 
 after Augustine, as child or boy, had gone 
 to bed, the ghostly glimmer of the birds, 
 the furtive glitter of a glass eye here and 
 there, had seemed to her quite dreadful. 
 The removal of the cases (they were large 
 and heavy, and Mrs. Bray, the house- 
 keeper, had looked grimly disapproving) 
 was her crowning act of courage, and 
 ever since their departure she had breathed 
 more freely. It had been easier to dispose 
 of all the little colonies of faded photo- 
 graphs that stood on cabinets and tables; 
 they were photographs of her husband's 
 family and of his family's friends, people 
 most of whom were quite unknown to her, 
 and their continued presence in the aban- 
 doned house was due to indifference, not 
 affection : no one had cared enough about 
 them to put them away, far less to look at 
 them. After looking at them for some 
 years, these girls in court dress of a by- 
 gone fashion, huntsmen holding crops, 
 sashed babies and matrons in caps or 
 6
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 tiaras, Lady Channice had cared enough 
 to put them away. She had not, either, 
 to ask for Mrs. Bray's assistance or advice 
 for this, a fact which was a relief, for 
 Mrs. Bray was a rather dismal being and 
 reminded her, indeed, of the stuffed birds 
 in the removed glass cases. With her 
 own hands she incarcerated the photo- 
 graphs in the drawers of a heavily carved 
 bureau and turned the keys upon them. 
 
 The only ornaments now, were the pale 
 roses, the books, and, above her writing- 
 desk, a little picture that she had brought 
 with her, a water-colour sketch of her old 
 home painted by her mother many years 
 ago. 
 
 So the room looked very bare. It al- 
 most looked like the parlour of a convent ; 
 with a little more austerity, whitened walls 
 and a few thick velvet and gilt lives of 
 the saints on the tables, the likeness would 
 have been complete. The house itself was 
 conventual in aspect, and Lady Channice, 
 as she stood there in the quiet light at the 
 window, looked not unlike a nun, were it 
 
 7
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 not for her crown of pale gold hair that 
 shone in the dark room and seemed, like 
 the roses, to bring into it the brightness of 
 an outer, happier world. 
 
 She was a tall woman of forty, her 
 ample form, her wide bosom, the falling 
 folds of her black dress, her loosely girdled 
 waist, suggesting, with the cloistral analo- 
 gies, the mournful benignity of a bereaved 
 Madonna. Seen as she stood there, lean- 
 ing her head to watch her son's approach, 
 she was an almost intimidating presence, 
 black, still, and stately. But when the 
 door opened and the young man came in, 
 when, not moving to meet him, she turned 
 her head with a slight smile of welcome, 
 all intimidating impressions passed away. 
 Her face, rather, as it turned, under 
 its crown of gold, was the intimidated 
 face. It was curiously young, pure, flaw- 
 less, as though its youth and innocence had 
 been preserved in some crystal medium of 
 prayer and silence; and if the nun-like 
 analogies failed in their awe-inspiring 
 associations, they remained in the associa- 
 8
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 tions of unconscious pathos and uncon- 
 scious appeal. Amabel Channice's face, 
 like her form, was long and delicately 
 ample; its pallor that of a flower grown 
 in shadow ; the mask a little over-large for 
 the features. Her eyes were small, beauti- 
 fully shaped, slightly slanting upwards, 
 their light grey darkened under golden 
 lashes, the brows definitely though palely 
 marked. Her mouth was pale coral- 
 colour, and the small upper lip, lifting 
 when she smiled as she was smiling now, 
 showed teeth of an infantile, milky white- 
 ness. The smile was charming, timid, 
 tentative, ingratiating, like a young girl's, 
 and her eyes were timid, too, and a little 
 wild. 
 
 "Have you had a good read?" she asked 
 her son. He had a book in his hand. 
 
 "Very, thanks. But it is getting chilly, 
 down there in the meadow. And what a 
 lot of frogs there are in the ditch," said 
 Augustine smiling, "they were jumping 
 all over the place." 
 
 "Oh, as long as they were n't toads!" 
 
 9
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 said Lady Channice, her smile lighting in 
 response. "When I came here first to live 
 there were so many toads, in the stone 
 areas, you know, under the gratings in 
 front of the cellar windows. You can't 
 imagine how many ! It used quite to ter- 
 rify me to look at them and I went to the 
 front of the house as seldom as possible. 
 I had them all taken away, finally, in 
 baskets, not killed, you know, poor 
 things, but just taken and put down in 
 a field a mile off. I hope they did n't 
 starve; but toads are very intelligent, 
 are n't they; one always associates them 
 with fairy-tales and princes." 
 
 She had gone to the tea-table while she 
 spoke and was pouring the boiling water 
 into the teapot. Her voice had pretty, 
 flute-like ups and downs in it and a ques- 
 tioning, upward cadence at the end of sen- 
 tences. Her upper lip, her smile, the run 
 of her speech, all would have made one 
 think her humorous, were it not for the 
 strain of nervousness that one felt in her 
 very volubility. 
 
 10
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 Her son lent her a kindly but rather 
 vague attention while she talked to him 
 about the toads, and his eye as he stood 
 watching her make the tea was also vague. 
 He sat down presently, as if suddenly re- 
 membering why he had come in, and it 
 was only after a little interval of silence, 
 in which he took his cup from his mother's 
 hands, that something else seemed to 
 occur to him as suddenly, a late arriving 
 suggestion from her speech. 
 
 "What a horribly gloomy place you 
 must have found it." 
 
 Her eyes, turning on him quickly, lost, 
 in an instant, their uncertain gaiety. 
 
 "Gloomy? Is it gloomy? Do you feel 
 it gloomy here, Augustine?" 
 
 "Oh, well, no, not exactly," he answered 
 easily. "You see I 've always been used 
 to it. You were n't." 
 
 As she said nothing to this, seeming at 
 a loss for any reply, he went on presently 
 to talk of other things, of the book he had 
 been reading, a heavy metaphysical tome ; 
 of books that he intended to read; of a 
 II
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 letter that he had received that morning 
 from the Etori friend with whom he was 
 going up to Oxford for his first term. His 
 mother listened, showing a careful interest 
 usual with her, but after another little 
 silence she said suddenly: 
 
 "I think it 's a very nice place, Charlock 
 House, Augustine. Your father would n't 
 have wanted me to live here if he 'd imag- 
 ined that I could find it gloomy, you 
 know." 
 
 "Oh, of course not," said the young 
 man, in an impassive, pleasant voice. 
 
 "He has always, in everything, been so 
 thoughtful for my comfort and happi- 
 ness," said Lady Channice. 
 
 Augustine did not look at her : his eyes 
 were fixed on the sky outside and he 
 seemed to be reflecting though not over 
 her words. 
 
 "So that I could n't bear him ever to 
 hear anything of that sort," Lady Chan- 
 nice went on, "that either of us could find 
 it gloomy, I mean. You would n't ever say 
 it to him, would you, Augustine." There 
 
 12
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 was a note at once of urgency and appeal 
 in her voice. 
 
 "Of course not, since you don't wish it," 
 her son replied. 
 
 "I ask you just because it happens that 
 your father is coming," Lady Channice 
 said, "tomorrow; and, you see, if you 
 had this in your mind, you might have 
 said something. He is coming to spend 
 the afternoon." 
 
 He looked at her now, steadily, still 
 pleasantly ; but his colour rose. 
 
 "Really," he said. 
 
 "Is n't it nice. I do hope that it will be 
 fine ; these Autumn days are so uncertain ; 
 if only the weather holds up we can have 
 a walk perhaps." 
 
 "Oh, I think it will hold up. Will there 
 be time for a walk?" 
 
 "He will be here soon after lunch, and, 
 I think, stay on to tea." 
 
 "He did n't stay on to tea the last time, 
 did he." 
 
 "No, not last time; he is so very busy; 
 it 's quite three years since we have had 
 
 13
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 that nice walk over the meadows, and he 
 likes that so much." 
 
 She was trying to speak lightly and 
 easily. "And it must be quite a year since 
 you have seen him." 
 
 "Quite," said Augustine. "I never see 
 him, hardly, but here, you know." 
 
 He was still making his attempt at 
 pleasantness, but something hard and 
 strained had come into his voice, and as, 
 with a sort of helplessness, her resources 
 exhausted, his mother sat silent, he went 
 on, glancing at her, as if with the sudden 
 resolution, he also wanted to make very 
 sure of his way; 
 
 "You like seeing him more than any- 
 thing, don't you; though you are sepa- 
 rated." 
 
 Augustine Channice talked a great deal 
 to his mother about outside things, such 
 as philosophy; but of personal things, of 
 their relation to the world, to each other, 
 to his father, he never spoke. So that his 
 speaking now was arresting. 
 
 His mother gazed at him. "Sepa- 
 
 14
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 rated ? We have always been the best of 
 friends." 
 
 "Of course. I mean that you Ve 
 never cared to live together. Incompati- 
 bility, I suppose. Only," Augustine did 
 not smile, he looked steadily at his mother, 
 "I should think that since you are so fond 
 of him you 'd like seeing him oftener. I 
 should think that since he is the best of 
 friends he would want to come oftener, 
 you know." 
 
 When he had said these words he 
 flushed violently. It was an echo of his 
 mother's flush. And she sat silent, finding 
 no words. 
 
 "Mother," said Augustine, "forgive me. 
 That was impertinent of me. It 's no af- 
 fair of mine." 
 
 She thought so, too, apparently, for she 
 found no words in which to tell him that it 
 was his affair. Her hands clasped tightly 
 in her lap, her eyes downcast, she seemed 
 shrunken together, overcome by his tact- 
 less intrusion. 
 
 "Forgive me," Augustine repeated.
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 The supplication brought her the re- 
 source of words again. "Of course, 
 dear. It is only I can't explain it to 
 you. It is very complicated. But, though 
 it seems so strange to you, to everybody, 
 I know it is just that: though we don't 
 live together, and though I see so little of 
 your father, I do care for him very, very 
 much. More than for anybody in the 
 world, except you, of course, dear Augus- 
 tine." 
 
 "Oh, don't be polite to me," he said, and 
 smiled. "More than for anybody in the 
 world; stick to it." 
 
 She could but accept the amendment, so 
 kindly and, apparently, so lightly pressed 
 upon her, and she answered him with a 
 faint, a grateful smile, saying, in a low 
 voice: "You see, dear, he is the noblest 
 person I have ever known." Tears were 
 in her eyes. Augustine turned away his 
 own. 
 
 They sat then for a little while in silence, 
 the mother and son. 
 
 Her eyes downcast, her hands folded in 
 16
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 an attitude that suggested some inner 
 dedication, Amabel Channice seemed to 
 stay her thoughts on the vision of that 
 nobility. And though her son was near 
 her, the thoughts were far from him. 
 
 It was characteristic of Augustine 
 Channice, when he mused, to gaze 
 straight before him, whatever the object 
 might be that met his unseeing eyes. The 
 object now was the high Autumnal sky 
 outside, crossed only here and there by a 
 drifting fleet of clouds. 
 
 The light fell calmly upon the mother 
 and son and, in their stillness, their 
 contemplation, the two faces were like 
 those on an old canvas, preserved from 
 time and change in the trance-like im- 
 mutability of art. In colour, the two 
 heads chimed, though Augustine's hair 
 was vehemently gold and there were 
 under-tones of brown and amber in his 
 skin. But the oval of Lady Channice's 
 face grew angular in her son's, broader 
 and more defiant; so that, palely, darkly 
 white and gold, on their deep background, 
 
 17
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 the two heads emphasized each other's 
 character by contrast. Augustine's lips 
 were square and scornful; his nose rug- 
 gedly bridged; his eyes, under broad eye- 
 brows, ringed round the iris with a line 
 of vivid hazel ; and as his lips, though mild 
 in expression, were scornful in form, so 
 these eyes, even in their contemplation, 
 seemed fierce. Calm, controlled face as it 
 was, its meaning for the spectator was of 
 something passionate and implacable. In 
 mother and son alike one felt a capacity 
 for endurance almost tragic; but while 
 Augustine's would be the endurance of 
 the rock, to be moved only by shattering, 
 his mother's was the endurance of the 
 flower, that bends before the tempest, un- 
 resisting, beaten down into the earth, but 
 lying, even there, unbroken. 
 
 18
 
 II 
 
 \ HE noise and movement of an 
 outer world seemed to break in 
 upon the recorded vision of ar- 
 rested life. 
 
 The door opened, a quick, decisive step 
 approached down the hall, and, closely fol- 
 lowing the announcing maid, Mrs. Grey, 
 the local squiress, entered the room. In 
 the normal run of rural conventions, Lady 
 Channice should have held the place; but 
 Charlock House no longer stood for what 
 it had used to stand in the days of Sir 
 Hugh Channice's forbears. Mrs. Grey, 
 of Pangley Hall, had never held any but 
 the first place and a consciousness of this 
 fact seemed to radiate from her competent 
 personality. She was a vast middle-aged 
 woman clad in tweed and leather, but her 
 
 19
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 abundance of firm, hard flesh could lend 
 itself to the roughest exigences of a sport- 
 ing outdoor life. Her broad face shone 
 like a ripe apple, and her sharp eyes, her 
 tight lips, the cheerful creases of her face, 
 expressed an observant and rather tyran- 
 nous good-temper. 
 
 "Tea? No, thanks; no tea for me," she 
 almost shouted; "I 've just had tea with 
 Mrs. Grier. How are you, Lady Chan- 
 nice? and you, Augustine? What a man 
 you are getting to be; a good inch taller 
 than my Tom. Reading as usual, I see. 
 I can't get my boys to look at a book in 
 vacation time. What 's the book? Ah, 
 fuddling your brains with that stuff, still, 
 are you ? Still determined to be a philoso- 
 pher? Do you really want him to be a 
 philosopher, my dear?" 
 
 "Indeed I think it would be very nice 
 if he could be a philosopher," said Lady 
 Channice, smiling, for though she had 
 often to evade Mrs. Grey's tyranny she 
 liked her good temper. She seemed in her 
 reply to float, lightly and almost gaily 
 20
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 above Mrs. Grey, and away from her. 
 Mrs. Grey was accustomed to these tactics 
 and it was characteristic of her not to let 
 people float away if she could possibly 
 help it. This matter of Augustine's future 
 was frequently in dispute between them. 
 Her feet planted firmly, her rifle at her 
 shoulder, she seemed now to take aim at 
 a bird that flew from her. 
 
 "And of course you encourage him! 
 You read with him and study with him! 
 And you won't see that you let him drift 
 more and more out of practical life and 
 into moonshine. What does it do for him, 
 that 's what I ask? Where does it lead 
 him? What's the good of it? Why he '11 
 finish as a fusty old don. Does it make 
 you a better man, Augustine, or a happier 
 one, to spend all your time reading philos- 
 ophy?" 
 
 "Very much better, very much happier, 
 I find : but I don't give it all my time, you 
 know/' Augustine answered, with much 
 his mother's manner of light evasion. He 
 let Mrs. Grey see that he found her funny; 
 
 21
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 perhaps he wished to let her see that 
 philosophy helped him to. Mrs. Grey gave 
 up the fantastic bird and turned on her 
 heel. 
 
 "Well, I 've not come to dispute, as 
 usual, with you, Augustine. I 've come to 
 ask you, Lady Channice, if you won't, for 
 once, break through your rules and come 
 to tea on Sunday. I Ve a surprise for 
 you. An old friend of yours is to be of 
 our party for this week-end. Lady Elliston ; 
 she comes tomorrow, and she writes that 
 she hopes to see something of you." 
 
 Mrs. Grey had her eye rather sharply 
 on Lady Channice ; she expected to see her 
 colour rise, and it did rise. 
 
 "Lady Elliston ?" she repeated, vaguely, 
 or, perhaps, faintly. 
 
 "Yes ; you did know her ; well, she told 
 me." 
 
 "It was years ago," said Lady Chan- 
 nice, looking down; "Yes, I knew her 
 quite well. It would be very nice to see her 
 again. But I don't think I will break my 
 rule ; thank you so much." 
 
 22
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 Mrs. Grey looked a little disconcerted 
 and a little displeased. "Now that you are 
 growing up, Augustine," she said, "you 
 must shake your mother out of her way of 
 life. It 's bad for her. She lives here, 
 quite alone, and, when you are away as 
 you will have to be more and more, for 
 some time now, she sees nobody but her 
 village girls, Mrs. Grier and me from one 
 month's end to the other. I can't think 
 what she 's made of. I should go mad. 
 And so many of us would be delighted if 
 she would drop in to tea with us now and 
 then." 
 
 "Oh, well, you can drop in to tea with 
 her instead," said Augustine. His mother 
 sat silent, with her faint smile. 
 
 "Well, I do. But I 'm not enough, 
 though I flatter myself that I 'm a good 
 deal. It 's unwholesome, such a life, 
 downright morbid and unwholesome. 
 One should mingle with one's kind. I 
 shall wonder at you, Augustine, if you al- 
 low it, just as, for years, I Ve wondered 
 at your father." 
 
 23
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 It may have been her own slight confu- 
 sion, or it may have been something exas- 
 perating in Lady Channice's silence, that 
 had precipitated Mrs. Grey upon this 
 speech, but, when she had made it, she be- 
 came very red and wondered whether she 
 had gone too far. Mrs. Grey was pre- 
 pared to go far. If people evaded her, and 
 showed an unwillingness to let her be kind 
 to them on her own terms, terms 
 which, in regard to Lady Channice, were 
 very strictly defined; if people would be- 
 have in this unbecoming and ungrateful 
 fashion, they only got, so Mrs. Grey 
 would have put it, what they jolly well de- 
 served if she gave them a "stinger." But 
 Mrs. Grey did not like to give Lady Chan- 
 nice "stingers" ; therefore she now became 
 red and wondered at herself. 
 
 Lady Channice had lifted her eyes and 
 it was as if Mrs. Grey saw walls and 
 moats and impenetrable thickets glooming 
 in them. She answered for Augustine: 
 "My husband and I have always been in 
 perfect agreement on the matter." 
 24
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 Mrs. Grey tried a cheerful laugh; 
 "You won him over, too, no doubt." 
 
 "Entirely." 
 
 "Well, Augustine," Mrs. Grey turned to 
 the young man again, "I don't succeed 
 with your mother, but I hope for better 
 luck with you. You 're a man, now, and 
 not yet, at all events, a monk. Won't you 
 dine with us on Saturday night?" 
 
 Now Mrs. Grey was kind; but she had 
 never asked Lady Channice to dinner. 
 The line had been drawn, firmly drawn 
 years ago and by Mrs. Grey herself at 
 tea. And it was not until Lady Channice 
 had lived for several years at Charlock 
 House, when it became evident that, in 
 spite of all that was suspicious, not to say 
 sinister, in her situation, she was not ex- 
 actly cast off and that her husband, so to 
 speak, admitted her to tea if not to dinner, 
 it was not until then that Mrs. Grey 
 voiced at once the tolerance and the discre- 
 tion of the neighbourhood and said : "They 
 are on friendly terms ; he comes to see her 
 twice a year. We can call; she need not 
 
 25
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 be asked to anything but tea. There can 
 be no harm in that." 
 
 There was, indeed, no harm, for though, 
 when they did call in Mrs. Grey's broad 
 wake, they were received with gentle 
 courtesy, they were made to feel that social 
 contacts would go no further. Lady 
 Channice had been either too much of- 
 fended or too much frightened by the 
 years of ostracism, or perhaps it was really 
 by her own choice that she adopted the 
 attitude of a person who saw people when 
 they came to her but who never went to 
 see them. This attitude, accepted by the 
 few, was resented by the many, so that 
 hardly anybody ever called upon Lady 
 Channice. And so it was that Mrs. Grey 
 satisfied at once benevolence and curiosity 
 in her staunch visits to the recluse of 
 Charlock House, and could feel herself as 
 Lady Channice's one wholesome link with 
 the world that she had rejected or here 
 lay all the ambiguity, all the mystery that, 
 for years, had whetted Mrs. Grey's curi- 
 osity to fever-point that had rejected her. 
 26
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 As Augustine grew up the situation be- 
 came more complicated. It was felt that 
 as the future owner of Charlock House 
 and inheritor of his mother's fortune 
 Augustine was not to be tentatively taken 
 up but decisively seized. People had re- 
 sented Sir Hugh's indifference to Char- 
 lock House, the fact that he had never 
 lived there and had tried, just before his 
 marriage, to sell it. But Augustine was 
 yet blameless, and Augustine would one 
 day be a wealthy not an impecunious 
 squire, and Mrs. Grey had said that she 
 would see to it that Augustine had his 
 chance. "Apparently there 's no one to 
 bring him out, unless I do," she said. 
 "His father, it seems, won't, and his 
 mother can't. One does n't know what to 
 think, or, at all events, one keeps what one 
 thinks to oneself, for she is a good, sweet 
 creature, whatever her faults may have 
 been. But Augustine shall be asked to 
 dinner one day." 
 
 Augustine's "chance," in Mrs. Grey's 
 eye, was her sixth daughter, Marjory. 
 27
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 So now the first step up the ladder was 
 being given to Augustine. 
 
 He kept his vagueness, his lightness, his 
 coolly pleasant smile, looking at Mrs. 
 Grey and not at his mother as he an- 
 swered: "Thanks so much, but I 'm 
 monastic, too, you know. I don't go to 
 dinners. I '11 ride over some afternoon 
 and see you all." 
 
 Mrs. Grey compressed her lips. She 
 was hurt and she had, also, some difficulty 
 in restraining her temper before this re- 
 buff. "But you go to dinners in London. 
 You stay with people." 
 
 "Ah, yes; but I 'm alone then. When 
 I J m with my mother I share her life." 
 He spoke so lightly, yet so decisively, 
 with a tact and firmness beyond his years, 
 that Mrs. Grey rose, accepting her defeat. 
 
 "Then Lady Elliston and I will come 
 over, some day," she said. "I wish we 
 saw more of her. John and I met her 
 while we were staying with the Bishop 
 this Spring. The Bishop has the highest 
 opinion of her. He said that she was a 
 28
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 most unusual woman, in the world, yet 
 not of it. One feels that. Her eldest girl 
 married young Lord Catesby, you know; 
 a very brilliant match; she presents her 
 second girl next Spring, when I do Mar- 
 jory. You must come over for a ride with 
 Marjory, soon, Augustine." 
 
 "I will, very soon," said Augustine. 
 
 When their visitor at last went, when 
 the tramp of her heavy boots had receded 
 down the hall, Lady Channice and her son 
 again sat in silence; but it was now an- 
 other silence from that into which Mrs. 
 Grey's shots had broken. It was like the 
 stillness of the copse or hedgerow when 
 the sportsmen are gone and a vague stir 
 and rustle in ditch or underbrush tells of 
 broken wings or limbs, of a wounded 
 thing hiding. 
 
 Lady Channice spoke at last. "I wish 
 you had accepted for the dinner, Augus- 
 tine. I don't want you to identify yourself 
 with my peculiarities." 
 
 "I did n't want to dine with Mrs. Grey, 
 mother." 
 
 29
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 "You hurt her. She is a kind neigh- 
 bour. .You will see her more or less for 
 all of your life, probably. You must take 
 your place, here, Augustine." 
 
 "My place is taken. I like it just as it 
 is. I '11 see the Greys as I always have 
 seen them; I '11 go over to tea now and 
 then and I '11 ride and hunt with the chil- 
 dren." 
 
 "But that was when you were a child. 
 You are almost a man now; you are a 
 man, Augustine; and your place is n't a 
 child's place." 
 
 "My place is by you." For the second 
 time that day there was a new note in 
 Augustine's voice. It was as if, clearly 
 and definitely, for the first time, he was 
 feeling something and seeing something 
 and as if, though very resolutely keeping 
 from her what he felt, he was, when 
 pushed to it, as resolutely determined to 
 let her see what he saw. 
 
 "By me, dear," she said faintly. 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 30
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 "She ought to have asked you to dinner, 
 too." 
 
 "But I would not have accepted ; I don't 
 go out. She knows that. She knows that 
 I am a real recluse." 
 
 "She ought to have asked knowing that 
 you would not accept." 
 
 "Augustine dear, you are foolish. You 
 know nothing of these little feminine social 
 compacts." 
 
 "Are they only feminine ?" 
 
 "Only. Mere crystallised conveniences. 
 It would be absurd for Mrs. Grey, after 
 all these years, to ask me in order to be 
 refused." 
 
 There was a moment's silence and then 
 Augustine said: "Did she ever ask you?" 
 
 The candles had been lighted and the 
 lamp brought in, making the corners of 
 the room look darker. There was only a 
 vague radiance about the chimney piece, 
 the little candle-flames doubled in the mir- 
 ror, and the bright circle where Lady 
 Channice and her son sat on either side 
 
 31
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 of the large, round table. The lamp had 
 a green shade, and their faces were in 
 shadow. Augustine had turned away his 
 eyes. 
 
 And now a strange and painful thing 
 happened, stranger and more painful than 
 he could have foreseen ; for his mother did 
 not answer him. The silence grew long 
 and she did not speak. Augustine looked 
 at her at last and saw that she was gazing 
 at him, and, it seemed to him, with help- 
 less fear. His own eyes did not echo it; 
 anger, rather, rose in them, cold fierceness, 
 against himself, it was apparent, as well 
 as against the world that he suspected. 
 He was not impulsive ; he was not demon- 
 strative; but he got up and put his hand 
 on her shoulder. "I don't mean to tor- 
 ment you, like the rest of them/' he said. 
 "I don't mean to ask and be refused. 
 Forget what I said. It 's only only 
 that it infuriates me. To see them all. 
 And you! cut off, wasted, in prison here. 
 I Ve been seeing it for a long time ; I won't 
 speak of it again. I know that there are 
 
 32
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 sad things in your life. All I want to say, 
 all I wanted to say was that I 'm with 
 you, and against them." 
 
 She sat, her face in shadow beneath him, 
 her hands tightly clasped together and 
 pressed down upon her lap. And, in a 
 faltering voice that strove in vain for 
 firmness, she said: "Dear Augustine- 
 thank you. I know you would n't want to 
 hurt me. You see, when I came here to 
 live, I had parted from your father, and 
 I wanted to be quite alone; I wanted to 
 see no one. And they felt that: they felt 
 that I would n't lead the usual life. So it 
 grew most naturally. Don't be angry 
 with people, or with the world. That 
 would warp you, from the beginning. It 's 
 a good world, Augustine. I 've found it 
 so. It is sad, but there is such beauty. 
 I 'm not cut off, or wasted; I 'm not in 
 prison. How can you say it, dear, of me, 
 who have you and him" 
 
 Augustine's hand rested on her shoulder 
 for some moments more. Lifting it he 
 stood looking before him. "I 'm not going 
 
 33
 
 to quarrel with the world," he then said. 
 "I know what I like in it." 
 
 "Dear thanks " she murmured. 
 
 Augustine picked up his book again. 
 "I '11 study for a bit, now, in my room," 
 he said. "Will you rest before dinner? 
 Do; I shall feel more easy in my con- 
 science if I inflict Hegel on you after- 
 wards." 
 
 34
 
 'ADY CHANNICE did not go 
 and rest. She sat on in the 
 ^ shadowy room gazing before 
 her, her hands still clasped, her face wear- 
 ing still its look of fear. For twenty 
 years she had not known what it was to 
 be without fear. It had become as much 
 a part of her life as the air she breathed 
 and any peace or gladness had blossomed 
 for her only in that air: sometimes she 
 was almost unconscious of it. This after- 
 noon she had become conscious. It was 
 as if the air were heavy and oppressive 
 and as if she breathed with difficulty. 
 And sitting there she asked herself if the 
 time was coming when she must tell 
 Augustine. 
 
 35
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 What she might have to tell was a story 
 that seemed strangely disproportionate : it 
 was the story of her life ; but all of it that 
 mattered, all of it that made the story, was 
 pressed into one year long ago. Before 
 that year was sunny, uneventful girlhood, 
 after it grey, uneventful womanhood ; the 
 incident, the drama, was all knotted into 
 one year, and it seemed to belong to her- 
 self no longer; she seemed a spectator, 
 looking back in wonder at the disaster of 
 another woman's life. A long flat road 
 stretched out behind her; she had jour- 
 neyed over it for years; and on the far 
 horizon she saw, if she looked back, the 
 smoke and flames of a burning city 
 miles and miles away. 
 
 Amabel Freer was the daughter of a 
 rural Dean, a scholarly, sceptical man. 
 The forms of religion were his without its 
 heart; its heart was her mother's, who was 
 saintly and whose orthodoxy was the 
 vaguest symbolic system. From her father 
 Amabel had the scholar's love of beauty 
 in thought, from her mother the love of 
 
 36
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 beauty in life; but her loves had been 
 dreamy: she had thought and lived little. 
 Happy compliance, happy confidence, a 
 dawn-like sense of sweetness and purity, 
 had filled her girlhood. 
 
