■stTjEpffty 
 
 
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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
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Miranda 
 
 ■ 
 
'Books by the 
 
 same Author. 
 
 ^exx>^ 
 
 Lady Audley's Secret 
 
 Asphodel 
 
 Henry Dunbar 
 
 Mount Royal 
 
 Eleanor's Victory 
 
 The Golden Calf 
 
 Aurora Floyd 
 
 Phantom Fortune 
 
 I John Marchmont's Legacy 
 
 Flower and Weed 
 
 I The Doctor's Wife 
 
 Ishmael 
 
 | Only a Clod 
 
 Wyllard's Weird 
 
 j Sir Jasper's Tenant 
 
 Under the Red Flag 
 
 | Trail of the Serpent 
 
 One Thing Needful 
 
 The Lady's Mile 
 
 Mohawks 
 
 Lady Lisle 
 
 Like and Unlike 
 
 Captain of the Vulture 
 
 The Fatal Three 
 
 Birds of Prey 
 
 The Day Will Come 
 
 Charlotte's Inheritance 
 
 One Life, One Love 
 
 Rupert Godwin 
 
 Gerard 
 
 Run to Earth 
 
 The Venetians 
 
 Dead Sea Fruit 
 
 All Along the River 
 
 Ralph the Bailiff 
 
 Thou Art the Man 
 
 Fenton's Quest 
 
 Sons of Fire 
 
 Lovels of Arden 
 
 Rough Justice 
 
 Robert Ainsleigh 
 
 Under Love's Rule 
 
 To the Bitter End 
 
 The Christmas Hirelings 
 
 Milly Darrel 
 
 London Pride 
 
 Strangers and Pilgrims 
 
 The Conflict 
 
 Lucius Davoren 
 Taken at the Flood 
 Lost for Love 
 A Strange World 
 Hostages to Fortune 
 Dead Men's Shoes 
 Joshua Haggard 
 Weavers and Weft 
 An Open Verdict 
 Vixen 
 
 The Cloven Foot 
 The Story of Barbara 
 Just as I Am 
 
 The Infidel 
 
 His Darling Sin 
 
 In High Places 
 
 A Lost Eden 
 ! The Rose of Life 
 
 The White House 
 
 Her Convict 
 
 Dead Love Has Chains 
 
 During Her Majesty's Plea- 
 sure 
 | Our Adversary 
 
 Beyond These Voices 
 
 The Green Curtain 
 
Miranda ByM.E.Bmddon 
 
 Author of "Lady Dudley's Secret," "The Green 
 Curtain," * ••*«•* • etc., etc. 
 
 1 
 
 LONDON; HUTCHINSON & CO. 
 PATERNOSTER ROW - - 79/3 
 

KII3 
 
 MIRANDA 
 
 BOOK THE FIRST 
 
 LOTOS-EATERS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE BARROW was not the great house at Melford- 
 on-the-Moor, though it was one of the largest 
 houses, and indisputably the richest house in that pastoral 
 parish. But at Melford the parochial mind had a strong 
 bias in favour of blue blood ; and though The Barrow 
 employed more labour and spent more money than any 
 other house in Melford, Tower Hill, which had belonged 
 to Lord Airdale's ancestors from the reign of Henry the 
 Eighth, must always rank as the great house, whether 
 exhibiting the dreary aspect of shuttered windows and 
 gardens running to seed, or shining across the rural land- 
 scape in the autumn evenings, a place of light and music, 
 where town ladies were playing bridge with the men who 
 came to his lordship's great shoot. 
 
 The shootings belonging to The Barrow covered a wider 
 range of wood and waste, but they had been less carefully 
 preserved since Mr. Strickland's death, and shoots were 
 seldom and guns were few under Lady Laura's rule. The 
 mound that gave its name to the estate, bought some two 
 centuries ago by Mr. Strickland's ancestor, an East India 
 
 721 
 
2 MIRANDA 
 
 merchant, was the earthy sepulchre of a Roman general, 
 who may have been a fine soldier and a hero in his time, 
 but of whom Melford, and even famous archaeologists, 
 knew no more than the fact that his bones lay under that 
 grassy mound on the highest spot of the long, low hill 
 behind the handsome red-brick house that the East India 
 merchant had built for himself in those later years of the 
 good Queen's reign, when the fate of her half-brothei 
 still trembled in the balance, and England might have 
 had a fifth Stuart king. 
 
 The main fact that the barrow was genuine, and that 
 the Roman's ashes were actually underneath, had been 
 established by sacrilegious burrowings and the testimony 
 of antiquarian experts. To identify Roman dust might 
 be difficult, but those bronze coins and an inscription 
 upon the vase that held the dust left no doubt as to the 
 nationality of the soldier or the date of his death. 
 
 The red-brick house, with stone decoration, and triple 
 range of high, narrow windows, classical pediment and 
 pillared porch, left little to be desired in the way of domestic 
 architecture. It possessed the dignity that comes from 
 size and solidity, was grand, and yet looked like a house 
 to live in, not like a hospital or board-school. Strangers 
 never asked what the building was. They asked who 
 lived there, and were inclined to envy the owner of a 
 house that was old enough to be picturesque, yet new 
 enough to be sound in every stone and timber, and suitable 
 for all the needs of domestic life, with space for a large 
 hospitality and a numerous family. 
 
 It seemed rather a pity, people said, that poor Mr. 
 Strickland had been killed in a railway accident within a 
 year of his marriage, and that dear Lady Laura should 
 have been left with an only daughter, born six months after 
 Mr. Strickland's death. 
 
 Mr. Strickland was the last of seven generations of pros- 
 perous merchants, the last representative of a famous 
 house in Mincing Lane and a firm which had been always 
 remarkable for its good fortune. Whatever the Strick- 
 lands touched turned to gold. They had been opportunists 
 
MIRANDA 3 
 
 in the world of commerce, and had always known when 
 to take a thing up and when to drop it. They had been 
 fortunate in everything except the maintenance of their 
 race. That had dwindled. The firm had been Strickland 
 Brothers, not Strickland and Son, and when Robert Strick- 
 land lost his life in the memorable collision of an express 
 and a goods train in a December snowstorm, he was, with 
 the exception of a bachelor uncle, the last of the Mincing 
 Lane Stricklands. 
 
 The gentlefolks at Melford, who were mostly retired 
 Colonels or Post-Captains — by courtesy Admirals — often 
 talked of Mr. Strickland, or rather, their wives and elderly 
 daughters talked, with undiminished interest, though he 
 had been lying under a massive granite cross in the church- 
 yard for nearly eighteen years. It was not because he 
 himself had been particularly interesting, but because he 
 had married " blood," and had left a large fortune to the 
 daughter who had never seen a father's face or heard a 
 father's voice. 
 
 " Mr. Strickland was a gentleman, though he made his 
 money in trade," Colonel Devereux's wife remarked, not 
 for the first time, as she poured out tea for the two Miss 
 Parlbys, their widowed mother, and the junior curate, 
 the four guests attracted by her fortnightly hospitality : 
 " At home first and third Fridays " — a form of entertain- 
 ment of which the Melford gentry did well to avail them- 
 selves, since other hospitalities were rare at Devereux 
 Court, the large white house facing the village green, where 
 the colonel had been steadily growing rich, by the simple 
 process of spending less than half his income. 
 
 " But it was wholesale trade, and on a very large 
 scale," said the elder Miss Parlby. " I don't suppose 
 Mr. Strickland had ever handled a pound of coffee in his 
 life." 
 
 " Of course not," said Mrs. Devereux. " They never 
 saw coffee. They made their money in the rise and fall 
 of markets. They made thousands in a morning." 
 
 " That sounds more like gambling than trade," sighed 
 Mrs. Parlby. 
 
 I* 
 
4 MIRANDA 
 
 " It was gambling/ ' said Mrs. Devereux. " The Strick- 
 lands speculated in all sorts of things, and ran great risks, 
 but they were always lucky." 
 
 " Yet I was just a little bit surprised at Lord Airdale 
 allowing his daughter to marry a coffee-merchant," said 
 Mrs. Parlby. " Such a proud man as he was, looking down 
 upon everybody whose ancestors were not in the First 
 Crusade." 
 
 " The Denzils were as poor as church mice, and people 
 can't live upon dead crusaders," said Mrs. Devereux, 
 who was always broad-minded and practical. " It was a 
 very good match for Lady Laura, though she was quite 
 the prettiest of the Denzil girls, and she has nothing to 
 complain of, though her three sisters are peeresses. Strick- 
 land was a gentleman, and immensely rich. What more 
 could anybody want ? " 
 
 " What, indeed ! " sighed the Miss Parlbys, who had 
 ceased to hope for anything in the shape of a husband 
 for the last six years, during which period even their 
 dearest friends had left off talking of them as " the Parlby 
 girls." 
 
 " I don't suppose any of her sisters is as well off as Lady 
 Laura," said Kate. 
 
 " And how sweet of her not to marry again," said Clara. 
 
 Here the young curate, who had been quietly consuming 
 a crumpet, put in a word. 
 
 " Lady Laura is a woman of deeply religious mind and 
 strong convictions," he said. " I should have been sur- 
 prised if such a woman could contemplate a second 
 marriage." 
 
 " But you have only known her for the last three years, 
 and she has been seventeen years a widow. How do you 
 know how many times she may have Contemplated a 
 second marriage before you came to Melford ? " 
 
 " It would not be in her character. I base my opinion 
 on that." 
 
 " I don't like dogmatism, but so far you are right. She 
 never has thought of marrying again, though I believe 
 there has been more than one attempt to win her. But 
 
MIRANDA 5 
 
 there is a reason for her not marrying, which you do not 
 appear to have fathomed," Mrs. Devereux concluded, 
 determined not to encourage opinionativeness in a youth 
 of two-and-twenty, not yet in Priest's Orders. 
 
 " I can imagine no reason but high principles." 
 
 " Then you have not discovered the master-passion of 
 Lady Laura's life — her overweening love for her only 
 child. There never was such an adoring mother. One 
 can but hope such idolatry is rare. Poor woman ! She is 
 my dearest friend, and I am warmly attached to her ; 
 but I see her unreasoning love for that girl, and I tremble 
 for her future." 
 
 " But Miranda is quite sweet," said Clara Parlby. 
 " The sort of girl no mother could spoil." 
 
 " And exquisitely pretty," said Kate, " with an ideal 
 figure." 
 
 " What girl could help having a figure when her riding- 
 habits cost twenty guineas, and even her cotton frocks are 
 made in Hanover Square ? " said Kate's mother, with a 
 touch of scorn. It was hard to sit facing her two faded 
 daughters in their village-tailor coats and skirts and to 
 hear them praising the young heiress, who had been born 
 lovely, and reared in the nicest clothes that money could 
 buy. Nobody outside the Laurels — and not even the 
 house-parlourmaid inside — knew the thought and calcu- 
 lation, the poring over sale-catalogues, and study of 
 patterns, that went with the choosing of a frock for the 
 Miss Parlbys, and how often the frock that had promised 
 to look as if it had come straight from Paris snowed in 
 every line too familiar faults of the Melford dressmaker. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 MIRANDA was seventeen. She had lived through 
 seventeen of the happiest years that were ever 
 given to mortal on this prosaic earth. Her life had been 
 all poetry — the poetry of an existence steeped in the love 
 of good women. Her nurse was an excellent woman, 
 young and fresh and warm-hearted, with enough mind 
 for all the duties that were required of her, a servant of 
 the antique type, who would no more have thought of 
 giving warning than of drowning herself, who lived only 
 to serve the baby she had reared, and who never had left 
 off wondering that the little round-limbed creature that 
 had been so sweet, something between a bird and a flower, 
 could have developed into a beautiful young woman. 
 
 " To think that she should be so tall and stately, my 
 lady, the rosy mite that used to lie in my lap and laugh at 
 the sunshine on the nursery wall, and coo and coo, she 
 would — always sweet-tempered, and loved her bath, and 
 never hardly cried, except with her back teeth, and to 
 think that she should be so tall, and walk and move like 
 a princess." 
 
 " Did you ever see a princess, Baker ? " 
 
 " Yes, indeed I have, my lady ; when Miss Miranda was 
 two years old, and we was all at Bordighera. There was a 
 royal Princess in the hotel ; but she was a Russian and 
 much too fat." 
 
 This was spoken when Miranda was only fifteen, when 
 she was taller than most girls of her age. She was seven- 
 teen now, and perhaps the tallest of the bread-and-butter 
 
 6 
 
MIRANDA 7 
 
 misses of Melford, and, as most people said, the prettiest — 
 though there was often that after-thought about her 
 " advantages," the fashionable dressmaker, the riding, 
 the gymnasium, the life of ease and happiness, all things 
 that could combine to make youth lovely. 
 
 She was seventeen, and according to the talk at tea- 
 tables, Lady Laura was to take a house in London next 
 year, and this pearl of daughters was to be presented 
 at Court, and was to be launched in society with all the 
 flourish that ought to mark the first appearance of a beauty 
 and an heiress. 
 
 This was what the gossips had arranged, and they knew 
 even whose house Lady Laura meant to take — namely, 
 that of her sister, Lady Haverstock, who was by no means 
 affluent, and generally found some good reason for being 
 away from Mayfair in the season, while Lord and Lady 
 Tom, Dick, or Harry enjoyed the amenities of her fine house 
 in Hill Street. This was what the gossips had arranged ; 
 but Lady Laura had spoken no word of Mayfair, or 
 Buckingham Palace, and Miranda hated the idea of London, 
 and that first season which girls of her age talked of as the 
 acme of terrestrial bliss. They did not believe her when 
 she told them that she had no longing for balls and 
 parties, nor for the opera and the theatres. They told 
 each other that this affectation of indifference was all 
 " side." 
 
 " She won't let herself go when she is talking to us," 
 said Mary Lester, whose people ranked as county on the 
 strength of two hundred acres of neglected woods, and a 
 fine stretch of park-like meadows let to the local butcher 
 for grazing land, which had been owned by the Lesters 
 since the Tudors. " She thinks we are not good enough. 
 She is wrapped up in the idea of her own importance, and 
 fancies herself a genius. Her governess told me in confi- 
 dence that she sits up till midnight writing poetry by her 
 dressing-room fire. That mother of hers has made a fool 
 of her." 
 
 Mary, Bessie, and Doris Lester had not been fooled in 
 the home-circle. They had no dressing-room fires, and 
 
8 MIRANDA 
 
 they had to sit at meat with a father who questioned and 
 found fault with every word they spoke, except when he 
 was grumbling about the food, or quarrelling with their 
 mother. 
 
 It may be that Miranda had enjoyed too much of the 
 roses and lilies of life, and that a girlhood of such absolute 
 indulgence was hardly the best preparation for the battle 
 which has to come in the lives of women — whatever their 
 temporal advantages, — the battle of the heart, or of the 
 brain, the fight with fate, or the fight with man. 
 
 Lady Laura had loved her husband as fondly as if he 
 had been a lineal descendant of the Plantagenets, though 
 she was credited with having been won by his wealth ; 
 and the child who had come to her after his ghastly death, 
 had come as a ray of light in the deep gloom of a woman's 
 first sorrow. The smile in the infant's face was her conso- 
 lation. She would have liked to call her baby Consuelo, 
 but her father implored her not to give the child a foreign 
 name, and so she was christened Miranda, after Shake- 
 speare's high-bred heroine. 
 
 " They are all lovely," Lady Laura said sometimes, 
 when she condescended to justify her choice : " Juliet, 
 Beatrice, Perdita, Viola ; but Miranda is Shakespeare's 
 ideal lady " — which did not prevent Lord Airdale calling 
 it " a stoopid affected name." 
 
 Miranda grew from infancy to the " coming-out " age, 
 in an atmosphere of poetry. Lady Laura, being pro- 
 tected by wealth from all the petty cares and sordid con- 
 siderations of daily life, and armed against all troubles of 
 the heart by her devotion to the memory of a husband 
 lost in the first freshness of wedded life, was free to give 
 her nights and days to literature and art, and as she was 
 romantic, and an enthusiast, literature with her meant 
 poetry, and art meant Botticelli, Raphael and Burne- 
 Jones. She was deeply religious, and the romantic 
 element was necessary in her idea of religion. She was 
 not a Roman Catholic, but all her leanings were towards 
 the religion of the past ; and it was not till Gilbert Ferrar 
 came to Trownham, the busy manufacturing town on the 
 
MIRANDA 9 
 
 other side of the moor, and established a ritual which 
 had never been imagined until he became Vicar of St. 
 Barnabas, that Lady Laura found a service that satisfied 
 her idea of what Christian worship ought to be. From 
 that time, without absolutely deserting the old parish 
 church at Melford, to which she felt herself bound by the 
 chain of long association, the grave old church that had 
 seen her baptism, her confirmation, her marriage and her 
 husband's funeral service, Lady Laura was to be found 
 at most of the evening services in the new church at 
 Trownham, sitting among a congregation of shopkeepers, 
 annuitants, clerks and factory hands, which filled a temple 
 where the seats were free, and where there was no respect 
 of persons. 
 
 St. Barnabas' was a memorial church, built with a 
 noble disregard of cost, by the widow of the richest manu- 
 facturer in the big, unlovely town. A famous ecclesiastical 
 architect had come from London, and had been allowed to 
 indulge his loftiest yearnings in the creation of one perfect 
 building — untrammelled by calculations as to cost, or by 
 the prejudice, or the bad taste of his client. The manu- 
 facturer's widow had no ideas of her own that she wanted 
 realized. She told the architect that he was to design 
 a church to hold so many people, and was to make it lovely, 
 and worthy of " him." The portrait of the defunct hus- 
 band to which she pointed as she finished her little speech, 
 with a stress upon the pronoun, was not suggestive of a 
 lofty aestheticism, but her own meaning was pathetic in 
 its sincerity, and the architect threw all his mind into 
 the work. The Early English church was worthy of the 
 generous feeling that had created it, and when the first 
 Vicar's power as a preacher came to be known, and the 
 new life and colour of his ritual to be understood and 
 appreciated, St. Barnabas' became the best-filled church 
 in Trownham, with an unsalaried choir who cheerfully 
 sacrificed hours that had once been spent in trivial 
 pleasures. Mr. Ferrar was an accomplished musician 
 and an indefatigable worker, and in less than two years 
 after he read himself in at St. Barnabas', his choir was 
 
io MIRANDA 
 
 good enough to be heard without a blush by the man who, 
 as an undergraduate, had been familiar with the choirs of 
 Magdalen and New College. 
 
 Everybody wondered why Mr. Ferrar had taken upon 
 himself the new parish of St. Barnabas, a parish where 
 there was everything to do — and no endowment with 
 which to do it. That a man who had taken a first in 
 greats at Oriel should of his own choice come to preach 
 to mill-hands and the humblest of shopkeepers — in a 
 place where nonconformity was rampant and the Church of 
 England in the dust — did not create wonder; for neither 
 that mysterious word " greats " nor the exclusiveness of 
 Oriel carried any meaning to the people who wondered 
 and speculated about their first Vicar. But that a man 
 of means — a man who could afford to pick and choose — 
 should be willing to live year in, year out, in a wilderness 
 of narrow streets, where the air was heavy with the reek 
 of poverty, and where the word " society " had no mean- 
 ing, seemed an insoluble problem for the gentilities within 
 reach of Trownham. 
 
 The new church was a revelation to the people who came 
 there for the first time — not those superior people from the 
 better parts of Trownham, who had assisted at the conse- 
 cration service and listened to the Archbishop, but the 
 offscouring, the real parishioners, for whom there had been 
 no room in the old churches, and for whose redemption 
 this handsome grey stone temple had been built. The 
 decorated altar, the lighted candles, the white-robed 
 choir and the fine music were things that had not been 
 known in Trownham. But the preacher who stood up in 
 his white surplice and embroidered stole, — the tall, erect 
 figure, motionless as if carved in marble,' — the strong, 
 clear-cut face, thick dark hair, and steel-grey eyes under 
 penthouse brows, — the powerful voice, low rather than 
 loud, yet audible in the farthest corner of the church — 
 these were the new things that opened new vistas of 
 thought to the long heads of the men, and brought a 
 cloud across the sight of the women who watched the new 
 face and listened to the new voice. 
 
MIRANDA n 
 
 That first sermon of Gilbert Ferrar's was the keynote 
 to his life in Trownham. 
 
 " God is light." 
 
 That was his text. 
 
 " Come out of the darkness ! " 
 
 That was his sermon. 
 
 He told them that he had come to bring them light. 
 That was his mission in Trownham. Light in their homes, 
 light in their minds — open doors and windows — open 
 hearts to receive the message of salvation, open eyes to 
 see the glory of God on earth. The light of truth, the 
 light of day, and the light that shines in a clean home 
 and a clear conscience. He spoke to them from a level, 
 as it were shoulder to shoulder, man to man — roughly 
 almost, as no preacher had ever spoken to them before — 
 not like the familiar nonconformist — who let himself down 
 to talk to them — more as the colonel of a regiment might 
 talk, jollying his soldiers. They went out of the church 
 full of wonder, half angry and half pleased — " Parson 
 was a queer sort — but the right sort." 
 
 That first sermon was his letter of introduction. He 
 and his flock understood each other and were friends — 
 pals, some of them said, with a simple assurance that took 
 no account of caste differences. 
 
 If they did not slap him on the back, at least they 
 liked him to do it to them. His strong personality 
 exercised a kind of awe even when their relations with 
 him were most familiar. 
 
 Gilbert Ferrar was not yet in his thirtieth year when he 
 came to Trownham; and though the townspeople were 
 inclined to think the living ought to have been given to 
 a man of maturer age and wider experience in the church, 
 even the most narrow-minded and conventional among 
 them were soon assured that they had a strong man for 
 their Vicar. A man who meant to take his own line and 
 to hold it. A man not to be deflected from his purpose 
 even by the most influential member of his congregation. 
 Indeed it was discovered before he had been vicar half 
 a year that there were no influential members of the 
 
12 MIRANDA 
 
 congregation, and that neither money nor position made 
 the faintest difference in his appreciation of the units of 
 his flock. For the first year there was some discontent, 
 and letters were written to the local papers, not without 
 suggestions of an appeal to Episcopal authority — but the 
 Vicar took no notice of the letters, and the Bishop was 
 not called upon to interfere. Before he had been two 
 years in authority Mr. Ferrar was the most popular man 
 in Trownham. His eloquence, his passion for all things 
 fit and beautiful, with its backing of strong common- 
 sense, had filled his church, and made him the delight and 
 desire of his people. He might have dined out six times 
 a week, gossips told each other, and not only in the villas 
 on the Melford Road, where successful commerce took 
 its rest after labour, but in the outlying mansions of the 
 landed gentry. Gilbert Ferrar, however, had not taken 
 orders with any idea of dining out every evening, or being 
 accepted as an equal by the lords of the soil. He had 
 entered the church as a way of doing the utmost good to 
 his fellow-creatures that one man can do in this chaotic 
 world, and it was not in his character to do his work in 
 a humdrum manner or to preach colourless sermons. As a 
 parish priest he had shown himself something of a despot, 
 kindly but autocratic. He had penetrated into the 
 obscurest corners of the town. He spared neither rich 
 nor poor. He was the scourge of owners of tenement 
 houses, but he was also the terror of neglectful mothers and 
 slovenly house-wives. Those steel-grey eyes looked into all 
 dark and dirty corners, moral and physical. He looked 
 through the faces of his flock and read the minds behind the 
 simpering masks of the women or the scowling brows of the 
 men. For the first year of his stewardship the prevailing 
 sentiment among the poor had been dislike — not distrust. 
 They knew, somehow, that the man was no humbug, no 
 preacher of cut-and-dried religion, chaff instead of wheat. 
 They told each other in their tap-rooms and clubs that the 
 Vicar of St. Barnabas was straight, and that he had more 
 brains than any other parson in Trownham, where parsons 
 conforming and non-conforming were many. The second 
 
MIRANDA 13 
 
 year of his ministry changed the aspect of affairs, and 
 there was seen at St. Barnabas' a development that was 
 new to Trownham, a church crowded with rough-looking 
 men and poorly-clad women at all the evening services, 
 even those extra eight o'clock services on Saints' days, 
 which the Vicar devoted especially to the factory people. 
 
 The women who had resented his investigation of small 
 domestic matters had learnt the value of his advice. He 
 had saved the lives of their children by his lessons in 
 hygiene. He made their husbands sober. Improve- 
 ment had followed in his footsteps. The search-light of 
 his keen intellect had given the slums a new aspect. " No 
 one as knowed this part of Trownham before the Reverend 
 Ferrar come would believe as it was the same place," said 
 the mothers of the flock. " When first he come about 
 here, we couldn't abide him. He do peer and pry so, and 
 there never was such a pair of eyes to see things one don't 
 want folks to see — but, Lord 'elp us, now we don't mind 
 'im, and we just enjoy his bit of chaff when he spies out a 
 greasy saucepan, or a dirty lump of bread on the floor." 
 
 Gilbert Ferrar' s first curacy had been in a larger town 
 than Trownham, one of the crowded manufacturing cities 
 of the West Riding — and by comparison with the slums 
 in which he had worked there, the worst street in his 
 present parish was an abode of law and order. He had 
 worked as Father Dolling and other heroic souls had 
 worked, dealing with raw material in which the possibility 
 of improvement would have appeared hopeless to the 
 normal mind — only the more keenly interested in the work 
 because it seemed impossible. He came to Trownham 
 fortified by three years' labour in a worse atmosphere, 
 and his experience, his courage, and his hopefulness, had 
 achieved much when Lady Laura Strickland first heard 
 of him, and of the things he had done. 
 
 It was at the evening service on the twenty-ninth 
 of June, the anniversary of St. Peter, Apostle and Martyr, 
 that Lady Laura entered the church of St. Barnabas for 
 the first time. People had talked to her so enthusiastically 
 about the preacher that she had expected a well-dressed 
 
i 4 MIRANDA 
 
 congregation, all the gentilities of the busy commercial 
 town, and it was a surprise to see the closely-packed 
 ranks of working people, in their working clothes — all 
 decent and cleanly, but the men in fustian or corduroy 
 and the women in the pinched little black bonnets and 
 skimpy shawls that mark the household toiler. 
 
 Lady Laura was charmed with the choir and the 
 anthem — but still more impressed by the preacher. His 
 sermon was eminently practical, dealing with the sins and 
 sorrows, the struggles and failures of the class to which 
 his hearers belonged. He began his discourse with a 
 graphic and vivid picture of that other life, two thousand 
 years ago, the life of the Apostle and Martyr whose anni- 
 versary they were celebrating. He brought before these 
 toilers in the daily grind the heroic life of the Apostle in 
 a world where Christianity was a new thing, and where 
 he who had to tell men of the divine law of love knew 
 that he was moving towards a dreadful death. He told 
 them how St. Peter had worked, and then he compared 
 that wonderful life with their own, and that pagan world, 
 with its rule of blood and iron, with the advanced civili- 
 zation in which they lived, and which offered hope of 
 reward for the patient toiler who set his face towards the 
 light, and refused all contact with the sons of darkness. 
 
 Lady Laura was strongly moved. The man was original. 
 He did not thresh the empty husks of a dry-as-dust 
 theology that had been preached year in year out in a 
 thousand churches. He spoke straight from a strong 
 brain and a warm heart to the hearts and minds of his 
 flock. She was interested and attracted by him, the more 
 so, as on his first being heard of as a power at Trownham 
 she had discovered that he was a distant cousin — very 
 distant, but still an undoubted sprig of the family tree, 
 his mother having been a certain Magdalen Ferrar, great- 
 granddaughter of the ninth Earl of Airdale. 
 
 She wrote to the Vicar next morning, inviting him to 
 luncheon on any day that he found himself at liberty. '.' I 
 was much interested in your service and in your congrega- 
 tion," she wrote, " and I should like to be of use to your 
 
MIRANDA IS 
 
 people. This is a small rural parish, and there is nothing 
 one can do here out of the beaten track — while in a place 
 like Trownham there must be infinite need of help of all 
 kinds.' ' 
 
 And then she touched lightly upon the thin little link 
 of kindred and in a manner offered him her friendship. 
 
 He answered her letter cordially, but without gush, 
 and he rode over the moor to The Barrow three days later, 
 a good horse being the only luxury he allowed himself. 
 
 He spent three hours with Lady Laura and Miranda, 
 then a tall slip of twelve years old, with her pretty frock 
 covered by a muslin overall, and a mane of rich, dark- 
 brown hair, that fell below the slim waist. 
 
 This had happened six years ago, and Gilbert wondered 
 at the vivid colouring in which the picture of that one 
 summer day with Miranda the child came back to him 
 whenever he thought of Miranda the woman. When did 
 he not think of her ? She was with him in all he did, in 
 all he hoped, in all he feared. In the midst of a scene of 
 misery in the slums, when he was trying to solve some 
 difficult problem for wretched man and wife — or brawling 
 mother and daughter — the thought of what Miranda 
 would want him to do in such a case, of how sorry Miranda 
 would be for these poor sinners, how willing to excuse and 
 to forgive, was an irresistible influence. He was no longer 
 the hard-headed man of the world who could consider a 
 case in all its bearings. He was no longer the student who 
 had studied humanity as a science, and knew all the work- 
 ings of the machine. He was Miranda, generous and 
 impulsive, with a heart too easily melted, too quick to 
 sympathize with suffering, however vile the sufferer. 
 
 Miranda ! Smoking his last pipe by his lonely hearth, 
 when the fire burned low and the Town clock, the Big Ben 
 of Trownham, had struck midnight, it pleased him some- 
 times to live over again that first day at The Barrow, and 
 to evoke Miranda's image in her thirteenth year. The 
 slender form, the swift, graceful movements, as she ran 
 across the lawn, and roamed about among the flower-beds, 
 playing with her fox-terrier, while he and Lady Laura were 
 
16 MIRANDA 
 
 taking their coffee on the terrace, and talking over the 
 needs and shortcomings of his congregation. He could see 
 the flying hair, the fluttering muslin frock, and the sweet, 
 girlish face — he could see her as she stood before her 
 mother, when she was tired of running about, just a little 
 breathless, but full of eager talk. She was disappointed 
 in the pansies ; Morley was not good at pansies ; he ought 
 to have whole beds of purple violas with half-standard 
 roses among them — white roses, Niphetos or Boule de Neige. 
 
 " I told him so last December, and instead of that he 
 has used all his violas for bordering, and has dotted his 
 pansies about in miserable little clusters. Morley is a 
 poor creature, mother. He has no idea of colour in masses. 
 I shall never make anything of him ; he has neither eye nor 
 mind for large effects." 
 
 Miranda spoke with a superb authority. She had been 
 reading expensive gardening books ; gloating over pictures 
 of old-world gardens in show places. 
 
 " You ought not to talk of Morley like that, Miranda," 
 said her mother. " He is very forbearing when Jock runs 
 over the flower-beds." 
 
 " Jock doesn't run, mother dearest. He skims. I 
 don't believe he breaks two geranium branches in a week ; 
 and as for the roses, he only shakes the dew out of 
 them." 
 
 " Morley knows better," said Lady Laura. 
 r - Miranda dropped on the ground beside her dog, and 
 took him on her lap. 
 
 " My angel, you shall spoil as many flowers as you like ; 
 but you don't spoil them, my precious pet. You fly over 
 them like a flash of lightning, or like Juliet when she 
 jumps a ditch." 
 
 Juliet was Miranda's pony, naturally the very best 
 thing possible in ponies. 
 
 Miranda rode — nay, even followed the hounds, once a 
 week or so, for a winter treat ; with James Whipple for 
 pilot, philosopher and friend. Whipple had taught Lady 
 Laura and her sisters to ride and drive twenty years before, 
 when he was stud-groom in Lord Airdale's service. He 
 
MIRANDA 17 
 
 had left Tower Hill to be coachman and responsible manager 
 in Mr. Strickland's stables, where more money was spent 
 in a month than his lordship disbursed in a year, no price 
 being too much in Mr. Strickland's opinion for a perfect 
 horse. 
 
 Whipple was the only man in England whom Lady 
 Laura would have trusted with the care of her daughter, 
 that one being upon whose existence her own life hung as 
 on a thread. Whipple had made his lordship's daughters 
 good horsewomen, and Whipple took over the six-year-old 
 darling with a notion that he had here a finer material 
 than he had found in the young ladies of the previous 
 generation. 
 
 M Lady Geraldine never had much nerve, and Lady 
 Hilda had no hands," he told his mistress, " and I think 
 you all felt a bit anxious at first, my lady ; but this little 
 one is a born horsewoman. The way she settles herself 
 in her saddle and gives Juliet her head shows she's game. 
 And the mare knows she's got her mistress." 
 
 From six to twelve Miranda had enjoyed the benefit of 
 Whipple's tenderest care, and if she had now been asked 
 who were her most cherished friends, James Whipple 
 might have come first on the list. He rode with her every 
 morning, fine weather or foul. He took care of her dogs, 
 which were various and numerous out of doors, though 
 her indoor pack was comprised by Jock, the smooth- 
 haired fox-terrier, whose points were all that they should 
 be — long nose, straight legs, round feet, every detail correct 
 — and whose affection for Miranda was pathetic. 
 
 Miranda was queen of the gardens, and gave her orders, 
 inspired by the expensive garden-books, with a superb 
 indifference to cost or trouble. 
 
 So much for Miranda out of doors. Her indoor life 
 was much upon the same lines. Her mother was her 
 only teacher, and her lessons were of the lightest ; all 
 knowledge being imparted in the pleasantest way. When 
 once she had learned to read and write all semblance of 
 formal instruction was at an end. Mother and daughter 
 read delightful books together, and talked of them and 
 
1 8 MIRANDA 
 
 went back to them, till the history of the world and of the 
 things that great men and women had done in the world 
 became part and parcel of Miranda's mind. 
 
 They read history, they read travels, the newest his- 
 tories, the newest explorations. They read and talked 
 about the books they read until Miranda's mind was like 
 a picture-gallery — a moving theatre of wonderful sights, 
 and wonderful adventures — an endless procession of heroes 
 and martyrs, sages and soldiers. They read Shakespeare, 
 and the modern poets, and Walter Scott's novels, and that 
 was the kind of reading Miranda loved best of all. The 
 greater part of that moving theatre was peopled by Shake- 
 speare and Scott. Before she fell asleep at night, and 
 in her first hour of waking — while the birds were singing 
 their morning hymn in the hour before sunrise — her pillow 
 was surrounded by phantoms. 
 
 A romantic mother had created a romantic child. 
 Lady Laura and her daughter lived in a paradise of their 
 own making. Of the hard things that other people have 
 to suffer Miranda Strickland knew but little. Lady Laura's 
 one failing was indolence. She was indolent in body and 
 in mind. The one hateful thing in her idea of life was 
 trouble. She hated contact with unpleasant people or 
 ugly circumstances. She was amiable and soft-hearted ; 
 yet her shadow seldom fell across the threshold of the 
 poor. She never sat by sick beds, or investigated cottage 
 homes. She did much for the parish — as much as could 
 be done by money lavishly bestowed — money which she 
 considered omnipotent, since she always gave it over to 
 the right people to distribute. She gave it to the people 
 who knew — to the wisest men and women in the parish, 
 the energetic, hard-working souls who had learnt how 
 to talk to the poor, and who knew what the poor wanted. 
 
 She considered it only fair that the money that could 
 buy coals and comforts and nursing and schooling for her 
 cottagers, should buy her immunity from horrid sights and 
 sounds, from stuffy rooms and lachrymose invalids. To 
 sign a cheque was a pleasure — but to have investigated the 
 case she was asked to relieve would have bored her to tears. 
 
MIRANDA 19 
 
 " I am not of the right stuff for visiting the poor," she 
 told her friends, in moments of confidence. " I have a 
 mauvaise honte in a cottage that I never feel anywhere 
 else. I say the wrong things and know that I am saying 
 them. And how should I like some duchess or sprig of 
 royalty to come into my house and ask questions, and hint 
 this, and advise the other ? I should inevitably be rude. 
 Yet everybody expects poor people to be civil, and to 
 suffer fools gladly. I love my humble neighbours at a 
 distance — and I like to see their children at our Christmas 
 treat when they are washed and tidy. That is Miranda's 
 affair — she takes all the trouble, and I look on and admire." 
 
 So far and no farther had Miranda's education gone 
 when Gilbert Ferrar appeared upon the scene, and after 
 his first visit to The Barrow, fell into the way of riding 
 over once a week or so, to luncheon or to tea, and spending 
 a restful hour or two with Lady Laura and Miranda, while 
 his horse enjoyed the cool spaciousness of a perfect stable. 
 
 Lady Laura took a great liking for her distant cousin, 
 and was warmly interested in his work in the slums of 
 Trownham. He contrived somehow to make that sordid 
 life dramatic, if not picturesque. She forgot the horror 
 and the dirt, the foul odours and the brutal language, 
 when she heard the life-stories of these people. Her 
 imagination being once kindled her heart was easily moved. 
 And after all she was not obliged to mix herself with these 
 grim actualities. She had not to dry the mourner's tears, 
 or breathe the fetid odours of the sick-room. She had 
 only to write cheques, and she wrote them with a lavish- 
 ness that Gilbert had to restrain— bringing a stern practical 
 spirit to bear upon her impulsive beneficence. 
 
 By the time Mr. Ferrar had spent three summer "after- 
 noons at The Barrow, sitting on the terrace with Lady 
 Laura, or rambling in the gardens with Miranda, he had 
 made up his mind that the present system, or no system, 
 upon which the young lady was being educated, although 
 from a sentimental point of view it might be charming, was 
 absolutely mistaken, and possibly pernicious. 
 
 There was no difficulty in finding out all he wanted to 
 
 2* 
 
20 MIRANDA 
 
 know about Miranda, whose childish shyness wore off in 
 the first afternoon, and who on his second visit welcomed 
 him as an old friend, and confided her opinions, enthusiasms 
 and prejudices with a familiarity that would have seemed 
 boldness in another child, and with a simplicity that 
 charmed him. 
 
 She told him how her mother had taught her every- 
 thing she knew, and how she loved the books her mother 
 loved, her mother's poets, her mother's painters, her 
 mother's composers. 
 
 " Mother adores Shakespeare, and so do I, and next to 
 Shakespeare we love Byron and Walter Scott. We love 
 Mozart first of all composers ; though the girls who come 
 here tell me he is tuney, and inferior — as if mother did not 
 know better than creatures who are still at school." 
 
 It shocked him to discover that this bright young mind 
 was absolutely unacquainted with science, and thought 
 it something horrid. Astronomy and all the onomies and 
 ologies were to Miranda things of terror. 
 
 " I am like Sardanapalus," she said. " I adore the stars 
 — ' I see their brilliancy and feel their beauty,' but if you 
 begin to tell me they are a billion or a trillion miles away 
 you make my head ache." 
 
 Political economy — everything that belongs to the 
 realm of useful knowledge had been left out of Miranda's 
 education, but she could quote Byron and Shelley, and 
 was better read in Shakespeare than many an all-round 
 student of mature years. 
 
 Her knowledge of history was considerable, but with- 
 out system. The characters and events that pleased her 
 fancy bulked large in her survey of the world and time — 
 but the commonplace of history, the slow, quiet movements 
 of peoples and their rulers, had left no impression upon her 
 eager fancy. She knew every pathetic detail of Marie 
 Antoinette's martyrdom, but she did not know what had 
 made the French Revolution, or thought vaguely that it 
 was some trouble about the price of bread. 
 
 And the romance, the enthusiasm, the ardour of the 
 child's mind ! Alas, what peril such things mean for the 
 
MIRANDA 21 
 
 woman ! Gilbert lost no time in discussing the situation 
 with Miranda's mother. 
 
 " Your daughter tells me she has never had a governess," 
 he said in a casual way, on his fourth visit, when he and 
 Lady Laura were sitting at tea in the library, quite the 
 prettiest room in the house, spacious, light, airy, with so 
 many windows that it seemed a part of the garden, with 
 just enough books to make it worthy of a student, and 
 more than enough old china to show that it belonged to 
 a woman. 
 
 Lady Laura made a wry face. " A governess ! " she 
 exclaimed. " We should hate her. What does Miranda 
 want with a governess ? I have taught her all she knows. 
 I have nothing else to occupy me, as I do hardly any 
 visiting and very little entertaining. Miranda is all my 
 interest in life." 
 
 And then she went on to explain what Gilbert had 
 learnt before from her daughter. She told him how they 
 read together, and how Miranda's mind was so extra- 
 ordinarily receptive that learning by rote was needless 
 in her case. Her imagination made pictures of all the 
 things she read about. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 AND now a year had come and gone, and Miranda 
 was soon going to be thirteen. A year, and Gilbert 
 Ferrar had been the one close friend of that time — which, 
 measured by the girl's standard, was described as " ages," 
 but which seemed short enough to the man whose days 
 were crowded with many interests. Gilbert had become 
 a part of Miranda's life — almost as much as Whipple, 
 whom she had known a good deal longer. 
 
 " You and James Whipple are my only men friends," 
 she told the Vicar of St. Barnabas, and he was content 
 to suffer his position. 
 
 What would he not have suffered from Miranda, if she 
 had only known her power ? A chit of a child, and yet 
 omnipotent with this serious, deep-thinking man. 
 
 It was Miranda's delusion that he was her tyrant. 
 
 " You are the most masterful man I have met, except 
 Whipple," she told him. " He has domineered over me 
 since I was five. He makes me ride the horse he likes, 
 and use the bit he chooses for me, and my stirrup-leather 
 must be the length he approves — and when we are in 
 a difficulty in the best run of the season, he insists upon 
 my going his way, when I have a rooted conviction that 
 the hounds have gone my way, and I should hate him 
 for it, if he didn't always get me in at the death. I am 
 never allowed to take my own line." 
 
 " You will be a woman soon, and then perhaps you will 
 take your own line " 
 
 22 
 
MIRANDA 23 
 
 " I mean to," she gasped. 
 
 " And rue it," he said, with a strange look. 
 
 He was full of fear when he thought of Miranda's future. 
 Oh, God, if he could have had the shaping of it ! Was 
 there anything ever suffered by saints and martyrs of old 
 that he would not have borne to keep her from sorrow or 
 shame ? 
 
 He had at least succeeded in giving her a sensible 
 woman of high principles and unexceptionable conduct 
 as her governess — a woman whom he knew, and whose 
 system and methods he had admired both as to practice 
 and results in the education of his five nieces. Having 
 finished off these five young ladies, grounded in all that 
 a young lady ought to know, with orderly minds and 
 irreproachable manners, Miss Wagstaff was regretfully 
 preparing to leave a deserted schoolroom, with the 
 world all before her where to choose, when Gilbert 
 Ferrar told Lady Laura that he had found the pearl 
 among governesses and almost insisted upon her being 
 summoned to The Barrow. 
 
 There need be no preliminary fuss or trouble for Lady 
 Laura. Since the lady's credentials were unimpeachable, 
 let her invite Miss Wagstaff on a month's visit, and let 
 them see how they liked each other. 
 
 " I can answer for one person who won't like her," 
 Miranda protested, flushed to her temples with indigna- 
 tion. " A starched, over-educated, polytechnical Miss 
 Wagstaff. Heaven and earth, what a name ! Am I to 
 be tyrannized over by a Wagstaff ? " 
 
 " My five nieces adored her," said Gilbert meekly. 
 
 " They would ! " retorted Miranda. " I can imagine 
 your nieces. I am sure they wore overalls till they 
 were seventeen — black alpaca aprons, like the poor 
 things in a Belgian convent, with long sleeves to save 
 their ugly frocks. Girls who are carefully educated 
 always have to wear ugly frocks. That is part of the 
 system." 
 
 " Miranda, you are horribly rude," remonstrated Lady 
 Laura. 
 
24 MIRANDA 
 
 " I mean to be. Mr. Ferrar has no right to come here 
 like a snake in the grass, and put me under the heel of a 
 Wagstaff." 
 
 In spite of all this, Miss Wagstaff came, and somehow 
 pleased everybody at The Barrow, even the old servants. 
 She stayed and was still there when Miranda's presentation 
 had become a subject for Melford tea-drinkings. She 
 was there, and Miranda adored her — and yet Gilbert was 
 disappointed ; for instead of Miss Wagstaff educating 
 Miranda, he found, as the years went by, that Miranda had 
 educated Miss Wagstaff. 
 
 She took her governess in hand from the beginning, and 
 found out the things she did not know. Julia W T agstaff 
 had been brought up by purposeful parents, and their 
 end and aim had been to steep her mind in the things 
 she had to learn in order to pass them on to her pupils ; 
 and those things were all the most modern and the most 
 worthy to be known. 
 
 Miss Wagstaff had passed every examination that a 
 lady whose life was to be spent in teaching, and creating 
 other ladies, ought to pass. She had never been plucked. 
 In her humbler walk of learning she was like the great 
 Jowett — what she did not know was not knowledge. But 
 in Miranda's estimation all her knowledge, even of the 
 world's history, was dust and ashes compared with Lady 
 Laura's friendly familiarity with interesting things and 
 people. Miss Wagstaff' s memory for dates was abnormal, 
 but for poetry and romance she dwelt in abysmal darkness. 
 Of the minor poets she knew hardly anything, and although 
 she had worked at Hamlet and Macbeth line by line, and 
 had supplied those two plays with copious notes and 
 alternative readings for a high school in which her friend 
 Miss Boss was head mistress, she confessed to knowing 
 very little about the others. 
 
 " The others ! Oh, Miss Wagstaff ! The others ! 
 Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream, King Lear, 
 Antony and Cleopatra. Heaven and earth ! " 
 
 Miss Wagstaff had to be made familiar with Byron 
 
MIRANDA 25 
 
 and Keats, and above all with Shelley, to whose works 
 and ways her sensible parents had strongly objected. 
 
 " Shelley ! A declared infidel ! Your cousins had 
 never heard of him. And Keats has passages that I could 
 hardly have explained to them. My dear, you seem to 
 have read the most extraordinary books." 
 
 " That's because mother is broad-minded, and a 
 romantic darling. There were some of Shelley's poems 
 she kept from me ; but the lyrics, his heavenly lyrics, were 
 our delight." 
 
 Who could stem the flood of Miranda's romantic ardour ? 
 Not Miss Wagstaff, who perhaps had pined unconsciously 
 in that arid mid- Victorian atmosphere. 
 
 She was happier at The Barrow than she had been at the 
 New Lodge, Newbury, where she confessed to having 
 suffered from occasional fits of depression, though every- 
 body had been kind, and she was fond of her pupils. 
 
 Miranda did what she liked with her ; steeped her to 
 the lips in Shakespeare and Scott, and forced her to find 
 a prince of poets in Keats. She had to read Lock- 
 hart's life, and every other life of Walter Scott, and his 
 own journal, that pathetic story of heroic effort and 
 gradual decay, and every line that other people had 
 written about him. She had to worship Scott, and to 
 revere Thackeray, and to adore Dickens, before she and 
 her pupil could be " quite quite friends " — and when 
 that essential point was arrived at, Miss Wagstaff was no 
 longer a governess. All the old notions, all the middle- 
 Victorian prejudices were gone. Miss Wagstaff was almost 
 as romantic as Miranda, and it was the governess who was 
 under the heel of the pupil. 
 
 She used to thank God upon her knees night and 
 morning, this simple Julia Wagstaff, for having brought 
 her to a place where she was so happy, a place of sunshine 
 and bright colours, smiling gardens and kind thoughts. 
 Luxury and an exquisite refinement in the way of life 
 might count for something in Julia's gratitude, but not for 
 much. She was neither a sybarite nor an epicure. She 
 was one of that multitude of educated spinsters who can 
 
26 MIRANDA 
 
 live upon tea and bread-and-butter with people they 
 love. 
 
 Thus it came about that education under Miss Wagstaff 
 was very much the same as education under Lady 
 Laura. Miranda learned just as much as she liked, and 
 in the way she liked, and did what she liked all round the 
 clock. If some little serious work was done from week- 
 end to week-end it was only because Gilbert Ferrar 
 " dropped upon us " every now and then and " wanted to 
 know," like Clennam in the office of the Barnacles. 
 
 " You are always dropping upon us," Miranda told 
 him, when he stood in front of the table in the schoolroom. 
 " Have I read any astronomy ? Yes, I have — pages and 
 pages, till I made my head ache. Am I reading any serious 
 book ? Yes, I am. Hallam's ' Middle Ages,' which must 
 have been written for middle-aged readers — between forty 
 and fifty — not a day younger. You told me it was a 
 delightful book, but did you like it before you were 
 thirty ? " 
 
 " I liked it when I was at the 'Varsity, and I shall like 
 it when I am seventy." 
 
 " De gustibus," said Miranda. " Miss Wagstaff is teach- 
 ing me Latin. Does that meet your approval ? " 
 
 " Distinctly." 
 
 " We are going to read Virgil." 
 
 " The Eclogues ? " 
 
 " No, the vEneid. And I shall go in for Greek by and 
 
 by." 
 
 " By and by is easily said." 
 
 " I want to read the tragedies — all of them. 
 Agamemnon to begin with." 
 
 "Isn't that rather a large order ? " 
 
 " Oh, we mean to do it. Julia is as keen as I am. We 
 both despise translations. We are going to the fountain 
 head." 
 
 " I think you had better read Mure's ' Greek Litera- 
 ture ' — in plain English — and content yourself with a 
 Greek first reading-book." 
 
 " Little Arthur, or something of that kind. ' The 
 
MIRANDA 27 
 
 rose is red, the fountain is beautiful, the king's palace is 
 large.' That is not Julia's idea." 
 
 " Do you think it respectful to call your governess by 
 her christian name ? " 
 
 " She is not my governess, and I don't respect her. She 
 is my friend and confidante and cherished companion, 
 and I love her dearly." 
 
 What could anybody do with such a pupil ? Gilbert 
 saw Miss Wagstaff s eyes fill with tears. She had sandy 
 hair, a bran-mash complexion, and white eyelashes, but 
 there were kind blue eyes under the white lashes, and the 
 Wagstaff features were refined and regular. 
 
 Miranda was in her teens. She had made a great fuss 
 about her thirteenth birthday. She felt as if she were 
 coming into her kingdom. Le grand monarque began to 
 take the reins of government when he was not much 
 older — and Miranda felt as despotic and dauntless as the 
 young Louis. 
 
 It was a royal birthday. If no fountain flowed with 
 rich red wine — if no condemned criminal was pardoned — 
 a good many tenants were let off arrears of rent, and the 
 old people and the children feasted more or less all day 
 long. 
 
 " I don't want it to be an anticlimax," Lady Laura said, 
 contemplating tremendous festivities when her ewe-lamb 
 came of age. 
 
 Miranda, having entered her teens, gave herself great 
 airs. She insisted that she was no longer a child, and 
 wanted her mane of dark auburn hair wound into a crown 
 on the top of her head; but, not having any passion 
 for questions de toilette, she did not oppose the most indul- 
 gent of mothers, and went on wearing her childish frocks, 
 and allowed her hair to fall in rippling masses of golden 
 brown that almost touched the edge of her succinct 
 petticoats. 
 
 " She is a child still," Lady Laura told Miss Wagstaff, 
 " though she won't believe it." 
 
 Never had there been a child so indulged or so happy, 
 
28 MIRANDA 
 
 or a home more amply provided with childhood's delights ; 
 from the nursery, crowded and encumbered with costly 
 toys, to the schoolroom, where books and globes and 
 piano were diversified by various pets : dachshund and 
 poodle, Persian cat and monkey — and where to some of 
 Lady Laura's visitors it seemed that all the most uncanny 
 creatures in Noah's Ark had from time to time been 
 cherished. 
 
 Happily, thought such visitors, these uncanny beasts 
 did not long survive to enjoy Miranda's cherishing. 
 
 The chameleon that she carried in her ermine muff 
 when she went out to tea, and whose good manners were 
 the wonder of Mrs. Devereux's first Friday, had been 
 ungrateful enough to die before another first Friday 
 came round, and an inquiry after the beast at Mrs. Parlby's 
 musical party reduced Miranda to tears. 
 
 " Wasn't it ungrateful of him ? Julia and I nursed 
 him day and night. He was never out of our laps." 
 
 " Didn't appreciate the lap of luxury," grumbled a 
 crusty old sailor, Admiral Trehern, who was known in 
 Melford as " the Admiral," as if there were only one in 
 the Service. 
 
 No. Miranda was not lucky in her " freaks." Her 
 terrier killed her mongoose, and her monkey developed 
 a chest complaint. Schooled by these disappointments 
 she became more sensible, and renounced all experiments 
 in tropical ferce, whereby the schoolroom became less 
 obnoxious to the olfactory nerves of her mother and her 
 friends. " Doggy " of course Miranda's den must always 
 be, and Miranda's hands and gloves ; though her dogs 
 were tubbed once a week and brushed every morning by 
 the devoted Whipple, who having begun as Miranda's 
 master was now her slave. 
 
 Everybody bowed down before this sweet young princess 
 with the dark auburn hair and the grey eyes that flashed 
 and sparkled and smiled, or saddened, with ever-changing 
 thoughts and emotions. Mother and bachelor uncles, 
 neighbours and friends, and old servants and new servants 
 — everybody — except the Reverend Gilbert Ferrar. 
 
MIRANDA 29 
 
 Except ? But was he an exception ? Was that fine 
 preacher, and severe parish priest, really exempt from 
 Miranda's dominion ? Had that stiff neck never bent 
 under her yoke ? Lady Laura thought not. 
 
 " Mr. Ferrar can always manage her," she told Lady 
 Haverstock, the eldest and most formidable of Miranda's 
 three aunts, who, as a base return for hospitality, had 
 taken upon herself to protest against the bringing up of 
 her niece, and to call that lovely creature " incorrigible." 
 " He has helped me immensely with her education. She 
 has a great respect for Mr. Ferrar." 
 
 " I should hardly have thought that," retorted the 
 aunt, sharply. " I heard her call him - Gillie ' when he 
 lunched here the other day, and her whole conversation 
 with him was far from courteous. She was doing what my 
 Eton boy would have called ' pulling his leg ' all the time." 
 
 Lady Haverstock went on to tell her sister that she was 
 spoiling her only child, and warned her of a day of reckoning, 
 when she would find how sharper than a serpent's tooth 
 it was and so on. 
 
 There are some people who never quote Holy Writ or 
 Shakespeare except when they mean to be offensive. 
 
 Lady Laura laughed. She was not afraid of the serpent's 
 tooth. But all the same, the most unpleasant of the 
 three aunts was right. 
 
 It was a true bill. Miranda was spoilt. 
 
 It may be observed, however, that a spoilt child, if 
 the original stuff is good, is generally a delightful child, 
 and is apt to grow up into a charming woman. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 WHEN Miss Wagstaff had been a year and a half 
 at The Barrow, there came a crucial period in 
 Miranda's education. She was in her fifteenth year, and 
 Mr. Ferrar told Lady Laura that she ought to be con- 
 firmed in the week after Easter, when a most delightful 
 Archbishop, the most refined and courteous of gentlemen, 
 as well as the most exalted among churchmen, was to 
 hold a confirmation at St. Barnabas'. 
 
 Lady Laura agreed. 
 
 " My sisters and I were all confirmed before we were 
 fifteen," she said, "and none of us were as advanced as 
 Miranda." 
 
 There was to be no confirmation at Melford till the 
 following year, so although Lady Laura would have liked 
 her daughter to kneel where she had knelt, in the old 
 Norman chancel, she was not unwilling that the ceremony 
 should be performed by the Archbishop in St. Barnabas'. 
 
 Of course Gilbert was to prepare her for the solemn 
 rite, and was to assure himself that this light-hearted, gay 
 young creature was worthy to enter the fold. 
 
 Was she worthy ? He told himself that she was selfish, 
 or at least self-centred. How could she be otherwise when 
 she was the sole joy of a mother who had given her every- 
 thing she wished for almost before the wish was framed, 
 who lived only to anticipate the desires of her well-beloved, 
 whose delight in her was almost idolatry. Kind, foolish 
 mother, had she not done all that unreasoning love can 
 
 30 
 
MIRANDA 31 
 
 do to spoil this splendid nature ? That the girl's original 
 character was of the finest Gilbert Ferrar was convinced. 
 
 He knew that she was truthful, candid, generous, and 
 benevolent, the soul of honour, free from personal vanity. 
 But for the sins of self-love and self-will ? Alas, of those 
 he had too often seen indications that had made him un- 
 happy about her. 
 
 He knew that in spite of her self-will, she was without 
 the dogged obstinacy of duller natures. He had seen how 
 quickly her prejudice against an unknown Miss Wagstaff 
 had yielded to her liking for the person . She was malleable, 
 and it would be his precious work to mould her character, 
 to bring her under the Influence that ought to guide and 
 govern her future life. Come what may, he told himself 
 that her life as a woman must be fraught with peril. With 
 her impulsive and emotional nature, gifted with rare beauty, 
 and with wealth that would make her a prize for the 
 fortune-hunter ; standing alone in her small world, since 
 the too-indulgent mother would count for very little, who 
 could doubt that her path would be encompassed by 
 dangers, from which only high principle and a deep-rooted 
 religious belief, could save her ? 
 
 He found her eager to be taught, and impressed by the 
 solemnity of the occasion. She who had so often shocked 
 him by her flippancy, and had tried to " bosh " him when 
 he discussed her education, was now gentle and subdued, 
 and looked at him with a sweet seriousness when he seated 
 himself by her at the schoolroom table, with his New 
 Testament open in front of him. 
 
 He found her older than her years in knowledge and 
 apprehension ; but younger in self-assurance. 
 
 In an age when girls of fifteen talk of the Gospel as 
 " Milk for babes " — " a beautiful f airy-tale/ ' and boast of 
 having escaped from the dismal swamp of old-fashioned 
 theology to the lofty regions of free thought, it was sweet 
 to discover a young mind that no shadow of doubt had 
 clouded, a young heart penetrated with love for the 
 Redeemer of Man. In all the girl said there was the 
 strength of conviction, the simplicity of unquestioning 
 
32 MIRANDA 
 
 faith. This at least Lady Laura had been able to do for 
 her ewe lamb. She had brought her up in the love and 
 fear of God. They had prayed together, they had read 
 the Scriptures together, from the far-off day when Miranda 
 began to wonder and to think ; and love so inspired had 
 never grown cold, and faith so grounded had never been 
 shaken. 
 
 Gilbert's task was easy — and so far as assuring himself 
 that Miranda was fit to enter the fold, might have been 
 finished with their first interview. But, finding her 
 keenly interested in things unseen, he stole many hours 
 from his Parish work to talk with her of the history of 
 the Church to which he hoped she would always belong, 
 that advanced Anglican Church whose ministers were to 
 be found at St. Barnabas', and which seemed at once 
 more modern, and more ancient, than the Church as 
 Miranda knew it at Melford-on-the-Moor. 
 
 Lady Laura had never given herself over entirely to 
 the new Ritual. She and her daughter, and even Miss 
 Wagstaff, loved Mr. Ferrar's sermons and the St. Barnabas 
 choir, but there were things in that ornamental service 
 about which Lady Laura felt doubtful. Being a person of 
 lethargic temperament who never wanted to go to the 
 root of the matter, she was content to accept Mr. Ferrar 
 and his church for what they were, and not to ask questions 
 to which the answers might have been above her head. 
 
 Not once in those serious conversations did Miranda 
 show the cloven foot. She was never flippant, never 
 capricious or inattentive. She listened with respect, and 
 questioned without audacity. She was never trivial, 
 never dull. She had a mind quick to apprehend lofty 
 thoughts and far-away things. 
 
 In that peaceful period of preparation for the solemn 
 rite she gave herself up to religious meditation, read no 
 books of secular interest, but was eager to read all that 
 famous men had written about the Church to which she 
 belonged. 
 
 Gilbert brought her the books that were to him most 
 precious, and took pains to show her the finest passages in 
 
MIRANDA 33 
 
 each, and to elucidate all that was obscure. He taught 
 this girl of fifteen to read Hooker, and to appreciate Butler 
 — but most of all he* rejoiced in acquainting her with his 
 master in the church, John Henry Newman. They read 
 the "Apologia" together, and it was in the course of 
 those thoughtful readings that Miranda arrived at a better 
 understanding of the ritual at St. Barnabas'. 
 
 Gilbert Ferrar explained himself to her during those 
 studies. He was where Newman was when he wrote 
 " Tract Ninety," when he believed in the Via Media, 
 when he wanted to revive all that was pure and beautiful 
 in the Roman Church, yet to hold himself resolutely aloof 
 from her errors. Mr. Ferrar had lived in a more liberal 
 age than the era of the Oxford Movement, and he had 
 been able to stop on the road to Rome at a point where 
 persecution had driven Newman to go on. 
 
 " My friends, and my enemies, often ask me why I 
 don't go over to Rome. They won't understand that the 
 Anglican Creed gives me, and the men like me, all that 
 we want, all that we can ever hope to realize — the Church 
 that was the dream of Newman's youth. They tell us 
 we stay where we are for the loaves and fishes." He threw 
 himself back in his chair and laughed heartily. " Well, 
 they can hardly say that of me, my dear, for my worst 
 enemy in Trownham knows that the good soul who built 
 St. Barnabas' spent the best part of her fortune on 
 the church, and that there was nothing left for the 
 priest." 
 
 The Confirmation was held in the evening, for the 
 convenience of the congregation of factory hands and 
 shopkeepers, and it was in the soft light of the church 
 candles that Gilbert saw Miranda's dark-brown head bowed 
 meekly to receive the blessing. 
 
 How lovely she looked in her plain white muslin frock. 
 Just soft, fine muslin, without lace or embroidery — 
 nothing to make the children of humble wage-earners 
 remember that she was rich and they were poor. Lady 
 Laura had brought gifts for the girls whom Gilbert had 
 
 3 
 
34 MIRANDA 
 
 praised for conduct or intelligence in his work of pre- 
 paration — and many a gleam of sunlight shone into 
 Trownham's poorest dwellings for love of Miranda. It was 
 a green spot in the desert of his life for Gilbert Ferrar to 
 remember. 
 
 Miranda was not a dunce, since in spite of the influence 
 her romantic fancy had exercised over her governess, 
 that conscientious lady had to impart the elements of a 
 sound education, and at sixteen the pupil was seized with 
 a sudden thirst for learning. She wanted to know every- 
 thing about everything, she wanted to know much more 
 than dear Julia could teach her. Her views went far 
 beyond the purview of the University examiners who had 
 certified Miss Wagstaff's fitness for teaching. She hun- 
 gered for universal knowledge. Science was no longer a 
 word that made her shiver. Astronomy, Physiology, 
 Darwinism, Spencerism, Architecture and all the other 
 arts — like Francis Bacon, she had taken all learning for 
 her province, and she had no more time to waste upon 
 Shakespeare and Byron, Scott or Bulwer. 
 
 " Ivanhoe," " Kenil worth," and " The Abbot," 
 '• Harold," and " The Last of the Barons," held no longer 
 all she cared to know of English history. She must drink 
 deep of Freeman and Stubbs. She must now begin her 
 education. 
 
 A pile of brand-new books came into the schoolroom, 
 and all those dear volumes of romance and poetry that she 
 had introduced to Julia, and that governess and pupil 
 had almost worn out by repeated perusal — in gardens and 
 on the moor, in the orchard and the hay-field, and by the 
 winter fire — had now to be put away in the dust and dark- 
 ness of the old toy-cupboard, to make shelf-room for severe- 
 looking books in dark-green cloth with speckled edges. 
 Even Julia hinted that Freeman and the Bishop looked 
 a shade dry. 
 
 It was now that Gilbert Ferrar could be useful. He was 
 an omnivorous reader, and there was no author Miranda 
 could mention whose works he had not read. 
 
MIRANDA 35 
 
 He flushed with sudden pleasure when she asked him 
 to help her. 
 
 " Julia is an old dear," she said, " and incomparable 
 at the kind of education that makes one hate the sight of 
 a book. But I am old enough to know that life is not worth 
 living without real knowledge. Will you help me, 
 Gillie ? " 
 
 Would he help her ? Would it not be the delight of 
 his life to help her ? 
 
 They were in the summer garden, the garden where 
 Miranda domineered over five men and two boys — a 
 garden of herbaceous borders, and long grass lawns, with 
 avenues of standard roses meeting in an octagon pergola 
 curtained with la France roses. It was all Miranda's 
 creation, suggested by the expensive garden-books. 
 
 They were strolling along the velvet turf. Miranda 
 without hat or parasol, fearless of the sun. 
 
 A tall slip of a girl — very thin, with a kind of wild grace 
 in her quick movements — like some half-tamed creature. 
 It seemed to Gilbert as if she had been a child yesterday, 
 and on a sudden was almost a woman. 
 
 Almost a woman, and beautiful as a dream. 
 
 He looked at her in a kind of grave wonder, as if she 
 were something perfect in nature that one must admire with 
 a touch of awe. Those brilliant eyes, that rich mass of 
 dark chestnut hair — and the clear brunette complexion of 
 a texture that seemed almost translucent, as the carnation 
 flushed or faded on her oval cheek. So lovely, and so 
 careless of her loveliness, thinking of everything in the 
 world rather than of her own adorable gifts. 
 
 " Miranda, do you ever look in your glass ? " he asked 
 suddenly. 
 
 She started and frowned. 
 
 " You mean that my hair is untidy," she snapped. 
 " Why couldn't you say so straight out ? " 
 
 V I was not thinking of your hair." 
 
 Miranda's higher education began on the following 
 day, in the dear old schoolroom where Miss Wagstaff, 
 
 3* 
 
36 MIRANDA 
 
 now reduced to lady-in-waiting, sat by the open window 
 apparently absorbed by her needlework, but absorbing 
 enlightenment from every word spoken by Mr. Ferrar, 
 for whom she had that profound esteem which an amiable 
 spinster of nine-and-thirty is apt to feel for her favourite 
 parson. 
 
 Gilbert laid out his scheme of education, and Miranda 
 had to accept it. She had to circumscribe her ambitious 
 views about Greek, and to acquire her knowledge of the 
 classics in an easier way. For all that is worthiest in 
 Greek and Roman literature Gilbert found conscientious 
 translators, and Miranda's delight in those readings never 
 flagged. 
 
 He devoted one morning of his busy week to this inter- 
 esting task ; and he told Lady Laura that the ride over the 
 moor kept him in health, and made up for the loss of that 
 one day, his one idle day in the seven. 
 
 " You poor, dear man," sighed the kind lady. " Do 
 you call it idleness to sit poring over books with my 
 girl ? That shows how hard your Trownham existence 
 must be/' 
 
 The happy summer, the glad season of outdoor life, 
 went by, and Miranda showed no sign of weariness. She 
 in a manner gave her mind over to Gilbert Ferrar, and 
 let him bend and fashion it after his own ideal. It was 
 a pleasant way of being educated. There was no drudgery 
 — none of that evening labour which High School girls 
 talk of as " prep." Miranda had no dismal columns of 
 dates to learn by heart, no dry-as-dust geography and 
 grammar. She had only to read and to think. Gilbert 
 brought her the best books, and taught her how to read 
 them in the best way. 
 
 He got to the bottom of her mind in long conversations 
 about the things she wanted to know. Books of travel 
 taught her geography, a subject in which Miss Wagstaff 
 had found her obtuse. Fine prose and finer poetry taught 
 her grammar, although Miss Wagstaff' s laborious method 
 of analysis had been a melancholy failure. She took 
 
MIRANDA 37 
 
 to the best books as a convalescent takes to the open 
 air, and Lady Laura very soon claimed her part in her 
 darling's studies. She wanted to make herself familiar 
 with the authors Miranda admired — to be able to talk 
 with her on equal terms. She accepted Mr. Ferrar's 
 scheme of education as if he had been inspired, and 
 the new learning gave a stimulus to her placid thoughts. 
 
 There are daughters of sixteen who like to think that 
 they know a great deal more about books and about life 
 than their parents, who talk of their father with dislike 
 and of their mother with a good-natured contempt ; but 
 Miranda was not of that temper. She loved her mother 
 at sixteen as fondly as when she was six — loved her, and 
 thought her perfect in understanding as in heart. 
 
 " I knew mother would like him," she would say of 
 some newly-introduced author. " We always enthuse 
 about the same things — we always think alike, and we 
 are both ever so much happier now we are going in for 
 the new learning." 
 
 " The new learning " was Miranda's favourite name 
 for Gilbert's scheme of education. 
 
 " Well, now you have both of us for pupils, you mustn't 
 think your work harder," she told him. " We shall learn 
 quicker when we can talk over your books and your 
 opinions evening after evening while you are slaving in 
 Trownham." 
 
 Gilbert was touched by this pleasant indication of 
 the spoilt child's affection for a too indulgent mother. 
 He had seen too much of the aspiring daughters who like 
 to climb the hill of Parnassus " on their own," and leave 
 their parents toiling at dull things at the foot of the 
 mountain — father, a useful person to pay for expensive 
 masters ; mother just clever enough to keep house and 
 mismanage the servants. 
 
 Soon, too soon, as it seemed to Gilbert Ferrar, it was 
 July again, and Miranda was seventeen. The first year 
 of the new learning was ended. She took her seventeenth 
 birthday very quietly ; she begged her mother to say 
 nothing about it, lest her dear Julia or kind Mr. Ferrar 
 
38 MIRANDA 
 
 should want to give her a present. There was none of the 
 elation with which she had leapt into her teens. The old 
 people and the school-children might have a tea — but 
 there was to be no reason given for the treat, or only the 
 glorious summer ; not a hint of Miranda's birthday. 
 
 " My darling, all Melford knows your birthday as well 
 as Christmas or the New Year." 
 
 " Because there have always been treats. Oh, mother, 
 how you have spoilt me!" 
 
 M No, dear. I have tried and failed." 
 
 Mother and daughter hugged each other in the balmy 
 solitude of the orchard, where they had been reading 
 together all the morning, side by side on the oaken bench, 
 shoulder against shoulder, under the sunlight that flickered 
 between green leaves and reddening apples. 
 
 Some people thought that seven-acre orchard of cherries 
 and plums and apples and pears better than even the 
 garden — an orchard where most of the trees were old 
 and big, with rugged trunks exuding golden gum, and 
 where there were slender saplings dotted in among the 
 gnarled old trunks, pert young trees that sometimes took 
 upon themselves to bear better than their elders. 
 
 Nobody had forgotten Miranda's birthday. An 
 elaborate table-cover in ribbon-work, forget-me-nots and 
 violets on a ground of white satin, testified to Julia's 
 hours of secret toil. " In Memoriam," bound more 
 exquisitely than any book Miranda had ever seen, came 
 with her early cup of tea, with Mr. Ferrar's card tucked 
 into the cover. How dear and kind they were ! She 
 thanked them with tears. Mother's present was always 
 some lovely trinket — Indian, or Italian, something 
 precious 'in art, but of small intrinsic value. She did not 
 want her daughter to wear costly ornaments in a place 
 where small incomes prevailed. Miranda would have 
 pearls and diamonds enough and to spare by and by, when 
 her mother gave her the contents of those ponderous 
 jewel-boxes that filled one of the iron safes in the 
 plate-room. She would have the Strickland diamonds, 
 
MIRANDA 39 
 
 bought when the first George was king, and the pearls 
 that the last Strickland of The Barrow had given to his 
 bride. 
 
 Miranda had only seen these treasures on one occasion, 
 when her mother had the boxes brought to her dressing- 
 room, and her table covered with open cases, and alive 
 with the rainbow light of riviere and tiara, the soft radiance 
 of the rope of pearls coiled in satin and velvet, for her girl 
 to admire. 
 
 Miranda would hardly look at them. 
 
 " They are all to be yours, dear." 
 
 " No, no. You are to go on wearing them — nobody 
 else. You must look splendid in them. Why do you 
 wear that poor little pearl necklace and that paltry 
 turquoise and diamond cross of an evening, when you 
 have all this magnificence locked up in a dark cell ? " 
 
 " Because I am keeping them for you, my sweet. You 
 can wear the pearls even before you are married, and the 
 diamonds afterwards." 
 
 " I am never going to marry. I shall be a spinster 
 like dear old Julia, and you and I will live together like 
 the ladies of Llangollen, for ever and ever." 
 
 She pronounced her intention with vigour, and her 
 mother knew she was in earnest. 
 
 " Loving daughters often think as you do, my darling, 
 but the time comes when mother has to take a back seat. 
 Tout casse, tout lasse, tout passe, Miranda. In a few years 
 from to-day you may have another love, and a keener 
 interest in life." 
 
 " I don't think so," Miranda said carelessly, as if she 
 could not take the trouble to discuss anything so im- 
 probable. 
 
 Miranda was eighteen. The year had gone somewhat 
 slowly for Mr. Ferrar's pupil, who was just a little tired 
 of the new learning now it was getting old. Swiftly, alas ! 
 too swiftly for Gilbert, who was of an age when the years 
 are shorter, and who would fain have spun out this year 
 to a decade. Miranda was eighteen, and in future must 
 
4 o MIRANDA 
 
 be free to carry out that self-education which Mr. Ferrar 
 told her was the best schooling. 
 
 " I have taught you how to get the best out of books, 
 and now you have only to think seriously now and then, 
 and to consider that the years which will bring new duties 
 and new ties are hurrying on, and that in the coming time 
 you may have children to whom you can be companion 
 and friend as your mother has been to you." 
 
 Miranda noticed that he was paler than usual as he 
 made this little speech. She did not like his speech about 
 children. She thought it indelicate. 
 
 She did not know, she was never to know of his long 
 and serious talk with Lady Laura soon after that last 
 birthday. 
 
 He had lingered in the orchard when the morning's 
 work was done, and Miranda and Miss Wagstaff had gone 
 back to the house, had lingered looking so ill at ease 
 and unhappy that Lady Laura had questioned him 
 about himself, gently and kindly, until she had plucked 
 out the heart of his mystery. 
 
 He had looked melancholy for the last week or two. 
 She was afraid there was some trouble or unhappiness in 
 his mind. 
 
 " Yes, Lady Laura, there is trouble." 
 
 "If it is anything to do with money ; any new burden 
 that you are called upon to bear for your parish, I shall 
 be deeply offended if you don't let me write a cheque to 
 cover all that is wanted. I have always too much money 
 lying idle." 
 
 " It** is not a question of money ; but it is just possible 
 you might help me — though, alas, I fear, I fear ! " 
 
 And then he told her — with grave and quiet speech, 
 suppressing all outward signs of emotion — how the whole 
 fabric of his life had been changed by his love for her 
 daughter ; how Miranda had come to mean all the world 
 for him, so that it was now difficult for him to concen- 
 trate his attention upon the work to which he had dedi- 
 cated his life. He told her how slowly, how almost 
 imperceptibly, this love had possessed him, with what 
 
MIRANDA 41 
 
 gentle and gradual progress, like the slow, mysterious 
 awakening of light and glory in the summer dawn ; how 
 he had loved her for years as a man of mature age and 
 grave thoughts may love a child, the fairest thing his 
 eyes had ever looked upon ; and then how that subtle 
 change from calm affection into passionate love had come 
 upon him unawares, and he knew that it was no longer 
 the friend's love for the child, but the lover's love for 
 God's consummate work, the ideal woman. 
 
 And as he went on to praise her daughter, dwelling upon 
 her noble character, her divine purity, and absolute 
 truthfulness and deeply-rooted faith, Lady Laura's eyes 
 filled with tears, and she showed more emotion than the 
 man who sat by her side pouring out his heart to her. 
 
 Yes, this was love — love that does not come often in a 
 woman's life. Not often is the pure and perfect gift 
 of a good man's heart offered to a woman. And would 
 Miranda — if she could not understand or return this man's 
 affection — ever win such another lover ? 
 
 Lady Laura had a sincere regard for her kinsman. 
 She knew what his life had been at Trownham, how stead- 
 fastly he had laboured, and what great things he had 
 achieved. She knew how, of his own free choice, he had 
 come to that unattractive place, where the smoke-curtain 
 shut out the sun, and the hardness of life demoralized the 
 people. Still young, with means that would have allowed 
 him to enjoy all the pleasures that the world offers to the 
 strong man, he had been content to spend himself on the 
 one undeviating endeavour to make this dismal world 
 of the factory town, and the people who were in it, less like 
 hell and nearer heaven. She knew what he had done 
 in Trownham, and how he was beloved there ; she knew 
 how rich a treasure this was that he had laid at her girl's 
 feet ; and she knew, alas ! that Miranda would not accept 
 it. 
 
 She told him with infinite kindness that she had fore- 
 seen this crisis, and had been on the watch for any 
 indication of feeling on Miranda's part. 
 
 " When she feels at all, she feels deeply — when she 
 
42 MIRANDA 
 
 loves she will love passionately — recklessly, perhaps. 
 My greatest fear for my darling is an unworthy lover, 
 and I would have rejoiced with all my heart if she had 
 cared for you as you care for her." 
 
 " But she does not care ? " 
 
 " Alas, no ! She has that kind of serious affection 
 for you which hardly ever changes into lover's love. She 
 will be as fond of you, as friend and counsellor, twenty 
 years hence as she is now. She will turn to you in her 
 day of sorrow, but she will never think of you as a lover." 
 
 " May I try my chance ? May I tell her ? " 
 
 " Only at the risk of ending a friendship that has been 
 so sweet. She could never be as happy with a rejected 
 lover as she has been with her friend." 
 
 He rose suddenly, gave Lady Laura his hand, and went 
 out of the orchard in silence, leaving that tender-hearted 
 lady very unhappy. She wondered if he would ever come 
 again, or if this friend and adviser who had been so 
 much to her, was lost for ever. Would he be wise and 
 brave and self-denying, and accept an innocent girl's 
 affection, where the love he longed for could never be ? 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 IT was some time before Gilbert Ferrar reappeared at 
 The Barrow ; an interval that gave Miranda time 
 to wonder and to fret. Why did he keep away ? Was he 
 huffed about something she had said or done, or was he ill ? 
 
 " He is not easily huffed," she said, answering her own 
 question. " He is not one of those thin-skinned creatures 
 who get the hump about nothing. And he can't be really 
 ill, for he preached last Sunday, a lovely sermon. What 
 does it mean, mother ? Three weeks since you have poured 
 out tea for him ! Julia, can you explain ? Have you 
 offended him — said something unpardonable about the 
 service — called St. Barnabas' the half-way house to Rome, 
 as the Admiral did the other day ? " 
 
 Julia protested. Never would she utter a word to 
 wound that good man — a saint, an apostle — and so humble 
 and so sweet in treating inferior creatures as his equals. 
 
 " I talk with him as freely as if he were on my own 
 level," she said ; " and yet I know that in mind and in 
 character he belongs to another world." 
 
 Gilbert reappeared on the following day ; so there had 
 been no harm done by Julia or anyone else. 
 
 Miranda clapped her hands, and almost danced for joy, 
 when his shadow fell across the lawn at tea-time. 
 
 " I thought you had the hump," she said. 
 
 " Why should I have the hump ? And why do you 
 use that idiotic word ? " 
 
 " Because it is the only one that expresses my thoughts. 
 
 43 
 
44 MIRANDA 
 
 Slang is the shorthand of conversation, and I love it. 
 I thought you must have been vexed with us for some 
 unreasonable reason, or you would have ridden over before 
 now to see if we were alive." 
 
 " We have missed you awfully," said Miss Wagstaff, 
 who after trying to eliminate the pernicious adjective 
 from the vocabulary of all her pupils had fallen into using 
 it herself. 
 
 " It was not so much that we missed you as that we had 
 to consort with idiots — the old Admiral, the Parlbys, 
 and the Lesters — and our brains were softening day by 
 day." 
 
 " In the kingdom of idiots any sensible man is a sage," 
 said Gilbert, as he dropped quietly into his accustomed 
 chair by the garden tea-table. " Well, I am proud to have 
 been missed, were it ever so little. Do you suppose I 
 have not missed the kind familiar faces, and Lady Laura's 
 admirable tea ? " 
 
 "It is three weeks since you have tasted our tea," 
 retorted Miranda. " If you cared a straw for us you 
 couldn't have existed all that time without seeing us." 
 
 " I wonder how I did exist," he answered, with that 
 grave, slow smile she knew so well, the smile that used to 
 tame her in her wildest flights — her ardour to know difficult 
 things without the trouble of learning. " A parish priest 
 has no leisure for doing the things he likes best." 
 
 " Then you must make leisure. No parish work is an 
 excuse for neglecting us — is it, mother ? He has duties 
 to us as well as to his parish. He is our kinsman, and we 
 rely upon him in our difficulties." 
 
 " Always rely upon me," he said softly. " Whatever 
 my parish work, if you call me I will come." 
 
 Was it not enough for happiness just to be sitting there, 
 opposite Miranda, watching her every look and movement ? 
 She was a restless, vivid creature, so full of life that 
 inaction was hardly possible to her. Just now she was 
 hanging over her mother, pressing her to taste some peculiar 
 dainty in the basket of cakes. 
 
 " Do try one, darling. They are the best things cook 
 
MIRANDA 45 
 
 does. You had such a miserable luncheon. I am afraid 
 it is one of your bad days." 
 
 Lady Laura had her bad days. She was supposed to 
 have nothing the matter with her — never to be seriously 
 ill; but she owned to bad days — days following sleepless 
 nights, days of languor and listlessness that made Miranda 
 unhappy. And now Lady Laura having consented to 
 eat something, the girl was glad, and danced back to her 
 seat opposite Gilbert, and pressed the cakes upon him, 
 and chattered gaily, telling him of all the things that 
 they had been doing since they had seen him — such trivial 
 things. 
 
 " There are no events in our humdrum lives — nothing 
 happens. The Barrow is a Lotos Island, and our lives 
 are one long, sleepy afternoon, and we loll in our garden- 
 chairs dog-tired of doing nothing. And now I am going 
 to the dogs. The dachs is under the weather, poor 
 precious ! And Whipple is nursing him. Good-bye, 
 Gillie, and never dare to stay away three weeks on end. 
 Come, Julia." She ran off with her lady-in-waiting, 
 and Gilbert walked beside them half-way to the stables, 
 and then slowly returned to Lady Laura, who was strolling 
 about the gardens, looking at the roses. 
 
 " My dear Gilbert, it was dear of you to come back to 
 us at last. Words can't say how we have missed you — 
 myself most of all." 
 
 " And Miranda a little ? " 
 
 " Miranda very much." 
 
 He laughed happily. 
 
 " Who knows if there may not be a far-away hope, after 
 all ? I have been learning the lesson most men have to 
 learn at some time in their lives — renunciation. Those 
 five syllables mean an infinity of pain, Lady Laura ; but 
 why should I think that I can escape pain ? I have seen 
 too much of it among my parishioners, pain of body and 
 mind, and I have seen courage and patience, the courage 
 of martyrs, the patience of saints." 
 
 Lady Laura gave a little sigh when he had gone. She 
 had seen the glow upon his cheek and the brightness in 
 
46 MIRANDA 
 
 his eyes as he spoke of the far-away hope. At any rate 
 it would be pleasant to have this kind and useful friend 
 again, a frequent visitor. The last three weeks had seemed 
 longer than the average week, for want of him. 
 
 Lady Laura had only one fault, and that would be called 
 by most people a trivial one. Yet it influenced most of 
 her actions and pervaded all her life. She hated trouble. 
 If she had been asked her idea of an earthly paradise she 
 would have answered, a place where no one bothered her. 
 To be bothered is not an elegant phrase, but it was the 
 only one that expressed Laura Strickland's feelings. 
 
 She would lay down her morning letters with a weary 
 sigh and tell Miss Wagstaff that people seemed to have 
 been sent into the world to torment her. 
 
 " Do you believe they were born on purpose, mother, 
 with no other career open to them ? " Miranda would ask, 
 laughing at her. 
 
 " How can I help thinking so ? Here is a long rigmarole 
 from Strothers about Mulliner's homestead — that pretty 
 house, you know, Julia. Any one might be happy to live 
 in it. And now it seems Mulliner wants the house taken 
 to pieces, from garret to cellar, and declares it isn't sanitary, 
 and that his children are never well. Why couldn't he 
 find that out before he signed the lease ? " 
 
 " He had to try it on the children first," said Miranda. 
 " You must have it made healthy for the children, darling, 
 whatever it costs." 
 
 "It is to cost about two hundred and fifty pounds — 
 ' about ' would mean four hundred. Of course I must 
 have the work done. Structural repairs, Strothers says, 
 for which the tenant is not liable. So I am to spend 
 four hundred pounds for the little Mulliners, whether I 
 can afford it or not." 
 
 "My angel, you can easily afford it," said Miranda. 
 " You don't know how rich you are." 
 
 " I do know that everybody tries to make me poor," 
 replied Lady Laura fretfully. 
 
 It was one of her bad days, and she was in a pessimistic 
 mood. 
 
MIRANDA 47 
 
 " And why should that tiresome Strothers send me such 
 a letter as this ? " she demanded, of Miranda, Julia, and 
 the sky, and almost of the butler, who was carrying off 
 the urn. " Eight closely- written pages about iron drain- 
 pipes and stock bricks and things, when he knows the 
 work will have to be done, and that I shall have to pay 
 for it ? And here are three more letters, from clergymen 
 in other counties wanting to be helped with their churches 
 — as if there wasn't enough to do for the old church here." 
 
 " And for St. Barnabas' ? " Miranda put in. " Dear St. 
 Barnabas', which is crowded to suffocation of an evening, 
 and ought to have a north aisle." 
 
 " And a peal of bells," said Julia. 
 
 " St. Barnabas' will have a peal of bells," said Miranda, 
 with authority, " as soon as ever I am of age and can 
 manage my own money, instead of being domineered 
 over by parsimonious trustees." 
 
 This morning's letter-bag was a sample of many 
 letter-bags. Lady Laura said she hated letters, even from 
 friends, since they always wanted her to take trouble about 
 something. Trouble was the shadow that came between 
 Lady Laura and the sun. Her life had been so easy that 
 any exercise of will about uninteresting things was hateful 
 to her. She had no initiative. As the youngest in a 
 large family, everything had been done for her, and every- 
 thing had been decided for her. She was the prettiest 
 of four sisters, and the favourite of both her parents. 
 Naturally amiable and of a yielding temper, she had let 
 her mother and sisters think for her — had scarcely troubled 
 to have a strong opinion about anything. Married at 
 nineteen to a husband who adored her, and who went on 
 adoring her till death parted them, her life had been too 
 easy and too eventless for her character to gain force, or 
 her mind to widen as the years went on. 
 