 When she was sixteen her father had 
 died, and her mother in the following year. 
 Amabel and her brother Bertram were 
 well dowered. Bertram was in the For- 
 eign Office, neither saintly nor scholarly, 
 like his parents, nor undeveloped like his 
 young sister. He was a capable, conven- 
 tional man of the world, sure of himself 
 and rather suspicious of others. Amabel 
 imagined him a model of all that was good 
 and lovely. The sudden bereavement of 
 her youth bewildered and overwhelmed 
 her; her capacity for dependent, self- 
 devoting love sought for an object and 
 lavished itself upon her brother. She 
 went to live with an aunt, her father's 
 sister, and when she was eighteen her 
 aunt brought her to London, a tall, heavy 
 and rather clumsy country girl, arrested 
 rather than developed by grief. Her aunt 
 
 37
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 was a world-worn, harassed woman; she 
 had married off her four daughters with 
 difficulty and felt the need of a change of 
 occupation; but she accepted as a matter 
 of course the duty of marrying off Amabel. 
 That task accomplished she would go to 
 bed every night at half past ten and devote 
 her days to collecting coins and enamels. 
 Her respite came far more quickly than 
 she could have imagined possible. Amabel 
 had promise of great beauty, but two or 
 three years were needed to fulfill it; Mrs. 
 Compton could but be surprised when Sir 
 Hugh Channice, an older colleague of 
 Bertram's, a fashionable and charming 
 man, asked for the hand of her unformed 
 young charge. Sir Hugh was fourteen 
 years Amabel's senior and her very guile- 
 lessness no doubt attracted him ; then there 
 was the money ; he was not well off and he 
 lived a life rather hazardously full. Still, 
 Mrs. Compton could hardly believe in her 
 good-fortune. Amabel accepted her own 
 very simply; her compliance and confi- 
 dence were even deeper than before. Sir 
 
 38
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 Hugh was the most graceful of lovers. 
 His quizzical tenderness reminded her of 
 her father, his quasi-paternal courtship 
 emphasized her instinctive trust in the 
 beauty and goodness of life. 
 
 So at eighteen she was married at St. 
 George's Hanover Square and wore a 
 wonderful long satin train and her 
 mother's lace veil and her mother's pearls 
 around her neck and hair. A bridesmaid 
 had said that pearls were unlucky, but 
 Mrs. Compton tersely answered: "Not 
 if they are such good ones as these." 
 Amabel had bowed her head to the pearls, 
 seeing them, with the train, and the veil, 
 and her own snowy figure, vaguely, still 
 in the dreamlike haze. Memories of her 
 father and mother, and of the dear dean- 
 ery among its meadows, floating frag- 
 ments of the poetry her father had loved, 
 of the prayers her mother had taught her 
 in childhood, hovered in her mind. She 
 seemed to see the primrose woods where 
 she had wandered, and to hear the sound 
 of brooks and birds in Spring. A vague 
 
 39
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 smile was on her lips. She thought of Sir 
 Hugh as of a radiance lighting all. She 
 was the happiest of girls. 
 
 Shortly after her marriage, all the radi- 
 ance, all the haze was gone. It had been 
 difficult then to know why. Now, as she 
 looked back, she thought that she could 
 understand. 
 
 She had been curiously young, curiously 
 inexperienced. She had expected life to 
 go on as dawn for ever. Everyday light 
 had filled her with bleakness and disillu- 
 sion. She had had childish fancies; that 
 her husband did not really love her; that 
 she counted for nothing in his life. Yet 
 Sir Hugh had never changed, except that 
 he very seldom made love to her and that 
 she saw less of him than during their en- 
 gagement. Sir Hugh was still quizzically 
 tender, still all grace, all deference, when 
 he was there. And what wonder that he 
 was little there; he had a wide life ; he was 
 a brilliant man; she was a stupid young 
 girl ; in looking back, no longer young, no 
 longer stupid, Lady Channice thought that 
 40
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 she could see it all quite clearly. She had 
 seemed to him a sweet, good girl, and he 
 cared for her and wanted a \vife. He had 
 hoped that by degrees she would grow into 
 a wise and capable woman, fit to help and 
 ornament his life. But she had not been 
 wise or capable. She had been lonely and 
 unhappy, and that wide life of his had 
 wearied and confused her ; the silence, the 
 watching attitude of the girl were inade- 
 quate to her married state, and yet she had 
 nothing else to meet it with. She had 
 never before felt her youth and inexperi- 
 ence as oppressive, but they oppressed her 
 now. She had nothing to ask of the world 
 and nothing to give to it. What she did 
 ask of life was not given to her, what she 
 had to give was not wanted. She was 
 very unhappy. 
 
 Yet people were kind. In especial Lady 
 Elliston was kind, the loveliest, most shel- 
 tering, most understanding of all her 
 guests or hostesses. Lady Elliston and 
 her cheerful, jocose husband, were Sir 
 Hugh's nearest friends and they took her 
 
 4U
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 in and made much of her. And one day 
 when, in a fit of silly wretchedness, Lady 
 Elliston found her crying, she had put her 
 arms around her and kissed her and 
 begged to know her grief and to comfort 
 it. Even thus taken by surprise, and even 
 to one so kind, Amabel could not tell that 
 grief : deep in her was a reticence, a sense 
 of values austere and immaculate: she 
 could not discuss her husband, even with 
 the kindest of friends. And she had noth- 
 ing to tell, really, but of herself, her own 
 helplessness and deficiency. Yet, without 
 her telling, for all her wish that no one 
 should guess, Lady Elliston did guess. 
 Her comfort had such wise meaning in it. 
 She was ten years older than Amabel. 
 She knew all about the world; she knew 
 all about girls and their husbands. 
 Amabel was only a girl, and that was the 
 trouble, she seemed to say. When she 
 grew older she would see that it would 
 come right ; husbands were always so ; the 
 wider life reached by marriage would 
 atone in many ways. And Lady Elliston, 
 42
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 all with sweetest discretion, had asked 
 gentle questions. Some of them Amabel 
 had not understood; some she had. She 
 remembered now that her own silence or 
 dull negation might have seemed very 
 rude and ungrateful; yet Lady Elliston 
 had taken no offence. All her memories 
 of Lady Elliston were of this tact and 
 sweetness, this penetrating, tentative tact 
 and sweetness that sought to understand 
 and help and that drew back, unflurried 
 and unprotesting before rebuff, ready to 
 emerge again at any hint of need, of 
 these, and of her great beauty, the light 
 of her large clear eyes, the whiteness of 
 her throat, the glitter of diamonds about 
 and above : for it was always in her most 
 festal aspect, at night, under chandeliers 
 and in ball-rooms, that she best remem- 
 bered her. Amabel knew, with the deep, 
 instinctive sense of values which was part 
 of her inheritance and hardly, at that time, 
 part of her thought, that her mother would 
 not have liked Lady Elliston, would have 
 thought her worldly ; yet, and this showed 
 
 43
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 that Amabel was developing, she had al- 
 ready learned that worldliness was com- 
 patible with many things that her mother 
 would have excluded from it; she could 
 see Lady Elliston with her own and with 
 her mother's eyes, and it was puzzling, 
 part of the pain of growth, to feel that her 
 own was already the wider vision. 
 
 Soon after that the real story came. 
 The city began to burn and smoke and 
 flames to blind and scorch her. 
 
 It was at Lady Elliston's country house 
 that Amabel first met Paul Quentin. He 
 was a daring young novelist who was 
 being made much of during those years; 
 for at that still somewhat guileless time 
 to be daring had been to be original. His 
 books had power and beauty, and he had 
 power and beauty, fierce, dreaming eyes 
 and an intuitive, sudden smile. Under his 
 aspect of careless artist, his head was a 
 little turned by his worldly success, by 
 great country-houses and flattering great 
 ladies ; he did not take the world as indif- 
 ferently as he seemed to. Success edged 
 
 44
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 his self-confidence with a reckless as- 
 surance. He was an ardent student of 
 Nietzsche, at a time when that, too, was to 
 be original. Amabel met this young man 
 constantly at the dances and country par- 
 ties of a season. And, suddenly, the world 
 changed. It was not dawn and it was not 
 daylight ; it was a wild and beautiful illu- 
 mination like torches at night. She knew 
 herself loved and her own being became 
 precious and enchanting to her. The pres- 
 ence of the man who loved her filled her 
 with rapture and fear. Their recognition 
 was swift. He told her things about her- 
 self that she had never dreamed of and as 
 he told them she felt them to be true. 
 
 To other people Paul Quentin did not 
 speak much of Lady Channice. He early 
 saw that he would need to be discreet. 
 One day at Lady Elliston's her beauty 
 was in question and someone said that she 
 was too pale and too impassive; and at 
 that Quentin, smiling a little fiercely, re- 
 marked that she was as pale as a cowslip 
 and as impassive as a young Madonna; 
 
 45
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 the words pictured her ; her fresh Spring- 
 like quality, and the peace, as of some 
 noble power not yet roused. 
 
 In looking back, it was strange and ter- 
 rible to Lady Channice to see how little 
 she had really known this man. Their 
 meetings, their talks together, were like 
 the torchlight that flashed and wavered 
 and only fitfully revealed. From the first 
 she had listened, had assented, to every- 
 thing he said, hanging upon his words and 
 his looks and living afterward in the 
 memory of them. And in memory their 
 significance seemed so to grow that when 
 they next met they found themselves far 
 nearer than the words had left them. 
 
 All her young reserves and dignities 
 had been penetrated and dissolved. It 
 was always themselves he talked of, but, 
 from that centre, he waved the torch 
 about a transformed earth and showed her 
 a world of thought and of art that she had 
 never seen before. No murmur of it had 
 reached the deanery; to her husband and 
 the people he lived among it was a mere
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 spectacle; Quentin made that bright, ar- 
 dent world real to her, and serious. He 
 gave her books to read; he took her to 
 hear music; he showed her the pictures, 
 the statues, the gems and porcelains that 
 she had before accepted as part of the 
 background of life hardly seeing them. 
 From being the background of life they 
 became, in a sense, suddenly its object. 
 But not their object not his and hers, 
 though they talked of them, looked, lis- 
 tened and understood. To Quentin and 
 Amabel this beauty was still background, 
 and in the centre, at the core of things, 
 were their two selves and the ecstasy of 
 feeling that exalted and terrified. All 
 else in life became shackles. It was hardly 
 shock, it was more like some immense re- 
 lief, when, in each other's arms, the words 
 of love, so long implied, were spoken. He 
 said that she must come with him; that 
 she must leave it all and come. She 
 fought against herself and against him in 
 refusing, grasping at pale memories of 
 duty, honour, self-sacrifice; he knew too 
 
 47
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 well the inner treachery that denied her 
 words. But, looking back, trying not to 
 flinch before the scorching memory, she 
 did not know how he had won her. The 
 dreadful jostle of opportune circumstance ; 
 her husband's absence, her brother's; 
 the chance pause in the empty London 
 house between country visits; Paul 
 Quentin following, finding her there; the 
 hot, dusty, enervating July day, all 
 seemed to have pushed her to the act of 
 madness and made of it a willess yielding 
 rather than a decision. For she had 
 yielded; she had left her husband's house 
 and gone with him. 
 
 They went abroad at once, to France, 
 to the forest of Fontainebleau. How she 
 hated ever after the sound of the lovely 
 syllables, hated the memory of the rocks 
 and woods, the green shadows and the 
 golden lights where she had walked with 
 him and known horror and despair deep- 
 ening in her heart with every day. She 
 judged herself, not him, in looking back; 
 even then it had been herself she had 
 
 48
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 judged. Though unwilling, she had been 
 as much tempted by herself as by him ; he 
 had had to break down barriers, but 
 though they were the barriers of her very 
 soul, her longing heart had pressed, had 
 beaten against them, crying out for de- 
 liverance. She did not judge him, but, 
 alone with him in the forest, alone with 
 him in the bland, sunny hotel, alone with 
 him through the long nights when she lay 
 awake and wondered, in a stupor of de- 
 spair, she saw that he was different. So 
 different ; there was the horror. She was 
 the sinner; not he. He belonged to the 
 bright, ardent life, the life without social 
 bond or scruple, the life of sunny, tolerant 
 hotels and pagan forests ; but she did not 
 belong to it. The things that had seemed 
 external things, barriers and shackles, 
 were the realest things, were in fact the 
 inner things, were her very self. In 
 yielding to her heart she had destroyed 
 herself, there was no life to be lived 
 henceforth with this man, for there was 
 no self left to live it with. She saw that 
 
 49
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 she had cut herself off from her future 
 as well as from her past. The sacred past 
 judged her and the future was dead. Years 
 of experience concentrated themselves into 
 that lawless week. She saw that laws 
 were not outside things; that they were 
 one's very self at its wisest. She saw that 
 if laws were to be broken it could only be 
 by a self wiser than the self that had 
 made the law. And the self that had fled 
 with Paul Quentin was only a passionate, 
 blinded fragment, a heart without a brain, 
 a fragment judged and rejected by the 
 whole. 
 
 To both lovers the week was one of bit- 
 ter disillusion, though for Quentin no 
 such despair was possible. For him it was 
 an attempt at joy and beauty that had 
 failed. This dulled, drugged looking girl 
 was not the radiant woman he had hoped 
 to find. Vain and sensitive as he was, he 
 felt, almost immediately, that he had lost 
 his charm for her; that she had ceased to 
 love him. That was the ugly, the humili- 
 ating side of the truth, the side that so 
 
 50
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 filled Amabel Channice's soul with sick- 
 ness as she looked back at it. She had 
 ceased to love him, almost at once. 
 
 And it was not guilt only, and fear, that 
 had risen between them and separated 
 them; there were other, smaller, subtler 
 reasons, little snakes that hissed in her 
 memory. He was different from her in 
 other ways. 
 
 She hardly saw that one of the ways 
 was that of breeding ; but she felt that he 
 jarred upon her constantly, in their inti- 
 macy, their helpless, dreadful intimacy. In 
 contrast, the thought of her husband had 
 been with her, burningly. She did not 
 say to herself, for she did not know it, her 
 experience of life was too narrow to give 
 her the knowledge, that her husband was 
 a gentleman and her lover, a man of genius 
 though he were, was not; but she com- 
 pared them, incessantly, when Quentin's 
 words and actions, his instinctive judg- 
 ments of rfien and things, made her shrink 
 and flush. He was so clever, cleverer far 
 than Hugh; but he did not know, as Sir
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 Hugh would have known, what the slight 
 things were that would make her shrink. 
 He took little liberties when he should 
 have been reticent and he was humble 
 when he should have been assured. For 
 he was often humble; he was, oddly, 
 pathetically and the pity for him added 
 to the sickness afraid of her and then, 
 because he was afraid, he grew angry 
 with her. 
 
 He was clever ; but there are some things 
 cleverness cannot reach. What he failed 
 to feel by instinct, he tried to scorn. It 
 was not the patrician scorn, stupid yet not 
 ignoble, for something hardly seen, hardly 
 judged, merely felt as dull and insignifi- 
 cant; it was the corroding plebeian scorn 
 for a suspected superiority. 
 
 He quarrelled with her, and she sat 
 silent, knowing that her silence, her pas- 
 sivity, was an affront the more, but help- 
 less, having no word to say. What could 
 she say? I do love you: I am wretched: 
 utterly wretched and utterly destroyed. 
 That was all there was to say. So she sat, 
 
 52
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 dully listening, as if drugged. And she 
 only winced when he so far forgot himself 
 as to cry out that it was her silly pride of 
 blood, the aristocratic illusion, that had 
 infected her ; she belonged to the caste that 
 could not think and that picked up the 
 artist and thinker to amuse and fill its 
 vacancy. "We may be lovers, or we may 
 be performing poodles, but we are never 
 equals," he had cried. It was for him 
 Amabel had winced, knowing, without 
 raising her eyes to see it, how his face 
 would burn with humiliation for having 
 so betrayed his consciousness of differ- 
 ence. Nothing that he could say could 
 hurt her for herself. 
 
 But there was worse to bear : after the 
 violence of his anger came the violence of 
 his love. She had borne at first, dully, 
 like the slave she felt herself ; for she had 
 sold herself to him, given herself over 
 bound hand and foot. But now it became 
 intolerable. She could not protest, what 
 was there to protest against, or to appeal 
 to? but she could fly. The thought of 
 
 53
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 flight rose in her after the torpor of de- 
 spair and, with its sense of wings, it felt 
 almost like a joy. She could fly back, 
 back, to be scourged and purified, and 
 then oh far away she saw it now 
 was something beyond despair; life once 
 more; life hidden, crippled, but life. A 
 prayer rose like a sob with the 
 thought. 
 
 So one night in London her brother 
 Bertram, coming back late to his rooms, 
 found her sitting there. 
 
 Bertram was hard, but not unkind. The 
 sight of her white, fixed face touched him. 
 He did not upbraid her, though for the 
 past week he had rehearsed the bitterest 
 of upbraidings. He even spoke soothingly 
 to her when, speechless, she broke into 
 wild sobs. "There, Amabel, there. Yes, 
 it 's a frightful mess you Ve made of 
 things. When I think of mother! Well, 
 I '11 say nothing now. You have come 
 back; that is something. You have left 
 him, Amabel ?" 
 
 She nodded, her face hidden. 
 
 54
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 "The brute, the scoundrel," said Ber- 
 tram, at which she moaned a negation. 
 "You don't still care about him? Well, I 
 won't question you now. Perhaps it 's 
 not so desperate. Hugh has been very 
 good about it ; he 's helped me to keep the 
 thing hushed up until we could make sure. 
 I hope we Ve succeeded ; I hope so indeed. 
 Hugh will see you soon, I know; and it 
 can be patched up, no doubt, after a 
 fashion." 
 
 But at this Amabel cried: "I can't. 
 I can't. Oh take me away. Let me 
 hide until he divorces me. I can't see 
 him." 
 
 "Divorces you?" Bertram's voice was 
 sharp. "Have you disgraced publicly 
 you and us? It 's not you I 'm thinking 
 of so much as the family name, father and 
 mother. Hugh won't divorce you; he 
 can't ; he shan't. After all you 're a mere 
 child and he did n't look after you." But 
 this was said rather in threat to Hugh 
 than in leniency to Amabel. 
 
 She lay back in the chair, helpless, al- 
 
 55
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 most lifeless: let them do with her what 
 they would. 
 
 Bertram said that she should spend the 
 night there and that he would see Hugh in 
 the morning. And: "No; you need n't 
 see him yet, if you feel you can't. It may 
 be arranged without that. Hugh will un- 
 derstand." And this was the first ray of 
 the light that was to grow and grow. 
 Hugh would understand. 
 
 She did not see him for two years. 
 
 All that had happened after her return 
 to Bertram was a blur now. There were 
 hasty talks, Bertram defining for her her 
 future position, one of dignity it must be 
 he insisted on that ; Hugh perfectly under- 
 stood her wish for the present, quite fell 
 in with it; but, eventually, she must take 
 her place in her husband's home again. 
 Even Bertram, intent as he was on the 
 family honour, could not force the unwill- 
 ing wife upon the merely magnanimous 
 husband. 
 
 Her husband's magnanimity was the 
 radiance that grew for Amabel during 
 
 56
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 these black days, the days of hasty talks 
 and of her journey down to Charlock 
 House. 
 
 She had never seen Charlock House be- 
 fore; Sir Hugh had spoken of the family 
 seat as "a dismal hole," but, on that hot 
 July evening of her arrival, it looked 
 peaceful to her, a dark haven of refuge, 
 like the promise of sleep after nightmare. 
 
 Mrs. Bray stood in the door, a grim but 
 not a hostile warder: Amabel felt anyone 
 who was not hostile to be almost kind. 
 
 The house had been hastily prepared for 
 her, dining-room and drawing-room and 
 the large bedroom upstairs, having the 
 same outlook over the lawn, the syca- 
 mores, the flat meadows. She could see 
 herself standing there now, looking about 
 her at the bedroom where gaiety and 
 gauntness were oddly mingled in the faded 
 carnations and birds of paradise on the 
 chintzes and in the vastness of the four- 
 poster, the towering wardrobes, the 
 capacious, creaking chairs and sofas. 
 Everything was very clean and old; the 
 
 57
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 dressing-table was stiffly skirted in darned 
 muslins and near the pin-cushion stood a 
 small, tight nosegay, Mrs. Bray's cautious 
 welcome to this ambiguous mistress. 
 
 "A comfortable old place, is n't it," 
 Bertram had said, looking about, too; 
 "You '11 soon get well and strong here, 
 Amabel." This, Amabel knew, was said 
 for the benefit of Mrs. Bray who stood, 
 non-committal and observant just inside 
 the door. She knew, too, that Bertram 
 was depressed by the gauntness and gaiety 
 of the bedroom and even more depressed 
 by the maroon leather furniture and the 
 cases of stuffed birds below, and that he 
 was at once glad to get away from Char- 
 lock House and sorry for her that she 
 should have to be left there, alone with 
 Mrs. Bray. But to Amabel it was a dream 
 after a nightmare. A strange, desolate 
 dream, all through those sultry summer 
 days; but a dream shot through with 
 radiance in the thought of the magnani- 
 mity that had spared and saved her. 
 
 And with the coming of the final horror, 
 
 58
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 came the final revelation of this radiance. 
 She had been at Charlock House for many 
 weeks, and it was mid- Autumn, when that 
 horror came. She knew that she was to 
 have a child and that it could not be her 
 husband's child. 
 
 With the knowledge her mind seemed 
 unmoored at last; it wavered and swung 
 in a nightmare blackness deeper than any 
 she had known. In her physical prostra- 
 tion and mental disarray the thought of 
 suicide was with her. How face Bertram 
 now, Bertram with his tenacious hopes? 
 How face her husband ever ever in 
 the far future? Her disgrace lived and 
 she was to see it. But, in the swinging 
 chaos, it was that thought that kept her 
 from frenzy ; the thought that it did live ; 
 that its life claimed her ; that to it she must 
 atone. She did not love this child that was 
 to come ; she dreaded it ; yet the dread was 
 sacred, a burden that she must bear for 
 its unhappy sake. What did she not owe 
 to it unfortunate one of atonement and 
 devotion ? 
 
 59
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 She gathered all her courage, armed her 
 physical weakness, her wandering mind, 
 to summon Bertram and to tell him. 
 
 She told him in the long drawing-room 
 on a sultry September day, leaning her 
 arms on the table by which she sat and 
 covering her face. 
 
 Bertram said nothing for a long time. 
 He was still boyish enough to feel any 
 such announcement as embarrassing; and 
 that it should be told him now, in such cir- 
 cumstances, by his sister, by Amabel, was 
 nearly incredible. How associate such 
 savage natural facts, lawless and unap- 
 peasable, with that young figure, dressed 
 in its trousseau white muslin and with 
 its crown of innocent gold. It made 
 her suddenly seem older than himself 
 and at once more piteous and more 
 sinister. For a moment, after the sheer 
 stupor, he was horribly angry with 
 her; then came dismay at his own 
 cruelty. 
 
 "This does change things, Amabel," he 
 said at last. 
 
 60
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 "Yes," she answered from behind her 
 hands. 
 
 "I don't know how Hugh will take it," 
 said Bertram. 
 
 "He must divorce me now," she said. 
 "It can be done very quietly, can't it. And 
 I have money. I can go away, somewhere, 
 out of England I 've thought of America 
 or New Zealand some distant country 
 where I shall never be heard of; I can 
 bring up the child there." 
 
 Bertram stared at her. She sat at the 
 table, her hands before her face, in the 
 light, girlish dress that hung loosely about 
 her. She was fragile and wasted. Her 
 voice seemed dead. And he wondered at 
 the unhappy creature's courage. 
 
 "Divorce !" he then said violently ; "No ; 
 he can't do that; and he had forgiven 
 already ; I don't know how the law stands ; 
 but of course you won't go away. What 
 an idea; you might as well kill yourself 
 outright. It 's only . I don't know how 
 the law stands. I don't know what Hugh 
 will say." 
 
 61
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 Bertram walked up and down biting his 
 nails. He stopped presently before a win- 
 dow, his back turned to his sister, and, 
 flushing over the words, he said: "You 
 are sure you are quite sure, Amabel, that 
 it is n't Hugh's child. You are such a 
 girl. You can know nothing. I mean- 
 it may be a mistake." 
 
 "I am quite sure," the unmoved voice 
 answered him. "I do know." 
 
 Bertram again stood silent. "Well," he 
 said at last, turning to her though he did 
 not look at her, "all I can do is to see how 
 Hugh takes it. You know, Amabel, that 
 you can count on me. I '11 see after you, 
 and after the child. Hugh may, of course, 
 insist on your parting from it; that will 
 probably be the condition he '11 make; 
 naturally. In that case I '11 take you 
 abroad soon. It can be got through, I 
 suppose, without anybody knowing; as- 
 sumed names; some Swiss or Italian vil- 
 lage " Bertram muttered, rather to him- 
 self than to her. "Good God, what an 
 odious business! But, as you say, we 
 62
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 have money; that simplifies everything. 
 You must n't worry about the child. I 
 will see that it is put into safe hands and 
 I '11 keep an eye on its future." He 
 stopped, for his sister's hands had fallen. 
 She was gazing at him, still dully for it 
 seemed that nothing could strike any ex- 
 citement from her but with a curious 
 look, a look that again made him feel as 
 if she were much older than he. 
 
 "Never," she said. 
 
 "Never what?" Bertram asked. "You 
 mean you won't part from the child?" 
 
 "Never; never," she repeated. 
 
 "But Amabel," with cold patience he 
 urged; "if Hugh insists. My poor girl, 
 you have made your bed and you must lie 
 on it. You can't expect your husband to 
 give this child this illegitimate child 
 his name. You can't expect him to accept 
 it as his child." 
 
 "No ; I don't expect it," she said. 
 
 "Well, what then? What 's your alter- 
 native ?" 
 
 "I must go away with the child." 
 
 63
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 "I tell you, Amabel, it 's impossible," 
 Bertram in his painful anxiety spoke with 
 irritation. "You 've got to consider our 
 name my name, my position, and your 
 husband's. Heaven knows I want to be 
 kind to you do all I can for you; I 've 
 not once reproached you, have I? But 
 you must be reasonable. Some things you 
 must accept as your punishment. Unless 
 Hugh is the most fantastically generous 
 of men you '11 have to part from the child." 
 
 She sat silent. 
 
 "You do consent to that?" Bertram in- 
 sisted. 
 
 She looked before her with that dull, 
 that stupid look. "No," she replied, 
 
 Bertram's patience gave way, "You 
 are mad," he said. "Have you no consid- 
 eration for me for us? You behave like 
 this incredibly, in my mother's daughter 
 never a girl better brought up; you go 
 off with that that bounder; you stay 
 with him for a week good heavens! 
 there 'd have been more dignity if you 'd 
 stuck to him; you chuck him, in one
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 week, and then you come back and expect 
 us to do as you think fit, to let you disap- 
 pear and everyone know that you 've be- 
 trayed your husband and had a child by 
 another man. It 's mad, I tell you, and 
 it 's impossible, and you Ve got to submit. 
 Do you hear ? Will you answer me, I say ? 
 Will you promise that if Hugh won't con- 
 sent to fathering the child won't consent 
 to giving it his name won't consent to 
 having it, as his heir, disinherit the lawful 
 children he may have by you good heav- 
 ens, I wonder if you realize what you are 
 asking! will you promise, I say, if he 
 does n't consent, to part from the child?" 
 
 She did look rather mad, her brother 
 thought, and he remembered, with dis- 
 comfort, that women, at such times, did 
 sometimes lose their reason. Her eyes 
 with their dead gaze nearly frightened 
 him, when, after all his violence, his en- 
 treaty, his abuse of her, she only, in an 
 unchanged voice, said "No." 
 
 He felt then the uselessness of protesta- 
 tion or threat; she must be treated as if
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 she were mad ; humored, cajoled. He was 
 silent for a little while, walking up and 
 down. "Well, I '11 say no more, then. 
 Forgive me for my harshness," he said. 
 "You give me a great deal to bear, Ama- 
 bel ; but I '11 say nothing now. I have your 
 word, at all events," he looked sharply 
 at her as the sudden suspicion crossed him, 
 "I have your word that you '11 stay quietly 
 here until you hear from me what Hugh 
 says? You promise me that?" 
 
 "Yes," his sister answered. He gave a 
 sigh for the sorry relief. 
 
 That night Amabel's mind wandered 
 wildly. She heard herself, in the lonely 
 room where she lay, calling out meaning- 
 less things. She tried to control the hor- 
 ror of fear that rose in her and peopled 
 the room with phantoms ; but the fear ran 
 curdling in her veins and flowed about 
 her, shaping itself in forms of misery and 
 disaster. "No no poor child. Oh 
 don't don't. I will come to you. I am 
 your mother. They can't take you from 
 me." this was the most frequent cry. 
 66
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 The poor child hovered, wailing, deliv- 
 ered over to vague, unseen sorrow, and, 
 though a tiny infant, it seemed to be Paul 
 Quentin, too, in some dreadful plight, ap- 
 pealing to her in the name of their dead 
 love to save him. She did not love him; 
 she did not love the child; but her heart 
 seemed broken with impotent pity. 
 
 In the intervals of nightmare she could 
 look, furtively, fixedly, about the room. 
 The moon was bright outside, and through 
 the curtains a pallid light showed the men- 
 acing forms of the two great wardrobes. 
 The four posts of her bed seemed like the 
 pillars of some vast, alien temple, and the 
 canopy, far above her, floated like a 
 threatening cloud. Opposite her bed, 
 above the chimney-piece, was a deeply 
 glimmering mirror: if she were to raise 
 herself she would see her own white re- 
 flection, rising, ghastly. She hid her face 
 on her pillows and sank again into the 
 abyss. 
 
 Next morning she could not get up. 
 Her pulses were beating at fever speed;
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 but, with the daylight, her mind was 
 clearer. She could summon her quiet look 
 when Mrs. Bray came in to ask her mourn- 
 fully how she was. And a little later a 
 telegram came, from Bertram. 
 
 Her trembling hands could hardly open 
 it. She read the words. "All is well." 
 Mrs. Bray stood beside her bed. She 
 meant to keep that quiet look for Mrs. 
 Bray; but she fainted. Mrs. Bray, while 
 she lay tumbled among the pillows, and 
 before lifting her, read the message 
 hastily. 
 
 From the night of torment and the 
 shock of joy, Amabel brought an extreme 
 susceptibility to emotion that showed it- 
 self through all her life in a trembling of 
 her hands and frame when any stress of 
 feeling was laid upon her. 
 
 After that torment and that shock she 
 saw Bertram once, and only once, again; 
 ah, strange and sad in her memory that 
 final meeting of their lives, though this 
 miraculous news was the theme of it. 
 She was still in bed when he came, the 
 68
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 bed she did not leave for months, and, 
 though so weak and dizzy, she understood 
 all that he told her, knew the one supreme 
 fact of her husband's goodness. He sent 
 her word that she was to be troubled about 
 nothing; she was to take everything easily 
 and naturally. She should always have 
 her child with her and it should bear his 
 name. He would see after it like a father ; 
 it should never know that he was not its 
 father. And, as soon as she would let him, 
 he would come and see her and it. Ama- 
 bel, lying on her pillows, gazed and gazed : 
 her eyes, in their shadowy hollows, were 
 two dark wells of sacred wonder. Even 
 Bertram felt something of the wonder of 
 them. In his new gladness and relief, he 
 was very kind to her. He came and kissed 
 her. She seemed, once more, a person 
 whom one could kiss. "Poor dear," he 
 said, "you have had a lot to bear. You do 
 look dreadfully ill. You must get well and 
 strong, now, Amabel, and not worry any 
 more, about anything. Everything is all 
 right. We will call the child Augustine, 
 
 69
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 if it 's a boy, after mother's father you 
 know, and Katherine, if it 's a girl, after 
 her mother : I feel, don't you, that we have 
 no right to use their own names. But the 
 further away ones seem right, now. Hugh 
 is a trump, is n't he ? And, I 'm sure of it, 
 Amabel, when time has passed a little, and 
 you feel you can, he '11 have you back; I 
 do really believe it may be managed. This 
 can all be explained. I 'm saying that you 
 are ill, a nervous breakdown, and are hav- 
 ing a complete rest." 
 
 She heard him dimly, feeling these 
 words irrelevant. She knew that Hugh 
 must never have her back; that she could 
 never go back to Hugh; that her life 
 henceforth was dedicated. And yet Ber- 
 tram was kind, she felt that, though dimly 
 feeling, too, that her old image of him had 
 grown tarnished. But her mind was far 
 from Bertram and the mitigations he of- 
 fered. She was fixed on that radiant fig- 
 ure, her husband, her knight, who had 
 stooped to her in her abasement, her 
 agony, and had lifted her from dust and 
 70
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 darkness to the air where she could 
 breathe, and bless him. 
 
 "Tell him I bless him," she said to 
 Bertram. She could say nothing more. 
 There were other memories of that day, 
 too, but even more dim, more irrelevant. 
 Bertram had brought papers for her to 
 sign, saying: "I know you '11 want to be 
 very generous with Hugh now," and she 
 had raised herself on her elbow to trace 
 with the fingers that trembled the words 
 he dictated to her. 
 
 There was sorrow, indeed, to look back 
 on after that. Poor Bertram died only a 
 month later, struck down by an infectious 
 illness. He was not to see or supervise 
 the rebuilding of his sister's shattered life, 
 and the anguish in her sorrow was the 
 thought of all the pain that she had 
 brought to his last months of life : but this 
 sorrow, after the phantoms, the night- 
 mares, was like the weeping of tears after 
 a dreadful weeping of blood. Her tears 
 fell as she lay there, propped on her pil- 
 lows for she was very ill and looking 
 
 71
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 out over the Autumn fields; she wept for 
 poor Bertram and all the pain; life was 
 sad. But life was good and beautiful. 
 After the flames, the suffocation, it had 
 brought her here, and it showed her that 
 radiant figure, that goodness and beauty 
 embodied in human form. And she had 
 more to help her, for he wrote to her, a 
 few delicately chosen words, hardly touch- 
 ing on their own case, his and hers, but 
 about her brother's death and of how 
 he felt for her in her bereavement, 
 and of what a friend dear Bertram 
 had been to himself. "Some day, dear 
 Amabel, you must let me come and see 
 you" it ended; and "Your affectionate 
 husband." 
 
 It was almost too wonderful to be 
 borne. She had to close her eyes in think- 
 ing of it and to lie very still, holding the 
 blessed letter in her hand and smiling 
 faintly while she drew long soft breaths. 
 He was always in her thoughts, her hus- 
 band; more, far more, than her coming 
 child. It was her husband who had made 
 72
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 that coming a thing possible to look for- 
 ward to with resignation ; it was no longer 
 the nightmare of desolate flights and hid- 
 ings. 
 
 And even after the child was born, 
 after she had seen its strange little face, 
 even then, though it was all her life, all 
 her future, it held the second place in her 
 heart. It was her life, but it was from 
 her husband that the gift of life had come 
 to her. 
 
 She was a gentle, a solicitous, a devoted 
 mother. She never looked at her baby 
 without a sense of tears. Unfortunate 
 one, was her thought, and the pulse of her 
 life was the yearning to atone. 
 
 She must be strong and wise for her 
 child and out of her knowledge of sin and 
 weakness in herself must guide and guard 
 it. But in her yearning, in her brooding 
 thought, was none of the mother's rap- 
 turous folly and gladness. She never 
 kissed her baby. Some dark association 
 made the thought of kisses an unholy 
 thing and when, forgetting, she leaned to 
 
 73
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 it sometimes, thoughtless, and delighting 
 in littleness and sweetness, the dark mem- 
 ory of guilt would rise between its lips 
 and hers, so that she would grow pale and 
 draw back. 
 
 When first she saw her husband, Au- 
 gustine was over a year old. Sir Hugh 
 had written and asked if he might not 
 come down one day and spend an hour 
 with her. "And let all the old fogies see 
 that we are friends," he said, in his re- 
 membered playful vein. 
 
 It was in the long dark drawing-room 
 that she had seen him for the first time 
 since her flight into the wilderness. 
 
 He had come in, grave, yet with some- 
 thing blithe and unperturbed in his bear- 
 ing that, as she stood waiting for what he 
 might say to her, seemed the very nimbus 
 of chivalry. He was splendid to look at, 
 too, tall and strong with clear kind eyes 
 and clear kind smile. 
 
 She could not speak, not even when he 
 came and took her hand, and said : "Well 
 Amabel." And then, seeing how white 
 
 74
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 she was and how she trembled, he had 
 bent his head and kissed her hand. And 
 at that she had broken into tears ; but they 
 were tears of joy. 
 
 He stood beside her while she wept, her 
 hands before her face, just touching her 
 shoulder with a paternal hand, and she 
 heard him saying: "Poor little Amabel: 
 poor little girl." 
 
 She took her chair beside the table and 
 for a long time she kept her face hidden : 
 "Thank you ; thank you ;" was all that she 
 could say. 
 
 "My dear, what for? There, don't 
 cry. You have stopped crying? There, 
 poor child. I Ve been awfully sorry for 
 you." 
 
 He would not let her try to say how 
 good he was, and this was a relief, for she 
 knew that she could not put it into words 
 and that, without words, he understood. 
 He even laughed a little, with a graceful 
 embarrassment, at her speechless grati- 
 tude. And presently, when they talked, 
 she could put down her hand, could look 
 
 75
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 round at him, while she answered that, 
 yes, she was very comfortable at Char- 
 lock House; yes, no place could suit her 
 more perfectly; yes, Mrs. Bray was very 
 kind. 
 
 And he talked a little about business 
 with her, explaining that Bertram's death 
 had left him with a great deal of manage- 
 ment on his hands ; he must have her sig- 
 nature to papers, and all this was done 
 with the easiest tact so that naturalness 
 and simplicity should grow between them ; 
 so that, in finding pen and papers in her 
 desk, in asking where she was to sign, in 
 obeying the pointing of his finger here 
 and there, she should recover something 
 of her quiet, and be able to smile, even, a 
 little answering smile, when he said 
 that he should make a business woman 
 of her. And "Rather a shame that I 
 should take your money like this, Amabel, 
 but, with all Bertram's money, you 
 are quite a bloated capitalist. I 'm 
 rather hard up, and you don't grudge it, 
 I know." 
 
 76
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 She flushed all over at the idea, even 
 said in jest : "All that I have is yours." 
 
 "Ah, well, not all," said Sir Hugh. 
 "You must remember other claims." 
 And he, too, flushed a little now in saying, 
 gently, tentatively; "May I see the little 
 boy?" 
 
 "I will bring him," said Amabel. 
 
 How she remembered, all her life long, 
 that meeting of her husband and her son. 
 It was the late afternoon of a bright June 
 day and the warm smell of flowers floated 
 in at the open windows of the drawing- 
 room. She did not let the nurse bring 
 Augustine, she carried him down herself. 
 He was a large, robust baby with thick, 
 corn-colored hair and a solemn, beautiful 
 little face. Amabel came in with him and 
 stood before her husband holding him and 
 looking down. Confusion was in her 
 mind, a mingling of pride and shame. 
 
 Sir Hugh and the baby eyed each other, 
 with some intentness. And, as the silence 
 grew a little long, Sir Hugh touched the 
 child's cheek with his finger and said: 
 
 77
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 "Nice little fellow: splendid little fellow. 
 How old is he, Amabel? Is n't he very 
 big?" 
 
 "A year and two months. Yes, he is 
 very big." 
 
 "He looks like you, does n't he?" 
 
 "Does he?" she said faintly. 
 
 "Just your colour," Sir Hugh assured 
 her. "As grave as a little king, is n't he. 
 How firmly he looks at me." 
 
 "He is grave, but he never cries; he is 
 very cheerful, too, and well and strong." 
 
 "He looks it. He does you credit. 
 Well, my little man, shall we be friends ?" 
 Sir Hugh held out his hand. Augustine 
 continued to gaze at him, unmoving. "He 
 won't shake hands," said Sir Hugh. 
 
 Amabel took the child's hand and placed 
 it in her husband's ; her own fingers shook. 
 But Augustine drew back sharply, doub- 
 ling his arm against his breast, though 
 not wavering in his gaze at the stranger. 
 
 Sir Hugh laughed at the decisive rejec- 
 tion. "Friendship 's on one side, till 
 later," he said. 
 
 78
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 
 
 WHEN her husband had gone Amabel 
 
 went out into the sycamore wood. It was 
 a pale, cool evening. The sun had set and 
 the sky beyond the sycamores was golden. 
 Above, in a sky of liquid green, the even- 
 ing star shone softly. 
 
 A joy, sweet, cold, pure, like the even- 
 ing, was in her heart. She stopped in the 
 midst of the little wood among the trees, 
 and stood still, closing her eyes. 
 
 Something old was coming back to her ; 
 something new was being given. The 
 memory of her mother's eyes was in it, of 
 the simple prayers taught her by her 
 mother in childhood, and the few words, 
 rare and simple, of the presence of God in 
 the soul. But her girlish prayer, her girl- 
 ish thought of God, had been like a 
 thread-like, singing brook. What came to 
 her now grew from the brook-like run- 
 ning of trust and innocence to a widening 
 river, to a sea that filled her, over-flowed 
 her, encompassed her, in whose power she 
 was weak, through whose power her 
 weakness was uplifted and made strong. 
 
 79
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 It was as if a dark curtain of fear and 
 pain lifted from her soul, showing vast- 
 ness, and deep upon deep of stars. Yet, 
 though this that came to her was so vast, 
 it made itself small and tender, too, like 
 the flowers glimmering about her feet, the 
 breeze fanning her hair and garments, 
 the birds asleep in the branches above her. 
 She held out her hands, for it seemed to 
 fall like dew, and she smiled, her face up- 
 lifted. 
 
 SHE did not often see her husband in the 
 quiet years that followed. She did not 
 feel that she needed to see him. It was 
 enough to know that he was there, good 
 and beautiful. 
 
 She knew that she idealised him, that 
 in ordinary aspects he was a happy, easy 
 man-of-the-world ; but that was not the 
 essential; the essential in him was the 
 pity, the tenderness, the comprehension 
 that had responded to her great need. He 
 was very unconscious of aims or ideals; 
 80
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 but when the time for greatness came he 
 showed it as naturally and simply as a 
 flower expands to light. The thought of 
 him henceforth was bound up with the 
 thought of her religion; nothing of rap- 
 ture or ecstasy was in it; it was quiet and 
 grave, a revelation of holiness. 
 
 It was as if she had been kneeling to 
 pray, alone, in a dark, devastated church, 
 trembling, and fearing the darkness, not 
 daring to approach the unseen altar; and 
 that then her husband's hand had lighted 
 all the high tapers one by one, so that the 
 church was filled with radiance and the 
 divine made manifest to her again. 
 
 Light and quietness were to go with 
 her, but they were not to banish fear. 
 They could only help her to live with fear 
 and to find life beautiful in spite of it. 
 
 For if her husband stood for the joy of 
 life, her child stood for its sorrow. He 
 was the dark past and the unknown fu- 
 ture. What she should find in him was 
 un revealed; and though she steadied her 
 81
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 soul to the acceptance of whatever the 
 future might bring of pain for her, the 
 sense of trembling was with her always 
 in the thought of what it might bring of 
 pain for Augustine. 
 
 82
 
 IV 
 
 'ADY CHANNICE woke on 
 the morning after her long ret- 
 ^ rospect bringing from her 
 dreams a heavy heart. 
 
 She lay for some moments after the 
 maid had drawn her curtains, looking out 
 at the fields as she had so often looked, 
 and wondering why her heart was heavy. 
 Throb by throb, like a leaden shuttle, it 
 seemed to weave together the old and new 
 memories, so that she saw the pattern of 
 yesterday and of today, Lady Elliston's 
 coming, the pain that Augustine had 
 given her in his strange questionings, the 
 meeting of her husband and her son. And 
 the ominous rhythm of the shuttle was 
 like the footfall of the past creeping upon 
 her. 
 
 It was more difficult than it had been 
 
 83
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 for years, this morning, to quiet the throb, 
 to stay her thoughts on strength. She 
 could not pray, for her thoughts, like her 
 heart, were leaden; the whispered words 
 carried no message as they left her lips; 
 she could not lift her thought to follow 
 them. It was upon a lesser, a merely hu- 
 man strength, that she found herself 
 dwelling. She was too weak, too trou- 
 bled, to find the swiftness of soul 
 that could soar with its appeal, the still- 
 ness of soul where the divine response 
 could enter; and weakness turned to 
 human help. The thought of her hus- 
 band's coming was like a glow of firelight 
 seen at evening on a misty moor. She 
 could hasten towards it, quelling fear. 
 There she would be safe. By his mere 
 presence he would help and sustain her. 
 He would be kind and tactful with Au- 
 gustine, as he had always been ; he would 
 make a shield between her and Lady El- 
 liston. She could see no sky above, and 
 the misty moor loomed with uncertain 
 shapes ; but she could look before her and
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 feel that she went towards security and 
 brightness. 
 
 Augustine and his mother both studied 
 during the day, the same studies, for Lady 
 Channice, to a great extent, shared her 
 son's scholarly pursuits. From his boy- 
 hood a studious, grave, yet violent little 
 boy he had been, his fits of passionate out- 
 break quelled, as he grew older, by the 
 mere example of her imperturbability be- 
 side him she had thus shared everything. 
 She had made herself his tutor as well as 
 his guardian angel. She was more tutor, 
 more guardian angel, than mother. 
 
 Their mental comradeship was full of 
 mutual respect. And though Augustine 
 was not of the religious temperament, 
 though his mother's instinct told her that 
 in her lighted church he would be a re- 
 spectful looker-on rather than a fellow- 
 worshipper, though they never spoke of 
 religion, just as they seldom kissed, Au- 
 gustine's growing absorption in metaphys- 
 ics tinged their friendship with a religious 
 gravity and comprehension. 
 
 85
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 On three mornings in the week Lady 
 Channice had a class for the older village 
 girls; she sewed, read and talked with 
 them, and was fond of them all. These 
 girls, their placing in life, their marriages 
 and babies, were her most real interest in 
 the outer world. During the rest of the 
 day she gardened, and read whatever 
 books Augustine might be reading. It 
 was the mother and son's habit thus to 
 work apart and to discuss work in the 
 evenings. 
 
 Today, when her girls were gone, she 
 found herself very lonely. Augustine 
 was out riding and in her room she tried 
 to occupy herself, fearing her own 
 thoughts. It was past twelve when she 
 heard the sound of his horse's hoofs on 
 the gravel before the door and, throwing 
 a scarf over her hair, she ran down to 
 meet him. 
 
 The hall door at Charlock House, un- 
 der a heavy portico, looked out upon a 
 circular gravel drive bordered by shrub- 
 beries and enclosed by high walls ; beyond 
 86
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 the walls and gates was the high-road. 
 An interval of sunlight had broken into 
 the chill Autumn day : Augustine had rid- 
 den bareheaded and his gold hair shone as 
 the sun fell upon it. He looked, in his 
 stately grace, like an equestrian youth on 
 a Greek frieze. And, as was usual with 
 his mother, her appreciation of Augus- 
 tine's nobility and fineness passed at once 
 into a pang : so beautiful ; so noble ; and so 
 shadowed. She stood, her black scarf 
 about her face and shoulders, and smiled 
 at him while he threw the reins to the old 
 groom and dismounted. 
 
 "Nice to find you waiting for me," he 
 said. "I 'm late this morning. Too late 
 for any work before lunch. Don't you 
 want a little walk? You look pale." 
 
 "I should like it very much. I may miss 
 my afternoon walk your father may 
 have business to talk over." 
 
 They went through the broad stone 
 hall-way that traversed the house and 
 stepped out on the gravel walk at the 
 back. This path, running below the draw- 
 
 87
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 ing-room and dining-room windows, led 
 down on one side to the woods, on the 
 other to Lady Channice's garden, and was 
 a favourite place of theirs for quiet saun- 
 terings. Today the sunlight fell mildly 
 on it. A rift of pale blue showed in the 
 still grey sky. 
 
 "I met Marjory," said Augustine, "and 
 we had a gallop over Pangley Common. 
 She rides well, that child. We jumped 
 the hedge and ditch at the foot of the 
 common, you know the high hedge for 
 practice. She goes over like a bird." 
 
 Amabel's mind was dwelling on the 
 thought of shadowed brightness and 
 Marjory, fresh, young, deeply rooted in 
 respectability, seemed suddenly more sig- 
 nificant than she had ever been before. 
 In no way Augustine's equal, of course, 
 except in that impersonal, yet so impor- 
 tant matter of roots; Amabel had known 
 a little irritation over Mrs. Grey's open 
 manoeuvreings ; but on this morning of 
 rudderless tossing, Marjory appeared in a 
 new aspect. How sound; how safe. It 
 88
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 was of Augustine's insecurity rather than 
 of Augustine himself that she was think- 
 ing as she said: "She is such a nice girl." 
 
 "Yes, she is," said Augustine. 
 
 "What did you talk about?" 
 
 "Oh, the things we saw; birds and 
 trees and clouds. I pour information 
 upon her." 
 
 "She likes that, one can see it." 
 
 "Yes, she is so nice and guileless that 
 she does n't resent my pedantry. I love 
 giving information, you know," Augus- 
 tine smiled. He looked about him as he 
 spoke, at birds and trees and clouds, 
 happy, humorous, clasping his riding crop 
 behind his back so that his mother heard 
 it make a pleasant little click against his 
 gaiter as he walked. 
 
 "It 's delightful for both of you, such a 
 comradeship." 
 
 "Yes; a comradeship after a fashion; 
 Marjory is just like a nice little boy." 
 
 "Ah, well, she is growing up; she is 
 seventeen, you know. She is more than 
 a little boy." 
 
 89
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 "Not much; she never will be much 
 more." 
 
 "She will make a very nice woman." 
 
 Augustine continued to smile, partly at 
 the thought of Marjory, and partly at an- 
 other thought. "You must n't make 
 plans, for me and Marjory, like Mrs. 
 Grey," he said presently. "It 's mothers 
 like Mrs. Grey who spoil comradeships. 
 You know, I '11 never marry Marjory. 
 She is a nice little boy, and we are friends ; 
 but she does n't interest me." 
 
 "She may grow more interesting: she 
 is so young. I don't make plans, dear, 
 yet I think that it might be a happy thing 
 for you." 
 
 "She '11 never interest me," said Augus- 
 tine. 
 
 "Must you have a very interesting 
 wife?" 
 
 "Of course I must: she must be as in- 
 teresting as you are!" he turned his head 
 to smile at her. 
 
 "You are not exacting, dear!" 
 
 "Yes, I am, though. She must be as in- 
 90
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 teresting as you and as good; else 
 why should I leave you and go and live 
 with someone else. Though for that 
 matter, I should n't leave you. You 'd 
 have to live with us, you know, if I ever 
 married." 
 
 "Ah, my dear boy," Lady Channice 
 murmured. She managed a smile pres- 
 ently and added : "You might fall in love 
 with someone not so interesting. You 
 can't be sure of your feelings and your 
 mind going together." 
 
 "My feelings will have to submit them- 
 selves to my mind. I don't know about 
 'falling'; I rather dislike the expression: 
 one might 'fall' in love with lots of people 
 one would never dream of marrying. It 
 would have to be real love. I 'd have to 
 love a woman very deeply before I wanted 
 her to share my life, to be a part of me; to 
 be the mother of my children." He spoke 
 with his cheerful gravity. 
 
 "You have an old head on very young 
 shoulders, Augustine." 
 
 "I really believe I have!" he accepted
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 her somewhat sadly humorous statement; 
 "and that 's why I don't believe I '11 ever 
 make a mistake. I 'd rather never marry 
 than make a mistake. I know I sound 
 priggish; but I 've thought a good deal 
 about it: I Ve had to." He paused for a 
 moment, and then, in the tone of quiet, 
 unconfused confidence that always filled 
 her with a sense of mingled pride and hu- 
 mility, he added: "I have strong pas- 
 sions, and I Ve already seen what happens 
 to people who allow feeling to govern 
 them." 
 
 Amabel was suddenly afraid. "I know 
 that you would always be good Augus- 
 tine; I can trust you for that." She spoke 
 faintly. 
 
 They had now walked down to the little 
 garden with its box borders and were 
 wandering vaguely among the late roses. 
 She paused to look at the roses, stooping 
 to breathe in the fragrance of a tall white 
 cluster: it was an instinctive impulse of 
 hiding: she hoped in another moment to 
 find an escape in some casual gardening 
 92
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 remark. But Augustine, unsuspecting, 
 was interested in their theme. 
 
 "Good? I don't know," he said. "I 
 don't think it 's goodness, exactly. It 's 
 that I so loathe the other thing, so loathe 
 the animal I know in myself, so loathe the 
 idea of life at the mercy of emotion." 
 
 She had to leave the roses and walk on 
 again beside him, steeling herself to bear 
 whatever might be coming. And, feeling 
 that unconscious accusation loomed, she 
 tried, as unconsciously, to mollify and 
 evade it. 
 
 "It is n't always the animal, exactly, is 
 it? or emotion only? It is romance and 
 blind love for a person that leads people 
 astray." 
 
 "Is n't that the animal?" Augustine in- 
 quired. "I don't think the animal base, 
 you know, or shameful, if he is properly 
 harnessed and kept in his place. It 's only 
 when I see him dominating that I hate 
 and fear him so. And," he went on after 
 a little pause of reflection, "I especially 
 hate him in that form; romance and 
 
 93
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 blind love: because what is that, really, 
 but the animal at its craftiest and most 
 dangerous? what is romance I mean ro- 
 mance of the kind that jeopardizes 'good- 
 ness' what is it but the most subtle self- 
 deception? You don't love the person in 
 the true sense of love; you don't want 
 their good; you don't want to see them 
 put in the right relation to their life 
 as a whole: what you want is sensa- 
 tion through them; what you want is 
 yourself in them, and their absorption in 
 you. I don't think that wicked, you know 
 I 'm not a monk or even a puritan if 
 it 's the mere result of the right sort of 
 love, a happy glamour that accompanies 
 the right sort; it 's in its place, then, and 
 can endanger nothing. But people are so 
 extraordinarily blind about love; they 
 don't seem able to distinguish between the 
 real and the false. People usually, though 
 they don't know it, mean only desire when 
 they talk of love." 
 
 There was another pause in which she 
 wondered that he did not hear the heavy 
 
 94
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 throbbing of her heart. But now there 
 was no retreat; she must go on; she must 
 understand her son. "Desire must enter 
 in," she said. 
 
 "In its place, yes ; it 's all a question of 
 that;" Augustine replied, smiling a little 
 at her, aware of the dogmatic flavour of 
 his own utterances, the humorous aspect 
 of their announcement, to her, by him; 
 "You love a woman enough and respect 
 her enough to wish her to be the mother 
 of your children assuming, of course, 
 that you consider yourself worthy to carry 
 on the race; and to think of a woman in 
 such a way is to feel a rightful emotion 
 and a rightful desire ; anything else makes 
 emotion the end instead of the result and 
 is corrupting, I 'm sure of it." 
 
 "You have thought it all out, have n't 
 you"; Lady Channice steadied her voice 
 to say. There was panic rising in her, 
 and a strange anger made part of it. 
 
 "I Ve had to, as I said," he replied. 
 "I 'm anything but self-controlled by na- 
 ture; already," and Augustine looked 
 
 95
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 calmly at his mother, "I 'd have let myself 
 go and been very dissolute unless I 'd had 
 this ideal of my own honour to help me. 
 I 'm of anything but a saintly disposition." 
 
 "My dear Augustine!" His mother 
 had coloured faintly. Absurd as it was, 
 when the reality of her own life was there 
 mocking her, the bald words were strange 
 to her. 
 
 "Do I shock you?" he asked. "You 
 know I always feel that you are a saint, 
 who can hear and understand every- 
 thing." 
 
 She blushed deeply, painfully, now. 
 "No, you don't shock me; I am only a 
 little startled." 
 
 "To hear that I 'm sensual ? The whole 
 human race is far too sensual in my opin- 
 ion. They think a great deal too much 
 about their sexual appetites; only they 
 don't think about them in those terms 
 unfortunately; they think about them 
 veiled and wreathed; that 's why we are 
 sunk in such a bog of sentimentality and 
 
 sin." 
 
 96
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 Lady Channice was silent for a long 
 time. They had left the garden, and 
 walked along the little path near the 
 sunken wall at the foot of the lawn, and, 
 skirting the wood of sycamores, had come 
 back to the broad gravel terrace. A tur- 
 moil was in her mind; a longing to know 
 and see; a terror of what he would show 
 her. 
 
 "Do you call it sin, that blinded love? 
 Do you think that the famous lovers of 
 romance were sinners ?" she asked at last ; 
 "Tristan and Iseult? Abelard and Hel- 
 oise? Paolo and Francesca?" 
 
 "Of course they were sinners," said 
 Augustine cheerfully. "What did they 
 want? a present joy: purely and simply 
 that: they sacrificed everything to it 
 their own and other people's futures: 
 what 's that but sin? There is so much 
 mawkish rubbish talked and written about 
 such persons. They were pathetic, of 
 course, most sinners are; that particular 
 sin, of course, may be so associated and 
 bound up with beautiful things; fidelity, 
 
 1 97
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 and real love may make such a part of it, 
 that people get confused about it." 
 
 "Fidelity and real love?" Lady Chan- 
 nice repeated: "you think that they atone 
 if they make part of an illicit passion?" 
 
 "I don't think that they atone ; but they 
 may redeem it, may n't they? Why do 
 you ask me?" Augustine smiled; "You 
 know far more about these things than I 
 do." 
 
 She could not look at him. His words 
 in their beautiful unconsciousness ap- 
 palled her. Yet she had to go on, to profit 
 by her own trance-like strength. She was 
 walking on the verge of a precipice but 
 she knew that with steady footsteps she 
 could go towards her appointed place. 
 She must see just where Augustine put 
 her, just how he judged her. 
 