 The growth of Miranda in beauty and intelligence had 
 rescued her mother from sorrow that had become almost 
 apathy ; but it was only when the fatherless child was 
 two years old that the widow came back to life. After 
 that she lived for Miranda, and she hated the outside people 
 
48 MIRANDA 
 
 who intruded upon her one interest in the world. She 
 made no close friends, and she asked for no one's counsel, 
 and it was not till Gilbert Ferrar came into her life that 
 she discovered what a comfortable thing it was to have a 
 friend whom she could trust, and who was capable of 
 deciding all difficult questions for her — those questions 
 that were always cropping up between her and her bailiff, 
 Strothers, and Mr. Greyson, the Trownham architect, 
 who looked after the property, and whose business it was 
 to make estimates, and to be mildly shocked when the 
 work was done and his estimate largely exceeded. 
 
 " That's the worst of work of this kind. One can't 
 avoid extras." 
 
 Extras were Lady Laura's horror. 
 
 " Half my income goes on extras," she said. "If it 
 were not for them I might be rich." 
 
 "Dearest, you are rich," Miranda protested, "and 
 isn't it nice to own cottages that people love to live in ? " 
 
 " They don't love to pay their rent," sighed her mother ; 
 " and then Strothers comes worrying, and says they are 
 six months in arrear, and that I ought to distrain." 
 
 "As if you could ! " cried Miranda. 
 
 "I'm afraid Lady Laura is too kind," said Julia. 
 
 " She can't be anything else, Jooley. It's an inveterate 
 habit. She has been too kind to me all my life — and is 
 never going to change." 
 
 After Miranda's eighteenth birthday, the people who 
 had been sent into the world to worry Lady Laura — 
 the two sisters within motor range, Lady Haverstock and 
 Lady Albury, the gentilities of Melford, and county friends 
 from all points of the compass — came down like the wolf 
 on the fold, and made Miranda's mother miserable. Out 
 of pure benevolence, bien entendu. They all talked at 
 once, and Lady Laura sat among them, pale and help- 
 less, and her murmured replies were hardly audible. 
 
 Lady Haverstock took the lead, as counsel for the 
 prosecution. 
 
 " A time has come when that sweet child must no 
 longer live like a cloistered nun. She has every advantage, 
 
MIRANDA 49 
 
 beauty, blood, and fortune, and she must make the most 
 of her gifts. She is a girl who, properly handled, might 
 marry a duke." 
 
 " And you allow her to vegetate in this wretched village, 
 where I dare say she thinks herself a queen," said Lady 
 Albury, " simply because you won't take the trouble to 
 think about her. You were always lymphatic, but now 
 the time has come for action, and you mustn't be lymphatic 
 about Miranda." 
 
 This roused Lady Laura. " Do I ever cease to think of 
 her, and to think of what is best for her ? " 
 
 " And you will go on thinking, and you will let her be 
 an old maid before she is presented." 
 
 " Miranda hates London. We were there three days 
 when I took her up last year to get her riding things, 
 and I had a headache all the time, and Miranda went with 
 Julia to three of the best theatres and did not care for 
 any of the plays." 
 
 " It is not a question of what Miranda likes, but of what 
 is essential for the child's welfare. She must have the 
 advantages that other girls have. She ought to be pre- 
 sented next May, and you ought to give her a season in 
 London, where she can meet the right people." 
 
 Here Mrs. Devereux, who had been sipping cold tea in 
 a resentful silence, came into the arena. She had a voice 
 that was manly and deep, and was in the habit of over- 
 riding her acquaintance at a tea-party ; but she had 
 also an incorrigible disposition to worship peeresses, and 
 thus had allowed herself to remain mute under provocation. 
 
 " Miranda need not die of ennui, even in this wretched 
 village," she said, rising tall and stately to make her 
 adieux. " She could have plenty of interests, if she 
 would mix more with girls of her own age — tennis, croquet, 
 Badminton — games for summer and winter. We have 
 plenty of nice girls in God-forsaken Melford, Lady Haver- 
 stock, though you may not think so. If you are coming 
 to see me, Lady Laura, I hope it will be before the end of 
 next week, as we are all going to Robin Hood's Bay on 
 the fifteenth." 
 
50 MIRANDA 
 
 " Do any of the nice girls own that woman for 
 mother ? " Lady Haverstock asked, when the visitor was 
 gone. 
 
 " No, the Devereux have no offspring.' ' 
 
 " Well, thank goodness she is gone at last, and we can 
 
 talk ," which, seeing that Lady Laura's sisters had 
 
 never ceased talking, or appeared conscious of anybody 
 else in the room, seemed superfluous. 
 
 Other visitors had dropped off gradually, and now 
 Lady Laura was at the mercy of her sisters, who had ruled 
 her in the nursery and in the schoolroom and had never 
 lost the habit of command. 
 
 Lady Laura and her girl were to go to Hill Street for 
 the last week in April, and Miranda was to appear at the 
 first May Drawing-room, when Lady Haverstock was 
 to launch two of her own girls — the third and fourth — 
 who were to come out simultaneously to save trouble and 
 expense, the elder sisters not having done well enough to 
 encourage great fuss or outlay. 
 
 " I don't know why Rose and Violet have hung fire," 
 the Spartan mother said. " They are as pretty as the 
 average girl, and they are dear creatures, absolutely good 
 style, but all the young men hope to get rich wives from 
 America, even if they don't go to New York or Chicago 
 to hunt for them." 
 
 It was all settled in that brisk half-hour. 
 
 " You need have no trouble, Laura. I shall keep my 
 best spare rooms for you and Miranda, and I'll find room 
 for the two maids, and for your Miss Wagstaff, who will 
 be useful in taking Miranda to all her tryings-on, and 
 saving you trouble. You can have a restful week, just 
 doing an Opera night and a few of the picture shows, while 
 we get your girl ready. And after that you and Miranda 
 can come back to Melford and bury yourselves alive till 
 next January." 
 
 " When you will have to take a house in London for 
 the season. Hilda and I would find one for you — or per- 
 haps she would let you have her own house, if they all go 
 to Egypt," said Lady Albury, who had been chipping in 
 
MIRANDA Si 
 
 with suggestions and amendments all through her elder 
 sister's talk. 
 
 " C'est selon ! I hope at least one of my girls may 
 be going off by that time, and then there will be no Egypt 
 for any of us. When I remember how we four girls married, 
 with hardly breathing-time between the weddings, it 
 shows me what havoc socialists and labour members have 
 wrought in our poor little world." 
 
 4* 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 EVERYTHING had been done, and on a sweet May 
 evening when she could only think of her garden, 
 and how lovely all things at The Barrow would be in the 
 warm twilight, Miranda was being dressed in flowing 
 draperies of white satin and lace, twinkling all over with 
 mock-diamond dewdrops, and with her mother's choicest 
 pearls warm and white on her whiter neck. She was not 
 excited, she was not elated — she had none of the thrilling 
 emotion that she had felt, four years ago, when her white 
 muslin frock was being put on for her Confirmation. That 
 was something for tremulous thoughts and beating heart. 
 This was just a passing show, phantasmal pomp and glitter, 
 which counted for nothing. Gilbert had spoken of the 
 ordeal with a touch of mockery when she told him how 
 all the fuss and talk of this debut bored her. 
 
 " My dear Miranda, it is something you have to go 
 through — not much worse than having a tooth drawn." 
 
 " But one can't go through it under gas," she sighed. 
 
 He asked no questions about her frock, about which 
 everybody else wanted details. What petticoat, what 
 train, what lace ? He took no interest, she thought, and 
 then scorned herself for expecting a man to be interested 
 in a girl's Court finery, a man who had the souls and 
 destinies of three thousand strugglers-for-life in his charge, 
 and who had to face sin and sorrow all the days of his 
 laborious existence. 
 
 She passed through the courtly ceremony with credit, 
 having been carefully coached in the essential points, and 
 
 52 
 
MIRANDA 53 
 
 not being oppressed by the unknown splendour of the 
 palace, or the dazzle of stars and tiaras — whereupon Lady 
 Haverstock congratulated her sister, and snubbed her 
 own girls on the drive home. 
 
 " Why you must needs trip over your lace flounce as 
 you left the room, Barbara, passes my understanding," 
 she said. 
 
 And then, for the first time, Miranda heard that there 
 was to be a party in Hill Street — nothing formal, just the 
 usual herd asked for eleven o'clock to see the three girls 
 in their white splendour, the people whose motor-cars and 
 carriages were about the streets half through the night 
 at this season, when nearly all the West End houses were 
 alive with light and music. 
 
 Miranda found a crowd on the stairs and in the drawing- 
 room, people whose acquaintance she had made during 
 those few days in Mayfair, and who were all so friendly 
 and familiar, as if she had known them for years. Matrons 
 who had been girls with Lady Laura ; sons and daughters 
 who had been growing up in the thick of the world while 
 Miranda had been enjoying the sweet slow days at 
 Melford-on-the-Moor, girls who had been taught music 
 at the Paris Conservatoire, girls whose voices had been 
 trained at Milan, girls who had been educated in Germany, 
 in a hard-headed, superior way, and who knew everything, 
 and despised English books. 
 
 They all flocked round the three debutantes, and 
 fingered their laces, and professed themselves green with 
 envy at the sight of Miranda's pearls : and then a demi- 
 semi musical star played Chopin's grandest mazurka, 
 and the babel of voices grew louder, and Miranda was 
 swept down to the dining-room with an elderly soldier in 
 charge of her, in a cluster of girls and boys. 
 
 Her cavalier found her a vacant place in a row of chairs 
 against the wall, and bustled off to get her an ice. 
 
 He had not been gone half a minute before someone 
 stood in front of her with a cup of tea. She took it auto- 
 matically, with a murmured " Thank you," and then, 
 looking up, gave a little cry of surprise. 
 
54 MIRANDA 
 
 " Gilbert ! How extraordinary ! " 
 
 " To find me in this frivolous world ? " 
 
 " I thought you hardly ever came to London." 
 
 " Only when I have something serious to bring me. 
 This time I had the serious something : an important 
 meeting at the Church House — and something frivolous. 
 I wanted to see what kind of Miranda made her curtsey 
 to the Queen." 
 
 " Did you expect to find something different from the 
 troublesome person you have borne with for so many 
 years ? " 
 
 " There is a difference — you look taller and older in 
 your fine clothes. Handsome as your Court raiment is, 
 I like Miranda of The Barrow, in her holland frock, quite 
 as well." 
 
 " Oh, I knew you could not be dazzled. Have you 
 been calculating how many sick children and poor widows 
 might be helped by the money my splendour has cost ? " 
 
 " I am not quite so practical. There must be lilies 
 and roses, as well as potatoes. Although the potatoes 
 may feed the hungry." 
 
 Miranda's General came back, bringing her a strawberry 
 ice. 
 
 " I hope this is the right colour," he said, smiling down 
 at her. 
 
 He thought she was the prettiest girl in the room, and 
 her mother, in purple velvet and diamonds, the hand- 
 somest of the matrons. 
 
 ■' Please forgive me," said Miranda, holding up her cup 
 and saucer. " An old friend came and tempted me with 
 a cup of tea." 
 
 The soldier addressed his genial smile to Gilbert, who 
 had slipped into an empty chair next Miranda. 
 
 " If you knew the fight I had to get at the buffet," he 
 murmured, as he handed the ice to a footman, and then : 
 " Why is everybody flocking to the other side of the 
 room ? " he exclaimed. " What is the magnet ? " 
 
 He put up his double eyeglass, and took a sweeping 
 survey. 
 
MIRANDA 55 
 
 " I see ! It is only a pack of foolish women, young 
 and old. They are all crowding round that tall man with 
 long hair. I suppose he has done something — paints — or 
 writes — or flies." 
 
 " The long hair hardly suggests a monoplane," said 
 Gilbert. " I believe the long-haired man must be the new 
 poet Lady Haverstock's daughters told me about. The 
 man with the Raphael face, they called him." 
 
 " He is like the portraits of Raphael," Miranda said 
 softly. 
 
 Her long sight needed no glass. She could see every 
 detail in the oval face, the dark blue eyes, the straight 
 nose and thin lips, across the length of the spacious room. 
 
 " A cad, whoever he may be," said General Hammond. 
 
 " A cad for wearing long hair ? " 
 
 " A cad for making himself conspicuous. Only cads 
 want to be stared at." 
 
 " Charles Dickens wore his hair nearly as long when 
 he was young," suggested Miranda. " I have his portrait 
 at three-and- twenty." 
 
 " It was permitted in those days, Miss Strickland ; 
 men might wear floppy hair before the Crimean War." 
 
 General Hammond wished Miranda and her old friend 
 good-night, and lost himself in the stream of departures, 
 but Miranda made Gilbert go upstairs with her. It was 
 midnight, and people were hurrying away, except just that 
 crowd of foolish women hanging round the Raphael face. 
 
 Lady Haverstock was standing near the door, smiling 
 and animated to the end. However long the bores lin- 
 gered, she never showed signs of weariness till her last 
 guest was gone, and then she gave herself up to a 
 paroxysm of yawning until her jaws cracked audibly. 
 
 " You shan't rush away," Miranda said, making room 
 for Gilbert on a sofa in the almost empty drawing-room. 
 " Barbara, come here and talk to Mr. Ferrar. What have 
 you done with my mother ? " 
 
 " Aunt Laura and mother are in the next room, jawing." 
 
 " Poor darling ! " And then, turning to Gilbert : 
 " Didn't she look lovely ? " 
 
56 MIRANDA 
 
 " So did someone else." 
 
 "Barbara, Jessie, and me? Cela va sans dire. But 
 with mother it is wonderful — soon going to be forty, 
 and not a wrinkle ! And such Parian marble shoulders ! 
 I am proud of my beautiful mother." 
 
 Barbara did not pursue the subject. She had been 
 sorry for her own mother, who " looked a hag." Worn 
 threadbare with many seasons, with the debts of her sons, 
 and the quasi-failure of her girls, how could Lord Airdale's 
 eldest daughter preserve the bloom of youth on the 
 threshold of fifty ? And being a hard-headed, sensible 
 woman she had shunned the snares of Beauty Specialists, 
 and was content to face the world with the consciousness 
 of a straight back, a slim waist, and a perfectly-fitting 
 gown. 
 
 " Miranda ! " gasped her cousin, " Mark Raynham 
 came ! Mother sent him a card, but we none of us 
 thought he would come. Everybody asks him. He is 
 simply the rage." 
 
 " What has he done ? " asked Gilbert. 
 
 " He has written the most wonderful poem since 
 Browning's ' Ring and the Book.' He is better than 
 Browning — some people say he is finer than Goethe. 
 Mother and I absolutely doat upon his poetry." 
 
 Gilbert asked if Miranda had read this wonderful book. 
 No, she had been much too busy, seeing pictures and 
 hearing music, and Aunt Hilda had taken her to a 
 party or to the Opera, or both, every night. There 
 had been no time for books. It had been a week in a 
 whirlpool. 
 
 " And I suppose, now you are in the whirlpool you are 
 not coming out of it till the end of the season." 
 
 " She ought to let Aunt Laura take a house till August. 
 She is cosher now, and she'll be asked everywhere," said 
 Barbara. 
 
 " You mean that she has made her debut ? " 
 
 " London is ravishing for a week," said Miranda, " but 
 I should soon be tired of it, and I am pining for my dogs 
 and horses. I can't get on long without four-legged 
 
MIRANDA 57 
 
 creatures about me. We are going back to the dull old 
 Barrow on Monday." 
 
 " That reminds me that I am going to Trownham 
 to-day," said Gilbert, moving to the inner room, where 
 the two elder ladies were sitting side by side on a luxurious 
 sofa, talking confidentially. 
 
 " It was too sweet of you to come," Lady Laura said. 
 
 " I had to give myself a treat after four hours of un- 
 inspired eloquence at Westminster." 
 
 " I'm so glad you happened to have serious business to 
 bring you to London." 
 
 " Wasn't it serious enough for him to see me in my 
 first grand frock ? " said Miranda ; and then she asked 
 Gilbert, " Are you starting early ? " 
 
 " Five o'clock from Euston." 
 
 " And it is nearly one. Oh, you poor creature ! " 
 sighed Lady Laura, who shivered at the mere thought of 
 anyone having to rise early. 
 
 " Don't pity me. Every field and garden in Hertford- 
 shire will be exquisite between five and six o'clock. Good- 
 night." 
 
 He was gone at last. Lady Haverstock shrugged her 
 shoulders. 
 
 " He might have gone half an hour ago," she said. 
 
 " It was my fault, Aunt Hilda. I made him come 
 upstairs for a talk, while the other people went away." 
 
 " It seems to me that you make a fool of the man," 
 her aunt said severely. 
 
 He had been the subject of that confidential talk on 
 the sofa. Hilda Haverstock had lectured her sister for 
 her folly in allowing that good-looking parson to make 
 love to her daughter. 
 
 " Parsons are always dangerous," she said, " especially 
 the advanced Ritualists, with their copes and incense and 
 birettas. They appeal to all that is foolish in a girl's mind. 
 That man means to marry your daughter." 
 
 " Miranda would never think of him as a lover." 
 
 " Don't tell me ! A man with that kind of face can 
 marry any woman he likes. Mark my words ! " 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 MIRANDA was in her garden, and her Court finery 
 was all packed away in an Italian dower-chest 
 of Lady Laura's ; the handsomest thing in the long bed- 
 room, with its five tall, narrow windows looking over miles 
 and miles of moor to the North Sea. Women who had 
 been allowed to enter Lady Laura's room were ecstatic 
 about it. No room in the Queen's palaces could be quite 
 so dear. The room, the view ! The view, the room ! 
 They tossed the substantives at each other, pointed with 
 notes of admiration. 
 
 " Well," sighed Miranda to Julia, " here we are in our 
 lotos island, and the afternoons are longer than ever ! " 
 
 " You don't regret London ? " 
 
 " Regret streets and squares, and herds of strangers ? 
 No, Julia. A month in London would kill me. To be 
 rushed about all day and night, with no time to read 
 or to think ; with no riding except that mockery of Rotten 
 Row, which is about as much like real riding as Aunt 
 Hilda's conservatory is like our garden." 
 
 She was lolling in a nest of silken cushions that 
 almost filled her wicker-chair, looking sleepily down the 
 long vista of lawn and climbing roses, pyramids of roses, 
 ropes of roses hanging from pillar to pillar, in a perspective 
 that only ended in the June sky, exquisitely blue in the 
 distance. 
 
 " No, Julia, I don't want London ; but there is some- 
 thing I do want." 
 
 58 
 
MIRANDA 59 
 
 " What is that, darling ? You know you have only 
 to hint a wish for anything, and Lady Laura " 
 
 " Will get the thing for me, if money can buy it. As 
 if I did not know that my mother is an angel, and has 
 spoilt me outrageously. Why, I have never had time 
 to wish for things ; she has guessed somehow — seen in 
 my face what I wanted — and the gift has come : the 
 very thing I had begun to long for. Perhaps if I had been 
 allowed to wait longer I should not have got tired of things 
 quite so soon." 
 
 " Well, what is it you want now ? " 
 
 " A thing mother can't buy for me. I want something 
 to happen — I want an event." 
 
 " My dear, dear child," said Julia, with a sudden sad- 
 ness that startled Miranda, " you don't know what life 
 is made of. If you knew the world as well as I do, you 
 would know that when something startling happens, 
 it is generally something tragic. I look back at my own 
 life and remember how in the midst of its placid dullness 
 the events that came were our sudden sorrows. My 
 brother's death-warrant, for instance. He who had seemed 
 well and strong till yesterday was condemned by the 
 doctors — a hopeless case, the brother we all adored. The 
 failure of the great house in the City where my father 
 had been employed before his marriage, where his 
 position had improved as the years went by, and where 
 he felt himself secure of a handsome pension when he was 
 superannuated. Present income, future competence, were 
 all lost in an hour." 
 
 " Oh, you poor, poor darling ! " cried Miranda, hugging 
 her. 
 
 " That is the kind of event that breaks the monotony 
 of some lives, my dear." 
 
 " Oh, what a wretch I am," sighed Miranda. " Yes, 
 Jooley, I am a wretch. With such a mother, and such a 
 garden, and such a Julia, and such dogs and horses — and 
 such nice old servants who knew mother before I was 
 born, and don't mind a scrap when I give them trouble ! 
 And to be discontented ! I am a wicked creature." 
 
60 MIRANDA 
 
 Julia would not hear such self-accusation. 
 
 " My dear girl, I never meant to blame you. Those 
 little fits of depression are natural at your age. I 
 remember in my peaceful girlhood, when all things were 
 going well at home, there was sometimes a spring twilight 
 in which a leaden cloud fell over the long, grey street, and 
 the sameness and the dullness of life seemed to come upon 
 me suddenly ; and I felt as if I could hardly bear it. I 
 have gone to the hall-door and opened it, and looked along 
 the street for something to happen — for some wonderful 
 stranger to come to the door, some friend out of my father's 
 youth — one of the friends he had told us about ; or for the 
 postman to bring a letter with good news — unexpected 
 good news — an invitation, a legacy. Yes, dear, I too 
 have been foolish — aching for something new and strange, 
 something that would make life brighter. And then, 
 next morning, the leaden cloud had lifted, and I trotted 
 off to Harley Street, happy to think I was near the top 
 of my class. Youth has to live through foolish moments, 
 Miranda." 
 
 " I shall never grumble again ; but there comes a time 
 when one wants a wider horizon — a look-out into the far- 
 away, a glimpse of new strange things that are waiting 
 for us : not sadness and sorrow, Julia — why should one 
 fear ? You must not make me morbid with thoughts of 
 horrors that might happen." 
 
 " Not for the world. I only want you to appreciate 
 your happy life, and to be grateful to God for all your 
 blessings." 
 
 " That's what Gilbert Ferrar would say if I told him 
 I was tired of lotos-eating. Perhaps he would compare 
 me with that odious Lady Clara, and tell me to 
 
 " ' Teach the orphan boy to read, 
 Or teach the orphan girl to sew.' 
 
 Alas, I don't like stuffy cottages ! But I am not unkind 
 to the poor, am I, Julia ? " 
 
 " You are simply angelic." 
 
 " I like to take them something pretty — a bit of bright 
 
MIRANDA 61 
 
 colour for their parlour chimney-piece, or a length of 
 silk for a Sunday blouse. I want them to get a share of 
 the beauty of life — such a paltry share at best, poor 
 things.' ' 
 
 " They have the view of the moor and the sunset on 
 the sea from their cottage doors," said Julia. 
 
 " Yes, the view from our cottages is adorable — and 
 they have their acre of garden. I couldn't be happy in 
 mine if they had less." 
 
 " Lady Laura's cottages are the admiration of every 
 stranger who comes to Melford. She might let them all 
 to gentlefolks if she liked." 
 
 " She would never be so horrid. Our cottages were 
 meant for cottagers." 
 
 This conversation with her lady-in-waiting did Miranda 
 good ; but the new feeling was still there, although she 
 did not talk to Julia about it. Her dominion had grown 
 too narrow. She was tired of everything. She let the 
 head gardener have his own way in the garden, and did 
 not so much as mark a catalogue for him. She bought 
 no new books, although she had read the old ones over 
 and over again. She left off working at modern 
 languages, and forgot that she had ever aspired to read 
 Greek. She played the piano for hours on end — Mozart, 
 Chopin, Mendelssohn, Grieg. Her hands moved over the 
 keys with wonderful strength and vitality. Her 
 fortissimo chords were tremendous, her brilliant passages 
 like strings of pearls or running water. The concert 
 grand by Steinway seemed to have a new power. 
 
 " My darling," exclaimed her mother, " how 
 superbly you play. You have improved immensely. 
 Your playing throbs with life." 
 
 The girl's eyes filled with tears. " Yes, dearest, the 
 music lives — I think it's the only thing alive in this house." 
 And then, seeing her mother's scared look, she sprang up 
 from her seat in front of the piano, and ran to embrace her. 
 
 " Don't notice my rodomontade," she said. " One has 
 one's wild moments. Chopin fevers my blood." 
 
62 MIRANDA 
 
 '• When you talk like that I begin to be afraid you are 
 unhappy. What is wrong with you, Miranda ? What 
 can I do ? " 
 
 " Nothing, except go on being just what you are — 
 the most angelic mother that ever a spoilt wretch tor- 
 mented with her whims and nonsense. I am quite happy, 
 darling, more than happy while you are well. One of 
 your bad days sinks my spirits to zero. W 7 hile you are 
 well all is well, and the fairies could give me nothing. 
 A wishing-cap would be useless ! " she concluded with a 
 faint sigh. 
 
 They strolled out to the lawn together, Lady Laura's 
 arm round her girl's waist. 
 
 Miranda told her old friend Gilbert Ferrar another 
 story. His visits were rare this year. Miranda's educa- 
 tion was finished — the books were neatly ranged upon the 
 shelves. The music-master came twice a week, and that 
 was all. Miranda made her friend stay longer now that 
 he came so seldom. 
 
 " You must not think of going till after tea," she 
 protested. " I have worlds to say to you." 
 
 Yet very little seemed to come of these worlds, as they 
 sauntered side by side in the July garden, where rose- 
 petals were dropping like rain, and where the standard 
 magnolias held up the scent of their great white chalices 
 to the sun. 
 
 She had very little to say, and sometimes she sighed, 
 and sometimes she yawned, audibly — without knowing. 
 
 " Oh, Gillie, what a colourless web life is, even when 
 one is ever so happy." 
 
 " If that is your opinion what do you suppose life is 
 like for the unhappy ? You have lain in the lilies." 
 
 " Till my bones ache," she cried. 
 
 " What of girls of your age who have had to lie in 
 brambles and stinging-nettles ? " 
 
 " Gillie, don't preach. If you are going to be sen- 
 tentious I would rather you ordered your horse. Can't 
 you understand that there may come a time when lotos- 
 
MIRANDA 63 
 
 eating and afternoon sleep begin to pall ? I feel new 
 pulses beating in me that fight for freedom — for a wide 
 world, and more wonderful people." 
 
 " Your mother will take a house in London next year, 
 and you will have a new world to conquer. Crowds of 
 wonderful people, friends and foes, perpetual movement, 
 perpetual change." 
 
 " Bosh ! London isn't good enough. I used up London 
 in a week." She stretched her arms wide. "■ I want the 
 world, the grand, beautiful world, north and south, east 
 and west," she said. " Niagara and Cotopaxi, Mount 
 Everest and the Zambesi, the isles of Greece, Japan — 
 all the countries you made me read about, all the strange 
 peoples — and I'm afraid" — changing from romantic 
 fervour to sudden languor — " I should be tired of it all 
 in a year." 
 
 " You have had too much," he said gravely. " Don't 
 provoke Fate. There are Three Sisters waiting round the 
 corner, and one of them has an eye upon spoilt children who 
 grow into foolish young women and cry for the moon." 
 
 That was all Miranda got from Gilbert Ferrar ; but 
 afterwards when they were at tea, and his horse had been 
 ordered, he addressed himself suddenly to Lady Laura. 
 
 " I want Miranda and Miss Wagstaff to spare me a long 
 afternoon," he said. " I want to take them round my 
 parish, and to show them what I have done, and what I 
 have not been able to do, even with the generous help 
 you all have given me." 
 
 " All " included Julia Wagstaff, who had sent most of 
 her spare cash to her favourite preacher — much from her, 
 but little as compared with the sums contributed by 
 Lady Laura and her girl, who wrote cheques and forgot 
 to put the amount on the counterfoil, since it mattered so 
 little how heavily they drew upon a seemingly inexhaustible 
 balance. 
 
 ** May she come, Lady Laura ? Will you come, 
 Miranda ? " Gilbert asked. 
 
 " She would love it of all things," exclaimed Miss 
 Wagstaff. 
 
64 MIRANDA 
 
 " Don't answer for me, Julia. He has been quite 
 odious this afternoon, preaching and reproving, and now 
 he intends to give me an object-lesson." 
 
 " But you would like to see his mean streets and his 
 patient workers/' said Lady Laura. " And I rely upon 
 you, Gilbert, to take her nowhere that there is the shadow 
 of fear about scarlet fever or infection of any kind." 
 
 " She shall not come within the shadow of fear. She 
 shall see the comfortable houses, the homes of industrious 
 families, who have seldom less than thirty shillings a week 
 to keep father and mother and five or six children ; and 
 she can make her own deductions as to what the abodes of 
 penury and dirt must be. Will you come, Miranda ? 
 To-morrow or Friday ? " 
 
 " Yes, you shall teach me your object-lesson. We'll 
 come to-morrow." 
 
 He met her on the threshold of his Vicarage in the arid 
 street — no garden — a severe, square stone house, abutting 
 on the street. He was there to hand her out of her carriage 
 — all bloom and freshness in her radiant youth — slender 
 and graceful, so light of limb that her foot seemed hardly 
 to touch the carriage-step as she descended. 
 
 " I put on my prettiest frock and hat," she said, " for 
 I know they take it as a bad compliment if one goes to 
 see them in dull old clothes." 
 {^ " They " meant the proletariate. 
 
 Her pale blue muslin frock fluttered with delicate lace, 
 and she wore a turquoise brooch and ear-rings, and her 
 hat was white gauze sprinkled with forget-me-nots — a 
 sweet, child-like prettiness from head to foot. Her bronze 
 slipper with its broad gold buckle seemed hardly fit to 
 tread the pavement of a factory town. 
 
 " I have brought them heaps of flowers," she said, 
 pointing to a large basket on the front seat of the sociable. 
 
 " We will send half of those to the children's hospital, 
 and you and Miss Wagstaff shall carry the rest and dis- 
 tribute them as fancy prompts. I can find you a couple 
 of light baskets." 
 
MIRANDA 65 
 
 It was done as he suggested, and the division being made, 
 the carriage was sent to the hospital with the big basket 
 before putting up at the spacious old-world stables where 
 the coaches used to stop. 
 
 " What time shall Julia order the carriage ? " 
 
 " Give me two hours for our visits, and let me make 
 tea for you before you go back." 
 
 " Tea in your Vicarage — I shall love it. Tell Whipple 
 half-past four, Julia — and he is to get a good tea for him- 
 self at the ' Moon and Stars.' " 
 
 " I believe he always does," said Julia. " The landlady 
 has an immense opinion of Mr. Whipple." 
 
 They were in a room lined with books, with nothing in 
 it that was artistic or beautiful except a picture over the 
 chimney-piece, a half-length portrait of a lady in a white 
 gown, a delicate face, thoughtful to sadness. 
 
 " I think that must be your mother's portrait," Miranda 
 said softly. 
 
 " How did you know ? " 
 
 " Because you have put a crucifix on one side of it 
 and a Russian icon on the other. It hangs there as in 
 a shrine." 
 
 " There was never saint worthier of one. That picture 
 was one of the last Whistler painted, and some judges 
 think it as fine as anything he ever did, except the portrait 
 of his own mother." 
 
 Miranda had arranged her basket of roses and lilies, 
 and was looking round the walls. 
 
 " Is this your drawing-room ? " she murmured. " Oh, 
 you poor thing ! " 
 
 "It is the room I live in — my living-room, as they call 
 it in Trownham, where we have only chambers and living- 
 rooms — no fine-drawn distinctions, rooms for music and 
 leisure — rooms to smoke in — rooms to eat in. We sleep, 
 and we live — that is all." 
 
 " And where do you hold your confirmation classes ? " 
 
 " In this room." 
 
 " And where do the sinners come to confess to you — I 
 have heard that you urge the need of confession." 
 
66 MIRANDA 
 
 " They come to me in my church generally — and some 
 of them come here." 
 " The bad cases ? " 
 " Yes, the bad cases." 
 
 There was nothing to shock or terrify in Miranda's 
 exploration of the Trownham she had never seen till 
 to-day, though she knew every shop in the one wide street, 
 the famous Bridge Street, where most of the Melford people 
 spent their money, and where at the ever-expanding 
 drapery establishment you could get everything you 
 wanted, and " really good style," although of course 
 there was not the " choice " that a great London shop 
 afforded. 
 
 All that was prosperous and bright of aspect in Trown- 
 ham had long been familiar to Miranda and her governess ; 
 but the Trownham that Gilbert showed her — these 
 endless rows of small houses, all exactly alike, these stony 
 fore-courts, these implacable asphalt pavements, these were 
 new, and the contemplation of them gave Miranda a 
 heart-ache. 
 
 She was taken into several cottages ; she saw and talked 
 with all kinds of women — the lachrymose, the sick, the 
 bright and capable. She heard their talk of their hus- 
 bands and children — the men at the Works, the children 
 at school. They had all been factory-hands before they 
 married, and these were the aristocracy of labour, who 
 worked only for the home, and kept clean rooms and bright 
 hearths for the wage-earners. 
 
 " Your room looks the pink of cleanliness," Miranda 
 said to one sturdy matron, as she handed her a cluster 
 of la France roses. 
 
 " My word, miss, it has to be," the woman answered. 
 
 " Your husband is very particular ? " 
 
 " Someone else is. Dirty floors don't answer in St. 
 Barnabas' parish. I have to buy me a scrubbing-brush 
 sometimes when I'd rather get a pound of sausages." 
 
 " But I think you've found your children have had 
 less illness since you've scrubbed your floors and kept 
 your windows open," the Vicar said. 
 
MIRANDA 67 
 
 " That's gospel truth. You're a hard one, sir, but you're 
 a good one." 
 
 Everywhere Miranda heard the same story. The Vicar 
 had borne heavily upon them at first, and it had been 
 " nigh a year "before they began to like him. But now 
 there wasn't a mother in Trownham who didn't love him 
 for the good he'd done among them — his children's 
 hospital — his swimming-bath for the boys — his League of 
 Kindness and his League of Purity. " Clean outside and 
 inside, that's what he tells us to be," said one of the 
 women, " but the outside' s easiest — though some of us 
 didn't take kindly to soap and water. ' Clean thoughts, 
 the whole truth — and nothing but the truth ' — that's 
 what he wants in the League of Purity." 
 
 There were glimpses of sunlight, Miranda found, and 
 the people were mostly cheerful — yet her heart ached at the 
 monotony of their lives, their long streets of ugly houses, 
 the smoke-pall that hung over them. What could it seem 
 but horrible to a girl whose eyes had opened in beautiful 
 surroundings, and from whose young years ugliness had 
 been banished as if it were a disease ? 
 
 She was tired and out of spirits when they went back 
 to the Vicarage. 
 
 " I have had my object-lesson," she said, with a long 
 sigh. 
 
 " Is the life worse than you expected ? The women 
 you saw are my prosperous parishioners." 
 
 " Prosperous in those dreadful streets — under that 
 leaden sky." 
 
 " My dear Miranda, have you to learn that there are 
 tens of thousands of your countrywomen who think they 
 are prosperous if they have just enough to eat, and a 
 weather-tight roof to shelter them ? " 
 
 " Those streets will haunt my dreams. And to think 
 that half our nice girls in Melford are drifting to 
 Trownham ! " 
 
 The neat parlour-maid came in with tea-cloth and tea- 
 tray, and brought an air of cheerfulness. 
 
 " Why, that's your work, Julia," cried Miranda, 
 
 5* 
 
68 MIRANDA 
 
 recognizing Miss Wagstaffs exquisite stitchery while the 
 cloth was being laid. 
 
 Julia blushed furiously. Yes, those careful stitches were 
 hers. And every stitch had been like a prayer. 
 
 " And those sweet cups and saucers ? " inquired Miranda. 
 
 " An Easter gift from your mother," said the Vicar. 
 " You see how well I am cared for." 
 
 " And I have never given you anything," the girl said 
 ruefully. 
 
 " You have heaped your gifts upon my flock, who have 
 so much more need." 
 
 " But to think that there is nothing of mine in this room 
 — not a single souvenir." 
 
 " I want no souvenirs — my solitude is peopled with the 
 forms of my friends." 
 
 " May I pour out the tea ? " asked Miranda, as if she 
 were still thirteen, when to pour out tea was a treat. 
 
 " Can she be trusted, Miss Wagstaff — or will she spoil 
 my best tea-cloth ? " 
 
 " I think you may trust her." 
 
 After this there was nothing but cheerfulness. Miranda 
 declared herself ravenous, and ate tea-cakes with gusto, 
 but did not forget her duty with the tea-pot. 
 
 " Gillie never takes less than three cups," she said. 
 
 The drive across the moor took the taste of the mean 
 streets out of Miranda's mouth. They skirted Lord 
 Airdale's pine-woods, which fringed the moorland. The 
 sunset was glorious : 
 
 " But they have not even that," said Miranda, thinking 
 of the people she had seen in the afternoon, " or they can 
 only just get a glimpse of it at the end of a street, one 
 
 patch of gold out of all that glory " And then she 
 
 murmured slowly, " Now I know what a good man's life 
 is like," and ended with a sigh. 
 
BOOK THE SECOND 
 
 SOMETHING HAPPENS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE DENE was let. 
 People went about Melford telling each other the 
 news, as if something stupendous had happened : a Radical 
 House of Commons shaken to its foundations ; a West 
 Indian Island gone under ; something unexpected and 
 world-convulsing. 
 
 The Dene was let. Mrs. Devereux was angry with her 
 husband and the servants for not having brought her the 
 news before anybody else had heard it. 
 
 "If it had been a death, Moody would have been at 
 the bottom of the stairs when I came down to breakfast." 
 
 Moody was her butler, who liked to be first in with the 
 news of a local, or even public, decease. 
 
 "Or if it had been a divorce suit coming on against a 
 pretty woman, you would have smelt it out," she told 
 the Colonel accusingly. " And now everybody will be 
 telling me." 
 
 " Then you can say you knew of it ever so long ago." 
 
 " I am not in the habit of telling lies, Colonel Devereux." 
 
 " If The Dene is let, which I doubt, I hope it isn't to 
 
 some d d skinflint widow, who won't subscribe to the 
 
 hounds." 
 
 " There are other skinflints in the world besides 
 widows," said the lady. 
 
 69 
 
70 MIRANDA 
 
 " Oh, Lord, yes ! plenty of 'em," answered the Colonel, 
 turning aside the poisoned barb with a pleasant laugh. 
 
 He was case-hardened against allusions to parsimony. 
 It had been said of him in the hunting-field that Colonel 
 Devereux's economy was a handsome income ; but the 
 Colonel was one of those wise economists who look after 
 the pence at home, and are liberal with the pounds out of 
 doors. He subscribed handsomely to the hounds, and to 
 the cricket club, and to all local charities. It was on Mrs. 
 Devereux and the servants, and the frivolities of domestic 
 life, that he exercised a scrupulous frugality. 
 
 The Dene had been tenantless for more years than any 
 elderly resident at Melford cared to count. The large, 
 staring board that offered this spacious mansion and 
 extensive grounds at a moderate rent to the world at large 
 had rotted and been replaced by new timber more than 
 once since Miranda's eager eyes had begun to look out 
 upon a familiar world. 
 
 She had ridden past the house with Whipple on her 
 first pony; and to gratify her childish curiosity, that 
 guide, philosopher, and friend had burst open a gate and 
 allowed her to ride about the neglected garden, and along 
 the weed-grown terrace in front of the shuttered windows. 
 
 He had been weak enough to tell her that the house 
 would not let because it was haunted, and from that 
 moment Miranda was keenly interested in every stone of 
 the building, and assailed Whipple with questions. 
 
 What was the ghost like ? Man or woman ? Old or 
 young ? In which room was it seen ? By night or by 
 day ? Was it ever seen in the garden ? — in the moon- 
 light ? In the dusk of a summer evening ? She would 
 love to see a ghost. 
 
 Hard pushed, Mr. Whipple — who had heard numerous 
 legends of the old stone mansion in leisure evenings at 
 the " Ring of Bells," and had somewhat jumbled them 
 -told her that to the best of his recollection the ghost was 
 a lady, young and beautiful, whose husband had shot her 
 dead on seeing her at an open window after midnight con- 
 versing with a gentleman, whom later inquiry proved to be 
 
MIRANDA 71 
 
 her very own brother, a Jacobite under sentence of death, 
 who had returned from France in secret to see this beloved 
 only sister, and had fallen upon a jealous husband riding 
 home unexpectedly from a journey. 
 
 Poor, sweet lady ! Noble fugitive ! Husband and 
 brother had fought and slain each other in the garden, 
 the brother not being allowed to explain the situation. 
 
 Whipple showed Miranda the trampled ground where 
 the dead men had lain, and where grass had ever after 
 refused to grow in a creditable manner. Plantain and 
 dandelion were unaffected — nor did groundsel cease to 
 flourish there. 
 
 Miranda wrote a poem about the haunted Dene in her 
 twelfth year, a narrative in six-line verses after Adelaide 
 Procter, which nobody but Julia was ever allowed to see. 
 The story of The Dene was Miranda's magnum opus. 
 Whether it was the shade of the murdered wife, or the 
 fact that the spacious stone mansion — steep of gable, 
 heavily mullioned of window, and vastly attractive from 
 a sentimental and artistic point of view — was horribly out 
 of repair, nobody, except an ancient couple as caretakers, 
 had ever lived at The Dene within Miranda's memory. 
 She had ridden her Shelty about the gardens and paddocks 
 and the pine-wood that screened the garden as often as the 
 whim took her — James Whipple walking at the pony's 
 head — and she had tipped the old gaffer who made a faint 
 show of keeping the gardens in order, and would have 
 tipped him more handsomely if he would have confessed 
 to having seen the ghostly lady — which, being a truthful 
 gaffer, he would not. 
 
 And now, behold, The Dene was let, and everybody 
 was on tiptoe with curiosity as to the tenant. 
 
 " It must be someone with strong nerves, who has no 
 objection to ghosts," said Lady Laura, when the startling 
 news had brought her more visitors than usual at her 
 tea-table. 
 
 " It must be someone with a long purse, if he or she is 
 going to make the house habitable," said Mrs. Devereux. 
 " We all know that Mr. Furness would not spend five 
 
72 MIRANDA 
 
 pounds upon it. He might have let the place ever so 
 many times in the last ten years if he would have put 
 it in substantial repair." 
 
 " And now it is going to be done in grand style,'" said 
 Kate Parlby. 
 
 " How do you know ? " asked Mary Lester. 
 
 " Oh, you've only to see the builder's board, ' Rother- 
 ham, Leeds ' — and the little army of workmen chipping 
 and hammering." 
 
 " There's not a window with a whole pane of glass in 
 it," said Mary. 
 
 " That's nothing. Why they are digging up half the 
 garden to lay drains." 
 
 " I hope they won't uglify the house," sighed Lady 
 Laura. " People generally do when they try to improve 
 a sweet, picturesque old place." 
 
 " Picturesque, I admit, but sweet — no. There are old 
 brick drains under the drawing-room, and the house 
 reeks of sewage." 
 
 " But, oh, Mrs. Devereux, who and what is the tenant ? " 
 asked Miranda. "Is it some queer old recluse ? Is it 
 a large family ? " 
 
 "Is it a schoolmistress ? " questioned Mary Lester. 
 
 " Or an army-crammer ? " asked her younger sister, with 
 an eye to embryo soldiers who might be good dancers. 
 
 Nobody knew. Days went by, and though the car- 
 penters and plumbers and painters were hard at work, no 
 tenant had been seen inspecting or directing. 
 
 " No further particulars of the new tenant of The Dene 
 have yet transpired," wrote the gentleman who did the 
 weekly column of gossip, " Folly as it flies," in the Tr own- 
 ham Guardian, " and Melford is keenly on the watch for 
 the solution of the enigma. One thing only is certain — 
 that the transformation of the ancient mansion now in 
 progress by those eminent builders and decorators, Messrs. 
 Rotherham and Sons, will be faultless in taste and work- 
 manship." 
 
 Need it be said after this that Rotherham and Sons were 
 regular advertisers in the Guardian ? 
 
MIRANDA 73 
 
 Nothing more " transpired " until Mrs. Devereux's 
 first Friday, which was better attended than usual, in 
 so much that two relays of tea-cups were required, and 
 the butler Moody wanted to know " what was hup ? " 
 
 He was an old-school servant, elderly, short and stout : 
 the best Colonel Devereux could find for forty pounds a 
 year. The new school, tall, slim, and on the sunny side of 
 thirty, set a higher value upon themselves. 
 
 " If this goes on, I shall have to go to the Colonel for 
 tea-spoons out of the safe," he told his subordinate, the 
 parlour-maid. 
 
 Mrs. Devereux had been busy collecting information 
 for the last ten days, and she knew all about the tenant. 
 She would not have faced her visitors across the tea-tray 
 without that knowledge. She had taken trouble, and 
 even written letters, and she knew all that the smart young 
 writer of " Folly as it flies " did not know. 
 
 " Didn't I tell you that such a house would only be taken 
 by a literary man — a student — -a poet ? " 
 
 Nobody remembered what she had told them. It was 
 her hectoring way to proclaim her opinions as if they were 
 facts. 
 
 " Well, I was right," she went on ; " the tenant is a poet." 
 
 " A poet ! " 
 
 A thrill ran round the feminine assembly ; Miranda 
 sprang to her feet. 
 
 " Oh, is it, is it ? " she cried, breathless. 
 
 " Yes, Miranda, it is the new poet, the man who has 
 come to the front all at once — the fashionable poet, 
 whose book has convulsed the literary world. He has 
 been writing for years — a failure. He was in a garret, 
 on the point of taking laudanum, like Chatterton, when 
 his book made a success, and in a week everybody was 
 raving about him." 
 
 " Name ! " cried the Admiral, the only layman who 
 favoured Mrs. Devereux's first Friday, and consumed 
 tea like Dr. Johnson. 
 
 The local clergy were to be met there, but the Services 
 were only represented by the Admiral. 
 
74 MIRANDA 
 
 Miranda stood tall and straight among the seated 
 figures, fluttering with excitement. 
 
 " Is it Mark Raynham, the author of ' Dr. Forster ' ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 " Yes, my dear, that's the man's name — and I suppose 
 that's the book." 
 
 " Miranda bought it before we left London — an odious 
 book," said Lady Laura. 
 
 " Oh, mother ! have you read a single page ? " ex- 
 claimed Miranda, flushing indignantly. 
 
 " Half a page was enough — I just dipped into the book 
 to see why people made a fuss about it. I told Julia 
 what I thought, and that I hoped you would not read it." 
 
 V Julia thinks it stupendous," said Miranda, with her 
 grandest air ; " and you know, darling, we agreed that 
 now I am quite grown up, I am to read all the famous 
 books, and that instinct would teach me to avoid the 
 poison-flowers in the Poets' garden." 
 
 She said this in a rush of eager speech, and sat down, 
 ashamed of having made herself conspicuous. 
 
 All the young women began to talk of " Dr. Forster." 
 A few had read it, owning to the fact with the pride that 
 apes humility, but more had tried to get it and failed. 
 Tops, the Universal Book Provider, had refused to stock 
 " Dr. Forster," unwilling to disseminate poison. But Tops 
 would have to give way, the young ladies all declared. 
 Tops could not keep such a great book off his shelves. 
 
 The only curate present pronounced solemnly that 
 " Dr. Forster " was literature. 
 
 The young ladies thought this conclusive. Decency 
 and morality are of no account when a book is literature. 
 Tops must get * Dr. Forster." 
 
 "It is a horridly expensive book," said Mary Lester. 
 " Twelve-and-sixpence — as much as two novels." 
 
 " But it is in two volumes, eleven hundred pages," 
 said Miranda, from whom Miss Lester had borrowed the 
 book. 
 
 " Eleven hundred pages of blank verse. That's a large 
 order," said the Admiral. 
 
MIRANDA 75 
 
 " Three times as long as ' Paradise Lost,' " sighed the 
 curate, who would rather praise this great work than 
 read it. 
 
 The poem was one which people dipped into, looking 
 for gems — perhaps for poison-flowers. Only enthusiasts 
 like Julia Wagstaff would plod patiently from cover to 
 cover. 
 
 After this, small facts about the tenant of The Dene 
 were " transpiring " day by day. Mr. Raynham was a 
 young man, handsome, attractive, and had made un 
 succes jou in London Society. Paragraph after para- 
 graph had appeared about him in the Society papers, 
 and a year ago his photograph had been an inevitable 
 feature in the illustrated weeklies. The Chatterton story 
 was not true. He had never been acquainted with the 
 " Stony-hearted stepmother." He had never eaten at 
 Lockhart's, or worn seedy clothes. He had been 
 educated in Germany. He was the son of a sprig of 
 nobility. Miranda felt relieved to hear that he had 
 always been a gentleman. The attic, and the temptation 
 to suicide would have appealed to her, but sordid poverty 
 and low birth would have revolted. She felt like Hedda 
 Gabler about life. Even suicide must be beautiful. 
 
 Mr. Raynham was married. His wife was very young, 
 and something of an invalid. She had brought him a 
 fortune, and they had spent it beautifully, Mary Lester 
 said. But " Dr. Forster " had brought him a much 
 larger fortune. The money from that great work was 
 rolling in every day — from America even in larger waves 
 than from England. It was " Dr. Forster " who was 
 paying for The Dene — the white paint and delicious 
 chintzes ; the Venetian lanterns in the drawing-room ; 
 the Roman lamps in the hall. " Dr. Forster " paid for 
 everything. And Mark Raynham sauntered through the 
 village with a calm and far-away air, as if nothing 
 mattered, Mary Lester said. It was Mary Lester who 
 brought Miranda the daily tale of gossip. Mary and 
 Miranda had become established pals. 
 
76 MIRANDA 
 
 Lady Laura, whose placid life was always at the mercy 
 of officious friends, had been urged to cultivate young 
 society for her daughter. 
 
 " Miranda is romantic and dreamy," Mrs. Devereux 
 told her. " She reads too much, and plays the piano too 
 much. Chopin is not good for girls with her tempera- 
 ment. She ought to mix with girls of her own age. She 
 ought to be at the tennis club every fine morning, instead 
 of moping about your gardens, or riding over the moor 
 with Whipple. She ought not to make a friend of her 
 groom." 
 
 There were ever so many things that Miranda ought 
 not to do, and one thing that was imperative for her to 
 do — namely, to associate on equal terms with the young 
 ladies of the neighbourhood, and not to hold herself 
 aloof as if they weren't good enough. 
 
 " There is nothing farther from my darling's thoughts," 
 protested Lady Laura ; and then she plucked up a spirit 
 and told Mrs. Devereux that Miranda was perfect as 
 daughter and as girl, and that she would not have her 
 altered in the slightest detail. 
 
 " She plays exquisitely," concluded the fond mother, 
 " and her music is the delight of our quiet evenings." 
 
 " That may be, dear Lady Laura, but take my word 
 for it, music of that school is not a safe influence for a 
 sentimental girl of eighteen." 
 
 Lady Laura believed herself unmoved by the monitions 
 of Mrs. Devereux, but it was not long afterwards that 
 she began to show unaccustomed civilities to the young 
 people in her neighbourhood. She invited the Lester 
 girls and the Merrifield girls to luncheon ; she arranged 
 excursions to Coldharbour Castle, the one historical ruin 
 within a carriage-drive, and her picnic teas and luncheons 
 were pronounced " adorable." She made Miranda give 
 little musical evenings for these girls, nominally " of her 
 own age," but actually a good deal older in years, manners, 
 and ideas. 
 
 " You can't complain any more about things not 
 happening," Gilbert Ferrar told Miranda, after one of his 
 
MIRANDA 77 
 
 rare visits had landed him among Lester girls and boys 
 and Parlby girls and Merrifield girls, and a curate or two, 
 keeping two tennis-courts alive with the tumult of their 
 play, while the non-players crowded Lady Laura's tea- 
 table on the terrace, which commanded a view of the 
 tennis-courts. 
 
 " A new departure," explained Miranda, when these 
 young people had dispersed. " It is just a whim of 
 mother's — a picnic at Coldharbour yesterday, a musical 
 evening on Saturday, and tennis twice a week." 
 
 Mr. Ferrar had outstayed the young people at 
 Miranda's command, and they had the terrace to them- 
 selves in the westering sun, while Lady Laura and Miss 
 Wagstaff rested in the cool quiet of the drawing-room. 
 
 " Poor darling mother," sighed Miranda. " She thinks 
 I have to be amused — Melford busybodies have been 
 chivying her about me, because I'm not the exact pattern 
 of every girl in the place." 
 
 " I see," said Gilbert, " you take pride in your 
 exemption from the follies of the common or garden 
 
 girl." 
 
 " I don't want to be like her, anyhow." 
 " Though you are not above using her slang ? " 
 " Not hers ! It is all imported from America." 
 " And are you amused by these gaieties ? " 
 " Bored to extinction ! I don't mind the music. Agnes 
 Merrifield plays the violin rather well, and Evelyn had 
 six months at the Paris Conservatoire, and plays the 
 dear old composers very prettily. We get through our 
 two hours' Mozart and Corelli, while the others talk and 
 titter in the next room. I don't mind that ; but if these 
 high jinks are to go on till next year, I shall pine for 
 London." 
 
 " High jinks in Mayfair would be worthier your 
 attention ? " 
 
 " One would see more people, and things might happen. 
 A propos, I suppose you know that something really 
 has happened ? " 
 
 " One of your girl friends engaged ? " 
 
78 MIRANDA 
 
 " Better than that. The Dene is let. There are new 
 people in the sweet old haunted house." 
 
 " Indeed ! What manner of people ? " 
 
 " I will give it you in Madame de Sevigne's thousand 
 guesses/' 
 
 " I am not good at guessing. Please relieve my mind, 
 and tell me all about the new tenant. I have heard 
 nothing." 
 
 " Do you remember the night after my presentation, 
 when you appeared so unexpectedly at Aunt Hilda's 
 party ? " 
 
 " Yes, I remember. What then ? " 
 
 " The tenant of The Dene was there — the man with 
 the Raphael face. The poet, whom everybody wanted 
 to see." 
 
 " That odious creature. I'm sorry to hear it." 
 
 " Why odious ? " 
 
 " I have seen his hair, and I have read a review of his 
 book." 
 
 " Reviewers are always prejudiced and sometimes 
 fools," said Miranda, with her grandest air. 
 
 M I suppose you have read ' Dr. Forster ' — since you 
 are of the new school, and assert the right of girls of 
 eighteen to read everything ? " 
 
 Miranda's eyes kindled. Violet-dark, with infinite 
 power of expression. 
 
 " A girl of eighteen ought not to be narrow-minded, 
 Gillie, especially when she has had a wide-minded friend 
 to help her with her education." 
 
 " You are kind, Miranda," he said gravely, his dark 
 cheek faintly flushing at this poor recompense. " All 
 the same, I am sorry you have read that book." 
 
 " The book was the rage when I was in London, and 
 I bought it. Reading eleven hundred pages of poetry is 
 another pair of shoes." 
 
 She flushed as she spoke. It was the first time her 
 speech with Gilbert had been something less than truth. 
 
 " Put the book on your shelves and forget all about 
 it." 
 
MIRANDA 79 
 
 " I will — if my friends will let me. But please remember 
 that the coming of a famous poet, just in the flush of 
 success, is the first event that has stirred the stagnation 
 of Melford since I began to take notice." 
 
 She went to the stables with him, patted and petted 
 his horse, watched him mount, and waited with Whipple 
 and her dogs at the gate, while he rode away, looking 
 back at her with lifted hat, from the wide whiteness of 
 the road. His dark hair curled closely on the finely- 
 shaped head, but there were threads of grey in it, although 
 he was not forty. It was the head of a man who had 
 worked hard from the day he left Eton for Oriel — worked 
 for his double first, worked at Divinity, at literature, 
 at science, at political economy, but worked hardest of 
 all in his day by day drudgery for the poor of Trownham. 
 It was not so much the work that had aged him, as the 
 discouragement, the disappointments, that ever-present 
 sense of rolling rocks uphill that always rolled back upon 
 him. Seldom in his life of patience and perseverance did 
 he get his rock to the top of the hill — a successful 
 Sisyphus. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE house was being tinkered." That was the last 
 report of proceedings at The Dene which went 
 gaily round at Mrs. Lester's afternoon party : Music, four 
 to seven. 
 
 She wanted to give an evening party, in the style of 
 Lady Laura's friendly entertainments, but the General 
 put down his foot. There must be no evening festivities. 
 He wanted his house to himself after dinner, except when 
 there was a dinner-party, and dinners at The Hill were 
 so rare that people had time to forget what the last was 
 like before they were asked to the next. Evening parties 
 were abhorrent to the General, abhorrent, and expen- 
 sive — as an evening party meant champagne of sorts, 
 Veuve Montmorency or Macaire freres. Mrs. Lester 
 had to limit her hospitality to tea and music in the 
 afternoon. 
 
 There was more talk than music, and the dining-room 
 was crowded to suffocation, while the spacious double 
 drawing-rooms were somewhat sparsely occupied. The 
 Lester girls had to drive their friends out of the tea-room 
 to hear the Merrifield girls play their famous duet, violin 
 and piano, followed by Clara Parlby, who sang " The 
 Rosary," accompanied by her sister. There was also a 
 curate who sang, and another curate who recited, the 
 first a fine baritone, the second an elocutionist with humour 
 and pathos, who was the delight of penny-readings. Yet 
 the majority lingered in the tea-room, and here it was 
 
 So 
 
MIRANDA 8 1 
 
 that Miranda, coming in after an hour's music, heard that 
 The Dene was being tinkered. 
 y* What does tinkering mean ? " she asked. 
 
 Colonel Devereux was her chief informant. 
 
 " The fellow is spending hardly anything upon sub- 
 stantial repairs, doing nothing for the fine old stables. 
 Old Davenport kept fifteen hunters, and the loose-boxes 
 might have been put in order for ten-pound apiece. The 
 fellow is patching up an old brew-house and calling it a 
 garage — Frenchified nonsense. Can't even find an 
 English name for housing his beastly snorting, stinking, 
 screaming car, which is going to juggernaut half the 
 children in the parish. He is doing nothing really useful — 
 painting all the rooms and staircases white, except his 
 book-room, which is to be Japanese and sealing-wax red 
 — and he has stripped off the old black oak panelling to 
 make room for his sealing-wax paper. I have no patience 
 with such a fellow." 
 
 Miranda was vexed to hear of the black oak. Had any 
 other panelling been destroyed ? 
 
 " No, only the dining-room ; but all the rest has 
 been painted white — glaring, staring white enamel." 
 
 " The ghosts won't know their way about," said 
 Miranda. " But it certainly was a dark house, and white 
 rooms are delicious. No doubt Mr. Raynham adores 
 colour. He is a poet, you see." 
 
 " A poet ! " Colonel Devereux made a wry face as he 
 echoed the obnoxious epithet. " Then I hope he'll pay 
 his butcher and baker, which that kind of cattle seldom 
 do. No, not the best of 'em. Byron was always 
 insolvent, with the brokers in his house." 
 
 " Nous avons change tout cela," said Mrs. Devereux. 
 " I am told that Mark Raynham nets twenty thousand by 
 ' Dr. Forster,' which is five thousand more than Byron 
 got from Murray for all his poems." 
 
 " Twenty thousand ! " exclaimed her husband. " Ah, 
 well 1 Light come, light go. I suppose he could write one 
 
 of his d n poetry books a year. Twenty thousand a 
 
 year, by Jove ! " 
 
82 MIRANDA 
 
 " But they wouldn't be all like ' Dr. Forster/ " said 
 the elder Miss Parlby, who had taken to culture when she 
 lost hope of a husband. " It took him seven years to 
 write ' Dr. Forster/ " 
 
 " How do you know ? " 
 
 " Didn't you read an Interview with the New Poet, 
 in the Pall Mall Gazette ? " 
 
 " I don't read that kind of rot." 
 
 " Nor anything else," murmured Mary Lester in Miss 
 Parlby' s ear. 
 
 Miranda passed Mr. Raynham in the village street next 
 day, a heavenly day, when the dozen or so of old cottages, 
 built wide apart in an age when land was of no consequence, 
 the " Ring of Bells," with its steep red roof, long low 
 facade, latticed windows, and stone horse-trough, the 
 green, and the pond, with an island in the middle just 
 big enough to maintain a group of willows, were all 
 glorified by the sunshine. 
 
 He was walking with long strides — swinging his stick, 
 looking at sky and earth like a man steeped to the lips in 
 the joy of living. His dark brown flannel suit was like 
 other young men's clothes, which relieved Miranda's mind, 
 and he had cut his hair, which was a still greater relief — 
 for though she had never so much as had speech with 
 him, she had, as it were, taken him under her protection, 
 and she didn't want Melford philistines to laugh at him. 
 The Raphael hair was gone, but the Raphael face was 
 there, under the dark grey Homburg hat — a long, oval 
 face, fair and pale. 
 
 " Why didn't you bow ? " Mary Lester asked sharply. 
 " You said you knew him." 
 
 " No, Mary. I told you he was at my aunt's party, 
 where all the women were crowding round him in the 
 supper-room. My cousins were making a fuss about 
 him, but they did not introduce him to me." 
 
 " You silly girl ! Why didn't you make them ? You 
 should always insist upon knowing everybody who is by 
 
MIRANDA 83 
 
 way of being celebrated, whether he paints, or acts, or 
 writes, or flies. It always scores in Society." 
 
 " I don't care about Society." 
 
 " I shall make my mother call upon Mrs. Raynham ; 
 and do buck up, and get Lady Laura to call. If she leads 
 the way, the Melford sheep will follow." 
 
 " My mother hates calling on strangers. But perhaps 
 Aunt Hilda will make her." 
 
 No doubt she will. Lady Haverstock is in the 
 movement, and she will want the man to amuse her when 
 she comes here. Is she likely to materialize at The Barrow 
 this summer ? " 
 
 " I dare say she will come in August when my uncle 
 goes to his moor." 
 
 " Don't she go with him ? Most of the men's wives 
 and daughters follow, and the girls often get engaged to 
 the shooters. I suppose your cousins shoot ? " 
 
 " Yes. I have heard them talk about it. I think 
 it's horrid. Perhaps I am behind the times." 
 
 "No ' perhaps ' about it, Miranda. Many of your 
 ideas would have been old-fashioned in the Stone Age. 
 What can you expect, living with your mother at The 
 Barrow like an enclosed nun ? If I had your fortune I 
 would have my own moor, if I wasn't shootin' big game in 
 South Africa, and oh, Miranda ! " concluded Mary, with 
 a long sigh, * what would I not do, if I had your 
 income." 
 
 Everybody knew all about Miranda's wealth. They 
 knew that poor Mr. Strickland had made his will when 
 he was told that a child was coming, and after providing 
 handsomely for his wife, whose marriage settlement 
 had been on a generous scale, he had left everything to 
 the unborn child, with the exception of The Barrow, 
 which Lady Laura was to have for life. The Strickland 
 estate was to belong absolutely to his son or daughter 
 on coming of age. Perhaps he had counted on a son, 
 and had only put in the daughter at his solicitor's 
 suggestion. 
 
 He had made this will with a splendid carelessness, 
 
 6* 
 
84 MIRANDA 
 
 confident in the long vista of years that lay before him, 
 in which he could make any changes he liked in the 
 disposition of his property. 
 
 " Make your mother call at The Dene to-morrow," 
 Mary Lester said, when she and Miranda were bidding 
 good-bye at the Lodge gate. " Don't wait for Lady 
 Haverstock to write. Mrs. Raynham was at church last 
 Sunday — quite correct and nice, all her clothes up-to 
 date." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 LADY LAURA did not call at The Dene next day, 
 nor next week, nor indeed till she received her 
 orders from her eldest sister, whom she often spoke about 
 as " dreadful." 
 
 '■ Be sure you call upon Mrs. Raynham," wrote Lady 
 Havers tock. " She is the wife of the new poet, that 
 handsome young man with long hair, whom you must 
 have seen at my party. I should have introduced him 
 to you — but he only stayed a quarter of an hour, going on 
 to three more parties. He has been the rage since the 
 astounding success of his book, which I don't believe any- 
 body reads — although everybody raves about it, and the 
 money he has made by it. How could anyone find time 
 to read eleven hundred pages of poetry in the London 
 season ? They just turn the leaves, and read the scrappy 
 little verses scattered here and there among the pages, 
 and go about saying he is the sweetest singer since Shelley, 
 and talking about the way his book sold in America. 
 
 " I am responsible for his settling at Melford. He told 
 me he wanted a country house — I dare say he and his wife 
 have been living in lodgings in some suburban slum, and 
 now he is rich and wants to spread his wings. He said he 
 must find a secluded old house in a quiet part of England, 
 where he could write his verses in peace, and where the 
 air would suit his wife. I thought of The Dene, and when 
 I described the place and said it would have let long ago 
 
 85 
 
86 MIRANDA 
 
 if it wasn't said to be haunted, he began to rave, and said 
 he should adore it, and would take a long lease of the 
 place that afternoon — and I believe he did, on the strength 
 of my description and some photographs the agents showed 
 him. You can call without committing yourself to seeing 
 too much of the wife. She is an invalid, and does not 
 go into society. Of course he gets on ever so much better 
 without that log round his leg. Now don't act in your 
 usual lymphatic manner. The young man has been quite 
 nice to me, coming to dinners or luncheons at short notice, 
 and I have scored by having the new poet in my pocket, 
 as people say. The sooner you go, the more of a favour 
 they will think it. The wife will give you no trouble. 
 You can send her new-laid eggs and orchids — and your 
 useful Julia can go to tea with her." 
 
 " What is Aunt Hilda writing such reams about ? " 
 Miranda asked, as she watched her mother's face across 
 the breakfast-table. " Something that vexes you, as 
 usual ? " 
 
 " Only rather boring. She wants me to call on The 
 Dene people." 
 
 " Haven't I been wanting you to do that for three weeks ? 
 And now that Aunt Hilda orders you, I suppose you 
 will go this afternoon ? " 
 
 " I may as well get it over," sighed Lady Laura. " Your 
 Aunt can be dreadful if one doesn't do what she wants. 
 She is always taking up people — poor people that have to 
 be helped — rich new people that one ought to cultivate " 
 
 " And you send cheques for the poor people, and you 
 don't cultivate the new rich, thank Heaven ! " exclaimed 
 Miranda. " Well, my angel, we'll go and talk twaddle 
 for a quarter of an hour in the white drawing-room at The 
 Dene. You won't find it quite as bad as the dentist's 
 chair. Which carriage ? " 
 
 " The barouche — and you must come, Julia." 
 
 " There's strength in numbers," said Miranda. 
 
 " I shall be charmed to call with you. I saw Mark 
 Raynham that evening in Hill Street, such an interesting 
 
MIRANDA 87 
 
 face — and I heard him talking to two elderly ladies — 
 talking beautifully/' 
 
 " Like a book," suggested Miranda. 
 
 " Such lovely phrases — reminding one of Ruskin at his 
 best." 
 
 " I don't like that kind of studied talk. Gillie is a 
 delightful talker, and never talks like a book, though he 
 is steeped in Hooker, and Jeremy Taylor, and all the grand 
 old writers — Sir Thomas Browne, Milton " 
 
 " Mr. Ferrar has no superior," Julia said gravely, with 
 that faint flush which often lighted her face when she 
 spoke of the Vicar of St. Barnabas. 
 
 They found Mrs. Raynham at home, and evidently pre- 
 pared for visitors, half reclining in a large arm-chair near 
 an open window, with books and flowers and all the 
 prettiness of life about her. The room was brilliant in the 
 afternoon sunshine, gay with white walls and flowery 
 chintz. 
 
 She rose with a visible effort from her low chair, and 
 received her visitors with a certain languid grace. Mary 
 Lester was right about her appearance. She was quite 
 correct, and the broderie anglaise on her linen gown was 
 of the prevailing fashion. There was nothing eccentric or 
 Bohemian to raise the gorge. In Melford's favourite 
 phrase, " Mrs. Raynham was possible." 
 
 "It is very kind of you to call," she said in reply to 
 Lady Laura's pleasant expression of gladness at finding 
 her at home. 
 
 "lam almost always at home," she said. " I have no 
 strength for long walks ; I can only just potter about the 
 garden in the cool mornings and evenings. I am no 
 companion for my husband. Mark is so good, so utterly 
 devoted to me, and he would like me to be with him in 
 his long rambles on the moor or in the woods, but with my 
 anaemia that is out of the question. He has to go alone, 
 poor dear fellow ! " 
 
 * That is sad for you both," said Lady Laura. " Have 
 you been long an invalid ? " 
 
88 MIRANDA 
 
 " Ages and ages : more than a year. It is not really 
 an illness, only anaemia. I have such poor blood — so few 
 red corpuscles. If I had more red corpuscles I should be 
 a different woman." 
 
 " Can your doctor do nothing for you ? " 
 
 " He can't change the colour of my corpuscles. He 
 makes me take Volnay and Guinness, and all sorts of 
 horrid things, and eat beef and mutton, which I loathe — 
 but he can't do me any good." 
 
 " But there may be other doctors, specialists, who could 
 cure you." 
 
 " Mark has taken me to specialists. I like them, for 
 they all take my case seriously, and don't make light of it, 
 like everyday doctors, who just look in, feel my pulse, 
 hum and haw for ten minutes, and talk of the weather, 
 and go. But pray forgive me for being dreary. Perhaps 
 you would like to see the garden. I hear that Miss 
 Strickland is devoted to her garden." 
 
 " I live for it," cried Miranda. " Yes, please let us 
 see the garden." 
 
 Mrs. Raynham slowly emerged from her chair, and 
 wrapped herself in a large China crape shawl with long 
 trailing fringe, which fell to the hem of her skirt and 
 collected dead leaves and faded petals from the grass as 
 they strolled along. 
 
 A tea-table glimmered in the distance in a summer- 
 house made of striped white and vermilion canvas, and 
 it was to this Mrs. Raynham led the way. 
 
 " I hope you will stop to tea," she pleaded. " Pray do. 
 Mark will be broken-hearted if he comes home presently 
 and hears that he has missed you. He remembers seeing 
 you and Miss Strickland at Lady Haverstock's the night of 
 your daughter's presentation. There were so many people 
 and such a perpetual movement in the room that he 
 never got near enough to be introduced to you, but 
 he saw you both. He has a wonderful power of seeing 
 everything." 
 
 " A poet has to see things before he can translate life 
 into poetry," said Miranda. 
 
MIRANDA 89 
 
 The chairs in the red-and-white summer-house looked 
 reposeful, and Lady Laura, who always took the line of 
 least resistance, sank into the one that Mrs. Raynham 
 offered her. It was less trouble to accept a cup of tea 
 than to find a graceful pretext for refusing. 
 
 " How proud you must be of the success of Mr. 
 Raynham's book," said Julia, while the tea was being 
 poured out. 
 
 Mrs. Raynham's face flushed vividly, and Miranda 
 saw that she had once been pretty, before that bad 
 behaviour of the corpuscles. She had delicate features, 
 and the oval cheek and pointed chin had an air of refine- 
 ment. It was not a countenance that denoted mental 
 power, but it was almost pathetic in its gentleness. 
 
 " I am more than proud of him," she said. " I worship 
 his genius. I am miserable when I think that I can 
 never be a help to him." 
 
 " How could any wife help a poet and a genius ? " 
 
 "If I were more responsive," sighed Mrs. Raynham. 
 " If my ideas could go out to meet his. If I could answer 
 as the lute-string answers to the hand ! If my world were 
 his world ! But it isn't. If he reads one of his lovely 
 lyrics to me, while the ink is wet — reads those dear verses 
 three times over perhaps, to hear how they sound — I 
 don't understand. There is always something that baffles 
 me. His thoughts are too high, I cannot reach up to 
 them." 
 
 Julia, who was a shrewd observer, concluded that every 
 word of this lament was an echo of the poet's own speech, 
 an echo of the husband's complaint of his wife's limitations. 
 
 Her face lighted, as a tall, slim figure came towards 
 the tent, with sauntering steps across the grass. 
 
 " Oh, here is Mark ! " she cried. " I am so glad you 
 have come back in time to see Lady Laura Strickland, 
 who has been so sweet as to call, with Miss Strickland, 
 and Miss " 
 
 " Wagstaff," murmured Miranda. 
 
 " Miss Wagstaff — who has just been saying that I ought 
 to be proud of you." 
 
go MIRANDA 
 
 " Miss Wagstaff is right," said Mark. " If a wretched 
 scribbler's wife is not proud of him, where is he to find 
 admirers ? " 
 
 He had shaken hands with the visitors, and slipped 
 into the only unoccupied chair, which was next Lady Laura, 
 who was ready to be interested in him. 
 
 He was tall and slim, a fragile scabbard for such a 
 fiery sword, as he had been known to say of himself in the 
 literary club where egotism was accepted as a -characteristic 
 of genius. 
 
 He expressed himself enchanted at finding Lady Laura 
 taking tea with his wife. 
 
 " If you have been here a quarter of an hour, you know 
 all about her," he said gaily. " My Flora is so transparent 
 that an hour is enough for intimacy. I hope she has not 
 been talking too much of herself — a horrid habit only to be 
 excused in poets and novelists, who live upon their own 
 emotions." 
 
 " I don't think Byron was egotistical," Lady Laura said 
 gently. 
 
 " My dear lady, the prince of egotists. That is what 
 makes his letters delightful. They are frank revelations 
 of his inner self ! As a letter-writer he surpasses Horace 
 Walpole, who had no mind to reveal, only a lambent wit 
 that flashes and sparkles over the outside world. Walpole 
 is the antithesis of Rousseau." 
 
 Miranda pushed away her cup impatiently. 
 
 " We want you to talk about your own book," she said, 
 " not about Rousseau, whose books I am not allowed to 
 read, and whom Miss Wagstaff does not admire." 
 
 " I believe his French is admirable," said Julia. 
 
 " That is what we are told of dull books. Read ■ La 
 Nouvelle Heloise,' read Pascal's ' Lettres provinciales,' 
 boring perhaps, but ideal French prose. Read ' I Promessi 
 Sposi ' for superfine Italian. Never mind if you are bored." 
 
 " Tell us about your own book," urged Miranda. 
 " Was it your first ? How did you come to think of it ?/' 
 " Alas ! I know not how : but I lived for years without 
 thinking about anything else." 
 
MIRANDA 91 
 
 " And did it take you seven years to write, as you say 
 in your preface ? " 
 
 ■ Quite seven years. ' Dr. Forster ' represents my 
 seven years' apprenticeship to art and poetry." 
 
 " ' Dr. Forster ! ' " repeated Lady Laura, as if she were 
 hearing the name for the first time. " A curious title 
 for a poem." 
 
 " It is more than a poem, madam. It is a tragedy ; 
 tragedy and comedy mixed, like life. It is vast, universal, 
 the mind and soul of man, not one man, but all mankind, 
 far-reaching, without measure or limit." 
 He stopped abruptly, with a gay laugh. 
 " Do not write me down an egotist, dear ladies. I am 
 not talking of the book I wrote, but of the book I thought 
 about, the vision of my nights and days that never shaped 
 itself in words. ' Dr. Forster ' is only my splendid failure. 
 The reading public has been kind enough to fancy my 
 book, and to praise my handling of an old theme. I took 
 the fable Goethe took, to hang my thoughts on, and it is 
 my story of love and death that readers and reviewers 
 have fastened upon. It is the drama and the passion in 
 the book, not its philosophy, that has ' caught on,' as my 
 publisher calls it. Well, I must be content to be praised 
 for what is worst and lowest in my work, since the success 
 of ' Dr. Forster ' has enabled me to live my quiet life in 
 this sweet place, where the fine air suits my wife, and where 
 I can roam about the moor and think of my next poem." 
 "You have planned it already, perhaps?" Miranda 
 said eagerly. 
 
 He looked at her intently, serious and silent for a little 
 while, as if he saw her face for the first time. 
 
 Her loveliness was a revelation. Never had he seen 
 such ideal beauty, such exquisite youth. The dark grey 
 eyes shining like stars, the parted lips, and quickened 
 breath, were the most intoxicating flattery that this 
 supreme self -lover had ever known. 
 
 " It is delightful to hear you discuss your poem," Lady 
 Laura said politely. " But from reviews I have read, I 
 do not think it is a book for a girl of Miranda's age." 
 
92 MIRANDA 
 
 " Kings come of age at eighteen, mother, and have 
 to decide upon affairs of state." 
 
 " Literature is another matter," said Lady Laura, rising 
 to take leave. 
 
 She had been interested in the poet — the first she had 
 ever met. His face, his voice, and his manner pleased 
 her, and she was not offended at his arrogance. 
 
 " I mean to read ' Dr. Forster,' " she said, as she shook 
 hands with Mr. Raynham, after a cordial adieu to his 
 wife. " You must not think me a Philistine if I try to 
 keep some books from my daughter. I am rather a slow 
 reader. I have not read ' Paracelsus,' though Miranda 
 and I adore Browning." 
 
 " ' Paracelsus ' is not as long as my book, but I am told 
 it takes longer to read," said the poet. 
 
 As he escorted the visitors to their carriage, Lady Laura 
 hoped his wife would come and see her — their houses were 
 only a quarter of a mile apart. 
 
 " And I am generally at home between four and six," 
 she said, " and like my friends to drop in and look at 
 Miranda's garden." 
 
 " My Flora will be enchanted," he said, " if she can only 
 muster strength enough for the little walk, when her nerves 
 are at their best." 
 
 " Does she suffer from nerve trouble ? " 
 
 "It is the worst part of her complaint. Languor has 
 degenerated into neurasthenia. I fear she is just a shade 
 hypochondriac, elle secoute trop. I rely upon your moor- 
 land breezes for curing her. Think what divine air after 
 the used-up atmosphere of the Chelsea Embankment." 
 
 " I love those old houses by the Thames," said Miranda. 
 
 " Not one of them half a century old, eastward of 
 Cheyne Row. That is old, if you like — it smells of Steele 
 and Addison." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 MR. RAYNHAM returned Lady Laura's visit, with 
 many apologies for his wife, who was not well 
 enough to go beyond her garden. 
 
 " She just dreams away life in the garden, and she is 
 perfectly happy there. She has had a procession of kind 
 people calling upon her since your visit, Lady Laura. Is 
 it because they happened to see your carriage in our 
 drive, and have begun to think that we are possible ? " 
 
 He laughed gaily, as he flung his hat upon the grass, 
 and sank into a low chair near Lady Laura. 
 
 He had been told she was in the garden, and had asked 
 to be taken to her — and there could be no more amusing 
 contrast than the austere demeanour of the butler who 
 ushered him there, and the graceful sans fagons of the guest, 
 taking it for granted that he was welcome. 
 
 " I am sorry Mrs. Raynham was not able to come," 
 Lady Laura said kindly, as she might have said to the 
 senior curate when his wife was " under the weather " 
 — so kind and so indifferent ! 
 
 It was August, and the second crop of roses were in 
 bloom — tea-roses of every shade from orange to palest 
 apricot — roses redder than blood — roses of so deep a 
 crimson that they looked almost black — York and 
 Lancaster roses, old-fashioned cabbage roses, moss roses : 
 every rose that Mark Raynham had ever seen or heard of. 
 
 " We might be in a valley in Cashmere," he said. " Your 
 rose-garden is a dream of beauty. It recalls Victor Hugo's 
 picture of Nero crowned with roses, watching Rome burn 
 
 93 
 
94 MIRANDA 
 
 from his tower, and then satiated with splendour, he cries : 
 ' Esclave, apporte-moi des roses. Le parfum des roses est 
 doux.' So natural that Nero should be fond of roses ! I 
 hope you doat upon Hugo's poetry, Lady Laura ? " 
 
 " I have read so little — only some verses upon 
 Napoleon." 
 
 " And you did not instantly desire to read every line 
 he ever wrote ? You did not fall down and worship him, 
 as Swinburne did, recognizing the Titanic force, the Master 
 of us all ? Well, they are both dead, Hugo and Swinburne, 
 two great lights blown out." 
 
 Lady Laura went on with her knitting in a friendly 
 silence. He was making himself vastly at home, this 
 new neighbour of hers, more at his ease than she was 
 prepared to see him on a first visit. But he was evidently 
 a person who could amuse and interest her. She was 
 second to none in her love of books ; and to talk of books 
 was a delight : how infinitely better than the ordinary 
 Melford talk, which was mostly of persons — their incomes, 
 their connections and their complaints ; how they treated 
 their sons and how they brought up their daughters ; 
 what they spent, what they gave away, how they clothed 
 themselves, and how they doctored themselves. It was 
 infinite relief to escape that kind of conversation, and to 
 talk of books ; even of a poet whose works she had not read. 
 
 " No doubt Miss Strickland has Hugo in her heart 
 of hearts," Mark said presently. " She who is all 
 enthusiasm and romance must worship great poets." 
 
 " You form your opinions of people rather too quickly, 
 Mr. Raynham. Characters are not arrived at like snap- 
 shot photographs," said Lady Laura, who did not like to 
 hear her daughter pronounced upon after ten minutes' 
 acquaintance. Her large ivory knitting-needles moved 
 a little faster, eating up the soft, white wool, as she began 
 to doubt whether Mr. Raynham was going to prove what 
 Melford called " an acquisition." 
 
 "I do not think my daughter knows more of Victor 
 Hugo's poetry than I do," she said coldly. " She and I 
 have always read the same books — so that we could 
 
MIRANDA 95 
 
 exchange our ideas about them. Half the pleasure has 
 been in that." 
 
 " People have told me about Miss Strickland's idea 
 childhood : no school — only the most devoted mother, 
 and a delicious home. You must be proud of having 
 educated her." 
 
 " My daughter has educated herself, for the most part ; 
 for although Miss Wagstaff is an experienced and clever 
 teacher, Miranda was too independent — perhaps I ought 
 to say too spoilt, to follow the usual routine. The only 
 real help she has had was from my cousin, Mr. Ferrar." 
 
 " And you have always read the same books ? " 
 questioned Mark. 
 
 " Always — till lately." 
 
 " And you have not read my book ? — a poor thing, 
 Lady Laura, but the work of my life." 
 
 " Mr. Raynham, it is better to be truthful than to be 
 polite. When my girl and I were in Hill Street last May 
 people were talking about your book, and I did not like 
 the way they talked. There was a clever French woman 
 among my sister's friends, who praised your poem. 
 1 Mais, c'est fort. C'est tres fort,' she said ; so when I saw 
 the volumes in my daughter's hands, I thought it was 
 time for me to know what the book really meant, and I 
 read just enough to know that it was not a book for Miranda 
 to read and to praise. Your poetry is sometimes more 
 obscure than Browning's, and I believe that all that is 
 most dangerous in the book goes over my head. There 
 is much in it that is beautiful, original, even inspiring; 
 but when I laid the book down and began to think about 
 it, I had the vision of a tropical forest, a scene of beauty 
 and horror, where poisonous snakes were flashing among 
 the foliage, brilliant and fatal creatures that looked like 
 living flowers." 
 
 " And you kept my seven years of life and thought 
 from Miss Strickland ? " 
 
 " I could not do that. She had bought your book, and it 
 was on her shelves. I did not want to make a fuss. Pas- 
 sages that had startled me might pass unnoticed by her." 
 
96 MIRANDA 
 
 " True, Lady Laura. If there are snakes among the 
 flowers they would be no more to her than the bright 
 lizards that dart along a wall in the southern sun — she 
 would find only the flowers ; all that is beautiful in her 
 mind would absorb all that is best in my book." 
 
 His stupendous self-appreciation expressed itself with 
 a bland confidence that made conceit attractive. 
 
 Lady Laura smiled and went on with her knitting. 
 Julia and Miranda had driven to Trownham on a mission 
 of charity, to see ailing women and children in some of 
 the " dreadful streets." Sad cases that had been 
 indicated by Gilbert Ferrar as worthy of judicious help. 
 This missionary work was the natural outcome of Miranda's 
 exploration of her friend's parish. She had always been 
 ready with money-help ; but now she had seen his people 
 she wanted to do more, to get personal knowledge and 
 understanding of their lives and their necessities. To make 
 existence a little better for creatures whose fate it was to 
 live in ugly houses under a smoke-darkened sky. 
 
 Mark Raynham had appeared soon after luncheon, but 
 the church clock struck four, and he gave no hint of 
 departing. The big white ball that rolled along the grass 
 as Lady Laura's needles used up the wool had shrunk 
 considerably. In less than half an hour the servants would 
 be bringing the tea-tables, and it would be impossible to 
 let the visitor go without the offer of tea. Lady Laura 
 had yet to learn that Mark Raynham was one of those 
 unconscionable persons who have no other measure of 
 time than their own inclinations. If he liked the atmo- 
 sphere in which he found himself, he did not curtail his 
 pleasure. If he found sunshine he basked in the warmth, 
 oblivious of the clock. 
 
 The butler announced Mrs. and Miss Parlby while 
 the footmen were bringing tables and tea-trays, and the 
 scene became suddenly animated. Mary Lester appeared 
 unannounced, and dusty as to coat and skirt. 
 
 " I came through the stables, dear Lady Laura, and 
 Miranda's dogs have made me a disgraceful object — but 
 you will forgive me because the dogs were Miranda's," 
 
MIRANDA 97 
 
 the young lady said gaily as she seated herself on the 
 grass at Lady Laura's feet, displaying a liberal amount of 
 buckled shoe and tight stocking. 
 
 " Clara Parlby, do I see you here ? What about the 
 mothers' meeting ? Aren't you reading ' Little Lord 
 Fauntleroy ' to the poor old dears ? " 
 
 " Kate took the reading for me this afternoon. She 
 can't read for nuts, and they are mostly deaf; but it 
 was very good-natured of her," replied Clara, who 
 became suddenly conscious of Mr. Raynham and gave him 
 smiling recognition. 
 
 " There is Miranda," exclaimed Lady Laura, her face 
 lighting up at the sound that she had been listening for 
 during the last half-hour, the carriage wheels that were 
 bringing her daughter home. 
 
 " How long you have been, darling" — as the girl leant 
 down to kiss her. 
 
 " If you could see those poor souls you would not 
 wonder that I could not rush in and out of their houses 
 like visitors in the polite world — everyone with something 
 sorrowful to tell me — everyone wanting pity." 
 
 She looked round at the friendly faces of the visitors, 
 who had risen, tea-cups in hand, to flock about her. 
 
 " Oh, dear, I am making everybody uncomfortable. I am 
 awfully sorry I am so late. Please sit down, dear people." 
 
 Charles and John were handing tea, and carrying three- 
 staged baskets of cakes and sandwiches. It was a kind of 
 tea Miranda hated — stalking footmen moving solemnly ; 
 guests scattered anyhow, instead of sitting comfortably 
 at the long table, with its snow-white cloth and bowls 
 of roses ; and Lady Laura pouring out tea for everybody, 
 with Julia to help her. That desultory kind of tea does 
 not last long — hardly longer than tea at a railway station 
 between two trains, and before Mrs. Parlby could get a 
 second cup everybody was sauntering about, pretending 
 to admire the flowers, but with heads close together, deep 
 in gossip. 
 
 Mary Lester had possessed herself of the poet, and 
 was walking towards the temple of roses with him. 
 
98 MIRANDA 
 
 "I want you to tell me how you came to write that 
 splendid, extraordinary book," she said. 
 
 Mark Raynham looked at her, perhaps for the first time 
 — though she had been in his drawing-room with her 
 mother, and he had met her between the woods and the 
 moor. For the first time it occurred to him that she 
 was worth looking at. 
 
 She was not a starry being like Miranda, but she had 
 a certain piquant prettiness, the prettiness he knew in 
 musical comedy and picture postcards. She had the 
 flashing teeth, the impertinent nose ; and her large brown 
 eyes, with spots of gold in them, were really fine — 
 audacious eyes, that seemed to challenge the man who 
 admired them. " Yes, I have no nonsense about me, 
 but I know how to take care of myself. Admire as much 
 as you please, but don't presume," was what the eyes 
 said. 
 
 Her hair was reddish brown like her eyes — her trim 
 little figure was good enough for musical comedy, and 
 she knew it. 
 
 " Talk about your book," she said imperatively. She 
 meant him to understand that he had been looking at her 
 too long — with too undisguised admiration — with that 
 look for which French novelists have an unpleasant word. 
 
 " What am I to say ? Have I been fortunate enough 
 to please you with my poor story ? " 
 
 "It is not the story. I am fed up with stories. It is 
 the originality — the daring. What do you leave us : 
 love, religion — faith in man or in God — the glory of the 
 universe — hope in the hereafter ? Nothing ; it is the 
 literature of despair." 
 
 " Just so, Miss Lester ; that is what the Spectator said 
 of me." 
 
 Mary blushed. Culture with her meant the superior 
 weeklies — and she saw herself detected in ready-made 
 opinions, Saturday to Monday criticism. 
 
 " I confess myself an outsider — as to what people call 
 the higher life," Mark said blandly. " An unbeliever in the 
 things I cannot see. But when the beauty of life is in 
 
MIRANDA 99 
 
 question, I am no infidel ; I can feel the joy of living — 
 when life is good." 
 
 " When is that ? " she asked, with a laugh. 
 
 " When a man has unlimited money — perfect health, 
 an attractive person — and youth. That is when he lives 
 in the sunshine, and calls life good. After forty come the 
 aching bones, the empty pockets, and the grey skies. 
 He has emptied his cup of wine, and the dregs are bitter, 
 and life is bad." 
 
 " You believe in no lovely world on the other side of 
 the river ? " 
 
 " I have seen death," he said, with a gloomy look, 
 as if that answered her question. 
 
 "If I talk to you any longer I shan't have a rag of 
 religion left in me." 
 
 " Had you much to begin with ? " 
 
 " Just enough to sit in church on Sunday morning, 
 and to feel sorry for my bad behaviour in the week, and 
 to appreciate a sermon that tells me I am a sinner. Even 
 a fledgling curate likes to rub that in, don't you know. — 
 Good-bye. I am sorry your wife is not feeling any the better 
 for our moorland air. I may drop in upon her to-morrow 
 afternoon, if you think she would like to see me." 
 
 " She will be charmed. I will tell her you are coming." 
 
 " And I shall take care to be out of the way myself," Mark 
 added inwardly, as he watched the neat little figure moving 
 with long, quick steps towards the group at the other end 
 of the lawn. 
 
 Everybody talked about the wonderful summer. The 
 salutation in the village street between smiling friends 
 had become a formula. 
 
 " Another fine day ! " 
 
 " Delicious — but it can't last much longer." 
 
 " If it does there will be no roots." 
 
 " But such a harvest ! " 
 
 It was August, and the fields were golden already — 
 those hundred-acre fields of the spacious north country, 
 where the reaping machines were rarely heard till late in 
 September. What a summer ! Long days of sunshine 
 
 7* 
 
ioo MIRANDA 
 
 and skies of cloudless blue. Who would pine for Switzer- 
 land in such English weather ? 
 
 To Miranda it seemed as if this was her first summer. 
 
 " I never felt the sunshine in all my veins ; I never felt 
 the glory of an English garden till now," she told her 
 mother. 
 
 They were living in the garden, where five men and a 
 boy walked about with water-barrows and great coils of 
 hose all day long, and for overtime in the evening coolness, 
 while the head gardener walked about and looked at them, 
 smoking his briarwood and fanning himself with his straw 
 hat ; there was very little doing in the garden except that 
 perpetual sprinkling of thirsty flowers and parching lawns. 
 
 Lady Laura had her luxurious chair and her pet bamboo 
 table, her ivory knitting-needles and balls of Berlin wool, 
 her books, her fan, and her eau-de-Cologne bottle, in a 
 camp that was shifted ever so many times between break- 
 fast and dinner. She would not have a tent. Tents were 
 stuffy, and stuffiness was Lady Laura's aversion. She 
 never could have too much air ; and now in this glorious 
 summer she found the house insupportable. Out of doors 
 there was at least the semblance of air. Leaves rustled, 
 and wings fluttered — to relieve the sense of stagnation. 
 
 " What perfect weather," cried Miranda, who was always 
 a sun-worshipper, as she stood in front of her mother, 
 stretching her arms wide as if to embrace the universe — 
 a vision of exquisite youth in her soft muslin frock, so 
 delicate of hue as to look white in the sun. And then she 
 flung herself on the grass at her mother's feet, and took up 
 the book that had slipped from Lady Laura's lap. 
 
 " Tennyson ! " she exclaimed, looking at the name on 
 the dark green binding. " Vieux jeu, as Mary calls him. 
 We have travelled a summer day's journey from Tennyson." 
 And then she turned the book, and saw the open page. 
 " You were reading our favourite ' Lotos-Eaters.' Well, 
 that is one of his best. 
 
 " ■ How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream, 
 With half shut eyes ever to seem 
 Falling asleep in a half dream ! 
 To dream and dream like yonder amber light ' 
 
MIRANDA 101 
 
 Yes, I can admire those lines, mother, though I'm afraid 
 they are only pretty-pretty — a musical sequence of words, 
 like a resolution at the end of a prelude by Bach — 
 meaning very little." 
 
 " The lines seem to mean a great deal when you read 
 them," Lady Laura said softly, smoothing the dark brown 
 hair with a hand that was whiter than her ivory needles. 
 " Read the whole poem, dear, if this tropical day has not 
 tired you." 
 
 " Tired ! I ought to have been born in the tropic of 
 Cancer. I revel in a summer that is like summer/' and 
 she began to read verses that she knew by heart. 
 
 Lady Laura thought that her child's reading was almost 
 as beautiful as her playing. 
 
 " Mein Wunderkind ! " she murmured softly. 
 
 Miranda read for a long time, turning the pages slowly, 
 till she came upon old favourites, which were her mother's 
 favourites, and belonged to a time when Miranda took all 
 her opinions and ideas from the adored mother. 
 
 It was afternoon. They had lunched at the table under 
 the tulip tree, a hot-weather luncheon, so light and delicate 
 that the men served it with inward scorn. " Hardly food 
 enough for a couple of dicky-birds," Charles said, as he 
 went back to the dinner-table in the servants' -hall, and 
 trifled with a pound or so of sirloin that had been kept hot 
 for him by an attentive kitchen-maid. 
 
 It was afternoon — the Lotos-Eaters' afternoon, with a 
 scent of sun-baked roses, and a stillness that was almost 
 oppressive. 
 
 Three strokes of the fine old church clock came across 
 the gardens with slow and solemn sound. 
 
 " The passing-bell of Time," said Miranda. 
 
 " Where are you and Julia going for your drive this 
 afternoon ? " asked Lady Laura. " I hope you have an 
 excursion on hand. Tea at that nice old farm-house at 
 Halestead, perhaps." 
 
 " Pas si bete. The trippers have poisoned Halestead. 
 The last time we went there the front garden was crammed 
 with bicycles — the most offensive motor variety. Perhaps 
 
102 MIRANDA 
 
 you don't know that the nice old farm-house is an inn, and 
 reeks of beer, though most of the cyclists clamour for tea 
 — tea and cheese-cakes — endless cheese-cakes." 
 
 " Then why not a picnic tea in the woods ? Charles 
 would arrange everything for you. There is room for you 
 and the trippers in that forest of Scotch firs." 
 
 " Darling, I am fed up with picnics — as Mary Lester 
 says." 
 
 " Don't let me hear you say it, Miranda, if you love 
 me. 
 
 " You know how you have been preached at, my poor 
 dear ! Miranda ought to do this, and Miranda ought not 
 to do that. Miranda ought to associate with girls of her 
 own age. Well, I am associating — and you mustn't 
 grumble if the result is odious ! " 
 
 " Why fix on Mary ? The other Lester girls are not 
 so vulgar." 
 
 "No. They are only stupid pieces of dull propriety — 
 without an original idea, mere echoes. Now Mary, with 
 all her faults, is clever. She reads French and German 
 — books that you would not let me read — contraband ! 
 She and Kate Parlby go halves in a subscription to a 
 foreign library in Berners Street. You can hardly blame 
 Mary. Most English novels are such rot." 
 
 " She must be an odious creature," said Lady Laura, 
 " and if her mother was not a very old friend of mine, I 
 wouldn't let her enter my house. I hate the idea of your 
 knowing a girl who reads improper books, and talks about 
 them." 
 
 " That's what she reads them for. She brags about 
 knowing d'Annunzio as middle-class people brag of 
 knowing a duke." 
 
 " After all," said Lady Laura, with a reposeful sigh, 
 " I rely on my darling's good sense to keep her unharmed 
 by other people's vulgarity, cultivated vulgarity, which is 
 the worst of all. The horrors that have crept into the 
 language of May fair since I was a girl take my breath away." 
 
 " Never mind how people talk, if they feed their minds 
 better than they used, and are fonder of literature and 
 
MIRANDA 103 
 
 good music and fine pictures than the early Victorians 
 were." 
 
 Miranda looked at the little watch on her wrist. 
 
 " Ten minutes past three," she said, then picked herself 
 up and arranged herself in a low chair next Lady Laura's, 
 avoiding that lavish display of legs which might be called 
 early Georgian. 
 
 " And you don't feel the monotony of our lives as you 
 did last year ? " questioned her mother. " You don't 
 complain of our Lotos island ? " 
 
 " I begin to think I was born to saunter and sit in a 
 garden where it is always afternoon." 
 
 " And you are quite, quite happy ? You don't hunger 
 for new things to happen ? " 
 
 " I am quite, quite happy." 
 
 "Then I am satisfied; but I wish Gilbert had not 
 deserted us." 
 
 " Deserted ! " 
 
 " You must have observed how seldom he comes now." 
 
 " He lunched here the other day." 
 
 " Three weeks ago. I hope it is not Mr. Raynham who 
 has driven him away." 
 
 Miranda's lip stiffened. 
 
 " Why should that be ? " she asked. 
 
 " I have an idea that he dislikes our poet, though really 
 the young man is quite likeable, when one comes to under- 
 stand him. He has charming manners, and he dresses 
 like other people. If he had not written that horrible 
 book, no one could object to him." 
 
 " Why do you harp upon his book, mother — when you 
 have not read two consecutive pages ? " 
 
 " I read a good deal here and there, dear, and there was 
 much that shocked me." 
 
 " He likes to shock people. His sense of humour carries 
 him away, and he writes lightly of things that other people 
 consider sacred." 
 
 " It is something more than lightness. It goes deep." 
 
 " No great writers have been orthodox," pleaded 
 Miranda. 
 
104 MIRANDA 
 
 " Oh, my dear, you know I like Mr. Raynham. I did 
 not like him at first. I thought him pushing." 
 
 " Pushing " was Lady Laura's worst word for a new 
 acquaintance. She detested " pushing " people, who 
 presumed upon her placid temper, came too often and 
 stayed too long, made themselves too much at home, 
 and talked of her daughter as " Miranda " after a month's 
 acquaintance. 
 
 She had begun by inwardly resenting Mark Raynham's 
 familiarity, and she had even written to her sister to that 
 effect : " Your friend amuses me, but he is conceited and 
 a poseur ; in fact, not quite a gentleman ; " and then those 
 first impressions had gradually faded, and she yielded to 
 the spell of presumptuous youth, strong in its infinite 
 resources, its joy in life. 
 
 Mark Raynham began by amusing her, and ended by 
 interesting her, as no other young man had interested her 
 in those long years of widowhood in which her life had 
 been solitary and uneventful. 
 
 He belonged to a world that was new to her, the world 
 of literature and free thought, a world where there is 
 always that subtle flavour of Bohemianism which has a 
 perilous charm for women who have been pent up in the 
 duller world of conventionalities and " nice " people. 
 
 Lady Laura had ceased to ask herself whether Mark 
 Raynham was " nice " in her long-departed mother's 
 acceptation of that overworked adjective. He interested 
 her — he talked to her of books and pictures, of music and 
 acting, as no one else had ever talked. He had read more 
 than she had thought it possible for a man of eight-and- 
 twenty to have read — strange books, out-of-the-way books 
 in several languages, old-world poets whose names she had 
 never seen except in an anthology. 
 
 He was eloquent, and full of poetical fancies. She 
 began to be indulgent even to the book she had disliked 
 and feared — and he was allowed to lie on the grass at her 
 feet and read long passages out of " Dr. Forster." 
 
 She had thought Gilbert Ferrar unsurpassable as a 
 book-lover — a man who knew all the great books, and 
 
MIRANDA 105 
 
 could talk of them with eloquence and understanding — but 
 he could not talk as this man talked, as if literature was 
 the only thing that mattered. He had too many other 
 subjects to think about — was too conscious of the sadness 
 of life, and of the burden laid upon him — the suffering 
 and the sin of his flock : too conscious of social problems 
 that infidels and anarchists were trying to solve by a gospel 
 of confiscation and destruction. Mark was younger, 
 handsomer, and more amusing than the Vicar of St. 
 Barnabas ; and in this tropical weather when Lady Laura 
 found it too great an effort to think, she was glad to be 
 amused. 
 
 Hence it came about that Mr. Raynham was allowed 
 to come to The Barrow how and when he liked, and as 
 often as he liked, which meant nearly every day. He was 
 not obliged to present himself at the hall-door, to be ushered 
 to the garden by a servant. He might come in by the 
 avenue and stroll across the lawn in the blaze of the meridian 
 sun, to drop at Lady Laura's feet in the shadow of the 
 great plane. He might saunter in from the stable-yard, 
 making friends with Miranda's dogs on his way ; or by a 
 gate in a green lane that admitted him to the orchard. 
 Or he would come in the afternoon and dawdle about with 
 Miranda and her little court, Julia Wagstaff, Mary Lester 
 and Kate Parlby, until tea-time ; and sometimes, if he 
 had not been with them in the long summer day he would 
 appear at the drawing-room window between nine and 
 ten o'clock, when Miranda was playing to her mother, 
 and would plead very humbly for admittance. 
 
 " Yes, you may come in, if you will promise not to 
 talk/' Lady Laura would say ; and he would kiss her 
 hand in silence, sink into a chair near her, and sit mute 
 and apparently happy, while Miranda played the choicest 
 music in her repertoire, looking at him thoughtfully now 
 and then across the dim light of lamps so shaded that the 
 room was too dark for anything but Lady Laura's knitting 
 and Miranda's piano. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 MARK had become I'ami de la maison, the friend 
 who is always welcome. Lady Haverstock found 
 him in that position, and expressed her pleasure with a 
 touch of irony. 
 
 " What has he done to change your opinion of him ? 
 You told me he was not quite quite ; and now I find him 
 installed as if he were your favourite nephew. Have you 
 discovered that a man may be a Bohemian without being 
 a bounder ? " 
 
 Lady Laura excused herself with feeble apologies. 
 "He is so wonderful," she murmured, " the cleverest 
 person I ever met ! " 
 
 " You mean that he can talk about poets and dreamers 
 from morning till midnight, and that he has written 
 the most original book of the new century. That is not 
 cleverness, Laura — it is genius. If you want clever 
 people, you must come to London and meet famous 
 doctors and famous scientists, and people who have 
 invented things or discovered things " 
 
 " I prefer poets," sighed Lady Laura, who seldom 
 agreed with her elder sister except under compulsion. 
 
 " Hilda has never been simpatica," she told people. 
 
 There was a little more movement in life after Lady 
 Haverstock came to The Barrow. There were long drives 
 to see old friends whom she wanted to look up, and though 
 Lady Laura might stay at home, Miranda had to go with 
 her aunt. There were dinner-parties, a function Lady 
 Laura hated, though the house in Mr. Strickland's time 
 
 106 
 
MIRANDA 107 
 
 had been famous for its dinners and its wines. His widow 
 had given most of his choice wanes to the hospitals, 
 reserving only the port, which she was told it would be 
 absolutely wicked to give away. When her eldest sister 
 was with her she had to ask people. 
 
 " They are too boring for words," Lady Haverstock 
 said, " but it is better to have them than to sit and watch 
 you and Miss Wagstaff knit comforters and listen to 
 Miranda's piano. The only superior music I can tolerate 
 is an orchestral concert, with a hundred and fifty per- 
 formers to stir my blood. Creepy-crawly mazurkas and 
 reveries are only good enough to send me to sleep ! My 
 girls have to play musical-comedy tunes to please their 
 brothers. They do it with tremendous brio, poor dear 
 things, and I believe Lionel Monckton is more likely to get 
 them husbands than Chopin and Schumann." 
 
 There were very few Melford people bidden to The 
 Barrow dinners — only General Lester and his wife ; the 
 Vicar and Mrs. Vincent once, as a duty ; Mrs. Parlby 
 and one daughter; Mary Lester once, to balance the 
 sexes ; and Mark Raynham always. If Lady Laura did 
 not mean to ask him her sister ordered her. 
 
 " When you have only one amusin' person in the parish, 
 it would be midsummer madness not to have him," she 
 said. 
 
 " Anything to please you, Hilda, but aren't we making 
 too much of him ? " 
 
 " Fiddlesticks, Laura ! In London duchesses made 
 much of him." 
 
 " I'm afraid he is just a little bit spoilt. When he 
 first came here I thought he was pushing. But then I 
 found him so quaint and original that I got to be quite 
 fond of him. And now he comes to the house " 
 
 " As if he were a favourite son, living out," said 
 Miranda. ■* Mother is positively absurd about him." 
 
 " Never mind, my dear, as long as nobody else is 
 absurd." 
 
 Miranda blushed, and felt angry with herself for 
 blushing. 
 
108 MIRANDA 
 
 " Lounging in a garden all day long and listening to 
 a young man quoting French poets is hardly the best 
 occupation for a girl of nineteen," said Lady Haverstock, 
 " in these days when most young women are pining for 
 a career." 
 
 " What career can I find in Melford-on-the-Moor ? I 
 don't want a vote, and if I did, there are no plate-glass 
 windows to smash. I can't even teach the orphan boy 
 to read, for the board schools have taken that out of my 
 hands. I do a little slumming in Trownham now and then, 
 but this glorious summer has been too tropical for much 
 of that." 
 
 " It wouldn't be Aunt Hilda if she didn't say some- 
 thing disagreeable," Miranda said, when her aunt had gone 
 to write those endless letters which occupied her morning 
 hours in country houses. Letters to the sailor son in the 
 Mediterranean, or to the soldier son with his regiment in 
 Darjeeling, or to the daughters in other country houses — 
 or, once in a way, to Lord Haverstock on his Scottish 
 moor. 
 
 " I hope you don't disapprove of my idle summer days, 
 mother." 
 
 " Disapprove ? My darling, do you think I should 
 wish you to exert yourself with the temperature at eighty 
 in the shade ? Only I hope you get your morning rides 
 on the moor." 
 
 " James Whipple takes care of that. He sends his 
 orders to me at six o'clock every fine morning. Baker 
 comes in with my tea half an hour earlier than usual, 
 and it's : ' Please, miss, Mr. Whipple will have the horses 
 saddled at seven sharp.' " 
 
 " You mustn't let Whipple dictate to you. He did it 
 to all of us when we were girls, but he shan't presume 
 where you are concerned." 
 
 " Whipple presume ! Why, you know he is the pink 
 and pattern of servants, and gives me his orders with as 
 much respect as if I were a Russian Grand Duchess. I 
 adore those morning rides, and when I am once in the 
 saddle and flying over the moor with the mare ' a bit 
 
MIRANDA 109 
 
 above herself ' and the wind blowing round me from 
 the North Pole, I thank God and Whipple for the 
 freshness of morning, and I bless you, mother, for giving 
 me the best horses that ever came out of Tattersall's 
 yard." 
 
 " Whipple knows how to choose a horse." 
 
 " And he hasn't to stop bidding when the price runs 
 high. Rich young bloods look blue when they see Whipple 
 in the yard," said Miranda. " You are an angel." 
 
 " Your aunt is afraid she will have to go to-morrow 
 afternoon, Miranda," Lady Laura said a little later. 
 " Barbara and Jessie are at Warrington Manor, and Lady 
 Warrington wants Hilda to put in two or three days there 
 before she and the girls go to the Black Forest. So she 
 really must leave us, though she has not given us her 
 usual summer visit." 
 
 " Oh, let us be joyful," said Miranda, dancing on the 
 grass. " Joyful, joyful, joyful ! I shall begin to live 
 again when she is gone." 
 
 " Miranda, how can you be so horrid ? " 
 
 " It is she who is horrid. She is always thinking 
 disagreeable things about me, even when she doesn't 
 say them. I can read them in her aquiline features." 
 
 " She cherishes her opinion that I spoil you, dearest. 
 She won't understand that my Miranda can't be spoilt." 
 
 " That is your delusion, darling, and I'm afraid your 
 sister is right so far. I am spoilt, utterly spoilt — if love 
 can spoil anyone. The one question is, can it ? " 
 
 Lady Haverstock departed, but not before leaving a 
 poisoned arrow in the heart of Miranda's mother. 
 
 " Briggs is in the hall with the luggage, and I have 
 just five minutes for a few serious words before the 
 carriage comes round," she said, putting her arm through 
 Lady Laura's, and leading her towards the end of the 
 terrace out of earshot from open doors and windows. 
 " I must talk to you about Miranda." 
 
 Her sister's delicate bloom faded ; the tone of the 
 elder lady's voice was enough — a menace in every 
 syllable. 
 
no MIRANDA 
 
 - " What is the matter with Miranda ? " 
 
 " Nothing. She is quite wonderful, vu the foolish 
 way you have indulged her. I am very much in earnest, 
 Laura. I have thought a great deal about your girl since 
 I have been here with you both. I want to open your 
 eyes to your duty as a mother." 
 
 " I don't think that's necessary, Hilda. If to live solely 
 and absolutely for a child, to think of her by day and night, 
 to have no other interest in life, is a mother's duty, I 
 have done it ever since Miranda was a year old. I want no 
 reminding." 
 
 " Now you are angry ! But I mean to say my say." 
 
 ** You always do say your say." 
 
 " You have done too much for Miranda for eighteen 
 years, and now you are doing too little." 
 
 " How am I doing too little ? " 
 
 " Your girl is absolutely lovely. There have always 
 been beauties in our family, from the Lely portraits down- 
 wards. We are a handsome race, Laura, and you know 
 it. The ruck of us are better-looking than most people — 
 and your girl has inherited this racial beauty. She is 
 the perfection of the family type — she is a crystallization 
 — and it will be criminal on your part if you don't launch 
 her before she is nineteen and give her the opportunity 
 of making a great match." 
 
 " I love to hear you praise my darling," Lady Laura 
 said softly, startled at such pleasant speech from the 
 formidable sister, " but neither Miranda nor I are in any 
 hurry about her marriage." 
 
 " You are never in a hurry about anything, but you 
 had better lose no time about launching your girl, or 
 all the best men will be off to America while Miranda is 
 buried alive here. You must establish yourself in the 
 best house that can be got for next season, and Miranda 
 has only to be seen by the people we know in order to 
 become the girl of the year — perhaps you don't know 
 what that means ? " 
 
 " I can't bear to think of Miranda's marriage in that 
 cold-blooded way." 
 
MIRANDA in 
 
 " You'll have to think, and you'll have to be business- 
 like about it. Get your useful Julia to write to the best 
 of the house-agents to-morrow — and contrive to see a 
 little less of Mr. Raynham." 
 
 " What in Heaven's name has he to do with it ? " 
 
 " More than he ought to have. Miranda is romantic, 
 and there is nothing more dangerous than romance for 
 a handsome girl. I feel it my duty to warn you — she 
 is too much interested in Mark Raynham." 
 
 " Interested ? Why not ? She is no more interested 
 than I am." 
 
 " Laura ! You compel me to use plain words. She is 
 in love with him." 
 
 " How dare you say such a thing ? Miranda, my 
 daughter, in love with a married man ! " 
 
 " If you had four daughters — and had seen as much of 
 the world as I have — you would know that such things 
 happen. I asked you to take notice of the young man, 
 and I feel in a manner responsible. I have watched 
 her — and I know what girls are." 
 
 From her tone she might have been talking of some 
 noxious animal with which experience had made her 
 painfully familiar. 
 
 " There's the carriage. Another minute and I shall 
 miss my train. There's to be a big dinner at Warrington 
 to-night, and Briggs is a dolt at unpacking unless she 
 has time to collect her senses. I daren't say a word more — 
 I have warned you, Laura, and that ought to be enough." 
 
 " It is more than enough," her sister answered, white 
 and trembling with anger. " How dare you talk like that 
 of my daughter — my daughter ? You warned me about 
 Gilbert Ferrar. You think no man can come near us 
 without Miranda falling in love with him. Whatever 
 your girls are, my daughter is not that kind of girl." 
 
 And without another word, Lady Laura turned her 
 back upon her sister and hurried into the house, leaving 
 Lady Haverstock to receive parting courtesies from 
 Julia Wagstaff and the butler — who accepted a sovereign 
 with gentlemanlike nonchalance 
 
ii2 MIRANDA 
 
 " Aunt Hilda must have been worse than usual," 
 Miranda said, when she came to her mother's morning- 
 room. " I was at the other end of the garden when she 
 went away, so I didn't hear her parting shots. She 
 generally makes you uncomfortable ; but to-day you look 
 absolutely unhappy. What was it ? " 
 
 " Nothing, darling — nothing more than usual." 
 
 " Only pretty Fanny's way," laughed Miranda, as she 
 put her arm round her mother's waist. " Come into the 
 garden, darling. Mr. Raynham has just come in from 
 the orchard, and he wants to know if you would let us 
 have tea there instead of under the plane. It is nearly 
 four. May I tell Driver ? " 
 
 " Yes, dear, if you like the orchard better." 
 
 Miranda rang and gave her orders. " Tea in the orchard 
 at half -past four," and then she hung about her mother 
 and petted her, and led her into the garden, where they 
 walked slowly, with linked arms, along the lawn and 
 through shrubberies and winding paths, through the wild 
 garden and the rock garden till they came to the broad 
 ditch that bounded Miranda's domain. The ditch had 
 been drained long ago, and the sloping bank that made 
 a rampart along the orchard was covered with grass and 
 wild flowers, golden with primroses in April and May, 
 heavenly blue with hyacinths in June, always lovely. A 
 rustic bridge spanned the grassy hollow and a low oak 
 gate opened into the orchard. 
 
 The girl's caressing arm, and the lovely light and air, 
 comforted Lady Laura ; yet, with that poisoned arrow in 
 her heart, she could but note Miranda's face as they drew 
 near the orchard, the happy smile, the expectant look in 
 those star-like eyes. No, no ! It could not be that her 
 sweet girl could ever give more than a pure and friendly 
 regard to the greatest genius or the most splendid hero on 
 earth if honour forbade a warmer feeling. There was no 
 man living who could cast a spell over that candid and 
 innocent soul. 
 
 Mark Raynham was lying on his back upon the grass, 
 with his head resting on a mossy hillock, and his dark blue 
 
MIRANDA 113 
 
 eyes reflecting the cloudless blue above the tree tops. 
 He sprang to his feet as Lady Laura drew near. 
 
 " My soul had lost itself in the immensities," he said, 
 " but the sound of your light footsteps brought me back 
 to this happy earth. How shall I ever thank you for giving 
 me the key of this delicious orchard ? " 
 
 " When did I give you the key ? That gate in the lane 
 has not been locked within my memory, but I believe 
 the men put a bar across it after dark to keep out vagabond 
 boys." 
 
 " And the boys get in all the same when the apples are 
 ripe," said Miranda. " They know we are not savages, 
 and that they run no risk of barbed wire." 
 
 " I rave about your orchard, Lady Laura. I came upon 
 it by accident. It was my happy discovery, sauntering 
 in the lane one morning. I just hopped over the oak rail 
 and dropped on to a bed of flowering grasses. Could 
 anything be more delicious ? A Devonshire orchard in 
 the bleak East Riding ! Old, old trees, mossy limbs 
 jewelled with Arabian gum, and a huge branch of mistletoe 
 on the oldest of them. The Druids must have planted 
 your orchard in the time of Caractacus. I can see their 
 priestesses among these lights and shadows, with the 
 sunshine on their golden sickles — I hope you have a sneak- 
 ing kindness for the Druids, dear Lady Laura ? " 
 
 " Mother has been worried," Miranda said tenderly, 
 with her arm still embracing the beloved form. " Can't 
 you see it in her face ? " 
 
 " There is a little cloud. But let us talk about the 
 Druids, and make her forget present-day worries. Modern 
 life is complex, and troublesome. When anything annoys 
 me, I long for an island in the South Seas, even if I had 
 to die there as Robert Louis Stevenson died, without an 
 hour's warning, snapping the thread of a perfect life. 
 Oh, here come the tea-tables. Afternoon tea is just the 
 one modern thing that I couldn't renounce." 
 
 He ran on gaily while Miranda was installing her mother 
 in the most comfortable chair, and hanging over her fondly 
 — anxious about that little cloud. 
 
 8 
 
ii4 MIRANDA 
 
 " Let me pour out the tea while you lean back and rest, 
 dear ! " And when they were sitting side by side, Miranda 
 in front of the tea-tray, Lady Laura pressed her daughter's 
 hand gently, and whispered, " All is well, dear. The cloud 
 has passed." 
 
 She was glad for Miranda to take charge of the tea- 
 table, while she gave herself up to the contemplation of 
 the visitor who had made himself so much a part of their 
 life within the last six weeks. Not a long time, yet 
 she was beginning to forget what The Barrow gardens 
 were like without that tall, thin figure lounging in the 
 sunshine. 
 
 She looked at Mark Raynham this afternoon as she had 
 never looked at him before. Her brain worked slowly. 
 She was not a keen observer, or a person with whom first 
 impressions were strong and deep. She looked at him now, 
 stung to the quick by her sister's parting speech, and 
 wondered if there was any harm in him, anything that 
 she ought to have been aware of from the first. One thing 
 she realized now ; and it came upon her as a revelation. 
 He was radiantly handsome. The Raphael face was 
 worthy of the praise that fashionable photographers and 
 foolish women had lavished upon it. Never till now 
 had she seen the light and colour in the eyes that changed 
 from dark blue to black with every wave of fervid thought. 
 It was a face that recorded every phase of feeling, and 
 flushed with every eager fancy — assuredly the typical 
 face of the poet. She thought Milton's eyes must have 
 been of that colour when he wrote the " Allegro " — glorious 
 lights, to be untimely darkened. 
 
 He was much handsomer, perhaps much more attractive, 
 than she had thought until to-day — having taken him for 
 granted, and allowed herself to be amused and interested 
 without arriere-pensee. That Miranda should be interested 
 also was natural, and made Lady Laura all the more dis- 
 posed to encourage the young man's visits. That there 
 could be peril to her girl's peace of mind in Mr. Raynham 's 
 society had never occurred to her as among the possibilities 
 of this troublesome life. Surely if there had been danger, 
 
MIRANDA US 
 
 Julia, who was Miranda's confidante and alter ego, would 
 have perceived it sooner than the unsympathetic aunt. 
 
 While she sat slowly sipping her tea and thinking 
 uneasy thoughts, the music of Mark's voice was soothing 
 her spirits, until it was borne in upon her that even in 
 that perfect voice there was a perilous charm for romantic 
 girlhood. Her own girlish days had been brief and un- 
 emotional — a devoted lover, approved and accepted by her 
 parents, a brief engagement, and one happy year of 
 an ideal marriage. She had never known much of other 
 girls, or of the wild dreams they dream, and the audacious 
 things they say. She could not conceive the possibility of 
 unholy love where her daughter was in question. Miranda 
 was as much above the common herd in character as she 
 was in mind and beauty. 
 
 &♦ 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 " All/E really ought to go and see Mrs. Raynham," 
 VV Lady Laura said at luncheon next day. " Her 
 husband says she is not too ill to see people, though she is 
 not strong enough to go into society. I asked him if he 
 thought she would come to dinner when your aunt was 
 with us — not a big party — but he said the very idea of 
 dining out would shatter her nerves for a week. ' She is 
 as fragile as a harebell on the moor,' he said." 
 
 " That was rather sweet of him," said Julia. " He 
 seems really fond of her." 
 
 " Why should he not be fond of her ? " Lady Laura 
 answered sharply. 
 
 " Well, isn't it hard lines for any young man to be 
 burdened with a professional invalid — to have to be con- 
 tinually concerned about symptoms, bad nights, bad appe- 
 tite, to be afraid to talk joyously of the glorious weather 
 and the chorus of blackbirds and thrushes, lest one's 
 pleasure should jar upon shattered nerves ? Thank Heaven 
 for not giving me a hypochondriac husband." 
 
 "I'm afraid you are growing hard, Julia ! " sighed Lady 
 Laura. 
 
 Miranda was occupied in pampering her favourite 
 dachshund, a long-backed beast with a coat like burnished 
 gold, and brown eyes, whose pathetic gaze just now only 
 meant biscuit and more biscuit. 
 
 " Perhaps I am," Julia replied. " The fact is, that 
 floppy, futile young woman, lolling in her low chair and 
 
 116 
 
MIRANDA 117 
 
 maundering about her want of red corpuscles, set me on 
 edge. I hate a malade imaginaire, and I feel sure Mrs. 
 Raynham's invalidism is a pose. She has been brought 
 up among people who are not quite gentlefolks, and she is 
 trying to be ultra-refined, and to live up to her idea of 
 what a poet's wife ought to be." 
 
 " Even if she is rather a stupid person, we ought to 
 show her some attention, after allowing her clever husband 
 to amuse us," Lady Laura said reproachfully. " Think 
 of the hours he has wasted in our garden." 
 
 M He would have wasted his time anywhere else," said 
 Julia. " He has the look of a time- waster." 
 
 " Perhaps Goethe was a time- waster, though he wrote 
 the most wonderful tragedy in the world," said Miranda, 
 looking up for the first time since Mark's wife had been 
 mentioned. 
 
 She had flushed with a lovely carmine and her eyes had 
 an angry light in them. 
 
 " Mr. Raynham adores our gardens," she said, ** and 
 he comes here because he likes us and likes to talk to us." 
 
 Lady Laura ordered the sociable for half-past two ; 
 they would drive on the Halestead road between the woods 
 and the moor for an hour, call at The Dene, and come 
 home in time for tea. Julia could drive with them, and 
 be put down in the village, to walk home, if she didn't 
 want to see any more of Mrs. Raynham. 
 
 " I really don't," Julia answered bluntly, " and I begin 
 to think we have seen almost enough of the poet." 
 
 Lady Laura looked at her anxiously. Had Hilda been 
 talking to her, breathing poisonous suspicions — suggesting 
 impossible dangers ? 
 
 Miranda appeared in the hall as the carriage came to the 
 door, always punctual when she was to drive with her 
 mother. She looked pale and tired. 
 
 " It has been such a long day," she said, when asked 
 what was amiss. 
 
 " You worked too hard at your piano, dear. I heard 
 you playing nearly all the morning. Had you nothing else 
 to interest you ? No nice books ? " 
 
n8 MIRANDA 
 
 " No, I have nothing in hand just now. I think I enjoy 
 talking about old books better than reading new ones." 
 
 And he had not been there, whose talk was mostly of 
 books — of books or of dreamland, of problems and wild 
 guesses about other worlds, the infinite and the eternal. 
 
 "I'm afraid the idea of this little visit bores you," said 
 her mother, " but I think we ought to show that we don't 
 quite ignore the young man's wife." 
 
 " Why, you have been more attentive to her than I 
 have ever known you to any Melford hum-drum. More 
 than even to the Vicar and his wife. Stokes complains 
 that his houses have been stripped to fill boxes for The 
 Dene, and my dear wyandottes have been laying eggs 
 for her all the summer. 
 
 " That was your aunt's suggestion ; but I think now we 
 are so intimate with him something more is due to her." 
 
 " Did he ask you to call ? " 
 
 "No, darling, but I feel sure he would like it. He 
 has talked of her to me quite touchingly — with such real 
 affection — telling me about their courtship, and how 
 pretty and attractive she was in those early days, before 
 her health began to fail. I like his way of speaking about 
 her — nothing sentimental or affected, but with real 
 feeling—^ — " 
 
 Miranda was silent during most of the drive. The keen 
 air from the moor blew round her, but could not blow her 
 happy thoughts. She was out of spirits without knowing 
 why. Life that had of late been so full of new ideas, of 
 sweet, strange fancies and far-reaching dreams, had all 
 at once become joyless and grey. It was not only the old 
 sense of boredom that had come back, not the mere apathy 
 of the lotos-eater, but a sense of something lost, something 
 wanting. It was as if someone had taken away the best 
 part of her mind — the capability of thought. 
 
 During the nearly three weeks in which Lady Haver- 
 stock had been on the premises, Miranda had been in more 
 intimate communion with Mark Raynham than in those 
 quieter days when she had never left her mother's side, 
 and when all the poet's conversation had been addressed 
 
MIRANDA 119 
 
 to them both. There had been no intimacy, no unrestrained 
 speech, no exchange of daring fancies, swift as a volley at 
 tennis. It was only when Hilda came and took possession 
 of Lady Laura's morning-room, and wanted her sister to 
 talk to from breakfast till luncheon, that Mark and Miranda 
 had become fast friends, and had been free to wander 
 about the gardens and sit in the orchard with no more 
 exacting company than two white Aberdeen terriers and 
 a dachshund. 
 
 Julia was with them occasionally, but not every day. 
 She had work she loved in Trownham, and her bicycle was 
 often to be seen skimming over the moor at eight o'clock 
 in the morning on her way to the factory town. If her 
 mind had been constituted like Aunt Hilda's for divining 
 hidden dangers, she would have let those wives and mothers 
 in the long, dull streets struggle through their household 
 tasks and family anxieties without any help from a sym- 
 pathetic friend, and would have devoted every thought 
 and every moment of her life to Miranda. 
 
 Mark came every day during Lady Haverstock's visit 
 — not always at the same hour, so that for Miranda his 
 coming was more or less of a surprise. She was standing 
 among her pillar roses in that temple of creamy blossoms 
 with no roof but the sky, talking seriously with the head 
 gardener, when a low, languid voice close by startled her 
 with a familiar verse from Herrick. Or she had taken her 
 book to the orchard, and was sitting intent upon one of 
 those problems of individual character which make history 
 thrilling, when Mark would come in from the green lane, 
 and seat himself quietly by her side, and begin to read both 
 pages of her open book, it being his boast that he could 
 read two pages at once, before he gave her his usual 
 greeting. 
 
 u Why do you waste your thoughts upon dry-as-dust 
 chronicles of dead-and-gone kings, and battles long ago ? " 
 
 " I am always interested in Richard the Third, and I 
 can't believe he was the villain Shakespeare has made 
 him." 
 
 " Shakespeare has made him a grand gentleman, with 
 
120 MIRANDA 
 
 the faculty of commanding in excelsis. I adore Shake- 
 speare's Richard, but no doubt the real man was a better 
 character, one of the best of our Plantagenet kings; 
 and even if he behaved unpleasantly to his feeble wife 
 and winked at the putting away of two inconvenient boys, 
 he was less odious than Froude's paragon, the blood- 
 thirsty Tudor, the master who destroyed the two best 
 servants that ever thought and laboured for a king. God 
 help us ! If we had a Wolsey, or a Cromwell — Thomas 
 or Oliver — at the head of affairs to-day, how much safer 
 England would be. Those were the good old days. More 
 heads went to the block and more bodies to the flames, 
 but there was a Maypole in the Strand, and conduits ran 
 red with wine when princes were born or married. Rural 
 life was the life John Milton painted in his ' Allegro/ a 
 life of willing labour and joyous holiday. The general 
 sum of happiness was greater, and if there was a despot 
 upon the throne, there were no tyrants among the people." 
 She let him ramble on as he liked. He talked at random 
 — wild, irresponsible talk, opinions formed on the instant 
 — different from day to day — old or new, but seeming 
 new to Miranda. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE drawing-room at The Dene, and the solitary 
 figure seated in the low arm-chair, looked as if 
 nothing had stirred there since Lady Laura and her 
 daughter saw them for the first time. It was nearly two 
 months ago, and nothing was different except the choicer 
 flowers from The Barrow hot-houses. 
 
 " Look at your heavenly flowers," sighed Mrs. Raynham, 
 whose usual speech was a sigh. " I just sit here and 
 gaze at them. They are better than books. How can 
 I ever thank you and Miss Strickland for your goodness 
 to a miserable invalid ? " 
 
 " We hoped to find you much less of an invalid than 
 when you came to The Dene. I shall be ashamed of our 
 moorland air if it does nothing for you." 
 
 " Nothing can do anything for me, dear Lady Laura. 
 I shall just be the rag I am now till I drop into the 
 grave." 
 
 " You ought to fight against such despondent ideas." 
 
 " How can I, when I see Mark so wretched about me ? 
 If I could tell you half my husband's devotion, you would 
 understand that it is much more on his account than 
 my own that I hate being such a wretched creature. 
 He has done everything that care and thought can do. He 
 has taken me to the most expensive specialists — men who 
 require three guineas for a ten-minutes' interview, and 
 who cut me short when I try to describe my symptoms. 
 He allows Mr. Mason to come and see me every other 
 day, running up a dreadful bill for January." 
 
 121 
 
122 MIRANDA 
 
 " Mr. Mason's fees are not extravagant, and he has 
 great experience," said Lady Laura. " He used to attend 
 my sisters and me when we were children, and my dear 
 mother had a high opinion of him, though he was 
 almost young then. And what does he say about your 
 case ? " 
 
 " Word for word what the three-guinea specialist said, 
 only without his grand manner ; " and then Mrs. Raynham 
 expatiated upon her forlorn condition, all through the bad 
 behaviour of the red corpuscles in allowing the white to 
 get the better of them. The faulty condition of Mrs. 
 Raynham' s blood was known to every matron and maiden 
 at Melford-on-the-Moor. Her conversation consisted of 
 only two topics, her husband and her anaemia. His genius 
 and his self-sacrifice, her sleepless nights and low spirits. 
 And now all shyness having worn off upon this second 
 visit, the invalid prattled on at her ease, and Lady Laura 
 had only to put in a friendly word now and then, while 
 Miranda sat dumb and despondent with her eyes far off on 
 the belt of firs that shut out the view and gave a touch 
 of melancholy to the haunted garden. 
 
 Having exhausted the absorbing topic of her bad health, 
 Mrs. Raynham began to be autobiographical. 
 
 " I was such a child when I was married — only just 
 home from my school at Leamington — a very select school, 
 where girls were taught on the newest scientific principles, 
 and where there was no brain-forcing. The Miss 
 Summertons' motto was culture without brain-fag — no girl's 
 mind was overstrained. We learnt what we could, and 
 were not asked to learn what we couldn't. With myself, for 
 instance, when Miss Theresa found that German gave 
 me a sick-headache, and that Italian took away my appe- 
 tite for dinner, she did not insist upon either language. 
 French was to be enough in my case, and the French 
 governess gave me an hour a day for private conversation 
 -lessons, an expensive extra " 
 
 " Did the conversation lessons give you the stomach- 
 ache ? " Miranda asked abruptly, starting out of a stony 
 silence. Mrs. Raynham was getting on her nerves. If 
 
MIRANDA 123 
 
 Mary Lester had been there they would have laughed, 
 but Miranda felt tragic. 
 
 The feeble little voice rambled on, and Mrs. Raynham 
 arrived at her wedding-day : 
 
 " I was not eighteen, and they said I looked a child in 
 my white satin and pearls — I know Mark quoted Tenny- 
 son's ' Maud ' as we left the vestry. My papa had not 
 liked the engagement, for he had a fixed idea that no 
 poet ever earned his living, and when Mark told him about 
 ' Dr. Forster,' which was half written, papa said there 
 was no money in it ; but he was a most indulgent father, 
 and he had never forgotten what a poor little mite I was 
 when poor mamma died. His wedding-present was a 
 cheque for a thousand pounds. Mark and I were to spend 
 it on furnishing a flat at Hampstead. ' Feathers for your 
 nest,' papa said, in his splendid way. He had been suc- 
 cessful in all his undertakings. He had begun in rather 
 a small way, but he had a great brain for finance and 
 for negotiation, and his business was always expanding." 
 
 " And did you buy this pretty furniture for your draw- 
 ing-room ? " asked Lady Laura good-naturedly. 
 
 Mrs. Raynham prefaced her reply with a childish giggle, 
 instead of the usual sigh. 
 
 " We didn't buy any furniture. We spent papa's 
 present on our honeymoon. Mark was only two-and- 
 twenty and I was not eighteen. ' My treasure,' he said 
 in his sweet, fond way, ' who cares for furniture ? We 
 can have only one honeymoon. You have seen nothing 
 of this lovely world, the Alps, the Pyrenees, Rome, 
 Florence, Venice, Naples — the Alhambra, the Escurial. 
 I will show you the beauty of the earth, and when our 
 money is gone, and we have to come back to common 
 life, your papa will buy our furniture.' Wasn't it delicious 
 of him ? " 
 
 " Hardly fair to your father, I'm afraid." 
 
 " Oh, Mark was such a boy — so full of delight in life — 
 and he wanted to show me the beauty of the earth." 
 
 " He had travelled all over the Continent himself, no 
 doubt ? " suggested Lady Laura. 
 
i2 4 MIRANDA 
 
 " That was what made it so sweet. He was born in 
 Italy and he knew Germany by heart, and had lived two 
 years in Paris, but he had never seen the Escurial or the 
 Alhambra — Spain was new, and Venice was new — just as 
 new for him as for me. We were away nearly half a 
 year — a glorious time — moving from place to place, and 
 stopping at the nicest hotels. If Mark felt bored any- 
 where we changed our plans and went off to another 
 place at half an hour's warning." 
 
 A parlour-maid in a red serge gown and very French 
 apron and cap came in and began to move tables, which 
 gave Lady Laura an excuse for cutting short the 
 honeymoon. 
 
 " We have stayed an unconscionable time. I'm afraid 
 we must have tired you," she said innocently, as she gave 
 Mrs. Raynham her hand. 
 
 " Oh, but you'll stop to tea ? Mark will come in to 
 tea when he knows you and Miss Strickland are here. 
 He doesn't often show himself ; but for you " 
 
 Lady Laura was firm. There were reasons — complicated, 
 serious, but resolving themselves into Julia Wagstaff — 
 which made hastening home imperative. 
 
 " Poor Mark," sighed Mrs. Raynham, " he'll scold 
 me for not sending for him. He has been shut in his 
 den since quite early this morning " — and then, solemnly, 
 and with lowered voice, " He is beginning his new Poem." 
 
 Miranda had risen when her mother rose, and was looking 
 ineffably bored ; but at these last words she flushed and 
 came back to life. 
 
 " Yes, he has begun. He has been waiting for the 
 divine afflatus, and it came in the grey dawn to-day after 
 a sleepless night. He shouted to me from the next room, 
 ' It has come.' He always confides in me about his hope 
 and his despair, and he told me how he had been lying 
 on the grass day after day, staring at the sky, waiting 
 for the flash of inspiration that would set his imagination 
 aflame — and nothing came. His mind was dead — cold 
 and dead. I can't tell you the despair he put into those 
 words — and last night, roaming about the garden in the 
 
MIRANDA 125 
 
 moonlight, the magical moment came — and his new 
 poem spread itself before him, a perfect whole — a grander 
 subject than even his ' Dr. Forster,' and now we are both 
 happy." 
 
 She was talking like a parrot, no doubt, a mere echo of 
 her husband's speech ; but there was something so pathetic 
 in her adoration of that gifted being, and the humility of 
 her attitude, that Lady Laura was touched. 
 
 " He must be glad that you are able to sympathize 
 with him in the work of his life," she said kindly. 
 
 " Yes, I can sympathize," sighed Mrs. Raynham, 
 " but I can't understand. That's where I get on his 
 nerves, that's the trouble of it." 
 
 " But he tells you about his literary work ? " 
 
 " Yes, dear Lady Laura, he tells me. He must tell 
 someone, you know, and I am always there." 
 
 " Always there I " exclaimed Miranda, when they were 
 in the carriage. " How can he endure it ? Such a 
 woman as that, always there ! Heavens, how dreadful ! " 
 
 " Miranda, how can you be so unkind ? She is a good 
 little woman, and devoted to her husband. She must have 
 been quite pretty when he married her, and it must have 
 been a love match — a boy and girl — romantic creatures, 
 running about the Continent, with no thought of the 
 future." 
 
 " I think they were both rather absurd," said Miranda, 
 with a stony countenance. 
 
 Lady Laura looked at her daughter, full of wonder and 
 pain. Heaven knows what might have been her motive 
 in taking Miranda to The Dene that afternoon, so soon 
 after her sister's terrible warning. She may have thought 
 that to see more of the weak, hypochondriacal wife might 
 serve to remind Miranda that Mark Raynham was bound 
 by the most sacred tie to the woman he had chosen, and 
 that any regard for him, beyond the beaten way of friend- 
 ship, must needs be impossible for a pure-minded girl. 
 Perhaps she thought her daughter's heart would go out to 
 the feeble creature who had no joy in life except her 
 husband's affection, and that while she guarded herself 
 
126 MIRANDA 
 
 from the danger of caring too much for Mark R^nham, 
 she would protect him from the danger of falling in love 
 with her. 
 
 Lady Laura was not strong-minded, not what a Scots- 
 man might call " a purpose woman," and her endeavour 
 to guard her girl from a peril that seemed to her remote 
 almost to impossibility would at the best be hesitating 
 and uncertain ; but if a mother's love could save, the 
 love was there — a love that neither slumbered nor slept. 
 
 Julia was employed next day in writing to West End 
 house-agents, with inquiries for an absolutely perfect house, 
 to be let furnished next year from the first of May to 
 the middle of July — Park Lane, or Rutland Gate, or 
 Connaught Terrace — a house with an outlook on the 
 Park. ' 
 
 " That is something done," Lady Laura thought, with 
 a glow of self-approval, since for this poor lady to do 
 things of her own initiative was unusual. Her formidable 
 sister often told her that she had no initiative, to which 
 her usual reply was : " Well, Hilda, that is not a crime." 
 
 She was heavy-hearted, and full of vague fears. She 
 had been told to watch her ewe-lamb with a watchfulness 
 that meant suspicion, and that anxious espial told her 
 that Miranda was different. Something had changed her. 
 She was not happy. She was restless — roamed about 
 the garden, or wandered from room to room in a purpose- 
 less way, or sat at her piano for hours, and her playing 
 had the passion and power that had startled her mother 
 a year ago. She was all movement one day, dull and 
 apathetic on another, and she seemed always waiting 
 for something that did not come. 
 
 "Is it the old complaint ? " Julia asked her one day. 
 " Are you pining for something to happen ? " 
 
 " No, I am not so childish as I was last year ; but I 
 think life is horribly dull — flat and grey like the ugly bits 
 of the moor, where no flowers ever grow." 
 
 " Well, think of next year — and innumerable frocks 
 and hats, and the tourbillon of London gaieties " 
 
MIRANDA 127 
 
 " I don't care two pence for the tourbillon and I hate 
 having frocks tried on by incapable dressmakers, who keep 
 one standing before a looking-glass and hating oneself 
 for half an hour, and send home a misfit that one's maid 
 has to rectify." 
 
 " If you are talking of Melusine, that is base ingratitude," 
 said Julia, " for your Court gown was perfection." 
 
 Mark Raynham had only come to The Barrow once since 
 Lady Haverstock's departure, and had found no one at 
 home, and although that was more than a week ago, he 
 had not come again. Lady Laura began to think he 
 had been warned off by that officious person. She was 
 furious at the idea of any such interference. That her 
 daughter should be thought to be in danger of caring too 
 much for any man — for a married man, above all — her 
 pearl and paragon of girls, as far above the ruck of young 
 women as the stars are above the earth ! Nobody but 
 Hilda could have imagined such a thing ! 
 
 September in this old-fashioned summer showed little 
 change from August, and Miranda and her mother 
 sauntered or sat in the garden all the afternoon — and often 
 stayed there till after sunset, when a sudden fall in the 
 temperature made Lady Laura shiver ; whereupon her 
 daughter wrapped a shawl round her and hurried her into 
 the house. 
 
 " Darling, I have been horribly careless to let you stay 
 here one minute after the sun went down," Miranda said 
 with self-reproach. 
 
 Her thoughts had been far away as they sat there watching 
 the changing light and colour of the after-glow. 
 
 It was early in the afternoon a fortnight after the visit 
 to The Dene when Mark Raynham strolled into the garden 
 with his usual nonchalant air, and found Lady Laura dozing 
 over a novel, with two of the dogs asleep at her feet, while 
 Miranda was looking at the standard roses in the long 
 border. 
 
 He glanced at the slumbering lady, and stole past her 
 with soft and measured tread. 
 
128 MIRANDA 
 
 "I am glad the dogs did not bark," Miranda said, as 
 he came towards her. " It has been one of my mother's 
 bad days, and I want her to rest as long as possible." 
 
 " Your dogs don't bark at me. I have made them my 
 friends." 
 
 " Where have you been all this time — in London or 
 abroad ? " she asked, with haughty aloofness. 
 
 Her studied indifference and the bright flush on the 
 lovely face nattered him more than the warmest welcome. 
 
 " I have been shut in my den — tied to my desk like a 
 galley-slave to the oar — or pacing up and down the room, 
 despairing " 
 
 " Mrs. Raynham told us you had begun a new poem- 
 
 Yes, I began, and began, and began — till despair seized 
 me. I have spoilt quires of foolscap, and have not written 
 ten lines that pleased me." 
 
 " You may have written lines that would please the 
 world " 
 
 " No ; the poet knows when he does well. If he cannot 
 satisfy himself he will never win the world. The magic 
 has failed him — the oracles are dumb." 
 
 " Tell me about your poem," she said eagerly. 
 
 " I have been longing to tell you. I have been cruel 
 to myself in keeping away from this dear garden. You 
 can never know how I have missed you and Lady Laura. 
 Your sympathy — your understanding." 
 
 " But you have your wife's sympathy," Miranda said 
 softly. 
 
 That word " wife " was hardly audible, and it hurt her 
 somehow to speak it. 
 
 " She told us how proud she is of your genius, how she 
 sympathises with your every phase of feeling." 
 
 " My poor dear," sighed Mark. '* She can sympathise — 
 but she can't understand. Sympathy between minds so 
 wide apart is a poor thing. There can be no influence, no 
 inspiration in the sympathy that is not understanding." 
 
 There was a silence — and then he began to talk of 
 what he was doing : the fire, the delight with which he 
 had begun — the sudden disgust when the vivid dream 
 
MIRANDA 129 
 
 refused to be shaped in words, when the picture that 
 imagination had painted, the colour, the light and the 
 glory faded into the dull grey of common words. 
 
 " Let us go to the orchard. I can talk better and 
 think better there — than in the garden, where your Lesters 
 and Parlbys, and the tremendous Mrs. Devereux, may 
 swoop upon us at any moment." 
 
 The orchard was in its fullness of ripe fruit and brilliant 
 colour — a Temple of Ceres — a profusion that was running 
 to waste. The grass was strewn with fallen fruit. 
 
 " I adore your orchard," Mark exclaimed. " It is always 
 fairyland for me — remembering the hour I came upon it 
 unawares, as an unknown paradise, and then found that it 
 led to your garden — paradise in excelsis." 
 
 " Tell me about your poem," she said. 
 
 And then he told her, pouring out a flood of words — 
 told her all that he had thought of and planned — his story 
 — his characters — their view of life. That despairing 
 outlook upon a life that had no hereafter. 
 
 The theme was a tragedy of guilty love — innocence 
 betrayed — a heart broken : the scene Florence under the 
 Medici. 
 
 " Think of the colour and the splendour of the time," 
 Mark said, breathless with excitement, when he had un- 
 folded his story. He had talked to her as to his alter ego, 
 holding back nothing, terrible and unashamed — a frank 
 materialist, drunken with the beauty of the world. He had 
 watched Miranda's face as he talked, and had seen it 
 pale and flush by turns. He had horrified and he had 
 charmed her. 
 
 " I shall never read your poem," she said. " It is too 
 dreadful." 
 
 " You will find worse things in Goethe's Faust, yet 
 all the world bows down before that supreme poem." 
 
 " I shall not read your Italian story — you ought not 
 to have told me about such odious people." 
 
 There were tears in her eyes — indignant tears. She 
 was angry and ashamed of having listened to him. He had 
 no right to tell her of hideous crimes and vicious passions — 
 
1 3 o MIRANDA 
 
 those dark horrors of life that are kept from the knowledge 
 of pure women. 
 
 " You are angry with me ; but, oh, if you knew the 
 rapture it is to pour out my soul to you — to you who can 
 understand. If you knew what this hour means for me — 
 if you knew, Miranda ! " 
 
 It was the first time he had called her by her christian 
 name. She looked at him for an instant in a flash of anger 
 that made her supremely beautiful. He had never seen 
 her eyes so brilliant, the carnation of her cheek so exquisite. 
 
 She walked quickly towards the rustic bridge, where one 
 of the footmen met her. 
 
 " Her ladyship is waiting tea, ma'am." 
 
 " We are coming," Mark answered coolly. 
 
 It was all he could do to follow Miranda through the 
 shrubbery. 
 
 " You are swift as Atalanta," he said, " and I have no 
 golden apples to throw across your path." 
 
 Thin treble voices and shrill laughter were in the air 
 as Miranda ran along the lawn. 
 
 " A Lester and a Parlby, coquetry and culture," said 
 Mark. 
 
 Miranda greeted her friends en passant, and hurried 
 to her mother's side. 
 
 " You have been waiting, dearest," she said. " I am 
 so sorry." 
 
 " That did not matter. Only when I awoke and found 
 you gone I wondered what had become of you. How pale 
 you look, love ; and you are breathless. I'm afraid you 
 have been running. Did you think I was impatient ? " 
 
 " Charles told me you were waiting, and that was 
 enough." 
 
 The Lester and the Parlby were talking to Mr. Raynham, 
 quite absorbed. Mark's wife had told everybody about the 
 " divine afflatus," and the fact of his having begun a new 
 romance in verse was known all over the neighbourhood. 
 
 Miranda drew her chair close to her mother's side, and 
 began to help her with the cups and saucers. The servants 
 arranged tables and chairs for the visitors, who now included 
 
MIRANDA 131 
 
 Mrs. Devereux, stately in her best black silk, looking about 
 her with piercing eyes. 
 
 " I haven't seen you for ages," she told Mark, " but one 
 always knows where to find you." 
 
 " You might have found me at home any day for the 
 last three weeks — but with the door of my den locked 
 against visitors." 
 
 " How inhospitable ! I have heard about your new 
 poem. That sweet little wife of yours told me. I did not 
 know poets worked like that. I thought a poet just 
 rambled about, and jotted down a line in his pocket- 
 book now and then." 
 
 " Goethe's Faust was not written like that, Mrs. 
 Devereux." 
 
 " Oh, but Goethe's Faust is a play, isn't it ? " 
 
 "Yes — and the greatest poem this world has ever seen." 
 
 " Dear me ! I have never read it — and I don't mean 
 to read your ' Dr. Forster,' after what I have seen in the 
 reviews. My husband brought me the Nineteenth Century 
 for last December from his book-club. There was an 
 article on the New Philosophy, and your name figured in it 
 in a way that was rather startling." 
 
 " You did not know what a firebrand you had in your 
 peaceful village. You really ought not to have waited so 
 long to find out." 
 
 " Oh, I am not alarmed. Melford can take care of 
 itself — and there is Kate Parlby, who is emancipated and 
 what she calls in the movement. No doubt she has an 
 eye upon you. Only you mustn't spoil Miranda, who 
 knows nothing of the world's evil." 
 
 " She will never know it. She is like Una. Evil cannot 
 come near her. Lions will lie down and kiss her feet." 
 
 " Why were you away so long ? " Lady Laura asked. 
 " It seemed as if I had been asleep for hours when I awoke 
 and found your chair empty." 
 
 " It was not very long, dearest ; half an hour I think, at 
 the most. Mr. Raynham wanted to talk about his new 
 poem." 
 
 9* 
 
132 MIRANDA 
 
 " Kate Parlby has been talking about it. Mr. 
 Raynham's foolish wife has prattled to everybody 
 she knows, and it is talked of as if it were an event." 
 
 " Anything is an event at Melford." 
 
 " Why are you so pale, my darling ? What has hap- 
 pened to trouble you ? " 
 
 " Nothing in the world— except vexation at having kept 
 you waiting." 
 
 "As if that mattered," said Lady Laura, with watchful 
 eyes upon her daughter's face, and absolute oblivion as 
 to the tea-pot. 
 
 Happily Charles and John were now in attendance, and 
 Miranda was filling tea-cups for them to distribute. 
 
 " Was Mr. Raynham talking of his poem all the time ? " 
 Lady Laura asked, while the men were busy. 
 
 " Yes, dear. We sauntered to the orchard, and walked 
 about among the old trees while he talked." 
 
 " And do you like the new poem ? " 
 
 " No. As far as he could tell me about it, I liked it 
 less than ' Dr. Forster.' " 
 
 " And that was abominable," said Lady Laura. " When 
 I remember some pages in that book — the unbelief in God 
 or in all that is best in human nature — I wonder that I can 
 ever have liked the man who wrote them." 
 
 " But you have not left off liking him ? " 
 
 " I try to dissociate the man from the book. He is clever 
 and amusing, and I like him as an acquaintance." 
 
 " An acquaintance ! Not as a friend ? " 
 
 " No. I could not make a friend of the man who wrote 
 that book. But perhaps the new poem will be different — 
 dealing with better people, and not making sport of things 
 that are holy." 
 
 " I'm afraid not," said Miranda, with a sorrowful look. 
 
 Her mother rose hurriedly. 
 
 " I must go and talk to Mrs. Devereux," she said. 
 
 " Pray do, dearest, or she will get the hump." 
 
 Empty cups were being brought back, and Miranda 
 was busy again. Her hands trembled ever so little before 
 her task was finished, and there was infinite sadness in her 
 
MIRANDA 133 
 
 eyes and lips. She glanced at the distant table where Mark 
 Raynham was sitting with Mrs. Deverenx, listening in a 
 respectful attitude to that superior person's discourse, 
 until he rose to make way for Lady Laura. 
 
 He was moving towards Miranda when he was hailed by 
 Mary Lester from the table where she and Miss Parlby had 
 been sitting at tea. 
 
 " What are you doing at large ? " she asked, as she and 
 Mark shook hands. " I thought you were not coming 
 back to the everyday world till you had finished another 
 great book." 
 
 " There are no more great books, Miss Lester, now that 
 men and women write for gold. The age of art for art's 
 sake died with Keats and Shelley." 
 
 " But you are going to give us another romance in verse. 
 The world is waiting for it." 
 
 " The world will have to wait a long time." 
 " As long as it waited for the second part of Faust ? " 
 asked Miss Parlby. 
 
 " Or longer. Perhaps as long as it waited for the 
 ' iEneid.' " 
 Miss Parlby made a wry face. 
 
 " Was Virgil as long as that over that boring poem ? " 
 she exclaimed contemptuously. 
 
 "I'm afraid your new story is going to be heart- 
 breaking," Mary Lester said. " You look out of spirits." 
 " The heart-breaking stories are the only ones worth 
 writing." 
 
 He wished them good-night, and went to take leave of 
 Miranda, who had not moved since her mother left her. 
 
 " Good-night," she said coldly, and did not seem aware 
 of his outstretched hand. 
 
 "I'm afraid I have offended you somehow," he said, 
 in a very low voice, " or you would not refuse me your 
 hand." 
 
 " Perhaps it is hardly worth remembering, Mr. 
 Raynham, but you called me by my christian name just 
 now, and I want you to know that I am Miranda only 
 to my mother and my girl-friends." 
 
134 MIRANDA 
 
 " I will bear that in mind, Miss Strickland." 
 
 He bowed and left her, without offering his hand a 
 second time. He made his adieux to Lady Laura and 
 Mrs. Devereux en passant, and was gone. The mists 
 were rising over lawn and meadow as he went. 
 
 Miranda's cheeks were burning, and she began to be 
 ashamed of having made a fuss. Had she not shown 
 herself missish and underbred ? Mary Lester called 
 all the young men of her acquaintance by their christian, 
 or by their nicknames, and was " Mary " tout court 
 to everybody except the shopkeepers. 
 
 " I thought they were never going," said Lady Laura, 
 when she and her girl were alone. 
 
 " Have they tired you, mother dearest ? " 
 
 " Just a little. And you ? " 
 
 " I am tired to death. My bones ache as if I had been 
 toiling like the Jews in Egypt when the Pyramids were 
 building." 
 
 Julia Wagstaff had to dine alone that evening. Lady 
 Laura was lying down exhausted with the long, empty 
 day, and Miranda was trying to read her to sleep. But 
 no sleep came to the perturbed brain, and she was lying 
 with closed eyelids, when the clock struck ten and her 
 daughter stole away, believing her in a peaceful slumber. 
 
 She rose hurriedly when Miranda was gone, and wrote a 
 letter. 
 
 " My dear Gilbert, 
 
 " Why have you deserted us ? Praj' come to 
 me. I am very unhappy, 
 
 " Yours, 
 
 " L. S." 
 
 She told her maid that the letter was to be taken to 
 the post-office that night, and then, worn out, but with 
 no capacity for sleep, she went wearily to her bed. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 MIRANDA was miserable. Something had happened 
 to her — something that had altered her life and 
 taken all the joy out of pleasant things. A restless, 
 unsatisfied spirit possessed her, and all her thoughts were 
 centred upon one painful memory, the half-hour in the 
 orchard with Mark Raynham and the story of guilty love 
 that he had told her in the golden light of the westering 
 sun, and the flickering shadows of leaves faintly stirred 
 by the soft air ; a place so tranquil, where all she had 
 known in her short life had been of joy and peace, gentle 
 thoughts, filial affection. 
 
 And in this dear place he had poured out his story of 
 the guilty lovers, and had justified their unholy love. 
 That was the horror of it all. All through his exposition 
 of unbridled passion and crime without remorse, his 
 language had been exquisite, and so far as beautiful words 
 can be woven into music he had given to extempore prose 
 the essence of fine poetry. He had spoken as men can 
 speak only when passion moves them, and the hurrying 
 blood in brain and heart gives force and colour to language 
 that seems inspired. That fiery eloquence and the deep 
 music of his voice had thrilled her — and it was only when 
 he came to the end of his story that instinct told her how 
 vile a theme he had chosen, and she was ashamed of having 
 heard him. She was angry and ashamed still when she 
 thought of the story, but those words of fire came back 
 to her again and again. She could not forget the words 
 
 135 
 
136 MIRANDA 
 
 that he had spoken, nor shut her mental vision upon the 
 pictures those words had created. No poem she had 
 ever read had so filled her mind as this wild exposition of 
 a poem that was yet to be written. And every now 
 and then, while she was trying to blot the picture from 
 her mind, there came a sudden memory of the moment 
 in which he had called her by her christian name — an 
 insufferable liberty, not to be forgotten. 
 
 " I have a right to be angry," she told herself. " No 
 man who respected me would have presumed so far, or 
 would have talked as he talked." 
 
 And then she found herself making excuses for him. 
 She knew that he did not think as she and her mother 
 thought about the serious things of life. He was no 
 hypocrite, and even in Lady Laura's presence he had 
 confessed himself without faith in the guiding star of a 
 good man's life, without that sure and certain hope in the 
 " For ever " that can alone influence men's conduct in 
 the " Now." His scornful reference to the orthodox 
 Christian's faith in far-off things had often shocked Lady 
 Laura ; but when alone with Miranda in the orchard or 
 the garden he had been bolder in the revelation of his 
 mind. He had told her of a time when he, too, had loved 
 the story she believed, the Redeemer she worshipped, 
 when the lovely life, the martyr's death, had taken hold 
 of his boyish fancy — a time when his dreams were of 
 that other and fairer world beyond the skies, peopled 
 with saints and angels, and all that great company of the 
 elect who had gone before. 
 
 " A single chapter of a book called ' The Sidereal 
 Heavens ' killed that divine dream. From the time 
 I understood the immeasurable distances of the Universe 
 my childish vision of the paradise beyond the blue had 
 vanished," he told Miranda. 
 
 She had always discouraged these revelations of a mind 
 in which religion had long been a dead letter — but in his 
 eloquent monologues that spirit of denial had been always 
 present ; and a mind so receptive as Miranda's was 
 doomed to be influenced — it might be unconsciously — by 
 
MIRANDA 137 
 
 the pessimism that pervaded all his views of life and 
 people. He who did not believe in God or Devil could 
 not understand that professed believers might be sincere. 
 The religious life was for him the profession of hypocrites, 
 or of brainless people who chose to hoodwink themselves, 
 and clung obstinately to a religion that regulated their 
 conduct on earth and offered them soothing hopes 
 of a reward in Heaven for leading humdrum lives and 
 associating with dull people. 
 
 He had influenced her in spite of herself. She knew 
 now for the first time that her thoughts had been coloured 
 by his thoughts — that she had lost the proud independence 
 of her girlhood, the strength and the daring of her young 
 ambition, when she had wanted to know everything 
 without the trouble of learning, but when sacred things 
 had been indeed sacred. 
 
 September was nearly over, and the wind was in the 
 east. The wonderful summer must end at last. Yellow 
 leaves were falling from the horse-chestnuts in the avenue, 
 scorched in the long drought, and the garden seemed 
 dull and grey as she stood at one of the long, narrow 
 windows in the old schoolroom, looking dreamily across 
 the lawn and shrubberies to the dark ridge of the moor. 
 It was one of Lady Laura's bad days, and she was lying 
 on the sofa in her bedroom. Miranda had been sitting by 
 her, reading aloud for an hour, with her mother's hand 
 locked in hers, until the low, level voice had brought 
 sleep to tired eyes, and then she had stolen away after 
 telling the maid to fetch her when the sleeper awoke. 
 
 The old schoolroom was Miranda's den, and held all 
 the memories of childhood and girlhood. It was a fine 
 old room, with three Queen Anne windows, narrow and 
 high, and panelled walls hidden behind bookshelves that 
 reached from floor to ceiling, crammed with Miranda's 
 heterogeneous collection of literature — old and new. 
 Every whim, every fancy of the hour, might be traced in 
 the variety of authors and languages. It was here that 
 she had read with Gilbert Ferrar, and the books of that 
 period had a place apart in the collection, and were by 
 
138 MIRANDA 
 
 far the most valuable from an educational point of view 
 — the best histories, the best translations of Greek and 
 Latin poets, the best of English classics. 
 
 She had been standing at the open window for some time, 
 lost in a labyrinth of wandering thoughts, so far away from 
 actual life that the sudden opening of the door startled 
 her, and she turned from the window with fluttering breath 
 when a servant announced Mr. Ferrar. 
 
 She recovered herself instantly and went to him with 
 outstretched hand. 
 
 " So you are come at last," she said. " I thought we 
 were never to see you again ! " 
 
 " Did you want to see me?" 
 
 " Of course we wanted you. Mother especially. You 
 are her counsellor, and something more than her coun- 
 sellor — you are the rock against which she leans when the 
 winds of life buffet her. You know she has never been 
 strong, poor darling, and little difficulties seem big in 
 her mind. All her mice are mountains. Of course we 
 wanted to see you." 
 
 " Then why have you deserted me ? Why have you 
 never been in my church since midsummer ? " 
 
 " How did you know that we were not there ? " 
 
 " Because I did not see you." 
 
 " Do you pretend that you can see my mother and me 
 in that great crowded church, when we are never in the 
 same place two Sundays running ? " 
 
 " There is no pretending — I always see you." 
 
 " You must have the eye of a hawk." 
 
 " Perhaps." 
 
 "The drive was impossible while that tropical weather 
 lasted." 
 
 " But since the days have been cool enough for the 
 drive ? " 
 
 " Well, I think we have got into the habit of going 
 to our dear old Parish Church. The vaulted roof and the 
 low Norman arches, the grey, shadowy place, and the 
 Vicar's drowsy old sermons, had a soothing influence on 
 those torrid Sunday mornings." 
 
MIRANDA 139 
 
 " A drowsy old sermon used not to please you — there 
 has been something more than this, Miranda." 
 
 " Why should you think so ? " 
 
 "It is not a question of thinking. I know. Do all 
 the years of our friendship count for nothing ? Do the 
 years in which I have watched you grow from child to 
 woman count for nothing, the years in which I could 
 read your mind like an open book ? There has been 
 something more than the hot weather and the long drive 
 to keep you away from the church you once loved. You 
 were once the soul of truth, Miranda. Don't let me think 
 that you are changed in that respect ! " 
 
 " No, I am not changed. I will tell you the truth. 
 I have not been to your church because your ritual asks 
 too much from me. It asks more than I can give. I 
 cannot kneel for an hour and lift my thoughts to Heaven. 
 I hear the thrilling words — ' Hosanna ! Hosanna in 
 the highest ! ' but my soul clings to earth — I am beset 
 by wandering thoughts. I have no right to be there on 
 my knees pretending to worship : half-hearted — cold — 
 unworthy. I cannot rise to that Heaven where you and 
 exalted spirits like yours can soar. I cannot — I cannot." 
 
 " Who has changed you ? The girl I prepared for 
 Confirmation never found my ritual too exacting. She 
 believed in the Son of God who died upon the cross for 
 her redemption. She could kneel and worship Him in 
 unquestioning faith — no thought soared too high, no 
 vision of the Divine was beyond the reach of her young, 
 eager mind. Who has changed you, Miranda ? " 
 
 " No one. I am older and I have thought more — 
 and read more. As the years go on, one's thoughts are 
 deeper — one begins to question ideas that once seemed 
 easy." 
 
 " This change is recent. Mr. Raynham — the writer of 
 a book I abhor — has been a constant visitor in this house. 
 It is his influence that has changed you. It was natural 
 that you should be influenced. He has talent — perhaps 
 even genius — and you are sensitive, capricious, easily led." 
 
 " Mr. Raynham's conversation has interested me, and 
 
140 MIRANDA 
 
 he has opened a new world for me in French and German 
 literature. But if my faith has wavered — if I can no 
 longer kneel in your church as I once could, with unques- 
 tioning faith, it is not because I have heard him talk lightly 
 of ideas I still revere. Doubt has come into my mind 
 unawares." 
 
 " And what has your new friend given you in exchange 
 for the faith he has shattered — which of the new religions ? 
 There are as many new creeds as there are days in the 
 week. What has he given you for that serene and upward- 
 looking faith which was the lamp of your life a little while 
 ago ? " 
 
 " He has given me nothing. I can never think as he 
 thinks, or see life as he sees it." 
 
 " Heaven forbid that you ever should, for Mark 
 Raynham's God is the Spirit who denies." 
 
 " He has nothing to do with the change in my feelings. 
 I have been interested just as mother has been. He is 
 wonderful sometimes when he feels that he is with people 
 who understand him. He is wonderful when he lets 
 himself go. He seems to have read all the great books 
 that have moved the world — all the poets, all the philo- 
 sophers. It has been a delight to him to talk to us — and 
 for us to listen. Ask mother what she thinks of him ! " 
 
 She looked at him with a touch of defiance, as she 
 talked of Raynham. 
 
 " I have been talking with your mother, Miranda." 
 
 " This morning ? " 
 
 " Yes, I left her to come to you. She told me I should 
 find you in the schoolroom — the room that was ours when 
 I had the honour of being your coach." 
 
 " And such a splendid coach. How kind you were, 
 and what a conceited, self-willed pupil you had — but you 
 broke me in very soon, and I hope you did not find me 
 too troublesome in the long run." 
 
 " I found you enchanting in the long run — and always." 
 
 " You were so kind, and you made learning so easy — 
 I never had a dull moment when you were with me — 
 and even ■ prep.' was not too horrid, for I wanted to 
 
MIRANDA 141 
 
 surprise you with my progress. I have not forgotten all 
 I read with you. Mr. Raynham is astonished sometimes 
 at the books I have read — and sometimes at the books I 
 have not read." 
 
 " Keep to the old books, Miranda. And do not go far 
 into that new world of French and German literature. 
 You have read what is choicest and highest in both lan- 
 guages — and you may leave the rest to omnivorous 
 readers like Mr. Raynham. But, oh, my dear, dear girl, 
 can you forget the hour when you renewed the baptismal 
 vow and gave yourself to a Christian life — the life of purity 
 and self-abnegation ? Have you forgotten ? Has the 
 solemn promise and vow that you made that day lost 
 all meaning — are the manifold gifts of grace that were 
 yours when we read together in this room proving im- 
 potent to rule your life ? Is there nothing left of the 
 pure-minded girl I knew in those dear days ? " 
 
 There was a sob in his voice as he spoke the last words, 
 and then in a graver, even sterner tone, he went on : 
 " Remember this, Miranda, that whatever the influence 
 of Religion may be on the world at large, women cannot 
 do without it. There may be men so strong in purpose, 
 so rigid in self-government, that the iron rule of honour 
 and conscience can keep them in the straight path without 
 belief in the Divine Exemplar — without even that some- 
 thing outside ourselves that makes for righteousness — 
 for the man* of strong brain the Agnostic's dreary outlook 
 may be compatible with moral goodness, with a useful 
 and beneficent life. A man of strong fibre may sur- 
 render the sure and certain hope of St. Paul for the Great 
 Perhaps of Rabelais, and yet walk erect among his fellow 
 men — but women cannot do without the assurance of a 
 Saviour who was tempted as they are tempted and who can 
 pity and understand them. Without the Divine Guide 
 a woman's life is like a storm-beaten boat without rudder 
 or compass. Women are by nature religious. All that 
 is finest in them tends towards worship. Oh, my dear, 
 you break my heart when you talk as if your Confirmation 
 vow were of no account in your life. Oh, believe me, 
 
142 MIRANDA 
 
 Miranda, not all the books that human genius has ever 
 produced are worth the last eight chapters of St. John's 
 Gospel." 
 
 She turned from him with tears streaming down her 
 pale cheeks. 
 
 " You are very cruel, Gilbert," she sobbed. " You 
 talk as if I had done with religion, and all I said was that 
 things that once seemed easy were becoming difficult. I 
 will come to St. Barnabas', and I will try to believe as 
 implicitly as I did a year ago. I will come to your church 
 next Sunday. Julia has been miserable about me. She 
 went to your early service all through the hot weather, 
 in the governess cart — or on foot, if Whipple made diffi- 
 culties about the ponies. There are three of them, and 
 she ought not to have had to walk. And now tell me 
 about mother. Did you think her looking ill ? " 
 
 " I'm sorry to say I did." 
 
 " It is one of her bad days." 
 
 " It seemed more than that. It is hardly six weeks since 
 I was here, and I see a change in her." 
 
 " Oh, Gilbert, you frighten me ! " 
 
 "It is best to be frightened in time. You must take 
 care of her, Miranda. She has given half her life to caring 
 for you. Now it is your turn." 
 
 " What can I do ? " 
 
 " See that she does not neglect herself — that she has 
 proper medical care. She looks white and languid. She 
 would say nothing about herself except that the summer 
 had been trying — that has had something to do with it, 
 perhaps, but I think you and her doctor ought to look 
 after her. Is old Mason your doctor ? " 
 
 " Yes. Mother likes him. He doctored her when she 
 was in the nursery, and he and mother are never tired of 
 talking of the time when she and my three aunts were all 
 shut up in different rooms with measles. Mother thinks 
 him immensely clever." 
 
 " He has had plenty oi experience, no doubt." 
 
 " And you think Dr. Mason would find out if there were 
 anything really wrong with mother's health ? " 
 
MIRANDA 143 
 
 " I believe he might if she would let him." 
 
 " She shall see him this afternoon. I'll write and ask 
 him to call, in a casual way, and not let on that he was 
 sent for." 
 
 " Perhaps he will order her change of air — Harrogate, 
 or Buxton, or the sea." 
 
 Miranda's face clouded. 
 
 " The sea ? Haven't we sea enough here ? " 
 
 " A breath of ozone perhaps when the wind is in the 
 north; but if I were her doctor I should advise a change 
 of scene, a change from a garden of roses to a sandy 
 shore where the salt spray will blow round you." 
 
 " If Dr. Mason advises, we will go to the sea." 
 
 " That will be something done. But your mother's 
 health is not all my trouble," Gilbert said gravely. " If 
 I feel distressed and anxious about her, it is mostly because 
 I fear she is unhappy." 
 
 Miranda looked at him with a troubled face from which 
 all colour had faded. 
 
 " Mother unhappy ? What do you mean, Gilbert ? 
 What should make her unhappy ? She has everything 
 in the world that she cares for — and she knows that I 
 worship her." 
 
 " There is something amiss, Miranda. It is for you 
 to find out what is wrong." 
 
 " Has she told you ? " 
 
 " Something, but not much." 
 
 " It must have been my horrid aunt's doing," Miranda 
 cried passionately. " Aunt Hilda upset her the day she 
 left. It is her usual way. We make ourselves her slaves 
 for a fortnight or three weeks. She comes here to suit 
 her own convenience, spoils our lives while she stays, 
 and stabs us to the heart before she goes away. Mother 
 has not been the same since she went." 
 
 " You must find the cure. You have a heavy responsi- 
 bility, my dear. Your mother has set her life upon a 
 cast ; and it is for you to prove yourself worthy to be 
 so loved." 
 
 He was very grave, even to severity. His whole aspect 
 
144 MIRANDA 
 
 was changed since the long estrangement of the summer. 
 Never before had he assumed a tone so serious and so 
 paternal. She saw a great change in him. He was no 
 longer her devoted friend, admiring her as spoilt children 
 are used to being admired — ready to find a charm in all 
 her caprices. 
 
 '■ You have made me very unhappy," she said, brushing 
 away her tears. " You have been almost as horrid as 
 Aunt Hilda." 
 
 The luncheon-gong had sounded ever so long ago, and 
 now Julia Wagstaff came to summon Miranda. 
 
 " Is mother coming down to luncheon ? " 
 
 " No. I have taken some chicken broth to her room ; 
 but I'm afraid she won't touch it." 
 
 Mr. Ferrar was asked to stay to luncheon, but declined. 
 
 " I must get back to my parish as fast as my horse will 
 carry me," he said. 
 
 " I'll walk to the stables with you," Miranda said 
 hurriedly. " Don't wait for me, Julia. I can't eat while 
 mother is ill. Go back to your luncheon, dear. I am going 
 to the village with the dogs when Gilbert is gone." 
 
 She was putting on her hat and gloves while she talked, 
 the shady garden hat and long brown gloves that lay 
 ready on a chair, and she and Mr. Ferrar left the house 
 together. 
 
 Julia saw that she was not wanted. It was better that 
 these two should be alone. Julia was oppressed by the 
 wave of unhappiness that had come over their lives of 
 late. If there was anyone who could bring light and 
 hope it would be Gilbert Ferrar. 
 
 There are women — perhaps the best and sweetest of 
 their sex — who never outlive the poetry of life, who in 
 the dull, level years between thirty and forty are as romantic 
 as they were at seventeen — and Julia Wagstaff was one 
 of these. She could not live without something more 
 lovely than the humdrum of everyday existence — she 
 could not do without her dream. She could not do with- 
 out her hero or her saint ; and since she had come to The 
 Barrow, and her lines had been set in pleasant places, she 
 
MIRANDA 145 
 
 still wanted something finer than mundane luxuries. The 
 saint or the hero was still a necessity of her existence. If 
 not among the living, she must find her dream among the 
 dead. St. Francis of Assisi — Savonarola — or the priest 
 whose voice thrilled her under the vaulted roof of St. 
 Barnabas' — the something over and beyond actualities 
 was needful for her peace. 
 
 While she was assisting at Miranda's education, she had 
 been drawn into close communion with Mr. Ferrar, and 
 all that was fine in his character had appealed to her. His 
 love of humanity, his contempt for things that the world 
 admires and that the average man looks to as the crown 
 of endeavour. Success — that glittering point at the end of 
 the vista — counted for nothing in Gilbert Ferrar's scheme 
 of life. He had never reckoned his chances, never taken 
 the measure of his abilities, never thought of a Fellowship 
 or of a rich college living while he was reading for his 
 degree. He had worked hard because he loved the work 
 he was doing; but he had spent two long vacations that 
 other men were spending climbing peaks in Switzerland 
 or salmon-fishing in Norway, in strenuous labour among 
 the poor of East-End London. And before he left Oriel 
 he had become a pillar of strength in the Oxford Mission. 
 
 He had gone to Trownham because Trownham was one 
 of the bad places — a living that had been refused by men of 
 inferior powers and lower social status — and his friends 
 had told him that he was throwing himself away. 
 
 Julia had found out all about him — had got nearer to 
 an understanding of his character than Miranda, on whom 
 he had lavished so much of thought and care — and long 
 before the time when Gilbert confessed himself to Lady 
 Laura, perhaps even before he himself had been aware of 
 his feelings, Julia had known that he loved this girl with 
 a love that can come only once in a strong man's life — the 
 love that lasts. 
 
 The stables were a long way from the house, separated 
 by garden and shrubberies, and Gilbert walked so slowly 
 that Miranda had to slacken her usual pace as she walked 
 beside him. 
 
 10 
 
146 MIRANDA 
 
 " I thought you were in a hurry," she said abruptly, 
 after they had crossed the lawn in silence. 
 