 "You seem to know more than I do, 
 Augustine," she said : "I Ve not thought 
 it out as you have. And it seems to me 
 that any great emotion is more of an 
 end in itself than you would grant. But 
 if the illicit passion thinks itself real and
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 thinks itself enduring, and proves neither, 
 what of it then? What do you think of 
 lovers to whom that happens ? It so often 
 happens, you know." 
 
 Augustine had his cheerful answer 
 ready. "Then they are stupid as well as 
 sinful. Of course it is sinful to be stupid. 
 We Ve learned that from Plato and Hegel, 
 have n't we?" 
 
 The parlour-maid came out to announce 
 lunch. Lady Channice was spared an an- 
 swer. She went to her room feeling shat- 
 tered, as if great stones had been hurled 
 upon her. 
 
 Yes, she thought, gazing at herself in 
 the mirror, while she untied her scarf 
 and smoothed her hair, yes, she had 
 never yet, with all her agonies of 
 penitence, seen so clearly what she had 
 been : a sinner : a stupid sinner. Augus- 
 tine's rigorous young theories might set 
 too inhuman an ideal, but that aspect of 
 them stood out clear : he had put, in bald, 
 ugly words, what, in essence, her love for 
 Paul Quentin had been: he had stripped 
 
 99
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 all the veils and wreaths away. It had 
 been self; self, blind in desire, cruel when 
 blindness left it: there had been no real 
 love and no fidelity to redeem the base- 
 ness. A stupid sinner; that, her son had 
 told her, was what she had been. The 
 horror of it smote back upon her from her 
 widened, mirrored eyes, and she sat for 
 a moment thinking that she must faint. 
 Then she remembered that Augustine 
 was waiting for her downstairs and that 
 in little more than an hour her husband 
 would be with her. And suddenly the 
 agony lightened. A giddiness of relief 
 came over her. He was kind : he did not 
 judge her: he knew all, yet he respected 
 her. Augustine was like the bleak, 
 stony moor; she must shut her eyes and 
 stumble on towards the firelight. And 
 as she thought of that nearing brightness, 
 of her husband's eyes, that never judged, 
 never grew hard or fierce or remote from 
 human tolerance, a strange repulsion from 
 her son rose in her. Cold, fierce, right- 
 eous boy ; cold, heartless theories that one 
 100
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 throb of human emotion would rightly 
 shatter; the thought was almost like an 
 echo of Paul Quentin speaking in her 
 heart to comfort her. She sprang up: 
 that was indeed the last turn of horror. 
 If she was not to faint she must not 
 think. Action alone could dispel the 
 whirling mist where she did not know 
 herself. 
 
 She went down to the dining-room. 
 Augustine stood looking out of the win- 
 dow. "Do come and see this delightful 
 swallow," he said: "he 's skimming over 
 and over the lawn." 
 
 She felt that she could not look at the 
 swallow. She could only walk to her 
 chair and sink down on it. Augustine re- 
 pelled her with his cheerfulness, his triv- 
 ial satisfactions. How could he not know 
 that she was in torment and that he had 
 plunged her there. This involuntary in- 
 justice to him was, she saw again, verit- 
 ably crazed. 
 
 She poured herself out water and said 
 in a voice that surprised herself: "Very 
 101
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 delightful, I am sure; but come and have 
 your lunch. I am hungry." 
 
 "And how pale you are," said Augus- 
 tine, going to his place. "We stayed out 
 too long. You got chilled." He looked at 
 her with the solicitude that was like a bro- 
 ther's or a doctor's. That jarred upon 
 her racked nerves, too. 
 
 "Yes; I am cold:" she said. 
 
 She took food upon her plate and pre- 
 tended to eat. Augustine, she guessed, 
 must already feel the change in her. He 
 must see that she only pretended. But 
 he said nothing more. His tact was a 
 further turn to the knot of her sudden 
 misery. 
 
 AUGUSTINE was with her in the draw- 
 ing-room when she heard the wheels of 
 the station-fly grinding on the gravel 
 drive; they sounded very faintly in the 
 drawing-room, but, from years of listen- 
 ing, her hearing had grown very acute. 
 
 She could never meet her husband with- 
 out an emotion that betrayed itself in 
 102
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 pallor and trembling and to-day the emo- 
 tion was so marked that Augustine's pres- 
 ence was at once a safeguard and an 
 anxiety; before Augustine she could be 
 sure of not breaking down, not bursting 
 into tears of mingled gladness and wretch- 
 edness, but though he would keep her 
 from betraying too much to Sir Hugh, 
 would she not betray too much to him? 
 He was reading a review and laid it down 
 as the door opened: she could only hope 
 that he noticed nothing. 
 
 Sir Hugh came in quickly. At fifty- 
 four he was still a very handsome man of 
 a chivalrous and soldierly bearing. He 
 had long limbs, broad shoulders and a 
 not yet expanded waist. His nose and 
 chin were clearly and strongly cut, his 
 eyes brightly blue; his moustache ran to 
 decisive little points twisted up from the 
 lip and was as decorative as an epaulette 
 upon a martial shoulder. Pleasantness 
 radiated from him, and though, with 
 years, this pleasantness was significant 
 rather of his general attitude than of his 
 103
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 individual interest, though his movements 
 had become a little indolent and his fea- 
 tures a little heavy, these changes, to 
 affectionate eyes, were merely towards 
 a more pronounced geniality and content- 
 edness. 
 
 Today, however, geniality and content- 
 ment were less apparent. He looked 
 slightly nipped and hardened, and, seem- 
 ing pleased to find a fire, he stood before 
 it, after he had shaken hands with his 
 wife and with Augustine, and said that it 
 had been awfully cold in the train. 
 
 "We will have tea at half past four in- 
 stead of five today, then," said Amabel. 
 
 But no, he replied, he could n't stop for 
 tea: he must catch the four-four back to 
 town: he had a dinner and should only 
 just make it. 
 
 His eye wandered a little vaguely about 
 the room, but he brought it back to Ama- 
 bel to say with a smile that the fire made 
 up for the loss of tea. There was then a 
 little silence during which it might have 
 been inferred that Sir Hugh expected Au- 
 104
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 gustine to leave the room. Amabel, too, 
 expected it; but Augustine had taken up 
 his review and was reading again. She 
 felt her fear of him, her anger against 
 him, grow. 
 
 Very pleasantly, Sir Hugh at last sug- 
 gested that he had a little business to talk 
 over. "I think I '11 ask Augustine to let 
 us have a half hour's talk." 
 
 "Oh, I '11 not interfere with business," 
 said Augustine, not lifting his eyes. 
 
 The silence, now, was more than un- 
 comfortable ; to Amabel it was suffocating. 
 She could guess too well that some latent 
 enmity was expressed in Augustine's as- 
 sumed unconsciousness. That Sir Hugh 
 was surprised, displeased, was evident; 
 but, when he spoke again, after a little 
 pause, it was still pleasantly: "Not with 
 business, but with talk you will interfere. 
 I 'm afraid I must ask you. I don't often 
 have a chance to talk with your mother. 
 I '11 see you later, eh?" 
 
 Augustine made no reply. He rose and 
 walked out of the room. 
 
 105
 
 Sir Hugh still stood before the fire, lift- 
 ing first the sole of one boot and then the 
 other to the blaze. "Has n't always quite 
 nice manners, has he, the boy"; he ob- 
 served. "I did n't want to have to send 
 him out, you know." 
 
 "He did n't realize that you wanted to 
 talk to me alone." Amabel felt herself 
 offering the excuse from a heart turned 
 to stone. 
 
 "Did n't he, do you think? Perhaps 
 not. We always do talk alone, you 
 know. He 's just a trifle tactless, shows 
 a bit of temper sometimes. I Ve noticed 
 it. I hope he does n't bother you with it." 
 
 "No. I never saw him like that, be- 
 fore," said Amabel, looking down as she 
 sat in her chair. 
 
 "Well, that 's all that matters," said 
 Sir Hugh, as if satisfied. 
 
 His boots were quite hot now and he 
 went to the writing-desk drawing a case 
 of papers from his breast-pocket. 
 
 "Here are some of your securities, 
 Amabel," he said: "I want a few more 
 1 06
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 signatures. Things have n't been going 
 very well with me lately. I 'd be awfully 
 obliged if you 'd help me out." 
 
 "Oh gladly " she murmured. She 
 rose and came to the desk. She hardly 
 saw the papers through a blur of miser- 
 able tears while she wrote her name here 
 and there. She was shut out in the mist 
 and dark; he was n't thinking of her at 
 all; he was chill, preoccupied; something 
 was displeasing him; decisively, almost 
 sharply, he told her where to write. "You 
 must n't be worried, you know," he ob- 
 served as he pointed out the last place; 
 "I 'm arranging here, you see, to pass 
 Charlock House over to you for good. 
 That is a little return for all you 've done. 
 It 's not a valueless property. And then 
 Bertram tied up a good sum for the child, 
 you know." 
 
 His speaking of "the child," made her 
 heart stop beating, it brought the past so 
 near. And was Charlock House to be 
 her very own? "Oh," she murmured, "that 
 is too good of you. You must n't do 
 107
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 that. Apart from Augustine's share, all 
 that I have is yours; I want no return." 
 
 "Ah, but I want you to have it"; said 
 Sir Hugh; "it will ease my conscience a 
 little. And you really do care for the grim 
 old place, don't you." 
 
 "I love it." 
 
 "Well, sign here, and here, and it 's 
 yours. There. Now you are mistress in 
 your own home. You don't know how 
 good you Ve been to me, Amabel." 
 
 The voice was the old, kind voice, 
 touched even, it seemed, with an unwonted 
 feeling, and, suddenly, the tears ran down 
 her cheeks as, looking at the papers that 
 gave her her home, she said, faltering: 
 "You are not displeased with me? Noth- 
 ing is the matter?" 
 
 He looked at her, startled, a little con- 
 fused. "Why my dear girl, displeased 
 with you? How could I be? No. It 's 
 only these confounded affairs of mine that 
 are in a bit of a mess just now." 
 
 "And can't I be of even more help 
 without any returns? I can be so eco- 
 108
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 nomical for myself, here. I need almost 
 nothing in my quiet life.'* 
 
 Sir Hugh flushed. "Oh, you 've not 
 much more to give, my dear. I Ve taken 
 you at your word." 
 
 "Take me completely at my word. 
 Take everything." 
 
 "You dear little saint," he said. He 
 patted her shoulder. The door was wide ; 
 the fire shone upon her. She felt herself 
 falling on her knees before it, with happy 
 tears. He, who knew all, could say that 
 to her, with sincerity. The day of lower- 
 ing fear and bewilderment opened to sud- 
 den joy. His hand was on her shoulder; 
 she lifted it and kissed it. 
 
 "Oh! Don't P-said Sir Hugh. He 
 drew his hand sharply away. There was 
 confusion, irritation, in his little laugh. 
 
 Amabel's tears stood on scarlet cheeks. 
 Did he not understand? Did he think? 
 And was he right in thinking? Shame 
 flooded her. What girlish impulse had 
 mingled incredibly with her gratitude, 
 her devotion? 
 
 109
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 Sir Hugh had turned away, and as she 
 sat there, amazed with her sudden suspi- 
 cion, the door opened and Augustine came 
 in saying: "Here is Lady Ellis ton, 
 Mother." 
 
 no
 
 V 
 
 'ADY ELLISTON helped her. 
 How that, too, brought back 
 ^ the past to Amabel as she rose 
 and moved forward, before her husband 
 and her son, to greet the friend of twenty 
 years ago. 
 
 Lady Elliston, at difficult moments, had 
 always helped her, and this was one of 
 the most difficult that she had ever known. 
 Amabel forgot her tears, forgot her 
 shame, in her intense desire that Augus- 
 tine should guess nothing. 
 
 "My very dear Amabel," said Lady El- 
 liston. She swept forward and took both 
 Lady Channice's hands, holding them 
 firmly, looking at her intently, intently 
 smiling, as if, with her own mastery of 
 in
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 the situation, to give her old friend 
 strength. "My dear, dear Amabel," she 
 repeated: "How good it is to see you 
 again. And how lovely you are." 
 
 She was silken, she was scarfed, she 
 was soft and steady ; as in the past, sweet- 
 ness and strength breathed from her. She 
 was competent to deal with most calami- 
 tous situations and to make them bearable, 
 to make them even graceful. She could 
 do what she would with situations : Ama- 
 bel felt that of her now as she had felt it 
 years ago. 
 
 Her eyes continued to gaze for a long 
 moment into Amabel's eyes before, as 
 softly and as steadily, they passed to Sir 
 Hugh who was again standing before the 
 fire behind his wife. "How do you do," 
 she then said with a little nod. 
 
 "How d 'ye do," Sir Hugh replied. 
 His voice was neither soft nor steady; the 
 sharpness, the irritation was in it. "I 
 did n't know you were down here," he 
 said. 
 
 Over Amabel's shoulder, while she 
 112
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 still held Amabel's hands, Lady Elliston 
 looked at him, all sweetness. "Yes : I ar- 
 rived this morning. I am staying with 
 the Greys." 
 
 "The Greys? How in the dickens did 
 you run across them?" Sir Hugh asked 
 with a slight laugh. 
 
 "I met them at Jack's cousin's the nice 
 old bishop, you know. They are tiresome 
 people ; but kind. And there is a Grey fils 
 the oldest whom Peggy took rather a 
 fancy to last winter, they were hunting 
 together in Yorkshire; and I wanted to 
 look at him and at the place! "Lady 
 Elliston's smile was all candour. "They 
 are very solid; it 's not a bad place. If 
 the young people are really serious Jack 
 and I might consider it; with three girls 
 still to marry, one must be very wise and 
 reasonable. But, of course, I came really 
 to see you, Amabel." 
 
 She had released Amabel's hands at last 
 with a final soft pressure, and, as Amabel 
 took her accustomed chair near the table, 
 she sat down near her and loosened her 
 
 8 113
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 cloak and unwound her scarf, and threw 
 back her laces. 
 
 "And I 've been making friends with 
 your boy," she went on, looking up at Au- 
 gustine: "he 's been walking me about 
 the garden, saying that you must n't be 
 disturbed. Why have n't I been able to 
 make friends before? Why has n't he 
 been to see me in London ?" 
 
 "I 'II bring him someday," said Sir 
 Hugh. "He is only just grown up, you 
 
 see." 
 
 "I see: do bring him soon. He is 
 charming," said Lady Elliston, smiling at 
 Augustine. 
 
 Amabel remembered her pretty, assured 
 manner of saying any pleasantness 
 or unpleasantness for that matter 
 that she chose to say; but it struck 
 her, from this remark, that the gift had 
 grown a little mechanical. Augustine re- 
 ceived it without embarrassment. Au- 
 gustine already seemed to know that 
 this smiling guest was in the habit of 
 saying that young men were charming 
 114
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 before their faces when she wanted to be 
 pleasant to them. Amabel seemed to see 
 her son from across the wide chasm that 
 had opened between them ; but, looking at 
 his figure, suddenly grown strange, she 
 felt that Augustine's manners were 'nice/ 
 The fact of their niceness, of his compe- 
 tencereally it matched Lady Elliston's 
 made him the more mature; and this 
 moment of motherly appreciation led her 
 back to the stony wilderness where her 
 son judged her, with a man's, not a boy's 
 judgment. There was no uncertainty in 
 Augustine; his theories might be young; 
 his character was formed; his judgments 
 would not change. She forced herself not 
 to think; but to look and listen. 
 
 Lady Elliston continued to talk: in- 
 deed it was she and Augustine who did 
 most of the talking. Sir Hugh only in- 
 terjected a remark now and then from 
 his place before the fire. Amabel was able 
 to feel a further change in him; he was 
 displeased today, and displeased in par- 
 ticular, now, with Lady Elliston. She
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 thought that she could understand the 
 vexation for him of this irruption of 
 his real life into the sad little corner of 
 kindness and duty that Charlock House 
 and its occupants must represent to him. 
 He had seldom spoken to her about 
 Lady Elliston; he had seldom spoken 
 to her about any of the life that she 
 had abandoned in abandoning him: 
 but she knew that Lord and Lady 
 Elliston were near friends still, and 
 with this knowledge she could imag- 
 ine how on edge her husband must be 
 when to the near friend of the real life 
 he could allow an even sharper note to 
 alter all his voice. Amabel heard it 
 sadly, with a sense of confused values: 
 nothing today was as she had expected it 
 to be : and if she heard she was sure that 
 Lady Elliston must hear it too, and per- 
 haps the symptom of Lady Elliston's dis- 
 pleasure was that she talked rather point- 
 edly to Augustine and talked hardly at 
 all to Sir Hugh: her eyes, in speaking, 
 passed sometimes over his figure, rested 
 116
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 sometimes, with a bland courtesy, on his 
 face when he spoke; but Augustine was 
 their object: on him they dwelt and 
 smiled. 
 
 The years had wrought few changes in 
 Lady Elliston. Silken, soft, smiling, these 
 were, still, as in the past, the words that 
 described her. She had triumphantly kept 
 her lovely figure : the bright brown hair, 
 too, had been kept, but at some little sacri- 
 fice of sincerity: Lady Elliston must be 
 nearly fifty and her shining locks showed 
 no sign of fading. Perhaps, in the per- 
 fection of her appearance and manner, 
 there was a hint of some sacrifice every- 
 where. How much she has kept, was the 
 first thought ; but the second came : How 
 much she has given up. Yes; there was 
 the only real change: Amabel, gazing at 
 her, somewhat as a nun gazes from be- 
 hind convent gratings at some bright 
 denizen of the outer world, felt it more 
 and more. She was sweet, but was she 
 not too skilful? She was strong, but was 
 not her strength unscrupulous? As she 
 117
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 listened to her, Amabel remembered old 
 wonders, old glimpses of motives that 
 stole forth reconnoitring and then re- 
 treated at the hint of rebuff, graceful and 
 unconfused. 
 
 There were motives now, behind that 
 smile, that softness; motives behind the 
 flattery of Augustine, the blandness tow- 
 ards Sir Hugh, the visit to herself. Some 
 of the motives were, perhaps, all kind- 
 ness : Lady Elliston had always been kind ; 
 she had always been a binder of wounds, 
 a dispenser of punctual sunlight ; she was 
 one of the world's powerfully benignant 
 great ladies; committees clustered round 
 her; her words of assured wisdom sus- 
 tained and guided ecclesiastical and polit- 
 ical organisations ; one must be benignant, 
 in an altruistic modern world, if one 
 wanted to rule. It was not a cynical nun 
 who gazed; Lady Elliston was kind and 
 Lady Elliston loved power; simply, with- 
 out a sense of blame, Amabel drew her 
 conclusions. 
 
 There were now lapses in Lady Ellis- 
 118
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 ton's fluency. Her eyes rested contempla- 
 tively on Amabel; it was evident that she 
 wanted to see Amabel alone. This motive 
 was so natural a one that, although Sir 
 Hugh seemed determined, at the risk of 
 losing his train, to stay till the last minute, 
 he, too, felt, at last, its pressure. 
 
 His wife saw him go with a sense of 
 closing mists. Augustine, now more con- 
 siderate, followed him. She was left fac- 
 ing her guest. 
 
 Only Lady Elliston could have kept the 
 moment from being openly painful and 
 even Lady Elliston could not pretend to 
 find it an easy one ; but she did not err on 
 the side of too much tact. It was so 
 sweetly, so gravely that her eyes rested 
 for a long moment of silence on her old 
 friend, so quietly that they turned away 
 from her rising flush, that Amabel felt 
 old gratitudes mingling with old dis- 
 trusts. 
 
 "What a sad room this is," said Lady 
 Elliston, looking about it. "Is it just as 
 you found it, Amabel?" 
 119
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 "Yes, almost. I have taken away some 
 things." 
 
 "I wish you would take them all away 
 and put in new ones. It might be made 
 into a very nice room; the panelling is 
 good. What it needs is Jacobean furni- 
 ture, fine old hangings, and some bits of 
 glass and porcelain here and there." 
 
 "I suppose so." Amabel's eyes followed 
 Lady Elliston's. "I never thought of 
 changing anything." 
 
 Lady Elliston's eyes turned on hers 
 again. "No: I suppose not," she said. 
 
 She seemed to find further meanings in 
 the speech and took it up again with: "I 
 suppose not. It 's strange that we should 
 never have met in all these years, is n't it." 
 
 "Is it strange?" 
 
 "I 've often felt it so: if you have n't, 
 that is just part of your acceptance. You 
 have accepted everything. It has often 
 made me indignant to think of it." 
 
 Amabel sat in her high-backed chair 
 near the table. Her hands were tightly 
 clasped together in her lap and her face, 
 1 20
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 with the light from the windows falling 
 upon it, was very pale. But she knew that 
 she was calm; that she could meet Lady 
 Elliston's kindness with an answering 
 kindness; that she was ready, even, to 
 hear Lady Elliston's questions. This, 
 however, was not a question, and she hesi- 
 tated for a moment before saying: "I 
 don't understand you." 
 
 "How well I remember that voice," 
 Lady Elliston smiled a little sadly: "It 's 
 the girl's voice of twenty years ago 
 holding me away. Can't we be frank to- 
 gether, now, Amabel, when we are both 
 middle-aged women? at least I am mid- 
 dle-aged. How it has kept you young, 
 this strange life you 've led." 
 
 "But, really, I do not understand," 
 Amabel murmured, confused; "I did n't 
 understand you then, sometimes." 
 
 "Then I may be frank?" 
 
 "Yes; be frank, of course." 
 
 "It is only that indignation that I want 
 to express," said Lady Elliston, tentative 
 no longer and firmly advancing. "Why 
 121
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 are you here, in this dismal room, this dis- 
 mal house ? Why have you let yourself be 
 cloistered like this? Why have n't you 
 come out and claimed things?" 
 
 Amabel's grey eyes, even in their seren- 
 ity always a little wild, widened with as- 
 tonishment. "Claimed?" she repeated. 
 "What do you mean? What could I have 
 claimed? I have been given everything." 
 
 "My dear Amabel, you speak as if you 
 had deserved this imprisonment." 
 
 There was another and a longer silence 
 in which Amabel seemed slowly to find 
 meanings incredible to her before. And 
 her reception of them was expressed in 
 the changed, the hardened voice with 
 which she said: "You know everything. 
 I Ve always been sure you knew. How 
 can you say such things to me?" 
 
 "Do not be angry with me, dear Ama- 
 bel. I do not mean to offend." 
 
 "You spoke as though you were sorry 
 for me, as though I had been injured. 
 It touches him." 
 
 "But," Lady Elliston had flushed very 
 122
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 slightly, "it does touch him. I blame 
 Hugh for this. He ought not to have al- 
 lowed it. He ought not to have accepted 
 such misplaced penitence. You were a 
 mere child, and Hugh neglected you 
 shamefully." 
 
 "I was not a mere child," said Amabel. 
 "I was a sinful woman." 
 
 Lady Elliston sat still, as if arrested and 
 spell-bound by the unexpected words. She 
 seemed to find no answer. And as the 
 silence grew long, Amabel went on, slow- 
 ly, with difficulty, yet determinedly oppos- 
 ing and exposing the folly of the implied 
 accusation. "You don't seem to remem- 
 ber the facts. I betrayed my husband. 
 He might have cast me off. He might 
 have disgraced me and my child. And he 
 lifted me up; he sheltered me; he gave 
 his name to the child. He has given me 
 everything I have. You see you must 
 not speak of him like that to me." 
 
 Lady Elliston had gathered herself to- 
 gether though still, it was evident, bewil- 
 dered. "I don't mean to blame Hugh so 
 123
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 much. It was your fault, too, I suppose. 
 You asked for the cloister, I know." 
 
 "No; I did n't ask for it. I asked to be 
 allowed to go away and hide myself. The 
 cloister, too, was a gift, like my name, 
 my undishonoured child/' 
 
 "Dear, dear Amabel," said Lady Ellis- 
 ton, gazing at her, "how beautiful of you 
 to be able to feel like that." 
 
 "It is n't I who am beautiful" ; Amabel's 
 lips trembled a little now and her eyes 
 filled suddenly with tears. Tears and 
 trembling seemed to bring hardness rather 
 than softening to her face ; they were like 
 a chill breeze, like an icy veil, and the 
 face, with its sorrow, was like a winter's 
 landscape. 
 
 "He is so beautiful that he would never 
 let anyone know or understand what I 
 owe him : he would never know it himself : 
 there is something simple and innocent 
 about such men : they do beautiful things 
 unconsciously. You know him well: you 
 are far nearer him than I am: but you 
 can't know what the beauty is, for you 
 124
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 have never been helpless and disgraced 
 and desperate nor needed anyone to lift 
 you up. No one can know as I do the an- 
 gel in my husband." 
 
 Lady Elliston sat silent. She received 
 Amabel's statements steadily yet with a 
 little wincing, as though they had been 
 bullets whistling past her head; they 
 would not pierce, if one did not move; yet 
 an involuntary compression of the lips and 
 flutter of the eyelids revealed a rather 
 rigid self-mastery. Only after the silence 
 had grown long did she slightly stir, move 
 her hand, turn her head with a deep, care- 
 ful breath, and then say, almost timidly; 
 "Then, he has lifted you up, Amabel? 
 You are happy, really happy, in your 
 strange life?" 
 
 Amabel looked down. The force of her 
 vindicating ardour had passed from her. 
 With the question the hunted, haunted 
 present flooded in. Happy? Yesterday 
 she might have answered "y es >" so far 
 away had the past seemed, so forgotten 
 the fear in which she had learned to 
 
 125
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 breathe. Today the past was with her 
 and the fear pressed heavily upon her 
 heart. She answered in a sombre voice: 
 "With my past what woman could be 
 happy. It blights everything." 
 
 "Oh but Amabel" Lady Elliston 
 breathed forth. She leaned forward, then 
 moved back, withdrawing the hand im- 
 pulsively put out. "Why? Why? " 
 she gently urged. "It is all over: all 
 passed: all forgotten. Don't ah don't 
 let it blight anything." 
 
 "Oh no," said Amabel, shaking her 
 head. "It is n't over ; it is n't forgotten ; 
 it never will be. Hugh cannot forget 
 though he has forgiven. And someday, I 
 feel it, Augustine will know. Then I 
 shall drink the cup of shame to the last 
 drop." 
 
 "Oh!" said Lady Elliston, as if with 
 impatience. She checked herself. "What 
 can I say? if you will think of yourself 
 in this preposterous way. As for Augus- 
 tine, he does not know and how should he 
 ever know? How could he, when no one 
 126
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 in the world knows but you and I and 
 Hugh." 
 
 She paused at that, looking at Amabel's 
 downcast face. "You notice what I say, 
 Amabel?" 
 
 "Yes; that is n't it. He will guess." 
 
 "You are morbid, my poor child. But 
 do you notice nothing when I say that 
 only we three know?" 
 
 Amabel looked up. Lady Elliston met 
 her eyes. "I came today to tell you, Ama- 
 bel. I felt sure you did not know. There 
 is no reason at all, now, why you should 
 dread coming out into the world with 
 Augustine. You need fear no meetings. 
 You did not know that he was dead." 
 
 "He?" 
 
 "Yes. He. Paul Quentin." 
 
 Amabel, gazing at her, said nothing. 
 
 "He died in Italy, last week. He was 
 married, you know, quite happily; an or- 
 dinary sort of person; she had money; he 
 rather let his work go. But they were 
 happy; a large family; a villa on a hill 
 somewhere; pictures, bric-a-brac and bo- 
 127
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 hemian intellectualism. You knew of his 
 marriage ?" 
 
 "Yes; I knew." 
 
 The tears had risen to Lady Elliston's 
 eyes before that stricken, ashen face; she 
 looked away, murmuring: "I wanted to 
 tell you, when we were alone. It might 
 have come as such an ugly shock, if you 
 were unprepared. But, now, there is no 
 danger anymore. And you will come out, 
 Amabel?" 
 
 "No; never. It was never that." 
 
 "But what was it then?" 
 
 Amabel had risen and was looking 
 around her blindly. 
 
 "It was. I have no place but here. 
 Forgive me I must go. I can't talk 
 any more." 
 
 "Yes; go; do go and lie down." Lady 
 Elliston, rising too, put an arm around 
 her shoulders and took her hand. "I '11 
 come again and see you. I am going up 
 to town for a night or so on Tuesday, 
 but I bring Peggy down here for the next 
 week-end. I '11 see you then. Ah, here 
 128
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 is Augustine, and tea. He will give me 
 my tea and you must sleep off your head- 
 ache. Your poor mother has a very bad 
 head-ache, Augustine. I have tried her. 
 Goodbye, dear, go and rest." 
 
 129
 
 VI 
 
 hour ago Augustine had 
 found his mother in tears ; now 
 he found her beyond them. He 
 gave her his arm and, outside in the hall, 
 prepared to mount the stairs with her ; but, 
 shaking her head, trying, with miserable 
 unsuccess, to smile, she pointed him back 
 to the drawing-room and to his duties of 
 host. 
 