 " I never walk fast when there is trouble in my thoughts. 
 I have so much to say to you, Miranda, and so little time 
 to say it — and I doubt if you would have patience with me 
 if I were to speak freely." 
 
 " I insist upon your speaking freely," she said, stopping 
 suddenly and turning upon him with an impatient move- 
 ment he knew of old. They were in the shrubbery now, 
 the little grove of birches and blossoming trees that had 
 been planted before Robert Strickland's death. They were 
 beyond the ken of gardeners and boys with barrows, and 
 could talk at their ease. 
 
 " Say whatever you like, Gilbert. You know how rude 
 I can be when I am angry, and you don't mind my temper. 
 You stay away from this house as if there was contagion 
 in it." 
 
 " Perhaps I thought there was," he said under his 
 breath. 
 
 " And then you come back one morning, and make me 
 miserable by telling me mother is unhappy." 
 
 " Isn't it better for you to know ? Do you want to 
 live in a fool's paradise ? Your mother is unhappy, 
 Miranda, and I do not think you are quite happy 
 either." 
 
 She clasped her hands before her face and burst into 
 tears. 
 
 " No, I am not happy ; I am miserable — and it is your 
 fault." 
 
 " Oh, my dear, I was your schoolmaster once, and I 
 tried to prepare your mind for the battle of life — I tried 
 to arm you with the saving weapon that can make the 
 fight easy. You were strong in those young days, strong 
 in the armour of faith, and your future had no terror for 
 those who loved you. That was not very long ago — 
 in my life only a short time; but a long time in yours 
 perhaps — for the child has grown into a woman, and faith 
 is dead, and in the dark wood where you are wandering 
 there is no pole-star." 
 
MIRANDA 147 
 
 They were walking very slowly now, in the path between 
 the silver stems of the birch trees. Her face was still 
 hidden, and his hand was holding her arm and guiding her. 
 
 " Have you forgotten Newman's hymn — your 
 favourite ? " 
 
 '* ' Lead, Kindly Light,' " she faltered. 
 
 " Miranda, are you far from home ? Not very far, I 
 think. My dear, the wood is not so dark as it seems. 
 Your path lies before you, and it is not a difficult path. 
 You have only to make your mother happy — to give her 
 back the love she has given you. Only this, Miranda, and 
 to stop your ears against the materialists' barren creed 
 in whatever glitter of eloquence and poetry it may dress 
 itself. You have only to follow the Kindly-Light. Nature 
 is not enough — the beauty of the earth is not enough : 
 nothing can help us in our need but our faith in God." 
 
 She dropped her hands from her face and turned to look 
 at him : her eyes still clouded with tears. 
 
 She thought she had never seen his face before, never 
 seen the beauty and the power in the dark eyes under 
 the capacious brow, and the strong lines of nose and mouth 
 and chin — mouth so resolute yet so kind. Another face 
 had been in her mind of late — a haunting face, perfect in 
 line and colour ; but there was something in the face she 
 was looking at now of a higher beauty, there was a depth 
 of feeling that transfigured the familiar countenance ; and 
 she knew that it was the soul of Gilbert Ferrar that she 
 was seeing for the first time. Never had they been so 
 near. 
 
 She gave him her hand. 
 
 " I believe you are the best friend I have upon earth 
 — after mother," she said, with an almost childlike 
 simplicity. " Yes, Gilbert, I remember the time before my 
 Confirmation, and how often I repeated that dear hymn — 
 
 " ' Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom 
 Lead Thou me on.' 
 
 But there was no gloom round me in those sweet days: 
 the darkness has come since." 
 
 10* 
 
148 MIRANDA 
 
 " Follow that Kindly Light, and the darkness will 
 vanish." 
 
 They parted at the stable, where Miranda collected her 
 dogs, the golden dachshund and two white Aberdeens, 
 with which pack she walked to the doctor's cottage at the 
 end of the village street. His dog-cart was at the door, 
 and she was just in time to tell him what she wanted. 
 
 " Mother has been sleeping badly, and is rather low. I 
 should like you to see her this afternoon. But please drop 
 in just in a casual way — I don't want her to think that I 
 am anxious. You won't give me away ? " 
 
 " Not for the world." 
 
 She walked on the moor for an hour with the dogs — 
 having a duty to perform for them — and then went 
 dejectedly home, where she met Dr. Mason coming from 
 her mother's room. 
 
 He had very little to say in reply to her anxious ques- 
 tioning. Lady Laura was languid and out of spirits, 
 but a sleepless night might account for that. Had he 
 anything to recommend ? Change of air, for instance ? 
 
 " We both hate leaving home, but if you think a change 
 to the Peak, or to the sea ? " 
 
 " Sea air is often good for depression. Yes, I think 
 you might try a fortnight at Whitby." 
 
 " Whitby is hateful at this time of year, overrun with 
 tourists and trippers, and with Pierrots on the beach. 
 We could go to Robin Hood's Bay. Mother used to be 
 fond of the funny little steep street that reminded her 
 of Villefranche. We will go to Robin Hood's Bay." 
 
 " Is the hotel good enough ? " 
 
 "Yes; we had tea there once. It is quite decent. 
 Julia shall go there to-morrow and secure their best rooms. 
 But is it possible you don't know the place ? " 
 
 " I have never been there. Whitby is good enough 
 for me. I like human life and movement, and the sound 
 of children's laughter, even if they are laughing at 
 Pierrots." 
 
 " Now you are reproving me. But oh, Dr. Mason, be 
 kind. Is there anything really wrong with my darling ? " 
 
MIRANDA 149 
 
 " I hope not," Dr. Mason answered gravely. " Lady 
 Laura was reticent, and would give me very little light 
 about her symptoms; but I am bound to tell you that 
 I have noticed a change for the worse in your dear mother's 
 appearance since the beginning of the summer. She has 
 an anxious expression, and looks older than she ought 
 at her age. I don't want to alarm you — all this may mean 
 nothing : the hot summer — a little extra fatigue, perhaps. 
 In any case the change to the sea will be advantageous, 
 and when you and Lady Laura come back and settle 
 down for the winter, I will get her to tell me more about 
 herself, and if it is not a plain-sailing case — if I don't 
 quite see my way, we will have Dr. Barrington over from 
 York." 
 
 "Or a physician from London — the very best. Oh, 
 Dr. Mason, you can never know how precious my mother 
 is to me — the life of my life." 
 
 She was white as death, and the sympathetic little 
 doctor saw that she was trembling in every limb. 
 
 " My dear young lady, don't be frightened. I have 
 said too much, perhaps; but all I had in my mind was 
 a precautionary measure. I know how dear your mother 
 is to you. Pray don't be unhappy. We will take care. 
 She shall have the best advice in England, if I see the 
 slightest need for a consultation." 
 
 " Oh, in any case. Don't let us wait till there is need. 
 You have known my mother all her life, and she is fond 
 of you. I know you must love her." 
 
 "I do, my dear," the little man answered ; and there 
 were tears in his eyes as he took up his carefully-brushed 
 hat and doeskin gloves. 
 
 " Now, my dear Miss Strickland, you are not to feel 
 worried and over-anxious, or Robin Hood will be no 
 use for either you or Lady Laura. You have got to be 
 cheerful and keep your mother in good spirits, or she 
 will gain nothing by the change of scene. Mrs. Devereux 
 often tells me I am an alarmist, and perhaps that's a true 
 bill for to-day." 
 
 He became brisk and cheery in a moment, with the 
 
i 5 o MIRANDA 
 
 pleasant manner that his patients liked. He had a 
 sharp-cut, clever face, bright grey eyes, and close-cropped 
 iron-grey hair — a man mothers and wives were inclined 
 to trust, a tower of strength in measles and whooping- 
 cough, and never known to be wrong about mumps. 
 
 Miranda went into the garden, and fought her battle 
 there — a fight against a sudden horror, overwhelming fear 
 for the life that was verily the life of her life. And, oh, 
 the sense of weakened faith — the awful doubt whether her 
 agonizing supplications were heard by a Power that 
 could help — those childlike prayers that repeated them- 
 selves automatically, as she paced the long lawn, while 
 the sun became a great golden disc upon the edge of the 
 moor and then sank and left the world grey, except for 
 one long crimson streak that faded while she looked. 
 
 It was all a grey world now — sunless — starless — a cold 
 grey universe : in which there might or might not be a 
 beneficent God. 
 
 '• Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom." 
 
 The darkness was round her now. And what if there 
 were no Light ? What if it were as he said, and there were 
 nothing — nothing beyond the hard edge of the earth — 
 nothing outside the things we can see and touch ? 
 
 She dared not go to her mother with her scared face 
 and tear-swollen eyelids. She waited in the garden till 
 it was nearly dark, and Julia found her there — a devoted 
 Julia, on whose bosom she sobbed out her grief, and whose 
 only commentary was : " That little Mason ought to be 
 ashamed of himself. Everybody knows he is an alarmist." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THEY were at Robin Hood's Bay ; in the quiet hotel, 
 high above the steep old street and the rocky shore 
 — a charming place for people who want fine air and 
 picturesque scenery, and who do not want Pierrots or 
 picture-theatres. 
 
 Lady Laura was certainly better for the change. She 
 had had only one bad day in their first week. Miranda's 
 apprehensions had been set at rest for the time, and she was 
 almost happy, while Julia was full of hopefulness and 
 cheerful talk. 
 
 Mother and daughter were all the world to each other 
 in those quiet, autumn days. 
 
 " All the world — just as we used to be, darling," Miranda 
 said, sitting at her mother's feet. " Just as we used to be 
 before " 
 
 Before what ? She stopped suddenly, and a wave of 
 hot blood rushed over her face from cheek to brow. 
 
 " Before what, dearest ? " Lady Laura asked. 
 
 Her daughter's head was bent very low over the page 
 she had been reading. 
 
 " Before my presentation," she said, and laughed aloud. 
 
 " Do you think that made any difference ? " 
 
 " How could it ; unless perhaps it made me a trifle 
 conceited — inclined to think myself a personage ? " 
 
 " You will think yourself a personage next May, when 
 you are going to three parties a night, and everybody 
 is making much of you." 
 
 The girl gave a weary sigh. 
 
 151 
 
iS2 MIRANDA 
 
 " I hate parties. I hate London. Oh, mother darling, 
 is the house in Rutland Gate really taken ? " 
 
 " Almost. I suppose I could cry off, if I wanted." 
 
 " Then cry off, dearest. Cry off to-morrow morning, 
 and pay forfeit if necessary. Let us travel ; let us go to 
 the Italian Lakes in April, and the Tyrol in June — or 
 the Dolomites. I languish for the Dolomites — though 
 I don't quite know what they are." 
 
 " The Dolomite Mountains," said Julia. 
 
 " Yes, dear, if you had taken more pains with my 
 geography I should have known all about them. Wouldn't 
 you love an Italian tour, Julia ? " 
 
 " I should adore it." 
 
 " Then that is settled," Miranda exclaimed joyously. 
 " The Italian Lakes instead of the London season. And 
 now, madre mia, we'll go on with ' Pendennis.' " 
 
 Julia knew somehow that the joyousness was unreal, 
 even before the sigh that followed the laugh. 
 
 Of what was Miranda thinking when she sighed ? Was 
 it about her mother's uncertain health and what the 
 doctors would have to say ; the new factor that had come 
 into their lives since Dr. Mason's visit ? Or was there 
 something else ? Miranda seemed happy, and was at least 
 tranquil and contented. She read to her mother for 
 hours, sitting by the open window or on the balcony when 
 it was warm enough — long, quiet afternoons; after a 
 morning on the hills, Lady Laura in a little pony-carriage 
 led by Charles from The Barrow, Miranda and Julia on 
 foot : long mornings steeped in the fine air, long and some- 
 times rather drowsy afternoons, when Lady Laura fell 
 asleep in the midst of a favourite chapter. 
 
 " We are never tired of the old books," Miranda said, 
 " though we know them by heart." 
 
 Julia was of the same mind. They read Thackeray, 
 Dickens and Scott, Bulwer Lytton's later novels, and 
 George Eliot's most human stories, again and again, and 
 were never tired. " Vanity Fair " and " The Heart of 
 Midlothian " were always pronounced " stupendous." 
 Miranda could find no other word for them. 
 
MIRANDA i S3 
 
 Their ideas about books were worlds away from Mark 
 Raynham's. He was all for the new literature. English, 
 French, German, or Italian, the books he read must be hot 
 from the press. Those giants of the past were vieux jeu. 
 He had no use for them. 
 
 " I believe there are men and women living who read 
 Balzac, and think they are cultivating their minds," he said 
 laughing. 
 
 " Then have we no classics ? " Lady Laura asked. 
 
 " Oh, I suppose there are a few books that never grow 
 musty. Your ' Vanity Fair ' and ' David Copperfield,' 
 ' Silas Marner/ ' The Vicar of Wakefield,' ' Pere Goriot,' 
 " 1 Promessi Sposi.' We bind them sweetly and give 
 them shelf-room, and if in an idle moment, pour se dis- 
 traite, one opens a volume haphazard, why one sits down 
 in a corner and reads for an hour on end, and the old 
 familiar story makes one late for dinner." 
 
 He laughed joyously at his self-contradiction. He 
 always talked like a wayward child, and loved a paradox ; 
 but his talk, shallow as it might be, had amused Lady 
 Laura and had interested Miranda. 
 
 It was wonderful how she remembered those conversa- 
 tions in the sultry garden, or in the flickering lights and 
 shadows under the orchard trees. It seemed to her that she 
 remembered every word in all those long discussions. 
 And now, in her sparsely-furnished hotel bedroom, she 
 sat at her table by the open window reading over her 
 minute and careful record of his ideas and opinions, in 
 a journal she had kept since she was twelve years old, 
 but which had only of late become of importance in her 
 life. 
 
 Till Mark Raynham came to The Dene the journal 
 had been a bare record of events — jotted down at the 
 close of the day — with here and there a little account of 
 thoughts and feelings ; but from the time Mark Raynham 
 had been an almost daily visitor, the commonplace Diary 
 had grown into the book of her life. Page after page was 
 filled with an almost verbatim transcription of his talk 
 with her and her mother. 
 
154 MIRANDA 
 
 And now, sitting in the grey twilight, looking out 
 over the grey sea, she thought of those summer hours in 
 the garden as if they had belonged to another world, to 
 a time long gone. Could it be only a few weeks ago that 
 he had been sitting at their feet talking to them, in the 
 splendour of golden sunshine, in a world that was made 
 of flowers, the air full of perfume and a blackbird singing 
 in the shrubbery with insistent, passionate melody? 
 
 " Do you hear what the bird sings ? " Mark had said 
 to her once. " Do you hear his importunate questioning ? 
 Listen." He stood with lifted hand, listening as if spell- 
 bound by the bird's rapture, and then he repeated slowly : 
 " ' Is it love — is it love — is it love that makes life lovely ? ' 
 That is what he sings, Miss Strickland — syllable by syllable, 
 note by note. It is the eternal problem, the everlasting 
 question. Love is life, love is the lamp that lights the 
 universe : without that light this goodly frame, the earth, 
 is a barren promontory and man the quintessence of dust. 
 The bird knows." 
 
 A young man with a Raphael face and a voice with 
 grave depths and thrilling modulations can talk a good 
 deal of nonsense without being found out. 
 
 And now that nonsense-talk was something far away, 
 something that Miranda might never hear again. 
 
 Better so, perhaps. He had called her by her christian 
 name. He had talked to her of guilty love, as if sin were 
 beautiful. That Italian story of his was unfit for an 
 innocent girl's ear, and he had poured it out to her with 
 a kind of rapture, as if these wicked creatures in old 
 Florence had some relation to himself and the girl who 
 listened. 
 
 " I believe I was alive in Florence when Savonarola 
 was preaching to the women," he said, " and you were 
 there. I saw you across the crowd looking up at him, and 
 we met afterwards in a wood below San Miniato where 
 the nightingales were singing, and we forgot his sermon. 
 Do you think such people as you and I live only once. 
 We live, and live, and live, getting nearer to the essence 
 of life with every incarnation." 
 
MIRANDA 155 
 
 All that was over. She knew somehow that she had 
 thought of him too much, and she told herself that she 
 must think of him no more. Gilbert Ferrar had spoken 
 the words of wisdom. She had now only one duty, only 
 one task — to care for her mother, and to make that 
 cherished life happy. The thought of that duty seemed 
 to lift her up out of a fathomless sea into which she had 
 been slowly sinking — a sea of vague dreams — into the safe 
 land of reality, where she knew what she had to do and 
 where life had purpose and meaning. 
 
 " Dearest mother, I am so happy with you here," she 
 cried suddenly, in a burst of tender feeling. " And I have 
 reason to be glad, for I believe Robin Hood's Bay has 
 done you a world of good." 
 
 " It has, my darling. I feel another woman, and I 
 am sorry I cancelled the agreement for the house at 
 Rutland Gate, for I believe I should be quite equal to a 
 London season. With Julia to look after things, I should 
 have no trouble." 
 
 A little speech like this made Julia happy for a 
 week. 
 
 They were all happy at Robin Hood's Bay, though 
 the autumn days were chilly and the afternoons were 
 grey. There was a glorious sunset sometimes to make 
 amends, and Lady Laura, after dropping asleep on the 
 balcony, awoke in the red light to find herself almost 
 smothered in soft shawls and sables, and Miranda sitting 
 watching her. 
 
 " I wouldn't wake you for worlds, mother, but you are 
 just in time to see the sun drop behind that ridge of dark 
 grey sea. 
 
 " 'So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed.' " 
 
 "It is sweet to awake and find you near me, dearest. 
 The sun does not matter." 
 
 " Yes, he always matters. I am a sun-worshipper. 
 Just look how he has spread his glory over sky and sea, 
 wide as the world. Who can wonder that the Persians 
 mistook him for God ? " 
 
156 MIRANDA 
 
 Lamps were shining in the room behind them, and Julia 
 was summoning them to tea. 
 
 " Isn't it growing chilly, you foolish romantic people ? " 
 she asked, appearing in the window. 
 
 Miranda would not let her mother stay to see the end 
 of the sunset. 
 
 " He always dies suddenly, dear/' she said. " We 
 have seen the best of his splendour." 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THERE were grey days, when Miranda felt out of 
 spirits without knowing why, and wondered what 
 had become of the gladness of yesterday. Her mother 
 was the centre of all her hopes and the subject of all her 
 prayers, and of late her prayers had been frequent, and 
 the implicit belief of her childhood seemed to have come 
 back to her. She could send up her supplications to 
 Infinite Pity without the agonizing idea that she was 
 reaching out through darkness to a shrine where there was 
 no God. The dread of sorrow had been the revival of faith. 
 
 A weight had been lifted from her mind somehow during 
 these peaceful days, and something of her old proud 
 independence of spirit had come back to her. 
 
 They had been more than a month by the great North 
 Sea and it was mid-October, a morning of perpetual rain, 
 and an afternoon of grey sky with lowering clouds. Lady 
 Laura sat by the wood fire in the drawing-room all the 
 morning, knitting, with Miranda reading to her. 
 
 It was in vain that Julia offered to take her turn at the 
 book. 
 
 " Don't be cruel," Miranda exclaimed. " You know 
 it is the only possible use I can be to mother. You write 
 her letters, you take her messages to the servants at home, 
 and you manage the landlady and waiters for her here. 
 There is nothing for an idle daughter to do but read aloud, 
 and I am serviceable in that, ain't I, darling ? " 
 
 " Your reading is the joy of my life." 
 
 " And you knit comforters and shawls for every gaffer 
 
 157 
 
158 MIRANDA 
 
 and goody in the village, and cardigans for all the children. 
 I meet your knitted wraps miles away on the other side 
 of the moor." 
 
 Lady Laura laughed, as the delicate hands travelled 
 along the ivory pins, pale as the ivory itself. 
 
 " A delightful morning," Lady Laura pronounced, when 
 Charles was heard in the adjoining room with the waiter, 
 laying the table for luncheon. " Elizabeth is adorable." 
 
 " And Mr. Collins distinctly precious," said Miranda. 
 
 They had been enjoying " Pride and Prejudice " by 
 their cherished Jane Austen. 
 
 Peaceful, innocent days ! How Miranda loved them. 
 Why had there ever been anything better than this wanted 
 in her life — something strangely different that made her 
 feel another creature ? 
 
 The waiter expressed an opinion that the day would 
 " take up " after two o'clock, and it did take up, where- 
 upon Lady Laura insisted that Miranda should put on her 
 rainproof coat, and go for a long walk by the sea — the 
 kind of walk she loved. Miranda declared she would not 
 go. She would not leave her mother on a dull grey day. 
 
 u Julia will stay with me. She shall read ■ Eugenie 
 Grande t ' for a change. She reads French beautifully." 
 
 Julia blushed at the pleasant praise. Had she not laboured 
 at that delightful language, toiled at the grammar until she 
 had ground every irregular verb into her brain, and then 
 toiled at the pronunciation, till by line and rule she was 
 perfect, in so far as French can be achieved by industry ? 
 
 " My darling loves a solitary walk, when she can let 
 her imagination run riot in romantic dreams," said Lady 
 Laura, when Miranda had gone to arm herself against the 
 hazard of driving rain and blustering wind ; and then the 
 doating mother went on softly, " All her thoughts are 
 poetry." 
 
 Miranda was half-way down the steep street, the north 
 wind blowing her hair, and threatening clouds darkening 
 overhead. But what did wind or rain matter ? Her 
 spirit rejoiced in that great North Sea, and the wind 
 braced her nerves, and filled her with gladness. 
 
MIRANDA 159 
 
 She wished Gilbert Ferrar were there to put strong 
 thoughts into her mind — Gilbert, the helper of men, who 
 looked the problem of life in the face and was not afraid : 
 the problem of life for the many — for the great mass into 
 whose lives joy comes so seldom, or comes only from a fount 
 of evil : the joy of drink-madness : the joy of gambling, 
 backing horses with money that is wanted for the 
 children's bread. These were some of the temptations 
 against which Gilbert had to fight in Trownham town. 
 All the labour of his life was to make his Yorkshiremen 
 wise, and keep them strong — mind and muscle in good 
 order and put to good uses. This is what " Parson " 
 has to do in a small manufacturing town, where one 
 man can make himself a power. 
 
 Miranda was thinking of this old friend of hers as she 
 went down the hill, the friend of her childhood, whom she 
 could treat with a spoilt child's pettishness and familiarity. 
 Her feelings about him had taken a more respectful tone 
 since the day when he had told her stern truths and 
 called her to account somewhat roughly. The words of 
 Newman's hymn had been much in her mind since that 
 agitating hour. 
 
 She thought with what meek surrender that old friend 
 had submitted to the renunciation of all things that would 
 seem essential to a man of good birth and superior intelli- 
 gence : the companionship of his equals, the beauty of 
 a refined life — art, music, letters ; and the inestimable 
 blessing of leisure ; all freely given up for the good of 
 fellow-creatures who were for the most part rebellious and 
 unthankful. A man has need of a Divine Light leading 
 him in the encircling gloom of such a place as Trownham. 
 
 The familiar hymn was in Miranda's mind as the clouds 
 darkened above her head. She had been happy — happy 
 and at peace with herself in these quiet days. Since her 
 mother's health had shown marked improvement, all had 
 seemed well. 
 
 Her mind was at ease as she went down the hill, but 
 as she passed the churchyard something happened that 
 set her heart beating hurriedly. A man was moving 
 
160 MIRANDA 
 
 slowly among the headstones — a stranger. She saw him 
 stoop to examine an old brick monument, behind rusty 
 railings. 
 
 She only glanced at the bending figure, and quickened 
 her pace unconsciously till she came to the little inn at the 
 bottom of the hill, with a strip of garden behind low stone 
 walls that hung over the sea. 
 
 She drew a long breath as she set her foot upon the 
 beach and felt the salt wind blowing round her — the 
 fresh delicious air, verily the elixir of life. 
 
 Nobody could call the bay a comfortable place for 
 walking, but Miranda and Julia had defied its ruggedness, 
 the little rocks jutting out of sand and pebbles, the pools 
 of sea-water and tangle of seaweed. 
 
 She hurried on with her face to the west. There was 
 no glimmer on sea or shore, but a clear grey light arched 
 over the waste of waters, strangely in contrast to the 
 rampart of darkening cloud towards the south. 
 
 If a storm were coming, Miranda was not afraid. She 
 hurried on, hardly knowing why she felt that new sense of 
 hurry, that sudden eagerness to put distance between her 
 and the old church with its crowded burial ground. 
 
 " Why I should fear I know not, and yet I feel I fear." 
 
 She was on the stony beach, moving quickly from rock 
 to rock, the water splashing her feet as she skimmed over 
 the ridges. 
 
 " Atalanta ! Atalanta ! " 
 
 A voice was calling — nearer and nearer — a voice she 
 knew. 
 
 " Atalanta ! " 
 
 Still nearer. She walked faster, splashing recklessly 
 through the pools, stumbling now and then against low 
 hidden rocks. 
 
 " Miranda ! " 
 
 The voice was close to her now. She turned and fronted 
 her pursuer fiercely. 
 
 " You shall not call me by that name." 
 
 " Shall not ? What shall I not do ? What will not 
 a desperate lover do ? Miranda, Miranda, Miranda." 
 
MIRANDA 161 
 
 He caught her by the arm as she stood lightly poised 
 upon a rocky ridge. 
 
 " My sweet prey," he murmured, holding her. 
 
 " How dare you call me Miranda ? How dare you follow 
 me ? " 
 
 " I dare do desperate things if you defy me/' 
 
 " Do you want me to hate you ? " 
 
 " Sweet, I am not afraid. The secret that you and I 
 have been hiding in our hearts since the summer has 
 nothing to do with hatred. We will hide our mystery no 
 longer — not here in this delicious solitude — not here in 
 the face of that lonely sea. Our secret is love, passionate 
 love : love that trembles on our lips when we speak 
 to each other ; love that shines in our eyes when we look 
 at each other ; love that runs like fire through our veins 
 when we meet after absence, as we are meeting now." 
 
 " Take your hand from my arm, Mr. Raynham. I am 
 going home." 
 
 " But not yet. I have waited ten weary days for this 
 moment. Do you think I will let you go till you have 
 told me what I want to know ? " 
 
 " I have nothing to say to you." 
 
 She tried to shake off his detaining hand, and set her 
 face resolutely towards the harbour. 
 
 " You were hurrying to the west a few minutes ago 
 — you shall not go to the east till I please." 
 
 " You are behaving like a ruffian." 
 
 Her bosom was heaving in proud revolt against his 
 insolence. Her eyes were wild with a vague fear. 
 
 Intensity of feeling made the man terrible. His lip 
 trembled as he spoke to her, and the deep, strong voice 
 had a tone that frightened her. 
 
 " You are behaving like a ruffian," she repeated in a 
 lower voice. 
 
 " Perhaps. Despair is apt to be ruffianly. Do you 
 know what I have been doing for the last ten days ? " 
 
 She shook her head dumbly. She was breathless, 
 exhausted by that hurried walk over the rocks. 
 
 " I have been watching you, stalking you as men stalk 
 
 II 
 
1 62 MIRANDA 
 
 the king of beasts in the desert — harbouring you, as men 
 harbour the red stag on Exmoor — watching you and your 
 companions stealthily from sheltered places — lurking in 
 shadow — watching to find you alone. It was weary 
 work ! Your mother was always there — or the inevitable 
 Julia. I have been living in second-rate lodgings in a 
 half-baked villa near the station, and only existing on 
 the hope of finding you alone and pouring out my heart to 
 you. We have tried to live without each other, dear, and 
 it has been a failure. When I called at The Barrow 
 and found no one there — when I walked through your 
 deserted garden to the orchard where I made you so angry 
 that last hour we ever spent together, I found that life 
 was impossible without you. Friend or lover, I must have 
 you. We have been friends and companions, dear ; we have 
 known the delight of sympathy. We cannot live apart." 
 
 " You are talking like a madman." 
 
 " Come back to your garden, and let me be your comrade 
 again, and I will be reasonable. Perhaps I am just a little 
 over the border-line. You have put me through too 
 hard an ordeal. Come back, and I will be sane. I will 
 bear anything but separation. Anything but that ! I 
 will be again the well-behaved visitor, sitting with you 
 and your mother, talking of all the pleasant things of life, 
 philosophizing, poetizing, setting a watch upon myself 
 lest I offend. I will be your slave. Only promise to give 
 me back your friendship." 
 
 " You have made that impossible. I can never think 
 of you again as a friend. You must never come to 
 my mother's house again. Do you think I can forget 
 the things you have said to-day ? Your unspeakable 
 insolence ? Let go my arm. Stand out of my way. I 
 am going home." 
 
 She tried to wrench herself from the grasp of his hand. 
 She was trembling, but with angry eyes and lips set hard 
 as steel ; and then in the next instant she had burst into 
 tears, and her head was lying on his breast, his arm was 
 round her waist, his heart was beating against her heart. 
 
 " My angel, you shall not go till you have made me 
 
MIRANDA 163 
 
 happy. Tell me that you love me — just those three words, 
 ' I love you,' and you shall be free. Why should you 
 hesitate ? I know, and you know that I know, your heart 
 is mine. Answer me, my beloved, here in this solitude, 
 soul to soul, before that everlasting sea — give me your kiss 
 of betrothal, and long or late I will claim your promise." 
 
 He held her against his breast, his lips were on her 
 lips. Yes, it was the truth. She loved him. She longed 
 for him when they were parted. She was glad when he 
 was with her. She had been almost happy in those quiet 
 weeks of attendance upon her mother — happy, not knowing 
 that he was near her, believing herself cured of that fatal 
 longing for his society : and now that sweet season of 
 filial love was ending in guilty passion. She knew that 
 she loved this man, whose arm was round her, whose kisses 
 were on her lips, who was making her his own for ever. 
 
 " My adorable child," he murmured, " you did not know 
 what love means when spirits like ours touch and take 
 fire. You were offended that day in the orchard when 
 I told you that there was such love in the world — guilty 
 love, if you will have it so — overmastering love, that 
 stops at nothing — hardly at a crime. You were scanda- 
 lized at my Italian story — angry with me for telling it. 
 Yet the tragedy was only human, dear — such love is 
 Nature's highest gift to her perfect creatures. Give me 
 kiss for kiss, Miranda. Whatever is to come in the after 
 years, this 'is the transcendental moment. From this 
 moment we belong to each other." 
 
 The incoming tide was creeping round their feet. 
 
 " Come, my darling. We must hurry back to dry land." 
 
 He took his arm from her waist, and led her over the 
 rocky ground. She was speechless, white as death, 
 drowned in tears. She, who an hour ago had skimmed 
 so swiftly along that rough beach, now stumbled at every 
 obstacle. He was holding her up, her head leaning against 
 his shoulder, helpless and half-fainting. 
 
 " Miranda, you agonize me," he said. " Why this grief ? 
 Are you not glad that I have spoken ? Was I to keep my 
 secret for ever — knowing yours all the time ? Dearest, 
 
 11* 
 
1 64 MIRANDA 
 
 do not grieve. If you could know how I have longed for 
 the moment when I could hold you in my arms and claim 
 you for my own. My dreams — my thoughts — have been 
 of nothing else. I have tried to write, I have tried to think. 
 Hopeless ! My soul, my heart, my mind could hold 
 nothing but you." 
 
 " You have broken my heart," she said. " You have 
 humiliated, you have degraded me. I can never forgive 
 you." 
 
 " Humiliated ? What a cruel word." 
 
 " It is you who have been cruel. You have treated me 
 shamefully. You — another woman's husband — to have 
 dared to treat me as you have done ! You have made 
 me hate you — you have made me hate myself." 
 
 Her sobs had ceased, and she was strangely calm. She 
 had released herself from his arm, and was walking rapidly 
 without his help, though every footstep splashed through 
 the rising water. Her eyes were bright with anger, and 
 a faint colour had come back to her cheek. 
 
 " I can never forgive you," she repeated. 
 
 They had left the beach now, and were at the bottom 
 of the hill, moving over dry ground. 
 
 " Miranda, you do not know the world you belong to — 
 the world of passion and poetry. ' The good stars met 
 in your horoscope, made you of spirit, fire, and dew.' 
 You are a creature apart : and you try to talk to me like 
 the average woman, the woman of conventions and sordid 
 thoughts. You think that because I married before I 
 was nve-and-twenty I am no longer alive, and that when 
 I meet my twin spirit, the other half of my soul, I must 
 be like a dead man, lock my lips, and never tell her what 
 her existence means for me. I have done my duty to my 
 wife, Miranda. I married before I knew what love meant. 
 The girl I chose was graceful and pretty, and was fond 
 of me, and that seemed enough. I was so strong in myself 
 and my own dreams, so arrogant, perhaps, that I did 
 not ask for much. It was not till the years went by that 
 I realized what it was to be chained to a mindless wife. 
 I have been kind and indulgent, and she has been happy. 
 
MIRANDA 165 
 
 She has settled down into her position as an interesting in- 
 valid, and I believe she likes it. But what is my life to be, 
 if I cannot find a woman generous enough to give me her 
 love without reckoning the cost, great enough to scorn con- 
 ventionalities, and to live for the man who worships her ? " 
 
 They were walking slowly up the steep street, where 
 the passers-by were few upon this dull afternoon. The 
 church clock had struck four, and it might be presumed 
 that Robin Hood's Bay was at tea. There was nobody 
 to be surprised at their appearance as they walked side 
 by side, she with the edge of her short serge skirt dripping 
 wet. He was speaking in a low, level voice, while Miranda 
 walked quickly beside him, with her head high. 
 
 " You are talking a strange language," she said. " You 
 have offended me beyond all possibility of pardon. And 
 now I have only one wish, to forget every word you have 
 spoken in this last hour, and never to see your face again." 
 
 He called her cold-hearted and cruel. He implored 
 her not to withhold her friendship — her divine sympathy. 
 He could not live without her. 
 
 Her face was pale as marble, and as cold. He began 
 to understand that he had wounded her to the quick by 
 his violence, and perhaps lost her for ever. 
 
 She stopped within a few hundred yards of the hotel. 
 
 " I must beg you to leave me," she said. " Miss 
 Wagstaff may be watching for me, and I would rather not 
 have to tell her that you are in this place." 
 
 She turned her back upon him, and walked on quickly. 
 It was a quarter to five when she went into the firelit 
 room where her mother and Julia were waiting for her. 
 
 " You are late, darling," said Lady Laura, as her girl 
 kissed her. " I was beginning to be just a little uneasy. 
 And, oh, how cold you are, Miranda. You must have 
 walked too far." 
 
 Miranda was slow to answer, speech seeming almost 
 impossible for her parched lips. 
 
 " You have overtired yourself." 
 
 " A little perhaps " — in a toneless voice. " It was not so 
 much the distance, but the rough walking on the beach." 
 
166 MIRANDA 
 
 " Julia, I am sure she is ill," cried Lady Laura dis- 
 tractedly. " Give her some tea. Make her come to the 
 fire. She is shivering, and her hands are like ice." 
 
 Miranda made a desperate effort, and answered gaily : 
 
 " Dearest, am I such a bread-and-butter miss that a 
 two-mile walk would upset me ? Yes, some tea, please, 
 Julia, hot and strong. Oh, don't switch on the light. I 
 love the gloaming. Let me sit between you and mother, 
 and build castles in the fire." 
 
 She drew her chair close to Lady Laura's, and let her 
 throbbing head rest upon her mother's shoulder. The 
 friendly firelight would not betray her. Neither of those 
 two who loved her would see the traces of the storm 
 that had gone over her. She drank the hot tea, and even 
 made a pretence of eating bread-and-butter, and Lady 
 Laura was happy, sitting there while the firelight lasted, 
 Miranda reading fortunes in the burning logs. 
 
 "I see a big house by the Mediterranean," she said. 
 " Can't you make it out, mother ? A big white house with 
 green shutters, not a fairy palace — only the hotel on the 
 Riviera where we are to go in December, if old Mason 
 thinks the South will be better for us than the East 
 Riding. I wonder where it is — Saint Raphael, the Cap 
 d'Antibes, or the Cap Martin ? I know all about those 
 places — and the hotels — and the kind of people one meets 
 there. Barbara is never tired of talking about them, and 
 the bridge parties and the golf." 
 
 That was a happy hour for Lady Laura, but there was 
 no more happiness after eight o'clock, when Julia came to 
 the drawing-room to say that Miranda had gone to bed 
 with a feverish headache. 
 
 " Feverish ! Then we must send for a doctor." 
 
 " No, dear Lady Laura. It is nothing. She is over- 
 tired, and I made her go to bed." 
 
 They dined together, and after dinner Lady Laura stole 
 to her daughter's room, and was comforted by finding her 
 lying in a tranquil sleep, with her face to the wall, and 
 only a night-light burning. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE second-rate lodgings in the half-baked villa were 
 empty, and Mark Raynham was sauntering in the 
 haunted garden at Melford, with the first fallen leaves 
 drifting round him as he walked, and a sense of depression 
 that made his own fate and this desolate garden seem 
 to him the quintessence of this life's sadness. 
 
 He had tried to write in the villa lodging, he had tried 
 to write in his Japanese room since his return, and in each 
 case the effort had resulted in nothing but so many pages 
 of foolscap scrawled over and interlined, and blotted, and 
 torn to ribbons in a sudden burst of rage. 
 
 To have his theme arranged, his story mapped out in 
 sharp outline, the creatures of his fancy depicted in colours 
 that had seemed to burn with life — vivid living creatures, 
 strong as Hamlet or Othello ; and now to find the old 
 facile fancies, the rush of splendid words, the daring 
 thoughts that ran into music, coming no more at his call, 
 rilled him with an angry despair. 
 
 " My brain is dead," he told himself. " The fine 
 blank verse that rolled along the page when I wrote ' Dr. 
 Forster/ the lyrics that fluttered off my pen as lightly as 
 if my subconscious self were writing them, are all gone — 
 the faculty lost for ever perhaps ! I am a dead man. 
 You have killed me, Miranda ! " 
 
 How could a man write who was steeped to the lips in 
 an unhappy love — love for a creature who could never 
 be his ? He had talked with a desperate audacity — talked 
 of making this exquisite girl his own — of binding her to 
 
 167 
 
1 68 MIRANDA 
 
 him for ever by one impassioned embrace, heart against 
 heart, by burning kisses upon irresponsive lips. She 
 had given him nothing, and looking back upon those wild 
 moments, he knew that Miranda was as far away from 
 him as in the first hour they met. He knew that honour 
 and womanly pride were indomitable in that strong soul. 
 She was romantic, but she was not weak. She had let 
 herself drift into a sentimental friendship for a man whom 
 she thought a genius, but her sympathy was miles away 
 from the kind of love that he had raved about — the love 
 that stops at no barrier, not even at a crime. 
 
 He sat staring at a blank sheet of paper, or he scrawled 
 a few lines in hot haste — only to cancel them before the 
 ink was dry. 
 
 Ten years hence the despair that he suffered to-day 
 might be a well-spring of inspiration. He might look 
 back and tell his story of an unhappy love as Byron or 
 Browning might tell it — but to-day, while every fibre was 
 alive with wild longings and wilder hopes, he could not 
 beat out his passion into verse. 
 
 He paced the long pine-shadowed path in the melan- 
 choly garden, thinking, thinking ; thinking and remember- 
 ing — with a brain that would not work and could not rest. 
 
 He thought of himself and his own life — travelling 
 backward over his youth, his boyhood, his childhood — 
 recalling even trivial incidents with a meticulous 
 accuracy. 
 
 Infancy, childhood, youth, maturity, all lived in the 
 many-coloured atmosphere of Bohemia. The iron hand 
 of Middle-Class Respectability had never been laid upon 
 him. Trouble there had been — debts and difficulties, 
 hurried shiftings of the scene of life ; but there had always 
 been colour and variety, and if there were storm and 
 gloom to-day, there was often sunshine and calm weather 
 to-morrow. He had fallen asleep sobbing, and scared 
 by his father's wild ravings of ruin and suicide, to awaken 
 in the morning sun and hear his father singing " II segreto 
 per esser felice " as he stood at an open window in his 
 shirt-sleeves, varnishing his favourite boots. 
 
MIRANDA 169 
 
 His father was the younger son of a younger son, a 
 happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care Lionel Raynham (Lai for 
 short), who had been one of the smartest subalterns in a 
 crack regiment from nineteen to twenty- three, and more 
 or less of an adventurer — boasting of himself that he lived 
 like the ravens — ever after. He had three hundred a year 
 left in trust for him by his mother, and so guarded that 
 he could not anticipate so much as a quarter's income, 
 and he had an exceptional talent for cards and billiards. 
 And upon these resources he had lived and even main- 
 tained and educated the son who had been born to him 
 in a back street in Rome before he was five-and-twenty. 
 
 The most vivid figure in the pictures of childhood that 
 Mark was looking at under the grey October sky, was the 
 radiant form of his mother — a Roman peasant-girl whom 
 Raynham had found sitting on the steps of the Trinita 
 del Monte, with her knitting-needles flashing in the sun, 
 waiting to be. hired as a model. She had sat to a good 
 many of the students at the Medici Villa, the Prix-de- 
 Rome j'oung men. She was the most splendid creature 
 Raynham had ever looked upon, a fair-complexioned 
 Italian, with the beauty of a Raphael Madonna — and she 
 was sinless and without stain when the English ne'er-do- 
 weel fell in love with her. 
 
 Humble as she was — the daughter of a peasant farmer, 
 who had drifted to Rome with her brothers and sisters 
 when death had left them homeless, Raynham was too 
 deeply in love to be capable of wronging her. She never 
 crossed his threshold till he had made her his wife, and 
 from the hour she was his he never left her or ceased to 
 love her. They quarrelled sometimes, and threats of 
 murder and suicide had been common in Mark's experience 
 of home life ; but they had never ceased to adore each 
 other, and the most terrible scene in the panorama of 
 Mark's young days was the night of his father's despair 
 when the young wife's coffin was carried into the narrow 
 street where the hooded brothers of the Misericordia 
 waited with their torches flaring against the darkness of 
 the Florentine slum. 
 
170 MIRANDA 
 
 This happened when Mark was ten years old. They 
 had wandered from city to city in the lovely land which 
 Lai Raynham had adopted as his own — he pretending to 
 study art, and spending more money upon paint and 
 canvas than his crude sketches of landscape and figure 
 were worth. He had sat in picturesque streets and 
 painted, happy and indifferent as to the result — and he 
 had played cards or billiards wherever he could turn his 
 talents to profit. 
 
 The quarterly income had found them food and shelter, 
 and they had lived in a way that had seemed luxurious 
 to Mark — a plentiful supply of simple food, flowers on all 
 the tables, brightness and colour in his mother's clothes 
 and in the cheap draperies with which she adorned the 
 spacious rooms. No matter that the furniture was old 
 and worm-eaten, the floors uncarpeted — there were always 
 space and light and air, and the shabbiest lodging in 
 Siena or Verona had its charm. 
 
 His first grief was when his father told him that his 
 mother was threatened with a fatal malady — lung-trouble, 
 he heard the doctor call it — a trouble that might presage 
 consumption. 
 
 She was with them for a year and a half after the 
 beginning of fear, but Florence killed her — the bitter 
 winds of winter and spring ; the cold churches where she 
 spent much of her daily life — hurrying to mass in the bleak 
 early morning and creeping out of the house at sundown 
 to hear vespers — the long monotonous office, from which 
 she returned moving slowly through the cold, wet streets, 
 chilled to the bone. Florence gave her the coup de grace, 
 and Lionel Raynham hated the very name of the splendid 
 city ever afterwards. They ought to have wintered at 
 Rapallo — anywhere along that smiling Liguria. But after 
 six months some devil of conceit or ambition had urged 
 Raynham to fresh efforts, and he had taken a flat in a 
 shabby street not far from the Palazzo Vecchio, determined 
 to set up his easel and work seriously at copying the old 
 masters. A run of bad luck at cards had turned his 
 thoughts to Titian and Raphael, and he had dreams of 
 
MIRANDA 171 
 
 original work to follow upon a more careful study of the 
 great painters. 
 
 He foresaw no danger for his wife in the change from 
 the sunlit seashore to the windy street corners of the city, 
 and her death came upon him as a thunderbolt. He 
 was heart-broken, and his life henceforward was without 
 purpose; but a certain lightness of nature went with 
 him to the end. As the son grew old enough for 
 companionship, the father seemed the younger of the two. 
 They were chums through good and evil fortune, and the 
 boy's eager spirit ruled their wandering lives. Where 
 Mark wanted to go they went — whatever Mark wanted 
 to do was done. His father's purse was always open to 
 him — but his father's purse was sometimes empty, and 
 the lad had to suffer deprivations, to wear threadbare 
 clothes and cracked boots — indeed, to go about that lovely 
 world so shabby that the memory of what he had looked 
 like at fifteen galled his pride at twenty-eight. At the 
 time it had not seemed to matter. He and his father 
 had lived in Southern Italy until they had caught the 
 Neapolitan temper, and could take life easily. 
 
 Mark was vain, arrogant and ambitious. He was to be 
 a painter, but a year or two of desultory work in shabby 
 studios sickened him, and he took to pen and ink. Writing 
 came easier. That cost him no effort. His brain seemed 
 stuffed with thoughts, images and visions like living 
 creatures panting to come out into the day. He could 
 not write fast enough to overtake those hurrying ideas. 
 Between ten years old and fifteen he had read every novel 
 that he could get hold of — mostly in French or Italian — 
 and from a few shabby volumes of de Musset and Victor 
 Hugo he had acquired a passion for poetry, and had begun 
 to put his ideas into French verse. 
 
 He would be a poet. 
 
 In vain did his father tell him that verse-making was 
 a miserable trade ; that it generally meant penury, and 
 sometimes suicide — in vain was he told of Chatterton in 
 the court off Holborn, and Gerard de Nerval in the Rue de 
 la Vieille Lanterne. 
 
1 72 MIRANDA 
 
 x " I am going to be a poet," he said. " I'll take my 
 chance of poison or rope." 
 
 He spent more lire than the common purse could afford 
 on Tauchnitz copies of Tennyson and Browning, and 
 his studies in English verse showed him that a poet must 
 know a good deal more than had come into his philosophy. 
 So far his father had been his only tutor, had tried to 
 teach him what he himself had learnt at Eton, and had 
 not taught him much. 
 
 " I'm too fond of you to make you swot," he had always 
 said, and now Mark made up his mind that he must get 
 himself educated. He had met with a young German 
 tourist, one of a little band of students, who were 
 enjoying what they called their Wander jahr — knapsack 
 travellers, lodging at cheap inns, and absorbing Italy in 
 open-eyed wonder. 
 
 From these he had heard that student life at Heidel- 
 berg was possible even for a poor scholar, and he and 
 his father left Italy at a week's notice — left that smiling 
 world of Sorrento for the grave grey city on the Neckar, 
 and for a lodging in a dull street, where the barren cleanli- 
 ness of everything chilled Lionel Raynham's heart. 
 
 He only knew when he had lived six months in Heidel- 
 berg how passionately he loved Italy — how he had grown 
 into the country he had adopted for his wife's sake. Mark 
 might find charm and romance in the castled hill, and the 
 noble river, and all the traces of the past that the Jugger- 
 naut-car of Progress had left in the historical city, but his 
 thoughts turned with a sick longing to those lovelier places 
 which Progress had spared, to the sunny slopes of Fiesole, 
 the palaces of Venice. He tried to reconcile himself to 
 the new life and its loneliness. Mark at the University, 
 chosen chief of a wild band of students — and he in dismal 
 lodgings, or playing cards at a shabby-genteel club, among 
 men of whom only the gifted few could speak his language. 
 
 He did not survive his change of surroundings till the 
 end of Mark's second year as a student. An unsuspected 
 heart-complaint declared itself suddenly, and an illness 
 of less than a week ended his futile life and left his son 
 
MIRANDA 173 
 
 alone in the world, with an income which some of his fellow- 
 students looked upon as a noble independence, and which 
 Mark intended to use with infinite care, squeezing the 
 uttermost amount of personal advantage out of every 
 shilling. 
 
 He went from Heidelberg to Paris, and it was in Paris 
 that the golden days of his youth began, the days that 
 dazzled him as he looked back at them in that melancholy 
 garden, pacing the moss-grown path in the shadow of the 
 pine-trees — despondent, disappointed, with a new sense 
 of impotence and failure. He looked back and saw those 
 young years in the light that never was on land or sea. 
 He had lived for three years among the wildest spirits in 
 the Latin quarter — lived there till he had grown into the 
 very stones of the city, where every theatre and dancing- 
 room, every students' tavern, every wicked sight or wicked 
 song that the world ran after, had become a part of his 
 existence : golden days when the young heart's gladness 
 — the mere joy of living — makes common and even horrible 
 things exquisite. He looked back, and wondered, and 
 even shuddered, but could only remember how happy that 
 queer life had been — could only ask himself if the capacity 
 for careless pleasure was dead within him ; if to taste 
 again that joyous intoxication the cup must be of a stronger 
 poison. 
 
 The scene changed, and he was in London — still in a 
 Bohemian atmosphere, but of a milder kind. He lived 
 among journalists and actors, and he wrote regularly for 
 one of the more literary of the evening papers, con- 
 tributing prose or verse, comedy or tragedy, as his humour 
 prompted. He was a butterfly of literature, skimming 
 from flower to flower, still young enough to find pleasure 
 in his own existence and in the world he lived in, but 
 most of all in his own talents. He admired everything he 
 wrote, and he found even his own thoughts beautiful, 
 as he walked about London — in the parks or by the river. 
 
 Ever since he had begun to write, one cherished dream 
 had upheld him. He was to win fame and fortune as a 
 poet. Whatever time he gave to his journalistic work 
 
i 7 4 MIRANDA 
 
 — to the study of life in strange places, the slums and 
 horrors of the great city — there was always one quiet 
 hour between midnight and morning that he spent upon 
 the work that absorbed and delighted him — his poem — 
 the story-poem that was to make his name. He loved 
 the labour he spent upon his dream of perfection, he 
 loved every line that he had written, and awoke in the 
 early light repeating the page he had scrawled in the 
 ardour of his blood just before he lay down. He had 
 spoken the simple truth when he told people that he had 
 spent seven years in writing " Dr. Forster." During two 
 years in Heidelberg, three years in Paris, and two years 
 in London " Dr. Forster " had been on the anvil, and now 
 only, in the dull grey city, he had begun to think of his 
 poem as a substantial asset, as something more than a 
 dream-world, the solace of his lonely nights, rest after 
 labour. He began to think of his poem as something that 
 might be turned into money, like his contributions to the 
 newspapers. 
 
 He had been told that poetry was not a marketable 
 commodity. Tennyson might have made it pay ; Brown- 
 ing had waited for a good many years before his finest work 
 brought him a living wage. Praise the young poet might 
 have to his heart's content, but seldom pudding. Im- 
 pressed by this opinion, he had looked upon " Dr. Forster " 
 as a kind of mental dissipation — unprofitable labour. 
 It had amused and pleased him, and that was all. 
 
 Chance brought him in the company of a new publisher 
 — young, sanguine, unafraid of debt and bankruptcy — 
 eager to publish new things, to develop a new genius. He 
 had read Raynham's occasional verses, his short stories 
 — all force and fire. 
 
 " Have you got anything big in your desk ? " he asked. 
 " A novel, for instance ? " 
 
 " No, not a novel — only a romance in blank verse — 
 interspersed with lyrics — a kind of modern ' Faust' — 
 half novel, half play — longer than ■ Aurora Leigh.' " 
 
 Within a month after this conversation, preliminary 
 advertisements had told the town to expect " Dr. 
 
MIRANDA 17s 
 
 Forster," a story-poem by a new writer, a work of power 
 that was to startle the literary world. 
 
 " Dr. Forster " came into life, heralded by a fine splash 
 of bombastic advertisement from the publisher ; by a 
 neck-or-nothing eulogy in one evening paper, and a 
 sensational interview with the Poet in another. In less 
 than a week " Dr. Forster " had " caught on," and Mark 
 Raynham was the fashion. 
 
 Thousands of people who only knew Goethe's " Faust " 
 as the libretto of a mid- Victorian opera, read Raynham's 
 version of the old story and raved about it. He was 
 the fashion. No smart dowager's luncheon, no half -past 
 ten o'clock party was a success without him. An in- 
 satiable curiosity possessed his readers. It was not 
 enough for them to see a name upon a title-page. They 
 wanted to see and talk with the man himself, to pluck 
 out the heart of his mystery, to know who and what he 
 was, born or not born. 
 
 It was a relief to the dowagers who were running him 
 to discover that he was " born," since his grandfather 
 was a certain once notorious Lord Francis, and his great- 
 grandfather a marquis, lord of a heavily-encumbered 
 estate in the South of Ireland. Mark enjoyed his success. 
 He was young enough to relish every bubble in the 
 sparkling cup, and he had yet to learn that this kind of 
 instantaneous reputation is something like Jack's Bean- 
 stalk — wonderful, but not as permanent as a stone tower. 
 It was at this time that he let his pale auburn hair grow 
 as long as Raphael's, and affected a touch of the sixteenth 
 century in his clothes. 
 
 When the bean-stalk was at its highest, one of his 
 devoted dowagers introduced him with some empressement 
 to the daughter and heiress of a financier who had done a 
 good many big things in the way of city loans and,company t 
 flotations in South America, and who was credited with 
 millions. The girl was graceful and pretty after a rather 
 lackadaisical style. Mark obeyed his officious dowager, 
 proposed, and was accepted with rapture by the girl, and 
 with indifference by the father. 
 
176 MIRANDA 
 
 It was only after half a year of placid matrimony, 
 during which the young couple enjoyed a roving honey- 
 moon, freely spending the contractor's wedding-present 
 in the loveliest places and the most expensive hotels, that 
 the bubble burst, and Mark's father-in-law became the 
 hero of a somewhat startling bankruptcy, not without 
 suspicion of fraud, and Mark found himself cumbered with 
 a hypochondriacal wife without a dowry. Her father 
 had been lavish in his generosity while he was spending 
 other people's money, but before the proceedings in 
 bankruptcy came to an end the famous financier had 
 slipped out of his embarrassments and his life by the same 
 apoplectic stroke, ever afterwards to figure as " poor 
 Papa " in his daughter's conversation. 
 
 Happily for Mark he had been wise enough to garner the 
 proceeds of his successful book, while spending poor 
 Papa's money, and thus had been able to establish himself 
 at The Dene in a manner that gratified his aesthetic in- 
 clinations. This was the history of Mark's eight-and- 
 twenty years — and in his survey of those years it might 
 be thought that he had small justification for complaint 
 against Providence, Fate, or whatever he chose to call 
 the ruler of his life. 
 
 Yet, as he paced The Dene garden in the twilight, he 
 told himself that not having given him Miranda, Fate 
 had given him nothing. The world without Miranda was 
 desolate as that loathly region that led to the Dark Tower — 
 
 " Grey plain all round, 
 Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound." 
 
 Oh, the horror, the monotony of it ! To see Flora 
 every day — to hear her little feeble speeches, and to answer 
 in speeches as feeble, the same words, the same ideas, 
 repeated like the ticking of a clock, and just as inevitable. 
 
 " Grey plain all round." 
 
 And this was to be his life — for he knew that these 
 chronic invalids who have nothing the matter with them 
 are likely to live to extreme old age. Many changes might 
 
MIRANDA 177 
 
 come and even strange things might happen, but the 
 one thing that could change his whole existence and make 
 the world lovely, would not happen. Flora would not set 
 him free. She was not going to die. And if he took to 
 evil courses, and gave her cause for divorcing him, she 
 would look at him with her adoring smile and forgive him. 
 She would never set him free. 
 
 There was no hope of release, no hope of union with 
 Miranda, no hope while Miranda remained the same, the 
 girl he had clasped to his heart in a storm of kisses, and 
 who had made herself marble. 
 
 Against that cold purity passion beat like the wave 
 upon the rock, the wave that beat and was beaten back 
 through the eternal hours. 
 
 12 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THEY were at home at The Barrow — the old Queen 
 Anne house — so spacious and airy — so full of 
 beautiful things and fond memories of childhood. 
 
 " How dear the house is," thought Miranda, wandering 
 from room to room, " and how happy I used to be here. 
 Yes, utterly happy without knowing it — longing for change, 
 when no change could be good where all was perfect." 
 
 She remembered herself clasping her arms above her 
 head and standing at yonder window yearning for some- 
 thing to happen. Something had happened. A new 
 figure had come into her life, and destroyed its peace. 
 
 " I forbid myself to think of him," she said. " I have 
 mother to think of — only her — only her. All is well while 
 I have her. What can I want more precious than that 
 perfect love ? " 
 
 The London doctor was to come next day — Miranda 
 had refused the physician from York. Her mother must 
 have the most famous man in London — the man whom 
 the King and Queen would send for if they were seriously 
 ill. 
 
 But now the great man was coming Miranda was seized 
 with sudden uneasiness, which grew into absolute fear. 
 
 " You must be afraid there is something dreadful the 
 matter, or you would not want a consultation," she told 
 Dr. Mason, when she surprised him by calling at his surgery 
 in the autumn evening. 
 
 " You are rather an unreasonable young lady to say 
 
 178 
 
MIRANDA 179 
 
 that, when it was you who urged me to call in some big 
 man." 
 
 " I couldn't help being anxious — you were so 
 mysterious." 
 
 " I didn't mean to be mysterious." 
 
 " Mother was worlds better in the first three weeks at 
 the Bay. Didn't you think her wonderfully improved 
 when she came home ? " 
 
 " She is looking better, decidedly better." 
 
 " And does she tell you that she is better ? " 
 
 " That is the worst of it. She still talks of pain — and 
 bad nights." 
 
 " Oh, you must cure her ; you must make Sir Joseph 
 Dalrymple cure her." 
 
 " At any rate he may find out what is wrong." 
 
 " Then you think there is something wrong — something 
 serious ? " 
 
 " Not necessarily serious, but we must find out the 
 cause of her trouble." 
 
 Miranda looked miserable. 
 
 " I think you spoke of Sir Joseph Dalrymple as 
 a specialist. Is he a specialist for some dreadful 
 complaint ? " 
 
 " My dear Miss Strickland, don't agitate yourself. 
 He is only a specialist from his profound understanding of 
 the female constitution and its liability to nervous as well 
 as to organic troubles." 
 
 " And you think mother's trouble is nervous ? " Miranda 
 asked eagerly, fixing intent eyes upon the doctor's serious 
 face. 
 
 " I think it is quite possible." 
 
 She could get no more from him than this. Question 
 as closely as she might, his reply was always vague, and 
 she walked home with her dogs in the darkness, almost 
 hopeless. 
 
 She sat at her mother's feet all the evening — hand 
 clasped in hand most of the time — until she took a book 
 from the table beside Lady Laura's sofa, and asked if she 
 might read aloud. 
 
 13* 
 
180 MIRANDA 
 
 " Yes, dear, it will be delightful — but if I should doze 
 now and then, you mustn't mind. I had one of my bad 
 nights." 
 
 " Darling, sleep all the time if you can. I shan't leave 
 off reading." 
 
 She had chosen the " Vicar of Wakefield," in which 
 there was nothing that could make for sadness — for even 
 poor Olivia's trouble seemed like a fairy-tale, always meant 
 to come right in the end, no more serious than Beauty's 
 despair when her father left her in the Beast's palace. 
 
 She read in a low, level voice, soothing as soft music, 
 and Lady Laura was sleeping sweetly before the end of 
 the third chapter. But all through those cheerful opening 
 chapters of Parson Primrose's history there ran a thread 
 of aching pain, and Miranda broke down at last and 
 sobbed heart-brokenly while her mother slept. 
 
 Sir Joseph came, and stayed for a longish time in the 
 patient's room, and afterwards conferred with Dr. Mason 
 for a time that seemed long to the anxious daughter, 
 pacing up and down the hall, waiting for the library door 
 to open and the Oracle to speak. 
 
 She ran forward eagerly to meet them as they came out 
 of the room, the London doctor in front. 
 
 " Oh, Sir Joseph," she gasped, " are you going to tell 
 me something dreadful ? " 
 
 He knew that broken tone, that breathless eagerness, as 
 a common experience, but he thought that he had never 
 seen a lovelier face than this that paled as the girl waited 
 for his answer. 
 
 " No, no ; I have nothing dreadful to tell you. Your 
 mother needs care, and I think it advisable for her to spend 
 the winter in a milder climate than the East Riding. 
 Mentone or St. Raphael, for instance. We must take the 
 utmost care of her general health, which seems fairly good, 
 in case " 
 
 " In case of what ? " came the tremulous question. 
 
 " In case there shou laterld be cause for an 
 operation." 
 
MIRANDA 181 
 
 " An operation ? " — with an agonized look. 
 
 " Dr. Mason suspects internal trouble — and I fear he 
 is right, but there is nothing serious at present. We have 
 to wait — possibly for a considerable period, and in the 
 meantime there is no need for dark ideas. The surgeon's 
 knife is not the terror it once was : and it often means 
 cure." 
 
 14 All she has to do is to make her mother happy. Tell 
 her that, Sir Joseph." 
 
 " I do tell her. Go and spend a pleasant winter with 
 Lady Laura on the Riviera. Don't let her do foolish 
 things, or over-exert herself " 
 
 " Over-exertion is not in her line," murmured Dr. 
 Mason. 
 
 " And forget that you have ever been anxious about 
 her," concluded the physician. 
 
 " As if that were possible," sighed Miranda. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THEY left The Barrow in less than a week — after 
 much telegraphing to innkeepers in the South of 
 France ; their final choice being a highly-recommended 
 hotel in the East Bay at Mentone. 
 
 Julia went with them, of course, and had sole charge of 
 railway tickets. Julia was to do everything that required 
 business capacity, firmness, and courage. She was to 
 meet and vanquish all the dragons in their path, to think 
 and decide about everything. They took two maids and 
 Charles the footman, who had been useful at Robin Hood's 
 Bay, and who need only apply himself seriously to a 
 book Miranda found for him, A Short Cut to Familiar 
 French," in order to be equally useful on the shores of 
 the Mediterranean. Charles might perhaps have dis- 
 tinguished himself by acquiring a second language had 
 he not discovered that the porter and all the waiters at 
 the Hotel Regina, nay, even boot-boys and minions who 
 carried baskets of wood and lit fires, could talk English, 
 wherefore, as these friendly youths told him, " Ce n etait 
 pas la peine." 
 
 Miranda would have liked to take James Whipple, 
 but in his absence dreadful things might happen to the 
 horses and dogs ; so she reluctantly left him at home. 
 
 " Heaven knows what will become of us when we are 
 going about with strange coachmen," she told him, " but 
 I have to consider the dogs — and how I shall leave them 
 for three or four months is more than I can think of 
 calmly." 
 
 182 
 
MIRANDA 183 
 
 There were tears in her eyes as she spokej Her dogs 
 had overpowered her with their affection in those last 
 days. She was sure that they knew. 
 
 "Don't fret about them, miss," Whipple said gently; 
 u they shall be taken good care of. Nobody shall feed 
 them or exercise them but me." 
 
 " I know ! I know ! I believe you are as fond of 
 the creatures as I am." 
 
 " I believe I am, miss." 
 
 Whipple was no humbug. What he said was gospel 
 truth. 
 
 Soon after~tn"at tearful leave-taking there came another 
 parting, which hardly went nearer to her heart than her 
 farewell to the creatures in the stable-yard, the creatures 
 that looked at her with pathetic eyes, that hung upon her 
 in a despairing fondness, knowing instinctively that she 
 was leaving them — she who had left them unawares a 
 short time ago, and had come back so lately to fill them 
 with immeasurable joy, and now was going to forsake them 
 again. They had seen the bustle of preparation in the 
 house — the huge trunks brought down to the hall — and 
 they knew. 
 
 She had scarcely gone back to the old schoolroom where 
 she was collecting a boxful of books for the journey, 
 when Mr. Ferrar was announced. She welcomed him 
 eagerly. 
 
 " How sweet of you to come and say good-bye. I 
 was afraid you were going to let us go without giving us a 
 thought. Poor thing ! Your life is so crowded with 
 troublesome work." 
 
 " I have not much time to spare, but I can keep a corner 
 of my mind for old friends." 
 
 " You must always keep that corner for mother and 
 me, and a little bit for Julia, who worships you. Do you 
 know that we are exiles, going away for ages — all the 
 long, long winter? We shan't see your Christmas treats 
 — the school-children's tree, the old people's dinner. I 
 shall send you my cheque for the parish to-night. I hope 
 you will miss mother and me — just a little." 
 
1 84 MIRANDA 
 
 " Just a little," he repeated with infinite sadness ; 
 and then he told her how he had seen her in his church 
 on the previous Sunday, and what a joy it had been to 
 him. 
 
 " It was a blow when Miss Wagstaff told me you were 
 going to winter abroad, but no doubt it is wise. Our 
 moorland Decembers are trying for delicate constitutions, 
 and your mother has always the look of something fragile 
 and precious, that needs much cherishing." 
 
 " She is unspeakably precious, and she is going to be 
 cherished. I think of her, and only of her." 
 
 " That is wise, my dear, and the safest road to happi- 
 ness." 
 
 She gave a desponding sigh. 
 
 " And over your spiritual life, Miranda, the only life 
 that counts, has the cloud passed ? Can you look upward 
 and forward with hope, as in the old days when we used 
 to talk of serious things ? " 
 
 " I have struggled against dark thoughts, I have left 
 off brooding over questions that no one can answer. I 
 can pray better than I did a little while ago. I can say 
 as Newman said : 
 
 " ' Lead Thou me on : 
 
 Keep Thou my feet ; I do not ask to see 
 The distant scene ; one step enough for me.' " 
 
 " That is well. There is an English Church at Mentone, 
 and you will go there often, I hope. Do not be among 
 the superior people who say that they have no need of 
 public worship, and smile a superior smile at the church- 
 goers, whom they talk of as ' pi.' Be staunch, Miranda — 
 remember your Confirmation vow, and don't be afraid of 
 being called ' pi.' " 
 
 He stayed with her in the schoolroom for nearly an hour, 
 and their talk was of the life that counts. He had much 
 to tell her about his parish — the martyrs and the heroes 
 in that underworld of hard work and hard living : the 
 factory women who rose before dawn to keep their children 
 clean and their home tidy. He told her about the good 
 
MIRANDA 185 
 
 women, the Parish Sisters who ministered to the sick, 
 taught the young mothers how to bring up their children, 
 and carried on the never-ceasing work of instruction and 
 improvement ; often in most discouraging circumstances. 
 
 " But you and these good creatures have done wonders," 
 Miranda said. " Dr. Mason told me how you have made 
 Trownham a new place. He was locum there for a month, 
 the year before you came to the parish, and he knows what 
 the slums were like in those days. He was quite enthu- 
 siastic about you and those good women. I think it must 
 end in your marrying one of them — that Sister Angela, 
 for instance, whom I saw when you took me round your 
 parish; so refined and nice, and almost pretty. I told 
 Julia it would end in your marrying her." 
 
 14 I might," he answered gravely, " if I were ever to 
 marry." 
 
 " You mean that you will never marry, never, never ? 
 You are so severe — you believe that no priest ought to 
 marry." 
 
 " I don't go so far as that." 
 
 " Julia thinks you do — poor Julia ! " 
 
 " My time is nearly up, and I must have a few minutes 
 with Lady Laura." 
 
 " I'll take you to her, and she will be charmed to find 
 you have not neglected us. She has been lamenting your 
 neglect. Did you ride over ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Then I mustn't go to the stables with you." 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " I should see the dogs again, and we should have another 
 parting. I said good-bye to them this afternoon. It 
 was agonizing." 
 
 " All good-byes are sad." 
 
 " Don't think that I am not sorry to say good-bye to 
 you, Gillie. You don't mind my calling you by the old 
 impertinent name ? " 
 
 " Of course not ; but it wouldn't do for my curates to 
 call me Gillie. I dare say they have some vulgar nick- 
 name for me behind my back." 
 
1 86 MIRANDA 
 
 "It was awful cheek in a brat of twelve to call you 
 ' Gillie.' Aunt Hilda lectured me about it — only her 
 lectures always made me do things more." 
 
 A quarter of an hour in Lady Laura's morning-room 
 ended Mr. Ferrar's visit, and then good-byes were said, 
 and five minutes later he was riding towards the moor, very 
 pale in the autumn dusk, and oh, how sad ! 
 
 Lady Laura seemed to enjoy the journey. Everything 
 was done to make it interesting and easy for her. They 
 stayed a night and a day at Avignon, where Miranda was 
 anxious because the late October winds were cold. They 
 stopped at Marseilles and drove about and saw things, 
 though here again Miranda was anxious because the sun 
 beat upon la Cannebiere with almost tropical fire. 
 
 Lady Laura admired everything. She had been in 
 Italy on her honeymoon more than twenty years ago ; 
 but Marseilles was new. 
 
 She leaned across the carriage to clasp her daughter's 
 hand, Miranda having insisted upon sitting with her back 
 to the horses, while Julia occupied the more honourable 
 seat by Lady Laura. 
 
 " My darling," she said tenderly, "it is so nice to be 
 travelling with you — so delicious to have you quite, quite 
 to myself." 
 
 " What about Julia ? " laughed Miranda ; " hasn't she 
 a little bit of me — a little bit of us both ? " 
 
 " Of course she has. We both want Julia ; we couldn't 
 get on anyhow without her." 
 
 The time that followed at Mentone was a time of tranquil 
 repose that seemed a part of that lovely shore. The 
 splendour of the sunsets, the light upon sea and land, which 
 made common things wonderful, the ivy-leaved geraniums 
 that spread a green and pink curtain over the walls, the 
 cypresses that stood up like pillars of darkness against the 
 yellow evening sky, the roses that hung pale garlands over 
 the threshold of December — all went to make life exquisite, 
 if not riotously happy. 
 
 Miranda remembered the time when she had wanted 
 
MIRANDA 187 
 
 things to happen, and thought now she had realized Julia's 
 theory that the things that happen are the unlucky things, 
 the unexpected sorrows. 
 
 She had never thought of a time when her mother's 
 health would be a constant subject for care ; yet the time 
 had come. And now, instead of wanting changes and 
 surprises, she had to hope that all things would remain the 
 same, her mother tranquil and without pain — no bad days, 
 or bad nights, or not so many as there had been in 
 September at The Barrow. 
 
 Miranda thanked God for this mild content. She had 
 recovered from the shock that Mark Raynham had given 
 to her faith. She had left off reading Shelley, and had 
 banished from her thoughts all memory of Nietzsche, 
 that fatal pessimist and incipient lunatic. Omar Khayyam 
 no longer lay among the books on the table by her bed. 
 She had fought hard against evil influences, had left 
 off wandering in labyrinths of darkness and doubt. She 
 had thought much of Gilbert Ferrar ; and the thought of 
 his life and faith had made her strong. 
 
 " If men like Gilbert, and John Henry Newman, and 
 Frederick Robertson, and Blaise Pascal, can believe and 
 be happy, what am I, a trumpery girl, that I should 
 waver and doubt ? " she thought. 
 
 She was tranquil ; she was unspeakably tender in her 
 care of her mother, whom she would not allow to think of 
 herself as an invalid. She was watchful but not fussy, 
 and she made Lady Laura happy. 
 
 " My dearest, you have paid me a thousandfold for all 
 my anxieties in your childhood," her mother told her, 
 when Miranda talked of those far-off days, and the great 
 debt of affection that she owed for love without measure 
 and indulgence that had no limit. 
 
 There was a dull calm in the girl's heart. She forgot no 
 word of Gilbert Ferrar' s counsel, and she was steadfast 
 in her attendance at the English church. She was doing 
 her duty in a quiet way, and she seldom fell asleep at the 
 close of the monotonous day without Newman's hymn 
 in her mind, if not on her lips. 
 
1 88 MIRANDA 
 
 She had put away Zarathushtra and Omar. She had 
 the Gospel of St. John for her midnight and morning 
 reading. She had Gilbert Ferrar's life of self-abnegation 
 always before her as the pattern life. And yet she was 
 not happy. Whatever conquest she had achieved over 
 self, she had not been able to forget She thought of two 
 lines by Alain Chartier, one of Mark's poets : 
 
 " Chacun dit bien : Oblie ! Oblie ! 
 Mais il ne le fait pas qui veult." 
 
 No, she could not forget. Vivid as in the actual present, 
 the past came back to her — those peerless afternoons in 
 the garden, when she and her mother were sitting side by 
 side, with Mark Raynham at their feet, and when all the 
 world of the poets was opened to them in his eager talk, 
 his inexhaustible quotations, his revelation of what it 
 meant to live by the imagination, to have the key to that 
 other world, that fairyland of beautiful dreams which only 
 the poet knows. She forbade herself to think of him; 
 yet she thought of him more and more as the days went by, 
 the slow and tranquil days, that were all alike — the same 
 things happening at the same hours, over and over again, 
 in the languid atmosphere. She might forbid herself to 
 think of him in the day; she might fill up all her hours, 
 reading to her mother, walking with Julia — long, exploring 
 walks among the hills that brought them home at tea-time 
 worn out almost to exhaustion — a game of chess with her 
 mother after tea, a new novel read aloud and discussed 
 by the three, each having a different opinion. And 
 then there was the piano, for the short interval after 
 dinner — and Miranda played Haydn or Mozart to her 
 mother's content ; and then good-night, and there was 
 the moon looking in at her bedroom windows — the case- 
 ments opening on a balcony — a moon that made a long 
 line of light upon the polished floor. 
 
 Then came the night of broken sleep that seemed longer 
 even than the day, and that strange scene by the North 
 Sea was lived over again in agitated dreams, so vivid, so 
 real, so dreadful and so sweet. 
 
MIRANDA 189 
 
 He was holding her in his arms, close against his heart 
 she could feel his breath upon her cheek, and their lips 
 were meeting — and this time she did not resist him, her 
 lips were as passionate as his, she was swooning in his arms, 
 she heard the music ^pf his voice, calling her by her name. 
 In this dream there was no consciousness of any obstacle 
 to that overwhelming happiness. He was free to adore 
 her — they were free as disembodied spirits unacquainted 
 with earthly ties. And they were no longer under a grey 
 autumnal sky with the chill north wind blowing round 
 them. They were in the splendour and the light of such 
 a sunrise as she had watched morning after morning over- 
 arching the tideless sea. All that she had seen of beauty 
 since she left home was in that enthralling dream. 
 
 It had come to her not once only, but many times in 
 the long, slow winter, and with such strange reality that 
 in the first moment after waking it was difficult to believe 
 the arms that had been round her, the lips that had kissed 
 her, had been only guilty thoughts. No more than that ! 
 Sinful thoughts, guilty longings for love that could never' 
 be hers. She sprang out of her bed, and flung herself 
 upon her knees in an agony of repentance. Only after 
 that guilty dream did she know how far she was from peace. 
 She had been fighting the good fight, but she had not 
 conquered. The Spirit of Evil still held dominion over 
 her. She could not forget. Duty done — heartfelt 
 prayer, long grave thoughts over the dear Gospel story — 
 had not helped her. She was still in the bondage of an 
 unholy love. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE background of life had changed. Lady Laura 
 and her daughter were in the familiar rooms and 
 the familiar gardens, which were somewhat cold and dull 
 after the perfume of innumerable orange-trees, the riotous 
 growth of Banksia roses, climbing from bough to bough, 
 and all the luxury of light and colour on the Riviera. 
 That first week of April was damp and sunless, and 
 Miranda was afraid they had come home too soon. 
 
 She walked about the gardens and played with her 
 dogs, and she was glad to be in the place that was filled with 
 Mark Raynham's image. She felt as if he were with her 
 as she trod the long lawn where they had walked side by 
 side pretending to look at the roses, but conscious only of 
 each other. It was thrilling to know that he was so near, 
 that she might look up at any moment and see him stand- 
 ing in front of her, with outstretched hand and eyes 
 alight with gladness. She hoped that he would not come. 
 Surely he must know that it would be intolerable to meet 
 the man who had offended her beyond the hope of pardon. 
 
 She had not forgiven him. She could never forgive 
 him. 
 
 Everybody in Melford called to welcome the exiles on 
 their return ; everybody told them how sadly they had 
 been missed. 
 
 " Christmas hardly seemed Christmas without you, 
 dear Lady Laura," said Mrs. Parlby. 
 
 Everybody in Melford appeared in Lady Laura's 
 
 190^ 
 
MIRANDA 191 
 
 drawing-room on the third day after her return, as if by 
 agreement. Mrs. Devereux, imposing as ever, in an ermine 
 stole and muff that had been the Colonel's Christmas 
 present, and a short cloth skirt that displayed her useful 
 boots. Mrs. Parlby and the two daughters, the three 
 Lester girls, and their Aunt Sophia, a stout, good-looking 
 spinster, who had lived all her life at Melford, and had 
 been flattered by only one offer of marriage, from a curate 
 with white eyelashes and a stammer, ten years her junior. 
 Melford had been disappointed when she refused the 
 curate, for the wedding would have been an occurrence 
 — which was a consideration in a neighbourhood where 
 nothing occurred. 
 
 The younger members of the party all clustered round 
 Miranda, who sat near an open window, and mingled their 
 eager talk with the thrushes that were walking about the 
 terrace, telling each other that it was a blessed thing to 
 be alive. 
 
 She was assailed vigorously with questions. They 
 wanted to hear all about Mentone. Had she been at 
 many dances ; had she gambled at Monte Carlo — had her 
 carriage won a prize at the Battle of Flowers ? 
 
 " I dare say you went to Monte Carlo every day," Clara 
 Parlby said. " You would go for the music — and creep 
 to the roulette table while dear Lady Laura sat in the 
 garden, half asleep in the sunshine. People only care for 
 Mentone because it is next door to the Loadstone Rock." 
 
 " The Loadstone Rock did not draw mother and me. 
 We drove there one fine afternoon ; but while we were on 
 the terrace admiring the view, we heard some wretches 
 shooting pigeons below, and saw one wounded bird fly 
 a little way and then drop dead — and that was enough of 
 Monte Carlo. We drove to la Turbie several times, and 
 saw nothing worse than men hitting golf balls, and 
 enjoying themselves without killing anything." 
 
 Among the matrons Mrs. Devereux was the chief talker. 
 She, too, asked questions, and expressed herself vehe- 
 mently about Monte Carlo, where the Colonel had once 
 been persuaded to accompany a friend, for what the friend 
 
192 MIRANDA 
 
 called a quiet flutter, and had come home crestfallen, 
 having lost thirty pounds. 
 
 " He has never forgotten that thirty pounds," Mrs. 
 Devereux told her friends. " It was a cheap object-lesson. 
 He used to fancy a horse for the Leger or the Liverpool 
 Cup, and venture a pound or two — always on the wrong 
 one : but after Monte Carlo he never risked a shilling. 
 • When a man has beastly bad luck he's a fool if he doesn't 
 know it,' he told me. ' No more frittering away 
 sovereigns fighting Destiny.' " 
 
 Julia was pouring out tea, with a servant in attendance 
 to carry about the cups and cakes, while Lady Laura sat 
 in her reposeful chair, and took the smallest possible 
 trouble in the way of conversation. She was glad that 
 the people who bored her were always able to do the 
 talking and capable of amusing themselves and each 
 other. 
 
 A strange thing happened on the following afternoon, 
 a trivial event in itself, but it had a troubling effect on 
 Miranda. 
 
 She was sitting with her mother in the drawing-room 
 a little while before tea — Julia not yet returned from an 
 afternoon in the Melford cottages ; Lady Laura half 
 asleep over a novel, and the rain beating against the five 
 long windows — a dreary day after yesterday's sunshine, 
 a day when it seemed only natural to feel unhappy. The 
 butler announced Mrs. Raynham, and a shadowy figure 
 muffled to the chin in dark furs came towards Miranda 
 with outstretched hand, while Lady Laura rose hurriedly, 
 letting her book slide from her knee to the floor, startled 
 as if at the entrance of a ghost. 
 
 She recovered herself sooner than Miranda, who had 
 shaken hands in silence. 
 
 " How very nice of you to come and see us on this 
 horrid day," Lady Laura said. " And do please take off 
 your coat, if it is wet." 
 
 " Thanks, dear Lady Laura, my coat is quite dry. I 
 came in Bowker's fly. I was just well enough to come, 
 
MIRANDA 193 
 
 and I did not want you to think that Mark and I were 
 not anxious to know how you and Miss Strickland were 
 after your winter abroad. He could not come himself, 
 poor fellow. He has been worried over his work. He 
 was in love with his subject when he began, but it hasn't 
 answered his expectations, and his nerves are on edge. 
 So he is going nowhere — seeing no one. He just tramps 
 over the moor half the day, and then shuts himself in 
 his study and writes half the night." 
 
 " That doesn't seem a very wholesome kind of life," 
 said Lady Laura. " I think Balzac used to write his 
 dreary stories that way — three or four nights and days 
 at a stretch, taking no rest and drinking strong coffee. 
 I'm sorry Mr. Raynham has been a victim to nerves, 
 but I hope you have had a good winter." 
 
 " No, dear Lady Laura, my anaemia has been as bad as 
 ever. Dr. Mason's treatment doesn't answer any better 
 than the specialist's. I am no help to my husband, and 
 I can't rise to his level. We are not on the same plane, 
 but he is always tender and sweet, and he tries to make 
 my life happy." 
 
 She babbled feebly about her anaemia, her husband, 
 her friends and her servants for nearly half an hour, needing 
 very little assistance from Miranda and her mother — 
 a sympathetic inquiry, or a polite assent at long intervals 
 was enough. 
 
 " I fancy you must be stronger than last autumn," 
 Lady Laura said kindly, " for you told me then that you 
 never went beyond that nice garden of yours." 
 
 " Oh, please don't call The Dene garden nice — com- 
 pared with your lovely grounds. It isn't nice. It is 
 gloomy and it gives me the horrors. There is a red weed 
 that comes in patches on the grass, and looks like blood. 
 Of course you know our garden is haunted ? " 
 
 "Is it the garden ? I was told the ghost appeared 
 in the house." 
 
 " I don't know about the house. But the garden is 
 haunted. I have never seen anything — I shouldn't be 
 alive if I had. But I feel they are there — dreadful dead 
 
 13 
 
i 9 4 MIRANDA 
 
 people — who are wicked and miserable, and can't rest now 
 they are dead." 
 
 " You should go out more, Mrs. Raynham, and get rid 
 of morbid thoughts." 
 
 " That is what Mrs. Devereux tells me, dear Lady 
 Laura. Mrs. Devereux insisted upon my going to her, 
 and to other intimate friends. She has quite taken me 
 under her wing." 
 
 "It is a very wide wing, and she has energy enough 
 for all her friends, if they only know how to take 
 advantage of it. I never could. Energetic people always 
 make me feel hopelessly limp." 
 
 " She is just a little oppressive," Mrs. Raynham ad- 
 mitted, her idea of politeness in conversation being 
 unhesitating acquiescence. 
 
 The usual hour for tea was forestalled in order to 
 relieve the situation, and Miranda found herself waiting 
 upon Mrs. Raynham, placing a little lacquer table in front 
 of her, bringing her cup and saucer, and offering various 
 delicacies in the way of cake and semi-diaphanous sand- 
 wiches. She performed this duty in a strange automatic 
 way, looking at the pale, expressionless face with sad and 
 wondering eyes. 
 
 This fragile figure, this spectral face, stood between 
 her and what might have been unspeakable happiness. 
 This was the woman she had sinned against — the wife 
 whose claim was sacred, indissoluble. Poor, unhappy 
 wife ! — thinking herself beloved, cheated by compassionate 
 pretending. Miserable husband ! — steeped in hypocrisy, 
 false to the core of his heart. 
 
 There was infinite relief in Julia's bustling entrance, 
 bringing, or seeming to bring, a breath of the moorland 
 with her. She had been on the moor for half an hour 
 after her cottage visits. 
 
 " Their rooms are so dreadful with stuffiness, poor 
 dears, and I wanted to reward the dogs with a run." 
 
 " Were they good ? " Miranda asked, suddenly alive 
 and interested. 
 
 "Angels. They sat on the door-steps, waiting so 
 
MIRANDA 195 
 
 patiently, and except that Scrub chased Mrs. Horniman's 
 cat, they were exemplary." 
 
 " I hope he didn't catch that dear fluffy cat." 
 
 " Did you ever know a dog that could catch a healthy 
 cat ? " 
 
 Mrs. Raynham had the usual difficulty in going away 
 that is the mark of the " not quite quite." After having 
 considerably exceeded the conventional limit, she apolo- 
 gized for going, and it seemed to Miranda as if nothing but 
 physical force would get her out of the room. 
 
 She was gone at last. And everyone breathed more 
 freely. 
 
 " I think there is nothing so insupportable as a pro- 
 fessional invalid," said Julia. 
 
 " Oh, but one ought to be sorry for her, poor thing ! " 
 sighed Lady Laura. 
 
 " So one ought, if she were really ill, which she isn't. 
 I pumped dear little Mason about the case, and he had to 
 own there was nothing the matter with her." 
 
 " Well, it was polite of her to call, and we must not 
 be ill-natured." 
 
 Miranda had taken flight. She had to go out into the 
 garden and defy the weather. She had to shake off the 
 intolerable sense of oppression that Mark's wife had brought 
 with her. 
 
 Mark's wife ! Was it not horrible to think of him tied 
 for all his days to that wretched creature — a woman who 
 was only half alive ; he in whom the fire of life burnt so 
 fiercely, he whose imagination was a divine force, reaching 
 out into new worlds, shaping beautiful visions out of 
 thin air, comprehending all mysteries ; he whose quick 
 sympathies were always seeking response from a congenial 
 mind, whose ardent thoughts widened out and became more 
 intense at the touch of that other mind ? She remembered 
 those vivid hours of unrestrained conversation ; she re- 
 called those capricious fancies and bold excursions into the 
 Unknown — and then she thought of this man sitting face 
 to face day after day with his uncompanionable companion, 
 trying to be kind to her, trying to do his duty, and knowing 
 
 13* 
 
196 MIRANDA 
 
 that this bondage was to last for the rest of his life. Yes, 
 it was horrible ! There was no hope of release. That 
 invalidism which Melford society talked of compassion- 
 ately, really meant nothing. No doubt Dr. Mason was 
 right when he so far departed from professional etiquette 
 as to tell Julia that there was nothing the matter with 
 his patient. 
 
 She thought of Mark Raynham this afternoon, pacing 
 the broad gravel walk in the rain, as she had scarcely 
 thought of him before : she thought what their lives might 
 have been had he been free. She imagined that splendid 
 union of minds which, if not of the same power, were at 
 least of the same quality. She recalled the wonderful 
 sympathy in thought and fancy, how she had sometimes 
 startled him by anticipating the ideas that he was on the 
 point of expressing — how their minds moved in unison, 
 travelling always along the same lines and with the same 
 force and swiftness. 
 
 And for him to be tied to a wife who could not think ! 
 She had seen enough of Mrs. Raynham by this time to 
 know that she was mindless, vapid, intolerable — and in 
 her pity for the victim of that ill-assorted union she forgot 
 his offence against her womanly pride, she forgot her 
 determination never to forgive him, never to look upon his 
 face again. There was nothing in her mind but sorrow 
 for him, infinite regret for a narrowed and fettered life. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 MIRANDA tried to go back to those unclouded 
 days of girlhood, when she knew only innocent 
 thoughts. She tried to put herself where she had been 
 before the something happened that brought change and 
 trouble into her life. 
 
 She went back to the church that had held so large a 
 place in her young years, and to the friend upon whom she 
 had depended for her higher education. When she looked 
 back she thought her girlhood had been a time of unclouded 
 happiness — she forgot the vague yearnings, the passionate 
 longing for the unknown ; the eager spirit of youth that 
 felt as if it had wings, and wanted to spread them and 
 soar into the infinite ; the impatient desire for some ripple 
 of strenuous life to stir the placid stream of days that knew 
 no difference. Only now, when the fiery breath of passion 
 had seared her, did she realize the sweetness of youth that 
 has no secrets. 
 
 Again she knelt in that solemn service which Gilbert 
 Ferrar called " Mass," the service that his flock loved, 
 with ornate ritual, and exquisite music — Mozart, Beethoven, 
 and those earlier Masters who rose to their highest when 
 they were writing for their Church. 
 
 The densely crowded church testified to the public 
 appreciation of Mr. Ferrar's work. It was not the women 
 only who filled the narrow seats, and knelt motionless 
 and absorbed through the long service. Husbands, and 
 sons, and brothers, were there, with Sunday hands and 
 faces, clean collars and carefully brushed coats, the toilers 
 
 197 
 
198 MIRANDA 
 
 and bread-winners, who had enlisted in Gilbert Ferrar's 
 regiment of believers, who had accepted the truths he 
 taught them — men of forty who had been confirmed a year 
 ago, men of fifty who had been roughly antagonistic to all 
 creeds, and who were now thinking about putting them- 
 selves down for the Vicar's preparatory classes next spring. 
 
 It was a great thing to have filled this large, new church 
 with an interested congregation, the church that had been 
 looked upon as unnecessary when the commonplace widow 
 built it in loving memory of her commonplace husband. 
 The church was so much wanted that there were already 
 plans for enlargement, and funds were being raised, 
 starting handsomely with a legacy from the founder, who 
 had gone to her rest in the last year. 
 
 Julia was on friendly terms with many of the congre- 
 gation, and had to exchange nods and becks and kindly 
 words and hand-shakes with wives and mothers and gaily- 
 dressed young daughters on her way to the carriage — 
 Miranda watching her, and a little inclined to laugh at the 
 warmth of those greetings. 
 
 " How well you do it," she exclaimed when they were 
 driving away. " But you can't really be as interested 
 in them as you pretend." 
 
 •- There's no pretending. I am intensely interested." 
 
 " They are human documents ? " 
 
 " They are brave, unselfish women, and honest, hard- 
 working girls. You have no idea how good they are, 
 and how much happier than agitators and socialists make 
 believe." 
 
 " You see them at their best, the prosperous workers — 
 the girls who can afford to buy smart hats. Oh, that 
 gigantic blue rose with bronze leaves ! Really, Julia, 
 you might teach them something better than that." 
 
 " You might, perhaps, by your example. I never advise 
 them — unless they ask my opinion, and even then I try 
 not to disgust them with their poor little bit of cheap finery." 
 
 " Don't you think if they were taught to ask for subdued 
 colours and graceful shapes the shopkeepers would improve, 
 and sell them cheap things that were really nice ? I am 
 
MIRANDA 199 
 
 not going to let you have all these interesting friends to 
 yourself. I am going to turn over a new leaf, to pay some- 
 thing for my place in the sunshine. I shall ask Gilbert to 
 give me a district." 
 
 " You will please him if you do — provided you mean 
 to stick to the work ; not just to make a showy beginning 
 and upset people." 
 
 " No, no ; I am in earnest, I want work. I want some- 
 thing that will take me out of myself." 
 " I think you do," Julia said gravely. 
 " Yes, I want work, badly, badly ! I want new ideas, 
 new interests. ' My mind is a neglected garden that 
 grows to seed/ " 
 
 She wrote to Mr. Ferrar that afternoon, a long, serious 
 letter, telling him what she wanted to do in his parish. 
 
 He was with her at breakfast next morning, after an 
 early ride over the moor. 
 
 Lady Laura did not leave her room till noon, and he 
 found Miranda sitting at one end of the table with a book, 
 while Julia attended to the tea and coffee at the other 
 end, and the favourite fox-terrier walked round the table 
 on his hind legs, sniffing at empty plates. 
 
 " I have come to answer your letter," he said, dropping 
 into a seat by Miranda. Impetuous and a little un- 
 reasonable as usual ! Does it mean anything ? " 
 
 " It means a great deal. I am in earnest this time. 
 I have been brooding over your sermons, and I want to 
 get away from myself." 
 
 " Well, that is not foolishness. To be self-centred is 
 generally to be unhappy. To be always studying one 
 
 miserable creature through a magnifying glass " 
 
 " Leads to despair, doesn't it ? " she interrupted. 
 " ' That way madness lies.' " • 
 
 " You are nothing if not intense. But if you really 
 mean to follow Miss Wagstaff's excellent example, I can 
 give you plenty of work that will take you out of yourself. 
 That was your phrase, I think. You want to be taken, 
 out of yourself ? " 
 
 " Yes, that is what I want." 
 
200 MIRANDA 
 
 She flushed and paled again as she answered him. 
 
 " Oh, Gilbert, you have always been my friend, and 
 such a friend ! If I have not valued you as I ought I 
 know now how much you might have been — how high you 
 might have lifted my mind from this miserable earth." 
 
 ■ I would at least have taught you not to talk of a 
 miserable earth. Earth is lovely, the image and fore- 
 runner of something better — and only sin is miserable. 
 Well, when do you want to begin work ? " 
 
 " To-morrow. I have been thinking how I can best 
 manage my life. I have to consider my mother. She 
 wants me ; and I want to be with her. She seldom comes 
 downstairs till half an hour or so before luncheon. I 
 can give all my mornings to Trownham — and yet never 
 be out of the way when I am wanted. I would drive over 
 with Julia directly after breakfast. Our fastest pony 
 does the journey in five-and- twenty minutes, so I could 
 be in Trownham by nine o'clock, and need not leave till 
 twelve. I dare say three hours' trudging from house to 
 house is about as much as I can manage." 
 
 " You shall not have too much house-to-house work. 
 Miss Wagstaff does that admirably, as well as the best of 
 my mission sisters. She is good enough to subordinate 
 her work to theirs." 
 
 Julia's heart burned within her. A word of praise 
 from him thrilled her. If he would only not call her 
 Miss Wagstaff ! She had never gone so far as to suggest 
 that he should call her by her christian name ; but the 
 surname always jarred from those lips. Why could she 
 not have been Sister Julia, like those other women whose 
 names he spoke so kindly ; like that Sister Angela, for 
 instance, whom the busybodies said he would end by 
 marrying. Julia knew him better than the busybodies, 
 and she knew that his heart had been given four years ago 
 to a self-willed girl of fifteen, and that there would never 
 be room in it for anyone else. 
 
 Miranda began her work three days after Mr. Ferrar's 
 visit. He had thought out everything with tender solici- 
 tude, and had chosen three households in which there was 
 
MIRANDA 201 
 
 great need of a sympathetic visitor, a friend not quite as 
 matter-of-fact and business-like as the parish sisters. 
 There was a family of motherless children, whose father, 
 James Ball, was not unkind, but careless, and liable to 
 come home the worse for liquor on Saturday night, and to 
 spend most of Sunday in bed. There was Mrs. Pedley, a 
 hard-working mother, with two unsatisfactory sons, and a 
 daughter who had been in trouble. And there was a 
 decent home where a widow of five-and-thirty had been 
 lying on her back for fourteen years, the result of an acci- 
 dent in the factory that had happened soon after the birth 
 of her only child, a daughter. This last was the most 
 interesting of the three households which Gilbert had 
 chosen for Miranda's experiment in self-abnegation. 
 
 " They are sad cases, but not bad cases," he said, " and 
 it will be very good for those two poor women, Mrs. Tilford 
 and Mrs. Pedley, and for Jane Maria, Ball's eldest girl, 
 who has to mother a family of five, to have a friend who 
 can sit and talk to them in a leisurely way, and will have 
 time to get at the back of their minds. My parish sisters 
 have too much work for that. They can only look to the 
 most pressing needs of their people — the corporal works of 
 mercy. You will have leisure to find your way into their 
 hearts." 
 
 He thought what a revelation her gracious beauty and 
 even her pretty clothes would be in those grey lives, what 
 soothing influence there might be in the music of her low 
 voice, her refined speech. 
 
 " I believe Mrs. Tilford will interest you," he said. 
 " She has educated herself and her daughter in her long 
 martyrdom of pain and helplessness. She has a deeply 
 religious mind, and in all our conversations about things 
 unseen, I have never found her wanting in understanding. 
 She is one of the people who have the will to believe. Her 
 daughter is a good girl, who gets up early to keep the house 
 clean and tidy before she goes to the factory where she 
 works all day, but perhaps she is not quite so considerate 
 as she might be in the way of giving her mother her com- 
 pany of an evening. Your influence may do good — for you 
 
202 MIRANDA 
 
 will be touched by the likeness in their position to your 
 own — mother and daughter having only each other to 
 love and care for." 
 
 " Yes, that will interest me. But there was never such 
 a mother as mine/' 
 
 " When you know what Mrs. Tilford has done, in spite 
 of her limitations, you may think her a wonderful mother." 
 
 " All your poor people are wonderful — one way or 
 another — but you are more wonderful than any of them," 
 Miranda said, flushing with sudden enthusiasm. 
 
 She and Julia were in his sitting-room, the room where 
 they had been entertained at tea, and Gilbert was at his 
 desk, writing the names and addresses of the people who 
 were to be her care. 
 
 " Oh, I am a very ordinary phenomenon," he said care- 
 lessly. " There are hundreds of my sort scattered about 
 the world in Roman collars and threadbare coats, for the 
 most part knowing themselves ineffectual. They want to 
 do great things, and never get them done. It recalls that 
 symbol of Eternity — a bird that comes once in ten years 
 and takes one peck at a rock. The rock is still there, 
 you know." 
 
 Some time after this, when Miranda had seen more of 
 his parish, and began to understand his work and what he 
 had made himself among these people, he waved aside her 
 ardent praise, just as carelessly. 
 
 " I have given them my life ; there is no more to be 
 said," he told her. " That is the beginning and the end of 
 it." 
 
 And he went on. 
 
 " When I came here I knew what I had to do. I had 
 to make myself one of them. Remember, my church was 
 new. Till St. Barnabas' was built there had been no 
 church for them — no church where they were wanted. 
 Curates had gone about in a perfunctory way, and told 
 them they ought to go to church — but nothing had been 
 done to make the church attractive, or to make them feel 
 that they were welcome. A few beggarly free seats, out 
 of hearing, a dull, dry service, and a sermon they couldn't 
 
MIRANDA 203 
 
 understand. Nobody ever tried to get at their minds. 
 Well, that was what I tried, Miranda. I became a member 
 of their clubs; I sat among them and talked and argued 
 with them night after night. I didn't keep them at a 
 distance. They might be as blunt and even as rude as 
 they liked ; but I have had no actual rudeness to complain 
 of, and I like their blunt, outspoken manner. I chaff 
 them, and let them chaff me. We sometimes get at a 
 solid truth by the short cut of a joke. I found them cleverer 
 than I expected — and I have seen their minds grow. I 
 enjoy my evenings with them. No, Miranda, you needn't 
 look sad about me. There is nothing the matter with 
 my life." 
 
 " Do you never think what you might have been ? 
 A statesman, a soldier ? " 
 
 " Glorious creatures, when they are successful — wretched 
 if they are failures. In my calling the humblest work 
 counts — one drunkard reclaimed, one wife-beater's heart 
 softened, is an achievement, and I go to bed happy after 
 such a bit of work ; though there is not the smallest sprig 
 of laurel gained by it." 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 MIRANDA began, and went on with her work with 
 all her heart, and it was not long before she dis- 
 covered the healing power of work that was done for 
 others, of days that were too full for long thoughts. 
 
 Gilbert Ferrar would not let her spend more than three 
 mornings a week in Trownham parish. 
 
 " I should have you falling ill, and then what would 
 your mother think of me ? Three mornings are enough 
 for a young lady of your bringing-up — and you will be 
 able on those three days to do all that is wanted for the 
 three families I have chosen for you." 
 
 " They are such good dears, and they really seem glad 
 to see me and sorry to let me go. They talk and talk 
 and talk. I had no idea that anybody could talk so 
 much, and I believe they really open their hearts to me. 
 If their present life is uneventful they have lots to tell me 
 about their past — I know their families intimately, as 
 far back as the great-grandmothers. I'm afraid I used 
 to think that only people with landed estates had 
 ancestors, or ever cared to look back." 
 
 " You know better now ? " 
 
 " I know that Mrs. Tilford cherishes the history of 
 her grandfather as if he had been the great Duke of 
 Wellington. And she only saw him once, for he lived 
 a long way off, and died when she was three years old." 
 
 Spring ripened into summer, and Miranda had lived, 
 and had not been utterly unhappy. She had resumed 
 
 204 
 
MIRANDA 205 
 
 her long rides on the moor in the early mornings, even 
 on those mornings when she was to set out for Trownham 
 at half-past eight, and the rides would have kept her 
 alive if there had been nothing else. She spent all her 
 afternoons with her mother, driving with her when Lady 
 Laura felt inclined for a drive, reading to her in the garden 
 as in those fatal days last year, when the hours had been 
 golden. There were no golden days now. Miranda told 
 herself that she was happy, and she prayed for a con- 
 tented mind — but there was always the aching sense of 
 something missed — something that might have been. 
 Light and colour had gone out of her life. 
 
 Sitting in the poor little room in the factory town, 
 sitting by Mrs. Tilford's bed with the wasted hand in 
 hers, listening to the stories of a working girl's youth — 
 the courtship, the early marriage, the kind husband, who 
 had died of a slow and incurable complaint within a few 
 years of the accident that made his wife helpless — she 
 thought sometimes that there was a likeness between the 
 bedridden woman's life and her own. The joy of life 
 had come to an end as suddenly — the outlook seemed 
 to her almost as melancholy. 
 
 She had to live for her mother, whom she adored. She 
 told herself that was enough; but if that one beloved 
 companion were taken away, there would be nothing — an 
 empty world — a world of darkness and despair. 
 
 Her work at Trownham had prospered. She had done 
 wonders for Jane Maria, who admired and looked up to 
 her as a saint, a figure out of a beautiful picture-book 
 that had been given to her at Christmas. This beautiful 
 lady's visits were blessed intervals of peace for Jane Maria, 
 who came home from school to find the rooms swept and 
 dusted and the children amused and happy. Even 
 Ethel, the youngest, had been carrying about the dust- 
 shovel and thinking that she was useful. The beauti- 
 ful lady had talked to them, and had let them talk, 
 and she had made them understand how much their 
 sister was doing for them, and how obedient they ought 
 to be. 
 
206 MIRANDA 
 
 " Isn't Jane Maria very tired at the end of the day ? " 
 Miranda asked. 
 
 " Rather," said the boy, " much tireder than we be. 
 She's sometimes so tired that she can't go to sleep. It's 
 schoolwork and housework too, you see, lady. She don't 
 much mind the housework, when we ain't naughty, but 
 the 'rithmetic gets on her nerves." 
 
 " We knows we're a handful," Ethel said, " but she's 
 that proud of us since you've given us new frocks, she 
 don't mind how we cheek her." 
 
 " You must never cheek her. Try to remember how 
 hard she works for you, and how she is like a mother to 
 you." 
 
 " She wollops us harder than mother would have done," 
 remarked one of the boys. 
 
 " We'll try to be good, lady, to please you," said Ethel. 
 They all called her " lady," and they all loved her. The 
 two elders went to school, and these she could see only 
 for a few minutes before they left home, their shining 
 morning faces hurriedly washed and towelled by Jane 
 Maria — all on the same towel. These little creatures 
 attached themselves to Miranda with a curious insistence. 
 They hung upon her skirts when she was leaving them, 
 and the two-year-old baby lifted up its face and wailed 
 passionately, while the three-year-old only whimpered. 
 They implored her to come oftener and to stay longer. 
 Once in a way she contrived to be with them at the meal 
 they called dinner, and it was a revelation to see the 
 scanty scraps that satisfied them, and their eager relish 
 of Jane Maria's savoury stew, in which two or three 
 onions, an ancient cabbage, some scraps of bacon rind, and 
 half a pound of ox-cheek were the ingredients. Miranda 
 had never heard of ox-cheek till Jane Maria explained 
 its richness and nourishing qualities ; nor had she known 
 the virtues of suet pudding and dark brown treacle, on 
 which diet the children seemed to thrive. 
 
 Mr. Ferrar had entreated her not to spoil her proteges 
 by too many gifts — not to bring the flavour of redundant 
 wealth into humble homes. He had striven to keep his 
 
MIRANDA 207 
 
 flock self-supporting and contented — free from sour 
 thoughts of other people's better fortune. 
 
 He came upon her at this humble dinner-table one 
 day and could not help seeing a pigeon-pie, which she 
 had taken from the sideboard after breakfast and brought 
 in her basket. Her basket was seldom empty when she 
 came to see Jane Maria and her family. Eager eyes 
 brightened when they saw the basket — but there was 
 plenty of single-minded, unmercenary love behind the 
 momentary thought of something nice to eat, something 
 very nice, such as no slum child had ever tasted before 
 the lady came that way. 
 
 To Mrs. Tilford Miranda sometimes carried a flowering 
 plant in a pot — a white cyclamen, for instance, a bush of 
 snowy blossoms that made a spot of light in the dull 
 room. 
 
 " I love to he and look at it, miss. I can see it in the 
 middle of the night, when there is only a glimmer from the 
 street lamp outside. Those white flowers shine in the 
 gloom, and I lie and look at them and think what it 
 is to have a friend like you." 
 
 To the girl who had been " unfortunate " Miranda was 
 especially kind, but she had never hinted at any know- 
 ledge of the " trouble " which had darkened Rosina 
 Pedley's girlhood. 
 
 " Her baby died before he was three months old," Mrs. 
 Pedley told Miranda. " She was wrapped up in the poor 
 sickly little creature, and she took on awful — I thought 
 she'd go out of her mind ; but poor folks can't go on 
 grieving. She had to go to the factory every morning, 
 and little by little she got over her loss. If her wicked 
 brothers didn't throw it up at her sometimes over the 
 dinner- table, she might forget all about it ; and God knows 
 she's a saint compared with either of them. And I can 
 never tell you how she feels your kindness, miss, and what 
 good it has done her. She never had a friend before, 
 least of all a born lady, to take an interest in her, and she 
 worships you, miss. She comes home excited and happy 
 on Sundays if she has seen you in church, and she tells 
 
208 MIRANDA 
 
 me how you looked, and what sort of hat you were 
 wearing." 
 
 There was joy in knowing she had been of some use in 
 these shabby homes. 
 
 " You have brought light into them — light and love," 
 Gilbert Ferrar told her, sitting at tea in the garden — 
 just like last summer, but with one conspicuous figure 
 missing. 
 
 Lady Laura had been full of objections to the district 
 visiting — had foreseen dirty rooms, and infectious fevers, 
 and every kind of horror, but Gilbert had met all her 
 objections, and had pledged himself to take care of her 
 ewe lamb ; and now, when she heard him praise Miranda, 
 she was deeply moved. 
 
 "I am glad that she has given those poor creatures 
 a taste of the happiness she has given me," she said softly. 
 " When she comes into the room where I am sitting alone 
 she makes the world new. Her voice soothes me like 
 music. I am not an altruist as you are, Gilbert, but I can 
 feel that I ought to let her make other people happy. 
 Her husband, her children by and by. I cannot keep 
 her to myself all my life." 
 
 Miranda was busy pouring out tea, with her head 
 drooping a little. 
 
 " You shall always have me to yourself, mother," she 
 said gravely. " All other people are outside our world. 
 I like going among Gillie's parishioners, just to become 
 acquainted with that big, struggling race — the people who 
 live in shabby houses, and seldom have quite enough to 
 eat. And when I come home and see all the pretty things 
 round us — well, the contrast makes my heart ache, just a 
 little bit." 
 
 Summer came — the feast of roses ; roses from the 
 beginning of June, and blooming in changeless beauty 
 till after midsummer ; and in all the time since her home- 
 coming Miranda had only seen Mark Raynham as a 
 stranger — had seen him far off on the moor in her morning 
 ride; had passed him in the village street. Once they 
 
MIRANDA 209 
 
 had met face to face, and she had made her face a blank 
 and had walked on just a little faster. She could not 
 escape such accidental meetings, and she could not 
 keep his name out of Mary Lester's talk — who, in her own 
 pet phrase, raved about him. 
 
 " One never meets him anywhere now," she said. " It's 
 really horrid. His wretched wife goes about telling people 
 that he is shut up in his den writing another great poem 
 that is to take the world by storm as ■ Dr. Forster ' did. 
 She has come out of her shell, as she calls it, and she is a 
 champion bore. She came to tea with mother the other 
 day and bored us all to tears. His behaviour is a 
 mystery. Last summer I always knew where to find him, 
 and he made your afternoons in the garden too lovely 
 for words. Has he offended your mother ? Has there 
 been a Melford quarrel — a deadly feud about nothing ? 
 Have you quarrelled with him ? Somehow or other I 
 think you must be responsible for the change." 
 
 Miranda met her questions with an adamantine front. 
 She had nothing to do with Mr. Raynham's seclusion. 
 She had always understood that poets worked in solitude, 
 and loved solitude for its own sake. 
 
 " Not when they are nine-and- twenty and as hand- 
 some as he is. Goethe and Byron were handsome, and 
 all the women were in love with them. Did they ever 
 shut themselves up inside four walls, or did Alfred de 
 Musset ? It ain't natural, Miranda, and there's something 
 at the back of it." 
 
 " Perhaps there is," said Miranda, " but it doesn't 
 matter to you or me." 
 
 She had taken a dislike to her old friend — the friend 
 who had been forced upon her by Mrs. Devereux's insist- 
 ence that she ought to consort with girls of her own age, 
 girls who would cure her of being romantic. She was 
 romantic still, and she had no use for the girls who talked 
 slang and affected a cynical attitude towards everything 
 lovely in earth and heaven. Mary chaffed her mercilessly 
 about her work in Trownham, of which she had heard 
 from the youngest of the curates. 
 
 14 
 
210 MIRANDA 
 
 " He absolutely raves about you," she told Miranda, 
 " and of your influence upon those wretched creatures in 
 the slums behind St. Barnabas'. But it seems a curious 
 line for you to take up, when I remember how you have 
 sat in the garden drinking in Mark Raynham's rank 
 materialism. I thought your only gospel was the 
 Rubaiyat and Shelley your only prophet." 
 
 Miranda let her talk. It seemed to matter so little 
 what anybody thought. She was getting a firmer hold 
 upon life, and the things that made it worth living. Her 
 heart and mind had been sick to death, but she began to 
 think they were cured. Her thoughts were happier, her 
 heart was quieter. 
 
 On this long June afternoon she was able to sit alone 
 in a peaceful reverie under the great plane-tree where she 
 had sat day after day last summer listening to a voice that 
 had thrilled her — a voice she was never to hear again. 
 That had happened years ago — so long ago that it seemed 
 a part of somebody else's life — the Miranda who was dead, 
 the romantic, impetuous girl, eager for new ideas, new 
 creeds, new dreams. It was a phase of her existence that 
 she had shaken off and done with, like the husks that fell 
 from the expanding blossoms of the horse-chestnuts. It 
 was a drowsy afternoon ; Lady Laura had confessed 
 to feeling just a little " under the weather," had been 
 persuaded to lie down in her own room after luncheon, and 
 would not be visible till half-past four. There had been 
 no question of a drive or of reading aloud, and Miranda 
 had the sultry hours on her own hands. 
 
 Her books lay unopened on the garden table, she had 
 been in no humour for reading, and was employed upon a 
 frock that she was making for the youngest of the Ball 
 children — a pretty little pink-and-white frock. Julia 
 was wonderful with her cutting-out scissors and her needle, 
 and a complete outfit was being made for the three- 
 and the four-year-old girl — " just to teach them not to 
 mind being washed," Miranda pleaded, when Mr. Ferrar 
 accused her of spoiling them. 
 
 She was less expert with her needle than Julia, and 
 
MIRANDA 211 
 
 this afternoon it travelled slowly through the crisp cotton 
 stuff. 
 
 She threw down her work at last with a sigh : " Oh, 
 those poor, poor slaves of the needle : 
 
 " 'Work, work, work, 
 
 From weary chime to chime/ 
 
 and for starvation wages. What a life ! " 
 
 She clasped her hands before her face, and thought 
 of what her own life had been. She thought what it was 
 to have been born rich, to have had beautiful things round 
 her from the opening eyes of dawn to the dark of night — 
 beautiful things and pleasant things. Never to have done 
 anything she did not want to do. And yet there had 
 been hours of discontent. Only since she had worked in 
 Trownham had she realized the difference of money and 
 no money ; only then had she understood and seen 
 with her own eyes all the comfort and the beauty of life 
 that the poor have to do without — and how cheerfully 
 some among them bear a life with such limitations. She 
 left the shade of the great tree and began to walk about the 
 garden, pining for air. There was so much to look at in 
 the herbaceous borders which stretched from end to end 
 of the two long lawns. Mark Raynham had called them 
 the " rapacious borders," so vast was their capacity for 
 swallowing up plants ; and now they were in their mid- 
 summer beauty — a feast of perfume and colour ; the tall 
 spikes of the larkspurs of a blue so dazzling that it made 
 the roses pale ; snow-white tropical flowers exhaling 
 delicatest odours, like the scent of the olia that drifts 
 across the lake from Bellagio to Cadenabbia ; lilies and 
 irises, sweet-peas making pyramids of mauve or pink, 
 and roses of every shape and every hue, opening their 
 great hearts to the sun. There was enough for Miranda 
 to look at as she sauntered along the grass, stopping now 
 and then to clip a fading rose, or a seeding larkspur, with 
 the garden scissors that hung from her waist-belt. 
 
 She was thinking of her work at Trownham, and her 
 quiet talks with Gilbert Ferrar, on the summer mornings 
 
 14* 
 
212 MIRANDA 
 
 when she and Julia had breakfasted with him in his grave, 
 book-lined sitting-room, after their early drive in the morn- 
 ing freshness. She was thinking how much that useful 
 work and that serious talk had done to lift the burden of 
 passionate regret from her mind. She had left off dreaming 
 of the life that might have been, and was living the life 
 that was, the life in which every day ended with some 
 profitable work done, and in which night brought no 
 fever-dreams. 
 
 She had not been alone in the garden for some time, 
 so she gave herself up to a leisurely investigation, and she 
 had gone through the shrubbery and was on her way to the 
 orchard, when a sound that was always dreadful in her 
 ears brought her to a sudden pause on the wooden bridge. 
 She had not been in the orchard since the last of the white 
 and pink of blossoming trees had glorified it, for it was 
 now too far for her mother's languid saunterings, and she 
 had seldom been free to ramble alone. All the hours not 
 spent at Trownham had been given to her mother. She 
 stopped on the little bridge at the tolling of the church bell, 
 the slow and solemn strokes that tell of somebody's death. 
 
 She had not heard of anybody dying — Julia, the in- 
 defatigable, who always kept in touch with the cottagers, 
 would have told her if it had been one of them. Strange 
 that her maid, who had a grim zest in announcing a death, 
 had told her nothing. 
 
 A man, bare-headed and ghastly pale, came out of the 
 shadows, as she passed through the orchard gate, rushed to 
 her, grasped her hand in a hand that was damp and cold 
 and horrible. 
 
 The bell tolled again. No passing-bell had ever seemed 
 so dreadful. 
 
 " Do you hear ? Miranda, do you hear the bell ? " 
 
 " How can I help hearing ? " she said coldly, snatching 
 her hand from his. " Who is it tolling for ? Is it for 
 anyone I know ? " 
 
 " My wife is dead." 
 
 " Your wife ! Dead ! I did not know she had been 
 ill — seriously ill." 
 
MIRANDA 213 
 
 " She had been ill for nearly a fortnight — yes, seriously 
 ill — something desperately wrong with her. Mason did 
 all he could. He was with her three or four times a day 
 — he got a hospital nurse for her. I wanted a consultation. 
 We were to have had the physician from York. The 
 appointment was made. He was to come to-morrow; 
 but she took an unexpected turn for the worse at one 
 o'clock to-day, and died in my arms." 
 
 " It must have been a terrible shock for you," Miranda 
 said, in a toneless voice. It sounded strange to her, like 
 somebody else's voice, and her heart was beating violently. 
 She could scarcely stand. 
 
 " I am sorry," she murmured as she turned to go. 
 
 He flung his arms round her, and held her to his breast. 
 
 " Miranda, do you understand ? I am free — free to 
 claim my own. I told you that you should be mine ; I 
 knew that it must be ; but, I did not think " — his voice 
 sinking to a hoarse whisper — " that it would be so soon. 
 My angel ! Think of that grey evening more than half 
 a year ago, when we stood among the rocks, and I told 
 you, I told you, that you should be mine. Miranda, think 
 of what I have suffered since then — the slow torture of 
 keeping away from you ; think what it is to hold you to 
 my heart, and to belong to you — your lover — your 
 husband ! " 
 
 He tried to kiss her, struggled for her lips with fierce 
 insistence, but she tore herself out of his arms. 
 
 " How dare you ? How dare you come to me from your 
 wife's deathbed ? How dare you touch me ? Do you 
 hear the bell ? You made me hate you that day by the 
 sea. You have made me hate you more to-day. You are 
 a heartless wretch." 
 
 " Yes, I am a wretch," he cried passionately, as she 
 stood aloof, crimson spots upon her cheek, her eyes blazing 
 with anger. " But for you and me nothing counts except 
 love. Love is not love if it does not stand for all this 
 world holds." 
 
 His eyes had been dry and fever-bright, but they clouded 
 all of a sudden and he burst into tears, and flung himself 
 
2i 4 MIRANDA 
 
 face downward on the grass. Miranda heard his hoarse 
 sobbing as she left the orchard. 
 
 She walked slowly through the shrubbery to the long 
 lawn, very slowly, hardly able to move. In the wild 
 confusion of her mind, in the utter exhaustion of her body, 
 it would have seemed natural to drop face downward 
 as Mark had done, upon the grass ; to lie there, without 
 thought, a senseless log. Never had she been so shaken, 
 never had her heart beat so furiously — not even upon that 
 grey evening when first his arms held her. 
 
 Again those arms had held her. Again heart had beaten 
 against heart. Was it the fufilment of her wicked dream ? 
 No ! For the dream had been calm and sweet — an 
 ecstasy of sinless love, the revelation of what pure love 
 really meant. 
 
 And now all was dark. He was free. It was the event 
 that she had thought of as impossible. This impossible 
 thing had happened ; there was no barrier between them — 
 nothing but her will and his ; and she had loved him all the 
 time of their separation with a girl's romantic passion, 
 and never had been able to banish the vision of what might 
 have been. 
 
 But to-day, when he came to her from the house of 
 death, and snatched her to his breast, and tried to kiss her 
 with lips that within the hour might have kissed the dead, 
 she shrank from him with unutterable horror : she in 
 whose happy life that awful shape had never come, and 
 who had thought of death with unspeakable awe — the 
 dreadful, the inevitable doom that had come across the 
 threshold in its ghastliest form before she was born. She 
 had brooded upon that horror of the past, pitying her 
 mother with a tender retrospective compassion. Could 
 she do less than hate this man for the exultation in his 
 face and voice when he told her that he was free, while the 
 sound of the passing-bell was in the air ? He had been 
 hateful — more hateful even than in his violence by the great 
 grey sea. 
 
 The thought that she might have to tell her mother of 
 Mrs. Raynham's death was terrible, and her languid step 
 
MIRANDA 215 
 
 grew still slower as she drew near the house. It was a 
 relief to find people in the drawing-room. Mrs. Parlby 
 and her daughters ; Mrs. Devereux. It seemed outside 
 as if the room were full of voices ; but they stopped suddenly 
 as she went in. 
 
 Her mother looked at her anxiously. 
 
 " My darling, where have you been ? And, oh, how 
 pale you are ! " 
 
 " I have been hearing that dreadful bell." 
 
 " And it has upset you. Isn't it too awful ? Poor 
 Mrs. Raynham is dead, and we did not even know that 
 she was ill." 
 
 " Everybody else knew," said Mrs. Devereux. " Mason's 
 trap has been at the door nearly all day. But you don't 
 often come through the village." 
 
 " Not in this weather. It has been too warm for after- 
 noon drives." 
 
 " And Miranda has taken to good works and spends 
 most of her time in the Trownham slums," said Mrs. 
 Devereux, in a voice that expressed surprise rather than 
 admiration. " That comes of dear Miss Wagstaff's good 
 example, no doubt." 
 
 Miss Wagstaff was carrying Miranda's tea to the sofa 
 where the girl sat by her mother, white and silent. 
 
 " The poor child is quite upset," remarked Mrs. Parlby. 
 " One would think she had never heard the passing- 
 bell till to-day." 
 
 " My darling is too sensitive," murmured Lady Laura. 
 
 And then the ghoulish conversation that Miranda's 
 entrance had interrupted was resumed with renewed 
 animation. 
 
 Every detail was discussed — the nature and the duration 
 of the malady, with severe remarks upon " poor little 
 Mason," who hadn't understood the case, and had lost 
 precious time at the beginning. 
 
 " Mason is getting past his work, and hasn't kept him- 
 self up to date with hard study, as the London doctors 
 do," said the voice of authority, from Mrs. Devereux. 
 And then the small antecedent events were discussed : 
 
216 MIRANDA 
 
 how Mrs. Raynham had been at church on the Sunday 
 before last — two days less than a fortnight ago — looking 
 no sicklier than usual ; how she had walked home from 
 church with Mrs. Parlby, and how upon this very Sunday 
 there had been a sudden drop in the temperature. 
 
 " Our wretched, unreliable climate," Mrs. Devereux 
 interposed ; " and the poor thing got a chill. Perhaps you 
 made her walk too fast, Sarah." 
 
 Mrs. Parlby was offended at the suggestion. 
 
 " I am not usually inconsiderate, Selina. I absolutely 
 crawled as far as The Dene with that poor creature. My 
 girls know that I was late for luncheon, which I hate to be 
 on a Sunday, when the servants have the sirloin after us." 
 
 Gastritis, as the result of a chill — that was the utmost 
 that the keenest curiosity had been able to squeeze out 
 of Dr. Mason, or the hospital nurse, who had been met 
 daily on her airing — " quite a superior person, and so 
 sympathetic." She had praised Mr. Raynham for his 
 attention to his wife. " So kind, so thoughtful ! " 
 
 " Rather sweet of him, isn't it ? " asked Kate Parlby, 
 " for he must have found her an awful burden." 
 
 " I only wonder he could have put up with her so long — 
 that he didn't go and hide himself in Italy, and leave 
 her to nurse her anaemia in solitude," said Clara. 
 
 " We ought not to talk about that now," Lady Laura 
 said gravely. 
 
 The ghoulish talk had sickened her, and the sight of 
 Miranda's white face made her miserable. She felt vaguely 
 that this woman's death was something that might touch 
 her nearly. She had no distinct idea of harm that could 
 come of it, only vague apprehensions, dark foreshadowings. 
 
 Her visitors had risen almost simultaneously, as if 
 frozen by the reproof in her manner, and there had been 
 the usual apologies for staying too long, the usual talk of 
 a "visitation." 
 
 " There is an atmosphere in this room that makes one 
 unconscious of time," said Mrs. Parlby, who was always 
 bland and complimentary. 
 
 That sterner matron, Mrs. Devereux, could not get 
 
MIRANDA 217 
 
 herself out of the room without remarking upon Miranda's 
 pallor. 
 
 '■ Poor child. You really look like a ghost. You 
 oughtn't to be so upset about this sad event. I don't 
 think you were very intimate with Mrs. Raynham." 
 
 " I have a horror of death," Miranda said in a dull voice. 
 
 It was the first time she had spoken since she sank 
 down upon the sofa, by her mother's side. She had not 
 been able to drink the tea Julia brought her, for her hand 
 had trembled too obviously when she lifted the cup, and 
 she knew that curious eyes were watching her — the eyes of 
 the people who had " talked about " Mark Raynham's 
 too frequent visits and her liking for him ; had talked, no 
 doubt, when he came there no more ; had wondered and 
 speculated upon his reasons for staying away. 
 
 Mary Lester had not scrupled to question her, but had 
 learnt nothing; and Mary had told her how people had 
 talked. 
 
 " You ought to know, dear," she said with her good- 
 natured air. " It's only right you should know. Of 
 course we are all in love with him — every girl in this 
 God-forsaken place. Who could help it ? He is so hand- 
 some, so gifted — such a divine creature as compared with 
 curates, and hobbledehoys. Of course we are in love with 
 him — but nobody troubles to talk about us. You are a 
 beauty and an heiress, and you have to pay the penalty. 
 I wish I had your complaint, Miranda. They might talk 
 till their tongues dropped out." 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE coffin that held Mark Raynham's wife was carried 
 to the churchyard, heaped with flowers, conspicuous 
 among which was the cross of roses and lilies from The 
 Barrow. Everybody had sent flowers — all the women who 
 had called Mark Raynham's wife a champion bore prided 
 themselves upon having been kind to her. No doubt her 
 funeral would figure in Saturday's Trownham Guardian, with 
 a list of the people who had sent " floral tributes." And 
 in the meantime even this common event in the history 
 of men's lives gave Melford something to talk about. The 
 gossips would be sorry when the hospital nurse disappeared. 
 She had made an agreeable diversion in the daily visit 
 to the village shops, being always ready to stop and talk. 
 They seemed to have come closer to the poet's person- 
 ality in her graphic account of him than in their previous 
 experience of the man himself. 
 
 Again the sound of the solemn bell came over the roses 
 and lilies in the long borders, and Miranda knew that 
 Mark Raynham's wife had gone down into the grave — 
 dust to dust — with the divine promise of a higher life 
 spoken above her coffin. 
 
 He was free. 
 
 There had been very few people at the funeral. Dr. 
 Mason and the widower were the only occupants of the 
 undertaker's dismal coach. The nurse and three of the 
 household servants followed on foot, and made a little 
 group on one side of the grave, while a few of the villagers 
 had put on rusty black, and stood aloof, with morbid 
 
 218 
 
MIRANDA 219 
 
 interest and facile tears, watching the ceremony. Some 
 of these were aunts or mothers of The Dene servants, to 
 whom Mrs. Raynham had sent presents of grocery at 
 Christmas and Easter, and they talked of her as a kind 
 lady who enjoyed very poor health. 
 
 Miranda stayed indoors all the long, slow day — for 
 the sound of the bell had made the garden horrible. She 
 dreaded it before it came, and afterwards the echo of that 
 funeral note seemed to follow her everywhere. All the 
 windows were open to the summer air, and the sound 
 came to her in the pretty morning-room where she sat at 
 her mother's feet reading the " Bride of Lammermoor." 
 She had chosen a melancholy story, as if a touch of gaiety 
 even in a book would be an insult to the dead. 
 
 " Am I a hypocrite even to myself, when I think that 
 I am sorry ? " she wondered. 
 
 Thought of from every point of view, this death seemed 
 dreadful — dreadful most of all because Mark Raynham 
 had wanted it to happen. Could she ever forget his face 
 as he came to her out of the shadows of the orchard trees 
 — the gladness shining in his eyes, the horror on his white 
 lips ? He was glad, he rejoiced in his emancipation, yet 
 he was human, and he had humanity's horror of death. 
 The days went by somehow, and Miranda was able to 
 resume her work at Trownham, and to sit in the garden 
 or drive with her mother in the afternoons. They were 
 more than ever devoted to each other, and they talked of 
 many things in the old confidential way, but no word 
 was ever spoken about Mark or Mark's wife — except one 
 evening, a week after the funeral, when just before they 
 parted for the night Lady Laura said suddenly : "I 
 have had a letter from Mr. Raynham." 
 " Indeed, mother ? " 
 
 " Quite a nice letter, thanking me for having been 
 kind to his wife — though there was so little I could do to 
 brighten her lot, poor creature. He has gone away — 
 at least, he was to leave this afternoon. He is going to the 
 Hartz Mountains, for a quiet time. He is going to work 
 hard at his book in some out-of-the-way spot where there 
 
220 MIRANDA 
 
 are only peasants, and where he will have to live like a 
 peasant." 
 
 Miranda listened in silence, very pale. It was a 
 relief that he was gone — better for her peace of mind that 
 she should be safe from any sudden meeting. She thought 
 of him far off, on the sea, sailing under the summer stars — 
 going far away into a place of passionless peace. 
 
 " And now," said Lady Laura, with a long sigh, " I 
 hope that young man has gone out of our lives for ever." 
 
 " Mother ! Isn't that an unkind thing to say ? I 
 thought you liked him. I know you did till Aunt Hilda 
 set you against him." 
 
 " No, Miranda, I never really liked him. I thought 
 him amusing, and that made me encourage him more 
 than I ought to have done. But there was always some- 
 thing at the bottom of my mind — I believe it was an 
 instinct that told me he was not quite a gentleman." 
 
 '* Mother ! " cried Miranda, flushing angrily. " He ! — 
 the man who wrote ' Dr. Forster,' not a gentleman ! " 
 
 This was too much ! Anything might have been borne 
 but that. 
 
 " No, Miranda, a gentleman could not have written 
 * Dr. Forster.' " 
 
 " Then I suppose Goethe was not a gentleman ? I 
 suppose Marlowe was not " 
 
 She remembered the career of that genius in time to 
 prevent her finishing the sentence. 
 
 " Good-night, mother," she said coldly, and went 
 slowly towards her own room. 
 
 It was almost a quarrel ; the nearest thing to a 
 quarrel that there had ever been between mother and 
 daughter. 
 
 Miranda resumed her strenuous days — rode in the dewy 
 mornings before an eight o'clock breakfast, and drove her 
 pony-cart across the moor with Julia and a basket, and 
 was among her people — she had learnt to call them " my 
 people " — before ten. She had widened her experience 
 and had made friends with other families, but the Miss 
 
MIRANDA 221 
 
 Balls had the lion's share of her morning hours. They were 
 so fond of her, and she could not resist the grubby little 
 hands that clung to her skirt when she was going away — 
 not so grubby as they had been at first, for she had talked 
 to them very earnestly about the luxury of soap and 
 water, and how well-washed faces made little girls pretty. 
 
 " Are I pretty to-day ? " Ethel asked her one morn- 
 ing. " Jane Maria washed me cruel, but we're going to 
 have suet pudding with some of your lovely jam." 
 
 The Vicar looked in now and then in the course of his 
 rounds, and found Miranda with broom or dusting-brush, 
 doing some of Jane Maria's work, while the house-mother 
 was at school. He would review the Ball children, and 
 express his approval of their clean frocks and faces, or 
 would sit on the other side of Mrs. Tilford's bed, and 
 talk to Miranda across the coverlet, the pretty cotton 
 coverlet with a pattern of pink roses that was a new 
 thing in that poor room — like the row of flowerpots on the 
 window-sill, making a screen of bloom and perfume 
 between the bedridden woman and the dingy street. 
 
 " You have made my people very happy," Gilbert said, 
 as he walked with her to the inn yard, where she was to 
 find Julia and the pony-carriage. 
 
 " I wish I could make them all happy — instead of just 
 a few." 
 
 " And you look happy yourself. I think parish work 
 agrees with you." 
 
 " Yes," she said, turning her bright face towards him, 
 " I love the work." 
 
 It was October, the year was growing old, and the 
 sky was dull. It seemed a long time since the villagers 
 had been standing at The Dene gates to see a coffin heaped 
 with flowers carried out into the sunshine. Gilbert Ferrar 
 had observed a change in Miranda. The troubled look had 
 gone from the broad forehead ; the eyes were brilliant as 
 in the old days when she was his pupil, enthusiastic, 
 ambitious, eager to excel in everything, wanting all 
 knowledge without the trouble of learning. 
 
 She was lovelier now, with a fuller and more mature 
 
222 MIRANDA 
 
 beauty, and the serenity which her beauty had wanted of 
 late had returned since she had been working for others. 
 
 He could not doubt that she was happier than she had 
 been within the last year, and presently he began to ask 
 himself what the change meant. 
 
 One day in their walk through a narrow lane between 
 James Ball's house and the George Inn, he asked her 
 a question about Mark Raynham ; and then he knew ! 
 
 It was a very commonplace question — had Mr. Rayn- 
 ham left The Dene for good, and was the house to let ? 
 
 He had but to watch her face as she answered. He 
 had but to see the sudden crimson of the cheek, and the 
 faint quiver of the lip that spoke. 
 
 " Oh, no ; he has only gone away for a time — to a 
 village in the Hartz Mountains, where he will write his 
 new poem/' 
 
 Now he knew why that young look of happiness had 
 come back to her face — the joyous beauty he remembered 
 in the girl of seventeen. 
 
 She loved this man, and his wife's death had set him 
 free. It was no longer a sin to love him. It was she who 
 had escaped from bondage. 
 
 " Did he tell you his plans ? " 
 
 " He wrote to my mother before he went away." 
 
 " And he means to return to The Dene ? " 
 
 " How should I know ? I only know that the house 
 is not to let." 
 
 " Perhaps the Melford people would like to see a board 
 up. There might be a chance of a new tenant whom they 
 could call an acquisition. I don't think they considered 
 Mr. Raynham an acquisition." 
 
 " They made a fuss about him at first, but he refused 
 their invitations. You could not expect him to waste 
 precious evenings on their dull dinners, and to bore himself 
 to death in their ugly drawing-rooms. He does not belong 
 to their world." 
 
 " But he was always happy at The Barrow ? " 
 
 " Yes, we understood him — and he amused my 
 mother." 
 
MIRANDA 223 
 
 " Well, perhaps he will come back a year hence and 
 marry Mary Lester, who made no secret of her adoration." 
 
 She turned upon him fiercely. 
 
 " It is not like you to say such a vulgar thing." 
 
 " Yes, it was vulgar, but I'm afraid it is true. Girls 
 of that temperament have only to know that a man has 
 written an improper book and scoffs at everything holy 
 in order to make a hero of him." 
 
 They were in front of the George Inn by this time, 
 and Miranda took the reins from the groom, and sprang 
 into her seat, ignoring Gilbert Ferrar's offered hand. 
 
 " Perhaps you'll be kind enough to look for Julia," she 
 said. " She can't be far off." 
 
 Julia came up at the instant, breathless. 
 
 " Have I kept you waiting ? " 
 
 " No, but mother will be waiting for luncheon, unless I 
 let Piggy gallop." 
 
 She dismissed her escort with a curt nod. 
 
 " Piggy " was short for Pygmalion — the Exmoor pony's 
 name, given by Miranda, and spelt wrong on the name- 
 plate over his manger. 
 
 She was happy. All the world was new, and all her 
 dreams now were happy dreams. To sink down into the 
 deep gulf of sleep, after a long and busy day, tired in 
 body, but fresh in mind, was to enter Paradise. She 
 was with him, hanging upon his arm, and they were 
 wandering in a dream-world — a world where sin was not, 
 or care, or sickness or old age. They were among lakes 
 and mountains, pine forests and Alpine valleys ; all that 
 she had ever fancied of earth's beauty. Or they were in 
 the old familiar scene, the garden where she had first 
 loved him — unconsciously drifting from friendship to 
 love, unaware of sin. Perhaps those were the sweetest 
 of all her dreams — to be with him in the home she loved. 
 Her mother was near them, smiling and happy, and there 
 was no icy breath of prejudice and dislike to freeze her 
 heart. There was only love, and the close union that 
 goes with happy love. 
 
 She was happy. He had been gone half a year, and 
 
224 MIRANDA 
 
 had made no sign. He had not written to her as he might 
 have done. The ordinary lover would have troubled her 
 with letters — complaining, protesting, adjuring, assevera- 
 ting, crying out against Fate that kept them apart for a 
 time. 
 
 She liked him better for not having written. That 
 was his sacrifice to the daad wife. She had no mure doubt 
 of his love than of the colour in the sky above her head. 
 She had been angry with him, horrified by his impetuous 
 passion. It was a horrible thing that he should have 
 rushed from his wife's deathbed, exultant and happy. 
 She could never think of that scene in the orchard without 
 a shudder. 
 
 But she knew that he loved her, passionately, with a 
 love that nothing could change or lessen. 
 
 Thus it was that she was neither offended nor distressed 
 by his silence. He loved her, and he would come to 
 claim her at the fitting time. There was no barrier 
 between them now — nothing to make their love horrible. 
 
 No barrier ? Alas, there was the thought that her 
 mother was prejudiced against him, and might be dis- 
 tressed at the idea of their marriage. 
 
 This thought came like a dark cloud across her dream 
 of the future ; and then she looked back and remembered 
 what her mother had been to her — how tenderly fond, 
 yielding to every whim — always ready to give way to 
 her daughter in every question of their lives ; doing this 
 or that, going here or there — in every choice of things 
 great or small. 
 
 " She would never make me unhappy," Miranda thought, 
 as she hung over her mother's sofa. 
 
 Christmas was enlivening Melford-on-the-Moor, and 
 two swollen-breasted and blue and red be-ribboned turkeys 
 hung like heraldic supporters on either side the village 
 poulterer's door. 
 
 All the young ladies of the parish, except Miranda, 
 were leading the curate a life, in the old Norman church, 
 by their artistic notions and feminine exigencies in the 
 
MIRANDA 225 
 
 task of decoration, wanting so much waiting upon that 
 the curate told his landlady, in confidence, he would rather 
 have done the work himself. 
 
 The Barrow had sent more than half the flowers for 
 the parish church, but Miranda's work was given to St. 
 Barnabas', where the chancel was to be more beautiful 
 than it had ever been before — although there were many 
 good people in the populous town who spent money on 
 hothouse flowers for the church they loved. 
 
 Christmas had come to Melford, and Christmas had 
 come in a more exuberant fashion to Trownham — where 
 the flaring lights on the costermongers' barrows made the 
 slums behind St. Barnabas' dazzling. 
 
 Miranda showered Christmas gifts on her people. Mrs. 
 Tilford's dull bedroom blossomed like the rose, and the 
 Miss Balls had new frocks, warm and comfortable and 
 pretty, such frocks as they had never worn before. Jane 
 Maria was swollen with pride when she made her way up 
 the crowded aisle, conscious of navy blue serge and a 
 black crinoline hat trimmed with blue bows and a white 
 wing. Jane Maria had never had a coat and skirt before 
 Miss Strickland took her in hand " and made a lady of 
 her," as her father told Mr. Ferrar. 
 
 What could she do to make other people happy ? That 
 was a question Miranda asked herself very often in the 
 Christmas gladness, while her heart overflowed with joy. 
 She gave no shape to her content ; would not even think 
 of the future ; made no plans ; waited in a heavenly calm 
 till her lover came to claim her. 
 
 An infidel ? Yes ; but had he not told her that the 
 gospel story was the most beautiful fable that was ever 
 invented ? Had not the Raphael face flushed with warm 
 feeling, and the dark blue eyes grown suddenly dim, as he 
 enlarged with splendid eloquence on that ideal life ? It 
 would be her work, an adoring wife's natural task, to win 
 him back to the simple faith of his childhood, when he had 
 knelt against his mother's knees before the altar in the 
 Madonna's Chapel, and watched her lips moving as she 
 prayed. 
 
 15 
 
226 MIRANDA 
 
 He had once lived in the light of a mother's unquestioning 
 faith, and it must be for his wife to bring him back into 
 that kindly light. 
 
 "Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom." 
 
 It was not of herself, but of her lover that she thought 
 now when she repeated Newman's hymn. 
 
 She could not dissociate him from her prayers and 
 aspirations in those solemn services of vigil and festival. 
 He was always in her mind. Kneeling long, and with 
 lowered head, she prayed for the conversion of her lover. 
 " Lead him, dear Lord, show Thyself to him. Soften the 
 stubborn will, satisfy the eager mind, humble the pride 
 of intellect that keeps him aloof from Thee." 
 
 Her Christmas devotions in that crowded church were 
 one long prayer for her lover's redemption. 
 
 Could he remain an unbeliever, he so gifted ? She 
 thought of Romanes, the man of research, the man who 
 had given all his days to scientific truth, kneeling in sweet 
 humility before the altar at Costabelle, when the shadows 
 were closing round the laborious life, and the great brain 
 had done its last work. Remembering all she had read 
 about Romanes, it seemed to her that there must be always 
 hope for the great intellect. The hour comes and the 
 impulse ; and there is a sudden rent in the cloud, and 
 the light streams through — not the light of scientific truth 
 — but the light that comes from God, the light that shone 
 at Bethlehem, and on the tomb in the garden after the 
 darkness of Calvary. 
 
 There were no gaieties at The Barrow. Lady Laura, 
 who had always hated exertion, mental or bodily, and for 
 whom a dinner-party had been an affliction from the hour 
 her invitations were sent out to the last sound of carriage 
 wheels as the last guest drove away, was pleased to accept 
 her position as an invalid, and to cease to take trouble 
 about anything. 
 
 " Your aunts are to be with us at Easter," she told 
 Miranda, " all three of them, if the house is big enough for 
 
MIRANDA 227 
 
 their exigencies — all wanting best rooms for themselves, 
 and being huffed if we put their maids in attics. You'll have 
 to manage everything, Miranda. I rather hate staying 
 visitors, and one's own flesh and blood is always the worst. 
 Your aunts' fads are beyond belief." 
 
 " They give one to think," said her girl gaily. " One 
 has to bear in mind that Aunt Geraldine is a strict vege- 
 tarian, that Aunt Louisa can't live without a quart bottle 
 of Vichy Water at her right hand, upstairs, downstairs, 
 and in my lady's chamber, and that Aunt Hilda wants 
 every window wide open, while Aunt Geraldine lives in 
 mortal fear of a draught. Yes, the aunts give one to 
 think. But don't mind, dearest. Dear old Curtis and I 
 against any three." 
 
 Curtis was the housekeeper, who had been a buxom 
 wench of forty when Mr. Strickland's happy life ended in a 
 tragedy. Curtis weighed seventeen stone, but would have 
 stood on her head behind her parlour door if Miranda had 
 required such an effort. Curtis would do anything for 
 Miranda, and cook would do anything for Curtis, and 
 Jenny, kitchen-maid, for cook, and Polly, scullery-maid, 
 for Jenny, who had been at school with her. It was a 
 chain of friendly feeling, in a house where servants had 
 been properly treated. That was Lady Laura's phrase ; 
 " Petted and spoiled and made fools of " was Aunt Hilda's 
 variation. 
 
 So there had been no visitors at Christmas, except the 
 old vicar and his wife and the curate, and that pleasant 
 old bachelor, little Dr. Mason, whom Miranda insisted 
 upon inviting. 
 
 " I like you to be nice to him, dearest," she told her 
 mother. " I want him to feel something warmer than 
 mere professional interest in you. I want him to think 
 of you as the sweetest woman in this world — not just as a 
 case." 
 
 " It must be as you like, dear, but your Aunt Hilda 
 would be horrified." 
 
 " Yes, I know. She would preach one of her sermonettes, 
 and tell me that when she was a girl the family doctor 
 
 15* 
 
228 MIRANDA 
 
 was never asked to dinner. Thank goodness she couldn't 
 go on being a girl for ever, and the barriers have been 
 broken down since her time. My uncle invites all sorts and 
 conditions of men — outsiders, bounders, oil kings, rubber 
 kings, bishops and flying men, lion-shooting men, and 
 actresses who began their career at the music-halls — 
 and everybody says his parties are delightful." 
 
 " Your uncle knows dreadful people," sighed Lady 
 Laura, " but he has always been lucky — everything he 
 attempts comes off." 
 
 Miranda was not devoted to her aunts. She had first 
 learned to know them as people who came to the house, 
 and made more fuss than they would have been safe in 
 making at a superior hotel, lest the proprietor should 
 unexpectedly find their rooms were wanted. The observant 
 eyes of childhood had seen the fuss and the trouble, and 
 the ears of an adoring daughter had heard the sisterly 
 lectures and hectorings to which Lady Laura had sub- 
 mitted. The aunts took everything and gave nothing. 
 
 When she was beginning to have an inquiring mind, she 
 startled her mother by asking : " They are your step- 
 sisters, ain't they ? " 
 
 " No, darling. Why do you ask such a question ? " 
 
 " Do you mean that they are your very own sisters ? " 
 — and being told yes, she said, with a long-drawn sigh, 
 " I thought they couldn't be your very own — they are so 
 like Cinderella's stepsisters." 
 
 She was reproved, and assured that her aunts had hearts 
 of gold, and high principles, although one might not 
 always like their ways. 
 
 " We see so much more of their ways than of their 
 hearts," Miranda said. She was at the pert age, and her 
 aunts had aggravated her by their treatment of her 
 mother. 
 
 " I don't mind what they say to me. They may call 
 me a spoilt minx if they like — Aunt Hilda did last Thursday. 
 I'm not afraid of standing up to them, as Whipple says ; 
 but I can't bear to hear them preach and domineer over 
 
 you." 
 
MIRANDA 229 
 
 This was when she was ten years old, and had ridden to 
 hounds. 
 
 And now Holy Week and the aunts had come, and there 
 were two motor-cars encumbering Whipple's domain, 
 where old, unused carriages had to be taken out of coach- 
 houses and put into outhouses to make room for vehicles 
 of forty horse-power, and there were two exacting 
 
 chauffeurs of foreign extraction — " d d frogs ! " 
 
 Whipple called them — loafing in the saddle-room or 
 gormandizing in the servants' hall — as described by 
 Whipple. There would have been three cars and three 
 chauffeurs, if Lord Albury had not, with marital selfish- 
 ness, carried himself and his Rolls-Royce to Scotland for 
 the vacation. 
 
 Easter was at hand, and Miranda's gracious home was 
 made another place by the presence of the aunts and their 
 following. Had not the cars carried them off every after- 
 noon on visits to friends at a distance, things would have 
 been worse. As it was, Miranda and Curtis managed every- 
 thing, and Lady Laura could have her quiet afternoons 
 with her girl, and her long, slow drives in the lanes and 
 woods, where the spring flowers were making the dull world 
 lovely. Miranda could even manage that they could have 
 their evenings to themselves, and slip away to the morning- 
 room after dinner ; for the three aunts loved dummy bridge, 
 and once seated at the green table, were hardly conscious 
 that their hostess had left them. 
 
 " Laura has always played at being an invalid," Aunt 
 Hilda said, suddenly aware of her sister's disappearance. 
 
 Lady Albury shook her head despondingly. 
 
 "I'm afraid it's real this time. I can see a change in 
 her," she said. " Yes, there is certainly a change, and 
 that pain she talks of must mean something. She never 
 
 had much life, poor dear, but now " she shrugged her 
 
 shoulders, sighed — and shuffled the cards. 
 
 " I don't think her daughter sees it." 
 
 " Miranda is a curious girl. The last time I was here 
 she was taken up with the poet." 
 
 " Your poet ? " 
 
230 MIRANDA 
 
 " Oh, I know I helped to launch him. I dare say it 
 was our house made him the fashion. I put him on my 
 luncheon list, and people met him and were taken with 
 his Raphael face, and he got asked everywhere. Of course 
 he was amusing, but I had to open Laura's eyes to the 
 danger of allowing an attractive young man to sit in 
 Miranda's pocket day after day." 
 
 " Was it you invented the Raphael face ? " 
 
 " No, that was in the interview that appeared in the 
 Mayjair Gazette a week before ' Dr. Forster ' was published. 
 Owen Meredith, don't you know ? " 
 
 Her sisters did not know; literature, whether prose or 
 verse, being outside their world. 
 
 " I thought Miranda immensely improved this time," 
 said Lady Albury, " not so handsome, but better style." 
 
 " She has taken to good works. If you call that better 
 style. I don't," said Lady Haverstock. " That kind of 
 thing is the quintessence of the middle-class life." 
 
 " Poor things ! They have more time to go about 
 doing good," said Aunt Louisa, who, being the stoutest of 
 the sisters, and having let her figure go, was also the most 
 good-natured. 
 
 " Pulling in " does not conduce to an indulgent view 
 of other people's lives. 
 
 " Miranda is a creature of fads," said Lady Haverstock, 
 and the cards being dealt, there was silence. 
 
 Miranda was happy, and the visit of the aunts seemed 
 less of an infliction than usual. Perhaps her work in 
 Trownham had made her more business-like and methodi- 
 cal; at any rate, there was nothing forgotten. Aunt 
 Louisa had an unfailing supply of Vichy, and Curtis and 
 the cook worked wonders with eggs and macaroni and 
 choice spring vegetables to vary Aunt Geraldine's menu. 
 
 " I will say this for you, Laura. You have a cordon bleu 
 in your kitchen," Lady Haverstock said solemnly, as if 
 it were her youngest sister's redeeming virtue. 
 
 " And your still-room maid must be a dependable 
 person, for Duval never has to run all over the house to 
 
MIRANDA 231 
 
 get me my Vichy, as she has in some places. When it is 
 wanted it is there." 
 
 "I am so glad/' Lady Laura said radiantly. " Miranda 
 looks after everything." 
 
 " I shouldn't have thought it of her ! " 
 " Oh, it is easy enough when the servants like one," 
 said Miranda. " They would all go through fire and 
 water for mother and me." 
 
 " Your mother simply spoils them, my dear, just as she 
 has always spoilt you." 
 
 " But, you see, it answers. If you could hear the Lester 
 girls talk of their servants, and the dreadful things that 
 go on. The cook always with the hump, their father using 
 bad language from the soup to the savoury, and some- 
 times looking as if he would like to throw the dessert at 
 his wife. He did throw a peach once, Mary said, but fortu- 
 nately he aimed too high, and it went over her head and 
 hit the butler. He always rows her for the cook's delin- 
 quencies — ' because, if you had any sense, madam, you 
 would have sacked her before she had been poisoning us a 
 week,' " concluded Miranda, imitating Mary Lester's 
 imitation of her father. 
 The aunts condescended to laugh at this gloomy picture. 
 " They live on the crust of a volcano, and never know 
 when the eruption will come or where it will come from. 
 If mother does spoil everyone who comes near her, isn't 
 the rule of love better ? " 
 
 " Well, yes — if you have good servants, you can't treat 
 them too well. They are not easily spoiled," said Lady 
 Albury. 
 
 " And not easily found," sighed Aunt Geraldine. " If 
 I had as good a man as your Whipple to drive my 
 car, I shouldn't go through Piccadilly in fear of sudden 
 death." 
 
 The aunts vanished — not exactly like snowflakes in the 
 river, for a three weeks' visit must count for something, 
 even with one's own flesh and blood — indeed, more with 
 one's own flesh and blood than with mere friends, " who 
 must behave," Miranda said, when the three ladies had 
 
232 MIRANDA 
 
 devoted their last morning to a serious talk with their 
 youngest sister. They set before her the folly of her 
 ways in not having married her daughter to a duke 
 before now. 
 
 " I don't believe there are any dukes," Lady Laura 
 said piteously, " not marriageable dukes, under eighty." 
 
 " Oh, yes, there are, if you know how to look foi them, 
 or at least young men who are going to be dukes. You are 
 spoiling your daughter's life. Two years ago, with her 
 money and her beauty, she might have married anyone. 
 And you have wasted those two years. Miranda is not 
 growing younger, and she is not growing handsomer. She 
 lights up in the evening, but when first I saw her I 
 thought her decidedly gone off. I like to be frank with 
 you, Laura." 
 
 " I know you do, Hilda, but you don't make allow- 
 ances. I have not been strong enough to do a London 
 season, and my sweet girl found it out, and insisted on 
 cancelling the agreement for Rutland Gate." 
 
 " I don't believe there's anything the matter with you, 
 except your lymphatic temperament. You have always 
 been lymphatic and a shirker. You used to say you 
 had a sick headache and shirk your dancing lesson, when 
 we had that horridly expensive Madame Battemain, 
 who never came into the house under two guineas." 
 
 " I had a sick headache, Hilda, and I was never a 
 shirker. Why do you come and bother me about 
 Miranda ? We are perfectly happy together. There's 
 nothing I would not do for her — nothing I could refuse 
 her." 
 
 " Of course not, and some day she'll tell you she has 
 engaged herself to Gilbert Ferrar or one of his ridiculous 
 curates — and then where will you be ? " 
 
 Laura Strickland turned pale — but it was not at the 
 thought of Gilbert or his curate. The shadow across her 
 path took a different form. 
 
 " I wish she would marry Gilbert, who is absolutely 
 perfect, and then you couldn't worry me about her any 
 more." 
 
MIRANDA 233 
 
 " Do you suppose we want to worry you ? " demanded 
 Lady Albury. " You have given us a delightful time, 
 and I'm sure we are all grateful — I know the chauffeurs 
 are. They don't often get done so well. But we have 
 a duty to you and your girl " 
 
 " Who is a sweet thing ! " 
 
 " And was born to make a great match." 
 
 '• And to be married in the Abbey, with all London at 
 her wedding. And if you do feel rather limp, and not 
 up to a London season, why not let me have your girl ? 
 Now that my own girls are off the hooks, I could give all 
 my mind to catching a big fish for Miranda." 
 
 " That's kind of you, Hilda ; but I'm in no hurry to 
 see my darling married. She is all the world to me, and 
 we are happy together. Come to her when we are parted 
 — come and fill a mother's place. She will be lonely and 
 perhaps rather helpless when I am gone." 
 
 " My dear, you forget that I am nearly ten years older 
 than you. Don't talk such nonsense, Laura. You will 
 see your daughter married, and be a happy grandmother, 
 with a little Miranda to keep you company in this God- 
 forsaken hole, when Miranda the First is a leader in the 
 best set in London." 
 
 " Oh, Hilda, you talk of things that can never be. 
 You don't know what pain I suffer and how ill I feel 
 sometimes — and how near the end seems." 
 
 " Nothing but nerves, my dear ; only nerves." 
 
 Lady Haverstock's leave-taking was almost tender. 
 She was really fond of her sister in an overbearing way, 
 and if she sometimes made a convenience of the big, 
 luxurious house, and went there when she had nowhere 
 else to go, she did it with the conviction that her sister 
 wanted rousing, and that she was doing her a kindness. 
 
 Miranda felt happier when the aunts were gone. She 
 had suspected them of talking to Lady Laura about Mark 
 Raynham — dropping poison into her ear. She had seen 
 her mother looking unhappy after a long motor drive to 
 some far-off mansion : a visit she had been told she must 
 pay. 
 
234 MIRANDA 
 
 They were gone, and Miranda went back to her friends 
 in the slums, and was happier sitting by Mrs. Tilford's bed 
 than on the spacious sofa with Aunt Hilda. At Trownham 
 she had the assurance that her people liked her, and had 
 no hidden thoughts about her. The little Balls clus- 
 tered at her knees, listening to her fairy stories with 
 open-mouthed idolatry. Sometimes, instead of " Pass in 
 Boots " or " Cinderella," she would tell them a Gospel 
 story, she would try to make them see some picture out 
 of that lovely life on the shore of Galilee, or among the 
 splendours of Jerusalem ; she would tell them about 
 this divine Friend who loved little children, about the 
 divine Shepherd who carried the lost lamb upon His 
 shoulder. Gilbert Ferrar had told her that she need not 
 preach to them, or teach them. He could do that. She 
 had only to love them. Perhaps he knew that, loving 
 them, she could try to open their baby minds to the more 
 wonderful love that was waiting for them. They were 
 babies, only just of age to attend the infant school, yet 
 Miranda thought that they seemed to understand her 
 when she made pictures for them — word-pictures of the 
 Good Shepherd, and the scenes through which He moved. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 APRIL sunshine and April rain came dancing over the 
 moor and making the earth gay, and James Whipple 
 insisted upon his young mistress riding every morning. 
 He, who was moving about the stable yard with his 
 minions at six o'clock, summer or winter, thought it no 
 hardship to insist upon his young lady being in the saddle 
 at seven. 
 
 " You've three horses kep' for you, miss, and you 
 won't let other people ride 'em, so you've got to take the 
 devil out of 'em yourself." 
 
 Perhaps it was Whipple who had taught Miranda not 
 to care for an animal that anybody else had tamed 
 for her. 
 
 " I hope nobody has had the impertinence to exercise 
 him," she would say, as she put her foot into Whipple's 
 hand. " You know that I like him gay." 
 
 This was before she had attained the majesty of her 
 teens ; and she was of the same mind at twenty, and liked 
 to sit a thoroughbred that would lift himself up and paw 
 the air with his fore-feet, before she gave him his head 
 for her first gallop. 
 
 Whipple always knew what was in the horse, and how 
 far it was safe to trust him to those light hands. 
 
 " You can always trust a good-bred un," Whipple used 
 to tell Lady Laura ; " and you don't suppose I would let 
 the young lady take a risk. Not I, my lady." And 
 then, with a wink, this arch-deceiver would say, " Of 
 
 235 
 
236 MIRANDA 
 
 course I exercise 'em, my lady ; but I never let anyone 
 else mount 'em, and I leave enough devil in 'em to please 
 the young missus." 
 
 And now in this month of smiles and tears, Miranda 
 obeyed Whipple, and rode over the moor and about the 
 woods from seven to eight every morning, and oh, the 
 happy thoughts that went with her through the freshness 
 of the new day ! Thoughts that flew faster in the rush 
 through the clear air, keeping time with the rhythmical 
 beat of hoofs upon the turf. 
 
 He was coming to claim her — he was coming — soon — 
 soon ! 
 
 It seemed a long time since the funeral bell was tolling 
 over the orchard. A year ? No. She could hardly 
 believe that it was not quite a year. 
 
 She knew that he would come — but for all that, his 
 coming was a surprise ; for it was not in the garden or the 
 drawing-room at The Barrow that he found her, but in 
 James Ball's squalid living-room, where the bare brick 
 floor, swept clean by her own hands that morning, was 
 strewn with the children's Christmas toys, sadly dis- 
 figured with hard wear, but still dear — the boy's broken 
 engine, Ethel's dishevelled doll, Alice's battered Teddy 
 bear. The dark wall-paper made the room dull even 
 on an April morning — but there were roses in the window. 
 
 A strong hand opened the door, a quick, light step 
 sounded on the floor, and almost before she could look 
 up, she was lifted from her chair, clasped in her lover's 
 arms, and drawn to the sunlit window, while first one and 
 then all three of the children burst into loud wailing, as 
 of terror or despair. 
 
 " My angel, let me see your face, the face that has been 
 with me in my dreams." 
 
 Here Ethel hung on to his coat tails. " Go, man ! " 
 she cried. " Go, man ! " — while the boy kicked his shins. 
 
 Raynham shook off the liliputian army. " You 
 malignant mite, you are actually hurting me," he said, 
 laughing at the boy's onslaught. 
 
 " I only wish I'd had father's clogs on." 
 
MIRANDA 237 
 
 " Do you really, now ? I like your spirit. Do you 
 think this young lady is your special property ? " 
 
 " She's our fairy godmother, ain't you, lady ? " said 
 the elder girl, who was of an exceptional precocity even 
 for a class in which most children are precocious. 
 " That's what Vicar called her." 
 
 Raynham's eyebrows went up, and his bronzed cheek 
 grew paler. 
 
 c ' The Vicar ! Your old friend ? He has been with 
 you in your slumming," he said, looking intently at 
 Miranda. 
 
 " He has been kind. He has shown me the way to 
 be helpful." 
 
 " No doubt — and has looked on while you helped. 
 He will be here presently, perhaps, before I have had half 
 a dozen words — Oh, for God's sake get these brats out 
 of the way, or come into the beastly street with me. Why 
 did you ever take up this odious work ? " 
 
 "It is delightful work. It has helped me to be 
 happy." 
 
 " You have been happy ? While I was eating my heart 
 out in Cimmerian darkness. Heartless ! " 
 
 His arms had loosened their hold, and they were stand- 
 ing face to face in front of the window. 
 
 " Oh, my darling, I am a jealous fool. It hurts me 
 to think that another man has been near you — hearing 
 your voice, looking into your eyes — while I have been shut 
 out — a slave of the pen, yet not daring to use that pen in 
 pouring out my heart to my beloved. Was I not a queer 
 kind of lover ? " 
 
 " I have sometimes wondered that you never wrote to 
 me." 
 
 She had forgotten the scene in the orchard : the 
 tolling bell, her horror at his look of exultation, his stormy 
 passion. She had allowed him to assume the right of 
 an accepted lover. She accepted him. Her heart thrilled 
 with exquisite joy — and it was only in after years that 
 the sound of the bell, and the look in his ghastly face 
 became again a haunting memory. 
 
238 MIRANDA 
 
 She accepted him, she surrendered herself to her 
 master. She let him fold her in his arms, she hid her face 
 upon his breast, while he bent over her, and with his lips 
 touching her cheek, talked to her in love's low, sweet 
 voice. 
 
 " I dared not write, dearest. My letters might have 
 fallen into other hands. I knew that your little world 
 would be against me. I could not give the poetry of my 
 passionate soul for hard eyes to read. I waited. ' She 
 will trust me/ I said. ' She knows how I love her/ And 
 you have trusted me?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Her lips scarcely moved in the murmured answer, 
 but he heard her, and clasped her closer, turned her face 
 from his breast, and lips met lips, in the kiss that seals 
 a woman's fate. She gave all of herself in that kiss — 
 heart, soul, mind, her fortune and her hopes, her past 
 and future — all that she had been or ever could be. 
 
 He felt her shivering in his arms, and he thought she 
 was going to faint. He placed her gently in the chair by 
 the window, and stood beside her, holding her hand. 
 
 H How was it you found me here ? " she asked presently, 
 trying to speak as if nothing strange had happened. 
 
 The children were happy again, the little girls in 
 corners with their damaged toys ; the boy had gone outside, 
 and was skipping from the doorstep to the pavement 
 and back again, an exercise that seldom palled. 
 
 " Is there any spot on earth where I could not find 
 you ? But this was easy. I landed at Queenborough 
 yesterday afternoon, left King's Cross by the night mail, 
 and was at The Dene before breakfast. From the moment 
 I looked good-bye to the mountains, from the moment 
 I said to myself, ' Up, happy lover, your hour has come,' 
 I have hardly stopped to breathe." 
 
 She had given him her lips in that ecstatic kiss — and he 
 took everything for granted. 
 
 " Who told you I was here ? " 
 
 " Your Master of the Horse. I found him in the yard 
 sponging your thoroughbred, and he told me you drove 
 
MIRANDA 239 
 
 to Trownham three or four times a week, to visit the 
 factory people in the slums behind St. Barnabas', and from 
 the tone of his voice I gathered that Mr. Whipple 
 disapproves of the proceeding." 
 
 " Whipple thinks I am wearing out the ponies," Miranda 
 said softly. " Yes, he disapproves. He does not like 
 poor people." 
 
 She was very calm now, and the warm colour had come 
 back to her cheeks and lips. She was happy, sitting with 
 her hand locked in her lover's. The wave of passion 
 had swept over her and was gone like a flash of too brilliant 
 sunshine, and her joy was passionless and serene, calm in 
 the assurance that Mark belonged to her as she belonged 
 to him. 
 
 She asked him how he had found James Ball's house 
 among legions of houses like it. He told her he had 
 perambulated the slum, till he saw the flowers in the 
 window, such flowers as poverty cannot rear — " And the 
 roses beckoned me to my bride," he said gaily. 
 
 " Miranda, you will never know what it has cost me 
 to keep away from you. Oh, the long, dreary time ! 
 The heavenly dreams, the hellish disenchantment, when I 
 awoke clasping the empty air. I had to face the situation 
 calmly, and I had to remember that you lived in a little 
 world of conventions, and that if I came back too soon 
 I should have had everyone against me. I should have 
 died of my sick longing for you, if I had not been able to 
 divide heart and brain ; myself from myself. I worked 
 at my poem like a tiger — night and day, day and night. 
 I hardly knew dawn from midnight — evening from morn- 
 ing. I wrote as Balzac wrote, without count of the hours, 
 and my German landlady kept me alive with strong 
 coffee — such coffee as perhaps Balzac never had, and I 
 may never taste again. I fought for fame and money under 
 the peasant's thatch — for fame that I might do you honour, 
 for money that I might be independent of your wealth." 
 
 " How could you think of that ? " 
 
 " You are wounded ? Yes, dear love, it was a foolish 
 speech. Fame is enough — we will never reckon jnoney." 
 
240 MIRANDA 
 
 " And were you pleased with your work when it was 
 done ? " 
 
 " I don't know — the doing of it set my brain on fire, 
 and I was incapable of a calm judgment." 
 
 " I hope/' she said, with a sudden tremor in her voice, 
 " I hope it is not that horrible Italian story ? " 
 
 " The story that offended you — only because I told it 
 in coarse speech. I was carried away by the tragedy and 
 the passion in the story — and I forgot, I forgot ! My 
 innocent darling, what do you know of life's tragedy ? 
 It has never touched you " 
 
 " It has," she said piteously. " When I began to under- 
 stand things, and asked why I had no father, I had to be 
 told how he had died — the father whose eyes never saw 
 me — unless" — and here her voice sank to a whisper, 
 and there came a rush of tears — " unless we are nearer the 
 unseen world than we think." 
 
 " You are, perhaps. You are among the elect. You 
 may live to know things that I can never know. But 
 come, Miranda, give me my reward. I have made my 
 sacrifice to conventionality, I have endured life without 
 you for nearly a year — a miserable year, in which I might 
 have killed myself, if I had not had my other world — 
 the poet's world of impossible sorrows and crimes, the 
 strange, sham world that is the scribbler's escape from 
 his sorrows — and now, give me my reward. When will 
 you marry me ? In a week, in a month ? A month at 
 longest — thirty days of sick longing — thirty days." 
 
 " You are talking wildly. I have to win my mother's 
 consent, and it may be difficult. She is prejudiced against 
 you, Mark. People have been ill-natured. My Aunt 
 Hilda has been horrid." 
 
 " What, my patroness, my feminine Maecenas ? Why, 
 she used to boast that she had discovered me." 
 
 " She was horrid. But, oh, Mark, that is not the worst. 
 You have frightened my mother. She has found dreadful 
 things in your book; she is deeply religious, and she will 
 be horrified at the idea of my marrying an agnostic." 
 
 "I am no agnostic ; my belief takes a wider range than 
 
MIRANDA 241 
 
 hers. I am a theist — or a pantheist, which is better. I 
 see God everywhere, in this lovely earth, and ' this majes- 
 tical roof fretted with golden fire ' — in ourselves, and in all 
 we think and do. Is not that good enough ? " 
 
 " Not for my mother. It is too vague. She wants the 
 faith that can rule our lives — the simple, unquestioning 
 faith in God the Father and God the Son." 
 
 " Catechism faith ? I'm afraid I cannot promise her 
 that. But it may come." 
 
 " She formed my mind when I was a little child at her 
 knees, she made me understand, she made me love her God 
 and her Saviour, and my faith was never shaken till those 
 summer afternoons when you used to sit with us in the 
 garden, and talk with such eloquence and such power. 
 For me it was a fatal power, for it taught me to doubt." 
 
 " And your eyes were opened — was it not better ? " 
 
 " It was horrible, and I was wretched until, with long 
 hours of prayer and thought, the light came back, and I 
 was able " 
 
 " Why should you torture that lovely mind with 
 problems ? To believe without thinking — that is a woman's 
 best religion, Miranda : 
 
 " ' Leave thou thy sister when she prays, 
 Her early Heaven, her happy views ; 
 Nor thou with shadow'd hint confuse 
 A life that leads melodious days.' " 
 
 " I have prayed for you, prayed with all my heart and 
 mind," she said in a low voice. " I know that for you 
 the light must come sooner or later. I could not marry 
 you if I did not believe my love could lead your footsteps 
 into the paths where I have been led." 
 
 " ' Being your slave, what should I do but tend upon 
 the hours and times of your desire ? ' You shall lead 
 me. It will be always the old story : 
 
 " * Thou for my sake at Allah's shrine, 
 And I at any God's for thine.' 
 
 And now, my angel, tell me when shall we be married ? " 
 
 16 
 
242 MIRANDA 
 
 " When I can have my mother's approval." 
 
 " My darling, the age is past when love bent to the 
 will of fathers and mothers. Those kind souls have taken 
 their proper position — very good and dear comrades 
 and friends, perhaps; but not arbiters of life. When, 
 angel, when ? I have made my sacrifice for the dead — 
 I have waited nearly a year. I am not like your middle- 
 aged adorer with the deep-set eyes and iron-grey hair, 
 who can love and keep his wits. Love for a man of my 
 temper is a consuming fire. I have lived for a year with- 
 out you, and been patient, because I had work to do — 
 the book that I am to lay at your feet — my bridal gift ; 
 but doom me to another year — or half a year — and look 
 for me in a madhouse at the end of it." 
 
 " I will tell my mother to-night, and perhaps I may 
 win her consent." 
 
 " You would save Lady Laura and yourself a world of 
 trouble if you would slip away to London, with Julia and 
 your maid, and marry me on the first day that would be 
 legal — in a church or a registrar's office." 
 
 " I hate you for thinking I could do such a thing." 
 
 " Oh, my loveliest, you are always hating me for some 
 sin against conventions. You are hemmed round with 
 them — you live in shackles ; but I am going to release 
 you." 
 
 He drew her closer to him, and she felt his hot breath 
 upon her face. 
 
 " Let it be soon, let it be soon," he whispered. " Why 
 should love delay ? " 
 
 The door opened violently, and two light feet in heavy 
 boots clattered across the floor. 
 
 " Oh, lady, lady, I've copped the jography prize — 
 and my name's down for the first Bank-'oliday treat. 
 The zaminer found I knowed everything. The others 
 had to take back seats. It was all your doing, lady. You 
 shown me maps, and you told me stories about the hills 
 and the rivers, the crocodiles and elephans — lovely stories. 
 ' Y're a bit mixed, Number seventy-nine,' zaminer ses, 
 ' but you've got a good many fax in your head.' Adlar 
 
MIRANDA 243 
 
 Green, she takes fust prize plain sewing, but plain sewing 
 ain't in the same street with jography." 
 
 " Perhaps not, my dear ; but you mustn't say you've 
 ' copped ' a prize. You can tell people you've won it. 
 The Vicar will be very glad to hear about it," Miranda 
 said, as she stooped to kiss Jane Maria. 
 
 Her cheek still burned with her lover's kisses ; but she 
 breathed more freely since Jane Maria's boisterous arrival 
 had relieved the tension. 
 
 " I must go now, dear, but I shan't forget you've done 
 so well at school. You shall have a new summer frock in 
 time for the treat." 
 
 Miranda put on her hat, and got herself out of the house 
 as best she could, with the two little girls hanging on her 
 skirt, and Jane Maria snatching ferociously at them, to 
 teach them manners. 
 
 " You don't ought to let 'em worry you, lady." 
 
 " Oh, I like them to be fond of me." 
 
 " But they do spoil yer tailer-made, with their sticky 
 paws. I never see such children. If they have golden 
 serrup with their pudding, it just oozes out of their fingers 
 till the end of the week." 
 
 " Come," said Mark. 
 
 He hurried her out of the house j he put her arm through 
 his, and took possession of her in the dingy street. 
 
 " What detestable children ! I knew slumming must 
 be hateful, but this is worse than I thought." 
 
 She let him keep her arm in his as they went along 
 the alley where Gilbert had talked to her about him ever 
 so long ago — that troublesome talk which brought about 
 a tacit estrangement. Since that day the Vicar had 
 appeared no more in the houses where she was a visitor. 
 
 " When shall I see you again ? You must talk to your 
 mother at once — at once, Miranda — to-day " 
 
 " I will talk to her in the evening when we can be 
 alone." 
 
 " Very well, in the evening. I will wait for you in the 
 orchard from ten to eleven — wait under the stars for my 
 Queen." 
 
 16* • 
 
244 MIRANDA 
 
 " No, no, I could not leave the house at night — the doors 
 are locked at half-past nine, except in the long summer 
 evenings. People would know if I were to go out after 
 dark." 
 
 " You live like a cloistered nun. Now, my love, you 
 will have to take a firm tone — you will have to assert 
 yourself. Remember your right, the right of youch and 
 love. You are not to ask your mother's leave to be happy. 
 You have just to tell her, with all due respect and affection, 
 if you like, that you are going to marry me. If there is 
 to be a fight, bear your part bravely, and let your will 
 be iron. You belong to me, Miranda. Remember ! " 
 
 " I must remember what my mother has been to me." 
 
 " Think of your lover, who cannot, will not, live with- 
 out you ! " 
 
 They were in the open place in front of the inn, a bit 
 of old Trownham that was almost picturesque. A 
 Georgian house, brick and stone, with an archway leading 
 to stables that had once held four score of post-horses, and 
 clamorous post-boys, and a great noise of life and move- 
 ment. 
 
 It was all quiet and empty now, as Miranda's pony-cart 
 emerged, with Miss Wagstaff beside the driver. 
 
 " The inevitable Julia ! " whispered Mark. " Do you 
 go back by the moor ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Then I shall take the longer way, and go through the 
 wood — singing of you as I go. Be in the orchard at 
 dawn to-morrow, and tell me you have conquered. She 
 adores you ; a few tears, a daughter's prayer, and she will 
 yield." 
 
 He took off his hat, and smiled at Julia as the pony-cart 
 passed them, and was gone, before Miranda had taken the 
 reins from the groom. 
 