 "Ah, she is very tired. She does not 
 look well," said Lady Elliston. "I am 
 glad to see that you take good care of 
 her." 
 
 "She is usually very well," said Augus- 
 tine, standing over the tea-tray that had 
 been put on the table between him and 
 Lady Elliston. " Let 's see : what do you 
 have? Sugar? milk?" 
 130
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 "No sugar; milk, please. It 's such a 
 great pleasure to me to meet your mother 
 again." 
 
 Augustine made no reply to this, hand- 
 ing her her cup and the plate of bread and 
 butter. 
 
 "She was one of the loveliest girls I 
 have ever seen," Lady Elliston went on, 
 helping herself. "She looked like a Ma- 
 donnaand a cowslip. And she looks 
 like that more than ever." She had paused 
 for a moment as an uncomfortable recol- 
 lection came to her. It was Paul Quentin 
 who had said that : at her house. 
 
 "Yes," Augustine assented, pleased, 
 "she does look like a cowslip; she is so 
 pale and golden and tranquil. It 's funny 
 you should say so," he went on, "for I Ve 
 often thought it ; but with me it 's an asso- 
 ciation of ideas, too. Those meadows 
 over there, beyond our lawn, are full 
 of cowslips in Spring and ever since I can 
 remember we have picked them there to- 
 gether." 
 
 "How sweet"; Lady Elliston was still
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 a little confused, by her blunder, and by 
 his words. "What a happy life you and 
 your mother must have had, cloistered 
 here. I Ve been telling your mother that 
 it 's like a cloister. I 've been scolding 
 her a little for shutting herself up in it. 
 And now that I have this chance of talk- 
 ing to you I do very much want to say 
 that I hope you will bring her out a little 
 more." 
 
 "Bring her out? Where?" Augustine 
 inquired. 
 
 "Into the world the world she is so 
 fitted to adorn. It 's ridiculous this this 
 fad of hers," said Lady Elliston. 
 
 "Is it a fad?" Augustine asked, but 
 with at once a lightness and distance of 
 manner. 
 
 "Of course. And it is bad for anyone 
 to be immured." 
 
 "I don't think it has been bad for her. 
 Perhaps this is more the world than you 
 think." 
 
 "I only mean bad in the sense of sad." 
 
 "Isn't the world sad?" 
 132
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 "What a strange young man you are. 
 Do you really mean to say that you like 
 to see your mother your beautiful, lovely 
 mother imprisoned in this gloomy place 
 and meeting nobody from one year's end 
 to the other?" 
 
 "I have said nothing at all about my 
 likes," said Augustine, smiling. 
 
 Lady Elliston gazed at him. He star- 
 tled her almost as much as his mother had 
 done. What a strange young man, in- 
 deed; what strange echoes of his father 
 and mother in him. But she had to grope 
 for the resemblances to Paul Quentin; 
 they were there; she felt them; but they 
 were difficult to see; while it was easy to 
 see the resemblances to Amabel. His 
 father was like a force, a fierceness in him, 
 controlled and guided by an influence that 
 was his mother. And where had he found, 
 at nineteen, that assurance, an assurance 
 without his father's vanity or his mother's 
 selflessness? Paul Quentin had been as- 
 sured because he was so absolutely sure 
 of his own value ; Amabel was assured be- 
 
 133
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 cause, in her own eyes, she was valueless ; 
 this young man seemed to be without 
 self-reference or self-effacement; but he 
 was quite self-assured. Had he some 
 mental talisman by which he accurately 
 gauged all values, his own included? He 
 seemed at once so oddly above yet of the 
 world. She pulled herself together to re- 
 member that he was, only, nineteen, and 
 that she had had motives in coming, and 
 that if these motives had been good they 
 were now better. 
 
 "You have said nothing; but I am go- 
 ing to ask you to say something"; she 
 smiled back at him. "I am going to ask 
 you to say that you will take me on trust. 
 I am your friend and your mother's 
 friend." 
 
 "Since when, my mother's ?" Augustine 
 asked. His amiability of aspect remained 
 constant. 
 
 "Since twenty years." 
 
 "Twenty years in which you have 
 not seen your friend." 
 
 "I know that that looks strange. But 
 
 134
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 when one shuts oneself away into a clois- 
 ter one shuts out friends." 
 
 "Does one?" 
 
 "You won't trust me?" 
 
 "I don't know anything about you, ex- 
 cept that you have made my mother ill and 
 that you want something- of me." 
 
 "My dear young man I, at all events, 
 know one thing about you very clearly, 
 and that is that I trust you." 
 
 "I want nothing of you," said Augus- 
 tine, but he still smiled, so that his words 
 did not seem discourteous. 
 
 "Nothing? Really nothing? I am your 
 mother's friend, and you want nothing of 
 me? I have sought her out; I came today 
 to see and understand; I have not made 
 her ill; she was nearly crying when we 
 came into the room, you and I, a little 
 while ago. What I see and understand 
 makes me sad and angry. And I believe 
 that you, too, see and understand; I be- 
 lieve that you, too, are sad and angry. 
 And I want to help you. I want you, 
 when you come into the world, as you 
 
 135
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 must, to bring your mother. I '11 be wait- 
 ing there for you both. I am a sort of 
 fairy-godmother. I want to see justice 
 done." 
 
 "I suppose you mean that you are an- 
 gry with my father and want to see justice 
 done on him," said Augustine after a 
 pause. 
 
 Again Lady Elliston sat suddenly still, 
 as if another, an unexpected bullet, had 
 whizzed past her. "What makes you say 
 that?" she asked after a moment. 
 
 "What you have said and what you 
 have seen. He had been making her cry," 
 said Augustine. He was still calm, but 
 now, under the calm, she heard, like the 
 thunder of the sea in caverns deep beneath 
 a placid headland, the muffled sound of a 
 hidden, a dark indignation. 
 
 "Yes," she said, looking into his eyes; 
 "that made me angry ; and that he should 
 take all her money from her, as I am sure 
 he does, and leave her to live like this." 
 
 Augustine's colour rose. He turned 
 away his eyes and seemed to ponder. 
 136
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 "I do want something of you, after all ; 
 the answer to one question," he said at 
 last. "Is it because of him that she is 
 cloistered here?" 
 
 In a flash Lady Elliston had risen to 
 her emergency, her opportunity. She 
 was grave, she was ready, and she was 
 very careful. 
 
 "It was her own choice," she said. 
 
 Augustine pondered again. He, too, 
 was grave and careful. She saw how, 
 making use of her proffered help, he yet 
 held her at a distance. "That does not 
 answer my question," he said. "I will put 
 it in another way. Is it because of some 
 evil in his life that she is cloistered?" 
 
 Lady Elliston sat before him in one of 
 the high-backed chairs: the light was be- 
 hind her: the delicate oval of her face 
 maintained its steady attitude : in the twi- 
 lit room Augustine could see her eyes 
 fixed very strangely upon him. She, too, 
 was perhaps pondering. When at last 
 she spoke, she rose in speaking, as if her 
 answer must put an end to their encounter, 
 
 137
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 as if he must feel, as well as she, that 
 after her answer there could be no fur- 
 ther question. 
 
 "Not altogether, for that," she said; 
 "but, yes, in part it is because of what 
 you would call an evil in his life that she 
 is cloistered." 
 
 Augustine walked with her to the door 
 and down the stone passage outside, 
 where a strip of faded carpet hardly kept 
 one's feet from the cold. He was nearer 
 to her in this curious moment of their 
 parting than he had been at all. He liked 
 Lady Elliston in her last response; it was 
 not the wish to see justice wreaked that 
 had made it; it was mere truth. 
 
 When they had reached the hall 
 door, he opened it for her and in the 
 fading light he saw that she was very 
 pale. The Grey's dog-cart was going 
 slowly round and round the gravel drive. 
 Lady Elliston did not look at him. 
 She stood waiting for the groom to see 
 her. 
 
 "What you asked me was asked in con- 
 
 138
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 fidence," she said; "and what I have told 
 you is told in confidence." 
 
 "It was n't new to me; I had guessed 
 it," said Augustine. "But your confirma- 
 tion of what I guessed is in confidence." 
 
 "I have been your father's life-long 
 friend," said Lady Elliston; "He is not 
 an evil man." 
 
 "I understand. I don't misjudge him." 
 
 "I don't want to see justice done on 
 him," said Lady Elliston. The groom had 
 seen her and the dog-cart, with a brisk 
 rattle of wheels, drew up to the door. "It 
 is n't a question of that; I only want to 
 see justice done for her." 
 
 All through she had been steady; now 
 she was sweet again. "I want to free her. 
 I want you to free her. And whenever 
 you do I shall be waiting to give her to 
 the world again." 
 
 They looked at each other now and Au- 
 gustine could answer, with another smile ; 
 "You are the world, I suppose." 
 
 "Yes; I am the world," she accepted. 
 "The actual fairy-godmother, with a 
 
 139
 
 magic wand that can turn pumpkins into 
 coaches and put Cinderellas into their 
 proper places." 
 
 Augustine had handed her up to her 
 seat beside the groom. He tucked her rug 
 about her. If he had laid aside anything 
 to meet her on her own ground, he, too, 
 had regained it now. 
 
 "But does the world always know what 
 is the proper place ?" was his final remark 
 as she drove off. 
 
 She did not know that she could have 
 found an answer to it. 
 
 140
 
 VII 
 
 i MABEL was sitting beside her 
 window when her son came in 
 and the face she turned on 
 him was white and rigid. 
 
 "My dear mother," said Augustine, 
 coming up to her, "how pale you are." 
 
 She had been sitting there for all that 
 time, tearless, in a stupor of misery. Yes, 
 she answered him, she was very tired. 
 
 Augustine stood over her looking out 
 of the window. "A little walk would n't 
 do you good?" he asked. 
 
 No, she answered, her head ached too 
 badly. 
 
 She could find nothing to say to him: 
 
 the truth that lay so icily upon her heart 
 
 was all that she could have said: "I am 
 
 your guilty mother. I robbed you of your 
 
 141
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 father. And your father is dead, un- 
 mourned, unloved, almost forgotten by 
 me." For that was the poison in her 
 misery, to know that for Paul Quentin she 
 felt almost nothing. To hear that he had 
 died was to hear that a ghost had died. 
 
 What would Augustine say to her if 
 the truth were spoken ? It was now a 
 looming horror between them. It shut 
 her from him and it shut him away. 
 
 "Oh, do come out," said Augustine 
 after a moment: "the evening 's so fine: 
 it will do you good ; and there 's still a bit 
 of sunset to be seen." 
 
 She shook her head, looking away from 
 him. 
 
 "Is it really so bad as that ?" 
 
 "Yes; very bad." 
 
 "Can't I do anything? Get you any- 
 thing?" 
 
 "No, thank you." 
 
 "I 'm so sorry," said Augustine, and, 
 suddenly, but gravely, deliberately, he 
 stooped and kissed her. 
 
 "Oh don't! don't!" she gasped. She 
 142
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 thrust him away, turning her face against 
 the chair. "Don't: you must leave me. 
 I am so unhappy." 
 
 The words sprang forth : she could not 
 repress them, nor the gush of miserable 
 tears. 
 
 If Augustine was horrified he was 
 silent. He stood leaning over her for a 
 moment and then went out of the room. 
 
 She lay fallen in her chair, weeping 
 convulsively. The past was with her; it 
 had seized her and, in her panic-stricken 
 words, it had thrust her child away. What 
 would happen now? What would Augus- 
 tine say? What would he ask? If he 
 said nothing and asked nothing, what 
 would he think? 
 
 She tried to gather her thoughts to- 
 gether, to pray for light and guidance; 
 but, like a mob of blind men locked out 
 from sanctuary, the poor, wild thoughts 
 only fled about outside the church and 
 fumbled at the church door. Her very 
 soul seemed shut against her. 
 
 She roused herself at last, mechanically 
 
 143
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 telling herself that she must go through 
 with it; she must dress and go down to 
 dinner and she must find something to say 
 to Augustine, something that would make 
 what had happened to them less sinister 
 and inexplicable. 
 
 Unless it seemed like a mad cry 
 raised by one of the blind men in 
 the dark, unless she told him all, con- 
 fessed all ; . her guilt, her shame, the 
 truths of her blighted life. She shud- 
 dered; she cowered as the cry came 
 to her, covering her ears and shutting 
 it out. It was mad, mad. She had 
 not strength for such a task, and if 
 that were weakness oh, with a long 
 breath she drew in the mitigation if it 
 were weakness, would it not be a cruel, a 
 heartless strength that could blight her 
 child's life too, in the name of truth. She 
 must not listen to the cry. Yet strangely 
 it had echoed in her, almost as if from 
 within, not from without, the dark, de- 
 serted church; almost as if her soul, shut 
 in there in the darkness, were crying out 
 144
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 to her. She turned her mind from the 
 sick fancy. 
 
 Augustine met her at dinner. He was 
 pa|le but hei seemed composed. They spoke 
 little. He said, in answer to her question- 
 ing, that he had quite liked Lady Elliston ; 
 yes, they had had a nice talk; she seemed 
 very friendly; he should go and see her 
 when he next went up to London. 
 
 Amabel felt the crispness in his voice 
 but, centered as she was in her own self- 
 mastery, she could not guess at the degree 
 of his. 
 
 After dinner they went into the draw- 
 ing-room, where the old, ugly lamp added 
 its light to the candles on the mantel- 
 piece. 
 
 Augustine took his book and sat down 
 at one side of the table. Amabel sat at 
 the other. She, too, took a book and tried 
 to read; a little time passed and then she 
 found that her hands were trembling so 
 much that she could not. She slid the 
 book softly back upon the table, reaching 
 out for her work-bag. She hoped Augus- 
 
 US
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 tine had not seen, but, glancing up at him, 
 she saw his eyes upon her. 
 
 Augustine's eyes looked strange to- 
 night. The dark rims around the iris 
 seemed to have expanded. Suddenly she 
 felt horribly afraid of him. 
 
 They gazed at each other, and she 
 forced herself to a trembling, meaning- 
 less smile. And when she smiled at him 
 he sprang up and came to her. He leaned 
 over her, and she shrank back into her 
 chair, shutting her eyes. 
 
 "You must tell me the truth," said Au- 
 gustine. "I can't bear this. He has made 
 you unhappy. /> comes between us." 
 
 She lay back in the darkness, hearing 
 the incredible words. 
 
 "He? What do you mean?" 
 
 "He is a bad man. And he makes you 
 miserable. And you love him." 
 
 She heard the nightmare : she could not 
 look at it. 
 
 "My husband bad? He is good, more 
 good than you can guess. What do you 
 mean by speaking so?" 
 146
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 With closed eyes, shutting him out, 
 she spoke, anger and terror in her voice. 
 
 Augustine lifted himself and stood 
 with his hands clenched looking at her. 
 
 "You say that because you love him. 
 You love him more than anything or any- 
 one in the world." 
 
 "I do. I love him more than anyone 
 or anything in the world. How have 
 you dared in silence in secret to 
 nourish these thoughts against the man 
 who has given you all you have." 
 
 "He has n't given me all I have. You 
 are everything in my life and he is 
 nothing. He is selfish. He is sensual. 
 He is stupid. He does n't know what 
 beauty or goodness is. I hate him," said 
 Augustine. 
 
 Her eyes at last opened on him. She 
 grasped her chair and raised herself. 
 Whose hands were these, desecrating her 
 holy of holies. Her son's? Was it her 
 son who spoke these words? An enemy 
 stood before her. 
 
 "Then you do not love me. If you hate 
 
 147
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 him you do not love me," her anger had 
 blotted out her fear, but she could find no 
 other than these childish words and the 
 tears ran down her face. 
 
 "And if you love him you cannot love 
 me," Augustine answered. His self-mas- 
 tery was gone. It was a fierce, wild 
 anger that stared back at her. His young 
 face was convulsed and livid. 
 
 "It is you who are bad to have such 
 false, base thoughts!" his mother cried, 
 and her eyes in their indignation, their 
 horror, struck at him, accused him, thrust 
 him forth. "You are cruel and hard 
 and self-righteous. You do not love me. 
 There is no tenderness in your heart !" 
 
 Augustine burst into tears. "There is 
 no room in your heart for me! " he 
 gasped. He turned from her and rushed 
 out of the room. 
 
 A LONG time passed before she leaned 
 forward in the chair where she had sat 
 rigidly, rested her elbows on her knees, 
 buried her face in her hands. 
 148
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 Her heart ached and her mind was 
 empty: that was all she knew. It had 
 been too much. This torpor of sudden 
 weakness was merciful. Now she would 
 go to bed and sleep. 
 
 It took her a long time to go upstairs; 
 her head whirled, and if she had not 
 clung to the baluster she would have 
 fallen. 
 
 In the passage above she paused out- 
 side Augustine's door and listened. She 
 heard him move inside, walking to his 
 window, to lean out into the night, prob- 
 ably, as was his wont. That was well. 
 He, too, would sleep presently. 
 
 In her room she said to her maid that 
 she did not need her. It took her but a 
 few minutes tonight to prepare for bed. 
 She could not even braid her uncoiled 
 hair. She tossed it, all loosened, above 
 her head as she fell upon the pillow. 
 
 She heard, for a little while, the dull 
 
 thumping of her heart. Her breath was 
 
 warm in a mesh of hair beneath her 
 
 cheek; she was too sleepy to put it away. 
 
 149
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 SHE was wakened next morning by the 
 maid. Her curtains were drawn and a 
 dull light from a rain-blotted world was 
 in the room. 
 
 The maid brought a note to her bed- 
 side. From Mr. Augustine, she said. 
 
 Amabel raised herself to hold the sheet 
 to the light and read: 
 
 "Dear mother," it said. "I think that 
 I shall go and stay with Wallace for a 
 week or so. I shall see you before I go 
 up to Oxford. Try to forgive me for my 
 violence last night. I am sorry to have 
 added to your unhappiness. Your af- 
 fectionate son Augustine." 
 
 Her mind was still empty. "Has Mr. 
 Augustine gone?" she asked the maid. 
 
 "Yes, ma'am; he left quite early, to 
 catch the eight-forty train." 
 
 "Ah, yes," said Amabel. She sank 
 back on her pillow. "I will have my 
 breakfast in bed. Tea, please, only, and 
 toast." Then, the long habit of self-dis- 
 cipline asserting itself, the necessity for 
 keeping strength, if it were only to be 
 
 150
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 spent in suffering: "No, coffee, and an 
 egg, too." 
 
 She found, indeed, that she was very 
 hungry; she had eaten nothing yesterday. 
 After her bath and the brushing and 
 braiding of her hair, it was pleasant to 
 lie propped high on her pillows and to 
 drink her hot coffee. The morning 
 papers, too, were nice to look at, folded 
 on her tray. She did not wish to read 
 them; but they spoke of a firmly estab- 
 lished order, sustaining her life and as- 
 suring her of ample pillows to lie on and 
 hot coffee to drink, assuring her that bod- 
 ily comforts were pleasant whatever else 
 was painful. It was a childish, a still 
 stupefied mood, she knew, but it supported 
 her; an oasis of the familiar, the safe, in 
 the midst of whirling, engulfing storms. 
 
 It supported her through the hours 
 when she lay, with closed eyes, listening 
 to the pour and drip of the rain, when, 
 finally deciding to get up, she rose and 
 dressed very carefully, taking all her 
 time.
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 Below, in the drawing-room, when she 
 entered, it was very dark. The fire was 
 unlit, the bowls of roses were faded; and 
 sudden, childish tears filled her eyes at 
 the desolateness. On such a day as this 
 Augustine would have seen that the fire 
 was burning, awaiting her. She found 
 matches and lighted it herself and the re- 
 luctantly creeping brightness made the 
 day feel the drearier; it took a long time 
 even to warm her foot as she stood before 
 it, leaning her arm on the mantel-piece. 
 
 It was Saturday; she should not see 
 her girls today; there was relief in that, 
 for she did not think that she could have 
 found anything to say to them this morn- 
 ing. 
 
 Looking at the roses again, she felt 
 vexed with the maid for having left them 
 there in their melancholy. She rang and 
 spoke to her almost sharply telling her 
 to take them away, and when she had 
 gone felt the tears rise with surprise and 
 compunction for the sharpness. 
 
 There would be no fresh flowers in the 
 
 152
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 room today, it was raining too hard. If 
 Augustine had been here he would have 
 gone out and found her some wet branches 
 of beech or sycamore to put in the vases : 
 he knew how she disliked a flowerless, 
 leafless room, a dislike he shared. 
 
 How the rain beat down. She stood 
 looking out of the window at the sodden 
 earth, the blotted shapes of the trees. 
 Beyond the nearest meadows it was 
 like a grey sheet drawn down, confusing 
 earth and sky and shutting vision into 
 an islet. 
 
 She hoped that Augustine had taken 
 his mackintosh. He was very forgetful 
 about such things. She went out to look 
 into the bleak, stone hall hung with old 
 hunting prints that were dimmed and 
 spotted with age and damp. Yes, it was 
 gone from its place, and his ulster, too. 
 It had been a considered, not a hasty de- 
 parture. A tweed cloak that he often 
 wore on their walks hung there still and, 
 vaguely, as though she sought something, 
 she turned it, looked at it, put her hands 
 
 153
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 into the worn, capacious pockets. All 
 were empty except one where she found 
 some withered gorse flowers. Augustine 
 was fond of stripping off the golden blos- 
 soms as they passed a bush, of putting 
 his nose into the handful of fragrance, 
 and then holding it out for her to smell 
 it, too: "Is it apricots, or is it peaches?" 
 she could hear him say. 
 
 She went back into the drawing-room 
 holding the withered flowers. Their 
 fragrance was all gone, but she did not 
 like to burn them. She held them and 
 bent her face to them as she stood again 
 looking out. He would by now have 
 reached his destination. Wallace was an 
 Eton friend, a nice boy, who had some- 
 times stayed at Charlock House. He and 
 Augustine were perhaps already arguing 
 about Nietzsche. 
 
 Strange that her numbed thoughts 
 should creep along this path of custom, 
 of maternal associations and solicitudes, 
 forgetful of fear and sorrow. The recog- 
 nition came with a sinking pang. Re- 
 
 154
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 luctantly, unwillingly, her mind was 
 forced back to contemplate the catastrophe 
 that had befallen her. He was her judge, 
 her enemy: yet, on this dismal day, how 
 she missed him. She leaned her head 
 against the window-frame and the tears 
 fell and fell. 
 
 If he were there, could she not go to 
 him and take his hand and say that, what- 
 ever the deep wounds they had dealt each 
 other, they needed each other too much 
 to be apart. Could she not ask him to 
 take her back, to forgive her, to love her ? 
 Ah there full memory rushed in. Her 
 heart seemed to pant and gasp in the sud- 
 den coil. Take him back? When it was 
 her steady fear as well as her sudden 
 anger that had banished him, he thought 
 he loved her, but that was because he did 
 not know and it was the anger rather 
 than the love of Augustine's last words 
 that came to her. He loved her because 
 he believed her good, and that imaginary 
 goodness cast a shadow on her husband. 
 To believe her good Augustine had been 
 
 155
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 forced to believe evil of the man she loved 
 and to whom they both owed everything. 
 He had said that he was shut out from 
 her heart, and it was true, and her heart 
 broke in seeing it. But it was by more 
 than the sacred love for her husband that 
 her child was shut out. Her past, her 
 guilt, was with her and stood. as a barrier 
 between them. She was separated from 
 him for ever. And, looking round the 
 room, suddenly terrified, it seemed to her 
 that Augustine was dead and that she 
 was utterly alone. 
 
 156
 
 VIII 
 
 [HE did not write to Augustine 
 for some days. There seemed 
 nothing that she could say. 
 To say that she forgave him might seem 
 to put aside too easily the deep wrong he 
 had done her and her husband; to say 
 that she longed to see him and that, in 
 spite of all, her heart was his, seemed to 
 make deeper the chasm of falseness be- 
 tween them. 
 
 The rain fell during all these days. 
 Sometimes a pale evening sunset would 
 light the western horizon under lifted 
 clouds and she could walk out and up 
 and down the paths, among her sodden 
 rose-trees, or down into the wet, dark 
 woods. Sometimes at night she saw a 
 melancholy star shining here and there 
 
 157
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 in the vaporous sky. But in the morning 
 the grey sheet dropped once more be- 
 tween her and the outer world, and the 
 sound of the steady drip and beat was 
 like an outer echo to her inner wretched- 
 ness. 
 
 It was on the fourth day that wretched- 
 ness turned to bitter restlessness, and that 
 to a sudden resolve. Not to write, not 
 even to say she forgave, might make him 
 think that her heart was still hardened 
 against him. Her fear had blunted her 
 imagination. Clearly now she saw, and 
 with an anguish in the vision, that Au- 
 gustine must be suffering too. Clearly 
 she heard the love in his parting words. 
 And she longed so to see, to hear that 
 love again, that the longing, as if with 
 sudden impatience of the hampering 
 sense of sin, rushed into words that 
 might bring him. 
 
 She wrote: "My dear Augustine. I 
 miss you very much. Is n't this dismal 
 weather. I am feeling better. I need not 
 tell you that I do forgive you for the mis- 
 
 158
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 take that hurts us both." Then she 
 paused, for her heart cried out "Oh 
 come back soon"; but she did not dare 
 yield to that cry. She hardly knew that, 
 with uncertain fingers, she only repeated 
 again: "I miss you very much. Your 
 affectionate mother." 
 
 This was on the fourth day. 
 
 On the afternoon of the fifth she stood, 
 as she so often stood, looking out at the 
 drawing-room window. She was looking 
 and listening, detached from what she 
 saw, yet absorbed, too, for, as with her 
 son, this watchfulness of natural things 
 was habitual to her. 
 
 It was still raining, but more fitfully: 
 a wind had risen and against a scudding 
 sky the sycamores tossed their foliage, 
 dark or pale by turns as the wind passed 
 over them. A broad pool of water, dap- 
 pling incessantly with rain-drops, had 
 formed along the farther edge of the 
 walk where it slanted to the lawn : it was 
 this pool that Amabel was watching and 
 the bobbin-like dance of drops that looked 
 
 159
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 like little glass thimbles. The old leaden 
 pipes, curiously moulded, that ran down 
 the house beside the windows, splashed 
 and gurgled loudly. The noise of the 
 rushing, falling water shut out other 
 sounds. Gazing at the dancing thimbles 
 she was unaware that someone had en- 
 tered the room behind her. 
 
 Suddenly two hands were laid upon her 
 shoulders. 
 
 The shock, going through her, was like 
 a violent electric discharge. She tingled 
 from head to foot, and almost with terror. 
 "Augustine !" she gasped. But the shock 
 was to change, yet grow, as if some alien 
 force had penetrated her and were disin- 
 tegrating every atom of her blood. 
 
 "No, not Augustine," said her hus- 
 band's voice : "But you can be glad to see 
 me, can't you, Amabel?" 
 
 He had taken off his hands now and 
 she could turn to him, could see his bright, 
 smiling face looking at her, could feel 
 him as something wonderful and radiant 
 filling the dismal day, filling her dismal 
 160
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 heart, with its presence. But the shock 
 still so trembled in her that she did not 
 move from her place or speak, leaning 
 back upon the window as she looked at 
 him, for he was very near, and putting 
 her hands upon the window-sill on either 
 side. "You did n't expect to see me, did 
 you," Sir Hugh said. 
 
 She shook her head. Never, never, in 
 all these years, had he come again, so 
 soon. Months, always, sometimes years, 
 had elapsed between his visits. 
 
 "The last time did n't count, did it," 
 he went on, in speech vague and desultory 
 yet, at the same time, intent and bright 
 in look. "I was so bothered; I behaved 
 like a selfish brute; I 'm sure you felt it. 
 And you were so particularly kind and 
 good and dear to me, Amabel." 
 
 She felt herself flushing. He stood so 
 near that she could not move forward 
 and he must read the face, amazed, per- 
 plexed, incredulous of its joy, yet all 
 lighted from his presence, that she kept 
 fixed on him. For ah, what joy to see 
 
 11 161
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 him, to feel that here, here alone of all 
 the world, was she safe, consoled, known 
 yet cared for. He who understood all as 
 no one else in the world understood, could 
 stand and smile at her like that. 
 
 "You look thin, and pale, and tired," 
 were his next words. "What have you 
 been doing to yourself? Is n't Augustine 
 here? You 're not alone?" 
 
 "Yes; I am alone. Augustine is stay- 
 ing with the Wallace boy." 
 
 With the mention of Augustine the 
 dark memory came, but it was now of 
 something dangerous and hostile shut 
 away, yes, safely shut away, by this en- 
 compassing brightness, this sweetness of 
 intent solicitude. She no longer yearned 
 to see Augustine. 
 