 She drove out of the town in silence, and it was only 
 when they were half-way home that Julia spoke to her. 
 
 " I did not know that Mr. Raynham was in this part 
 of the world." 
 
 " He came back this morning." 
 
MIRANDA 245 
 
 She laid her disengaged hand upon Julia's. " He has 
 asked me to marry him." 
 
 " A widower of less than a year ! Rather premature I 
 Of course you refused him." 
 
 " I wait for my mother's consent." 
 
 " What ! You said yes ? " 
 
 " Subject to her approval." 
 
 " You had better not ask her. You will break her 
 heart if you tell her you want to marry the man who 
 wrote ' Dr. Forster.' " 
 
 " I did not think you were so narrow-minded. As if a 
 man's book were himself ! " 
 
 "It is the strongest part of himself. The man who 
 wrote that book, the man who sat on the grass at your 
 feet and talked rank materialism dressed in beautiful 
 words — rank blasphemy spiced with wit ! The man who 
 showed you his mind, and, without knowing it, warned you 
 against himself. No, Miranda, you cannot give your 
 young, innocent life to that man." 
 
 Miranda looked straight before her with a gloomy brow. 
 The purple distance, the great grey moorland, the gleam 
 of sun on a streak of lead-coloured sea, all seemed joyless 
 and strange. Misery, misery ! Between the mother she 
 adored and the lover who possessed her soul, what was left 
 but despair ? 
 
 She was with her mother all the afternoon. They 
 drove through the lanes and woods in the balmy April 
 weather, in the freshness of a world new-born. 
 
 Nature was sounding her joyous reveille. The thrushes 
 were singing " far away, far away," in the wooded lanes, 
 windflowers showing white in every glade, primroses 
 carpeting all the banks, and the dog-violets making patches 
 of ultramarine among the gold. Miranda in her happy 
 moods saw every flower that bloomed, and was moved to 
 joyous exclamations at every beauty-spot in the moOr- 
 land. To-day she could see nothing, and her heavy eyes 
 had a look of pain. 
 
 " My darling, I'm afraid you have a headache ? " her 
 mother said anxiously, after a long silence. 
 
246 MIRANDA 
 
 It was easy to own to a headache, when head and heart 
 were both aching. 
 
 She was glad when night came and the crisis drew 
 near. 
 
 She was at the piano almost all the evening, playing 
 the music her mother loved, and the passionate yearning 
 that had been in her playing when she was seventeen — 
 the vague reaching out for something that was to come, 
 unrealized but longed for — was in her music to-night. 
 
 Lady Laura rose from her sofa as the clock struck; 
 ten silver-sweet chimes in the room, deep-toned strokes 
 from the church tower. She rose in her leisurely way, 
 gathering the contents of her work-bag together, and 
 dropping them on the carpet one by one, till Julia came 
 to her rescue, and had everything collected and put away 
 in the big satin bag. 
 
 " Thanks, Julia. I am a clumsy creature." 
 
 " No, dearest," said Miranda, " you are a lady, that's 
 all. Isn't just a touch of helplessness the hall-mark of a 
 lady ? " 
 
 " I think not, dear. Great ladies do some of the great 
 things that are done in the world nowadays." 
 
 "Go to prison for a cause — and face cockroaches," 
 said Julia. " There is no cause that ever was for which 
 I would stay twenty-four hours in a cockroach- warren." 
 
 They all three went slowly upstairs, Julia carrying 
 Lady Laura's work-bag, three or four books, and a China- 
 crepe shawl, while Miranda and her mother followed, arm 
 locked in arm. 
 
 " May I come to your room for a few minutes, 
 mother ? " the girl asked softly. " I want to tell you 
 something." 
 
 Lady Laura gave a little start of apprehension. 
 " Your voice trembles, Miranda," she said, " you are going 
 to tell me something dreadful." 
 
 Her face grew suddenly colourless, but not so pale as 
 her daughter's had been all the evening. 
 
 " No, dearest — not a bit dreadful, unless you make 
 it so. Good-night, Julia " — with a hurried kiss ; and then, 
 
MIRANDA 247 
 
 still holding her mother's arm, Miranda went with her into 
 the room where the happiest hours of her childhood had 
 been spent, before there had been a schoolroom at The 
 Barrow, when all she knew of lessons was to sit at her 
 mother's feet and have beautiful stories of old, old things 
 in history or romance read to her or shown to her in 
 endless picture-books. 
 
 It was by yonder vast arm-chair, close to the tall Queen 
 Anne window, that she had heard of King Arthur and his 
 knights, of Richard and Saladin, of warriors and martyrs 
 — deeds of daring and deeds of Christian sacrifice — the 
 tented field and the altar. 
 
 In that room she had been so happy with her mother, 
 and now was she going to bring misery there, to bring 
 grief and pain to that mother who had lived only to make 
 her happy ? 
 
 " Let me sit down before you talk to me, dear. I 
 feel rather shaky to-night." 
 
 Miranda hung over her tenderly, arranging a nest of 
 pillows, and bending down to kiss the pale forehead. 
 
 A thin white hand was reached out for a bottle of 
 smelling-salts, one of those numerous bottles that were 
 always to be found near Lady Laura. 
 
 " Mother darling, I had a surprise this morning, while 
 I was with the Ball children." 
 
 " Yes, dear." 
 
 The two words were scarcely audible, but Miranda could 
 hear her mother's hurried breathing. 
 
 " Mark Raynham found me there." 
 
 " I thought he was in Germany." 
 
 " He came back to The Dene this morning, and came 
 to Trownham to look for me." 
 
 " Why ? " the white lips asked. 
 
 " He wanted to see me. He has asked me to be his 
 wife, and I said yes, subject to your consent. Oh, 
 dearest, dearest, you have never come between me and 
 any wish of mine — foolish wishes — extravagant wishes — 
 you have never come between me and happiness. He 
 is a genius, and he has a noble nature. He will love you 
 
248 MIRANDA 
 
 and cherish you and be as a son to you, if you will let 
 him. Make me happy, mother darling, say you will 
 accept him for your son." 
 
 " Never ! " cried Lady Laura, starting up from her 
 low chair and standing straight and tall before her 
 daughter, with a sudden energy that was almost appalling ; 
 the languid figure putting on strength and dignity, every 
 muscle braced, every nerve strained and tense, the face 
 pale but firm, the eyes with a strange light in them. 
 " Never, Miranda, with my consent, never. I want no 
 such son ; I will have no such husband for my daughter. 
 Never, while I live and have power of speech and motion, 
 never ! I would throw myself across the threshold of 
 this house sooner than let you pass over it to marry that 
 man." 
 
 " Oh, mother, why, why ? " 
 
 " Because he is a bad man." 
 
 " That is not true." 
 
 "It is horribly true. He stands condemned by the 
 words he has written. An atheist, a cynic, honouring 
 nothing really great, and loving nothing really good — 
 selfish, sensual. While that poor wife lived — ill and 
 unhappy, forsaken and alone — he was at your feet, making 
 love to you, though you might not know it ; creeping into 
 your heart, like the serpent that betrayed Eve. I was 
 a weak fool to let him come here — blind not to see the 
 danger. Hilda opened my eyes." 
 
 u Yes, it was Aunt Hilda's doing ; she set you against 
 him. She judged me by her own girls; she judged him 
 by young men she knows who have neither his genius nor 
 his fine feelings. She told you lies." 
 
 There was a silence in which an ear less fine than 
 Miranda's would have heard the beating of her mother's 
 heart. 
 
 " Mother, why make this misery for both of us ? Be 
 kind, be generous ; remember his goodness to that poor 
 hypochondriacal wife — she told you with her own lips ; 
 think of years of patient devotion to a woman with whom 
 he had not one thought in common. Remember what 
 
MIRANDA 249 
 
 he was to her, and think what he will be to me as a hus- 
 band, and to you as a son. He has served his apprentice- 
 ship to duty — why should you be afraid ? " 
 
 " It is more than fear — it is instinct, foreknowledge. 
 If you marry him in spite of me, you will be a miserable 
 woman. My God ! To throw away the love of the 
 noblest soul on earth, the purest, the most unselfish, the 
 man of Christ-like nature, for this wretched scribbler ! " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " Gilbert Ferrar has loved you as women are not often 
 loved.' ' 
 
 " Nonsense ! Poor old Gillie — my friend — never, 
 never more than my friend." 
 
 " He has loved you from your childhood — loved you 
 devotedly." 
 
 " Poor Gilbert ! " 
 
 She burst into tears ; she had been tearless till this 
 instant, with angry fire burning in eyes that were dry. 
 
 " He was always kind," she faltered. 
 
 " Could any man have been so kind except for love's 
 sake ? " 
 
 " He never told me." 
 
 " He told me. I knew there was no hope — that you 
 would never think of him as a lover. I urged him to keep 
 his secret. If you knew, it would make friendship 
 impossible, and I did not want you to lose your friend." 
 Was this long ago ? " 
 
 " Yes — a long time ; before your presentation." 
 
 " Before I had ever seen Mark ! " 
 
 She saw, as in a vision, far off at the back of the crowded 
 supper-room, the head with the pale gold hair, the Raphael 
 face, and Gilbert Ferrar standing beside her, praising her 
 frock, looking down at her with his calm smile. Gilbert, 
 who had come nearly three hundred miles to see her in 
 her finery. Ages and ages ago ! Before life had become 
 different — before the glory and the dream. How easy life 
 had seemed in those days, before she had known Mark 
 Raynham I How tranquil, but how dull ! 
 
 " I am sony Gilbert ever cared for me — more than in 
 
2So MIRANDA 
 
 friendship. Mother, mother, be reasonable ! You have 
 never been unkind, never, never, until now. We have 
 been more than mother and daughter — we have been like 
 twin sisters, living the same life, thinking the same 
 thoughts. Tell me I may be happy. Let him come to 
 you, let him answer for himself, let him open his mind 
 to you. Agnosticism, cynicism, were only a pose. 
 Question him, look below the surface, and see if he is not 
 worthy." 
 
 " I will never see him, never speak to him as your 
 lover. He shall never come into this house with my 
 consent ; never cross your path if I can keep you from 
 him — never, never, never I " 
 
 She had been standing all this time, face to face with 
 Miranda, colourless as marble, a statue of despair. 
 
 " Never ! Never ! Never ! " 
 
 The word, thrice repeated, came in painful gasps, 
 fainter with each utterance, and with the last she 
 staggered a step or two backward, and dropped into her 
 chair, her head falling against the cushion. Her eyelids 
 drooped, her lips had turned from pale to livid. She had 
 fainted. 
 
 Miranda ran shrieking into the corridor. " Julia, 
 Julia, for God's sake come ! " 
 
 Julia was with her in an instant, holding Lady Laura's 
 lifeless hand. 
 
 " She has fainted ! Oh, God, have I killed her ? Is 
 this death ? " 
 
 " No, no," cried Julia, " only a very bad faint." She 
 was leaning low over the arm-chair with her ear against 
 Lady Laura's chest. 
 
 Julia knew what to do, and so did the maid who came 
 from an adjoining room, neat and trim in her long white 
 lawn apron, ready to help her mistress to bed. 
 
 Bottles were brought out of a cupboard, brandy, sal 
 volatile, and other strong essences, and at last, after 
 moments that seemed ages, the eyelids were slowly lifted, 
 the eyes looked about, sad and bewildered, and the livid 
 lips trembled into life. 
 
MIRANDA 251 
 
 Miranda was on her knees at her mother's feet, holding 
 her ice-cold hands. 
 
 " Darling," she sobbed, " come back to me. Can you 
 see me, can you hear what I say ? " 
 
 " Yes " — in a faint whisper. 
 
 " Listen, dear ! I will never make you unhappy, never. 
 I would give up anything in this world — my own life, 
 as if it were a trifle — rather than make you unhappy. I 
 will never marry without your consent ; never marry a 
 man you cannot like. As God hears me, I swear to obey 
 you, and I will keep my word." 
 
 " Hush, Miranda," said Julia, in an undertone of 
 warning. " No agitating talk to-night. She wants rest 
 and sleep. She knows you will always love her and obey 
 her. Don't be afraid — she knows." 
 
 " Yes, I know," murmured Lady Laura, bursting into 
 a passion of tears. She put her arms round her daughter's 
 neck, and her head with its silvered hair drooped over 
 Miranda's rich coils of golden brown. 
 
 How thin those caressing arms were, how weak and 
 tremulous ! It seemed to Miranda as if she had been 
 unaware till this moment of the frail thread by which 
 this precious life was held. 
 
 " Mother, we have always been happy together, and 
 we always will be." 
 
 " Yes, dear, till the end. It may not be very long." 
 
 " Yes, yes, it will. You are going to be one of those 
 wonderful women who receive a congratulatory telegram 
 from the Queen on their ninetieth birthday." 
 
 She was trying to suggest cheerful thoughts, assuming 
 a trivial gaiety while she felt as if she were standing 
 on the edge of a precipice below which darkness and 
 devouring waves were threatening her. 
 
 Julia took her in hand severely and sent her to her 
 own room at the other end of the corridor, till her mother 
 should have gone quietly to bed. 
 
 " If Lady Laura does not seem inclined to sleep, you 
 shall come and sit by her for half an hour," Julia said. 
 
 " And read her to sleep with something as light as a 
 
252 MIRANDA 
 
 fairy-tale. ' The Cricket on the Hearth/ for instance. 
 We both love our common or garden Shakespeare." 
 
 " Impertinent minx," said Julia, laughing. " That's 
 her pet name for Charles Dickens." 
 
 The sound of light words and laughter had a good 
 effect, and Lady Laura kissed her daughter fervently 
 without any more tears. 
 
 " No, dear, you must not come back. I am much 
 better — almost well ; and you want sleep as much as I do." 
 
 Miranda said nothing, and discreetly retired ; but she 
 came back in half an hour, and sat by her mother's pillow 
 for the greater part of the night. 
 
 " Keep ' The Cricket on the Hearth ' for another time, 
 dear, and read my favourite chapters in St. John." 
 
 No need to ask which those were. Lady Laura's Bible 
 opened at the eleventh chapter. 
 
 When sleep fell upon the weary eyelids, Miranda sat 
 on in silence and saw the rose of day in the east before 
 she crept out of the room. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 SHE wrote to her lover that morning, telling him 
 in plainest words that he must dismiss all thought 
 of her, since she could never marry him. She had dis- 
 covered that her mother had an insuperable objection to 
 their marriage — unjust, perhaps, and even mistaken, but 
 not to be overcome. And so this letter meant farewell 
 for ever. 
 
 She had told him tnat she would never marry without 
 her mother's consent, and her mother had refused. That 
 was the end. 
 
 The letter only covered one leaf of Miranda's large 
 paper, and her hand did not tremble. After that horror 
 of last night, her mother was first in her thoughts, first 
 in her love. 
 
 What was a lover's love compared with hers, who had 
 watched her in her cradle, cherished and lived for her in 
 every stage of her existence ? 
 
 That sudden terror of last night had changed her. In 
 those agonizing moments she had seen her mother dying 
 or dead, slain by her own self-will. She had given up her 
 lover without a thought of the cost, and with that 
 appalling moment still in her mind, the sacrifice seemed 
 hardly to count. 
 
 " What would I not suffer for her ; what would I not 
 give up to make her happy ? " 
 
 She kept near her mother all that bright April day. 
 A long morning by the bedside, for Dr. Mason had come 
 early, and had prescribed nothing but rest and cheerful 
 society. Only Miss Wagstaff and Miss Strickland — no 
 
 253 
 
254 MIRANDA 
 
 visitors ; just a little light reading and perhaps a game of 
 bezique in the evening, if Lady Laura felt equal to dining 
 downstairs. Yes, she might get up before luncheon if 
 she liked, and she might have a quiet drive in the afternoon 
 if she was inclined. Moving through the fine air would 
 be good for her. 
 
 Dr. Mason was as chirpy as usual ; a man accustomed to 
 make light of mortal maladies in his dealings with a patient, 
 however grave he had to be with the patient's friends. 
 
 Perhaps the little doctor had not been quite as truth- 
 ful as he should have been in his talk with Miranda. Her 
 anxiety was so keen ; such an agony of fear showed in her 
 tremulous lip and widely-opened eyes ! He had known 
 her and admired her from the time when she used to 
 toddle to his knee, and allow herself to be looked at and 
 prescribed for. He could not bear to make her unhappy. 
 
 " These inevitable sorrows have to be borne," he told 
 himself. " Better the sudden shock than a long agony 
 of apprehension ; better the crushing blow than the ever- 
 present fear." 
 
 Thus it was that he had never told her how grave her 
 mother's danger was ; never told her that while the state 
 of the patient's heart was a constant cause for anxiety, 
 the internal trouble was always there, and the day for an 
 operation must come sooner or later. 
 
 But the secret came out that day in a moment's forget- 
 fulness on the part of Julia. 
 
 " You knew what to do last night," Miranda said. 
 " But even you were frightened. Had you ever seen her 
 like that before ? " 
 
 " Never quite so bad. It was the worst heart-attack 
 she ever had." 
 
 " Her heart ! Julia ! Oh, my God, is there anything 
 wrong with her heart ? " 
 
 " Yes, dear, seriously wrong, and she must never be 
 told anything of an agitating nature. Didn't you know ? 
 Didn't Mason warn you ? " 
 
 " No ; he told me nothing. He has fooled me with 
 smooth words. Julia, is it true ? Is her heart so bad that 
 
MIRANDA 255 
 
 she may die at any moment, just sink back in her chair as 
 she did last night, and die ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid it might be so ; but don't be miserable 
 about it. We must take great care of her, keep all trouble 
 away, and make her life as happy as we can." 
 
 " He ought to have told me. He was a cruel wretch to 
 keep me in the dark. Has she suffered like this for a long 
 time ? " 
 
 " Yes ; the trouble began a long time ago. It was 
 partly the heart trouble that made her so languid, so 
 disinclined for any exertion, and that was why the 
 operation had to be deferred." 
 
 " The operation ! " Miranda echoed, with a face of 
 horror. " Is there to be an operation ? " 
 
 " Yes, dear, it may be necessary, it will be necessary 
 I am told." 
 
 "To cure her?" 
 
 " To relieve her of pain." 
 
 " But it must be a certain cure, mustn't it ? Sur- 
 geons can do such wonderful things. My suffering angel ! 
 And I have treated you as if you were a strong, healthy 
 creature like my wretched self." 
 
 She clasped her hands over her eyes to hide the light 
 of day. Oh, the abyss, the horrible black abyss on the 
 edge of which she was standing last night, on which she 
 stood to-day : the horrible dread that there must always 
 be henceforward. No respite, no safety. She was hemmed 
 round with darkness. 
 
 " Where is she, Julia ? In her room, lying down ? " 
 
 " She is lying on the sofa in the morning-room." 
 
 " I must go to her. I cannot live another minute 
 without seeing her." 
 
 " Sit down quietly for a little while. Don't let her 
 see that white face of yours. Sit down and compose 
 yourself. Remember she is not to be agitated." 
 
 Miranda obeyed with a meekness that was unlike her. 
 She sat by Julia's side, and laid her head against Julia's 
 shoulder, and suffered herself to be comforted with just a 
 momentary surcease of anguish. 
 
256 MIRANDA 
 
 " Oh, July, July," she murmured. " I never knew what 
 sorrow was before. I thought I was unhappy about 
 things that did not matter." 
 
 She made a heroic effort, sitting in melancholy silence 
 for nearly half an hour, and then she went to the morning- 
 room to watch her mother sleep, and to greet her with 
 a smile when she awoke. 
 
 And so the days went on, the days of sunshine and 
 the days of rain, roseate dawns and golden evenings, and 
 the red fire of the afterglow. Every day brought fresh 
 splendour of spring flowers in the garden, bloom of white 
 and pink in the orchard ; but Miranda never saw the 
 orchard. She never went farther than the broad terrace 
 in front of the drawing-room — the terrace over which long 
 rows of windows looked out, and where no one could 
 walk without the certainty of being seen. She would 
 go to no place in which there was a danger of her lover 
 surprising her. She was hardly ever out of doors alone. 
 She handed over all her Trownham duties to Julia, who 
 promised to look after her people till she was able to take 
 up her work again. 
 
 She rode in the early mornings, an exercise upon which 
 James Whipple insisted, and Whipple's insistence was 
 not to be set at nought. 
 
 " You've got to do it for the horses' sake, miss," he 
 told her, knowing how weak she was where the happiness 
 of four-legged creatures was involved. M You wouldn't 
 like to think of them bucketed by a pack of idle lads, who 
 would take it out of 'em for sheer devilry." 
 
 " But you'd exercise them yourself," Miranda said. 
 
 " That's almost as bad. I'm two stone too heavy for 
 them, and do you suppose I've nothing better to do with 
 my time than to exercise horses you're too idle to ride ? " 
 
 And with this forcible argument, Whipple had his young 
 mistress out on the moor every morning, rain or shine, and 
 so kept her in tolerable health ; for while the aching heart 
 went with her everywhere, the young body throve by the 
 daily exercise between moor and sea. 
 
 The days went by, and Lady Laura seemed to improve 
 
MIRANDA 257 
 
 t 
 
 considerably in health, and declared herself contented and 
 at ease in her girl's sweet companionship. If there had 
 ever been the shadow of a cloud between these two, it 
 had been blown away. The mother was happy, as in the 
 old dear days when Miranda was a child, and they could 
 think and talk of childish things; when Lady Laura's 
 delicate needlework was spent upon frocks and petticoats 
 for Miranda's dolls, in that harem of waxen beauties which 
 the spoiled child accumulates, and alternately adores and 
 maltreats ; and in those still happier days when toys 
 were no longer things to be lived for and dreamt about, 
 when Miranda's bright young mind awakened to all the 
 glory and the wonder of the historic past — the old, 
 unhappy, far-off things and battles long ago, when Scott 
 and Shakespeare came into her life and bulked so large 
 there ; mother and daughter reading together, repeating 
 their favourite passages together, criticizing, arguing and 
 disputing even — yet with but slight idea of difference, since 
 the girl always ended by thinking as her mother thought. 
 
 The days went by and a familiar figure reappeared upon 
 the scene. Gilbert Ferrar rode over the moor once or twice 
 a week, and sat in the morning-room with Lady Laura, 
 and stayed to tea when Julia and Miranda joined them. 
 
 " I hope we are not too much of a crowd for you, 
 mother ? " 
 
 " No, dear, I love to have you all ; it is so nice of my 
 cousin to come. They have been keeping me very quiet, 
 Gilbert, as if I were a piece of rare old china that has been 
 broken and mended, and must be handled gingerly ; but 
 I am almost quite well. Little Mason is a fidgety doctor 
 — a bit of an alarmist." 
 
 " No, mother ; he is a cheery little soul, and he says 
 you are going on splendidly, but we are always to be 
 careful of you." 
 
 " Yes " — with a sigh. H I am the bit of patched-up 
 china. That is what we all have to remember." 
 
 " I have an old Meissen jug that was broken and mended 
 in my great-grandmother's time, and there it stands to-day 
 the prettiest thing on my chimney-piece," said Gilbert. 
 
 17 
 
258 MIRANDA 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know, creaking doors last longest ; but they 
 are a nuisance for the people who have to live with them." 
 
 Miranda chipped in with inquiries about the little Balls. 
 
 " Has Julia been horrid to them ? " she asked. u Has 
 all the character been crushed out of them ? " 
 
 " Miss Wagstaff has been better to them than ever you 
 were." 
 
 " Gillie ! How dare you say that ! " 
 
 " Miss Wagstaff treats them sensibly. She does not 
 pamper them as you did." 
 
 " Poor little wretches ! I know what sensible treat- 
 ment means. Inexorable washing of hands and faces, 
 and no almond hardbake." 
 
 " Miss Wagstaff is admirable with children." 
 
 '■ Don't tell me that she has made them love her ! " 
 
 " Magna est Veritas — but you needn't have it if you 
 don't like." 
 
 " Miranda must take up her parish work again," Lady 
 Laura said eagerly. " I know she enjoyed it, and it kept 
 her in good health and spirits. She has stayed at home 
 because I have been ill, but I am almost quite well now ; 
 and you shall see her in your slums again — like an angel 
 of mercy." 
 
 " He doesn't want me, mother. He has a whole 
 company of saints and angels, and one very perfect person 
 called Sister Angela, whom he is going to marry 
 by and by." 
 
 Julia blushed, but the Vicar of St. Barnabas' was 
 unmoved. 
 
 Next day, when they were alone together, Lady Laura 
 urged Miranda to resume the work that she had liked so 
 much. 
 
 " You know, dear, that I never come downstairs till 
 luncheon, and you used always to be home then. It was 
 nice to see you so busy and cheerful, so interested in those 
 poor people, with so much to tell me about them. I 
 know you must miss the work." 
 
 " Yes, I do, just a little." 
 
MIRANDA 259 
 
 " Then take it up again, darling/' 
 
 " No, mother ; I can't go to Trownham." 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 M He would find me there. He would come upon me 
 in the midst of my work — as he did that day." 
 
 There was a choking sound in her speech, but there 
 were no tears. No name had been spoken — but the 
 pronoun was enough. 
 
 " My true and loyal girl ! " cried Lady Laura, clasping 
 Miranda to her breast. 
 
 " Yes, mother, loyal and true to the end, please God." 
 
 " I understand, dear. Of course he would find you 
 there. No, you must not go to Trownham. Have you 
 never seen him since that day ? '■ 
 
 " No, dear." 
 
 " But you have written to him, perhaps ? " 
 
 " Only one letter — only to tell him that I can never 
 be his wife, and to wish him good-bye for ever." 
 
 " And has not he written to you ? " 
 
 " Yes. He writes to me every day," Miranda answered, 
 with a weary sigh. 
 
 " And you have never answered his letters ? " 
 
 " Never." 
 
 " Have you sent them back ? " 
 
 " No, I don't want to insult him. I lay them by in 
 my desk. You see his letters are literature. Some day, 
 when he has married someone else, and is happy with her, 
 you and I will read them together. I believe even you 
 will think them beautiful." 
 
 " Ah, then, you read them ? " 
 
 " Why not ? That can do no harm. They are just 
 literature — that's all." 
 
 She gave a little laugh, that ended in a sob, but regained 
 her self-command in a moment. 
 " My heroic girl ! " 
 
 They sat together in silence while the evening sky 
 darkened, and no word was said till Julia came in and 
 switched on cheerful lights under green silk shades — 
 light that was subdued and reposeful. 
 
 17* 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 AFTER this life went on quietly while May gave way 
 to June, and the freshness of spring was over. 
 Miranda rode at six instead of at seven, while the air was 
 still cool and invigorating, but not even the daily ride 
 on the moor could bring any colour into the thin, anxious 
 face, and everybody who came to The Barrow told Miranda 
 that she was looking ill. 
 
 " My dear, you want a change," Mrs. Devereux said. 
 
 " What, from this fine air — my native air ? " 
 
 " The air is too strong for you. I never saw you looking 
 so ill." 
 
 " I have been anxious about my mother." 
 
 " Ah, that's only natural — such a frail life at best — 
 always delicate and fragile — even before anybody suspected 
 heart- trouble." 
 
 " What ? " cried Miranda, " does everybody in Melford 
 know of my mother's heart- trouble ? I did not know it 
 myself till a few weeks ago. Does everybody know ? " 
 
 " / know," replied Mrs. Devereux. " I hope you don't 
 rank me with everybody in Melford." 
 
 " No, no, but it hurt me to hear that people knew, 
 when I did not. I have lived in a fool's paradise." 
 
 " Poor child. I know how you and Lady Laura adore 
 each other. But there are consolations, my dear. Your 
 mother has lived a very happy life — in the lap of luxury. 
 There are not many women who have enjoyed such un- 
 ruffled years," Mrs. Devereux said, placidly consigning her 
 friend to the tomb. 
 
 260 
 
MIRANDA 261 
 
 " She is not going to die," Miranda cried passionately. 
 " She is going to have many years of quiet happiness. 
 You break my heart when you talk as if her life was over. 
 You — you can't understand how I love her — you don't 
 know what we have been to each other." 
 
 " I know she has made you her idol, my dear, and I 
 tremble when I think what your marriage must mean for 
 her. And with your attractions, and your wealth, that 
 must happen before long." 
 
 " Nonsense ! I am not going to marry — I am going to 
 live for my mother." 
 
 " Very sweet of you, my dear. You were always 
 romantic. Don't let us talk of sad things. How are the 
 orchid-houses ? I know Lady Laura is wrapped up in 
 them." 
 
 " That's ancient history. We were both mad about 
 insectivorous plants. The orchids are played out — they 
 rather bore us now ; but Stokes insists upon them ; he 
 is puffed up with first prizes." 
 
 " And practically you keep those great houses going 
 for your head gardener ? " 
 
 " It is worth doing," said Julia, " if it widens Stokes's 
 outlook and gives him new ideas of colour." 
 
 " Well, his herbaceous beds are a revelation. But I 
 always put that down to Miranda." 
 
 " I have done absolutely nothing," sighed Miranda. 
 
 " Oh, what a dreadful woman ! " she exclaimed, when 
 she and Julia had seen their visitor as far as the hall- 
 door, whence they could smile upon her departure, in a 
 pony-cart that was the best thing Colonel Devereux 
 would do for a wife who had never ridden to hounds, 
 and who could not be supposed to have any claim upon a 
 stable. 
 
 The days went on in the harmony of perfect love between 
 Miranda and her mother. The Ball children were brought 
 over to tea at The Barrow — such a tea as even midsummer 
 treats had never revealed to them. Gilbert Ferrar came 
 often, and brought news of the great world, and new books, 
 and sometimes even new music for Miranda, and sat with 
 
262 MIRANDA 
 
 them and gave himself up to them — distractingly happy 
 in being with them. 
 
 Lady Laura had told him everything. Her horror at 
 the idea of Miranda's engagement to Mark Raynham, and 
 Miranda's noble renunciation. 
 
 " Was I wrong, Gilbert ? " she had asked piteously, 
 at the end of her story. '* Was I wrong in coming between 
 her and her first love ? The desire of her young heart ? " 
 
 No, he had told her. It would have been fatal to let 
 her marry a man who was not a Christian — who had made 
 a mock of all that Christians hold sacred — a cynic, an 
 egotist, an infidel. " You have given her pain in the 
 present, perhaps," he said, " but you have saved her from 
 greater pain in the future." 
 
 " She has behaved so nobly, she has been so brave, so 
 true." 
 
 " She has given you love for love. She has not paid the 
 great debt she owes you — the balance is still against her." 
 
 " She owes me nothing. She has been the happiness 
 of my life — that's all." 
 
 "What if I have broken her heart? " she asked him 
 later, in a sudden agony of apprehension. " People are 
 always telling me that she is looking ill — that she ought 
 to go away to some place where she could be amused and 
 interested; to go with one of her aunts and their girls, 
 where she would see people, and have the gaieties that I 
 have never given her; but she won't leave me. She 
 says there is nothing the matter with her ; but she would 
 say that if her heart was breaking." 
 
 " Hearts don't break easily. It is a slow process. 
 Don't be afraid, my dear Laura, you have done the best 
 it was possible to do, in the circumstances. Your only 
 error was in letting Mr. Raynham creep into your confi- 
 dence. He is a man you should never have received as a 
 friend." 
 
 " Perhaps not, but I had not read his book, and Hilda 
 asked me to be civil to him." 
 
 Gilbert's words of wisdom sank deep into Lady Laura's 
 mind, but as the days went on Miranda's occasional fits 
 
MIRANDA 263 
 
 of depression became a settled melancholy. She was all 
 her mother had said of her, she was brave and steadfast, 
 and fought hard to maintain a gallant front, but she was 
 visibly drooping. 
 
 She drove with her mother, and she looked with lack- 
 lustre eyes upon the landscape she had once loved, the 
 skies that had once inspired her. She read aloud hour 
 after hour the books that she had adored, but they seemed 
 dull and dead; till surprised by some touch of pathos, 
 some sentence that struck a note of memory, she would 
 burst into hysterical sobbing, and would hide her face 
 in her mother's lap, until the passion of tears was over. 
 
 A Roman mother might have been equal to the situa- 
 tion ; but Laura Strickland had nothing of the Roman, 
 and she broke down hopelessly when she saw her daughter 
 growing thinner and paler day after day. 
 
 They had been together later than usual one night, 
 when the watch-dog Julia, who was supposed never to 
 know what illness meant, had succumbed to the most un- 
 picturesque form of catarrh, and taken to her bed. 
 
 They were alone together in the morning-room when 
 the clock struck eleven. 
 
 " Darling, how late for you. Let me ring for Morley." 
 
 " Not just yet, Miranda. I want a little talk with you 
 before I go to bed. I shall sleep all the better for it." 
 
 " Have you been sleeping badly, mother ? " 
 
 " Rather badly." 
 
 " Oh, that oughtn't to be. We must make Mason see 
 to that." 
 
 " Mason can't help me. Come closer, Miranda, quite 
 close. Lean your head upon my shoulder, as you used 
 when you were learning to read, and the long words puzzled 
 you. Oh, my darling, how can I sleep in peace when I 
 know you are unhappy ? " 
 
 " I am not unhappy." 
 
 " Yes, you are miserable. How can I bear it ? I see 
 the change in you every day — people tell me you are ill — 
 and my own eyes can see you fading — fading — fading — 
 paler and thinner, with great, haggard eyes. Have I not 
 
264 MIRANDA 
 
 loved you better than all the world ? Look back, and 
 remember. In all those happy years, did I ever refuse you 
 the desire of your heart ? 
 
 " Never, never." 
 
 " I give you back your promise, Miranda. It was for 
 your own sake I refused to accept Mark Raynham as your 
 lover — for your own sake. It was not prejudice, but 
 fear, a dreadful foreboding, that made me refuse ; but if 
 it will break your heart to give him up — if you cannot 
 live without him " 
 
 " I am trying, mother. Nothing can break my heart 
 while I have you. Let things be. You are the first — 
 you shall always be the first in my love. Let me go on ; 
 I shall learn to forget him. I am trying honestly — I have 
 not seen his face since I gave you my promise. I will run 
 no risks, but just go bravely on. My heart won't break, 
 dear. Don't think it. Women's hearts are tough." 
 
 The words ended in a flood of tears, and Lady Laura 
 felt the thin arms clinging to her, the wasted form shaken 
 by convulsive sobbing. 
 
 " Let him come to see me, to-morrow," she said, almost 
 in a whisper. 
 
 There was no reply to that low sound. Miranda's 
 head drooped lower, and her mother felt the slender form 
 slipping from her arms. It was one of those moments in 
 life that strain human nature to snapping point. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 WHAT could I do ? " Lady Laura asked Gilbert 
 Ferrar piteously, when she told him how she 
 had surrendered, and saw disapproval, even indignation, 
 on the dark, strong face. " Could I see my girl fade and 
 die ? " 
 
 " She would not die. She has too fine a constitution 
 and too fine a mind. She was fighting her battle — a 
 woman's great battle — fighting against love for a worthless 
 lover. She has a high courage — the soul that can suffer 
 and be strong. She would have conquered." 
 
 " She might have died. You are hard, Gilbert, hate- 
 fully hard. But if you had watched her as I have — seen 
 her colour fading day by day ; if you had seen the hollow 
 cheeks and the haggard eyes; if you had heard the 
 break in her voice — the smothered sob ! My God, how 
 did I bear it so long ? I was risking that precious fife. 
 She is worn to a shadow ; she has smiled at me, and made 
 cheerful talk for me, and pretended to be happy, while her 
 heart was breaking. You don't know what Miranda is." 
 
 " I think I do." 
 
 Oh, the deep pathos of those little words, and the look 
 that went with them ! 
 
 " You don't know her power of self-sacrifice. She has 
 devoted every hour of her life to me. She has made her- 
 self a prisoner in this house. She has given up her work 
 in your parish, the work she so loved, because she knew 
 that he would follow her there. She would go nowhere 
 
 265 
 
266 MIRANDA 
 
 if there was the risk of meeting him. She swore she would 
 never marry him — never make me unhappy — and she has 
 been killing herself to keep her word." 
 
 " My dear Laura, you take an exaggerated view of the 
 trouble. No doubt she suffers, as hundreds of girls have 
 suffered, a short spell of heartache, of passionate regret 
 for the loss of the paradise their fancy has created. They 
 have suffered acutely for a short time, and they have been 
 saved a life of wretchedness, or at least the bitter awaken- 
 ing from a lovely dream — the crushing discovery that 
 the man they have loved was never for one hour of his 
 life the creature they believed in." 
 
 " Other girls are not like Miranda. I will not see her 
 die of a broken heart. No " — as he was going to speak — 
 " don't say that never happens. It does — and doctors 
 give the disease another name. They gloss things over 
 for the wretched parents — the tyrants who have killed 
 the thing they love." 
 
 There was a silence of a minute or so, while Lady Laura 
 dried her tears, and then in his quiet voice, Gilbert said : 
 
 "It is settled then ? Miranda is to marry Mark 
 Raynham ? " 
 
 " I have told her that I will see him. He is to be with 
 me this afternoon." 
 
 " That is the same thing." 
 
 " I am sorry — if for nothing else, for your sake, my 
 dear Gilbert." 
 
 11 Oh, put me out of your thoughts. From the moment 
 I saw that Miranda's romantic fancy was caught by the 
 man who wrote ' Dr. Forster,' my love story was finished. 
 I can do without love. But while I live I shall be her 
 friend, caring for her as brothers care for some sweet young 
 sister. I shall always care for her. I would go through 
 fire and water, put my arm into a furnace and see it burn 
 to the bone, to save her from sorrow ; and that is why 
 I don't want her to marry Raynham." 
 
 Mark came at three o'clock and sat with Lady Laura 
 tete-d-tete till tea-time. Their talk was long and serious 
 
MIRANDA 267 
 
 and that charm of voice and manner which the poet's 
 admirers called his " magnetism," worked upon Lady 
 Laura like a spell. Miranda was in her mind all the 
 time. It was of her girl's romantic love, and not of 
 hard common sense that she thought while Mark was 
 talking to her. She wanted to believe in him, because she 
 wanted her girl to be happy. She was like wax in his 
 hand. The specious arguments, the eloquent talk of a 
 religion that was nobler than the cut-and-dried piety of 
 the common herd, had a beguiling influence. It was 
 easy to convince a woman who wished to be convinced. 
 
 " I should like to think that the man my daughter 
 loves is worthy to be loved," she said simply ; " but I 
 cannot forget your dreadful book, your blasphemies, your 
 contempt for religion " 
 
 " No more contempt than Martin Luther felt when he 
 defied the Pope," Mark answered quickly. " All through 
 my book it is not religion but superstition against which 
 I rail ; against the tyranny of priestcraft, the religion that 
 was bought and sold. Read my book again, dear Lady 
 Laura, and you will find in it only the revolt of a master 
 of pure science against old-world superstitions, the rags 
 of the flamen's vestry. There is nothing in ' Dr. Forster ' 
 worse than Luther said and wrote against the dark horror 
 of those far-off days." 
 
 He defended himself from every charge — his lawlessness, 
 his immorality, the scorn of good people and holy things. 
 
 There was nothing in Shelley's " Queen Mab " worse 
 than he had written, she told him. 
 
 11 Do you suppose that a poet's imagination does not 
 go faster and farther than his sober thoughts ? " he asked. 
 " When I wrote that book, I was not writing of myself 
 or my own opinions ; from the moment I took up the old, 
 old story of the man who had come to the end of science 
 and philosophy, and who sold himself to the devil for 
 youth and love and all the beauty and glory and 
 maddening pleasures of the world. Forster was a creature 
 apart from me and my own conscience. I lived and felt 
 with the being my imagination had made, and my 
 
268 MIRANDA 
 
 thoughts went out into wide regions that my own life could 
 never touch. I loved as he loved, despaired as he 
 despaired. For God's sake do not judge of my mind or 
 my life by the opium dreams of the poet ; and remember 
 that for the writer with but one spark of genius art for 
 art's sake is the only rule." 
 
 " I don't understand the poet's mind," Lady Laura 
 said, with a weary sigh, " but I want my daughter's 
 husband to be worthy of her : not an agnostic to shake 
 her faith in her God and her Redeemer ; not a cynic 
 to teach her contempt for all that is best in human 
 nature." 
 
 " Your daughter is strong enough to think for herself," 
 Raynham said eagerly. " She is more likely to lead her 
 husband than to be led by him." 
 
 11 I wish I could think so ! Frankly, Mr. Raynham 
 
 Only answer me honestly. Are you a Christian ? " 
 
 "If to admire Jesus of Nazareth and to wish I could 
 live a life as beautiful constitutes Christianity, I boldly 
 answer ' Yes.' " 
 
 "It is something not to scorn our Lord as Shelley 
 did ; that most unhappy genius " 
 
 " If you will only imagine faith without dogma, the 
 desire of the moth for the star, you will understand me. 
 It is in the poet's nature to look upward, and ever 
 upward." 
 
 Julia and Miranda came in when the tea-table was 
 set, and by this time Lady Laura had taken up the long 
 ivory knitting-pins and the big ball of Berlin wool that 
 always indicated a placid state of mind. 
 
 Miranda came last, and gave an ice-cold hand to Mark, 
 who bent down to kiss it with a graceful foreign gesture, 
 not displeasing to the girl's mother. 
 
 What a happy meal it seemed, that protracted tea- 
 drinking — Julia busy with teapots and milk-jugs, and 
 Miranda sitting close to her mother's chair and keeping her 
 lover at a distance with defiant eyes. Perhaps she wanted 
 to let him see that this adored mother would be first, always 
 first. 
 
MIRANDA 269 
 
 They seemed to talk of all things under heaven and 
 earth. 
 
 Lady Laura saw the joy in her daughter's face, the 
 softened lines, the liquid lustre in the violet eyes, and for 
 the moment she herself was joyous. She forgot all her 
 prejudices and apprehensions, the fear that her sister 
 had put into her mind, the vague foreboding of evil — 
 forgot everything, except that yesterday her girl had been 
 miserable, and to-day she was happy. An unbearable 
 weight had been lifted off her mind, and in that keen 
 sense of relief she shut her eyes upon the future. 
 
 It was evening when Mark left The Barrow, and he 
 carried with him Lady Laura's permission to return 
 to-morrow. 
 
 "If it is fine you may find us in the garden," she 
 said. 
 
 " Then I may come through the orchard ? " 
 
 '* Yes, of course." 
 
 His eyes met Miranda's, and the cloud that came over 
 her face was reflected in his own. Was there always to 
 be a memory of horror ? Should he always hear the 
 sound of the death-bell ? Was that dear place of leaf 
 and blossom where he and Miranda had been so happy 
 together never to be as it was before the tolling of the 
 bell? 
 
 He came next day, and there was no day on which 
 Miranda and he were not together, in a rapture of content. 
 He wanted her to wander in the woods with him, to feel 
 the charm of solitudes where no eye could see, no ear 
 listen to them. But he had to content himself with the 
 garden and the orchard. She would not go out of her 
 mother's reach. 
 
 '■ I like to be in the garden where she can send for me 
 if she feels low, or if she wants me to read to her. You 
 don't know what she is to me." 
 
 M Have I not eyes to see ? If she were not the sweetest 
 woman in the world I should be horribly jealous. You 
 have given me only the lesser half of your heart." 
 
 V Isn't that enough ? " 
 
270 MIRANDA 
 
 " You don't know what a man's love means. I want 
 all of you, Miranda — all, all ! Your first thought in the 
 morning, your last thought at night ; your dreams, your 
 reveries in the twilight. I want the exquisite form and 
 the lovely mind." 
 
 Miranda was happy, and it seemed to her that even in 
 all those bright years of childhood and early youth, when 
 her life had been cloudless, she had never known the 
 felicity that might be, the thrilling sense of a joy that no 
 words could describe ; a joy far-reaching and infinite as 
 some wonderful landscape where long spaces of valley and 
 hill, wood and river, shade off into the faint grey of a 
 distant horizon. 
 
 She had no thought of the future. She listened as 
 in a dream to Mark's talk of the life that was to be theirs, 
 the earthly paradise in which they were to wander, from 
 the near glory of Italy to the wonder of the far East. She 
 wanted nothing more than this ecstasy of new love, this 
 revelation of what love meant. 
 
 She was happy. All those aching fears about her 
 mother's health that had mixed themselves with the pain 
 of severance from Mark were suddenly lulled to sleep. 
 Her mother had but to smile and she thought all was 
 well. He was there with the assurance of hope. He was 
 at her side telling her there was no cause for apprehension. 
 She had been too much alone, had fallen into the way 
 of brooding over shapeless fears instead of looking at the 
 joyous side of life. 
 
 " Your dear mother's illness is only a question of nerves. 
 We will make her so happy that her nerves will grow 
 strong again. See how bright and cheerful she was last 
 night when we had that long dissension about her beloved 
 Walter Scott." 
 
 " You talked so beautifully. She has always loved 
 to hear you, except when you used to be cynical, and 
 quote Voltaire, whose very name offends her." 
 
 " She shall never hear his name from me. I will not 
 even remind her of his large humanity, his generous 
 
MIRANDA 271 
 
 anger when the cruellest things were done by priests who 
 pretended they were Christians. I will live only to please 
 her, since that is the way to please Miranda." 
 
 The days went by, the light, happy days, so seeming 
 swift after the heavy hours that had brought only aching 
 regret and the sense of unutterable loss. 
 
 He had made her acknowledge a love almost as ardent 
 as his own. Gathered in his arms under the orchard 
 trees, with the last of the apple-blossoms falling on them, 
 soft whiteness flushed with rose, she had told him how, 
 after those impassioned moments at Trownham, she had 
 longed for the sound of his voice and the touch of his 
 hand, and how she realized that he had made her his own 
 for ever. 
 
 He implored her to consent to an early marriage. Why 
 should love wait ? It was close upon a year since his wife 
 died — his poor wife, so long an invalid, so long a wife only 
 in name. A year ! No one could say hard things about 
 them if they were to be married early in June. 
 
 !• Not yet, Mark, not yet for a long time ; not till my 
 mother is in better health, better able to bear the shock 
 of my wedding." 
 
 " She is much better, she is improving every day. Your 
 wedding will be no shock, for she has made up her mind 
 about me. I think she is getting even a little fond of 
 me." 
 
 u I believe she is," Miranda said, with a smile. She 
 had seen her mother pleased and amused as in the old 
 days when he was a daily visitor, before Lady Haverstock 
 had addressed herself to opening her sister's eyes. 
 
 And then she told him how there could be no long 
 honeymoon, no wanderings in Italy or the East. She could 
 never be happy at any distance from her mother. She 
 must always be within call, not farther than an hour's 
 journey in the motor-car which was to be her first gift to 
 her husband. 
 
 " Dear angel, it seems I am to marry your mother 
 as well as you," he answered, laughing. " You two are 
 
272 MIRANDA 
 
 a kind of Siamese twins, and you are both adorable. It 
 shall be always as my dear love desires." 
 
 He submitted in appearance, but in a tete-a-tete with 
 Lady Laura on the following day, he obtained her consent 
 to a speedy marriage. She, indeed, seemed anxious that 
 Miranda and her lover should be married as soon as 
 possible. Her mind was curiously changed since that 
 night when she had opposed such a marriage with 
 hysterical vehemence, and had fallen back insensible in 
 the tumult of her passion. 
 
 From the time she had consented to receive Mark as 
 Miranda's lover, his influence over her had been growing 
 day by day. He charmed her, he convinced her, he over- 
 came her prejudices, in so far that she looked back and 
 wondered that she could ever have doubted and feared 
 him. She had begun to see him with her daughter's eyes, 
 to tell herself that he was a genius, and that genius has a 
 license that nothing else in the world can claim. Genius 
 may have the fine essence, the innermost soul of religion ; 
 and while contemptuous of outward form, may have a 
 loftier faith than the orthodox common herd can reach. 
 Genius was a law unto itself, a quality so rare, so 
 intangible, that it could be judged by no rigid rule of 
 life. All this, which she told herself in her solitary 
 reveries, Mark had put into her mind. 
 
 As he had possessed himself of Miranda, so he had 
 possessed himself of Miranda's mother, and in Mrs. 
 Devereux's homely speech, " It was who but he at The 
 Barrow ! " 
 
 Mrs. Devereux prided herself upon her homely speech. 
 All the best people she had known, the people who had 
 parks and who counted their acres by the thousand, had 
 affected a certain homeliness, had used neither fine words 
 nor final " g's " and Mrs. Devereux had modelled her 
 diction upon theirs. 
 
 Miranda's marriage settlement was being drawn up by 
 the family solicitors at York, and to Lady Laura's infinite 
 relief Mark had shown himself above all considerations of 
 self-interest. He begged that his wife's fortune, as to the 
 
MIRANDA 273 
 
 extent whereof he had no curiosity, should be settled upon 
 herself solely, and that her trustees should have unlimited 
 power to safeguard her interests. He wanted nothing. 
 The world had been kind to him. He could rely upon his 
 pen for an income, and could have married a wife without 
 a penny. 
 
 Melford-on-t he-Moor knew what was going to happen. 
 All The Barrow servants knew, and James Whipple's 
 morning face was dark with a stubborn disapproval. 
 
 " I suppose you're going to sell the saddle-horses before 
 the wedding, miss," he said moodily. 
 
 " Sell them ? What for ? " 
 
 " Because you won't have no use for 'em. Mr. Raynham 
 ain't much of a horseman, is he ? " 
 
 " He will ride with me if I want him to do so." 
 
 " Will he ? Well, he may be a fine cross-country rider 
 for anything I know, miss, but he don't shape that way." 
 
 " It isn't his highest ambition to be taken for a stud- 
 groom out of livery, if that's what you mean. I've no 
 doubt he can ride as well as any gentleman need." 
 
 " Park 'acks, and that kind of cattle, yes, I dessay, miss ; 
 but that ain't your form. Howsomedever, I'm glad you're 
 not going to part with old favourites." 
 
 " Certainly not, Whipple, neither on. four legs nor on 
 two. Lady Laura is going to be very kind and let me 
 keep the big stable — she will have the north stable for 
 her carriage-horses — and you will be my stud-groom, and 
 keep the rooms you have had all along." 
 
 u Since before you was born, miss. But won't you 
 want your horses at The Dene ? " 
 
 " No, they will be better off here." 
 
 " I'm glad you're not going to sell the barb, miss. You 
 wouldn't get his match — no, not in a month of Sundays." 
 
 After this conversation Whipple seemed easier in his 
 mind, but not altogether happy, and Mrs. Whipple was 
 far from satisfied. 
 
 11 I'm afraid it can't last, Jim," she murmured, as she 
 leaned with bare arms and hands that diffused odours of 
 beeswax and turpentine over the old mahogany table, 
 
 18 
 
274 MIRANDA 
 
 which was the apple of her eye, and her daily task. " You'll 
 find you'll be his servant before long — and he won't like 
 her riding with you, side by side, as friendly as if you was 
 her uncle. He won't stick it, James." 
 
 " He'll have to stick it. Miss Miranda has had her 
 own way ever since she could say' Ta,' and she's not going 
 to give in to the handsomest husband that ever stepped." 
 
 " Handsome is that handsome does, Jim. I've never 
 been one to care about looks, as you know, and I'm very 
 sorry the young missis is going to marry this here Raynham. 
 I don't take to him." 
 
 " Anyhow, the Melford folks say he was uncommon 
 kind to his sickly wife, and that's something." 
 
 " Yes, that's something ; but I wish she'd lived to be 
 a hundred rather than he should marry our young lady. 
 She ought to have looked a deal higher than a twopenny- 
 halfpenny poet." 
 
 The corners of Mrs. Whipple's mouth expressed ineffable 
 contempt for the Muses. 
 
 "I'd have liked her to marry the parson," said Whipple. 
 
 " What, Mr. Ferrar ? " 
 
 " Yes, Mary Anne ; a gentleman every inch of him, 
 and a good judge of a horse — good hands, too ; and if he'd 
 ridden to hounds I don't believe there's a fence between 
 here and Whitby would have stopped him. And fond of 
 her ? There ! He just worships the ground she walks on." 
 
 Nobody approved of Miranda's choice. Even Baker, 
 her nurse in babyhood and her maid in later years, was 
 gloomy, and made her mistress uncomfortable, to the 
 extent of bursting into tears in the midst of her hair- 
 dressing one evening — tears for which she could give no 
 better explanation than that she " felt low." Nobody 
 approved. All Melford and the neighbourhood were 
 agreed that Miss Strickland was throwing herself away. A 
 beauty and an heiress should have found a better mate 
 than a scribbler of improper verse. People who had not 
 read a single page of " Dr. Forster " were assured that the 
 work was at once blasphemous and immoral ; and that it 
 
MIRANDA 275 
 
 was because of its pernicious character the book had 
 enjoyed a tremendous vogue and had brought the writer 
 a fortune. 
 
 " Light come, light go," said Mrs. Parlby across Mrs. 
 Lester's tea-table. " No doubt this young man is a 
 thorough Bohemian, and has run through every shilling 
 he made by his book. Byron was up to his eyes in debt 
 when Miss Milbanke married him." 
 
 " No one but a Bohemian would think of marrying so 
 soon after his wife's death," said Mrs. Lester. 
 
 " Mother always talks as if she had just come out of 
 the ark," exclaimed Mary, with her elbows on the table, 
 in the comfortable freedom of a schoolroom tea, jam-pots 
 for everybody's taste, and a richly-buttered matrimony 
 cake frizzling in an old Sheffield muffin-dish. "All I 
 wonder is that they didn't want to marry the day after the 
 funeral. He was making fierce love to her all the summer, 
 lying at her feet in the garden, and repeating improper 
 French poetry by the mile. Swinburne wasn't good 
 enough for him." 
 
 " I wish you wouldn't talk in such a horrid way, Mary. 
 If your father heard you " 
 
 " He would immediately begin to curse and to swear. 
 Yes, mother, we all know his ways, and we give him a 
 wide berth." 
 
 M Girls are very different from what they were when I 
 was young," Mrs. Parlby put in meekly. 
 
 " Yes, poor things ; but didn't you all have a dismal 
 time, playing croquet in tight stays and a hoop, and reading 
 ' The Heir of Redcliffe ? ' " 
 
 " There was a refining influence in our literature when 
 Mrs. Oliphant and Anthony Trollope were writing that is 
 sadly wanting now, Mary. And nice young women were 
 really nice," Mrs. Parlby concluded stiffly. 
 
 Miranda felt people's disapproval in the air, but with 
 supreme indifference, save when her thoughts dwelt upon 
 Trownham and the Vicar of St. Barnabas'. He had said 
 nothing either good or bad about her engagement, but he 
 
 18* 
 
276 MIRANDA 
 
 had ceased to appear at The Barrow from the day he knew 
 what was going to happen. 
 
 Even in Elysium, steeped in that subtle sweetness of 
 new love, Miranda was conscious of loss in the absence 
 of the friend whose sheltering affection had been with 
 her in all the changes of her girlhood. She looked round 
 the schoolroom and saw the shelves filled with the books 
 that he had given her or chosen for her. She looked at the 
 table where they had sat side by side, and where he had 
 unlocked all the gates that opened upon new and shining 
 pathways in the paradise of the poets and the thinkers. 
 He had filled her mind with new worlds, and when she 
 complained of the monotony of Melford-on-the-Moor, he 
 had given her the Universe. 
 
 " How shall I get on without him for the rest of my 
 life ? " she asked herself, and yet she could take nothing 
 from him, not even a kind word, if he withheld his 
 friendship from Mark Raynham. 
 
 " I can care for no one who will not care for my husband," 
 she thought. 
 
 He was her husband now. He had called her wife one 
 shining afternoon when she was lying against his heart, 
 as they sat close together on a fallen oak in the silence of 
 the wood. 
 
 " My wife," he had murmured, with speech that was 
 sweeter than music. The wood was steeped in the after- 
 noon sun, a golden haze, a glory of light and warmth 
 that made common things transcendental. 
 
 Why should not Gilbert like him ? He had won her 
 mother's liking, had vanquished every prejudice. His 
 deference, his exquisite courtesy had won something 
 warmer than mere liking. He had taken upon himself the 
 tone and manner of an affectionate son, and she had 
 allowed him to assume that position. 
 
 They were all to live at The Barrow by and by, in the 
 good old patriarchal fashion, still common in Continental 
 life. He would keep The Dene as a shelter for his library, 
 and a quiet place where he could isolate himself with the 
 divine afflatus. 
 
MIRANDA 277 
 
 ■• Why not get rid of The Dene and bring your books 
 here ? " Lady Laura asked. " There are rooms enough 
 and to spare for your books and your isolation. This 
 house was built for more visitors and a much larger 
 establishment then I have kept. There are suites of 
 rooms that have never been used since my husband's 
 death." 
 
 The question was not argued, but Mark told Miranda 
 afterwards that he meant to keep The Dene. 
 
 " I couldn't write anywhere but in my Japanese room," 
 he said. " I have grown into those four walls, and whether 
 my thoughts are worthless or precious, it is only there 
 that I can think." 
 
 " Then you must keep your room, and I will never come 
 there to tease you." 
 
 " Oh, but you shall come when my Muse has been kind ; 
 you shall come in the evenings, and sit upon the arm of my 
 chair, and rest your head upon my shoulder, and I will 
 read my day's work aloud, and you shall tell me what you 
 think of my verse and give me the sympathy and under- 
 standing that no one else could give." 
 
 " My dear, dear mother. I believe you have begun to 
 like him," Miranda said softly one night, as she lingered in 
 her mother's bedroom for last words that never were the 
 last — never till the too-attentive Morley came in, and 
 fidgeted about the room, and drove Miranda away. 
 
 " I am not a strong-minded person, and I could not go 
 on disliking anyone my dear girl loves. He is kind and 
 attentive, and he has delightful manners. One can see 
 that he has good blood in his veins — though I am told his 
 father was not quite satisfactory." 
 
 Lady Haverstock had described Mark's father as a 
 " rotter " in her eight-page letter of disapproval. 
 
 " His father was an artist, and a law unto himself," 
 Miranda admitted. " But his mother was an angel, and 
 perfectly beautiful." 
 
 " But not well connected. Your aunt says she was a 
 peasant — or an artist's model, which would be worse." 
 
278 MIRANDA 
 
 " She was an angel. A devoted wife, and deeply 
 religious. Mark has told me all about her. He worshipped 
 her, and he can scarcely speak of her now without tears. 
 They adored each other ; they were like you and me, dear. 
 But she died when he was twelve years old." 
 
 It did Lady Laura good to talk about the man who 
 seemed to have taken much more than half of her idol's 
 heart away from her. She wanted to reconcile herself to 
 her girl's marriage ; she wanted to rise superior to the 
 selfish love that would have kept her daughter her own, 
 and hers only ; and in her simple piety she prayed for a 
 contented mind, and for a generous heart that could give 
 acceptance and even affection to her daughter's husband. 
 
 What was the magic that had overcome her prejudice 
 and her apprehensions ? Only a sympathetic voice, a 
 winning manner, the charm of an expressive countenance, 
 fine eyes and a classic profile, the beauty that Mark had 
 inherited from his Roman mother, and that indefinable 
 attribute that moderns call personality. Once having 
 consented to receive Miranda's lover, she had found him 
 irresistible. 
 
 To see the bloom of health come back to her daughter's 
 cheek, the light rekindled in eyes that had grown dim 
 with secret tears, the youthfulness restored to beauty that 
 had faded — this had been enough to reconcile her to a 
 marriage that nobody else approved. Had she ever con- 
 sidered opinions when her daughter's happiness was in 
 question ? She remembered how " horrid " her sisters 
 had been when she had given ten guineas for a doll that 
 had taken a gold medal in a Paris exhibition. " Ten 
 guineas for a toy for a child of four, when there are children 
 dying of hunger in the East of London ! " It was in vain 
 that she had offered to subscribe twice ten guineas to the 
 society that provided Christmas-trees for Poplar and 
 Bow. The fact remained the same ; she had spent ten 
 guineas on a doll that came down the chimney on Christmas 
 Eve, and was broken before New Year's Day. She looked 
 back and remembered all the lectures she had suffered 
 from those dictatorial sisters in Miranda's childhood, and 
 
MIRANDA 279 
 
 she flung their disapproving letters into the fire for the 
 most part unread, and in every case unanswered. 
 
 There was the trousseau to think about, a task which 
 brought pleasant thoughts. Everything was being ordered 
 from those highly esteemed people in London whose patrons 
 were the salt of the earth, and who did not attach much 
 importance to the orders of a Lady Laura Strickland in 
 the East Riding, whose existence was ignored by the news- 
 papers, and who had no town house. 
 
 Lady Laura and Julia Wagstaff had to arrange every- 
 thing ; for Miranda was curiously indifferent. 
 
 The people who had made all her clothes since she was 
 fifteen were making her frocks, and the still more exalted 
 house that had produced her Court gown was to provide her 
 wedding-dress ; and a fitter from each of these superior 
 establishments was to come to The Barrow to try on. 
 
 " Why should my frocks be tried on ? " Miranda asked. 
 " I have had nothing tried since I was in London, and my 
 clothes fit me." 
 
 Lady Laura admitted that Mrs. Pomfret was a genius. 
 Her cut was so absolutely perfect that trying-on might 
 be dispensed with. No doubt she had a papier mache 
 model of Miranda's figure. 
 
 " But you have grown thinner, darling, in the last six 
 months," Lady Laura said. " Your new frocks will have 
 to be fitted." 
 
 " If you knew how little importance Mark and I attach 
 to fashions and finery," Miranda murmured ; " but it 
 shall be as you wish, dearest." 
 
 Lady Laura and her useful Julia were always con- 
 fabulating ; Julia with a quiet sense of amusement, and 
 with just a touch of scorn, remembering the tragedy of 
 that night when Miranda's mother had been on the brink 
 of death. All the anguish of that night must have passed 
 over her head like a summer cloud, since she could 
 interest herself in the most frivolous details of a marriage 
 of which the mere idea had been horror. But Julia had 
 lived long enough with Lady Laura to know that pliant 
 nature, and though for her own part she was averse to 
 
280 MIRANDA 
 
 Miranda's marriage with Mark Raynham, she was glad 
 that the mother should accept the inevitable and be 
 happy in her own simple fashion : not looking before 
 or after. 
 
 It was to be a very quiet wedding. Lady Laura was too 
 deeply offended with her sisters to think of inviting them, 
 and while leaving them out, she could hardly ask other 
 members of her family, from whom she had kept aloof 
 since her marriage. Their ways had never been her ways. 
 
 Only the immediate neighbours at Melford were to be 
 asked, and these Miranda would rather have excluded. 
 
 " Why should they come to see me married, when 
 they don't like my husband ? I wish you would let the 
 dear old Vicar marry us at eleven o'clock, in an empty 
 church, with no one to stare and talk. It would be much 
 more like a real marriage. I want no one but you, mother. 
 You will give me to him, and you will do it with all your 
 heart, for I know you have accepted him as your son — 
 the son who is to help me to make all your days happy. 
 I like to think of us three, bound together in a love that 
 nothing can shake ; and what do we want with Mrs. 
 Devereux in a new bonnet ? " 
 
 " My darling, I am going to invite them ; I won't let 
 them say that I disapprove of your marriage." 
 
 " Or that I am an undutiful daughter. It shall be 
 as you choose, and I will support Mrs. Devereux, who 
 no doubt will manage to put a sting into her civil 
 speeches." 
 
 The invitations were sent out, and prompt acceptance 
 was followed by presents of the customary kind, looked 
 at with a sigh by Miranda, sorry that the poor things had 
 spent their money for her. Gilbert Ferrar's gift stood 
 out among the paper-knives and blotting-books, and 
 diaries and gold penholders. Julia and Lady Laura 
 looked on eagerly as Miranda opened the parcel addressed 
 in Gilbert's strong penmanship. 
 
 " Strong and stern, like himself," Julia called it. 
 " Nobody else ever wrote like him, unless it was John 
 
MIRANDA 281 
 
 Henry Newman, whose writing I never had the privilege 
 of seeing." 
 
 Cardinal Newman was Miss Wagstaffs Christian hero — 
 after Gilbert Ferrar. The lives of middle-aged spinsters 
 might be too dull and grey, were it not for such silent 
 worship of saints who never know they are adored. 
 
 " What a beautiful case," cried Miranda, admiring the 
 deep oblong box, covered with white vellum. " But, 
 oh, I hope he has not been so foolish as to send me 
 jewellery ! " 
 
 No, it was no jewel for Miranda to wear. It was 
 something to make her think. Exquisite as a work of 
 art, and costly, but not to be called jewellery. It was a 
 crucifix, the Divine figure carved out of ivory, against a 
 panel of dark green enamel, a chef d'ceuvre of Italian 
 workmanship, in a narrow gold frame. 
 
 " How beautiful ! How sad ! " cried Miranda, with 
 a rush of tears. 
 
 " Gilbert could not have chosen anything more 
 beautiful," said her mother. " You must always keep 
 his gift near you, always think and remember, when you 
 look at it." 
 
 " Yes, it is very beautiful ; but was it quite like a 
 friend to remind me of the tragedy that ought to make 
 all joy in life impossible ? " 
 
 " No, it was not like a friend," Miranda told herself 
 when she sat alone with the crucifix on the table in front 
 of her. 
 
 " It was like a rejected lover, who wanted to make me 
 unhappy. He thinks that I am giving my heart and my 
 life to a man for whom the crucifix has no meaning. He 
 does not know what a woman's love can do. I mean to 
 bring my husband into the fold. It shall be the first 
 thought in my mind when he and I are one. And so long 
 as I myself can be steadfast in belief I shall not fear or 
 fail." 
 
 She showed the crucifix to Mark next morning, when 
 they were alone together in the schoolroom, and he spoke 
 
282 MIRANDA 
 
 no word that could offend. Never since their betrothal 
 had he spoken scornfully of holy things. It seemed 
 almost as if he had given a tacit surrender to the creed in 
 which she had been reared. 
 
 He was to dine with them that night, and when he 
 came in the evening he gave her a little cardboard box, 
 very old and kept together by an india-rubber band. 
 
 "It is the antithesis of Mr. Ferrar's present in art and 
 value," he said, smiling at her as she took off the band 
 and opened the box with eager curiosity; " but I thought 
 you would like to have it — for it was dear to my mother, 
 and was taken from her neck when she was dead." 
 
 It was a white metal crucifix, small and badly 
 modelled, attached to a rosary of cornelian beads on a 
 silver chain. 
 
 " Those beads were in her hands night and morning, 
 and I know not how often in the day. The crucifix was 
 given to her by her Father Confessor, and had been blest 
 by the Pope. She was a child in obedience and faith, and 
 as the sands of life ebbed, she seemed to lose all touch 
 with earthly things." 
 
 " I love you for giving it to me," Miranda said, with 
 tears, and then with sudden earnestness : " If you loved 
 her when you were a child, you cannot forsake her now. 
 Think of her in heaven, praying for you ; and try to 
 believe as she believed, to love as she loved." 
 
 " She had an infinite capacity for love. I think I 
 understood in my dim childish way that she lived only 
 for her husband and her son. She worshipped my father, 
 who at his best was not worthy of such love ; and she 
 adored all the saints and angels in the mass-book." 
 
 " I thank you with all my heart for your gift," Miranda 
 said, standing on tiptoe to offer him her lips, " but there 
 is another present I expected." 
 
 " Indeed ; a parure of pearls or a riviere of diamonds ? " 
 
 " Something much more precious. Your book." 
 
 " It was published only two days ago, but I am having 
 my first copy bound in white and gold for my bride. You 
 shall carry it with you when we start for our honeymoon." 
 
MIRANDA 283 
 
 " How cruel of you, Mark, when I am dying to read it. 
 As if the binding mattered ! " 
 
 " It matters a good deal to me, for perhaps the artistic 
 cover is the only thing about the book that you will like." 
 
 " Mark ! " 
 
 " My beautifullest and best, I'm afraid you won't 
 relish my new book." 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 "It is what the French call ' fort.' I wrote it when 
 I was mad for love of you, when every nerve was on edge 
 with exasperation at being parted from you, when fire was 
 running in my veins instead of wholesome blood. Yes, it 
 is strong, and I'm afraid you won't like it." 
 
 " Oh, Mark ! " 
 
 " You were offended with me when I told you the story ; 
 but it may seem different perhaps now, when you have 
 felt the flame of love triumphant. You shall read it 
 when you can understand it — when you are my wife." 
 
 " What ! " cried Miranda, with a face of horror, " is 
 it that hideous Italian story ? Have you written the 
 story that made me hate you for telling it to me ? " 
 
 " No more hideous than the tragedy of (Edipus, and that 
 is immortal. My dearest girl, you must not come between 
 me and my Muse. This twentieth century is an age of 
 strength — of mammoth ships, of flying men ; an age of 
 all things big and strange. There is no room for 
 Evangeline or Miles Standish — and for myself I can 
 but write as the spirit moves me. When you and I have 
 been married ten or fifteen years, you will have tamed your 
 Hon, and he shall write pretty stories in verse like ! The 
 Angel in the House,' and roar you as softly as a sucking 
 dove. But now, while the world is mine, let me give the 
 world the strength and the fire that is in me. Too soon, 
 dear love, will the strength fail and the fire grow cold." 
 
 " I cannot argue with you," she said tearfully, " but 
 it cuts me to the heart that you should write books that 
 good women must not read." 
 
 " Am I to hold my hand when passionate thoughts are 
 driving it ? Am I to stop my pen and stare into vacancy 
 
284 MIRANDA 
 
 till I can think of some sugary conceit, some milk-and- 
 water philosophy, that good women — the conventional 
 English Miss, for instance — would admire ? " 
 
 Miranda turned from him with a sigh. 
 
 " We shall never think alike upon this subject," she 
 said. 
 
 She heard the rustle of her mother's silken train in 
 the hall, and hurried from the room just in time to hide 
 her tears. 
 
 No, they would never think alike about the things 
 that matter. It was something worse than the little rift 
 within the lute. It was a bridgeless gulf that yawned 
 between them, and of which she had been hardly 
 conscious until now. 
 
 She was unusually silent all the evening, and she had 
 a look of distress that only Mark understood. He laid 
 himself at her feet, as it were, after dinner, and in all his 
 speech about indifferent things there was an exquisite 
 tenderness that soothed her, although it could not make 
 her happy. The thought of his book hung over her like 
 a cloud of fear. She could not be gay and joyous in her 
 talk as she had been since her engagement. 
 
 She looked at him with trouble in her eyes. A genius, 
 an artist in the highest sense of the word — but what else ? 
 
 Nothing could make her happy to-night. It was in 
 vain that he had drawn her away from her mother and 
 Julia to the end of the long room, where they were alone. 
 His eloquence had lost its power to charm, his sweetest 
 words jarred, and she was constrained to take refuge at 
 the piano. 
 
 " May I play you your old favourites, mother ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " Pray do, dearest." 
 
 " One of Mozart's sonatas ? " 
 
 " Yes. Julia and I adore him. What was it Chopin 
 said about Mozart, Julia ? " 
 
 Julia had a fine memory, whereby Lady Laura had a 
 way of referring to her as if she were a dictionary of 
 quotations. 
 
MIRANDA 285 
 
 " It was on his deathbed. A friend who was playing to 
 him asked what he would like, Beethoven, Schubert, 
 Mendelssohn ? ' Mozart,' he said, ' II est le seul.' " 
 
 " And now girls who worship Chopin are contemptuous 
 about Mozart," said Lady Laura. 
 
 Miranda played till Mark rose from the low chair where 
 he had been sitting in shadow. 
 
 He made his adieux to Lady Laura and Julia before he 
 came to the piano to thank and praise Miranda. 
 
 " You have a lovely touch," he said. " Will you play 
 for me in the days to come when the sands in the glass are 
 running low and the power of thought is dead ? " 
 
 She did not answer. There was sadness in her face 
 when she gave him her hand to bid good-night, and he 
 knew that he had made her unhappy. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 GILBERT FERRAR came unannounced into Miranda's 
 room early next morning. 
 
 " I came upon Miss Wagstaff at breakfast alone," he 
 said, " and she told me I should find you here." 
 
 He was paler than usual, and the hand he gave Miranda 
 was cold. 
 
 " Forgive me for breaking in upon you so early." 
 
 "As if that mattered. I am always glad to see you, 
 when you come as my friend ; but I don't think you do 
 to-day. You are bringing me trouble." 
 
 " Yes, I am bringing you trouble ; but it is trouble 
 that must come to you anyway. If not from me, from 
 someone else — someone who cares less. Don't look at me 
 like that, Miranda. You know, you know I am your friend, 
 that there is not a thought in my mind that does not 
 belong to you, not a drop of blood in my body that I would 
 not shed for you. Trouble must come to us all, my dear, 
 but there is a way out of it, if we are strong to suffer and 
 brave to act." 
 
 He laid a newspaper on the table before her — the most 
 influential of all the literary weeklies — a journal that had 
 outlived many a rival ushered into the world with much 
 flourish of trumpets, heralded by a list of famous names. 
 
 " Did you see that paper last Saturday ? " Gilbert asked. 
 
 She looked at him, and then at the open pages on the 
 table. 
 
 " No. Is it a review of Mark's book ? " with something 
 of agitation in her voice. 
 
 286 
 
MIRANDA 287 
 
 " Yes, and I want you to read it. Those pages have 
 a grave signification for you, Miranda ; and I implore you 
 to read them with an open mind." 
 
 He walked slowly to the window, and stood looking out 
 into the blue distance of the summer landscape. He 
 was too kind to watch her as she read. 
 
 She sank into the chair where she had been sitting when 
 he came into the room — and sat for a few moments 
 motionless, staring at those open pages with eyes that did 
 not see clearly. 
 
 She looked with wonder at the heading of a two-page 
 article : " How Great is that Darkness." Glancing below 
 this strange title, she saw that the article was a review 
 of her lover's book. Why had Gilbert brought her the 
 paper ? Trouble ? Yes, she knew he had brought her 
 trouble. 
 
 She stared at the ominous head-line, as if she had been 
 looking at a snake, coiled, with crouched head ready to 
 rise and strike. 
 
 " A new poem of three hundred pages from the author 
 of ' Dr. Forster ' is an event. The literary world was 
 startled by the undisciplined power of that extraordinary 
 book. Critics were surprised by the rash adventure ; 
 for it needed considerable daring in a new writer to take 
 one of the world's great stories, embodied in immortal 
 verse by the greatest of modern poets, and newly shape 
 the old scenes, and steep the mediaeval legend in the 
 thoughts and passions and environment of the age we live 
 in. It was a daring experiment, and like many daring 
 experiments, it succeeded. In the galaxy of minor poets, 
 Mr. Raynham shone out, a new star, a poet who was to be 
 treated seriously, perhaps the great poet the world was 
 waiting for to fill the gaps death had made, the Poet of the 
 New Century. 
 
 " And now we have his second book before us, boldly 
 imagined, roughly shaped — half drama, half narrative — 
 with the old facility of lyric verse in the short flights of 
 song that break through the Cimmerian gloom of the 
 
288 MIRANDA 
 
 story. The subject is horrible, but the author handles 
 it as if he loved it." 
 
 And then followed an analysis of the book, in which the 
 writer's power was acknowledged. " Great gifts of ex- 
 pression ; a rare sense of music ; emotion and intensity ; 
 a mind intoxicated with its own wild imaginings ; impres- 
 sionism in the extreme ; the art of a writer who tries to 
 make the pen do the work of the palette and the brush ; 
 pictures as splendid as the ' Feast ' of Paul Veronese — as 
 pathetic and subtle as Millet's ' Angelus,' but withal a 
 moral obliquity, a coarseness in phrase as in thought, an 
 incapacity for seeing things that are lovely, a perverse 
 delight in things that are horrible ; a poet whose vision of 
 love is earthly, sensual, devilish, whose type of womanhood 
 is the Aphrodite Pandemos. We close the book with 
 disgust and with regret ; for it is a book that will be 
 read by thousands, and may do infinite harm. The higher 
 the gifts of the poet, the greater his power for evil. 
 
 " ' If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great 
 is that darkness.' " 
 
 Miranda read those two pages twice over — first in a 
 fever of haste, and then slowly, without uttering one word 
 of surprise or anger, without once looking at Gilbert, who 
 had left the window and was standing on the other side of 
 the table, watching her. Her eyes were tearless, but 
 fever-spots burnt upon her cheeks. 
 
 The silence lasted till a thrush under the window burst 
 into sudden song — a song half joy, half sorrow — " Far 
 away." 
 
 " Was it not rather mean of you to bring me this ? " 
 she asked at last. 
 
 " I think not. No doubt Mr. Raynham has received 
 this and many other reviews of his book." 
 
 V He will show them to me if he wishes me to read 
 them." 
 
 " I don't think he will." 
 
MIRANDA 289 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " He will hardly want you to know what kind of man 
 you have chosen for your husband." 
 
 Miranda turned upon him indignantly. 
 
 " You are like all the other stupid unliterary people," 
 she exclaimed. " You don't know what it means to be an 
 imaginative writer. The man ? The man ? You think 
 Shakespeare was as wicked as Iago, or he could not have 
 created such a villain. You allow nothing for imagination 
 — inspiration. You don't know that a poet lives two 
 lives." 
 
 " No, Miranda. I only know the world's experience of 
 poets ; but I know that out of the fullness of the heart 
 the mouth speaketh ; that a fountain cannot bring forth 
 sweet water and bitter. I know that a man of clean mind 
 cannot take delight in foul things ; that although the man 
 who writes an atrocious book may lead a harmless life, 
 there is the soul of iniquity in him — latent evil, the root of 
 the poison-flower, that must blossom sooner or later. 
 1 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God ' — 
 I have counted you among those blessed ones. Was it 
 mean to bring you that review ? I would do worse things 
 to save you from marrying Mark Raynham." 
 
 " You have no right to interfere with my marriage. 
 Since my mother has consented, no one has the right. As 
 to this reviewer of yours, I dare say he is some malignant 
 rival, some poet who has failed." 
 
 " No, Miranda. He is a man I know. We were friends 
 at Oxford — close friends. And though we have met 
 seldom since those old days, I know what his career has 
 been, and that the world knows him as a critic whose judg- 
 ment of literary merit has never been questioned, and 
 whose honesty is above question. My dear, dear girl, 
 it is not too late. Think what a desperate act it would be 
 to give your life, your soul, your fate here and hereafter, 
 to a man with whose perverted mind you can never be 
 in sympathy. What do you know of him, except that he 
 writes books which are not fit for you to read — books that 
 make his existence a scandal in a Christian land ? Will 
 
 *9 
 
290 MIRANDA 
 
 you marry a man of evil repute — a writer whose success 
 will keep good men and women away from his door, 
 whose friends and companions must be of the worst, not 
 the best ? Will you trust your life to a man who is an 
 avowed infidel, who writes with open scorn of all that 
 good men and women honour and cherish ? Will you live 
 without God ? Oh, be warned in time. ' It is not a 
 question of good and better, but of good and evil, life and 
 death, salvation and damnation.' Those are not my words, 
 Miranda, but they are true as death, haunting words for 
 you, if you refuse to hear them." 
 
 " I am going to marry the man I love. If the world 
 scorns him he will have more need of me. I have given 
 him my heart. I belong to him. Don't try to come 
 between us." 
 
 " Is that your last word, Miranda ? " 
 
 " Yes, it is my last word." 
 
 " Then God help you — in all the days to come." 
 
 He held out his hand, and the hand she gave him was 
 no warmer than his own ; but her eyes were tearless, and 
 she stood before him erect and resolute, letting her hand 
 rest in his strong grasp. 
 
 " Good-bye," she said ; and then suddenly : " Are you 
 going to show that review to my mother ? " 
 
 " Not I. But people are ill-natured, or officious. I'm 
 afraid someone else may enlighten her." 
 
 He was gone before she could reply. 
 
 She sank down upon the cushioned window-seat, and 
 laid her head against the sill, and let the summer wind 
 blow over her hair. That monotonous thrush was singing 
 still — " far away, far away." The sun was shining over 
 the long flower-beds in the garden she loved, the garden 
 where Mark Raynham had crept into her heart in long, 
 sweet hours of talk, discursive, dreamy and fantastical, 
 full of capricious turns and sudden changes, such talk as 
 neither she nor her mother had ever heard before, and 
 which charmed them by its endless variety. The quint- 
 essence of all the new books that were startling France and 
 Germany had been in Mark Raynham's random talk, but 
 
MIRANDA 291 
 
 to those charmed listeners it had seemed the spontaneous 
 speech of genius. 
 
 She belonged to him. That was his own defiant phrase 
 which she had echoed just now. She belonged to him. 
 The individuality and self-assertiveness of her girlhood 
 were gone from her for ever. She had lost the power to 
 think, or to act. Break with him ? Refuse to marry 
 him ? Now, when the banns had been read for the second 
 time, and the wedding was only seven days off ? Refuse 
 to marry him, and carry to the end of her life the memory 
 of that first kiss which set the seal upon their love ! 
 
 No ! If he had written an unworthy book, his shame 
 was her shame, and she must bear it bravely. He was not 
 to be measured as other men are measured. That malignant 
 reviewer had testified to his genius, and it must be for his 
 wife to influence the future. Her love must lead him. 
 " It must. It shall ! " she told herself. " I am stronger 
 than he knows. I will fight the good fight for his soul. 
 My love shall save him/' 
 
 The day was full of sorrow for Miranda. It was one 
 of Lady Laura's bad days — so bad that Dr. Mason came 
 twice between noon and evening. Miranda was not to go 
 to her mother, who was to be kept very quiet, and for whom 
 sleep was of the utmost importance. 
 
 " I have given her a gentle sedative,'* Dr. Mason told 
 Miranda. He had tried to avoid seeing her, and was 
 hurrying away when she intercepted him upon the stair- 
 case. 
 
 " Why are you running away like that ? " she asked. 
 " You know I always want to hear everything from you 
 yourself." 
 
 " I left a message with Miss Wagstaff " he began 
 
 feebly. 
 
 " I don't want your message. I want the truth — the 
 truth. Why can't I go to my mother ? You have made 
 me miserable by keeping me away from her. Why am I 
 not to see her, all this long, dreary day ? " 
 
 " My dear young lady, the case is so simple. Lady 
 Laura is nervous, and easily agitated. She has had a 
 
 19* 
 
292 MIRANDA 
 
 sleepless night, and has been suffering a good deal of pain ; 
 and quiet is absolutely essential for her. She is to have 
 no one with her but her maid — until " 
 
 " Until what ? " 
 
 * Until the nurse comes." 
 
 " A nurse ? " 
 
 " I telegraphed to York for a trained nurse." 
 
 u Good God, what does that mean ? " 
 
 " Only a precautionary measure. That good maid of 
 hers may be able to do all that is wanted ; the nurse is only 
 by way of security." 
 
 " What is the matter ? My mother was well last night, 
 well, and in good spirits — just her own dear self. What 
 has happened ? Is it her heart ? Oh, for God's sake don't 
 say it is her heart." 
 
 " No, no ; it is not her heart." 
 
 "What then? What then? Don't look at me like 
 that. I don't want your pity — nobody's pity can help me 
 when she is suffering." 
 
 " There has been a recurrence of the old trouble. She 
 has been suffering the old pain — the trouble I told you 
 about when we talked of an operation." 
 
 " You never told me anything in plain words, you always 
 shuffled with me, you kept me in a fool's paradise. You 
 have sent for a nurse. Have you sent for the doctor who 
 came to see her last year ? " 
 
 " Yes. I drove to Trownham after I left her this 
 morning, and telephoned to Sir Joseph. He will be here 
 the day after to-morrow " 
 
 " Couldn't he come sooner than that ? What a heart- 
 less wretch. And is she to suffer pain all that time ? " 
 Miranda asked distractedly. 
 
 The tears that she had kept back by sheer strength of 
 will in her interview with Gilbert were streaming now, 
 and she had to cling to the banister-rail to support her 
 trembling limbs. 
 
 " No, no, she will not suffer from the delay ; we shall be 
 able to keep her free from pain." 
 
 He did not tell her that it was on a judicious use of 
 
MIRANDA 293 
 
 morphia that he counted for his patient's relief ; so much, 
 and no more, always considering the state of the heart. 
 
 And now came days that were few in number, but an 
 eternity in suffering ; days of agonizing suspense for 
 Miranda, who was only allowed to see her mother for a 
 few minutes now and then — moments divided by intervals 
 that seemed long as day and night. Time had taken a 
 new measure. She was always looking at her watch, and 
 trying to understand how the hours were passing, while the 
 day seemed endless. 
 
 She wrote to Mark on that first day of fear. He was 
 to have dined at The Barrow that evening, and her note 
 was only three or four lines to put him off : 
 
 " My mother is seriously ill. Please don't come to the 
 house, or ask to see me. I can think of nothing till this 
 cloud has passed. I will write to you every day to tell you 
 how she is going on." 
 
 It seemed to her when she sent that letter as if she 
 had put her lover out of her life. She wandered about the 
 house in fits of restlessness, or she sat by the window in 
 the corridor, near her mother's room, listening for sounds 
 inside — a chair moved, the opening of a window — and 
 interpreting each sound after her own fear. Had she 
 fainted, and was that window opened hurriedly to give 
 her air ? She wanted a report of the patient's condition 
 three or four times in an hour. 
 
 " Still asleep, miss," the nurse said, in answer to the 
 whispered inquiry. " You really mustn't be so anxious. 
 It was only a quarter of an hour ago that I told you how 
 quietly she was sleeping." 
 
 A quarter of an hour. Oh, these long hours ! 
 
 Julia was always with her. Julia, whose company was 
 just endurable, because she could be silent, and did not 
 torture one with consolatory platitudes. 
 
 Even in those long hours when it was impossible to 
 
294 MIRANDA 
 
 read, Miranda did not think of her lover, or of that painful 
 scene with Gilbert Ferrar. A dark curtain had come 
 down between that hour and all that had happened since. 
 She had no power to think. Her mind was paralysed 
 with fear. If some wandering thought went back to the 
 bright days of her engagement, those hours when love, 
 unknown before, transformed the world and made all 
 things new, the memory of his words, his caresses, their 
 visions of the future, was vague as a half-forgotten dream. 
 The idea that she had been so happy was as far away as 
 the thought that she could ever be happy again. 
 
 The physician came in the afternoon of the third day, 
 but he did not bring hope. His opinion served only to 
 extend the prospect of suffering, and to deepen the sense 
 of danger. 
 