 Sir Hugh looked at her for some mo- 
 ments, when she said that she was alone, 
 without speaking. "That is nice for me," 
 he then said. "But how miserable, for 
 you, it must have been. What a shame 
 that you should have been left alone in 
 this dull place, and this wretched 
 
 162
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 weather, too! Did you ever see such 
 weather." He looked past her at the 
 rain. 
 
 "It has been wretched," said Amabel; 
 but she spoke, as she felt, in the past: 
 nothing seemed wretched now. 
 
 "And you were staring out so hard, 
 that you never heard me," He came be- 
 side her now, as if to look out, too, and, 
 making room for him, she also turned 
 and they looked out at the rain together. 
 
 "A filthy day," said Sir Hugh, "I can't 
 bear to think that this is what you have 
 been doing, all alone." 
 
 "I don't mind it. I have the girls, on 
 three mornings, you know." 
 
 "You mean that you don't mind it be- 
 cause you are so used to it ?" 
 
 She had regained some of her compos- 
 ure: for one thing he was beside her, 
 no longer blocking her way back into the 
 room. "I like solitude, you know," she 
 was able to smile. 
 
 "Really like it?" 
 
 "Sometimes." 
 
 163
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 "Better than the company of some peo- 
 ple, you mean?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "But not better than mine," he smiled 
 back. "Come, do encourage me, and say 
 that you are glad to see me." 
 
 In her joy the bewilderment was grow- 
 ing, but she said that, of course, she was 
 glad to see him. 
 
 "I 've been so bored, so badgered," said 
 Sir Hugh, stretching himself a little as 
 though to throw off the incubus of tire- 
 some memories; "and this morning when 
 I left a dull country house, I said to my- 
 self : Why not go down and see Amabel ? 
 I don't believe she will mind. I be- 
 lieve that, perhaps, she '11 be pleased. I 
 know that I want to go very much. So 
 here I am: very glad to be here with 
 dear Amabel." 
 
 She looked out, silent, blissful, and 
 perplexed. 
 
 He was not hard ; he was not irritated ; 
 all trace of vexed preoccupation was 
 gone; but he was not the Sir Hugh that 
 164
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 she had seen for all these twenty years. 
 He was new, and yet he reminded her of 
 something, and the memory moved 
 towards her through a thick mist of 
 years, moved like a light through mist. 
 Far, sweet, early things came to her as 
 its heralds ; the sound of brooks running ; 
 the primrose woods where she had wan- 
 dered as a girl; the singing of prophetic 
 birds in Spring. The past had never 
 come so near as now when Sir Hugh 
 yes, there it was, the fair, far light was 
 making her remember their long past 
 courtship. And a shudder of sweetness 
 went through her as she remembered, of 
 sweetness yet of unutterable sadness, as 
 though something beautiful and dead 
 had been shown to her. She seemed to 
 lean, trembling, to kiss the lips of a 
 beautiful dead face, before drawing 
 over it the shroud that must cover it 
 for ever. 
 
 Sir Hugh was silent also. Her silence, 
 perhaps, made him conscious of memor- 
 ies. Presently, looking behind them, he 
 
 165
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 said: "I 'm keeping you standing. Shall 
 we go to the fire?" 
 
 She followed him, bending a little to 
 the fire, her arm on the mantel-shelf, a 
 hand held out to the blaze. Sir Hugh 
 stood on the other side. She was not 
 thinking of herself, hardly of him. Sud- 
 denly he took the dreaming hand, stooped 
 to it, and kissed it. He had released it 
 before she had time to know her own as- 
 tonishment. 
 
 "You did kiss mine, you know," he 
 smiled, leaning his arm, too, on the man- 
 tel-shelf and looking at her with gaily 
 supplicating eyes. "Don't be angry." 
 
 The shroud had dropped: the past was 
 gone: she was once more in the present 
 of oppressive, of painful joy. 
 
 She would have liked to move away 
 and take her chair at some distance; but 
 that would have looked like flight ; foolish 
 indeed. She summoned her common- 
 sense, her maturity, her sorrow, to smile 
 back, to say in a voice she strove to make 
 166
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 merely light: "Unusual circumstances 
 excused me." 
 
 "Unusual circumstances ?" 
 
 "You had been very kind. I was very 
 grateful." 
 
 Sir Hugh for a moment was silent, 
 looking at her with his intent, interrog- 
 atory gaze. "You are always kind to 
 me," he then said. "I am always grate- 
 ful. So may I always kiss your hand?" 
 
 Her eyes fell before his. "If you wish 
 to," she answered gravely. 
 
 "You frighten me a little, do . you 
 know," said Sir Hugh. "Please don't 
 frighten me. Are you really angry? / 
 don't frighten you?" 
 
 "You bewilder me a little," Amabel 
 murmured. She looked into the fire, near 
 tears, indeed, in her bewilderment; and 
 Sir Hugh looked at her, looked hard and 
 carefully, at her noble figure, her white 
 hands, the gold and white of her leaning 
 head. He looked, as if measuring the de- 
 gree of his own good fortune. 
 167
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 "You are so lovely," he then said 
 quietly. 
 
 She blushed like a girl. 
 
 "You are the most beautiful woman I 
 know," said Sir Hugh. "There is no 
 one like you." He put his hand out to 
 hers, and, helplessly,, she yielded it. 
 "Amabel, do you know, I have fallen in 
 love with you." 
 
 She stood looking at him, stupefied ; her 
 eyes ecstatic and appalled. 
 
 "Do I displease you ?" asked Sir Hugh. 
 
 She did not answer. 
 
 "Do I please you?" Still she gazed at 
 him, speechless. 
 
 "Do you care at all for me?" he asked, 
 and, though grave, he smiled a little at 
 her in asking the question. How could 
 he not know that, for years, she had 
 cared for him more than for anything, 
 anyone ? 
 
 And when he asked her this last ques- 
 tion, the oppression was too great. She 
 drew her hand from his, and laid her 
 arms upon the mantel-shelf and hid her 
 168
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 face upon them. It was a helpless con- 
 fession. It was a helpless appeal. 
 
 But the appeal was not understood, or 
 was disregarded. In a moment her hus- 
 band's arms were about her. 
 
 This was new. This was not like their 
 courtship. Yet, it reminded her, of 
 what did it remind her as he murmured 
 words of victory, clasped her and kissed 
 her? It reminded her of Paul Quentin. 
 In the midst of the amazing joy she knew 
 that the horror was as great. 
 
 "Ah don't! how can you! how can 
 you!" she said. 
 
 She drew away from him but he would 
 not let her go. 
 
 "How can I? How can I do anything 
 else?" he laughed, in easy yet excited tri- 
 umph. "You do love me you darling 
 nun!" 
 
 She had freed her hands and covered 
 her face: "I beg of you," she prayed. 
 
 The agony of her sincerity was too ap- 
 parent. Sir Hugh unclasped his arms. 
 She went to her chair, sat down, leaned 
 
 169
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 on the table, still covering her eyes. So 
 she had leaned, years ago, with hidden 
 face, in telling Bertram of the coming of 
 the child. It seemed to her now that her 
 shame was more complete, more over- 
 whelming. And, though it overwhelmed 
 her, her bliss was there; the golden and 
 the black streams ran together. 
 
 "Dearest, should I have been less sud- 
 den?" Sir Hugh was beside her, leaning 
 over her, reasoning, questioning, only 
 just not caressing her. "It 's not as if we 
 did n't know each other, Amabel: we 
 have been strangers, in a sense; yet, 
 through it all all these years have n't 
 we felt near? Ah darling, you can't 
 deny it; you can't deny you love me." 
 His arm was pressing her. 
 
 "Please " she prayed again, and he 
 moved his hand further away, beyond her 
 crouching shoulder. 
 
 "You are such a little nun that you 
 
 can't bear to be loved? Is that it? But 
 
 you '11 have to learn again. You are more 
 
 than a nun: you are a beautiful woman: 
 
 170
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 young; wonderfully young. It 's aston- 
 ishing how like a girl you are." Sir 
 Hugh seemed to muse over a fact that 
 allured. "And however like a nun you Ve 
 lived you can't deny that you love me." 
 
 "You have n't loved me," Amabel at 
 last could say. 
 
 He paused, but only for a moment. 
 "Perhaps not: but," his voice had now 
 the delicate aptness that she remembered, 
 "how could I believe that there was a 
 chance for me? How could I think you 
 could ever come to care, like this, when 
 you had left me you know Amabel." 
 
 She was silent, her mind whirling. And 
 his nearness, as he leaned over her, was 
 less ecstasy than terror. It was as if she 
 only knew her love, her sacred love again, 
 when he was not near. 
 
 "It 's quite of late that I 've begun to 
 wonder," said Sir Hugh. "Stupid ass 
 of course, not to have seen the jewel I 
 held in my hand. But you Ve only showed 
 me the nun, you darling. I knew you 
 cared, but I never knew how much. I 
 171
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 ought to have had more self-conceit, 
 ought n't I?" 
 
 "I have cared. You have been all that 
 is beautiful. I have cared more than for 
 anything. But oh, it could not have 
 been this. This would have killed me 
 with shame," said Amabel. 
 
 "With shame? Why, you strange 
 angel?" 
 
 "Can you ask ?" she said in a trembling 
 voice. 
 
 His hand caressed her hair, slipped 
 around her neck. "You nun; you saint. 
 Does that girlish peccadillo still haunt 
 you?" 
 
 "Don't oh don't call it that call me 
 that!-" 
 
 "Call you a saint? But what else are 
 you? a beautiful saint. What other 
 woman could have lived the life you Ve 
 lived? It 's wonderful." 
 
 "Don't. I cannot bear it." 
 
 "Can't bear to be called a saint? Ah, 
 but, you see, that 's just why you are 
 one." 
 
 She could not speak. She could not 
 172
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 even say the only answering word: a 
 sinner. Her hands were like leaden 
 weights upon her brows. In the darkness 
 she heard her heart beating heavily, and 
 tried and tried to catch some fragment of 
 meaning from her whirling thoughts. 
 
 And as if her self-condemnation were 
 a further enchantment, her husband mur- 
 mured : "It makes you all the lovelier that 
 you should feel like that. It makes me 
 more in love with you than ever : but for- 
 get it now. Let me make you forget it. 
 I can. Darling, your beautiful hair. I 
 remember it; it is as beautiful as ever. 
 I remember it; it fell to your knees. 
 Let me see your face, Amabel." 
 
 She was shuddering, shrinking from 
 him. "Oh no no. Do you not see 
 not feel that it is impossible " 
 
 "Impossible! Why? My darling, you 
 are my wife; and if you love me? " 
 
 They were whirling impossibilities ; she 
 
 could see none clearly but one that flashed 
 
 out for her now in her extremity of need, 
 
 bright, ominous, accusing. She seized it: 
 
 -"Augustine." 
 
 173
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 "Augustine? What of him?" Sir 
 Hugh's voice had an edge to it. 
 
 "He could not bear it. It would break 
 his heart." 
 
 "What has he to do with it? He is n't 
 all your life : you 've given him most of 
 it already." 
 
 "He is, he must be, all my life, except 
 that beautiful part that you were: that 
 you are: oh you will stay my friend!" 
 
 "I '11 stay your lover, your determined 
 lover and husband, Amabel. Darling, you 
 are ridiculous, enchanting with your 
 barriers, your scruples." The fear, the 
 austerity, he felt in her fanned his ardour 
 to flame. His arms once more went 
 round her; he murmured words of lover- 
 like pleading, rapturous, wild and foolish. 
 And, though her love, her sacred love for 
 him was there, his love for her was a 
 nightmare to her now. She had lost her- 
 self, and it was as though she lost him, 
 while he pleaded thus. And again and 
 again she answered, resolute and tor- 
 mented: "No: no: never never. Do 
 
 174
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 not speak so to me. Do not I beg of 
 you." 
 
 Suddenly he released her. He straight- 
 ened himself, and moved away from her 
 a little. Someone had entered. 
 
 Amabel dropped her hands and raised 
 her eyes at last. Augustine stood before 
 them. 
 
 Augustine had on still his long trav- 
 elling coat; his cap, beaded with rain- 
 drops, was in his hand; his yellow hair 
 was ruffled. He had entered hastily. He 
 stood there looking at them, transfixed, 
 yet not astonished. He was very pale. 
 
 For some moments no one of them 
 spoke. Sir Hugh did not move further 
 from his wife's side: he was neither anx- 
 ious nor confused; but his face wore an 
 involuntary scowl. 
 
 The deep confusion was Amabel's. But 
 her husband had released her; no longer 
 pleaded; and with the lifting of that dire 
 oppression the realities of her life flooded 
 her almost with relief. It was impossible, 
 this gay, this facile, this unseemly love, 
 
 175
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 but, as she rejected and put it from her, 
 the old love was the stronger, cherished 
 the more closely, in atonement and solici- 
 tude, the man shrunk from and repulsed. 
 And in all the deep confusion, before her 
 son, that he should find her so, almost 
 in her husband's arms, a flash of clarity 
 went through her mind as she saw them 
 thus confronted. Deeper than ever be- 
 tween her and Augustine was the chal- 
 lenge of her love and his hatred; but it 
 was that sacred love that now needed 
 safeguards ; she could not feel it when her 
 husband was near and pleading; Augus- 
 tine was her refuge from oppression. 
 
 She rose and went to him and timidly 
 clasped his arm. "Dear Augustine, I am 
 so glad you have come back. I have 
 missed you so." 
 
 He stood still, not responding to her 
 touch: but, as she held him, he looked 
 across the room at Sir Hugh. "You 
 wrote you missed me. That 's why I 
 came." 
 
 Sir Hugh now strolled to the fire and 
 176
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 stood before it, turning to face Augus- 
 tine's gaze; unperturbed; quite at ease. 
 
 "How wet you are dear," said Amabel. 
 "Take off this coat." 
 
 Augustine stripped it off and flung it 
 on a chair. She could hear his quick 
 breathing: he did not look at her. And 
 still it seemed to her that it was his anger 
 rather than his love that protected her. 
 
 "He will want to change, dearest," said 
 Sir Hugh from before the fire. "And, 
 I want to finish my talk with you." 
 
 Augustine now looked at his mother, 
 at the blush that overwhelmed her as that 
 possessive word was spoken. "Do you 
 want me to go?" 
 
 "No, dear, no. It is only the coat that 
 is wet, is n't it. Don't go: I want to see 
 you, of course, after your absence. 
 Hugh, you will excuse us; it seems such 
 a long time since I saw him. You and I 
 will finish our talk on another day. Or 
 I will write to you." 
 
 She knew what it must look like to her 
 husband, this weak recourse to the pro-
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 tection of Augustine's presence; it looked 
 like bashfulness, a further feminine wile, 
 made up of self-deception and allurement, 
 a putting off of final surrender for 
 the greater sweetness of delay. And as 
 the reading of him flashed through 
 her it brought a strange pang of 
 shame, for him; of regret, for something 
 spoiled. 
 
 Sir Hugh took out his watch and looked 
 at it. "Five o'clock. I told the station 
 fly to come back for me at five fifteen. 
 You '11 give me some tea, dearest?" 
 
 "Of course; it is time now. Augus- 
 tine, will you ring?" 
 
 The miserable blush covered her again. 
 
 The tea came and they were silent while 
 the maid set it out. Augustine had 
 thrown himself into a chair and stared 
 before him. Sir Hugh, very much in pos- 
 session, kept his place before the fire. 
 Catching Amabel's eye he smiled at her. 
 He was completely assured. How should 
 he not be? What, for his seeing, could 
 stand between them now?
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 When the maid was gone and Amabel 
 was making tea, he came and stood over 
 her, his hands in his pockets, his hand- 
 some head bent to her, talking lightly, 
 slightly jesting, his voice pitched inti- 
 mately for her ear, yet not so intimately 
 that any unkindness of exclusion should 
 appear. Augustine could hear all he 
 said and gauge how deep was an intimacy 
 that could wear such lightness, such 
 slightness, as its mask. 
 
 Augustine, meanwhile, looked at 
 neither his mother nor Sir Hugh. Turned 
 from them in his chair he put out his 
 hand for his tea and stared before him, 
 as if unseeing and unhearing, while he 
 drank it. 
 
 It was for her sake, Amabel knew, that 
 Sir Hugh, raising his voice presently, as 
 though aware of the sullen presence, 
 made a little effort to lift the gloom. 
 "What sort of a time have you had, Au- 
 gustine?" he asked. "Was the weather 
 at Haversham as bad as everywhere 
 else?" 
 
 179
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 Augustine did not turn his head in re- 
 plying: "Quite as bad, I fancy." 
 
 "You and young Wallace hammered 
 at metaphysics, I suppose." 
 
 "We did." 
 
 "Nice lad." 
 
 To this Augustine said nothing. 
 
 "They 're such a solemn lot, the youths 
 of this generation," said Sir Hugh, ad- 
 dressing Amabel as well as Augustine: 
 "In my day we never bothered ourselves 
 much about things: at least the ones I 
 knew did n't. Awfully empty and frivo- 
 lous. Augustine and his friends would 
 have thought us. Where we used to talk 
 about race horses they talk about the Ab- 
 solute, eh, Augustine? We used to go 
 and hear comic-operas and they go and 
 hear Brahms. I suppose you do go and 
 hear Brahms, Augustine?" 
 
 Augustine maintained his silence as 
 though not conceiving that the sportive 
 question required an answer and Amabel 
 said for him that he was very fond of 
 Brahms. 
 
 180
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 "Well, I must be off," said Sir Hugh. 
 "I hope your heart will ache ever so little 
 for me, Amabel, when you think of the 
 night you Ve turned me out into." 
 
 "Oh but I don't turn, you out,"- 
 she stammered, rising, as, in a gay fare- 
 well, he looked at her. 
 
 "No ? Well, I 'm only teasing. I could 
 hardly have managed to stay this time 
 though, I might have managed, Ama- 
 bel . I '11 come again soon, very soon," 
 said Sir Hugh. 
 
 "No," her hand was in his and she 
 knew that Augustine had turned his head 
 and was looking at them: "No, dear 
 Hugh. Not soon, please. I will write." 
 Sir Hugh looked at her smiling. He 
 glanced at Augustine; then back at her, 
 rallying her, affectionately, threateningly, 
 determinedly, for her foolish feints. He 
 raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. 
 "Write, if you want to; but I 'm coming," 
 he said. He nodded to Augustine and 
 left the room. 
 
 181
 
 IX 
 
 >T was, curiously enough, a crip- 
 pling awkwardness and em- 
 barrassment that Amabel felt 
 rather than fear or antagonism, during 
 that evening and the morning that fol- 
 lowed. Augustine had left the room di- 
 rectly after Sir Hugh's departure. When 
 she saw him again he showed her a face 
 resolutely mute. It was impossible to 
 speak to him ; to explain. The main facts 
 he must see; that her husband was mak- 
 ing love to her and that, however deep 
 her love for him, she rejected him. 
 
 Augustine might believe that rejection 
 
 to be for his own sake, might believe that 
 
 she renounced love and sacrificed herself 
 
 from a maternal sense of duty; and, in- 
 
 182
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 deed, the impossibility of bringing that 
 love into her life with Augustine had been 
 the clear impossibility that had flashed 
 for her in her need; she had seized upon 
 it and it had armed her in her reiterated 
 refusal. But how tell Augustine that 
 there had been more than the clear im- 
 possibility; how tell him that deeper than 
 renouncement was recoil? To tell that 
 would be a disloyalty to her husband; it 
 would be almost to accuse him; it would 
 be to show Augustine that something in 
 her life was spoiled and that her husband 
 had spoiled it. So perplexed, so jaded, 
 was she, so tossed by the conflicting cur- 
 rents of her lesser plight, that the deeper 
 fears were forgotten: she was not con- 
 scious of being afraid of Augustine. 
 
 The rain had ceased next morning. 
 The sky was crystalline; the wet earth 
 glittered in Autumnal sunshine. 
 
 Augustine went out for his ride and 
 Amabel had her girls to read with. There 
 was a sense of peace for her in finding 
 these threads of her life unknotted, 
 
 183
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 smooth and simple, lying ready to her 
 hand. 
 
 When she saw Augustine at lunch he 
 said that he had met Lady Elliston. 
 
 "She was riding with Marjory and her 
 girl." 
 
 "Oh, she is back, then." Amabel was 
 grateful to him for his everyday tone. 
 
 "What is Lady Elliston's girl like?" 
 
 "Pretty; very; foolish manners I 
 thought; Marjory looked bewildered by 
 her." 
 
 "The manners of girls have changed, 
 I fancy, since my day; and she is n't a 
 boy-girl, like our nice Marjory, either?" 
 
 "No; she is a girl-girl; a pretty, for- 
 ward, conceited girl-girl," said the ruthless 
 Augustine. "Lady Elliston is coming to 
 see you this afternoon; she asked me to 
 tell you; she says she wants a long talk." 
 
 Amabel's weary heart sank at the news. 
 
 "She is coming soon after lunch," said 
 Augustine. 
 
 "Oh dear " . She could not con- 
 ceal her dismay. 
 
 184
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 "But you knew that you were to see 
 her again; do you mind so much?" said 
 Augustine. 
 
 "I don't mind. It is only; I have got 
 so out of the way of seeing people that it 
 is something of a strain." 
 
 "Would you like me to come in and 
 interrupt your talk?" asked Augustine 
 after a moment. 
 
 She looked across the table at him. 
 Still, in her memory, preoccupied with 
 the cruelty of his accusation, it was the 
 anger rather than the love of his parting 
 words the other day that was the more 
 real. He had been hard in kindness, re- 
 lentless in judgment, only not accusing 
 her, not condemning her, because his con- 
 demnation had fixed on the innocent and 
 not on the guilty the horror of that, as 
 well as the other horror, was between 
 them now, and her guilt was deepened 
 by it. But, as she looked, his eyes re- 
 minded her of something; was it of that 
 fancied cry within the church, imprisoned 
 and supplicating? They were like that 
 
 185
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 cry of pain, those eyes, the dark rims of 
 the iris strangely expanding, and her 
 heart answered them, ignorant of what 
 they said. 
 
 "You are thoughtful for me, dear; but 
 no," she replied, "it is n't necessary for 
 you to interrupt." 
 
 He looked away from her: "I don't 
 know that it 's not necessary," he said. 
 After lunch they went into the garden 
 and walked for a little in the sunlight, in 
 almost perfect silence. Once or twice, as 
 though from the very pressure of his ab- 
 sorption in her he created some intention 
 of speech and fancied that her lips had 
 parted with the words, Augustine turned 
 his head quickly towards her, and at this, 
 their eyes meeting, as it were over empti- 
 ness, both he and she would flush and 
 look away again. The stress between 
 them was painful. She was glad when 
 he said that he had work to do and left 
 her alone. 
 
 Amabel went to the drawing-room and 
 took her chair near the table. A sense of 
 1 86
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 solitude deeper than she had known for 
 years pressed upon her. She closed her 
 eyes and leaned back her head, thinking, 
 dimly, that now, in such solitude as this, 
 she must find her way to prayer again. 
 But still the door was closed. It was as 
 if she could not enter without a human 
 hand in hers. Augustine's hand had 
 never led her in; and she could not take 
 her husband's now. 
 
 But her longing itself became almost a 
 prayer as she sat with closed eyes. This 
 would pass, this cloud of her husband's 
 lesser love. When he knew her so un- 
 alterably firm, when he saw how inflexibly 
 the old love shut out the new, he would, 
 once more, be her friend. Then, feeling 
 him near again, she might find peace. 
 The thought of it was almost peace. Even 
 in the midst of yesterday's bewildered 
 pain she had caught glimpses of the old 
 beauty; his kindly speech to Augustine, 
 his making of ease for her; gratitude 
 welled up in her and she sighed with the 
 relief of her deep hope. To feel this 
 
 is/
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 gratitude was to see still further beyond 
 the cloud. It was even beautiful for him 
 to be able to "fall in love" with her as 
 he had put it: that the manifestations of 
 his love should have made her shrink 
 was not his fault but hers ; she was a nun ; 
 because she had been a sinner. She al- 
 most smiled now, in seeing so clearly that 
 it was on her the shadow rested. She 
 could not be at peace, she could not pray, 
 she could not live, it seemed to her, if he 
 were really shadowed. And after the 
 smile it was almost with the sense of dew 
 falling upon her soul that she remembered 
 the kindness, the chivalrous protection 
 that had encompassed her through the 
 long years. He was her friend, her 
 knight; she would forget, and he, too, 
 would forget that he had thought himself 
 her lover. 
 
 She did not know how tired she was, 
 but her exhaustion must have been great, 
 for the thoughts faded into a vague sweet- 
 ness, then were gone, and, suddenly open- 
 ing her eyes, she knew that she had fallen 
 188
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 asleep, sitting straightly in her chair, and 
 that Lady Elliston was looking at her. 
 
 She started up, smiling and confused. 
 "How absurd of me: I have been sleep- 
 ing. Have you just come?" 
 
 Lady Elliston did not smile and was 
 silent. She took Amabel's hand and 
 looked at her; she had to recover herself 
 from something; it may have been the 
 sleeping face, wasted and innocent, that 
 had touched her too deeply. And her grav- 
 ity, as of repressed tears, frightened 
 Amabel. She had never seen Lady Ellis- 
 ton look so grave. "Is anything the mat- 
 ter?" she asked. For a moment longer 
 Lady Elliston was silent, as though re- 
 flecting. Then releasing Amabel's hand, 
 she said: "Yes: I think something is the 
 matter." 
 
 "You have come to tell me?" 
 
 "I did n't come for that. Sit down/ 
 Amabel. You are very tired, more tired 
 than the other day. I have been looking 
 at you for a long time. I did n't come 
 to tell you anything; but now, perhaps, I 
 
 189
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 shall have something to tell. I must 
 think." 
 
 She took a chair beside the table and 
 leaned her head on her hand shading her 
 eyes. Amabel had obeyed her and sat 
 looking at her guest. 
 
 "Tell me," Lady Elliston said abruptly, 
 and Amabel today, more than of sweet- 
 ness and softness, was conscious of her 
 strength, "have you been having a bad 
 time since I saw you ? Has anything hap- 
 pened? Has anything come between you 
 and Augustine ? I saw him this morning, 
 and he 's been suffering, too: I guessed 
 it. You must be frank with me, Amabel ; 
 you must trust me : perhaps I am going to 
 be franker with you, to trust you more, 
 than you can dream." 
 
 She inspired the confidence her words 
 laid claim to; for the first time in their 
 lives Amabel trusted her unreservedly. 
 
 "I have had a very bad time," she said : 
 "And Augustine has had a bad time. 
 Yes ; something has come between Augus- 
 tine and me, many things." 
 190
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 "He hates Hugh," said Lady Elliston. 
 
 "How can you know that?" 
 
 "I guessed it. He is a clever boy: he 
 sees you absorbed; he sees your devotion 
 robbing him; perhaps he sees even more, 
 Amabel ; I heard this morning, from Mrs. 
 Grey, that Hugh had been with you, 
 again, yesterday. Amabel, is it possible; 
 has Hugh been making love to you?" 
 
 Amabel had become very pale. Look- 
 ing down, she said in a hardly audible 
 voice: "It is a mistake. He will see that 
 it is impossible." 
 
 Lady Elliston for a moment was silent : 
 the confirming of her own suspicion 
 seemed to have stupefied her. "Is it im- 
 possible?" she then asked. 
 
 "Quite, quite impossible." 
 
 "Does Hugh know that it is impossi- 
 ble?" 
 
 "He will. Yesterday, Augustine came 
 in while he was here; I could not say 
 any more." 
 
 "I see: I see": said Lady Elliston. Her 
 hand fell to the table now and she slightly 
 191
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 tapped her finger-tips upon it. There was 
 an ominous rhythm in the little raps. 
 "And this adds to Augustine's hatred," 
 she said. 
 
 "I am afraid it is true. I am afraid he 
 does hate him, and how terrible that is," 
 said Amabel, "for he believes him to be 
 his father." 
 
 "By instinct he must feel the tie un- 
 real." 
 
 "Yet he has had a father's kindness, 
 almost, from Hugh." 
 
 "Almost. It is n't enough you know. 
 He suspects nothing, you think?" 
 
 "It is that that is so terrible. He 
 does n't suspect me : he suspects him. He 
 could n't suspect evil of me. It is my 
 guilt, and his ignorant hatred that is part- 
 ing us." Amabel was trembling; she 
 leaned forward and covered her face with 
 her hands. 
 
 The very air about her seemed to trem- 
 ble ; so. strange, so incredibly strange was 
 it to hear her own words of helpless 
 avowal; so strange to feel that she 
 192
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 must tell Lady Elliston all she wished to 
 know. 
 
 "Parting you? What do you mean? 
 What folly! what impossible folly! A 
 mother and a son, loving each other as 
 you and Augustine love, parted for that. 
 Oh, no," said Lady Elliston, and her own 
 voice shook a little: "that can't be. I 
 won't have that." 
 
 "He would not love me, if he knew." 
 
 "Knew? What is there for him to 
 know? And how should he know? You 
 won't be so mad as to tell him ?" 
 