 He told Miranda that an operation was inevitable, and 
 must be speedy. There was no time to lose. He did not 
 tell her that there was no time to calculate too nicely the 
 chances of a successful issue. Whatever the risk was, 
 it had to be faced. 
 
 He was very kind to Miranda, moved more than his 
 wont by the aspect of anguish so intense, yet speechless. 
 
 M I have arranged everything with Dr. Mason, who 
 thoroughly understands the case and will take the utmost 
 care of every detail. I shall see Sir Carfax Travers to- 
 night, and if possible he will be here to-morrow, with his 
 anaesthetist and two of his own nurses." 
 
 He pressed Miranda's hand, and was gone before she 
 could question him further. 
 
 Then came a more dreadful time. Days without 
 exercise or employment, or food — nights without sleep. 
 Life was black with the fear of something dreadful that 
 was coming, that must come, that no long hours of sobbing 
 agony and distracted prayer could avert — prayer to a 
 God who seemed so miserably remote, so inaccessible to 
 despairing supplication ; the wild appeal of human 
 agony to a Power so little understood or realized, so clouded 
 over by new philosophies and fantastic theories. Oh, 
 
MIRANDA 295 
 
 miserable hours of prayer to the Almighty Father in 
 whose omnipotence or in whose compassion one only 
 half believed ! 
 
 Miranda moved about the house looking like a ghost, 
 or stood listening at the patient's door, waiting for the 
 moment in which she might go in and stand beside the 
 bed, sometimes to watch her mother's sleep, the sweet face 
 ashen pale and drawn with pain, sometimes for a few 
 softly-murmured words of love, a gentle pressure from 
 the wasted hand. 
 
 The famous surgeon was to come in the afternoon, and 
 then every moment would be a moment of terror. How 
 would Miranda be able to live through the hour when 
 he and his anaesthetist and his nurses would have 
 possession of her mother, when that fondly-loved 
 creature would be helpless in the power of those hard- 
 headed strangers, for whom she would be " a case " — 
 only a case, a subject for science, whose life or death 
 meant nothing for them ? 
 
 Julia kept with her as much as possible on that 
 dreary day, would hardly suffer her to be alone, but did 
 not torment her with useless talk. 
 
 Once it was necessary that something should be said. 
 
 " Don't be offended with me, dear," she said gently, 
 " if I have done something that perhaps you would like 
 to have done yourself, and without consulting you." 
 
 M What have you done ? I don't suppose it matters." 
 
 " I have written to your aunts to tell them of their 
 sister's illness." 
 
 M Why did you do that ? If they come tearing here 
 in their noisy motors they will only worry her ; you know 
 they are as tactless as they are impertinent. Even Aunt 
 Louisa, who is the best of them, bores her to death." 
 
 ** We won't let them worry her, dear. There will be 
 the doctor to guard her room ; but you must consider that 
 they are her sisters, and that they ought to know that she 
 is seriously ill." 
 
 rt Did you tell them that she is going to die ? " Miranda 
 cried, clasping her hands above her head in a sudden 
 
296 MIRANDA 
 
 fury of despair. " You know more than I know. The 
 doctors tell me lies, but they speak the truth to you." 
 
 " No, no, dear, they have told me nothing that you 
 don't know. I have told your aunts only that there is to 
 be an operation to-day, and that they must not think 
 of coming here till she has had time to recover from that. 
 It would have been cruel to leave them in ignorance." 
 
 Miranda assented wearily. 
 
 " Yes, I suppose it would be cruel. Life is cruel; this 
 world is full of cruelty — the torture of animals, the dread- 
 ful diseases of mankind, a miserable world, groaning 
 under an unknown God." 
 
 Julia looked at her with a sudden fear. Were this 
 tension of the last few days to continue, who was to save 
 this young and tender creature's reason ? The girl's 
 wild speech and wilder looks scared her. 
 
 Miranda sat huddled in a low chair by the window, 
 staring at her watch. 
 
 " Only one hour," she muttered, " and they will be 
 here, and then only a few minutes and her life will be at 
 their mercy." 
 
 Nothing would induce her to leave the corridor. She 
 would not go to the schoolroom where her books and her 
 drawing-board and all the things she cared for were to be 
 found. She would not go to the garden for a quarter of 
 an hour in the sunshine. It was in vain that Julia pleaded. 
 
 " Come with me, dear. I am longing for fresh air. 
 Just for one turn upon the lawn. The sun will do us both 
 good." 
 
 " I hate the sun," she said impatiently; " let me alone, 
 Julia, for pity's sake," and Julia had to obey. 
 
 After the doctors came it was different. When he saw 
 her sitting by the open window the surgeon measured 
 her with one all-comprehending glance. He spoke a few 
 words in Dr. Mason's ear before he went into the patient's 
 room, followed by the anaesthetist and the two nurses, 
 in light blue linen gowns and white aprons. Little Dr. 
 Mason came to Julia, and told her that she must take 
 
MIRANDA 297 
 
 Miranda away from that end of the corridor. Sir Carfax 
 could not surfer anyone to be sitting outside his patient's 
 room during the operation. She could go to her own 
 room, which was at the other end of the corridor. She 
 would be near enough there, ready to come in a minute 
 if she were wanted, which was not likely, Dr. Mason 
 added. 
 
 There was difficulty. Miranda refused at first, with 
 stubborn persistence. The sight of the famous surgeon, 
 the raw-boned youth who was to administer the compounds 
 that were to kill consciousness, and might kill the patient, 
 and the two nurses, had filled her with dismay. It was all 
 more dreadful than her prevision of the horror : a mob of 
 strangers had come to murder her mother. But Dr. 
 Mason's arguments at last prevailed, and she allowed 
 Julia to take her to her own room, there to He on a sofa 
 with her face buried in a pillow, and her teeth set, in a kind 
 of stupor. She did not stir or utter any sound till Dr. 
 Mason came into the room with his light, slow tread, and 
 caught her in his arms as she staggered to her feet, facing 
 him with wild eyes and trembling lips. 
 
 The operation was over. 
 
 " In fifty minutes. Simply wonderful ! " Mason said 
 with bated breath. 
 
 Miranda fell back upon the sofa, and lay there with 
 closed eyes, in blessed unconsciousness. 
 
 It was evening. Sir Carfax had gone — motor and train 
 were to carry him one-half the length of England between 
 sundown and midnight, and the knife which had so often 
 fought the silent duel between Science and Death would 
 be at work again before to-morrow morning. He had 
 stayed for three hours after the operation, stayed until 
 Lady Laura had recovered from the anaesthetic and 
 seemed in a satisfactory condition. He told Dr. Mason 
 very little that the general practitioner did not know 
 about this particular patient of his. A frail life, " Long 
 odds against us, Dr. Mason, but there was just a chance ; 
 and we've taken it, I hope in time." 
 
298 MIRANDA 
 
 The physician was to come next day to see the result 
 of his advice. The surgical nurses might be trusted. 
 
 " They are two of my best, and they won't relax their 
 watch for an instant. Nurse Mary till midnight, Nurse 
 Violet till seven to-morrow morning." 
 
 " I shall not leave the house to-night," said Dr. Mason. 
 
 " Just so. You had better be within call, though I 
 hope you won't be wanted." 
 
 Miranda's first words when she came to her senses were 
 to ask when she could go to her mother. 
 
 " Not for twenty-four hours at least ; not till every 
 trace of the anaesthetic has left her." 
 
 '■ Twenty-four hours ? This night and all to-morrow ? 
 No, Dr. Mason, you cannot be so cruel. Her daughter, 
 her only child ! Oh, for God's sake let me see her, only 
 let me see her ; let me creep into her room and stand by 
 her bed, while she is asleep." 
 
 She pleaded in vain. The little doctor was firmer 
 than his wont. 
 
 " My dear Miss Strickland, you are unreasonable. You 
 don't realize the importance of rest, absolute rest ; nothing 
 to stir her emotions. Think what a sensitive creature she 
 is, how easily moved. There must be nothing to interfere 
 with perfect quiet." 
 
 " Say it is best for her, and I will obey you. I can bear 
 suffering if it is for her." 
 
 " It is for her ; and it is essential." 
 
 Miranda said no more. Nurse Mary was to send her 
 a written bulletin every two hours all through the night. 
 She was not going to bed. She would lie down, perhaps ; 
 she would not have Julia with her. 
 
 " No, dear, you want rest more than I do. Go to bed 
 and sleep as long as you can. I will bring you news of 
 our dearest. You are to rest — you poor, indefatigable 
 Julia." 
 
 Miranda was calm. The horrible ordeal was over, and 
 her mother was resting. This should be the end of fear. 
 She thought of her mother's age — only forty-two, an age 
 
MIRANDA 299 
 
 at which many women are healthy and vigorous, gadding 
 about like girls, and as eager for movement and gaiety. 
 And now the ordeal was over, and her mother would be 
 young again. Those days of mysterious pain were at an 
 end. It would be a new life. 
 
 She clasped her hands over her tired eyes, and stood 
 by the open window trying to visualize a happy future, 
 her mother restored to health and strength, which a 
 woman of her age had a right to expect. 
 
 Then, for the first time since the beginning of fear, she 
 thought of her lover, thought of the plans they had made, 
 the triple bond of love ; how he who had been already 
 accepted as a son was to grow nearer and more dear as the 
 years went by, and the bond of love strengthened with 
 custom, the placid monotony of family life in delightful 
 surroundings. She looked at a smiling future. 
 
 " We are going to be so happy together, so completely 
 united," she told herself; " and the day will come when 
 my mother will bless me for having chosen Mark Raynham 
 instead of some pompous aristocrat who would have taken 
 me away from her — instead of one of Aunt Hilda's good 
 matches." 
 
 She smiled at her wan face in the glass. " O, God, 
 Thou hast heard my prayer. I am going to be happy." 
 
 Those hours of fear had exhausted her. She sank upon 
 the spacious sofa at the foot of her bed, and the first sleep 
 that had fallen upon her weary eyelids since the 
 suggestion of danger came down suddenly, and she lay 
 with her head buried in the down pillows, lay in a paradise 
 where there was neither thought nor fear. 
 
 A long, dreamless sleep, from which she awoke with a 
 start, to see the room full of light, and Julia standing by 
 the sofa, ghostlike in her long white gown. 
 
 11 You have been sleeping, dear ? " 
 
 " Yes, such a lovely sleep. Why are you here ? Where 
 is the nurse's message ? She was to send me a written 
 report every two hours." 
 
 " The report came an hour ago, but you were so fast 
 asleep, Baker would not wake you." 
 
3 oo MIRANDA 
 
 " She ought to have waked me. That was shameful 
 of her. As if my sleep mattered ! Where is the message ? 
 Was it good ? " she asked, agitated and breathless. " Has 
 all been going well ? " 
 
 " No, it was not good. My dear girl, I am to take you 
 to your mother." 
 
 Oh, thank God ! I am to see her. Then she is 
 better ? " confusedly, looking with dilated eyes into the 
 face of the summoner. 
 
 She was trembling violently, and would have fallen, 
 but for Julia's supporting arm. 
 
 " Come, come," she gasped, moving towards the door. 
 
 "Miranda, be calm, be brave. Don't let her see your 
 distress. It is for the last time." 
 
 " The last ! The last ! " distractedly. 
 
 " She is dying. She wants to see your face, to hold 
 your hand. She knows the end is near. Be brave, 
 dear." 
 
 Miranda was speechless. Intolerable pain was in her 
 face, and wonder mixed with grief, as if in this supreme 
 moment she could not believe that the blow was going 
 to fall. 
 
 Dr. Mason was in the room, standing near the bed. 
 where the pale wraith of her who had been so handsome 
 in her mature womanhood lay white and frail, amidst that 
 colder whiteness of cambric and lace. 
 
 Miranda fell on her knees by the bed in a dumb anguish, 
 and had just power to clasp and kiss the wasted hand, 
 just consciousness enough to hear the dying voice, slow 
 and breathless. 
 
 " Good-bye, my beloved girl. We have been happy 
 together, haven't we, dear ? " 
 
 " Too happy, mother, too happy." 
 
 " Be good, dear, and God will let us be together in 
 heaven." 
 
 It was so simply, so innocently spoken, with the faith 
 that looks through death. 
 
BOOK THE THIRD 
 
 THE BLACK WEDDING 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 OF the days and nights that followed Miranda knew 
 very little. She never went downstairs, and day 
 or night was all the same to her in the house of darkened 
 windows. Nothing could induce her to leave the vicinity 
 of that shrouded room where candles were burning as 
 on an altar, and where Gilbert Ferrar knelt in silent prayer 
 beside the dead. 
 
 He had tried to see Miranda, had written little notes of 
 entreaty, begging her to come to him, that they might 
 pray together, and talk of the deep things of God, and the 
 hope that can take the bitterness from grief. 
 
 " I am too miserable — too miserable I " she wrote. 
 " For you to talk to me of hope would drive me mad. 
 Leave me alone in my sorrow. Nothing can lessen it. I 
 have done with hope in God. I prayed and prayed, 
 hour after hour, through all those days and nights, and no 
 one heard my prayer. I have done with prayer." 
 
 He wrote to her earnestly, tenderly, and he suffered 
 for her as acutely as she herself was suffering. To love 
 her so dearly, and not to be able to help or comfort her. 
 That was hard. 
 
 301 
 
302 MIRANDA 
 
 She took no notice of his letters, nor of other letters, 
 not more earnest, but more insistent — letters that came 
 to her every day from Mark Raynham. 
 
 " Miranda, why do you keep me away from you in your 
 sorrow ? Who else has so good a right to be with you ? 
 I obeyed you, with an aching heart, in those last days. I 
 kept aloof. I left you to give all your thoughts, all your 
 love, to her who had given you so much. But now that 
 all is over, now that you are alone, I claim the right to 
 be with you. Let me come to you, let me come ! I am 
 hungering for the sight of your face, for the sound of 
 your voice ; I am hungering for you, longing as never 
 lover longed for his heart's desire. I want to hold you in 
 my arms, to dry your tears with my kisses, and to bring 
 back life and youth in the ecstasy of triumphant love. 
 Let me come." 
 
 He had written to her several days before she sent any 
 reply, and then it was only two lines. " Pray do not 
 write to me any more. I could not bear to see you for a 
 long time to come. If you really care for me, leave me 
 alone with my sorrow." 
 
 The days went by. All the ghastly preparations for 
 the ghastly end had to go on within Miranda's hearing. 
 Julia's endeavours to draw her away from the place where 
 death was in the air were useless. Miranda saw the 
 shrouded coffin carried through the night silence, and 
 heard the sound of the hammer on the coffin-lid before 
 sunrise, while the birds were singing. Nothing could be 
 kept from her sleepless vigil. By night or day she was 
 there to hear and to understand. 
 
 Julia could do nothing. Dr. Mason could do nothing ; 
 to scold or lecture was of no avail ; and his sleeping- 
 draughts had no more effect than if they had been so 
 much rose-water. 
 
 " If you would give me just one strong dose that would 
 send me to sleep for ever, it would be a kindness," she 
 
MIRANDA 303 
 
 told him. " As for your opiates, I take them to please you 
 and Julia — and lie wide awake all night staring at the 
 darkness and wondering what sleep is like." 
 
 On the eve of the funeral the house was full of people. 
 Lady Haverstock and her sisters, all had come to follow 
 Laura Strickland to her last rest in the old churchyard. 
 Lord Airdale had come from Paris, where he spent the 
 greater part of his life, and was popularly supposed to 
 occupy a premier Stage in the new quarter, which was 
 something more than a bachelor's -pied-a-terre. 
 
 Julia had planned everything, and had put the guests 
 in those visitors' rooms that had been seldom occupied 
 during Lady Laura's widowhood, and which were remote 
 from the darkened corridor where the air was heavy with 
 the scent of tuberoses and tropical lilies, and where Miranda 
 wandered to and fro like a ghost. She had tried to keep 
 away from her aunts, and had shuddered at the sound of 
 their motor-cars arriving all through the day after death 
 with insistent hootings, and the unwelcome sound of voices 
 in the hall. 
 
 They came to the corridor one after another, those 
 aunts whom she had never loved, and took her in their 
 arms and wept over her, and they all said just the same 
 thing. She must come to stay with them, and be cheered 
 and comforted among her own kin. Her cousins would 
 love to have her, and would give her worlds of love. Of 
 course this terrible bereavement would postpone her 
 marriage for a long time. 
 
 " And perhaps," Lady Haverstock went on, " you will 
 find that this sudden sorrow has changed you, dear, and 
 you may break with him altogether. No, no," as Miranda 
 recoiled from the unwelcome embrace, " No, no, my dear 
 child ! I won't press the question now. There is time 
 enough before you. A great grief does sometimes change 
 us. It makes a cleft in our lives. No, I won't tease you." 
 
 Miranda stared at her with wide eyes, more angry than 
 sorrowful. 
 
 The very sound of Aunt Hilda's voice hurt her. For 
 the rest, nothing mattered — to marry or not to marry 
 
304 MIRANDA 
 
 seemed indifferent. There was only one thing she wanted 
 — her mother back from the dead — and that was impossible. 
 Lazarus had been brought from the grave in answer to a 
 sister's prayer ; but when she prayed there had been no 
 one to listen, no one to pity or to help. 
 
 Her uncle was worse than her aunts, for he had more 
 to say about her engagement to Mark Raynham than 
 about her mother's death. 
 
 " I was very fond of my sister. She was the youngest, 
 and the family pet, and I was fonder of her than of the 
 others. We met very seldom as the years went on. You 
 see, she was a recluse, and I was something of the same 
 sort, in my own way. I wanted to live my own life, 
 just as she did ; but don't suppose that I was indifferent, 
 or that I did not think about her — and you. And now, 
 my dear, I must say just a few words about this engage- 
 ment of yours which has taken me by surprise. A most 
 ill-advised and really improper engagement. I don't 
 suppose you know that you are a great heiress — that you 
 come on our side from one of the oldest families in the 
 North of England." 
 
 He went on and on in a rambling discourse, which made 
 no more impression on Miranda's mind than water falling 
 drop by drop — a pitiless repetition. 
 
 She stood before him, seeming to listen, with an im- 
 movable face. 
 
 " Good-bye," she said, when he stopped suddenly, at 
 the appearance of his valet, bringing an overcoat. " Good- 
 bye. I know you mean to be kind, but I can't thank you 
 properly. Nothing seems to matter." 
 
 Lord Airdale went to London by an afternoon express, 
 and thence to Paris, without wasting time in a country 
 for which he had an angry contempt, since every year 
 brought him less money for his shooting, and more com- 
 plaints from his tenants. 
 
 The Will had been read, but Miranda had not been 
 present at the reading. Julia told her all she need know. 
 It was a beautiful Will. Everybody had been remem- 
 bered ; first those of her own blood — sisters, brother, 
 
MIRANDA 305 
 
 nephews and nieces — and then her poor, her pensioners 
 near and far. Only this Will revealed how generously 
 Laura Strickland had used her income — how many had 
 cause to bless her memory. She had left Gilbert Ferrar 
 five thousand pounds and the same amount to Julia 
 Wagstaff, two thousand to the Vicar of Melford and five 
 hundred to Dr. Mason ; and there were annuities to her 
 faithful servants. No one had been forgotten. 
 
 The last of the cars had driven away before three 
 o'clock. The house was empty. It seemed a strange 
 house to Miranda, for Julia had collected all those trifles 
 scattered here and there in the sitting-rooms, which told of 
 a life that was done — a book, a work-bag, a scent-bottle — 
 things that would be precious to Miranda by and by, but 
 the sight of which to-day would be agonizing. 
 
 She was gone, whose image was associated with every 
 room, without whom the house was empty. She was gone, 
 and her daughter wandered in and out of those familiar 
 rooms — now strange and haunted — and the rest of the 
 day passed in a dreadful silence. 
 
 The house was shut for the night, every window closed ; 
 not a breath of air from the world outside — oppressive 
 warmth, oppressive stillness, broken only by the chiming 
 of clocks that were the only voices inside the house. 
 Outside there were the voices of the night, dominant over 
 all the melancholy, repetitive note of a wood-owl, estab- 
 lished in a hollow oak near the gate as long as Miranda had 
 known The Barrow. She and her mother had grown 
 familiar with the plaintive cry that had mixed with their 
 talk or reading on still nights like this. 
 
 It was ten o'clock, and everybody was at rest except 
 Miranda. She had made a pretence of going to bed to 
 satisfy the maid who had been her nurse, and who some- 
 times vexed her with a too assiduous attendance. She 
 had allowed Baker to exchange the dismal black gown 
 she had been wearing all day for one of those loose robes 
 of delicate muslin and filmy lace, of which her wardrobe 
 held many. Her mother loved to see her in that ethereal 
 
 20 
 
3 o6 MIRANDA 
 
 whiteness, with the rich brown hair falling loose, when they 
 were sitting by the bedroom fire, for the good-night talk 
 that sometimes lasted till the clock struck eleven. She 
 crept downstairs, half an hour after Baker left her and 
 that loving vigilance was disposed of, and wandered about 
 the airless rooms with slow steps that made no sound on 
 the thick carpets. She looked at all the familiar objects 
 in the rooms where her life had been spent : her mother's 
 portrait painted by Millais within a year of her marriage, 
 a lovely young face and slender figure in white satin ; the 
 portrait of her father, a fine, frank countenance, with blue 
 eyes and a delightful smile. 
 
 11 Oh, you poor dear, how happy you look, and oh, how 
 hard to be killed in the flower of your youth," Miranda 
 had said to him dumbly many and many a time, looking 
 up at the picture. 
 
 The marble bust in a recess between two windows 
 showed a stronger and a sterner face. This was the first 
 of the Mincing Lane Stricklands, the man who had been 
 in the colonial trade when there were fewer merchants 
 and larger profits, and from whom the wealth of the 
 Stricklands had come down from father to son in a hundred 
 prosperous years. She looked at the faces of the dead 
 whom she had never known, and then at the dear face she 
 remembered best in a more mature aspect. " Lovely as 
 a girl, lovely always," she thought, " and always kind, 
 unselfish, compassionate, generous. Oh, if I had been a 
 better daughter ! " 
 
 That was the bitterness of her sorrow. She remembered 
 every sin against her beloved dead, sins of omission, things 
 left undone, little lapses from attention ; things done, 
 wilful things, acts of self-will, little acts of impatience, 
 impertinence, self-assertion, or worse — an assumption of 
 superiority, a hint of knowing better than the mother who 
 had taught her all that was best in the things worth 
 knowing, at whose knees the great book of the poets, the 
 literature of power, had been opened for her. She remem- 
 bered those innumerable sins of the over-indulged child, 
 and a kind of despair came over her. For an instant she 
 
MIRANDA 307 
 
 forgot, and made a sudden rush to the door. She was 
 going to throw herself at her mother's feet, and cry aloud 
 for pardon — " Forgive, forgive ! " she would cry, drowned 
 in tears. She rushed to the foot of the staircase and stood 
 looking up through the darkness, where only a little star of 
 light flashed here and there, when that momentary illusion 
 passed. She seemed to be standing with her face against 
 a dead wall, a high, dark wall. That wall was Death. 
 No tears, no remorseful speech could avail anything. Her 
 most trivial sin was a record hewn in granite — no power 
 of hers could alter or efface it. 
 
 She was in the drawing-room, scarcely knowing how 
 she had come there, almost stifled in the sultry stillness. 
 She went to one of the long windows, unfastened bolts and 
 catches, and flung the casements wide. The wood-owl's 
 note sounded like a dirge. 
 
 There was another sound that startled her as she stood 
 looking out over lawns and flowers without shape or colour 
 under a moonless heaven, another and a nearer sound, the 
 tread of light footsteps upon the gravel. 
 
 She stood, looking straight before her, breathless and 
 frightened, and then in a moment a strong arm held her 
 and drew her back into the lighted room — a moment, and 
 she was lying against her lover's breast, her face hidden, 
 trembling from head to foot — and happy. 
 
 Happy ? In those first moments death and sorrow were 
 forgotten. She was loved and she loved her lover, 
 passionately ; with the love that fills mind and heart so 
 full that there is no room for grief. She felt as if they 
 had been parted for years. He lifted up her head, and his 
 strong hand smoothed the hair from her brow with a 
 caress of infinite gentleness. 
 
 " My angel, why did you shut me out ? Who had so 
 good a right to share your sorrow ? Your husband that 
 is to be ! Earth knows no nearer tie." 
 
 The thrilling voice, the tender hand smoothing the 
 loosened hair upon her forehead, soothed the nerves that 
 had been strained to agony in this last hour of passionate 
 
 20* 
 
3 o8 MIRANDA 
 
 grief. It seemed as if someone she had loved ages 
 ago, a lover who had been on a long sea voyage and had 
 come back to her unexpectedly, were holding her in his 
 arms. Life was new again, heart was beating against 
 heart. She had put him away from her in her sorrow, 
 she had shut him out of her thoughts ; his image had been 
 blotted out, drowned in her tears ; he and all her world 
 had been dark and forgotten. But now life was new again, 
 and she remembered how she had loved him and longed 
 for him in the long months of parting, when she was in 
 the South, when he was in Germany. 
 
 " My beloved girl ! Oh, my sweet love, how changed 
 you are — beauty washed white with tears." 
 
 Remorse and grief were gone. Nothing remained but 
 love. She melted in his arms. The reaction was too 
 much. A cloud came over her brain, and she lay un- 
 conscious against his breast. Only his strong arm kept 
 her from falling. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 MELFORD-ON-THE-MOOR, too remote from the 
 world of strenuous life and exhilarating changes 
 to feel a satisfying interest in public movements and 
 unfamiliar personages, dimly visualized in the newspapers, 
 had a way of concentrating its attention on its next-door 
 neighbours ; next door in that sparsely populated parish 
 meaning any domicile within two or three miles. While 
 great political and social movements were going on all 
 over the world, and life was changing like the shadows in 
 a picture-theatre, Melford-on-the-Moor lavished all it 
 had of mental power upon interests as narrow as the two 
 local pages of the Parish Magazine. Its marriages and 
 its christenings, its funerals and its financial changes, were 
 topics of absorbing interest, discussed to satiety at every 
 tea-table, from the dignity of the Georgian silver urn and 
 Coalport china in Mrs. Devereux's drawing-room, to the 
 little brown tea-pot and pennyworth of " winkles " with 
 which Mrs. Sally Jones regaled her gossips. 
 
 " I have seen so much inconsistency in people I have 
 known, that I thought nothing could surprise me," Mrs. 
 Devereux said, as she distributed second cups to the visitors 
 on her second Friday, who were so exclusively feminine 
 that, except for the surroundings, the assembly might 
 have passed for a mothers' meeting. 
 
 This particular second Friday was more than usually 
 representative. No familiar face was missing. Every- 
 body made a point of coming — Mrs. Parlby and her 
 
 309 
 
3 io MIRANDA 
 
 daughters, who had renounced all girlish pretensions, and 
 settled down in tailor-made coats and skirts ; Mrs. Lester 
 and her three girls, who were aggressively young ; Mrs. 
 Vincent, the Vicar's wife ; and Mrs. Campbell, the one 
 inhabitant of a villa on the Trownham road who was 
 accepted in the Devereux circle, on the strength of 
 Major Campbell's having been in the Scots Greys, and 
 being able to allude casually to the Duke of Argyll as 
 his chief. Ill-natured people who called Melford-on-the- 
 Moor cliquey were apt to wonder whether the ducal chief 
 was aware of the existence of this particular clansman. 
 
 No one responded to Mrs. Devereux's remark, as there 
 was a general feeling that it was only preliminary, and 
 that she had a great deal more to say. 
 
 " After what I have seen of human nature I thought 
 nothing could shock me," said Mrs. Devereux, repeating 
 herself with a variation, as the youngest Lester girl carried 
 the last second cup to Mrs. Campbell ; " but I must confess 
 that Miranda's conduct has been a thunderclap." 
 
 ** The Vicar was certainly surprised when he received 
 Miss Wagstaff's letter," murmured Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " That after the exaggerated grief the girl has shown 
 since her mother's death, isolating herself in a manner 
 that I can but think savours of affectation, she should 
 prove herself so utterly without proper feeling as to marry 
 in less than two months after the funeral, is, to my mind, 
 inexplicable." 
 
 " Nothing is inexplicable in such a girl as Miranda," 
 said Mary Lester. " She is as clever as she can stick, but 
 she hasn't an ounce of ballast. She was brought up to 
 be romantic and a creature of impulse. She doesn't 
 value the things other people care for — her beauty, her 
 connections, her fortune. Her head has always been in 
 the clouds, and from the hour that young man came to 
 The Barrow she was fated to do something wild and 
 unconventional." 
 
 " Lady Laura was always unconventional," said Mrs. 
 Parlby. " When one thinks of what a position a woman 
 with her means ought to have taken in Melford, and what 
 
MIRANDA 311 
 
 a centre of light and leading her house might have been ; 
 and then, when one remembers how she isolated herself, 
 and did absolutely nothing in the way of entertaining ; 
 never went an inch out of her way to bring distinguished 
 people to the place ; never gave so much as a Cinderella 
 dance for the girls and boys in the neighbourhood, and, 
 with the finest garden within twenty miles, was never 
 known to give a garden-party." 
 
 " Why go into particulars ? " exclaimed Mrs. Devereux 
 with some hauteur, having always considered herself 
 injured by Lady Laura's isolation, although she knew 
 it was not meant for exclusiveness. " She did not care 
 twopence for any one of us ; she lived twenty years in 
 the place and never made a real friend. We were here as 
 the turnips and cabbages were in the fields, and she thought 
 no more of us than of them." 
 
 " She was always sweet when one went to see her," 
 Mrs. Vincent said deprecatingly ; a remark which nobody 
 noticed, the Vicar's wife being known as one of those 
 milk-and-water women who are grateful for small favours. 
 
 '* She suffered us," retorted Mrs. Devereux ; " but I 
 tell you we none of us counted for more than the 
 vegetables in the allotment grounds. Laura Strickland 
 cared for nothing and lived for nothing except the daughter 
 whom she did her very best to ruin by over-indulgence." 
 
 " And it is rather sad to find that the daughter requites 
 her by marrying a scribbling adventurer within two months 
 of her death." 
 
 " But really now in this go-ahead age a marriage is 
 seldom delayed longer than that for a family bereave- 
 ment," said Mrs. Campbell. " People cut down the 
 number of bridesmaids, don't have any show of presents 
 before the wedding, or any reception after ; and bride 
 and bridegroom scamper off to Paris directly after the 
 ceremony." 
 
 Nobody took kindly to the date of Miranda's wedding, 
 any more than they had taken kindly to her engagement. 
 Again, as in the early days, she lived in an atmosphere 
 of disapproval. 
 
312 MIRANDA 
 
 Julia was kind, and made all the arrangements for 
 the marriage, as she had done for the funeral ; writing 
 to everybody who ought to be written to, doing every- 
 thing that a capable elder sister might be called upon to 
 do. But the business jarred upon her somehow. It seemed 
 so strange to be busy with wedding preparations in a 
 house where the servants were moving about in deep 
 mourning and with sad faces. They were mostly old 
 servants, from the butler who had been Mr. Strickland's 
 servant when he was a bachelor, to the scullery-maid who 
 had been born at the West Lodge, and whose mother 
 had been housemaid for seven years, before she married 
 an under gardener and gave her mind to opening and 
 shutting the big, wrought-iron gates. It was an old- 
 fashioned household that had lived under a kindly rule, 
 and the sorrow for their mistress's death was very real. 
 
 " Mark wants me to marry him on the fourteenth of 
 next month," Miranda had told Julia in a voice that 
 sounded unlike hers, " in order that we may go to the 
 South before the cold weather ; but let everything be 
 done in the quietest way ; don't think of the ceremony as 
 a wedding, but as my farewell to youth." 
 
 So it was to be what the Melford people called a 
 dreadful wedding, without bridesmaids, kindred, or 
 Wedding March, at nine o'clock in the morning. The 
 only music was to be " The Voice that breathed o'er Eden," 
 the only witnesses Julia and Mrs. Vincent, who had been 
 kind and sympathetic, and the ancient pew-opener, who 
 would long ago have subsided into an almshouse were that 
 solace of old age existent in Melford. 
 
 " My poor dear," said Julia, when everything had been 
 done, even to the packing of the bride's trunks with the 
 dismal black clothes and the putting away of all the lovely 
 things that Lady Laura had ordered for the trousseau. 
 
 Miranda would not even look at them — the wedding- 
 dress, a chej d'ceuvre of the new style in wedding clothes, 
 a miracle of foamy gauze and flashing silver, priceless 
 old lace and seed-pearl embroidery, that had kept 
 
MIRANDA 313 
 
 Melusine's young women at work for a month, and the 
 going-away dress, which was more fascinating in its 
 elaborate simplicity. 
 
 Miranda looked her loveliest when she tried on the 
 wedding-gown before the beginning of her mother's 
 illness, and laughed at the dear, foolish mother who 
 insisted on a dress-rehearsal just ten days before the 
 wedding. 
 
 And now she was to be married in a long crape gown 
 and to travel in black serge, and a hat shrouded with 
 crape. 
 
 Julia would have been relieved in mind if the marriage 
 could have been delayed for a year, so that Miranda might 
 have time to recover her health, and to think seriously 
 about the future ; but on the other hand it might be 
 that only some complete change of environment and 
 companionship could raise her from the depths of 
 melancholy into which she had sunk after her mother's 
 death. 
 
 She had secluded herself with her sorrow, and had kept 
 even her old governess and ante damnee, her serviceable 
 Julia, at a distance. She would have no one's sympathy, 
 she wanted no one's pity. Upon her Melford friends, 
 even Mary Lester, of whom she had once been fond, she 
 shut her door with remorseless determination. The 
 butler had his instructions, and adhered to them. Mrs. 
 Devereux's pony-carriage appeared in the avenue once a 
 week, and Mrs. Devereux's own lips interrogated the 
 guardian of the hall door. 
 
 " She must be ill, really ill, if she refuses to see a friend 
 who knew her mother before she was born," the lady said, 
 bristling. 
 
 " No, ma'am, I don't think Miss Strickland is ill, but she 
 is depressed, and to see a friend would upset her." 
 
 " Nonsense ! It must be something more serious than 
 depression. Is Mason attending her ? Or has she had a 
 doctor from York ? " 
 
 " Dr. Mason came two or three times, ma'am, but he 
 told me in confidence as he came through the hall, nobody 
 
3H MIRANDA 
 
 could minister to a diseased mind, and that was our 
 young lady's trouble." 
 
 " Is it mental ? " exclaimed Mrs. Devereux. " I 
 thought as much. The poor girl has gone off her head/' 
 
 " Oh, dear, no, ma'am, nothing of the kind," answered 
 the butler indignantly. " Our young lady was devoted 
 to her ladyship, and she can't get over her ladyship's 
 death, and she doesn't feel up to talking about her grief. 
 She'd rather keep it to herself." 
 
 " Strange ! Has she seen Mr. Ferrar ? " 
 
 w No, ma'am, not yet." 
 
 " He has called, I suppose ? " 
 
 M He has been here several times, ma'am, and has seen 
 Miss Wagstaff." 
 
 " Oh, she is visible, is she ? I'll come in and have a 
 chat with her. Walk him up and down the avenue, 
 James." 
 
 This to the lad in livery who stood at the pony's head, 
 and tried to prevent that animal digging holes in the gravel. 
 
 u Miss Wagstaff has gone to Trownham, ma'am." 
 
 M Very well. Please tell Miss Strickland that I have 
 called this afternoon for the sixth time, and I shan't 
 come again till she sends for me." 
 
 " Very good, ma'am." 
 
 " Very bad, I call it," Mrs. Devereux muttered, as she 
 shook the reins and drove Oberon away with a flourish. 
 He was a fair-sized cob, so well bred that the Colonel had 
 made a merit of letting his wife drive him. 
 
 Nothing was farther from the butler's thoughts than 
 to convey Mrs. Devereux's message to his young mistress. 
 He would tell Miss Wagstaff what the geyser had said, 
 for everything that happened was conveyed to that capable 
 lady, who had shown herself equal to any domestic 
 crisis. Very few of the servants had seen Miranda in this 
 time of mourning, but Baker kept the servants' hall 
 informed about their young mistress, whom they all loved. 
 She had fallen into invalid ways, like her mother, though 
 she would not admit that she was ill. She did not leave 
 her room till after luncheon, and then only to creep up 
 
MIRANDA 315 
 
 and down the long lawns with Miss Wagstaff. Every- 
 thing seemed a trouble to her. She lay on the sofa in her 
 bedroom all the morning. The pianos that she had so 
 loved were now hardly ever opened, neither her own 
 baby grand in the schoolroom nor the concert Bechstein 
 in the deserted drawing-room. She wrote no letters, 
 and even her books wearied her. Her lover's company 
 seemed to bring no respite to her grief, though he came 
 every afternoon and only left a little before dinner, when 
 Miranda went to her room and shut herself in for the night. 
 She never came down to dinner, and Miss Wagstaff ate a 
 brief and dreary meal alone in the breakfast room. 
 
 " They're not much like lovers," Baker told Mrs. Curtis ; 
 " leastways not my idea of lovers, for they're never alone. 
 Miss Wagstaff is always there, watching over her, which 
 certainly doesn't show tact on her side. I don't think 
 my young lady can like having a third party always 
 there, and I'm sure he don't." 
 
 " No more he don't," assented Charles, the footman. 
 M He looked uncommon glum when I let him out yesterday 
 evening." 
 
 Nobody at The Barrow took kindly to the notion of a 
 black wedding at nine o'clock in the morning — a marriage 
 with maimed rites and no marriage feast. As for the 
 wedding presents, those had been put away in a huge 
 wooden case in one of the empty rooms in that suite of 
 guest-chambers that had been used for the first time 
 since Mr. Strickland's death for the visitors who came to 
 his widow's funeral. 
 
 Lady Haverstock had never seen the rooms in that 
 east wing till she was ushered into the handsomest of them 
 by Mrs. Curtis, after her sister's death, and her only 
 comment had been : 
 
 " A fine large room, Curtis, but how dreadfully Vic- 
 torian ! I believe there are rooms like this in Clapham 
 Park." 
 
 " It was one of the best rooms in Mr. Strickland's 
 time, my lady." 
 
 " I dare say, Curtis. It is like him." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 " AT last," said Gilbert Ferrar. 
 
 jTjl At last he had prevailed over Miranda's 
 obstinate refusal to receive him ; at last, after more than 
 two months, he was standing face to face with her in the 
 old familiar room, where he had brought her the paper 
 that condemned her lover's book. 
 
 " Great God, how changed ! " he muttered to himself, 
 as he looked at her. 
 
 She was pale to the lips, wasted almost to emaciation, 
 the ghost of the girl he had known ; a narrow, shrunken 
 figure in a dull black gown, hopeless, faded. 
 
 " Miranda, why have you shut your door against me 
 week after week, your old friend, the friend of your 
 childhood? " 
 
 " I was too miserable ! You would have talked of my 
 mother. You would have tried to console me. I could 
 not have borne it. I only want to be let alone, to sit 
 alone in my own room, in this silent house." 
 
 " And you are going to be married in a week ? " 
 
 " Yes, I am going to be married." 
 
 Never, perhaps, had a bride spoken in so dull a voice, 
 or with a face so expressive of misery. 
 
 " Miranda," exclaimed Gilbert, " is this act of yours 
 consistent, is it reasonable ? You know it is not ; you 
 know it is unworthy of you and an outrage to the dead. 
 Your grief has been natural, remembering what a mother 
 you have lost ; but your marriage within two months of 
 her death will make your sorrow seem a play that you have 
 
 316 
 
MIRANDA 317 
 
 acted, and your little world will wonder and laugh. But 
 outward seeming and other people's opinions do not 
 matter. It is for yourself that I am pleading. Take 
 time, my dear, a long time for thought, and self- 
 examination. Do not give your young life and all it holds 
 in the future, with so slight a knowledge of the man to 
 whom you are giving it. Think what marriage means 
 in the sight of God — a bond that only death or deadly 
 sin can sever. My dear girl, be reasonable. Give yourself 
 at least a year of calm days and quiet thoughts. You 
 have isolated yourself in your passionate grief. That 
 way madness lies. But a life of comparative seclusion 
 with friends you love, with your true friend, Julia, with 
 your aunt Louisa, who is kind and sympathetic, and 
 would make you happy in her house, a year of quiet 
 thought will soften your grief and draw you nearer to 
 God. And if, after that year of mourning and seclusion, 
 you still believe in Mark Raynham ; if your love, which 
 is now only a romantic dream, shall have strengthened 
 and deepened with your more intimate knowledge of your 
 lover, then I, for my part, will no longer lift my voice 
 against your marriage." 
 
 11 Your advice is admirable, and might answer in some 
 cases, perhaps," Miranda said; " but it is no use to me. 
 Everything was decided a month ago. My trunks are 
 packed." She gave a little laugh as she said this — laughter 
 that sounded like a cry of pain. 
 
 " You will trust your life to a godless husband ? " 
 
 " Why not ? I am no better than he is. I have lost 
 all faith in that lovely fable." 
 
 " Miranda ! " 
 
 " Yes, it is shocking, I know. A dreadful falling 
 from grace. Till my mother's last illness I believed ; 
 I loved to think of Jesus, of those three wonderful years, 
 when the blind and the halt and the lame, the lepers and 
 outcasts and afflicted creatures, were crowding to the spot 
 where He stood with the glory round His head. I 
 believed in Mary sending to Him to come and heal her 
 brother, and how the dead man was brought out of the 
 
318 MIRANDA 
 
 tomb in answer to her prayers. I believed that the 
 widow's son was given back to his mother — I could see 
 those days, and that Divine Master. He was my Master, 
 then. But when I poured out my heart in prayer — knelt 
 for hours in tears and self-abasement ; when I asked only 
 that this one dear life might be prolonged, a few years 
 more, only a few years ; when I prayed as I had never 
 prayed before, and when it seemed as if my soul was 
 going up to my Father in Heaven — there was no answer. 
 I awoke from my dream of a merciful God to be told that 
 she was dying. No one had heard — no one cared." 
 
 " My poor Miranda. Have you forgotten One who 
 cried to Heaven in a more tremendous agony than yours, 
 and had no answer ? Oh, if you could look deeper and 
 higher, if I could make you understand what Faith 
 means ? " 
 
 " I can never understand. Don't talk to me." 
 
 The despair in her voice, her struggle against hysteria, 
 went to his heart. Love that ached like a physical pain — 
 pity more tender than he had ever felt for any living 
 creature — possessed his soul. 
 
 u My dear, I have no words, but with all my strength 
 I implore you to postpone your marriage — for the year I 
 plead for. Time will bring back holier thoughts, time 
 will bring patience and submission to the Will of God ; 
 faith will come again, the faith that will make you a better 
 wife than you will ever be if you rush blindly into a 
 marriage with a man who is not worthy of you. Be patient, 
 win back the faith you have lost only for a time, and 
 you may teach your husband to believe." 
 
 " That is what I thought before my mother died, when 
 the world seemed made for happy people." 
 
 " And you may be happy again, my dear, if you will 
 wait and pray, pray in the spirit of submission, which 
 seeks for light from above, rather than for the heart's 
 desire. Postpone your marriage ; pay this tribute to your 
 mother's memory." 
 
 M I cannot. Everything is settled. He will take me 
 away from this house where I have suffered. We shall go 
 
MIRANDA 319 
 
 to places I have never seen — Rome, Athens, Egypt — 
 strange places and strange people." 
 
 " You are not strong enough to travel ; you want 
 repose, not the fever of long journeys and strange scenes. 
 A year hence you will be a different creature." 
 
 " Yes, I shall be Mark Raynham's wife." 
 
 " Miranda, I appeal to you by the memory of your 
 childhood, by our friendship, by the day when I came 
 to this house a young man, and saw you before me in your 
 childish beauty, and from that hour loved you better than 
 anything this earth held ; I appeal to you now, grey- 
 haired, old enough to have done with the dreams of youth. 
 No postponement of your marriage can make you any 
 nearer me, nothing that can happen can make me more 
 than your faithful friend ; but I call upon you by that 
 friendship to do me this favour — put off your marriage 
 for a year." 
 
 He came towards her with clasped hands. 
 
 " I implore you — I beseech you ! " 
 
 She recoiled from him slowly, with a frightened look 
 in her eyes, and then, as he came nearer, she turned her 
 back upon him suddenly, and hid her face against the wall. 
 
 Like David in his despair, like Henry Plantagenet 
 when he saw his favourite son's name heading the list of 
 traitors, with what seemed an instinctive movement she 
 turned her face to the wall. 
 
 " Miranda, will you listen to me ? " 
 
 " No, no ; it can do no good." 
 
 " Then all I have urged is to go for nothing ? You 
 mean to marry him ? " 
 
 " I must ! " 
 
 The low wail of anguish that followed the word told 
 him all. 
 
 He fell on his knees by the sofa where she had been 
 sitting when he came into the room, and buried his face 
 in the cushions. She heard his hoarse sob, a man's agony 
 of tears. 
 
 She turned at the sound and saw the kneeling figure, 
 and stood a little way off, looking down at him. 
 
320 MIRANDA 
 
 " Don't be so sorry for me. Why should you suffer ? " 
 
 He rose to his feet and came towards her, with infinite 
 pity in his countenance. She had never seen that 
 expression before — a saintly soul's sorrow for sin, the sin 
 of the best beloved. 
 
 ** Does anyone know this ? " 
 
 " No one, except " she faltered. 
 
 " Except your husband. We will think of him now by 
 that name. I cannot talk to you as your priest to-night, 
 but if you will come to me early to-morrow morning in the 
 room where I hear confessions, I may help you to bear 
 your sorrow." 
 
 To her he would not breathe the word " shame," but 
 the word was in his mind all the time. 
 
 " Yes, I will come," she said, in a voice that was only 
 just audible. 
 
 M Vincent wrote to me about your wedding, and asked 
 if I wished to assist in the ceremony. That was how I 
 came to know the date. Would you like me to be there, 
 before the altar, when you are made Mark Raynham's 
 wife ? " 
 
 " Yes. Oh, you know, you must know I want you to 
 be there." 
 
 She did not offer him her hand. There was something 
 deeply pathetic in her attitude, as she stood before him, 
 drooping and humiliated, steeped in the consciousness of 
 her dishonour. 
 
 " My broken lily ! " he said to himself more than once, 
 on his way across the moor, riding slowly under a sunless 
 sky. " My broken lily ! " 
 
 Before the clock struck nine next morning he knew all ; 
 he knew that she was not a shameless sinner, but a help- 
 less victim ; knew that her lover had found her alone 
 in the silent house on the night after her mother's funeral — 
 alone in the long drawing-room, late in the night with a 
 menace of storm in the close, still air — found her drowned 
 in grief, only half conscious of the arms that held her, 
 the lips that kissed her, faintly hearing the voice that 
 
MIRANDA 321 
 
 spoke of consolation and of love that was to cure sorrow. 
 He knew all the horror of that fatal night — the difference 
 between the ethereal dream and the shameful reality. 
 The man's fierce passion, the woman's outraged purity. 
 
 He understood all. Kneeling on the firie-dieu chair, 
 where many a Trownham girl had told him the story of 
 her ruin and many a Trownham wife had poured out the 
 pitiful details of a husband's cruelty — there, with faint 
 voice and sobbing breath, and her head bent low over 
 the back of the chair, her throat showing lily-white above 
 the blackness of her gown, Miranda had made her 
 confession. 
 
 He knew all — how in the light before sunrise, when the 
 young birds were singing, her lover had left her lying in 
 the dust — broken-hearted. 
 
 He had knelt at her feet ; he had called her his angel 
 of purity, his wife — his wife that must be. She was his ; 
 she belonged to him while their lives lasted ; nothing 
 could matter now ; nothing but death could part them. 
 
 She had never been alone with him since that fatal 
 night. She had never listened to words of love from 
 his lips. 
 
 " We have been strangers," she said. 
 
 Gilbert had heard her in silence. He listened to her 
 faltering speech till the last broken word came faintly 
 from dry lips ; and then he knelt by her side, and prayed 
 as he had not often prayed for the victim of another's 
 sin. He poured out all his heart in that impassioned 
 intercession, and the woman who said she had done with 
 God felt as if she were in the presence of her Saviour. 
 Once more she believed that there was someone who 
 could hear and pity — someone very far off, unthinkable, 
 perhaps, but someone she could trust ; the Man who 
 told the sinner to sin no more, the God who once was man. 
 
 21 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 IT was a long time before Melford left off talking 
 about the black wedding, Miss Strickland's wealth, 
 and the deplorable fact of her having thrown herself 
 away upon a man whom nobody knew outside the 
 region of the deepest and worst Bohemia, and whose only 
 revenue was a talent for writing improper poetry, which, 
 like everything else improper, was the top of the fashion. 
 These subjects gave a zest to half -past four o'clock tea, 
 in all the best houses, and most of all, perhaps, in the 
 smaller villas — the Hatfields and Haddons and Highcleres 
 on the Trownham Road, where people who had never 
 crossed Lady Laura's threshold were indignant with her 
 daughter for marrying so soon after her death. 
 
 It was taken as natural and proper that no guests should 
 have been bidden to this mournful ceremony ; but the 
 fact that Miranda had shut her door against every friend 
 or acquaintance she had ever had in the parish did not 
 prevent her friends looking on at a discreet distance from 
 the altar, soberly arrayed in black or grey, a kind of 
 half-mourning. 
 
 The early hour was no impediment. People were early 
 in Melford, where half-past eight was considered latish for 
 breakfast, faintly suggesting dissipated habits ; and on 
 Miranda's wedding-day bacon frizzled and eggs were 
 boiled earlier than usual in the Trownham Road, and 
 in the better houses round about. 
 
 The villa people who had not been called upon were 
 more intrusive than the superior people whose houses 
 
 322 
 
MIRANDA 323 
 
 were dignified by shrubberies and carriage drives, and 
 were almost " places." The villa people crowded into 
 the front seats and greeted each other with much whisper- 
 ing in the half-hour before nine, when with the striking of 
 the clock strained ears heard carriage- wheels on the 
 gravel, and every head was turned towards the church 
 door, when Miranda entered, pale in her crape bonnet 
 and long black gown, having made no modification in 
 her mourning. Miss Wagstaff, too, was in mourning, 
 and Mrs. Vincent, who was known to have been senti- 
 mentally attached to Lady Laura, wore dull black silk, 
 feebly relieved by a Honiton jabot. 
 
 " What ravens ! It looks as if she was defying the 
 Fates. What luck can come of such a wedding ? " 
 muttered Mary Lester to her sister. 
 
 " She would have shown her sorrow for her mother 
 better by waiting. Miles of crape wouldn't make up for 
 such disrespect," Mrs. Devereux whispered to Mrs. Parlby. 
 
 " She was always a creature of impulse," replied the 
 milder lady, " and I never expected consistency from her." 
 
 The bridegroom is always a negligeable quantity, and 
 everybody had been so intent in looking at a bride in 
 black that they had not seen Mark Raynham walk quietly 
 up the north aisle, and take his place in the chancel. 
 
 As he stood there in the clear October fight, everybody 
 was fain to admire the chiselled features and the wonderful 
 blue-grey eyes, and the dignified pose of the tall, slim 
 figure. They saw his tender smile as Miranda came up 
 the nave, and the glad look of welcome in eyes that could 
 see only her. 
 
 The Vicar and his assistant had taken their places at 
 the altar. The organist was playing a voluntary from 
 the " Mount of Olives," but there was no choir, no hymn ; 
 maimed rites from first to last. 
 
 It was a surprise to see Gilbert Ferrar in front of the 
 altar. 
 
 " Very nice of him, but he could hardly do less," Mrs. 
 Devereux whispered approvingly. 
 
 " On account of the relationship," assented Mrs. Parlby. 
 
 21 
 
324 MIRANDA 
 
 " On account of the legacy," Mrs. Devereux replied in 
 a hissing whisper. 
 
 It was over. Miranda and Mark Raynham were one flesh. 
 
 The kindly old Vicar, who had every virtue except 
 eloquence, had entreated Gilbert Ferrar to speak the cus- 
 tomary exhortation, and the little sermon was spoken 
 with purpose and intense feeling in a voice that, although 
 to-day in a minor key, and never raised above the normal 
 pitch, was heard throughout the church, even to the 
 bench in the porch where the elderly pew-opener sat 
 meekly listening, prepared to weep. All that reserved 
 force, which was a characteristic of his mind, might have 
 been felt in that brief extemporary address ; and Melford, 
 not apt to be impressed, and somewhat prejudiced against 
 Ferrar as a wolf in sheep's clothing, was deeply moved. 
 There were no more trivial whisperings, and there were 
 not a few whose eyes were dim by the time the brief 
 homily was finished. 
 
 They were in the vestry, and Miranda had signed the 
 fatal book with a hand that did not tremble. She was 
 curiously grave and self-possessed, and the kind old Vicar 
 spoke of her afterwards as the bride without a tear. 
 
 She submitted somewhat coldly to the bridegroom's 
 kiss, and had to suffer further kisses from Mrs. Devereux 
 and Mary Lester, and other of her Melford friends who had 
 surged into the vestry in a body during the signing of 
 the register. 
 
 " Come, Miranda," said Mark. M We have no time to 
 lose." 
 
 She did not answer him, but went to Ferrar, who stood 
 near the vestry door, tall and black in his cassock, in 
 Melfordian eyes the hide of the wolf. 
 
 " Kiss me, Gilbert," she said in a low voice, standing 
 on the threshold. "lam going away for a long time, and 
 we may never meet again." 
 
 Their lips met for the first time, and she felt his tears 
 upon her face. 
 
MIRANDA 325 
 
 " God's blessing go with you, my dear," he said very 
 softly. 
 
 She passed him in the next instant on her husband's 
 arm. Gilbert stood looking after them as they went down 
 the churchyard path through an avenue of eager faces. 
 All the cottage people who had been cherished by Miranda 
 and her mother were there to gaze and wonder, and to 
 garner the gloomy impression of this melancholy wedding 
 for future talk across the teapot. They were all decently 
 clad in black raiment that was carefully kept for funerals. 
 
 " God bless her ! but she do look sad in her mourning. 
 Not so much as a bit of jet trimming to light it up." 
 
 " But she don't look as if she'd been crying. I've seen 
 a bride in white satin and orange-blossoms blubbering till 
 she made her nose as red as a turnip radish." 
 
 " Our young lady has too much pride to make a raree 
 show of herself, and her nose ain't the kind that goes red. 
 But she looks unhappy, poor dear." 
 
 " It's her guilty conscience. She can't drive away from 
 that, not in the rushingest wild beast of a car that ever 
 ran over poor people's children and poultry." 
 
 " Well, I'm with you there. She didn't ought to marry 
 quite so soon after her mother's death." 
 
 So ran the village talk, in the mob of matrons and 
 maids who crowded the pathway outside the churchyard 
 wall to stare at the new car, while Mark Raynham wrapped 
 his bride in a long black coat with sable collar and ermine 
 lining. Melford had never seen such a coat. It attracted 
 more attention than the car, for Melford had not yet 
 learned to differentiate between the Rolls-Royce at 
 fifteen hundred pounds and the humblest utility landau- 
 let te that ever ploughed through the dust. 
 
 A fur coat appealed to gentle and simple. 
 
 M How much did it cost ? " Mrs. Devereux asked Julia, 
 in a gasping whisper. 
 
 " I didn't see the cheque. Lady Laura ordered it 
 before her illness. It is one of her presents." 
 
 " That must make Miranda feel, if nothing else could," 
 sighed Mrs. Devereux. 
 
326 MIRANDA 
 
 Sable lined with ermine must weigh heavy on a 
 guilty mind, that lady thought, not reckoning the 
 oppressive weight on the too slender frame. 
 
 " Why do you talk as if she had done something dread- 
 ful ? " Julia asked indignantly. " Her mother had 
 planned her wedding and wanted it to be soon. She has 
 been breaking her heart, and might dio of sheer grief 
 if she stayed at The Barrow. The best thing that could 
 happen is for her to leave Melford and see strange 
 countries.' ' 
 
 M Poor foolish child ! " sighed Mrs. Devereux. " Who 
 knows how she may be treated now he has got her in his 
 power, and can make ducks and drakes of her money ? " 
 
 " Her fortune is protected by her marriage settlement, 
 Mrs. Devereux, and Mr. Raynham has shown himself 
 thoroughly disinterested." 
 
 " As if a marriage settlement could make any difference 
 with that romantic girl — who hasn't an idea of the value 
 of money. My heart aches at the thought of her in 
 strange countries, a thousand miles from every creature 
 she knows, and in the power of the man who wrote that 
 book." 
 
 The man who wrote that book was now Melford' s 
 way of denominating Mark Raynham. Nobody had read 
 the book, but the reviews had been unanimous in reproba- 
 tion, as in praise. All acknowledged the power of the 
 author, and all agreed that he had written a story that 
 was unfit for virtuous people to read. 
 
 Even Melford knew that the book was a success, and 
 that money was pouring into Mr. Raynham' s banking 
 account ; and just as Melford had resented Miranda's 
 fortune, it had resented her lover's success, it being 
 inevitable in a small community that the inordinate 
 wealth of one member makes all the others feel poorer. 
 
 Mrs. Devereux was really fond of Miranda, in her 
 somewhat hard way ; but when she compared her pony- 
 cart, for which the Colonel grudged a fresh coat of varnish, 
 with the royal blue car all a-glitter with silver-plated 
 lamps, or measured Miranda's sable and ermine against 
 
MIRANDA 327 
 
 her own three-year-old rabbit-skin, she suffered a vague 
 sense of irritation that was only human. 
 
 Even Mary Lester felt somewhat snappish as she 
 trudged back to the long stone house in thirty acres of 
 park-like meadow, which all the villa people talked of 
 with awe. She was snappish because she knew that she 
 would never have a car ; and that while she was one of 
 four unmarried sisters she would never have a respectable 
 dress-allowance, but must always cut and contrive and 
 pinch and manage, and that her smartest tailor-made 
 could only be a reach-me-down — chosen from a summer 
 sale catalogue. She was still too young to have realized 
 Charles Lamb's delight in things that are obtained with 
 difficulty. 
 
 Gilbert Ferrar lingered in the churchyard until the fiery 
 car had carried Miranda some miles from Melford and the 
 crowd of villagers and gentry had dispersed. There was 
 no one left but Julia when he came to the lych-gate ; 
 and they walked to The Barrow together, by a path 
 through the meadows, which brought them to the lane 
 and the orchard gate that Mark Raynham had discovered 
 when he was still a stranger in Melford. Perhaps Julia 
 had been waiting for him. She had dismissed the 
 brougham that had brought her and Miranda to church, 
 preferring to walk home. She knew that he had ridden 
 over in the early morning, and had left his horse in the 
 stables and his riding-coat in the saddle-room. They 
 walked side by side in a melancholy silence. Julia's 
 eyelids were red and swollen, though she had contrived 
 to keep from tears while she was with Miranda. It was 
 only when the car vanished in a cloud of dust that she 
 let her grief have its way. 
 
 " I know how you love her, and what a hard parting 
 this must be for you," Gilbert said gently, after a broken 
 sentence just audible from Julia. 
 
 " Love her ? After having her for pupil and friend, 
 for six years — just the six happiest years of my life ! 
 Who could help loving her ? And I feel as if I was never 
 going to see her again. So ill and broken, such a wreck 
 
328 MIRANDA 
 
 as she is — how can I hope that he will bring her back 
 alive ? " 
 
 " My dear Miss Wagstaff, you mustn't talk like that." 
 
 " Oh, don't let's pretend ! You don't like him, and I 
 don't like him. Perhaps we are prejudiced and mistaken ; 
 but we know that we are giving the girl we love to the 
 man we can't trust." 
 
 " He may be better than we think. All that is worst 
 and all that makes us hate him may be a question of a 
 young man's arrogant belief in his own genius, a perverse 
 desire to be famous at any price." 
 
 " Don't pretend," repeated Julia almost fiercely. 
 " You know that you hate him, and that Christian 
 charity is out of the question, even for you, where he is 
 concerned. Pray for her ; I know you can do that. 
 Pray that he may bring her back to us alive." 
 
 " How long are they to be away ? " 
 
 " At least a year, he told me — and the plans that he has 
 made would take three times as long, unless their tour is 
 to be a wild rush from start to finish. He talked of 
 Greece, of Persia, of the Himalayas, of enchanted valleys 
 where he might write such verse as he has never written 
 yet. She is to go with him wherever his fancy leads the 
 way — his slave, bound to the wheels of his chariot." 
 
 " And she — was she pleased at his pictures of romantic 
 travel ? " 
 
 " No," Julia answered, with a profound sigh, " that is 
 the worst of it." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " She is marrying her master. She is marrying a man 
 she no longer loves. All that girlish romance, that poetic 
 fire, has gone dead." 
 
 " How do you know ? Has she told you ? " 
 
 His heart was beating so fast that speech was difficult. 
 
 " She has told me nothing ; but I know her, and I know 
 her for the soul of honour. Having given him her promise, 
 she would keep it at any cost. She would throw away her 
 life to redeem her word. She has never seen life as the 
 ordinary girl sees it. All the fairies were at her christen- 
 
MIRANDA 329 
 
 ing, except common sense. She has lived in a beautiful 
 dream. She wanted life to be romantic. She wanted 
 something to happen, and when this man came, handsome, 
 attractive, and a genius, she fell in love with the realiza- 
 tion of her dream. Yes, I know what you would say. 
 She knew that he was a married man, that to think of him 
 as a lover would be a mortal sin. She knew that, but 
 she did not know that the kind of interest she allowed her- 
 self to feel in the man and his book must end in love. 
 She never knew her danger, or that their romantic friend- 
 ship was on the border line of sin." 
 
 Julia had spoken with an intensity which surprised and 
 touched Gilbert Ferrar. 
 
 " You love her very dearly/' he faltered. 
 
 " Love her ! She is the most lovable creature that 
 ever lived. She has been the delight of my life ever since 
 I came to that house over there." 
 
 They had crossed the meadow and had come through 
 the little gate into the sunk lane, and the many windowed 
 house was within sight. 
 
 " Think of those two, mother and daughter," Julia 
 said. " Were there ever such dear people ? So generous, 
 so unworldly, incapable of a sordid thought ; romantic — 
 yes, for romance is the antipodes of worldliness ; not 
 over wise, perhaps, for to be wise one must know the world 
 and reckon with it. But, oh, so lovely and so kind ! " 
 
 They went through the orchard and the shrubbery to 
 the long lawn where Gilbert had so often walked with 
 Miranda — the child with unbound hair flying in the wind, 
 the woman lovelier than the child — lecturing, reproving, 
 praising, teaching, advising, and loving her to distraction. 
 
 And she was lost to him for ever, tied to a man she had 
 ceased to love. There was the worst of it. Her marriage 
 was a marriage of shame. 
 
 They walked very slowly, Gilbert deep in thought, 
 Julia sad at heart, but with some sense of consolation in 
 being with the man she revered. 
 
 How could Miranda have been blind and deaf to a love 
 that ought to have been the crown and glory of her life ? 
 
330 MIRANDA 
 
 To have sacrificed such a love to a girl's romantic dream. 
 Julia, who had never thought of herself as a central figure 
 in the theatre of life, would have stood at the wings and 
 seen Miranda's bridal procession without one pang of 
 envy, if Gilbert had been the bridegroom ; and yet she 
 worshipped him as only middle-aged spinsters who have 
 never had a lover can worship their ideal man. 
 
 " Are you leaving The Barrow ? " Gilbert asked gently. 
 " If I can be of use to you, pray command my services 
 in any way." 
 
 He knew that Lady Laura's legacy had made Julia's 
 future secure from the pain of narrow means ; but he 
 thought she might yearn for another sweet girl with whom 
 to exercise her capacity for " grounding " a pupil, for 
 which Miranda had not allowed her full scope. 
 
 " No, I am to stay here." 
 
 " Till Miranda comes back ? I am very glad." 
 
 "I am to stay here for the rest of my life. Nothing 
 is to be changed. Lady Laura's rooms are to be just as 
 they were while she lived — not the least detail to be altered. 
 None of the old servants are to be dismissed. The same 
 gardeners will be in the gardens. Whipple is to be 
 master of the stables and kennels, and none of the horses 
 are to be sold. It is a curious whim, people will say, 
 perhaps — extravagant and eccentric ; but Miranda can 
 afford to satisfy her whim." 
 
 " But are not Miranda and her husband to live here ? " 
 
 " No. He refused to live anywhere except at The 
 Dene. The house may be dark and gloomy, but it suits 
 him. He has grown to it, and it is like his skin. His 
 books are there — in the room where he has thought and 
 dreamed. He would have lived here to please Lady 
 Laura, but he would rather be at The Dene." 
 
 " But was Miranda willing to live in the gloomy 
 house ? " 
 
 " She seemed indifferent — seemed to have lost all 
 interest in life and in him. Whatever his faults, he is 
 passionately in love with her — admires and adores her. 
 I have watched him, and I know there is no pretending in 
 
MIRANDA 331 
 
 his case ; but on her side, since her mother's death, there 
 has been no sign of affection ; she has married him to 
 keep her promise, that is all." 
 
 There was a long silence before Gilbert spoke. 
 
 " Well, I am glad to think you will be here. Miranda 
 will come to the old rooms sometimes, I suppose." 
 
 " I believe she will come often and stay long. She will 
 not take kindly to The Dene. Her dogs and horses, her 
 garden and the things she loves best will be here." 
 
 " One would suppose he would prefer The Barrow with 
 its spacious splendour to the smaller rooms at The Dene — 
 to say nothing of the gloomy gardens." 
 
 "He is an egotist, and The Dene suits him ; and I 
 think he is too much an egotist to like the idea of living 
 in his wife's house. Perhaps I am prejudiced." 
 
 They were at the gate leading to the stables, and it 
 was time to say good-bye. 
 
 " I shall be in Trownham to-morrow morning for a long 
 day's work," Julia said. " I have no end of gifts for 
 Miranda's proteges, and I am charged to look after them 
 till she comes back, however long that may be." 
 
 " You will always be welcome in my parish. You 
 have given me splendid help among my people. May I 
 ride over to see you now and then ? My horse loves his 
 gallop across the moor." 
 
 " Yes, please come. Miranda would like to think 
 of you being here." 
 
 " And you will let me have tea with you in the school- 
 room ? " 
 
 " With pleasure, and we will talk of the days when 
 you were giving Miranda her only real education." 
 
 " Good-bye." 
 
 He rode away in the noon sunlight, sad at heart, grieving 
 for a life that was spoilt — a life so full of beauty and 
 promise, now broken ; a past that had been so happy, a 
 future so full of fear. 
 
 She was married to a man with infinite capacity for 
 evil. She had married for love, and love was dead. Her 
 lover had killed her love. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 AFTER that strange wedding there came the darkest 
 year of Gilbert Ferrar's life — the year of despair, the 
 year of doubt. Had he never doubted until then — had 
 faith never wavered and hope grown dim ? Who shall say ? 
 
 Since those far distant days at Oriel, when it seemed to 
 him that the spirit of Newman was in the air he breathed, 
 his mind had gone through dark phases, had fought with 
 unseen foes. He had read much and thought much, 
 and painful questionings must needs come now and then, 
 like sudden storm-clouds across a serene sky. It had 
 cost him a hard struggle to bow his head to Authority, 
 and to believe what his Church told him to believe ; and 
 if anything could have sent him to that older Church 
 whose authority is more determinate, and asks a more 
 complete submission than the Anglican Church has ever 
 insisted upon, it would have been that wave of doubt 
 which had come over his mind in unforgotten hours 
 — when that momentous question shaped itself in the 
 midst of earnest prayer : Is God there ? Is the story I 
 believe, is the Christ I worship, real and true, or am I 
 bowing my head in meek submission to shadows ? Am I 
 praying to a phantom of the mind ? 
 
 Never until this miserable year had the dragon of 
 Unbelief possessed him with any lasting power. Hours 
 of doubt there had been ; long hours of painful thought ; 
 lonely wanderings by sea and moor, when he had fought 
 those shadowy troops of Midian ; but he had always ended 
 as a conqueror, had always gone back to his lonely room 
 so much the stronger for the struggle, able to pray better 
 
 332 
 
MIRANDA 333 
 
 and to do his day's work with a calm assurance and a 
 cheerful spirit. But in this dismal year the troops of 
 Midian had a weaker prey. Miranda's ruined life was 
 always in his mind ; and in the face of that wrecked 
 girlhood it was hard to hold fast to the assurance of 
 a Divine Providence, watching over and protecting 
 the innocent and the helpless. The life in Trown- 
 ham, so over full of pain and sorrow, of the sins 
 of circumstance — sins that were the natural result 
 of environment — had ever been a difficult problem ; 
 but it was more difficult now, and he went among his 
 people with a heavy heart, and a voice that had lost its 
 old power of persuasion. How could he convince these 
 poor creatures, if he could not convince himself ? What 
 was he but a blind leader of the blind, a shepherd who 
 was weaker than the feeblest of his sheep ? 
 
 Still his work went on, and every day spent in strenuous 
 effort left its mark upon the town and the people. That 
 mark might be no more than the scraping of the bird's 
 beak upon the rock ; but it was there. Something was 
 done between dawn and sunset ; some brutal husband's 
 heart was softened ; some lost girl's conscience was 
 awakened ; some drunkard was made to understand 
 the harm he was doing to his body and his soul. 
 
 After a long day of earnest work, what a respite from 
 the labyrinthine ways of metaphysical reverie to come 
 upon a familiar passage in the old divine he loved : 
 
 " Deceive not yourselves, there is no other measure 
 than this : so much good as a man does, or so much as 
 he would if he could — so much of religion he hath, and 
 no more, and a man cannot ordinarily know that he is 
 in a savable condition, but by the testimony which a 
 divine philanthropy and a good mind always gives, which 
 is to omit no opportunity of doing good in our several 
 proportions and possibilities." 
 
 There was comfort in those words. Perhaps Gilbert 
 knew in his heart of hearts that he had been more of 
 philanthropist and altruist than a religious enthusiast. 
 
334 MIRANDA 
 
 Yet never till now had his faith grown so clouded, and 
 the problem of the universe so inexplicable. 
 
 To-night, after a day in which his labours had showed 
 signs of fruition, and he had left domestic love where he 
 had found strife, and smiling faces where he had come 
 upon tears — to-night, as he put the well-thumbed volume 
 back in his bookcase, he felt that there was still the 
 possibility of peace in the days to come. 
 
 Miranda might return to the old home, a happy wife and 
 mother, with a husband whose whole nature had been 
 changed by her influence. What man might not such a 
 wife raise out of the pit of Tophet ? It was difficult for 
 him not to hate Mark Raynham, hard not to think of 
 him with loathing, in the room where her pitiful confession 
 had been made. For him nothing could efface the memory 
 of that miserable hour, for her nothing could make life what 
 it was before Mark Raynham stained it. Never in all the 
 years to come could she be the frank and joyous creature 
 he had worshipped, in the years that seemed ages away. 
 
 He often came upon Julia in his parish work, Julia, 
 the best and bravest of his ministering sisters, the woman 
 whom no sickness could alarm, no sin discourage. She 
 had worked hard to make herself useful and invulner- 
 able, had learnt all that doctors and nurses in the local 
 hospitals were willing to teach her, and had made Dr. 
 Mason devote an occasional evening to her medical educa- 
 tion, pampering him beforehand with a dainty little dinner, 
 such as only The Barrow cook could achieve. The doctor 
 had been a little afraid of these tete-a-tete dinners and con- 
 versational evenings, in the first instance, lest it might be 
 that Julia wanted to marry him ; but Julia's mind was 
 too transparent to be long misread, and he soon assured 
 himself of her good faith, and discovered that only one 
 man walked the earth for whom she felt strongly, and that 
 he was the Vicar of St. Barnabas'. Alas, for the passing 
 of the years ! Julia's sandy hair had silvery streaks in 
 the gold, and Julia had the faded look of more than 
 middle-aged spinsterhood. She was always neatly dressed 
 
MIRANDA 335 
 
 in some simple black gown, but the muslin and lace with 
 which she relieved the gloom of her mourning was of a 
 dainty freshness. 
 
 Gilbert rode over the moor now and then, perhaps once 
 in three or four weeks, for the " cup of tea in the school- 
 room ; " and they sat there and talked of Miranda, the 
 Miranda of those careless days when life at The Barrow 
 was only lotos-eating — the days before anything happened. 
 They both, with a curious unanimity, avoided any mention 
 of Raynham. 
 
 Then after tea they would go to the stable-yard, and 
 all the dogs had to be interviewed, separately, for the most 
 part, as their joint exuberance might have been too much 
 even for Gilbert, dog-lover though he was ; and then 
 Julia would take him through the gardens to show him 
 how carefully Miranda's ideas were being carried out. 
 
 " Is she still interested in her garden and her dogs ? 
 Does she write to you often ? " he asked. 
 
 " She sends me a long letter — at long intervals." 
 " And she writes as if she were happy ? " 
 " She writes about the scenery, and the pictures and 
 churches." 
 
 Miranda had been away more than a year, and people 
 had left off asking when she was coming home, or wondering 
 at her folly in keeping a large establishment for the use 
 of Miss Wagstaff. 
 
 The best people in Melford called upon Julia occasion- 
 ally in a condescending way, but she did not encourage 
 their visits, or accept their invitations. She kept herself to 
 herself with an iron determination, people said, when Julia 
 was the subject of conversation. She had been pumped 
 assiduously, and even tactfully, in those condescending 
 visits, but had told people very little about Miranda. 
 
 There had been an advertisement in the Times that 
 gave the only positive information Melford had received 
 within the first year of her absence. 
 
 A son had been born at Ravenna late in May — 
 (prematurely). 
 " At Ravenna — where I am told there is not one really 
 
336 MIRANDA 
 
 good hotel ! " Mrs. Devereux exclaimed indignantly. 
 " Surely he might have taken her to Florence, where there 
 are English people, and English doctors." 
 
 " The accouchement must have been unexpected. The 
 advertisement said ' prematurely.' And Ravenna hotels 
 may be better than you think," said the always indulgent 
 Mrs. Parlby. 
 
 " Stuff and nonsense ! He oughtn't to have taken her 
 to such a place within months of her confinement — the 
 man is a rank Bohemian." 
 
 Mrs. Devereux' s pronunciation of the adjective implied 
 unspeakable horrors. 
 
 " Byron was fond of Ravenna," Mary Lester said. " It 
 would be just like Miranda to want her son to be born 
 there. I dare say she thinks he will be a greater genius 
 than his father." 
 
 " She'll be lucky if he isn't an idiot — brought into the 
 world in such a place, and by a foreign doctor," said Mrs. 
 Devereux. 
 
 And when, five or six months later, the Times an- 
 nounced the death of M George, the dearly loved infant 
 son of Mr. and Mrs. Mark Raynham," Mrs. Devereux 
 was able to descant upon her prognostications of evil. 
 
 Gilbert Ferrar thought of the baby's death with heart- 
 felt sorrow. The extinction of that little life — that faint 
 spark of the immortal fire — might mean much for Miranda. 
 Much of comfort and of happiness there might have been 
 for her in that life if it had lasted — a link between her and 
 the man to whom she had given herself — something inno- 
 cent and dear that would blot out fatal memories, and 
 console her for the loss of the mother she had adored. 
 If she had ceased to love her husband before the child 
 was born, love might have been born again with the birth 
 of the child. He wrote to her for the first time since her 
 marriage, a letter of deepest sympathy and perfect under- 
 standing ; many words that must comfort her, not one 
 that could give her pain. 
 
 " You see she called him George," said Mary Lester. 
 " She was thinking of Byron. So like Miranda ! " 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 MR. and Mrs. Raynham were coming home. 
 New servants had been heard of at The Dene, 
 and The Barrow gardeners had been carrying pot-plants 
 there by the cartload. Indeed, in the last week or two 
 before the master's return, the gardeners had given all 
 their time to The Dene, and grass was cut and rolled as 
 it had never been since the time of Queen Anne, when 
 men in square-cut coats and lace cravats played bowls 
 there. But nothing, not the labours of five skilled 
 gardeners, could make The Dene grounds cheerful. 
 
 " It is midsummer madness on Miranda's part to leave 
 The Barrow for such a God-forsaken hole," Miss Lester 
 said, with her usual emphasis. 
 
 Miss Lester was a very important person now, for a 
 wealthy squire from the other side of Pontefract had fallen 
 in love with her sharp tongue and graceful dancing at the 
 York Hunt Ball. 
 
 " I waltzed into his affections," Mary told her friends. 
 " It was not my mug but my feet that caught him. One 
 had need do something well. I can't sing and I can't 
 play, and I am as ignorant as they make 'em ; but I believe 
 I can dance. It cost my people five of the best three 
 times a year for private lessons by a Frenchman, who 
 came all the way from York to teach us. I needn't tell 
 you the Governor grudged the money, but it was the best 
 investment he ever made, for we can all dance, and we shall 
 all get married without a penny," 
 
 337 22 
 
338 MIRANDA 
 
 It was an accepted idea among young ladies at Melford 
 that fathers were mean as well as tiresome — a race that 
 clever girls ought to have been able to do without. 
 
 " Why fathers ? " Mary used to say. " They do nothing 
 but interfere and bosh our best chances." 
 
 Roland Wilborough, the Pontefract squire, had a 
 racing stable ; and though Mary described her -fiance's 
 stud as a collection of platers, only fit for leather, she took 
 a secret pride in the stable, and meant to be a personage. 
 Happily she could ride almost as well as she danced, and 
 to her mind there was nothing better than a good horse 
 to carry a young woman into good society. Mr. Wilborough 
 gave her one of his unsuccessful racers before they had been 
 engaged a month ; and she meant to possess herself of the 
 pick of the basket when she was Mrs. Wilborough, and had 
 her foot home in the stirrup. 
 
 Miranda was coming back. Life which had changed so 
 sadly for Gilbert Ferrar a couple of years ago was to change 
 again, and once more she would be the salient feature — 
 Miranda the wife, removed from him by an impassable 
 gulf, but still accessible to friendship, still someone to be 
 cared for and thought about. 
 
 She was going back to her work in Trownham, Julia 
 told him. In her latest letter she had written about her 
 friends in the grim world of toil. 
 
 " Those ghastly streets under a smoky sky will seem 
 more dreadful than ever after Italy," she wrote ; " but all 
 the same I want to see them, to breathe that thickened 
 air, and to try to make those poor dears my sisters and 
 brothers. I'm afraid the Ball children must be children 
 no longer, but pert board-school misses, who will resent 
 my interference if I try to teach them anything, and will 
 make mock of my fairy-tales. Anyhow, I must have 
 something to occupy my mind, some useful work, so that I 
 may be able to quote Longfellow with a clear conscience 
 when the day is done. What a poet he was, Julia, he whom 
 
MIRANDA 339 
 
 modern culture scorns ! What deep thoughts he could 
 get out of simple words ; truisms, perhaps ; but true as 
 life and death." 
 
 " Does she never mention her husband ? " Gilbert asked, 
 when Miss Wagstaff had read this passage in Miranda's 
 letter. 
 
 " Very seldom, but I think she still believes in his 
 genius." 
 
 She was at The Dene. Everybody had flocked there 
 to see her and the house she was to live in — all the people 
 who had made patronizing calls upon Julia, and had 
 profited nothing thereby. Here was Miranda herself, 
 Mrs. Mark Raynham — a wreck ! That was the word that 
 went round Melford from the Places to the Villas, and 
 was circulated with many a plaintive sigh among the 
 cottages. She was a wreck. Her beauty was quite gone. 
 She looked older than Lady Laura in the last year of 
 her life. 
 
 As for him, Melford was inclined to be indulgent. His 
 manners were delightful, and much in the way of licence 
 might be forgiven to a poet about whose genius critics 
 were agreed — albeit they might object to his morals. 
 The book had been a success, and was said to have brought 
 the poet thousands ; Melford forgave Mr. Raynham the 
 poison-flowers that seemed inevitable in a poem that was 
 meant to take the Town. Melford liked prosperous 
 people, and prettily furnished rooms, with the perfume 
 of hothouse flowers in the pleasant warmth, and afternoon 
 tea delicately served. Everybody admired the new furni- 
 ture — the latest expression of modern taste. 
 
 " I should not have known the room," Mrs. Devereux 
 said, after her large light grey eyes, with a hard stare in 
 them, had explored every corner. 
 
 " It is just perfect ! " murmured Mrs. Parlby. 
 
 14 Swank ! " said Miss Lester. 
 
 " I did not want anything altered," Miranda said; " but 
 Mark insisted, and sent for Miss France, who has finer taste 
 
 22* 
 
340 MIRANDA 
 
 than anyone else in England, and she came down and 
 admired the house, because of its age and its ghost, and 
 planned everything, so as to accentuate all that is old 
 and interesting." 
 
 •■ Have other rooms been altered ? " 
 
 " Yes, they are all new, and we have got the right tone, 
 Miss France says — the eighteenth century atmosphere." 
 
 " It is like stepping into the time of George the First," 
 said the cultured Miss Parlby; " Steele and Addison might 
 have lived here." 
 
 " Everything has been altered except Mark's Japanese 
 library ; there he would not have so much as a chair 
 changed," said Miranda. 
 
 Of course they all wanted to see this library, and Mark 
 being far away on the moor — of malice prepense — Miranda 
 took them into the queer black and gold room, and had to 
 answer foolish questions. 
 
 " And was it really in this room he wrote that dreadful 
 book ? Where did he sit ? Here, in front of the knee- 
 hole desk ? How curious ! And are those his pens ? 
 How I should love to steal one. Don't leave me here 
 a minute, Miranda, or I shan't be able to resist." " And 
 do show us the paper he writes on, or does he use exercise- 
 books — piles of exercise-books ? And does he make no 
 end of notes ? and plan his poem — map it all out before 
 he begins ? " 
 
 " You must be proud of him," said Mary Lester. " I'm 
 sure I should be — ever so proud of a poet who has shocked 
 people more than any one since Swinburne. I heard two 
 distinguished men, a bishop and a famous lawyer, talking 
 about the Italian tragedy. ' I suppose it is only Swin- 
 burne and rose-water/ said the bishop, in his velvety 
 way. ■ No/ snapped Sir Theodosius, ' Swinburne and 
 aqua-fortis.' Yes, Miranda, you must be proud. Of 
 course you might have looked much higher, but for a 
 romantic creature like you a genius would rank above the 
 biggest pot in Burke." 
 
 Miranda let her friends babble, and answered all questions 
 sweetly. Although she was a wreck, she did not seem 
 
MIRANDA 341 
 
 depressed or low-spirited. She had not succeeded to the 
 first Mrs. Raynham's anaemia. She was going to ride, 
 possibly to hunt when the regular season began. She had 
 been out one morning with Whipple, cubbing. She rode 
 as hard as ever, and was just as keen, and her horses were 
 in splendid condition. 
 
 " But where are your dogs ? " asked Mrs. Vincent. 
 " I expected to find them installed here." 
 
 "No. They like their kennels, and they will stay 
 at The Barrow. I shall be there every morning." 
 
 " And you mean to ride and perhaps to hunt," said 
 Mrs. Devereux, " and to spend your mornings at The 
 Barrow. Upon my word, Miranda, you and Mr. Raynham 
 are going to be in the fashion — a semi-detached couple." 
 
 '.' Mark has his work, and is shut up in this room half 
 the day. I have to find my own occupations and 
 amusements." 
 
 " The price of marrying a poet," said Mary. " I only 
 wish I may have to pay some of that price for marrying 
 a sportsman ; but I'm afraid Roland is going to be the 
 kind of husband who is always at his wife's apron-strings ; 
 I am to advise him about this, and help him about t'other ; 
 he won't build a pig-sty without wanting my opinion, 
 and hunting won't help me, as he will always be there. 
 He'll ride with me to the meet, and I'm afraid he'll want to 
 pilot me — as if I couldn't take my own line." 
 
 Miss Lester deprecated her domestic prospects with an 
 ill-concealed pride in her conquest of a man who rode 
 straight and had five thousand a year. 
 
 This rush of callers was over before Mr. Ferrar came 
 to The Dene. 
 
 " I thought you were never coming," Miranda said, 
 after they had shaken hands. 
 
 She grew pale, and her lower lip trembled ever so faintly 
 as she crossed the room to meet him. 
 
 " I was anxious to see you, but Julia told me you were 
 having a herd of visitors, and I could not face the Melford 
 crew." 
 
 " You have never been in sympathy with them." 
 
342 MIRANDA 
 
 " No ; I can get on with my factory women and their 
 troublesome husbands and sons, but I can't stand Mrs. 
 Devereux." 
 
 " She was here the day before yesterday. I am free 
 of her for a week or two." 
 
 " As odious as ever." 
 
 " She is nothing if not critical. She approves of the 
 furniture, but she is distressed — I might say offended — 
 at my looking ill, and ten years older than I ought to 
 look." 
 
 There was distress in his countenance as he looked at 
 her. Yes, Mrs. Devereux was right so far. She looked 
 older, by more than the two years of her absence. People 
 had told him that her beauty was gone ; but in her almost 
 transparent pallor and the finer chiselling of the delicate 
 features, she seemed to him more exquisite than in the 
 bloom of her girlhood. The violet eyes looked larger 
 perhaps by reason of the purple staining under the lower 
 lids. She carried herself with a certain dignity that was 
 new to him, while her movements were slower, and there 
 was a touch of languor. 
 
 " You are looking a little tired," he said gently ; " as 
 if you wanted a year of quiet life in our moorland air. 
 Perhaps you may have done too much in your foreign 
 travels." 
 
 " I think not. We did not rush about like Americans 
 who want to exhaust Europe in six weeks. We spent our 
 first winter on the Riviera, and the early spring on the 
 lake of Como. We were nearly a year in Italy, and we had 
 an autumn in Greece and a winter in Egypt ; but we did 
 not follow the beaten track, least of all in Italy. We 
 went to all the strange places — the towns where there are 
 churches and pictures that Cook's tourists have never 
 seen. We were a week at Assisi, and a long time at 
 Ravenna." 
 
 Infinite sadness came into her voice as she pronounced 
 that name. 
 
 " I fear you have not forgotten the sorrow that came 
 to you at Ravenna," he said gently. 
 
MIRANDA 343 
 
 " Forgotten ? Do people ever forget — their dead ? " 
 
 " Some only too easily." 
 