 "It 's my punishment not to dare to tell 
 him and to see my cowardice cast a 
 shadow on Hugh." 
 
 "Punishment? have n't you been pun- 
 ished enough, good heavens ! Cowardice ? 
 it is reason, maturity; the child has no 
 right to your secret it is yours and only 
 yours, Amabel. And if he did know all, 
 he could not judge you as you judge your- 
 self." 
 
 "Ah, you don't understand," Amabel 
 murmured: "I had forgotten to judge 
 
 193
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 myself; I had forgotten my sin; it was 
 Augustine who made me remember ; I know 
 now what he feels about people like me/' 
 Again Lady Elliston controlled herself 
 to a momentary silence and again her 
 fingers sharply beat out her uncontrollable 
 impatience. "I live in a world, Amabel," 
 she said at last, "where people when they 
 use the word 'sin,' in that connection, 
 know that it 's obsolete, a mere decorative 
 symbol for unconventionality. In my 
 world we don't have your cloistered black 
 and white view of life nor see sin where 
 only youth and trust and impulse were. 
 If one takes risks, one may have to pay 
 for them, of course; one plays the game, 
 if one is in the ring, and, of course, you 
 may be put out of the ring if you break 
 the rules; but the rules are those of wis- 
 dom, not of morality, and the rule that 
 heads the list is : Don't be found out. To 
 imagine that the rules are anything more 
 than matters of social convenience is to 
 dignify the foolish game. It is a foolish 
 game, Amabel, this of life : but one or two 
 194
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 things in it are worth having; power to 
 direct the game; freedom to break its 
 rules; and love, passionate love, between 
 a man and woman: and if one is strong 
 enough one can have them all." 
 
 Lady Elliston had again put her hand 
 to her brow, shielding her eyes and leaning 
 her elbow on the table, and Amabel had 
 raised her head and sat still, gazing at her. 
 
 "You were n't strong enough," Lady 
 Elliston went on after a little pause : "You 
 made frightful mistakes: the greatest, of 
 course, was in running away with Paul 
 Quentin: that was foolish, and it was, 
 if you like to call foolishness by its obso- 
 lete name, a sin. You should n't have 
 gone : you should have stayed : you should 
 have kept your lover as long as you 
 wanted to." 
 
 Again she paused. "Do I horrify you?" 
 
 "No: you don't horrify me," Amabel 
 replied. Her voice was gentle, almost 
 musing; she was absorbed in her con- 
 templation. 
 
 "You see," said Lady Elliston, "you 
 
 195
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 did n't play the game: you made a mess 
 of things and put the other players out. 
 If you had stayed, and kept your lover, 
 you would have been, in my eyes, a less 
 loveable but a wiser woman. I believe in 
 the game being kept up; I believe m the 
 social structure : I am one of its accredited 
 upholders"; in the shadow of her hand, 
 Lady Elliston slightly smiled. "I believe 
 in the family, the group of shared inter- 
 ests, shared responsibilities, shared op- 
 portunities it means: I don't care how 
 many lovers a woman has if she does n't 
 break up the family, if she plays the game. 
 Marriage is a social compact and it 's the 
 woman's part to keep the home together. 
 If she seeks love outside marriage she 
 must play fair, she must n't be an em- 
 bezzling partner; she must n't give her 
 husband another man's children to sup- 
 port and so take away from his own chil- 
 dren; that 's thieving. The social struc- 
 ture, the family, are unharmed, if one is 
 brave and wise. Love and marriage can 
 rarely be combined and to renounce love 
 196
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 is to cripple one's life, to miss the best 
 thing it has to give. You, at all events, 
 Amabel, may be glad that you have n't 
 missed it. What, after all, does our life 
 mean but just that, the power and feel- 
 ing that one gets into it. Be glad that 
 you Ve had something." 
 
 Amabel, answering nothing, contem- 
 plated her guest. 
 
 "So, as these are my views, imagine 
 what I feel when I find you here, like 
 this"; Lady Elliston dropped her hand 
 at last and looked about her, not at Ama- 
 bel: "when I find you, in prison, locked 
 up for life, by yourself, because you were 
 lovably unwise. It 's abominable, it 's 
 shameful, your position, isolated here, 
 and tolerated, looked askance at by 
 these nobodies. Ah I don't say that 
 other women have n't paid even more 
 heavily than you Ve done; I own that, to 
 a certain extent, you 've escaped the 
 rigours that the game exacts from its 
 victims. But there was no reason why 
 you should pay anything: it was n't 
 197
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 known, never really known your brother 
 and Hugh saw to that; you could have 
 escaped scot-free." 
 
 Amabel spoke at last: "How, scot- 
 free?" she asked. 
 
 Lady Elliston looked hard at her: 
 "Your husband would have taken you 
 back, had you insisted. You should n't 
 have fallen in with his plans." 
 
 "His plans? They were mine; my 
 brother's." 
 
 "And his. Hugh was glad to be rid of 
 the young wife he did n't love." 
 
 Again Amabel was trembling. "He 
 might have been rid of her, altogether rid 
 of her, if he had cared more for power 
 and freedom than for pity." 
 
 "Power? With not nearly enough 
 money? He was glad to keep her money 
 and be rid of her. If you had pulled the 
 purse-strings tight you might have made 
 your own conditions." 
 
 "I do not believe you," said Amabel; 
 "What you say is not true. My husband 
 is noble." 
 
 198
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 Lady Elliston looked at her steadily and 
 unflinchingly. "He is not noble," she said. 
 
 "What have you meant by coming here 
 today? You have meant something! I 
 will not listen to you! You are my hus- 
 band's enemy;" Amabel half started 
 from her chair, but Lady Elliston laid her 
 hand on her arm, looking at her so fixedly 
 that she sank down again, panic-stricken. 
 
 "He is not noble," Lady Elliston re- 
 peated. "I will not have you waste your 
 love as you have wasted your life. I will 
 not have this illusion of his nobility come 
 between you and your son. I will not 
 have him come near you with his love. 
 He is not noble, he is not generous, he is 
 not beautiful. He could not have got 
 rid of you. And he came to you with his 
 love yesterday because his last mistress 
 has thrown him over and he must have 
 a mistress. I know him: I know all about 
 him : and you don't know him at all. Your 
 husband was my lover for over twenty 
 years." 
 
 A long silence followed her words. It 
 199
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 was again a strange picture of arrested 
 life in the dark room. The light fell 
 quietly upon the two faces, their stillness, 
 their contemplation it seemed hardly 
 more intent than contemplation, that 
 drinking gaze of Amabel's; the draught 
 of wonder was too deep for pain or pas- 
 sion, and Lady Elliston's eyes yielded, 
 offered, held firm the cup the other drank. 
 And the silence grew so long that it was 
 as if the twenty years flowed by while 
 they gazed upon each other. 
 
 It was Lady Elliston's face that first 
 showed change. She might have been the 
 cup-bearer tossing aside the emptied cup, 
 seeing in the slow dilation of the vic- 
 tim's eyes, the constriction of lips and 
 nostrils, that it had held poison. All 
 all had been drunk to the last drop. 
 Death seemed to gaze from the dilated 
 eyes. 
 
 "Oh my poor Amabel " Lady Ellis- 
 ton murmured ; her face was stricken with 
 pity. 
 
 Amabel spoke in the cramped voice of 
 200
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 mortal anguish. "Before he married 
 me." 
 
 "Yes," Lady Elliston nodded, pitiful, 
 but unflinching. "He married you for 
 your money, and because you were a 
 sweet, good, simple child who would not 
 interfere." 
 
 "And he could not have divorced me, 
 because of you." 
 
 "Because of me. You know the law; 
 one guilty person can't divorce another. 
 No one knew : no one has ever known : he 
 and Jack have remained the best of 
 friends: but, of course, with all our 
 care, it 's been suspected, whispered. If 
 I 'd been less powerful the whispers might 
 have blighted me: as it was, we thought 
 that Bertram was n't altogether unsus- 
 pecting. Hugh knew that it would be 
 fatal to bring the matter into court; I 
 will say for Hugh that, in spite of the 
 money, he wanted to. He could have 
 married money again. He has always 
 been extremely captivating. When he 
 found that he would have to keep you, the 
 20 1
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 money, of course, did atone. I suppose 
 he has had most of your money by now," 
 said Lady Elliston. 
 
 Amabel shut her eyes. "Was n't he 
 even sorry for me?" she asked. 
 
 Lady Elliston reflected and a glitter 
 was in her eye; vengeance as well as jus- 
 tice armed her. "He is not unkind," she 
 conceded: "and he was sorry after a 
 fashion: 'Poor little girl,' I remember he 
 said. Yes, he was very tolerant. But he 
 did n't think of you at all, unless he wanted 
 money. He is always graceful in his 
 direct relations with people; he is tactful 
 and sympathetic and likes things to be 
 pleasant. But he does n't mind breaking 
 your heart if he does n't have to see you 
 while he is doing it. He is kind, but he 
 is as hard as steel," said Lady Elliston. 
 
 "Then you do not love him any longer," 
 said Amabel. It was not a question, only 
 a farther acceptance. 
 
 And now, after only the slightest pause, 
 Lady Elliston proved how deep, how un- 
 flinching was her courage. She had 
 202
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 guarded her illicit passion all her life; 
 she revealed it now. "I do love him," she 
 said. "I have never loved another man. 
 It is he who does n't love me." 
 
 From the black depths where she 
 seemed to swoon and float, like a drowsy, 
 drowning thing, the hard note of misery 
 struck on Amabel's ear. She opened her 
 eyes and looked at Lady Elliston. Power, 
 freedom, passion: it was not these that 
 looked back at her from the bereft and 
 haggard eyes. "After twenty years he 
 has grown tired," Lady Elliston said ; and 
 her candour seemed as inevitable as Ama- 
 bel's had been: each must tell the other 
 everything; a common bond of suffering 
 was between them and a common bond of 
 love, though love so differing. "I knew, 
 of course, that he was often unfaithful to 
 me ; he is a libertine ; but I was the centre ; 
 he always came back to me. I saw the 
 end approaching about five years ago. I 
 fought oh how warily so that he should 
 n't dream I was afraid; it is fatal for 
 a woman to let a man know she is afraid, 
 203
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 the brutes, the cruel brutes," said Lady 
 Elliston; "how we love them for their 
 fear and pleading; how our fear and 
 pleading hardens them against us." Her 
 lips trembled and the tears ran down her 
 cheeks. "I never pleaded ; I never showed 
 that I saw the change. I kept him, for 
 years, by my skill. But the odds were too 
 great at last. It was a year ago that he 
 told me he did n't care any more. He was 
 troubled, a little embarrassed, but quite 
 determined that I should n't bother him. 
 Since then it has been another woman. I 
 know her; I meet her everywhere; very 
 beautiful; very young; only married for 
 three years; a heartless, rapacious crea- 
 ture. Hugh has nearly ruined himself in 
 paying her jeweller's bills and her debts 
 at bridge. And already she has thrown 
 him over. It happened only the other 
 day. I knew it was happening when I 
 saw him here. I was glad, Amabel; I 
 longed for him to suffer; and he will. He 
 is a libertine of most fastidious tastes 
 and he will not find many more young 
 204
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 and beautiful women, of his world, to run 
 risks for him. He, too, is getting old. 
 And he has gone through nearly all his 
 own money and yours. Things wilt 
 soon be over for him. Oh but I love 
 him I love him and everything is over 
 for me. How can I bear it!" 
 
 She bent forward on her knees and con- 
 vulsive sobs shook her. 
 
 Her words seemed to Amabel to come 
 to her from a far distance ; they echoed in 
 her, yet they were not the words she could 
 have used. How dim was her own love- 
 dream beside this torment of disposses- 
 sion. What who had she loved for all 
 these years? She could not touch or see 
 her own grief; but Lady Elliston's grief 
 pierced through her. She leaned towards 
 her and softly touched her shoulder, her 
 arm, her hand; she held the hand in hers. 
 The sight of this loss of strength and dig- 
 nity was an actual pain ; her own pain was 
 something elusive and unsubstantial; it 
 wandered like a ghost vainly seeking an 
 embodiment. 
 
 205
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 "Oh, you angel you poor angel!" 
 moaned Lady Elliston. "There: that 's 
 enough of crying; it can't bring back my 
 youth. What a fool I am. If only I could 
 learn to think of myself as free instead 
 of maimed and left by the wayside. It 
 is hard to live without love if one has 
 always had it. But I have freed you, 
 Amabel. I am glad of that. It has been 
 a cruel, but a right thing to do. He shall 
 not come to you with his shameless love; 
 he shall not come between you and your 
 boy. You shan't misplace your worship 
 so. It is Augustine who is beautiful and 
 noble ; it is Augustine who loves you. You 
 are n't maimed and forsaken; thank 
 heaven for that, dear." 
 
 Lady Elliston had risen. Strong again, 
 she faced her life, took up the reins, not 
 a trace of scruple or of shame about her. 
 It did not enter her mind to ask Amabel 
 for forgiveness, to ask if she were de- 
 spised or shrunk from: it did not enter 
 Amabel's mind to wonder at the omission. 
 She looked up at her guest and her lifted 
 206
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 face seemed that of the drowned creature 
 floating to the surface of the water. 
 
 "Tell me, Amabel," Lady Elliston sud- 
 denly pleaded, "this is not going to 
 blacken things for you; you won't let it 
 blacken things. You will live; you will 
 leave your prison and come out into the 
 world, with your splendid boy, and live." 
 
 Amabel slightly shook her head. 
 
 "Oh, why do you say that ? Has it hurt 
 so horribly?" 
 
 Amabel seemed to make the effort to 
 think what it had done. She did not 
 know. The ghost wailed; but she could 
 not see its form. 
 
 "Did you care so tremendously about 
 him?" Lady Elliston asked, and her 
 voice trembled. And, for answer, the 
 drowned eyes looked up at her through 
 strange, cold tears. 
 
 "Oh, my dear, my dear," Lady Elliston 
 murmured. Her hand was still in Ama- 
 bel's and she stood there beside her, her 
 hand so held, for a long, silent moment. 
 ^ had looked away from each other. 
 207
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 And in the silence each knew that it was 
 the end and that they would see each other 
 no more. They lived in different planets, 
 under different laws; they could under- 
 stand, they could trust ; but a deep, trans- 
 parent chasm, like that of the ether 
 flowing between two divided worlds, 
 made them immeasurably apart. 
 
 Yet, when she at last gently released 
 Amabel's hand, drawing her own away, 
 Lady Elliston said: "But, won't you 
 come out now?" 
 
 "Out? Where?" Amabel asked, in the 
 voice of that far distance. 
 
 "Into the world, the great, splendid 
 world." 
 
 "Splendid?" 
 
 "Splendid, if you choose to seize it and 
 take what it has to give." 
 
 After a moment Amabel asked: "Has 
 it given you so much?" 
 
 Lady Elliston looked at her from across 
 the chasm; it was not dark, it held no 
 precipices; it was made up only of dis- 
 tance. Lady Elliston saw; but she was 
 208
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 loyal to her own world. "Yes, it has," she 
 said. "I Ve lived ; you have dreamed your 
 life away. You have n't even a reality to 
 mourn the loss of." 
 
 "No," Amabel said; she closed her eyes 
 and turned her head away against the 
 chair; "No; I have lived too. Don't pity 
 
 me." 
 
 20Q
 
 X 
 
 T was past five when Augustine 
 came into the empty drawing- 
 room. Tea was standing wait- 
 ing, and had been there, he saw, for some 
 time. He rang and asked the maid to tell 
 Lady Channice. Lady Channice, he 
 heard, was lying down and wanted no tea. 
 Lady Elliston had gone half an hour be- 
 fore. After a moment or two of delibera- 
 tion, Augustine sat down and made tea 
 for himself. That was soon over. He 
 ate nothing, looking with a vague gaze of 
 repudiation at the plate of bread and but- 
 ter and the cooling scones. 
 
 When tea had been taken away he 
 walked up and down the room quickly, 
 pausing now and then for further deliber- 
 ation. But he decided that he would not 
 go up to his mother. He went on walking 
 210
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 for a long time. Then he took a book and 
 read until the dressing-bell for dinner 
 rang. 
 
 When he went upstairs to dress he 
 paused outside his mother's door, as she 
 had paused outside his, and listened. He 
 heard no sound. He stood still there for 
 some moments before lightly rapping on 
 the door. "Who is it?" came his mother's 
 voice. "I; Augustine. How are you? 
 You are coming down ?" 
 
 "Not tonight," she answered; "I have 
 a very bad headache." 
 
 "But let me have something sent up." 
 After a moment his mother's voice said 
 very sweetly; "Of course, dear." And she 
 added "I shall be all right tomorrow." 
 
 The voice sounded natural yet not 
 quite natural; too natural, perhaps, Au- 
 gustine reflected. Its tone remained with 
 him as something disturbing and pro- 
 longed itself in memory like a familiar 
 note strung to a queer, forced pitch, that 
 vibrated on and on until it hurt. 
 
 After his solitary meal he took up his 
 211
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 book again in the drawing-room. He 
 read with effort and concentration, his 
 brows knotted; his young face, thus con- 
 trolled to stern attention, was at once vigi- 
 lant for outer impressions and absorbed in 
 the inner interest. Once or twice he looked 
 up, as a coal fell with a soft crash from 
 the fire, as a thin creeper tapped sharply 
 on the window pane. His mother's room 
 was above the drawing-room and while 
 he read he was listening; but he heard no 
 footsteps. 
 
 Suddenly, dim, yet clear, came another 
 sound, a sound familiar, though so rare; 
 wheels grinding on the gravel drive at 
 the other side of the house. Then, loud 
 and startling at that unaccustomed hour, 
 the old hall bell clanged through the house. 
 
 Augustine found himself leaning for- 
 ward, breathing quickly, his book half- 
 closed. At first he did not know what he 
 was listening for or why his body should 
 be tingling with excitement and anger. 
 He knew a moment later. There was a 
 212
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 step in the hall, a voice. All his life Au- 
 gustine had known them, had waited for 
 them, had hated them. Sir Hugh was 
 back again. 
 
 Of course he was back again, soon, 
 as he had promised in the tone of mastery. 
 But his mother had told him not to come ; 
 she had told him not to come, and in a 
 tone that meant more than his. Did he 
 not know? Did he not understand? 
 
 "No, dear Hugh, not soon. I will 
 write." Augustine sprang to his feet as 
 he entered the room. 
 
 Sir Hugh had been told that he would 
 not find his wife. His face wore its usual 
 look of good-temper, but it wore more 
 than its usual look of indifference for his 
 wife's son. "Ah, tell Lady Channice, will 
 you," he said over his shoulder to the 
 maid. "How d' ye do, Augustine:" and, 
 as usual, he strolled up to the fire. 
 
 Augustine watched him as he crossed 
 the room and said nothing. The maid had 
 closed the door. From his wonted place 
 213
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 Sir Hugh surveyed the young man and 
 Augustine surveyed him. 
 
 "You know, my dear fellow," said Sir 
 Hugh presently, lifting the sole of his boot 
 to the fire, " you Ve got devilish bad man- 
 ners. You are devilishly impertinent, I 
 may tell you." 
 
 Augustine received the reproof without 
 comment. 
 
 "You seem to imagine," Sir Hugh went 
 on, "that you have some particular right 
 to bad manners and impertinence here, 
 in this house; but you 're mistaken; I be- 
 long here as well as you do; and you '11 
 have to accept the fact." 
 
 A convulsive trembling, like his 
 mother's, passed over the young man's 
 face; but whereas only Amabel's hands 
 and body trembled, it was the muscles of 
 Augustine's lips, nostrils and brows that 
 were affected, and to see the strength of his 
 face so shaken was disconcerting, painful. 
 
 "You don't belong here while I 'm 
 here," he said, jerking the words out sud- 
 denly. "This is my mother's home and 
 214
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 mine; but as soon as you make it insuf- 
 ferable for us we can leave it." 
 
 "You can ; that 's quite true," Sir Hugh 
 nodded. 
 
 Augustine stood clenching his hands 
 on his book. Now, unconscious of what 
 he did, he grasped the leaves and wrenched 
 them back and forth as he stood silent, 
 helpless, desperate, before the other's in- 
 timation. Sir Hugh watched the uncon- 
 scious violence with interest. 
 
 "Yes," he went on presently, and still 
 with good temper; "if you make yourself 
 insufferable to your mother and me 
 you can go. Not that I want to turn you 
 out. It rests with you. Only, you must 
 see that you behave. I won't have you 
 making her wretched." 
 
 Augustine glanced dangerously at him. 
 
 "Your mother and I have come to an 
 understanding after a great many years 
 of misunderstanding," said Sir Hugh, 
 putting up the other sole. "I 'm very 
 fond of your mother, and she is, very 
 fond of me." 
 
 215
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 "She does n't know you," said Augus- 
 tine, who had become livid while the other 
 made his gracefully hesitant statement. 
 
 "Does n't know me?" Sir Hugh lifted 
 his brows in amused inquiry; "My dear 
 boy, what do you know about that, pray? 
 You are not in all your mother's secrets." 
 
 Augustine was again silent for a mo- 
 ment, and he strove for self-mastery. "If 
 I am not in my mother's secrets," he said, 
 "she is not in yours. She does not know 
 you. She does n't know what sort of a 
 man you are. You have deceived her. 
 You have made her think that you are re- 
 formed and that the things in your life 
 that made her leave you won't come again. 
 But whether you are reformed or not a 
 man like you has no right to come near 
 a woman like my mother. I know that 
 you are an evil man," said Augustine, his 
 face trembling more and more uncontroll- 
 ably; "And my mother is a saint." 
 
 Sir Hugh stared at him. Then he 
 burst into a shout of laughter. "You 
 young fool !" he said. 
 216
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 Augustine's eyes were lightnings in a 
 storm-swept sky. 
 
 "You young fool," Sir Hugh repeated, 
 not laughing, a heavier stress weighting 
 each repeated word. 
 
 "Can you deny," said Augustine, "that 
 you have always led a dissolute life? If 
 you do deny it it won't help you. I know 
 it : and I Ve not needed the echoes to tell 
 me. I Ve always felt it in you. I Ve al- 
 ways known you were evil." 
 
 "What if I don't deny it?" Sir Hugh in- 
 quired. 
 
 Augustine was silent, biting his quiver- 
 ing lips. 
 
 "What if I don't deny it?" Sir Hugh re- 
 peated. His assumption of good-humour 
 was gone. He, too, was scowling now. 
 "What have you to say then?" 
 
 "By heaven, I say that you shall not 
 come near my mother." 
 
 "And what if it was not because of my 
 
 dissolute life she left me ? What if you Ve 
 
 built up a cock-and-bull romance that has 
 
 no relation to reality in your empty young 
 
 217
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 head? What then? Ask your mother if 
 she left me because of my dissolute life," 
 said Sir Hugh. 
 
 The book in Augustine's wrenching 
 hands had come apart with a crack and 
 crash. He looked down at it stupidly. 
 
 "You really should learn to control 
 yourself in every direction, my dear 
 boy," Sir Hugh remarked. "Now, unless 
 you would like to wreak your temper on 
 the furniture, I think you had better sit 
 down and be still. I should advise you 
 to think over the fact that saints have been 
 known before now to forgive sinners. 
 And sinners may not be so bad as your 
 innocence imagines. Goodbye. I am go- 
 ing up to see your mother. I am going to 
 spend the night here." 
 
 Augustine stood holding the shattered 
 book. He gazed as stupidly at Sir Hugh 
 as he had gazed at it. He gazed while 
 Sir Hugh, who kept a rather wary eye 
 fixed on him, left the fire and proceeded 
 with a leisurely pace to cross the room: 
 the door was reached and the handle 
 218
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 turned, before the stupor broke. Sir 
 Hugh, his eyes still fixed on his antago- 
 nist, saw the blanched fury, the start, as if 
 the dazed body were awakening to some 
 insufferable torture, saw the gathering to- 
 gether, the leap: "You fool you young 
 fool!" he ground between his teeth as, 
 with a clash of the half-opened door, Au- 
 gustine pinned him upon it. "Let me go. 
 Do you hear. Let me go." His voice was 
 the voice of the lion-tamer, hushed before 
 danger to a quelling depth of quiet. 
 
 And like the young lion, drawing long 
 breaths through dilated- nostrils, Augus- 
 tine growled back: "I will not I will 
 not. You shall not go to her. I would 
 rather kill you." 
 
 "Kill me?" Sir Hugh smiled. "It would 
 be a fight first, you know." 
 
 "Then let it be a fight. You shall not 
 go to her." 
 
 "And what if she wants me to go to her. 
 
 Will you kill her first, too "The 
 
 words broke. Augustine's hand was on 
 
 his throat. Sir Hugh seized him. They 
 
 219
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 writhed together against the door. "You 
 mad-man! You damned mad-man! 
 Your mother is in love with me. I '11 put 
 you out of her life " Sir Hugh grated 
 forth from the strangling clutch. 
 
 Suddenly, as they writhed, panting, 
 glaring their hatred at each other, the door 
 they leaned on pushed against them. 
 Someone outside was turning the handle, 
 was forcing it open. And, as if through 
 the shocks and flashes of a blinding, 
 deafening tempest, Augustine heard his 
 mother's voice, very still, saying: "Let me 
 come in." 
 
 220
 
 XI 
 
 |HEY fell apart and moved back 
 into the room. Amabel entered. 
 She wore a long white dress- 
 ing-gown that, to her son's eyes, made 
 her more than ever look her sainted 
 self; she had dressed hastily, and, on 
 hearing the crash below, she had wrapped 
 a white scarf about her head and shoul- 
 ders, covering her unbound hair. So 
 framed and narrowed her face was that 
 of a shrouded corpse: the same strange 
 patience stamped it; her eyes, only, 
 seemed to live, and they, too, were patient 
 and ready for any doom. 
 
 Quietly she had closed the door, and 
 standing near it now she looked at them; 
 her eyes fell for a moment upon Sir Hugh ; 
 then they rested on Augustine and did not 
 leave him. 
 
 221
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 Sir Hugh spoke first. He laughed a 
 little, adjusting his collar and tie. 
 
 "My dear, you Ve saved my life. Au- 
 gustine was going to batter my brains out 
 on the door, I fancy." 
 
 She did not look at him, but at Augus- 
 tine. 
 
 "He J s really dangerous, your son, you 
 know. Please don't leave me alone with 
 him again," Sir Hugh smiled and pleaded; 
 it was with almost his own lightness, but 
 his face still twitched with anger. 
 
 "What have you said to him?" Amabel 
 asked. 
 
 Augustine's eyes were drawing her 
 down into their torment. Unfortunate 
 one. That presage of her maternity 
 echoed in her now. His stern young face 
 seemed to have been framed, destined 
 from the first for this foreseen misery. 
 
 Sir Hugh had pulled himself together. 
 He looked at the mother and son. And 
 he understood her fear. 
 
 He went to her, leaned over her, a hand 
 above her shoulder on the door. He re- 
 222
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 assured and protected her; and, truly, in 
 all their story, it had never been with such 
 sincerity and grace. 
 
 "Dearest, it 's nothing. I 've merely 
 had to defend my rights. Will you assure 
 this young firebrand that my misdemean- 
 ours did n't force you to leave me. That 
 there were misdemeanors I don't deny; 
 and of course you are too good for the 
 likes of me ; but your coming away was n't 
 my fault, was it. That 's what I Ve said. 
 And that saints forgive sinners, some- 
 times. That 's all I want you to tell him." 
 
 Amabel still gazed into her son's eyes. 
 It seemed to her, now that she must shut 
 herself out from it for ever, that for the 
 first time in all her life she saw his love. 
 
 It broke over her; it threatened and 
 commanded her; it implored and suppli- 
 catedah the supplication beyond words 
 or tears! Selflessness made it stern. It 
 was for her it threatened; for her it 
 prayed. 
 
 All these years the true treasure had 
 been there beside her, while she wor- 
 223
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 shipped at the spurious shrine. Only her 
 sorrow, her solicitude had gone out to her 
 son; the answering love that should have 
 cherished and encompassed him flowed 
 towards its true goal only when it was 
 too late. He could not love her when he 
 knew. 
 
 And he was to know. That had come 
 to her clearly and unalterably while she 
 had leaned, half fallen, half kneeling, 
 against her bed, dying, it seemed to her, 
 to all that she had known of life or hope. 
 
 But all was not death within her. In 
 the long, the deadly stupor, her power to 
 love still lived. It had been thrown back 
 from its deep channel and, wave upon 
 wave, it seemed heaped upon itself in some 
 narrow abyss, tormented and shuddering; 
 and at last by its own strength, rather than 
 by thought or prayer of hers, it had forced 
 an outlet. 
 
 It was then as if she found herself once 
 more within the church. Darkness, utter 
 darkness was about her ; but she was pros- 
 trated before the unseen altar. She knew 
 224
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 herself once more, and with herself she 
 knew her power to love. 
 
 Her life and all its illusions passed be- 
 fore her; by the truth that irradiated the 
 illusions, she judged them and herself and 
 saw what must be the atonement. All that 
 she had believed to be the treasure of her 
 life had been taken from her; but there 
 was one thing left to her that she could 
 give: her truth to her son. When that 
 price was paid, he would be hers to love; 
 he was no longer hers to live for. He 
 should found his life on no illusions, as 
 she had founded hers. She must set him 
 free to turn away from her ; but when he 
 turned away it would not be to leave her 
 in the loneliness and the terror of heart 
 that she had known; it would be to leave 
 her in the church where she could pray for 
 him. 
 
 She answered her husband after her 
 long silence, looking at her son. 
 
 "It is true, Augustine," she said. "You 
 have been mistaken. I did not leave him 
 for that." 
 15 225
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 Sir Hugh drew a breath of satisfaction. 
 He glanced round at Augustine. It was 
 not a venomous glance, but, with its dart 
 of steely intention, it paid a debt of ven- 
 geance. "So, we need n't say anything 
 more about it," he said. "And dearest 
 perhaps now you '11 tell Augustine that 
 he may go and leave us together." 
 
 Amabel left her husband's side and went 
 to her chair near the table. A strange 
 calmness breathed from her. She sat 
 with folded hands and downcast eyes. 
 
 "Augustine, come here," she said. 
 
 The young man came and stood before 
 her. 
 
 "Give me your hand." 
 
 He gave it to her. She did not look at 
 him but kept her eyes fixed on the ground 
 while she clasped it. 
 
 "Augustine," she said, "I want you to 
 leave me with my husband. I must talk 
 with him. He is going away soon. To- 
 morrow tomorrow morning early, I will 
 see you, here. I will have a great deal to 
 say to you, my dear son." 
 226
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 But Augustine, clutching her hand and 
 trembling, looked down at her so that she 
 raised her eyes to his. 
 
 "I can't go, till you say something, now, 
 Mother;" his voice shook as it had 
 shaken on that day of their parting, his 
 face was livid and convulsed, as then; 
 "I will go away tonight I don't know 
 that I can ever return unless you tell me 
 that you are not going to take him back." 
 He gazed down into his mother's eyes. 
 
 She did not answer him; she did not 
 speak. But, as he looked into them, he, 
 too, for the first time, saw in them what 
 she had seen in his. 
 
 They dwelt on him ; they widened ; they 
 almost smiled; they deeply promised him 
 all all that he most longed for. She 
 was his, her son's; she was not her hus- 
 band's. What he had feared had never 
 threatened him or her. This was a gift 
 she had won the right to give. The depth 
 of her repudiation yesterday gave her her 
 warrant. 
 
 And to Amabel, while they looked into 
 227
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 each other's eyes, it was as if,' in the dark- 
 ness, some arching loveliness of dawn 
 vaguely shaped itself above the altar. 
 
 "Kiss me, dear Augustine," she said. 
 She held up her forehead, closing her eyes, 
 for the kiss that was her own. 
 
 Augustine was gone. And now, before 
 her, was the ugly breaking. But must it 
 be so ugly ? Opening her eyes, she looked 
 at her husband as he stood before the fire, 
 his wondering eyes upon her. Must it 
 be ugly? Why could it not be quiet 
 and even kind? 
 
 Strangely there had gathered in her, 
 during the long hours, the garnered 
 strength of her life of discipline and sub- 
 mission. It had sustained her through 
 the shudder that glanced back at yester- 
 day at the corruption that had come so 
 near ; it had given sanity to see with eyes 
 of compassion the forsaken woman who 
 had come with her courageous, revengeful 
 story; it gave sanity now, as she looked 
 over at her husband, to see him also, with 
 those eyes of compassionate understand- 
 228
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 ing; he was not blackened, to her vision, 
 by the shadowing corruption, but, in his 
 way, pitiful, too; all the worth of life lost 
 to him. 
 
 And it seemed swiftest, simplest, and 
 kindest, as she looked over at him, to say : 
 "You see Lady Elliston came this 
 afternoon, and told me everything." 
 
 Sir Hugh kept his face remarkably un- 
 moved. He continued to gaze at his wife 
 with an unabashed, unstartled steadiness. 
 "I might have guessed that," he said after 
 a short silence. "Confound her." 
 
 Amabel made no reply. 
 
 "So I suppose," Sir Hugh went on, "you 
 feel you can't forgive me." 
 
 She hesitated, not quite understanding. 
 "You mean for having married me 
 when you loved her ?" 
 
 "Well, yes; but more for not having, 
 long ago, in all these years, found out that 
 you were the woman that any man with 
 eyes to see, any man not blinded and fatu- 
 ous, ought to have been in love with from 
 the beginning." 
 
 229
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 Amabel flushed. Her vision was un- 
 troubled; but the shadow hovered. She 
 was ashamed for him. 
 
 "No" ; she said, "I did not think of that. 
 I don't know that I have anything to for- 
 give you. It is Lady Elliston, I think, who 
 must try and forgive you, if she can." 
 
 Sir Hugh was again silent for a mo- 
 ment; then he laughed. "You dear inno- 
 cent! Well I won't defend myself at 
 her expense." 
 
 "Don't," said Amabel, looking now 
 away from him. 
 
 Sir Hugh eyed her and seemed to weigh 
 the meaning of her voice. 
 
 He crossed the room suddenly and 
 leaned over her: "Amabel darling, 
 what must I do to atone ? I '11 be patient. 
 Don't be cruel and punish me for too long 
 a time." 
 
 "Sit there will you please." She 
 pointed to the chair at the other side of 
 the table. 
 
 He hesitated, still leaning above her; 
 then obeyed; folding his arms; frowning. 
 230
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 "You don't understand," said Amabel. 
 "I loved you for what you never were. 
 I do not love you now. And I would never 
 have loved you as you asked me to do 
 yesterday." 
 
 He gazed at her, trying to read the diffi- 
 cult riddle of a woman's perversity. "You 
 were in love with me yesterday," he said 
 at last. 
 
 She answered nothing. 
 
 "I '11 make you love me again." 
 
 "No: never," she answered, looking 
 quietly at him. "What is there in you to 
 love?" 
 
 Sir Hugh flushed. "I say! You are 
 hard on me !" 
 
 "I see nothing loveable in you," said 
 Amabel with her inflexible gentleness. "I 
 loved you because I thought you noble 
 and magnanimous; but you were neither. 
 You only did not cast me off, as I de- 
 served, because you could not; and you 
 were kind partly because you are kind by 
 nature, but partly because my money was 
 convenient to you. I do not say that you 
 231
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 were ignoble; you were in a very false 
 position. And I had wronged you ; I had 
 committed the greater social crime; but 
 there was nothing noble; you must see 
 that; and it was for that I loved you." 
 
 Sir Hugh now got up and paced up and 
 down near her. 
 
 "So you are going to cast me off because 
 I had no opportunity for showing nobility. 
 How do you know I could n't have behaved 
 as you believed I did behave, if only I 'd 
 had the chance ? You know you are hard 
 on me." 
 
 "I see no sign of nobility towards any- 
 one in your life," Amabel answered as 
 dispassionately as before. 
 
 Sir Hugh walked up and down. 
 
 "I did feel like a brute about the money 
 sometimes," he remarked; "especially 
 that last time; I wanted you to have the 
 house as a sort of salve to my conscience ; 
 I 've taken almost all your money, you 
 know; it 's quite true. As to the rest 
 what Augustine calls my dissoluteness 
 I can't pretend to take your view; a nun's 
 232
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 view." He looked at her. "How beauti- 
 ful you are with that white round your 
 face," he said. "You are like a woman of 
 snow." 
 
 She looked back at him as though, from 
 the unhesitating steadiness of her gaze, 
 to lend him some of her own clearness. 
 
 "Don't you see that it 's not real ? Don't 
 you see that it 's because you suddenly find 
 me beautiful, and because, as a woman of 
 snow, I allure you, that you think you love 
 me ? Do you really deceive yourself ?" 
 
 He stared at her; but the ray only il- 
 lumined the bewilderment of his disposses- 
 sion. "I don't pretend to be an idealist," 
 he said, stopping still before her; "I don't 
 pretend that it 's not because I suddenly 
 find you beautiful ; that 's one reason ; and 
 a very essential one, I think ; but there are 
 other reasons, lots of them. Amabel 
 you must see that my love for you is an 
 entirely different sort of thing from what 
 my love for her ever was." 
 
 She said nothing. She could not argue 
 with him, nor ask, as if for a cheap tri- 
 
 233
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 umph, if it were different from his love 
 for the later mistress. She saw, indeed, 
 that it was different now, whatever it had 
 been yesterday. Clearly she saw, glancing 
 at herself as at an object in the drama, 
 that she offered quite other interests and 
 charms, that her attractions, indeed, might 
 be of a quality to elicit quite new senti- 
 ments from Sir Hugh, sentiments less 
 shadowing than those of yesterday had 
 been. And so she accepted his interpreta- 
 tion in silence, unmoved by it though do- 
 ing it full justice, and for a little while 
 Sir Hugh said nothing either. He still 
 stood before her and she no longer looked 
 at him, but down at her folded hands that 
 did not tremble at all tonight, and she 
 wondered if now, perhaps, he would un- 
 derstand her silence and leave her. But 
 when, in an altered voice, he said : "Ama- 
 bel;" she looked at him. 
 
 She seemed to see everything tonight 
 as a disembodied spirit might see it, aware 
 of what the impeding flesh could only 
 dimly manifest ; and she saw now that her 
 
 234
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 husband's face had never been so near 
 beauty. 
 
 It did not attain it ; it was, rather, as if 
 the shadow, lifting entirely for a flicker- 
 ing moment, revealed something uncon- 
 scious, something almost innocent, almost 
 pitiful: it was as if, liberated, he saw 
 beauty for a moment and put out his hands 
 to it, like a child putting out its hands to 
 touch the moon, believing that it was as 
 near to him, and as easily to be attained, 
 as pleasure always had been. 
 
 "Try to forgive me," he said, and his 
 voice had the broken note of a sad child's 
 voice, the note of ultimate appeal from 
 man to woman. "I 'm a poor creature; 
 I know that. It 's always made me 
 ashamed to see how you idealise me. 
 The other day, you know, when you 
 kissed my hand I was horribly ashamed. 
 But, upon my honour Amabel, I 'm not 
 a bad fellow at bottom, not the devil in- 
 carnate your son seems to think me. 
 Something could be made of me, you 
 know; and, if you '11 forgive me, and let 
 
 235
 
 AMABEL .CHANNICE 
 
 me try to win your love again; ah Ama- 
 bel " he pleaded, almost with tears, be- 
 fore her unchangingly gentle face. And, 
 the longing to touch her, hold her, re- 
 ceive comfort and love, mingling with 
 the new reverential fear, he knelt beside 
 her, putting his head on her knees and 
 murmuring: "I do so desperately love 
 you." 
 
 Amabel sat looking down upon him. 
 Her face was unchanged, but in her heart 
 was a trembling of astonished sadness. 
 
 It was too late. It had been too late 
 from the very first; yet, if they could 
 have met before each was spoiled for each ; 
 before life had set them unalterably 
 apart ? The great love of her life was 
 perhaps not all illusion. 
 
 And she seemed to sit for a moment in 
 the dark church, dreaming of the distant 
 Spring-time, of brooks and primroses and 
 prophetic birds, and of love, young, un- 
 tried and beautiful. But she did not lay 
 her hand on Sir Hugh's head nor move at 
 all towards him. She sat quite still, look- 
 236
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 ing down at him, like a Madonna above a 
 passionate supplicant, pitiful but serene. 
 
 And as he knelt, with his face hidden, 
 and did not hear her voice nor feel her 
 touch, with an unaccustomed awe the real- 
 isation of her remoteness from him stole 
 upon Sir Hugh. 
 
 Passion faded from his heart, even self- 
 pity and longing faded. He entered her 
 visionary retrospect and knew, like her, 
 that it was too late; that everything was 
 too late; that everything was really over. 
 And, as he realised it, a chill went over 
 him. He felt like a strayed reveller wak- 
 ing suddenly from long slumber and find- 
 ing himself alone in darkness. 
 
 He lifted his face and looked at her, 
 needing the reassurance of her human 
 eyes; and they met his with their remote 
 gentleness. For a long moment they gazed 
 at each other. 
 
 Then Sir Hugh, stumbling a little, got 
 upon his feet and stood, half turned from 
 her, looking away into the room. 
 
 When he spoke it was in quite a differ- 
 
 237
 
 ent voice, it was almost the old, usual 
 voice, the familiar voice of their friendly 
 encounters. 
 
 "And what are you going to do with 
 yourself, now, Amabel?" 
 
 "I am going to tell Augustine," she 
 said. 
 
 "Tell him !" Sir Hugh looked round at 
 her. "Why?" 
 
 "I must." 
 
 He seemed, after a long silence, to ac- 
 cept her sense of necessity as sufficient 
 reason. "Will it cut him up very much, 
 do you think?" he asked. 
 
 "It will change everything very much, 
 I think," said Amabel. 
 
 "Do you mean that he will blame 
 you?-" 
 
 "I don't think that he can love me any 
 longer." 
 
 There was no hint of self-pity in her 
 calm tones and Sir Hugh could only form- 
 ulate his resentment and his protest and 
 they were bitter, by a muttered "Oh 
 I say! I say! " 
 
 238
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 He went on presently; "And will you 
 go on living here, perhaps alone?" 
 
 "Alone, I think; yes, I shall live here; 
 I do not find it dismal, you know." 
 
 Sir Hugh felt himself again looking 
 reluctantly into darkness. "But how 
 will you manage it, Amabel?" he asked. 
 
 And her voice seemed to come, in all 
 serenity, from the darkness ; "I shall man- 
 age it." 
 
 Yes, the awe hovered near him as he 
 realised that what, to him, meant dark- 
 ness, to her meant life. She would man- 
 age it. She had managed to live through 
 everything. 
 
 A painful analogy came to increase his 
 sadness; it was like having before one 
 a martyr who had been bound to rack 
 after rack and still maintained that 
 strange air of keeping something it was 
 worth while being racked for. Glancing 
 at her it seemed to him, still more pain- 
 fully, that in spite of her beauty she was 
 very like a martyr; that queer touch 
 of wildness in her eyes ; they were serene, 
 
 239
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 they were even sweet, yet they seemed to 
 have looked on horrid torments ; and those 
 white wrappings might have concealed 
 dreadful scars. 
 
 He took out his watch, nervously and 
 automatically, and looked at it. He would 
 have to walk to the station ; he could catch 
 a train. 
 
 "And may I come, sometimes, and see 
 you ?" he asked. "I '11 not bother you, you 
 know. I understand, at last. I see what 
 a blunder an ugly blunder this has been 
 on my part. But perhaps you '11 let me be 
 your friend more really your friend 
 than I have ever been." 
 
 And now, as he glanced at her again, 
 he saw that the gentleness was remote no 
 longer. It had come near like a light that, 
 in approaching, diffused itself and made a 
 sudden comfort and sweetness. She was 
 too weary to smile, but her eyes, dwelling 
 gently on him, promised him something, 
 as, when they had dwelt with their passion 
 of exiled love on her son, they had prom- 
 ised something to Augustine. She held 
 240
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 out her hand. "We are friends," she 
 said. 
 
 Sir Hugh flushed darkly. He stood 
 holding her hand, looking at it and not 
 at her. He could not tell what were the 
 confused emotions that struggled within 
 him; shame and changed love; awe, and 
 broken memories of prayers that called 
 down blessings. It was "God bless you," 
 that he felt, yet he did not feel that it was 
 for him to say these words to her. And 
 no words came ; but tears were in his eyes 
 as, in farewell, he bent over her hand and 
 kissed it. 
 
 16
 
 XII 
 
 |HEN Amabel waked next morn- 
 ing a bright dawn filled her 
 room. She remembered, find- 
 ing it so light, that before lying down to 
 sleep she had drawn all her curtains so 
 that, through the open windows, she might 
 see, until she fell asleep, a wonderful sky 
 of stars. She had not looked at them for 
 long. She had gone to sleep quickly and 
 quietly, lying on her side, her face turned 
 to the sky, her arms cast out before her, 
 just as she had first lain down; and so 
 she found herself lying when she waked. 
 It was very early. The sun gilded the 
 dark summits of the sycamores that she 
 could see from her window. The sky was 
 very high and clear, and long, thin strips 
 of cloud curved in lessening bars across 
 it The confused chirpings of the waking 
 242
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 birds filled the air. And before any 
 thought had come to her she smiled as she 
 lay there, looking at and listening to the 
 wakening life. 
 
 Then the remembrance of the dark 
 ordeal that lay before her came. It was 
 like waking to the morning that was to 
 see one on the scaffold: but, with some- 
 thing of the light detachment that a con- 
 demned prisoner might feel nothing be- 
 ing left to hope for and the only strength 
 demanded being the passive strength to 
 endure she found that she was thinking 
 more of the sky and of the birds than of 
 the ordeal. Some hours lay between her 
 and that; bright, beautiful hours. 
 
 She put out her hand and took her watch 
 which lay near. Only six. Augustine 
 would not expect to see her until ten. 
 Four long hours: she must get up and 
 spend them out of doors. 
 
 It was too early for hot water or maids ; 
 she enjoyed the flowing shocks of the cold 
 and her own rapidity and skill in dressing 
 and coiling up her hair. She put on her 
 
 243
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 black dress and took her black scarf as a 
 covering for her head. Slipping out 
 noiselessly, like a truant school-girl, she 
 made her way to the pantry, found milk 
 and bread, and ate and drank standing, 
 then, cautiously pushing bolts and bars, 
 stepped from the door into the dew, the 
 sunlight, the keen young air. 
 
 She took the path to the left that led 
 through the sycamore wood, and crossing 
 the narrow brook by a little plank and 
 hand rail, passed into the meadows where, 
 in Spring, she and Augustine used to pick 
 cowslips. 
 
 She thought of Augustine, but only in 
 that distant past, as a little child, and her 
 mind dwelt on sweet, trivial memories, on 
 the toys he had played with and the pair 
 of baby-shoes, bright red shoes, square- 
 toed, with rosettes on them, that she had 
 loved to see him wear with his little white 
 frocks. And in remembering the shoes 
 she smiled again, as she had smiled in 
 hearing the noisy chirpings of the waking 
 birds. 
 
 244
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 The little path ran on through meadow 
 after meadow, stiles at the hedges, planks 
 over the brooks and ditches that inter- 
 sected this flat, pastoral country. She 
 paused for a long time to watch the birds 
 hopping and fluttering in a line of sapling 
 willows that bordered one of these brooks 
 and at another stood and watched a water- 
 rat, unconscious of her nearness, making 
 his morning toilette on the bank; he 
 rubbed his ears and muzzle hastily, with 
 the most amusing gesture. Once she left 
 the path to go close to some cows that 
 were grazing peacefully; their beautiful 
 eyes, reflecting the green pastures, looked 
 up at her with serenity, and she delighted 
 in the fragrance that exhaled from their 
 broad, wet nostrils. 
 
 "Darlings," she found herself saying. 
 
 She went very far. She crossed the 
 road that, seen from Charlock House, 
 was, with its bordering elm-trees, only a 
 line of blotted blue. And all the time the 
 light grew more splendid and the sun rose 
 higher in the vast dome of the sky. 
 
 245
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 She returned more slowly than she had 
 gone. It was like a dream this walk, as 
 though her spirit, awake, alive to sight 
 and sound, smiling and childish, were out 
 under the sky, while in the dark, sad 
 house the heavily throbbing heart waited 
 for its return. 
 
 This waiting heart seemed to come out 
 to meet her as once more she saw the syca- 
 mores dark on the sky and saw beyond 
 them the low stone house. The pearly, the 
 crystalline interlude, drew to a close. She 
 knew that in passing from it she passed 
 into deep, accepted tragedy. 
 
 The sycamores had grown so tall since 
 she first came to live at Charlock House 
 that the foliage made a high roof and only 
 sparkling chinks of sky showed through. 
 The path before her was like the narrow 
 aisle of a cathedral. It was very dark and 
 silent. 
 
 She stood still, remembering the day 
 when, after her husband's first visit to 
 her, she had come here in the late after- 
 noon and had known the mingled revela- 
 246
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 tion of divine and human holiness. She 
 stood still, thinking of it, and wondered 
 intently, looking down. 
 
 It was gone, that radiant human image, 
 gone for ever. The son, to whom her heart 
 now clung, was stern. She was alone. 
 Every prop, every symbol of the divine 
 love had been taken from her. But, so be- 
 reft, it was not, after the long pause of 
 wonder, in weakness and abandonment 
 that she stood still in the darkness and 
 closed her eyes. 
 
 It was suffering, but it was not fear; 
 it was longing, but it was not loneliness. 
 And as, in her wrecked girl-hood, she had 
 held out her hands, blessed and receiving, 
 she held them out now, blessed, though 
 sacrificing all she had. But her uplifted 
 face, white and rapt, was now without a 
 smile. 
 
 Suddenly she knew that someone was 
 near her. 
 
 She opened her eyes and saw Augustine 
 standing at some little distance looking 
 at her. It seemed natural to see him there, 
 247
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 waiting to lead her into the ordeal. She 
 went towards him at once. 
 
 "Is it time?" she said. "Am I late?" 
 
 Augustine was looking intently at her. 
 "It is n't half-past nine yet," he said. 
 "I 've had my breakfast. I did n't know 
 you had gone out till just now when I 
 went to your room and found it empty." 
 
 She saw then in his eyes that he had 
 been frightened. He took her hand and 
 she yielded it to him and they went up 
 towards the house. 
 
 "I have had such a long walk," she said. 
 "Is n't it a beautiful morning." 
 
 "Yes; I suppose so," said Augustine. 
 As they walked he did not take his eyes 
 off his mother's face. 
 
 "Are n't you tired?" he asked. 
 
 "Not at all. I slept well." 
 
 "Your shoes are quite wet," said Au- 
 gustine, looking down at them. 
 
 "Yes; the meadows were thick with 
 dew." 
 
 "You did n't keep to the path?" 
 
 "Yes; no, I remember." she looked 
 248
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 down at her shoes, trying, obediently, to 
 satisfy him, "I turned aside to look at the 
 cows." 
 
 "Will you please change your shoes at 
 once ?" 
 
 "I '11 go up now and change them. And 
 will you wait for me in the drawing-room, 
 Augustine." 
 
 "Yes." She saw that he was still fright- 
 ened, and remembering how strange she 
 must have looked to him, standing still, 
 with upturned face and outstretched 
 hands, in the sycamore wood, she smiled 
 at him: "I am well, dear, don't be 
 troubled," she said. 
 
 In her room, before she went down- 
 stairs, she looked at herself in the glass. 
 The pale, calm face was strange to her, 
 or was it the story, now on her lips, that 
 was the strange thing, looking at that 
 face. She saw them both with Augustine's 
 eyes ; how could he believe it of that face. 
 She did not see the mirrored holiness, but 
 the innocent eyes looked back at her mar- 
 velling at what she was to tell of them. 
 249
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 In the drawing-room Augustine was 
 walking up and down. The fire was burn- 
 ing cheerfully and all the windows were 
 wide open. The room looked its lightest. 
 Augustine's intent eyes were on her as she 
 entered. "You won't find the air too 
 much ?" he questioned ; his voice trembled. 
 
 She murmured that she liked it. But 
 the agitation that she saw controlled in 
 him affected her so that she, too, began to 
 tremble. 
 
 She went to her chair at one side of the 
 large round table. "Will you sit there, 
 Augustine," she said. 
 
 He sat down, opposite to her, where Sir 
 Hugh had sat the night before. Amabel 
 put her elbows on the table and covered 
 her face with her hands. She could not 
 look at her child; she could not see his 
 pain. 
 
 "Augustine," she said, "I am going to 
 tell you a long story; it is about myself, 
 and about you. And you will be brave, 
 for my sake, and try to help me to tell it 
 as quickly as I can." 
 
 250
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 His silence promised what she asked. 
 
 "Before the story," she said, "I will tell 
 you the central thing, the thing you must 
 be brave to hear. You are an illegitimate 
 child, Augustine." At that she stopped. 
 She listened and heard nothing. Then 
 came long breaths. 
 
 She opened her eyes to see that his head 
 had fallen forward and was buried in his 
 arms. "I can't bear it. I can't bear it " 
 came in gasps. 
 
 She could say nothing. She had no 
 word of alleviation for his agony. Only 
 she felt it turning like a sword in her 
 heart. 
 
 "Say something to me" Augustine 
 gasped on. "You did that for him, too. 
 I am his child. You are not my mother. 
 " He could not sob. 
 
 Amabel gazed at him. With the un- 
 imaginable revelation of his love came the 
 unimaginable turning of the sword ; it was 
 this that she must destroy. She com- 
 manded herself to inflict, swiftly, the fur- 
 ther blow. 
 
 251
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 "Augustine," she said. 
 
 He lifted a blind face, hearing her voice. 
 He opened his eyes. They looked at each 
 other. 
 
 'I am your mother," said Amabel. 
 
 He gazed at her. He gazed and gazed; 
 and she offered herself to the crucifixion 
 of his transfixing eyes. 
 
 The silence grew long. It had done its 
 work. Once more she put her hands be- 
 fore her face. "Listen," she said. "I will 
 tell you." 
 
 He did not stir nor move his eyes from 
 her hidden face while she spoke. Swiftly, 
 clearly, monotonously, she told him all. 
 She paused at nothing; she slurred 
 nothing. She read him the story of the 
 stupid sinner from the long closed book 
 of the past. There was no hesitation for 
 a word; no uncertainty for an interpreta- 
 tion. Everything was written clearly and 
 she had only to read it out. And while she 
 spoke, of her girlhood, her marriage, of 
 the man with the unknown name his 
 father of her flight with him, her flight 
 252
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 from him, here, to this house, Augustine 
 sat motionless. His eyes considered her, 
 fixed in their contemplation. 
 
 She told him of his own coming, of her 
 brother's anger and dismay, of Sir Hugh's 
 magnanimity, and of how he had been 
 born to her, her child, the unfortun- 
 ate one, whom she had felt unworthy to 
 love as a child should be loved. She told 
 him how her sin had shut him away 
 and made strangeness grow between 
 them. 
 
 And when all this was told Amabel put 
 down her hands. His stillness had grown 
 uncanny: he might not have been there; 
 she might have been talking in an empty 
 room. But he was there, sitting opposite 
 her, as she had last seen him, half turned 
 in his seat, fallen together a little as 
 though his breathing were very slight and 
 shallow; and his dilated eyes, strange, 
 deep, fierce, were fixed on her. She shut 
 the sight out with her hands. 
 
 She stumbled a little now in speaking 
 on, and spoke more slowly. She knew 
 
 253
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 herself condemned and the rest seemed 
 unnecessary. It only remained to tell him 
 how her mistaken love had also shut him 
 out; to tell, slightly, not touching Lady 
 Elliston's name, of how the mistake had 
 come to pass ; to say, finally, on long, fail- 
 ing breaths, that her sin had always been 
 between them but that, until the other day, 
 when he had told her of his ideals, she 
 had not seen how impassable was the di- 
 vision. "And now," she said, and the con- 
 vulsive trembling shook her as she spoke, 
 "now you must say what you will do. I 
 am a different woman from the mother 
 you have loved and reverenced. You will 
 not care to be with the stranger you must 
 feel me to be. You are free, and you must 
 leave me. Only," she said, but her voice 
 now shook so that she could hardly say the 
 words "only I will always be here- 
 loving you, Augustine; loving you and 
 perhaps, forgive me if I have no right to 
 that, even hoping; hoping that some 
 day, in some degree, you may care for me 
 again." 
 
 254
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 She stopped. She could say no more. 
 And she could only hear her own shudder- 
 ing breaths. 
 
 Then Augustine moved. He pushed 
 back his chair and rose. She waited to 
 hear him leave the room, and leave her, 
 to her doom, in silence. 
 
 But he was standing still. 
 
 Then he came near to her. And now 
 she waited for the words that would be 
 worse than silence. 
 
 But at first there were no words. He 
 had fallen on his knees before her ; he had 
 put his arms around her; he was press- 
 ing his head against her breast while, 
 trembling as she trembled, he said: 
 "Mother Mother Mother." 
 
 All barriers had fallen at the cry. It 
 was the cry of the exile, the banished 
 thing, returning to its home. He pressed 
 against the heart to which she had never 
 herself dared to draw him. 
 
 But, incredulous, she parted her hands 
 and looked down at him ; and still she did 
 not dare enfold him. 
 
 255
 
 AMABEL CHANNICE 
 
 "Augustine do you understand? Do 
 you still love me? " 
 
 "Oh Mother," he gasped, "what ha^e 
 I been to you that you can ask me !" 
 
 "You can forgive me?" Amabel said, 
 weeping, and hiding her face against his 
 hair. 
 
 They were locked in each other's arms. 
 
 And, his head upon her breast, as if it 
 were her own heart that spoke to her, he 
 said: "I will atone to you. I will make 
 up to you for everything. You shall be 
 glad that I was born." 
 
 256
 
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