 " I cannot. I never knew death till my mother died. 
 Oh, Gilbert, think of my cloudless childhood, the love she 
 lavished upon me. I lived always in sunshine, for when 
 skies were dark, she was there, and to be with her was 
 to be happy; yet before I was quite a woman I began to 
 tire of that perfect life, and to sigh for changes, for events, 
 for something strange and romantic." 
 
 She clasped her hands before her face, and he could 
 see tears coming slowly through the slender fingers. She 
 had spoken with a sudden impulse and self-abandonment ; 
 almost as if she were making her confession. 
 
 M Shall I show you the garden ? M she said lightly, with 
 an effort to have done with serious thoughts. 
 
 M Pray do ; I know you cannot live without a garden." 
 
 " No," and then with a sigh : " Oh, think of all your 
 people in Trownham. All those long dull streets, and no 
 garden." 
 
 " You mustn't say that. There are gardens of a sort 
 at the back of the houses — gardens where they grow scarlet- 
 runners, and dry their rags, if they are not ashamed of 
 them. But we have been promised ten acres just outside 
 the town for a People's Park." 
 
 M Oh, I know what that would be like. Stiff walks and 
 paltry rockeries with sickly ferns, and privet hedges. Try 
 to make it an Old English garden, full of old-fashioned 
 flowers, and with half an acre in a corner for sweet-smelling 
 herbs. If you make it a garden and not a park I'll give 
 you a hundred a year towards the upkeep." 
 
 M Impossible. Every foot of ground will be wanted 
 for games." 
 
 M And where are the old people to sit on sunny 
 afternoons ? " 
 
 " We must manage quiet nooks for them. But the 
 growing lads are the thews and sinews of the future." 
 
 " If ever I make a garden it shall not be a place for 
 rough boys and flying balls, but a harbour of rest for 
 the tired old people and the hard-working mothers. When 
 
344 MIRANDA 
 
 you can hear of a plot of ground big enough for my kind of 
 garden within easy reach of your mean streets, you shall 
 buy it for me." 
 
 "I am glad you have not forgotten Trownham." 
 
 " Julia has kept me in touch with your parish. She 
 tells me that the Ball children remember me, and that 
 Mrs. Kilford would like to see me now and then. Poor 
 soul ! Still a bedridden prisoner, alone all day, while her 
 girl slaves at the factory." 
 
 " No one has forgotten you." 
 
 " I shall go to her next week, and you must give me 
 a list of people you would like me to visit now and then 
 — invalids, or old people, who are laid aside, and would like 
 to tell me their troubles. I think that is about all one 
 can do for the poor who have hard lives : just listen to 
 them and try to understand." 
 
 They were in a panelled room on the ground floor, a 
 small room with a wide bow window and a half-glass door 
 opening into the garden. 
 
 " This is the nearest way to the garden." 
 
 Miranda told him that this room was her den, where she 
 wrote her letters and read the books she loved. 
 
 He looked at her book-shelves. There were many 
 books of the best kind, but not those he had helped her 
 to choose ; not those that they had read together. 
 
 " I don't see our old friends," he said. 
 
 " They are all in the schoolroom. I would not have 
 anything changed. I have other copies of those I want 
 most. And I like to find the old books in the old room. 
 I go there very often, and Julia and I sit and talk of the 
 days when I was a child — her troublesome pupil." 
 
 " I don't believe Miss Wagstaff ever thought you 
 troublesome." 
 
 " That was because she is the soul of patience. And 
 then, you see, there were not six of me, and that made a 
 difference. She had been accustomed to five or six demons, 
 so one demon seemed half an angel." 
 
 They went into the garden, and the mellow light of 
 a September afternoon shone upon her pearl-grey gown, 
 
MIRANDA 345 
 
 her rich brown hair, and long white throat. To his mind 
 she had never been more beautiful. 
 
 They went round the garden, slowly, side by side, on 
 the fine, deep sward. The lawn was an irregular figure, 
 very different from those long twin lawns at The Barrow, 
 flanked by broad herbaceous borders. Here there were 
 beds of roses and clumps of flowering shrubs, but no such 
 rich variety of colour, no such masses of bloom as Miranda 
 had created at The Barrow. 
 
 " We cannot have herbaceous borders," she explained. 
 " We have not sun enough. Those dear old fir-trees give 
 us too much shadow." 
 
 " In your place I should sacrifice most of the firs, and 
 imitate your success at The Barrow." 
 
 " No, no ! Places have their atmosphere. The Dene 
 could never be like The Barrow. We had no ghost at 
 The Barrow." 
 
 " You speak as if a ghost was something to be cherished, 
 something to be proud of." 
 
 " Yes, I am rather proud of our ghost. It is a link 
 with a romantic past." 
 
 " You are still the same Miranda " 
 
 " The same — and not the same." 
 
 " Well, if you will take an unromantic man's advice, 
 make a clean sweep of those firs, and put a belt of 
 flowering shrubs in their place. You will have a wider 
 view of the moor and a glimpse of the sea instead of this 
 atmosphere of gloom. I shall never see this garden 
 without thinking of Hood's refrain : 
 
 " \ For over all there hung a cloud of fear, 
 A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
 And said as plain as whisper in the ear, 
 " The place is haunted." ' " 
 
 " I like the place. It is full of romantic fancies and 
 strange dreams. But I am not going to be pent up here 
 like Mariana in her moated grange ; I shall be at Trown- 
 ham two or three times a week, and I shall spend my 
 leisure mornings at The Barrow." 
 
346 MIRANDA 
 
 Her air of mild cheerfulness troubled him. Was she 
 really happy ? She seldom spoke of her husband, but 
 when she mentioned him it was with an easy air, as if 
 they were good friends. " Mark likes The Barrow." 
 " Mark can write best in his Japanese book-room." 
 " Yes, he is at work on another big poem." " He cannot 
 live without his dream." " Mark is not fond of riding. 
 His long, lonely walks over the moor suit him better than 
 gallops against the wind. He walks fast or slow as his 
 thoughts move. He sees visions, and builds his drama — 
 and improvises — as Tennyson used to do on the Sussex 
 hills, or on the cliffs above Yarmouth. He does not mind 
 my riding alone, with Whipple to take care of me." 
 
 Thus much in answer to friendly questions — thus much 
 which should have been reassuring to a friend ; yet 
 Gilbert left her sad at heart. 
 
 The tragedy of her marriage cast its gloom upon all that 
 had come after. And her child was dead — the child who 
 might have brought with him " hope, and forward-looking 
 thoughts." 
 
 He did not believe that she was happy. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE seasons came and went. Summers that seemed 
 short, winters that were very long ; and after 
 Miranda had been living two years at The Dene Gilbert 
 Ferrar knew no more of her inner life than he knew when he 
 left her on the September afternoon of his first visit. He 
 did not go often to The Dene, only when she bade him, 
 and then she had Julia with her, and their talk was of 
 books or of public questions, that everlasting political 
 crisis which always affords such a wide field for argument. 
 She had kept faith with her humble friends in the 
 narrow streets; and with Julia for her lieutenant, and 
 ample means at her disposal, she had made herself a 
 power in the smoke-shadowed town. Pleasant places — 
 women's clubs and children's playrooms had risen up at 
 her bidding. Homes of rest in neighbouring villages, 
 where men and women who left the hospitals, technically 
 cured, had leisure to get well enough to go back to the 
 strenuous life of those vast halls where wheels revolved 
 in a dismal monotony. There were innumerable ameliora- 
 tions of the strenuous life which only an idle woman could 
 have thought of, and even in those trivial matters of form 
 and colour, prettiness instead of ugliness, Miranda's 
 influence was felt. The factory girls dressed in better 
 taste and with a certain scrupulous neatness, by reason 
 of Miranda's conferences upon dress and manners — friendly 
 little causeries of an hour, held here and there in the homes 
 of her favourites, and sustained by cakes and lemonade. 
 
 347 
 
348 MIRANDA 
 
 They walked better by reason of classes for musical drill, 
 held twice a week in one of Miranda's clubs. She had 
 established not one large club, but half a dozen coteries 
 for girls or matrons, which worked easily upon lines 
 thought out by herself and Julia. 
 
 Her life, and Julia's, had been very full, in those two 
 years. 
 
 " How does your husband like all this philanthropic 
 work, and your riding, and your canine family ? " Mrs. 
 Devereux asked, with the usual snap in a friendly question. 
 
 " He loves to hear about my Trownham work. I get 
 in touch with a community that he has never known. He 
 is always interested." 
 
 " How sweet of him," cried Clara Parlby, and thereupon 
 quoted Tennyson : 
 
 " • The poet in a golden clime was born, 
 With golden stars above,' " 
 
 which did not sound particularly applicable. 
 
 " But he can get very little of your company," Mrs. 
 Devereux insisted. 
 
 " I think he has as much as he wants. A man who is 
 absorbed in imaginative literature doesn't want a wife 
 to be always there, asking to be amused." 
 
 " But does he never amuse you now ? Does he never 
 lie on the grass and talk wild nonsense, as he did at The 
 Barrow ? Mary Wilborough used to tell us about his 
 romantic talk." 
 
 N His conversation interests me as much as ever," 
 Miranda said coldly. 
 
 Mrs. Devereux often complained that she could never 
 get any farther with the second Mrs. Raynham, who always 
 had her head in the clouds. " I think I liked his invalid 
 wife better, for she at least could prattle about her 
 husband, and she always made much of one. Miranda, 
 whom I have known from her babyhood, is an enigma to 
 me, and a most unneighbourly neighbour." 
 
 " She certainly ought to entertain more than she does," 
 said Mrs. Parlby, to which statement everybody agreed. 
 
MIRANDA 349 
 
 A garden-party at The Barrow and three or four dull 
 dinners at The Dene made a poor record for a woman with 
 such an income ! 
 
 11 1 believe she spends most of it in Trownham," said 
 Mrs. Parlby. 
 
 M Priest-ridden ! " exclaimed Mrs. Devereux. " We all 
 know what that means. The influence of that man Ferrar 
 and his papistical crew is something appalling." 
 
 Mrs. Parlby and her daughters cried out against this 
 intolerant spirit. 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Devereux, how can you ignore the splendid 
 work he has done ? " 
 
 " Think of the change he has made in that dreadful 
 town." 
 
 " Oh, he may well do something to better their bodies 
 when he has enslaved their souls. A Jesuit in disguise, 
 and nothing less ! " 
 
 Miranda's life was full, and like most lives that are 
 occupied with the interests of other people, it was not 
 altogether unhappy. She had very little time for brooding ; 
 yet there were hours when thought would come, hours 
 when memory held her, and when the things of to-day, the 
 plans of to-morrow, were lost in a retrospective reverie. 
 
 Those first years of married life, those two years in 
 strange places amidst the beauty of the world had made a 
 deep impression. They were years spent in close com- 
 panionship with a man of strong intellect and passionate 
 temperament ; a man who thought that he had been born 
 to enjoy all that earth can yield of pleasure and of refined 
 luxury, a supreme egotist, whose deepest thoughts never 
 went beyond the study of his own personality, who found 
 his own mind so wide a kingdom that his desire to know 
 went no further. Those Bohemian years in Paris ; his 
 friends of the Boule Miche, the women he had known and 
 admired, the writers at whose feet he had sat — the men 
 whose motto was " art for art's sake," who thought no 
 nature too vile, no phase of life too revolting, if it was 
 paintable, and would make a telling picture or a startling 
 
350 MIRANDA 
 
 story ; those years had left an ineffaceable stain. His 
 philosophy was the gospel of Omar Khayyam : 
 
 "To take the cash and let the credit go." 
 
 " After all, my dear Miranda," he said sometimes, 
 u that is only Gospel- teaching in another form : ' Sufficient 
 for the day is the evil thereof.' There may be other 
 worlds, but let us make the best of this." 
 
 And that fond dream of his conversion, the happy dreams 
 in those golden hours of their betrothal, when her love 
 was to prevail over cynicism and infidelity, and to make 
 him a believing Christian. It had seemed so easy. What 
 could not love do ? What could such a lover refuse to 
 such a love as hers ? 
 
 Oh, happy hours when love was new, full of deluding 
 dreams ! She knew now that her dream of love had no 
 echo in her lover's nature. The sybarite, the man who 
 had made sensuality a science ! What could he know of 
 a girl's heart and mind ? He had said to her more than 
 once : 
 
 " My dear, you are a mystery to me, your mind is a 
 sealed book. So full of fervid imaginings, yet so passion- 
 less, capable of such lovely dreams, yet so unsympathetic 
 and cold." 
 
 He offended her unconsciously, and with a gay 
 insouciance. He, whose costume had ever a picturesque 
 elegance, a something original, a reminiscence of D'Orsay, 
 a suggestion of Alfred de Musset — that fine flower of 
 dandies — was slovenly in his habits, and left his dressing- 
 room in a litter that taxed Baker's patience. 
 
 " It isn't that I mind tidying up after him, ma'am, 
 if he didn't fly out at me afterwards. To be sworn at for 
 putting his clothes away carefully — everything lapped in 
 tissue-paper — is enough to try anyone's temper ; but I 
 never answer back. I'd stand a good deal more than that 
 for you, ma'am." 
 
 " I shall persuade Mr. Raynham to engage a valet, Baker. 
 He ought to have his own servant." 
 
 Her husband's dressing-room was a terra incognita to 
 
MIRANDA 3Si 
 
 Miranda, but it vexed her that Baker should think him a 
 sloven. The mere word was full of unpleasing suggestions 
 — Hogarth's pictures, the eighteenth century novelists. 
 
 Reared in the meticulous purity of a house inhabited 
 only by women, Miranda's susceptibilities upon these 
 minor points were keen. It jarred upon her to see her 
 husband roaming about their rooms in a long velvet 
 dressing-gown, unwashed and unshaven, at two o'clock in 
 the afternoon, because splendid ideas and deathless lines 
 had come to him in the small hours, and he had been forced 
 to get up and write. 
 
 " I have to obey the divine afflatus," he told her, and 
 she found that the afflatus was responsible for much neglect 
 of the domestic proprieties. 
 
 Mark loved the pleasures of the table — was at once a 
 gourmand and a gourmet — and thought himself a stoic 
 when he suffered the wretched cuisine of an hotel in a 
 small Italian city without raging at the servants. The 
 everlasting macaroni or risotto, the shreds of overcooked 
 meat, and the frittura of flavourless fish. 
 
 " One had need be an artist to the tips of one's fingers 
 to swallow such garbage for the sake of picturesque sur- 
 roundings," he told his wife. 
 
 11 You make me think of Byron, who could dine on a 
 biscuit and a glass of soda water," Miranda said. 
 
 " That was a pose. Byron liked a good dinner just as 
 much as other men. And do you forget how it pleased him 
 to see his Venetian mistress crunch those savoury becca- 
 fichi with frank gluttony? " 
 
 He liked choice wines, and drank too much of them. 
 There were many things that got on the nerves of a woman 
 who had never lived among men. His ways and penchants 
 were a revelation, showing her that ground of commonness 
 that often lies at the bottom of a cultivated mind. 
 
 " You ought never to have married a man," he exclaimed 
 one day, when she had shown disgust at some particularly 
 masculine note in his character. " Another woman would 
 have been a better partner for you. A She Poet, far 
 
352 MIRANDA 
 
 exemple. You would have sat on an Italian hill and talked 
 philosophy. Two Sapphos without a Phaon. Or you 
 could have walked the smoky streets of Trownham in 
 white raiment, like strayed angels." 
 
 She was disillusionized, disappointed, looking back at 
 her old dreams with a bitter smile. Once he told her that 
 she had altered strangely since they were happy lovers in 
 the wood on the edge of the moor. 
 
 11 Altered I Why, I was sillier than the silliest school- 
 girl. There is not a rag left of that foolish creature. I 
 wonder that you could ever have admired her." 
 
 '• Oh, my sweet, you were perfect in those days, irresist- 
 ible, a young goddess — divinely lovely, divinely innocent. 
 Earthly things had scarcely touched you." 
 
 " Don't speak of that time," she said imperatively. 
 " Make me forget it if you can." 
 
 One day when she had been deeply offended with him, 
 and they had almost quarrelled, he took her suddenly in 
 his arms and kissed her furiously. 
 
 " My angel, give me back your love ! Miranda, 
 remember that night — that magical night ! Remember 
 the ineffable hour that made us one." 
 
 She tore herself out of his arms, snatched up her hat, 
 and ran out of the room. The door shut behind her, and 
 when he went on to the landing it was to see her white 
 gown flash across the marble hall and out at the door. 
 
 Where was she going in that wild haste ? 
 
 He rushed to the balcony. She was in a boat, pushing 
 off from the steps — alone. They were at Cadenabbia. 
 She had been learning to manage a pair of sculls, and 
 might be called mistress of such a boat ; but he felt mad 
 with fear somehow, and he flung himself down the wide 
 slippery stairs, hardly knowing how he got to the bottom. 
 
 She laughed at his fear when he overtook her in another 
 boat. 
 
 " I was not going to drown myself," she said. " I 
 only wanted to get away from you." 
 
 That is what you have been wanting ever since you 
 married me," he answered gloomily. 
 
MIRANDA 353 
 
 They went from Cadenabbia to Venice — from Venice to 
 Ravenna. People took them for a devoted couple, whose 
 life was to be one long honeymoon. 
 
 At Ravenna her boy was born, and before he came into 
 the world she had to pass through the valley of the shadow, 
 and her husband was lying face downward on the dirty 
 floor of the room outside hers through dreadful hours in 
 which every moment might be her last. The Italian 
 doctor, or the specialist Mark had summoned a week before 
 from Paris — a man of note there — came to him every now 
 and then, to tell him how the case went on. Very bad, a 
 little better, a little worse, and now a ray of hope ; and 
 when the sun was high the crisis came and the stricken 
 husband heard a child's first cry, unlike any other sound 
 upon this earth, and was told that all might be well. Her 
 recovery might be slow — must be slow — but the worst 
 was over. 
 
 In those days and weeks of convalescence he showed an 
 unflagging devotion to the wife who had been so near death ; 
 and Miranda, lying faint and pale, in a pleasant languor, 
 knew that a great love was invincible. Once again life 
 seemed new ; once again as in the days when they were 
 plighted lovers. She felt herself wrapped in the glowing 
 warmth of a measureless love. The husband and father, 
 leaning over her baby's cradle, and turning from the smile 
 he had been watching to smile at his wife, appealed to her 
 with a new pathos. He would hardly leave her. He 
 sat beside her bed for hours ; he read to her, or talked to 
 her with that discursive talk, that careless outpouring of 
 thought and fancy that had made him irresistible in those 
 summer afternoons in the garden. 
 
 One night during that long recovery, after she had 
 suffered a relapse, and had been for some hours almost in 
 danger, she opened her eyes and found him watching her. 
 
 The first rift in the night showed in one long streak of 
 promise above the distant hills. 
 
 " Have you been sitting here all night ? " she said 
 
 " How could I rest while you were ill ? But you are 
 better now, the little fever has gone, and I am happy." 
 
 23 
 
354 MIRANDA 
 
 " You have been very kind," she said gently, giving him 
 a hand that .was pale and delicate as a white rose-leaf. 
 
 " I want you to understand what a great love means, 
 and I want you to forgive me," he said, leaning over her, 
 almost in a whisper, " for our son's sake. Miranda, have 
 you forgiven ? " he asked piteously, after a few minutes. 
 
 " I have forgotten," she answered softly. 
 
 Her eyes closed. Even that slight effort of speech had 
 exhausted her. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 LIFE was new again. Her child had made all things 
 new. They both idolized him, the man in the pride 
 of his strength, and the woman who was slowly 
 creeping back to life after pain and peril. They pinned 
 their hopes upon that morsel of humanity, and the morsel 
 throve and flourished, hanging upon the full breast of a 
 lovely peasant woman from a country-side famous for the 
 peasants' beauty, a glorious creature, who loved him 
 almost as well as even his mother could. For nearly six 
 months the child throve and grew, and the star-like eyes 
 began to see the things of earth, instead of only reflecting 
 the blue of heaven. Then all at once came a change ; 
 and the sweet baby face grew wan and white, pinched and 
 changed. 
 
 It was a tragedy of ten days, and all was over. And 
 there was one little grave the more in the English cemetery 
 at Rome, where they carried their beloved. And again 
 Mark Raynham gave his wife the assurance of a measure- 
 less love. He put aside his own grief, which was deep and 
 strong, to comfort her. He let her think that the baby's 
 hand had given him the key of heaven. 
 
 M Those six months have done almost as much for me 
 as those three years in Galilee did for the world," he told 
 Miranda. 
 
 Never after this were they ill friends. She shut her eyes 
 to all those revelations of character that had shocked 
 her. She interested herself in her husband's literary work, 
 
 355 23* 
 
356 MIRANDA 
 
 shared his ambition, listened to his interminable mono- 
 logues, and would not let herself think him an egotist. It 
 took her a year and more to recover from the loss of her 
 child, but the memory of that short life made a link 
 between her and her husband that could not easily be 
 broken. 
 
 Their travels made an inexhaustible subject of interest. 
 Miranda was impressed by Mark's easy familiarity with all 
 that was worth knowing about the places they saw. At 
 Athens he moved about like a man who had been reared 
 there. 
 
 " You would have admired Alcibiades, and you would 
 have loved that glorified schoolmaster Plato ; but I 
 don't think you could have put up with Socrates. He 
 was dirty — something even worse than a sloven, and 
 Baker would have hated him. But think of it, Miranda, 
 realize it if you can. We are standing where the Masters 
 talked and where the disciples gathered two thousand 
 years ago ; all the philosophy that the world has ever 
 known began in this garden. Alas, sweet love ! ' Tis 
 Greece, but living Greece no more.' I don't think you 
 and I want Plato back, or Alcibiades. But oh, for an 
 hour of Byron ! oh, for a day with Keats or Shelley ! 
 It is our modern dead we want to have back. Browning, 
 Tennyson, Gladstone, Disraeli, the great minds we lost 
 an hour ago, the men we cannot do without. For those 
 clever little yellow people in the flowery islands death does 
 not mean a final parting ; there are no Japanese dead 
 who do not return. There are none who do not know 
 the way. From China, from Corea, and out of the 
 bitter sea, all the dead come back." 
 
 He stopped suddenly, with a curious drop in his voice, 
 and stared at vacancy. 
 
 He was subject to these moments of abstraction — 
 moments in which when she looked at him he was not 
 there. The tall figure stood erect and strong, the face 
 firmly cut against the light ; but the soul of the man was 
 not there. Somewhere, in some far distance, the man's 
 mind was wandering. 
 
MIRANDA 357 
 
 " What are you thinking of, Mark ? " 
 
 " I was not thinking." 
 
 " But your thoughts were far away." 
 
 " Not thoughts, only floating fancies — visions that 
 come and go." 
 
 He had fits of depression, deepest depression, that came 
 over him as suddenly as these moments of abstraction. 
 With these she could always sympathize. A poet must 
 have periods of melancholy — hours when he feels oppressed 
 by all the weight of this unintelligible world. The 
 mysteries of life and mind must trouble him — questions 
 that he must answer somehow ; harsh truths that he 
 may try to shut out of his mind, but that will return like 
 importunate beggars. 
 
 " Real happiness is only possible if we have learned 
 how not to think," Mark told her, and then he quoted his 
 favourite philosopher : 
 
 " 'A book of verses underneath a Bough, 
 A jug of wine, a loaf of bread— and Thou 
 Beside me singing in the Wilderness — 
 The Wilderness were Paradise enow !' " 
 
 He had strange moods. Once in that vast and desolate 
 church of S. Apollinare, between the wide-stretching 
 waste of marsh and the far-off line of sea, the church 
 where the rare footfall echoes with melancholy rever- 
 beration along the marble columns of the lonely aisle — 
 a church given over to a thrilling solitude, the sepulchre 
 of the long forgotten dead — he had been seized with 
 one of those strange paroxysms. She had left him for 
 a little while to look at the richly sculptured tombs at 
 the other end of the church — left him sitting in front of 
 the high altar lost in contemplation of those awful images 
 of Christ and his disciples. She heard a queer, gasping 
 cry and hurried to him. He was lying back against the 
 oaken bench, still facing the altar, with his eyeballs fixed 
 in a dreadful stare. 
 
 " I don't like this church. It is uncanny. Get me out 
 of it." 
 
358 MIRANDA 
 
 He reeled for an instant when he rose to his feet, as if 
 he would have fallen. 
 
 " The place is haunted ! A dead hand touched me. 
 Get me out of it, Miranda." 
 
 She took his arm and they went out quickly into the 
 sunshine. 
 
 " God ! " he cried. " I breathe again ! " And then 
 suddenly to her : " What is God ? Is there a God ? 
 Do you believe, Miranda ? Can anyone believe in Divine 
 Omniscience and eternal damnation ? Cowper did, and 
 he died mad. I am not going to die like Cowper." 
 
 And now they were in England, in plain, prosaic 
 England, away from the romance and the glamour, the 
 beauty and the horror of cities whose story is written in 
 blood. They had come back to the land of placid hills 
 and green pastures, and to scenes that Miranda had 
 known when the world around her was widening day by 
 day in the subtle progress of consciousness and under- 
 standing. This village of Melford and its pastoral 
 environment, the woods and the moor, were always dear 
 to her — dearest because of tender associations. 
 
 It was in The Dene garden, in long hours of pensive 
 thought, that she lived over again those two years of 
 married life, the years that had brought first estrange- 
 ment and afterwards union ; never romantic love, never 
 the dream of her girlhood, never the looking-up love of 
 the fond wife for the husband she deems a superior being, 
 the love that is more than love. But at least those years 
 had brought sympathy and union. If he was no longer 
 her ideal, she still believed in his genius, and excused 
 much because he was a genius. 
 
 They were often together in the gloaming, strolling under 
 the pine-trees, and tenderly remembering that vast pine- 
 wood by the Adriatic where the splendid Umbrian peasant 
 had walked beside them, carrying their infant son, in the 
 time of that long convalescence when Miranda's steps 
 were slow and feeble, and needed her husband's supporting 
 arm. Now, while she walked by his side thinking of the 
 
MIRANDA 359 
 
 child they had lost, his mind was full of a new poem — 
 another magnum opus, as he called it gaily, with that bold, 
 strong laugh of his, which sometimes sounded like a 
 challenge to the malign gods. 
 
 He was at work on a dramatic poem that was to be 
 the best thing he had ever done, free from all the faults 
 that had provoked the wrath of the critic, frightened a 
 few readers and attracted the million. 
 
 Miranda had given him his subject. 
 
 " I want some stupendous figure — a woman, solitary 
 and strong, doomed to a tragic fate, against a background 
 of blood and fire." 
 
 She suggested Joan of Arc. 
 
 He paced the garden for half an hour, and came back 
 to her despondent. 
 
 " Joan won't do. Too many priests and too many 
 soldiers ! I hate the clash of arms — a few fine scenes, 
 perhaps, but too barbaric and remote. No, I don't want 
 Joan ; let her rest embalmed in a volume of Voltaire — 
 a volume I seldom look at. I read Anatole France's 
 laborious biography, and he left me cold." 
 
 " Charlotte Corday ? " 
 
 He took two rapid turns upon the pine-needles, with 
 long strides, and came back to her in a glow. 
 
 " My inspiration ! " he cried, and kissed her. 
 
 " Charlotte will do. My book shall be called ' Charlotte ' 
 — only ' Charlotte,' and upon that woman's name I will 
 hang all the storm and blood of that prodigious time. 
 There is enough in the French Revolution for twenty epics, 
 for a hundred histories — enough for Lamartine, enough 
 for Hugo, enough for Carlyle. It is a wild crisis in the 
 story of mankind that cannot fail to inspire a romantic 
 writer. Charles Dickens had only to touch it, and he 
 flashed out of the ashes of his younger self — greater 
 than he had ever been — the phoenix of story-tellers. 
 Nothing he did before or after was quite as good as the 
 1 Tale of Two Cities ! ' Carlyle' s ' Revolution ' was his 
 Hochste Spitz, his Mount Everest. In ' Charlotte ' I will 
 give the world my best." 
 
360 MIRANDA 
 
 He talked to her of " Charlotte " all that evening. 
 She wondered at the rapidity of his thoughts when a 
 subject took hold of him. He saw visions ; he sat by the 
 autumn fire, looking into the glowing coals, and she 
 knew that he was seeing things. 
 
 " The September Massacres ! " he muttered. " Too 
 horrible ? No, nothing is too horrible, if words can realize 
 it. The slaughter of the Swiss Guard — men dying for a 
 royal woman, royal and still beautiful. My dear, you 
 have given me all I want — work for four or five years, 
 with that vivid colour and massive form ; work that will 
 put me to the pin of my collar ! What a beastly phrase 
 for a poet ! " 
 
 He laughed his gay laugh, delighted with himself. 
 " Oh, the books I must read ! A volume for an allusion, 
 a single line ; I shall not stint my labour. I will think of 
 no other subject, open no book that does not touch that 
 time. I must steep myself in those dark years from 
 eighty-nine to ninety-four — live in them — see the things 
 men saw, feel the horror of years that shook the 
 earth." 
 
 And then, after a silence, while he sat crouching, with 
 elbows on knees, and forehead leaning on his clasped 
 hands, he looked up at her with a smile. 
 
 " There shall not be a line you cannot read — nothing 
 to bring the flush of shame." 
 
 " Stand firm to that resolve, Mark, and I shall be proud 
 of you." 
 
 " I don't think I shall fly far or high with clipped 
 wings ; but you have been generous, and I need no longer 
 write for bread, or for my tailor's bill." 
 
 She had been generous. There had been very little talk 
 of money since her marriage. He had asked no ques- 
 tions, and she remembered that he had behaved with a 
 fine independence when her marriage settlement was 
 under discussion. She told him early in their married 
 life that she meant to give him half her income. 
 
 " I will pay a half-yearly cheque for three thousand or 
 so into your banking account," she said, " so that we 
 
MIRANDA 361 
 
 need never talk about money. Will that be enough for 
 our travels, and for The Dene by and by ? " 
 
 " It will be more than enough, with my own income, 
 which is respectable. I could provide for our home — 
 in a modest way — even if you had no money." 
 
 " I am glad it will be enough," she said simply. " I 
 can spend the rest upon my own fancies." 
 
 " Upon Trownham ? " 
 
 " A good deal upon Trownham, perhaps, and upon The 
 Barrow ; and pensions to old servants, and other small 
 matters." 
 
 " Better pension them than keep them too long," he 
 said, with a shrug. 
 
 " I love them for old sake's sake. They will not be 
 far away." 
 
 This was all that had ever been said about money. 
 He was lavish in expenditure during their travels, and 
 revelled in the luxury of spending money without count. 
 He had all manner of artistic fancies, and at Ravenna, 
 where they lived for more than six months, he made the 
 hotel salon beautiful after his own idea of beauty, which 
 leaned more to rich colour than to exquisite form. A 
 marble bust of Dante was all he bought in the way of 
 sculpture, and the stern, attenuated face stood out in 
 severe relief against an oriental curtain all red and gold. 
 He loved to bring his wife gifts : Italian jewellery, old 
 or modern. He brought her old lace picked up in queer 
 little shops, in Bellagio, in Genoa, everywhere ; and 
 curious embroideries on old faded satin, orange, vermilion, 
 sap green, to throw about her room. He brought her 
 marvels out of old churches, vestments stiff with precious 
 stones and heavy gold embroidery, to cover her sofas at 
 The Dene. 
 
 " It would be sacrilege," she said. 
 
 " No matter. You are not a Roman Catholic." 
 
 " But I respect things that have been used in a 
 church." 
 
 " The priests who wore them are dead ; the singing 
 boys who went before them are old men. Perhaps you 
 
362 MIRANDA 
 
 would like to give that cope to your cousin — to dazzle 
 the factory women on Easter Sunday." 
 
 " Yes, I will give it to Gilbert, if I may." 
 
 " It is yours," he answered, shrugging his shoulders. 
 
 His colour faded. The thought of Gilbert Ferrar set 
 his nerves on edge, and yet he had a way of dragging 
 his name into the conversation, and sometimes questioned 
 his wife closely about the hours she spent in Trownham. 
 Did Ferrar go about the mean streets with her ? did he 
 plan her work and help her to get through it ? Or did she 
 do everything off her own bat ? She told him that she 
 seldom saw the Vicar. Every hour of his life was devoted 
 to the graver business of the parish. He had to leave all 
 house-to-house visiting to the Sisters. 
 
 " There are weeks when neither Julia nor I see him, 
 except in the pulpit on Sundays." 
 
 " Poor Julia ! Of course you know that she is over 
 head and ears in love with him." 
 
 " You ought not to say that. She admires and esteems 
 him for his great gifts and the work he is doing. There 
 is nothing silly or sentimental about Julia." 
 
 " You think not ? She is at the silly age — all spinsters 
 of thirty-eight are romantic. And your iron-grey priest 
 is the kind of man women call magnetic." 
 
 Everything at The Dene went upon velvet. Half a 
 dozen old servants from The Barrow filled the important 
 offices, and the underlings were the offspring of Miranda's 
 pet cottagers. The footman, who had been useful at 
 Robin Hood's Bay, and had pulled Lady Laura's bath- 
 chair, was transformed into the smart young butler of the 
 modern household, and called by his surname, Bowden. 
 
 And so the time went on till Miranda had been five 
 years a wife, and had lived nearly three years at The 
 Dene ; and now Melf ord was constrained to confess that she 
 was no longer a wreck. The bloom whose evanescence 
 her friends had deplored had come back to the oval 
 cheek and the violet eyes were no longer haggard. If 
 not so brilliant a creature as the Miranda of eighteen, she 
 
MIRANDA 363 
 
 was in some subtle way more beautiful. The countenance 
 had no longer the girl's bright expectant outlook ; but 
 there was that deeper beauty of thought — a mind that 
 had ripened in change and in sorrow. 
 
 Upon one point Mrs. Devereux insisted — Mr. and Mrs. 
 Raynham were a semi-detached couple. 
 
 " In spite of all the romantic fuss about a love-affair 
 that shortened dear Lady Laura's life — for that dear 
 woman always hated the match — Miranda is about the 
 coldest kind of wife that has ever come within my know- 
 ledge. Mary Wilborough is a great deal fonder of that 
 rough lout of hers than Miranda of her poet." 
 
 "How can we tell?" said Miss Parlby. "Miranda 
 would think gush bad form." 
 
 " My dear, she has a cold disposition and not much 
 heart," said Mrs. Devereux, who was majestic in widow's 
 weeds and more dictatorial than ever ; for the Colonel 
 was no more, and had left his wife richer than she had 
 anticipated ; and the hunting-stable that had been his 
 pride was melted into a pair of upstanding bays, which 
 drew Mrs. Devereux about in an expensive landau 
 and sent a thrill through her old friends whenever they 
 met her. 
 
 It was only in the pulpit on Sunday, and once in a 
 way at The Barrow, that Miranda saw Gilbert. His visits 
 to The Dene were rare — cards left now and then, or a 
 hurried call at tea-time, while his horse waited. It was 
 useless to ask him to dinner, since he never dined out. 
 His nights at Trownham were almost as busy as his days. 
 There were few evenings when he was not wanted to 
 preside at a meeting of some kind, and his presence was 
 expected at the working-men's club at least once a week, 
 where he spent long evenings among them like one of 
 themselves, in a fog of tobacco smoke, and sometimes a 
 hurricane of words. He delighted in their rough-and- 
 tumble arguments, their strenuous cock-sure talk, and 
 their northern vernacular ; for he knew that among these 
 clamorous debaters the majority might be trusted to vote 
 on the side of law and order. 
 
364 MIRANDA 
 
 That club had done wonders for Trownham. The life 
 in the place, the movement and development were wonder- 
 ful for those who remembered how dead and dreary that 
 labyrinth of mean streets had been before " Vicar came." 
 
 No man can help being a little proud of the tree that 
 he has planted with pain and labour, digging deep into 
 the ground before he laid in the roots, watchful of its 
 growth day by day, when the season of fruition comes 
 and he sees that the fruit is good. Gilbert walked about 
 Trownham with the consciousness that his work had 
 prospered, and that such work was worth living for. 
 Rough hands were held out to him, loud voices greeted 
 him as he trod the muddy footways. There were no class 
 distinctions in the parish of St. Barnabas. If ladies and 
 gentlemen wanted to help him, to teach or to amuse his 
 people, sing, play, or act for them — they had to leave all 
 consciousness of superiority at home. Trownham recog- 
 nized no social barriers. If one of the kind young ladies 
 sang out of tune there was frank laughter ; if one of the 
 kind young gentlemen, who fancied he could act like Sir 
 Charles Wyndham, proved himself a stick, the back rows 
 in the Hall let him know what they thought of him. 
 
 The Vicar went on his way, without haste and without 
 rest. Refinement of manners would come in time. He 
 did not despair even of that. 
 
 In the meantime he had Miranda to help him, and all 
 her efforts tended that way, whereby there was already a 
 marked improvement in the ways and manners of the 
 women, old and young. 
 
 Gilbert had his parish, and that was all he had out of 
 the sum of life. He told himself sadly in the night season, 
 alone among his books, that no wife would ever sit by his 
 hearth, no children's voices would ever ring gaily through 
 the empty rooms overhead. He had lived for mankind — 
 not for himself. 
 
 Never, by one faltering word, had he troubled Miranda's 
 peace of mind. They met and parted as friends, and friends 
 only ; yet when he went back to his solitary home, she 
 was a living presence there, a living presence in that room 
 
MIRANDA 365 
 
 where he had heard her piteous story, and had seen her 
 white and haggard, kneeling on the prie-dieu chair. That 
 was all he had in the present, his sense of good work done 
 and his fellowship with Christ. And what had he in the 
 future ? Nothing but self-effacement. " Newman had 
 no more," he told himself. 
 
 She was happy now. Yes, in her grave and tranquil 
 way, it seemed to him that Miranda was happy. 
 
 Julia had told him that she was satisfied with her 
 life ; that she was intensely interested in the new poem, 
 and spent long evenings in her husband's book-room, 
 working while he wrote, or sometimes reading aloud to 
 him when he was tired. And then there was her piano. 
 She had gone back to her piano with all her old enjoy- 
 ment of the great masters. 
 
 " Is Raynham keen about music ? " Gilbert asked 
 Julia. 
 
 " Yes, I believe he likes operatic music ; but I think, 
 perhaps, there was a little pretending in the old days at 
 The Barrow, and that he was more in love with Miranda 
 than with Beethoven." 
 
 Mark was ostensibly, nay almost insolently, happy ; 
 but the old strange fits came upon him sometimes, and 
 he had to walk down devils on the moor. When a fit of 
 depression lasted longer than usual, he packed his port- 
 manteau and dashed off to Paris. 
 
 M I have no end of work to do there ! " he told Miranda ; 
 " documents and out of the way books to search. I mean 
 my history to be correct to the last syllable ; no critic 
 shall find a weak spot." 
 
 After one of these somewhat frequent journeys he told 
 her that he had met her uncle in Paris. 
 
 " In society ? " 
 
 "In a place that all manner of people go to. He is 
 a splendid fellow. We were chums a V instant ; but I never 
 told him I was your husband. He took me for a Parisian 
 to the marrow of my bones," he said, with his loud laugh, 
 the laugh of a man who admires himself. 
 
 Miranda offered to go with him on one of those sudden 
 
3 66 MIRANDA 
 
 journeys. His depression had been deeper than usual, 
 and it seemed almost unkind to let him go alone. 
 
 " No, my dear ; it is sweet of you to make such an 
 offer. But Paris is like a brazier, with an atmosphere 
 that would stifle you. It reeks of wickedness." 
 
 He went alone, and it was Miranda's turn to suffer 
 depression of spirits. Her latest experience at Trown- 
 ham had been sad. Death had been in the air, and it 
 had been her difficult duty to console where consolation 
 was not easy, where the death of husband and bread- 
 winner meant lasting misery. 
 
 It was nearly the end of a summer that had been an 
 admitted failure, leaving the farmers more than usual 
 ground for complaint. A grey and rainy August was 
 followed by a cold September, and people had begun to 
 ask each other what had become of the sun. 
 
 The red-brown ground under the pine-trees was sodden ; 
 what flowers were left in the garden hung despondent after 
 a night of rain. And Miranda, walking alone in the 
 evening grey, had to acknowledge to herself that The Dene 
 garden was a place of melancholy. 
 
 Her dogs were not there. They would have made all 
 the difference. No place was dull where that eager life 
 came — creatures who loved her with all the canine heart 
 knows of passion, who would have been hanging about 
 her with obtrusive, insistent affection. She had made a 
 sacrifice in living at The Dene without a dog ; her husband 
 having frankly owned that he liked dogs only in their 
 proper place — the stable-yard — which was the same thing 
 as saying that he did not like them anywhere. 
 
 " If I had a dog about the garden with me, would that 
 trouble you ? " she asked. 
 
 "I'm afraid it would. A dog is a disturbing beast ; 
 he gets on my nerves. Dogs don't really like me. You 
 remember that gigantic brute in the garden at Varese, 
 the dog you admired ? He did not like me. He looked 
 at me in a way that made me feel as if my life was in 
 danger." 
 
 " He would not have hurt you." 
 
MIRANDA 367 
 
 " He would have hurt me if he could." 
 
 So there were no dogs at The Dene. Miranda saw her 
 old favourites and kept up the old friendships, and in- 
 dulged herself with a special purchase at a dog-show now 
 and then. The dogs were best off with Whipple, who 
 had especial power of making them good and happy. 
 
 Mark had been away longer than usual, and Julia had 
 done her best to persuade Miranda to stay at The Barrow 
 till he came back. 
 
 " No, Julia, I am not unhappy at The Dene ; there is 
 a kind of soothing melancholy about the house and 
 garden that harmonizes with my favourite books. I 
 think and dream. And as for solitude — I have more 
 visitors than I want ; somebody is always dropping in at 
 tea-time, and I have to talk twaddle about the people 
 round me ; you know the sort of talk. And in these 
 motoring days there are always surprises — people rushing 
 up to one's door that one thought a hundred miles away. 
 ' My dear, I have come fifty miles to see you,' someone 
 says. ' And to try the pace of your new car/ I say to 
 myself ; but one has to pretend to be pleased. Oh, Julia, 
 what a lot of pretending there has to be in this life. I 
 believe my Aunt Hilda has been pretending ever since 
 she left the schoolroom, pretending to like her husband, 
 for whom she never cared a straw ; pretending to be richer 
 than she is, cleverer than she is, superior, superior. And 
 now she has married all her daughters, and might fold her 
 hands and sit by the fire, instead of rushing from house 
 to house in her car. Someone told me that it is im- 
 possible to go anywhere for a week-end without finding 
 Lady Haverstock installed when one arrives.'' 
 
 Julia sighed. She knew very little about week-ending, 
 except the Saturday night shopping in Trownham — the 
 cheap butchers, the cheap stores, the cheap shoe shop, 
 where wooden clogs were shown side by side with pointed 
 toes and steel buckles — cheap usefulness, cheap finery. 
 Trownham wanted both. 
 
 Lady Haverstock had offered herself for a couple of 
 nights while Mark was away. 
 
368 MIRANDA 
 
 " I heard you were alone," she wrote, " and though I 
 am quite reconciled to the idea of Mark as your husband 
 — I always admired and fostered his genius, as you 
 know, — it would be nice to find you alone for a long 
 cause. I have such worlds to tell you about my girls 
 and their chicks. People tell me you have recovered your 
 looks and are as handsome as ever." 
 
 Of course Lady Haverstock had to come. One could 
 hardly shut one's door against an aunt who meant to be 
 civil. All Miranda's family had come round, and wanted 
 to be friendly. One after another had agreed that if 
 Miranda chose to marry a man who had nothing but 
 literary talent to recommend him, well, she was rich 
 enough to indulge her whim. She had no children, and 
 somebody must have her money by and by. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 IT was the deep of night. Miranda had lain down 
 after a long day of many occupations, and a long 
 evening of thought and reading, a solitary but not unhappy 
 evening. 
 
 When she went to bed between eleven and twelve 
 she knew that she was tired, and she thought she was 
 sleepy ; but sleep had refused to come, or had come only 
 in unrestful snatches between intervals of wakefulness. 
 
 She awoke suddenly after an hour of deeper sleep — awoke 
 to see a pale grey light in the room, and to think that it 
 was the new day. Yet somehow she had a faint sense 
 that it was still night, and that the light was something 
 she had never seen before. 
 
 She rubbed her eyes, confused and a little frightened. 
 
 A woman was standing near her bed — a shadowy figure 
 in a long white gown, a ghastly, attenuated face, two thin 
 arms, and bloodless hands clasped in wild appeal. 
 
 She tried to speak, tried to ask : " Who are you ? " but 
 the words would not come. Her throat and her lips were 
 dry. Her heart was beating, and all the blood in her 
 veins was turned to ice. Still she struggled against this 
 paralysing fear, and sat up in her bed and tried to speak. 
 
 She knew the face, but she had never seen it as she 
 saw it now — so livid, so wasted, such haggard eyes, such 
 purple lips. The face of the last hour of life or the first 
 hour of death. 
 
 Again and again she tried to speak : '* Who are you? 
 What do you want ? " 
 
 369 24 
 
370 MIRANDA 
 
 There came no sound, yet it seemed as if the woman 
 answered her question. 
 
 The figure was farther off now, and one of those blood- 
 less hands beckoned, and then pointed to the door. And 
 then, as she looked, the figure seemed to lose all substance, 
 and to be only a white mist that had assumed a human 
 shape, and so, with no movement that Miranda could 
 perceive, drifted out at the open door. 
 
 She was summoned — she was to follow that dreadful 
 shape. She never knew how the door came to be open — a 
 door that Baker had shut when she left her mistress for 
 the night. 
 
 She was no longer afraid, she was hardly conscious of 
 her own existence. She sprang out of bed and followed 
 the vision. 
 
 Along the corridor, past three or four empty rooms, to 
 a flight of steps shut in by panelling, steep and narrow — 
 stairs that she had never ascended, leading to the loft 
 in the gabled roof. 
 
 The immaterial figure seemed to be waiting for her at 
 the top of the stairs in the gloom of that spacious loft, 
 where she had never been till now. It occupied the whole 
 empty space between the ceiling of the upper story and 
 the gabled roof — a place for lumber, a wilderness of dis- 
 carded furniture, old trunks, tin boxes, old books in 
 wooden cases ; things that must have been there in some 
 former tenancy of the house : things disused and forgotten. 
 
 The vision moved amidst this labyrinth, slowly, unhesi- 
 tatingly, to the farther end of the roof, and stopped under 
 the massive tie-beam. A shadowy arm was lifted, a 
 bloodless hand pointed to the beam. The pointing finger 
 fluttered for a moment — and the place was empty, empty 
 and dark, for the strange grey light that had looked like 
 morning was gone. 
 
 Miranda groped her way back to her room through the 
 darkness of stairs and corridor. The faint yellow light 
 of the night-lamp had a kind of comfort in it, after that 
 ghastly greyness. 
 
 She fell on her knees by her bed and tried to pray, but 
 
MIRANDA 371 
 
 she could not. Her brain seemed frozen. What did it 
 all mean, this horror that she had passed through ? 
 
 Lying on her bed presently, faint and exhausted, she 
 began to wonder if she had really left that bed, if she had 
 been on those unfamiliar stairs, or in the darkness of the 
 roof. 
 
 Was it a dream or a vision ? 
 
 She had known dreams as vivid, dreams as frightening. 
 She might have been lying on her bed all the time, moving 
 in imagination only. 
 
 Of one thing only she was certain. The face that 
 she had seen in dream or vision was the face of Mark's 
 wife as she must have looked when death was near. 
 
 Her thoughts went back to that day of death, the 
 funeral bell, Mark's face in the orchard, when he had 
 snatched her to his breast, the horror, the exultation. 
 
 He was glad that his wife was dead ! 
 
 Sleep would not come, but day came, and with the first 
 broad light Miranda was up and had opened windows 
 wide and let the morning air and the sunshine into her 
 room. It was not six — no servants were stirring yet, 
 no Baker to bring her bath. But the thing she wanted 
 to do could be better done before servants were about, 
 servants who would wonder, and might talk. 
 
 She bathed her face in cold water, put on her dressing- 
 gown and slippers, and went into the corridor and up 
 those stairs that were strange to her. She had heard of 
 the loft as a place for lumber, heard of things being carried 
 there, and had promised Julia that it should be investi- 
 gated and cleared out some day in the interests of a jumble 
 sale ; but she had never been curious enough or bold 
 enough to go there, thinking of it as a haunt of spiders and 
 bats. She had a great horror of those uncanny creatures 
 — the flying mice of her early German exercises — but 
 this morning nothing could have stopped her. 
 
 It was all as it had been in the dream or the vision — 
 a place of shadow, only chance lights from the interstices 
 of the rafters. She groped her way to the remote spot 
 where the hand had pointed to the tie-beam. Yes, that 
 
 2 4 * 
 
372 MIRANDA 
 
 was the beam — the trunk of an old cherry tree, hewn into 
 shape, with the marks of the axe upon the wood. 
 
 What was the meaning of that pointing hand ? The 
 beam was above her head, and beyond her reach. She 
 dragged one of the empty wooden cases through the dust 
 and the gloom, and standing upon this platform of three 
 feet high, she was able to see the upper surface of the beam. 
 
 There was something there — something covered with a 
 curtain of cobwebs and dust. A thick cloud of dust flew 
 up and almost choked her as she lifted the thing that 
 had been hidden there. It was a book, a thick octavo, 
 bound in calf. She could only tell shape and size and 
 binding from the touch of her fingers. It was too dark 
 at that end of the roof to discover more. 
 
 Then the horror of last night was something more than 
 a dream. She had really been in this place of darkness 
 and forgotten things. She had really seen the pale wraith 
 and the pointing hand. She crept out of the loft, and 
 down the narrow stair, holding the book under her arm. 
 Eager as she was to see what manner of thing it was, she 
 would not trust herself to examine it in the corridor, for 
 she heard voices, and knew that the servants were about. 
 Their breakfast-bell rang as she hurried to her room, and 
 her tea-tray was waiting for her. Baker had been there 
 already, and would be coming back presently. She locked 
 her door before she sat down by the open window, glad 
 to feel the autumn breeze blowing through the room. 
 She had felt half suffocated while she groped her way 
 about the loft. 
 
 The book had been handsomely bound in crimson 
 and gold. There was a monogram " F. R." on the side, 
 and the title " My Journal" in gold, elaborate, artistic. 
 But the gold was tarnished, the crimson calf stained, and 
 the hinges of the book were broken. It was held together 
 by a clasp that had once been gold, and there was a key 
 in the clasp that dropped out as Miranda tried to turn 
 it. The clasp was locked and double-locked, but the 
 rivets that held it had come away from the damp leather. 
 Miranda looked at the first page. 
 
MIRANDA 373 
 
 " Mark has given me this lovely book — Mark who has 
 given me everything beautiful. He says I am to write 
 all my thoughts and feelings, the things I do, but still 
 more the things I dream. He says that to write all this 
 will enlarge my ideas, and turn my thoughts inward. 
 So sweet of him ! All the same I'm afraid my journal will 
 be awful rubbish. He has promised to look at it from 
 time to time, and to show me my faults in composition. 
 
 " I had the prize for essay- writing when I was at school, 
 but then poor papa paid for all the expensive extras, 
 carriage exercise, riding lessons, Italian singing mistress, 
 and the Miss Summertons may have favoured me." 
 
 Miranda would read no more. She shut the book 
 hurriedly and put it away in a drawer of her knee-hole 
 desk, the only drawer she ever locked. 
 
 She would read no more till the late evening, when 
 she could be quite alone in her book-room. She had a 
 kind of feeling that it was hardly fair to read this story of 
 a life that was finished, but even that first page, with its 
 school-girl simplicity, interested her, and she was eager to 
 read more. Strange that when the living woman was so 
 uninteresting the dead woman's book should thrill her ! 
 Dead ! Yes, there was the difference that made those 
 commonplace lines thrilling. It was a revelation from 
 beyond the barrier. The dead woman wanted her story 
 to be read. Perhaps that pale wraith had often drifted 
 through the corridors, floated up those stairs with that 
 strange movement that was not of this earth, when there 
 was no one to see, no one to understand. 
 
 Miranda went to The Barrow after breakfast, and was 
 there all day. Her nerves were shaken as they had 
 seldom been of late years, by her experience of the night, 
 by the finding of the book that had made the strange 
 experience a substantial fact. The book was there — a 
 thing of this commonplace world, which she could handle 
 and examine. But for that she might have believed 
 that the pale wraith she had followed, or seemed to follow, 
 was a creation of her own brain, a dream that she could 
 
374 MIRANDA 
 
 banish out of her memory, and that need never trouble 
 her more. 
 
 But there was the book ! Why was it hidden ? Why 
 had some being from the world beyond the gates of death 
 led her to the place where that book had lain in darkness 
 and dust for years — why now, more than in the three years 
 she had spent under the same roof, had this revelation 
 come to her ? 
 
 Had that shadowy form stood beside her bed on other 
 nights in those three years, while she had lain asleep — 
 without sense or sympathy ? 
 
 She could recall many nights when her sleep had been 
 troubled, only half sleep, and when the darkness had been 
 oppressive. Her husband's room was next hers, and in 
 sultry weather the door of communication was open. 
 More than once she had called to him, and he had found 
 her agitated, even in tears. 
 
 " My dearest, were you frightened ? Was it . 
 nightmare ? " he had asked. 
 
 No, she had told him. It was only some sudden 
 apprehension that had startled her out of her sleep. 
 
 " Only a bad dream ? " 
 
 M It was not like a dream." 
 
 That kind of thing had happened more than once, and 
 he had told her that she was of imagination all compact. 
 
 She thought of those troubled awakenings this morning 
 as she walked through the fields to her old home, the dear 
 familiar home where no frightening fancy had ever troubled 
 her joyous girlhood, only visions of beautiful impossible 
 things, only romantic shapes and embodied poetry. 
 
 Julia saw there was something amiss, something not 
 quite usual. 
 
 " My dear, you have been worrying yourself ; what is 
 it?" 
 
 " Nothing. I have nothing to worry me." 
 
 " You ought not to be left alone. Your husband has 
 been away too long." 
 
 " He is to be at home to-morrow night, coming straight 
 through from Paris. No, Julia, I have not been moping. 
 
MIRANDA 375 
 
 I can always amuse myself in the garden or in my book- 
 room." 
 
 " There is a tremor in your voice, Miranda. I know- 
 there is something amiss/' 
 
 " No, you troublesome creature. Come to the stables. 
 I want to see the dogs and Whipple." 
 
 " Whipple was distressed at your not riding to-day. 
 It was a lovely morning for the moor, and he was at The 
 Dene at half -past seven, for orders." 
 
 " I didn't want to ride to-day. I wanted to loaf about 
 this dear place with you." 
 
 Julia could say no more. They went to the stable- 
 yard, that spacious yard surrounded by kennels of the 
 most modern description. 
 
 The inhabitants heard Miranda's voice, and there was 
 a frantic chorus, while even the horses neighed and stamped 
 about their boxes. 
 
 " Dear things, they want some sugar," Miranda said. 
 
 " They want exercise, ma'am," Whipple answered 
 grimly. M I saved the grey for you this morning, making 
 sure you would give her a bucketing, and now she's just 
 above herself, and trying to kick a hole in the door." 
 
 Miranda went into the stable and wasted half an hour 
 feeding all the horses with large lumps of sugar out of a 
 canister that was always kept supplied for them. She 
 was more herself among those four-legged friends than 
 she had been an hour before, and presently when she went 
 back to the yard, and the kennel doors were opened, she 
 had all she could do to keep on her feet against the rush 
 of affectionate creatures, with cold damp noses and thin 
 red tongues that swept over her face in a rapture of 
 love. 
 
 " They don't forget me, Whipple," she said, when she 
 could find speech, " though it is nearly a fortnight since 
 I was in the yard." 
 
 " Forget you, ma'am, no — nor wouldn't if you was 
 away another two years." 
 
 The youngest of the dogs was a flat-haired retriever, 
 a puppy of only just a year old, of a new breed, distinctly 
 
376 MIRANDA 
 
 precious : a lovely creature, with sleek smooth coat of 
 pale gold, a long nose, broad forehead, and topaz eyes. 
 
 " Zenobia is lovelier than ever," Miranda exclaimed, 
 submitting to exuberant caresses. 
 
 " It was lucky you put on a tailor gown," said Julia. 
 
 " You'd spoil any dog's manners, Miss Miranda," said 
 Whipple, forgetting himself, as he was apt to do now 
 and then. 
 
 " I mean to take Zenobia home with me. Mr. Raynham 
 is not coming till to-morrow night, so there will be nobody 
 to say I spoil her. She is a perfect love, and if ever I 
 have a dog in the house it shall be Zenobia." 
 
 " She is a bit big for a lady's lap-dog, ma'am, but she's 
 as thoroughbred as they make 'em, and she won't do no 
 harm indoors." 
 
 Whipple laid a stress upon the last word which implied 
 that Zenobia had out-of-door failings. She was a " mark 
 on poultry," Whipple said. 
 
 " She doesn't run after sheep now, does she ? " 
 
 " No, ma'am ; not when she doesn't get the chance." 
 
 " I see what it is, Miranda," Julia said when they were 
 alone in the schoolroom. " That gloomy old house has 
 got on your nerves. Why don't you come here and stay 
 with me till Mr. Raynham is at home again ? Your old 
 room can be ready for you in half an hour." 
 
 " Sleep in my old room ! Not for the world. I should 
 think too much." 
 
 " Then in any other room. There are enough and to 
 spare. It will be a treat for me to have you. Don't go 
 back to that dismal Dene." 
 
 " I must go back. My little oak room suits me. I 
 have something to do to-night. I shan't feel lonely with 
 Zenobia." 
 
 " Then let me come too. Have me as well as Zenobia." 
 
 " No, dear, I want to be alone." 
 
 Her tone was final, something of the Miranda of old 
 who always knew her own mind. She went home in the 
 dusk of evening escorted by Whipple, with Zenobia, 
 under control. 
 
MIRANDA 377 
 
 " You could no more of managed her in these fields, 
 ma'am, than if she had been wild elephants. She's just 
 mad to run those sheep." 
 
 Zenobia, panting and straining at the lead, showed that 
 Whipple was right. The sheep on the other side of the field 
 were too alluring for a retriever puppy. 
 
 Safely delivered to her mistress in the hall at The 
 Dene, the puppy was all that could be desired. She sat 
 by Miranda's side at dinner and lay on the old Persian 
 prayer-rug in Miranda's den, some few feet of long lean 
 limbs and tawny hair, basking in the warmth of a wood 
 fire. 
 
 There was a pile of books on the table by Miranda's 
 chair, but she had not been reading though it was mid- 
 night, and she had been sitting there since nine o'clock, 
 to the distress of Baker, who for the last hour had come 
 again and again with diabolical persistence, to implore 
 her mistress to go to bed. 
 
 " Indeed, ma'am, you will make yourself ill with sitting 
 here poring over all those books when you ought to be 
 in bed and asleep. You had very little sleep last night, 
 I know you hadn't, for you were all of a shake this 
 morning, and as white as a sheet of paper." 
 
 " Go along with you, Baker. You are a dear woman, 
 but you get on my nerves. Everybody has gone to bed 
 but you and me, and I shall not leave this room for 
 another hour ; go to bed, and don't bother." 
 
 "You were always self-willed, Miss Miranda," said 
 Baker ; and she shut the door with more vehemence than 
 became her. 
 
 She always called her mistress " Miss Miranda " when 
 her feelings were hurt. Baker was sensitive, and she 
 could not forget that Miranda had spent the first two 
 years of existence upon her lap. 
 
 Miranda locked the door and went back to her seat 
 by the fire. Zenobia whimpered and stirred in a dream, 
 but was soon sound asleep again. The house was still, 
 the butler having been dismissed for the night at ten 
 
378 MIRANDA 
 
 o'clock. The silence seemed strange to Miranda as she 
 took the dead woman's book from under two or three 
 others. 
 
 She had not cared to open it till she was sure of not 
 being interrupted. That book, discovered under super- 
 natural influence, was something awful that must be looked 
 into with a quiet mind. 
 
 It was a thick volume of five hundred pages, and 
 Miranda, turning the leaves quickly, saw that the dead 
 hand had nearly filled the book. She went through the 
 volume deliberately, looking at every page, sometimes 
 reading only a few lines, sometimes missing nothing, 
 curiously interested in a life that was finished and had 
 left only a marble cross and a few flowers in the 
 churchyard. If there had been any traces of the first 
 wife's existence in the strange old house they had been 
 swept away when Mark made his improvements. Nothing, 
 not a chair she had sat upon, not an ornament she loved, 
 had been left. 
 
 " Danieli's Hotel, Venice. Monday. — We are so happy. 
 We are spending papa's wedding present in the most 
 delightful way. Mark, who was born in Italy, had never 
 been in this wonderful place, and before his poem was 
 published he could not afford to come here. He knows 
 Paris by heart, and knows all that is wickedest in that 
 wicked city. But Venice is new : a beautiful dream. 
 
 " We almost live in our gondola from morning till 
 sunset, and at night we go to the theatre, or to some place 
 where there is music. He is so kind, so kind, so loving, 
 so considerate, so patient with my ignorance and stupidity. 
 He often laughs at me, with his great joyous laugh, but 
 if he fancies I am hurt, he takes me on his knee as if I 
 were a child, and says sweet things, the sweetest things : 
 ' You don't mind, Flora. You are so amusing, and it 
 is delicious to hear your ideas and the things you 
 admire.' 
 
 " ' Laugh as much as you like, Mark. Only love me — 
 I want nothing but your love.' 
 
MIRANDA 379 
 
 " That is what I said to him yesterday, when he made 
 fun of my opinions at the picture gallery." 
 
 " Wednesday. — Mark has to leave me sometimes for a 
 long day, while he goes on a little voyage of discovery to 
 queer old towns and villages on the coast, in one of the 
 fishermen's rough sailing boats. I wouldn't mind how 
 rough the boat was, or the sea — for I am a good sailor, 
 though I have never been strong. To be with him is to 
 be in Paradise. But he says a poet must live long days 
 with his dreams, alone between the sky and the sea. ' Do 
 you suppose Swinburne would ever have written about 
 the sea if he had always been sitting hand-in-hand with 
 a nice little wife, talking of their house and their 
 servants ? ' 
 
 " I'm afraid I do talk rather too much about the lovely 
 flat we are to live in, and whether it is to be in Mayfair, 
 and how many servants we can manage with ; but it is 
 such an interesting subject. Our home — his and mine. 
 Papa is so generous. We shall never be in want of 
 money. 
 
 "He is gone in his fishing boat in the lovely sunshine, 
 lying on all the cushions out of our salon, and I am alone 
 for the day. Well, if he has his dream, I have mine. 
 I can sit by the open window and write in this dear book, 
 dreaming over our engagement and our marriage, and 
 all the wonderful things that have happened since I left 
 school for good. I call my dream ' looking back ' — I 
 love to look back, and live the happiest year of my life 
 over again. I am never tired of that dream — the happy, 
 happy year when I left school, and found everything new 
 and wonderful at home ; the happiest of happy years when 
 I met Mark Raynham, and we fell in love with each other 
 at first sight. 
 
 - Life has been full of surprises. First to go home 
 and find papa in a new house in Hyde Park Gardens, a 
 much handsomer and larger house than the one in Dorset 
 Square, where poor mamma died. He told me that he 
 had struck oil, which is a way of saying that he had been 
 
380 MIRANDA 
 
 very successful in his business, and was now quite rich, 
 almost a millionaire. 
 
 u And next day there was another surprise for me — a 
 lovely victoria and pair of thoroughbred chestnut horses 
 that came prancing to the door after luncheon, to take me 
 for an afternoon's shopping. Marie, my French maid, 
 was to go with me, and to tell me what I ought to buy. 
 
 " He was such a dear papa in those days — always in 
 good spirits and always in a hurry. He had his motor- 
 car to take him to the City, but there were two carriages 
 for me. Oh, if only dearest mamma had been living to 
 enjoy all this luxury ! Papa told me he was in Society — 
 a great lady had taken him up, because he had been 
 useful to her about her investments. She was a bit of 
 a gambler, he said, and was always wanting a flutter, 
 but he had kept her straight, and he had shown her how 
 to double her income. She was a dowager countess, Lady 
 St. Evremond, and she invited papa and me to luncheon- 
 parties, where papa amused the visitors with his rather 
 rough talk, and his stories of the queer people on the 
 Stock Exchange. 
 
 " One day when Lady St. Evremond and I were alone 
 after luncheon she patted my cheeks, and told me I was 
 almost pretty. ' I have the most charming young man 
 in London up my sleeve/ she said, ' and you must marry 
 him. You are rich and he is beautiful, a poet and a 
 genius/ 
 
 " The next time we were asked to one of her luncheon- 
 parties I met Mark, who was too exquisite for words. 
 I sat next to him and he talked to me of poetry and 
 pictures and all the lovely things that make life worth 
 living. 
 
 " I met him often at Lady St. Evremond' s, and then 
 papa asked him to Hyde Park Gardens, and he got into 
 a way of dropping in to luncheon or to tea nearly every day, 
 and papa went out and hired a lady to be my companion 
 and chaperon, a starchy old thing of nine-and-thirty 
 who was worse than the English governess at Leamington, 
 the head one that none of us liked. 
 
MIRANDA 381 
 
 " I had not been bothered with her very long before 
 Mark asked me to marry him, and although papa was 
 vexed at first, he was pleased afterwards, for Lady St. 
 Evremond told him Mark was the height of the fashion, 
 and could take me into the very best society, and that 
 we must have a nice little flat in a smart neighbourhood, 
 a mere pigeon-house would do, as we could entertain at 
 the ' Ritz ' and the ' Carlton.' ' Nobody wants a dining- 
 room in London,' she said, and later papa must buy us a 
 place up the Thames where we could give week-end parties 
 all the summer, and she would run them for us, if we were 
 very good. 
 
 " I heard all this as if I were in a dream. I cared 
 nothing about papa's money, or whether we were to be 
 rich or poor. I only wanted Mark, and all that time of 
 our engagement was a dream, and our marriage was a 
 dream, and Venice is only a dream, and I have been sitting 
 in the balcony watching the boats and hearing the Italian 
 voices, and dreaming back those happy days, and longing 
 for Mark to come home. 
 
 " I have left the window nearly an hour to write in my 
 dear journal, the book Mark gave me, but the sun has 
 gone down, and everything looks dark and cold, and I 
 want my husband back." 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 PAGE after page followed in the same key — a school- 
 girl's mind, a schoolgirl's love — innocent, inex- 
 perienced, unselfish. Page after page revealed the candid, 
 unsophisticated mind, the warm heart. There was some- 
 thing pathetic in that frank confession of a love that 
 looked neither before nor after, love infinite and un- 
 questioning. 
 
 At last there came an event — a catastrophe. The 
 handwriting changed from the prim schoolgirl penman- 
 ship, the graceful Italian hand, slanting, slender, to a 
 half-legible scrawl, and there were blotted pages where 
 tears had fallen thick and fast. 
 
 " Papa is dead. Poor papa ! Dear, dear papa, the 
 kindest father that ever a girl had — the kindest, the 
 dearest ! " 
 
 Then followed her story of days that seemed weeks. 
 Of a funeral in a wilderness of tombs at Kensal Green. 
 
 " We had to leave him there, in the fog and the gloom, 
 alone in that stone wilderness. I fainted and almost 
 fell into the grave. Mark carried me back to the carriage. 
 Can I ever be happy again, even with Mark ? 
 
 " It was apoplexy. Papa died in his office, just let his 
 head fall forward on his desk, and he was dead. His 
 clerks heard the thud as his forehead struck the desk, 
 and he was dead! Not a moment's warning." 
 
 382 
 
MIRANDA 383 
 
 Then came pages of lamentation ; fond memories of 
 childhood, and all that father and mother had been to 
 her. A happy home — always prosperous, a childhood full 
 of childish joys. 
 
 Praise of Mark for his tenderness, his sympathy. 
 
 " What should I have been without him ? " 
 
 Praise of Mark. Infinite love recorded in that school- 
 girl penmanship, letters with long tails, letters with 
 loops, dashes, notes of admiration, many words or 
 sentences underlined, but truth and love shining through 
 all 
 
 " She loved him better than ever I have done," Miranda 
 thought. " Loved him always, and with the same unques- 
 tioning love, not by fits and starts, as I have done, doubting 
 and afraid. This poor girl gave him all her heart and all 
 her faith. She was the true wife." 
 
 And then she remembered her arrogant contempt for 
 the invalid at The Dene. She remembered how she had 
 always thought of Mark's wife as an inferior creature, 
 how she had pitied him for having such a wife, so unworthy 
 to share his lofty thoughts — a burden, an incubus. 
 
 In all the pages she had looked at not one thought of 
 self, not one touch of vanity or self-esteem. She had been 
 always content to take the lowest place. 
 
 ■' I know the worst now, the very worst ; and it will be 
 a blow for Mark — a cruel blow. Poor papa was ruined 
 when he died. He had lost everything, but he had robbed 
 nobody. That was what Browne, his head clerk, told me 
 to-day — a man who was in papa's office before I was born, 
 and who spoke of him with tears in his eyes. He told me 
 to remember that my father was an honest man. He was 
 a remarkable man, Browne said. He had a splendid head 
 for finance, and could look through and through other 
 men's schemes. He had had a wonderful run of luck. He 
 was too lucky ; the money rolled into his office like a 
 river of gold ; everything he put his hand to succeeded. 
 
384 MIRANDA 
 
 But that made him reckless, and when his luck turned he 
 went on with a desperate courage. ' He set his teeth and 
 backed his bad luck/ Browne said, ' and from the beginning 
 of his losses he never rested day or night, his mind never 
 stopped working. His brain was a great sheet of figures, 
 lighted up by hell-fire.' 
 
 " That was a dreadful thing for Browne to say, and 
 then the poor man burst out crying, and sobbed like a 
 child. He had loved my father like a son — better than 
 many sons love their parents, perhaps. 
 
 " When Mark came home from his club late that night 
 I had to tell him this dreadful news. 
 
 " ' My dear, dear husband, you thought you were 
 marrying a millionaire's heiress, but you have married a 
 pauper. Poor papa had lost all his fortune before he 
 died/ 
 
 " My dearest, my noblest, my best, took me in his arms 
 and kissed me. He had known the worst ten days ago. 
 Papa's bankruptcy and papa's sudden death had been in 
 the papers on the same evening. Mark had read the news 
 at his club, and the men he knew had pitied him. He had 
 told them to go to the devil, and when they had asked him 
 what he was going to do, he said : ' I shall do very well ; 
 I have a nice little wife, and I have another lady ; and 
 between the two I shall get on/ 
 
 " They all stared at him in amazement. ' Who is the 
 other lady ? ' they asked. ' My Muse/ he said, and he 
 left them staring, ' with stupid, vulgar mouths wide open,' 
 he told me. 
 
 " What a great soul my dearest must have, to take loss 
 of money so lightly. 
 
 " ' My Muse, my Muse,' he said, ' she is our Rand. 
 " Dr. Forster " is a succes jou. I had a big cheque from 
 America to-day. Don't be afraid, Baby ; you have married 
 a man who can turn his dreams into gold.' 
 
 " I love to write down every word he said this day — 
 this day that has been so bitter and yet so sweet. 
 
 " It is total ruin at Hyde Park Gardens, where we have 
 been living since the end of our honeymoon. Everything 
 
MIRANDA 385 
 
 is to be sold for the benefit of the creditors. Papa's 
 wedding-present is all that Mark will ever get with his 
 wife, and we spent that in our honeymoon." 
 
 The journal went on, pages and pages, and always to 
 the same tune. Mark was so good ; she ought to be the 
 happiest wife in the world, and the proudest, for her 
 husband was a genius and the world was at his feet. 
 
 She was not quite so happy as in the first half-year of 
 their marriage. The world was in love with him, and the 
 world would not let him sit at home with an adoring wife 
 sitting at his feet, thrilled and happy when he read the 
 rough draft of a page of verse, and laughed at her when 
 she told him she loved his splendid poetry and almost 
 understood it. 
 
 There were none of those happy fireside evenings now, 
 no more of those long quiet hours when he could sit and 
 smoke his pipe, and see visions in the burning logs ; and 
 she had only to sit silently worshipping him, and not 
 wanting him to talk to her. It was enough if he laid his 
 long, white hand upon her hair now and then, gently 
 smoothing it from her forehead. 
 
 There were none of those delicious evenings now, for 
 he had three or four engagements every night ; parties 
 he had to go to just because important people insisted 
 upon it, and because he would meet famous men and 
 women and enlarge his sphere of thought, and there were 
 men's dinners where he was wanted. Everybody wanted 
 him, but the women most of all, she thought, as she read 
 the coroneted notes he tossed across the table to her. 
 She saw all his letters and cards of invitation, and sorted 
 and arranged them on the chimney-piece for him ; but 
 the evenings in the lodging-house sitting-room were lonely. 
 
 Yet it was only right that he should be shining in the 
 great world. Some of his friends asked her to their 
 parties, but she was in mourning for her father, and she 
 would not go among strangers. 
 
 Even if I were not in mourning I should feel shy and 
 
 25 
 
386 MIRANDA 
 
 miserable, and Mark would see me at a disadvantage, 
 among all those smart women whose ways and manners 
 are so different. I should feel all the time that they were 
 laughing at me. 
 
 " Mark is so kind. It is not his fault that I don't go 
 into society with him." 
 
 After this Miranda turned the pages quickly, a hundred 
 pages, reading a line here and there, till she came to her 
 own name and a minute description of that first conde- 
 scending visit to the tenant of The Dene. 
 
 " How beautiful she is, how beautiful ! An ideal face — 
 Mark's ideal. She really has violet eyes : a deep, dark 
 blue — not grey — with liquid light in them, under long 
 lashes. His eyes — the eyes of the girl in ' Dr. Forster.' 
 Such eyes as I never saw till to-day. And she was kind 
 to me, in a far-off way ; but I'm sure she was bored, and 
 hated having to come. Lady Haverstock had asked them 
 to call. She has always raved about Mark, and it was 
 in her house he met all the best people. I like Lady 
 Laura better than Miss Strickland. She has not such 
 far-off manners — what Mark calls aloofness. We had 
 tea in the garden, and Mark came in unexpectedly. He 
 gave a little start when I introduced him to Lady Laura 
 and her daughter. Miss Strickland had been looking 
 dreamily across the garden to the pine-wood, and she 
 turned suddenly when she heard her name, and he saw 
 her, and was dazzled. 
 
 " I know every expression in his face, and I know how 
 her beauty thrilled him. Yes, I know ; though later, out 
 of kindness to me, he made light of her appearance. 
 ' She is just a girl,' he said, ' like other girls. Stand-offish, 
 and conscious of her pretty clothes — perhaps not forgetting 
 that she is an heiress. I have no use for her.' " 
 
 Ten days later came a long account of Mark's first visit 
 to The Barrow ; this time he had not pretended, he had 
 been frank, as it was his nature to be. 
 
MIRANDA 387 
 
 " He was awakened to Miss Strickland's beauty. He 
 stayed hours in the garden — a poet's garden — talking to 
 those dear women as if he had known them all his life. 
 He told me all about that endless conversation. 
 
 " ' I poured myself out/ he said ; ' I felt myself rich 
 with the essence of long years of choice reading. To them 
 all I said was new. I told them of new philosophies, new 
 creeds ; of poets whose names they have never heard. 
 And they hung upon my words, and I may go again when- 
 ever I like, and lie on the grass at their feet, and tell them 
 my thoughts and my dreams/ 
 
 " I asked if I might go with him some day. Perhaps 
 Miss Strickland would be more simpatica at home, than she 
 was when making a first call. She certainly was not 
 simpatica the other day 
 
 " ' My dearest, you run a word to death ! ' 
 
 " He taught me that sweet word when we were in Italy. 
 It seems to express so much, but I dare say I have used it 
 too often. I said it about Mrs. Vincent, the Vicar's wife, 
 and I'm afraid I said it about the parlourmaid who brings 
 me my Benger every night. I have little ways that make 
 Mark wince, as if he had cut himself. And he is so patient 
 and so kind. 
 
 " ' My sweet, it is not your fault if I have a thinner 
 skin than the ruck of humanity/ he said yesterday." 
 
 After this there were pages that went to Miranda's 
 heart. In those idle summer days when Mark had been 
 encouraged to lie in the sun all the afternoon, talking of 
 himself for the most part, while Lady Laura had found 
 him " amusing," and Miranda thought he opened new 
 worlds of poetry and delight, Mark's wife had been racked 
 with jealousy, dumb, uncomplaining, suffering a slow 
 agony as day by day the fact of Mark's passion for Lady 
 Laura's daughter became more obvious. 
 
 " I have lost his love. He is kinder than ever ; but his 
 thoughts are never with me. He is always thinking of 
 
 25* 
 
388 MIRANDA 
 
 Miranda ; longing to be with her ; hating everything 
 that is not her. He moves about the house and garden 
 with a listless air ; and his thoughts are far away. Then 
 all of a sudden when we are alone together, he will burst 
 into a torrent of talk, and tell me all his romantic fancies 
 about her. 
 
 " ' Don't be afraid, my dearest. Don't harbour one 
 jealous thought. She has nothing to do with my real life ; 
 she need never cast a shadow across your path. She is not 
 a woman, she is an idea — an archetype. She is the heroine 
 of my next poem. She will live and breathe for me as I 
 sit at my desk ; stand before me in her young beauty, as 
 a model stands before a painter. She will show me the 
 depths of her soul ; she will teach me the mystery of 
 womanhood ; but as mere flesh and blood I don't care 
 twopence for her.' 
 
 " He snapped his fingers, and broke into his great 
 laugh. 
 
 " If I could only believe him ; if I could only understand 
 that it is abstract beauty, spiritual, almost divine, that 
 he thinks of when he wanders about the garden, or flings 
 on his hat and walks off to The Barrow ! If I could only 
 understand his dual life ! 
 
 " I wish I had a dual life ; that would comfort me in 
 the lonely hours when he is sitting with Lady Laura and 
 her daughter. But I am such a poor, dull creature ; 
 I can't understand ! 
 
 " He is as kind as ever. Ought I not to love him and 
 believe in him ? Ought I not to remember how patient 
 and devoted he has been since my health broke down ; 
 ought I ever to forget what a trial a sickly wife must have 
 been for him, always head-achy and languid ; with no 
 particular illness that the doctors take any interest in, 
 but always ailing ? 
 
 " That horrid anaemia ! I was anaemic at school, and 
 papa used to send Miss Summerton dozens of old port, 
 and I had to drink a glass at eleven, and another at four 
 in the afternoon. How I hated it ! And as for iron ! 
 I have taken so much that I think I must be lined with 
 
MIRANDA 389 
 
 metal, like one of those travellers' trunks they make for 
 the tropics." 
 
 The diary maundered on ; no events, only thoughts and 
 feelings, and Mark ; Mark always admired and glorified, 
 Mark always tender and kind. 
 
 " He has such a lovely nature ! " 
 
 Then came a happier time when he was not going to 
 The Barrow. 
 
 " He dined there nearly every night while Lady Haver- 
 stock was there. She insisted upon having ' the only 
 amusing person in the place/ he told me. But now he has 
 left off going there ; and he looks miserable, and is out 
 all day on the moor. 
 
 " When I asked him if anything was the matter : 
 
 " ' No, I am hatching splendid verses — in the moorland 
 
 The clock struck two, and Zenobia, who had been a 
 model of patience, indicated by whining and scratching 
 the door that she really must be allowed to stretch her 
 legs in the garden, whereupon Miranda shut the book, 
 and took her dog into the night stillness, under the 
 autumnal stars. 
 
 It was a relief to escape out of the sleeping house into 
 the silent garden, and the little pine wood, where there 
 was a sense of life in the faint stir of the leaves, and the 
 cool breath of the wind, though all else was still. The 
 house had a feeling of death somehow. 
 
 Zenobia speedily disappeared into space — space where 
 there were sheep to be hunted, perhaps, and Miranda had 
 to go back to the house alone. 
 
 Absolute stillness, accentuated by the ticking of the 
 clocks ! The fire had burnt low, and she had work to 
 persuade a heap of fresh logs to burn. 
 
 She drew near the hearth, shivering, with the book on 
 her lap. 
 
390 MIRANDA 
 
 Always the same story. Mark's kindness, and those 
 miserable feelings of jealousy. She was jealous still, 
 though the lovely Miss Strickland was away from Melford. 
 She suffered slow agonies of heartache because she had 
 lost his love. 
 
 Had he ever loved her ? That was the awful question 
 which she wrote in her journal one day in a torrent of 
 words, that read like a page from her favourite novelist 
 — the lady whose impassioned outbursts she sometimes 
 quoted. 
 
 Had he ever loved her ? Had he proposed to her because 
 her father was a millionaire ? 
 
 " Oh, how wicked I am, how unjust to ask such a ques- 
 tion, after his noble conduct, his chivalry when poor 
 papa's fortune turned into withered leaves ! For shame, 
 jealous heart ! " 
 
 There came pages and pages that Miranda skimmed 
 lightly, finding no further mention of her own name. 
 
 Only one event. Her anaemia had been worse than 
 usual, and Mark had been really anxious, and had taken 
 her to London for a few days, and they had seen two 
 specialists, one after another, who had said the same 
 thing in a different way — each a different diet, each advising 
 an open-air life. 
 
 " ' Fools both ! ' dear Mark said. ' One just a bigger 
 fool than the other.' 
 
 " ' But you were glad to hear it was not a dangerous 
 illness,' I said. 
 
 " ' Infinitely glad ! But I never thought of danger. 
 It is only boring.' 
 
 " ' For you, dear ! ' 
 
 " ' No, love, for your poor pretty little self.' 
 
 " That is his sweet, tender way. He always pretends 
 to think that I am as pretty as when I was eighteen and 
 Lady St. Evremond patted my cheeks. Oh, what ages 
 
MIRANDA 391 
 
 and ages ago that seems ! Before Mark and I met, before 
 papa died, before I knew I was a beggar." 
 
 He had been kinder than ever after they went back to 
 The Dene, and life had seemed lovely. 
 
 Then all at once, in an hour, her horrid illness began — 
 a real illness, painful, disgusting, agonizing internal pain, 
 violent sickness. 
 
 Dr. Mason came and could do nothing. She had to 
 take his nasty medicine three times a day, and it gave her 
 no relief. 
 
 And he bore it all — her poet, who loved all lovely things. 
 He bore with her in this atrocious malady. He poured 
 out her medicine — so carefully — and sat beside her while 
 she took it, and fed her with hothouse grapes. 
 
 He had been all over the neighbourhood to get them, 
 for there were very few ripe yet. 
 
 " Dr. Mason thinks I ought to have a nurse, but Mark 
 is sure he can nurse me better than any of those hospital 
 creatures. The very idea of having a stranger frightens 
 me. And Susan is a nice woman. She lady's-maids 
 me, and she knows all my ways, and Mark is quite 
 confident. 
 
 " I have been better for the last two days — Mark's 
 nursing. There was never such patience, such tenderness 
 and care ! And to think that I doubted him, and thought 
 that he had left off loving me ! 
 
 " My illness has brought out all that is noblest in his 
 nature. His unselfishness, his affection." 
 
 '* I am to have a nurse after all. I was worse yester- 
 day, much worse ; all the horrible, disgusting symptoms 
 over again. Dr. Mason said I must have a nurse. He 
 was imperative about it, though he praised Mark, and 
 even Susan, for their care of me. 
 
 " ' This is an exhausting kind of illness,' he told Mark, 
 ' and she must do nothing to tire herself. A trained nurse 
 can help her in many little ways.' 
 
392 MIRANDA 
 
 " I hate the idea of her little ways, and her strange face, 
 and her strange voice. She is to sleep in the little dressing- 
 room, with the door ajar, and I am to have an electric 
 bell that will ring over her bed, so that I can summon her 
 at any moment. 
 
 " ' If this goes on, we must have a night nurse,' Dr. 
 Mason said. 
 
 " I told him it would not go on. I am going to get 
 well very soon. 
 
 " He said he thought so yesterday, but he was dis- 
 appointed with me to-day. 
 
 " He looked at me as if it was my fault. 
 
 " ' I used to think your illnesses were nerves, nothing 
 but nerves, and fancifulness,' he said ; ' but there is no 
 fancy about this.' 
 
 " I asked him what it really is that makes me such a 
 disgusting creature. 
 
 " ' Acute indigestion, a touch of intestinal inflammation, 
 perhaps. It may have begun with a chill. There was a 
 nasty east wind last week. You may have stood about 
 in your garden when you were over-heated, and the east 
 wind may have caught you.' 
 
 " I thought that was very likely. 
 
 " He did not tell me it was a dangerous illness. Mark 
 followed him out of the room, and he looked very grave 
 when he came back. 
 
 " I asked him what the doctor had said. Was I going 
 to die ? 
 
 " ' Yes, my love,' he answered in his playful way, ' at 
 the end of a long journey, when you are a dear little white- 
 haired old lady, like the sweet old Joan in Dendy Sadler's 
 picture.' 
 
 " ' Darby and Joan ! ' Yes, I remembered — two such 
 cosy oldjdears ! • I can't fancy you like that old gentle- 
 man, Mark,' I said. 
 
 " He stretched himself and gave a great yawn. 
 
 " '- No, dear, and I can't fancy myself. I abhor the 
 notion of old age ; but it has to come to us all if we live 
 long enough. Better to die in a Mediterranean squall, 
 
MIRANDA 393 
 
 or in a fiery fever in Greece, than to hang on, superfluous, 
 forgotten — 
 
 " * Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail, 
 In monumental mockery.' 
 
 "jHe'makes me feel almost cheerful when he stands by 
 my bed and talks to me ; but this horrid illness of mine 
 must try his patience, for he so loves what is beautiful, 
 and hates all the ugly and revolting things in life. If 
 these horrible pains, this disgusting sickness could only 
 pass away ! But though I take Dr. Mason's medicines, 
 and do everything the nurse tells me, I get no better. 
 
 " Mark has to leave me for a day or two. His publisher 
 is launching a'new edition of ' Dr. Forster,' and every scrap 
 of verse he wrote before his great book — all his early 
 poems — two superb volumes, which will bring in a great 
 deal of money, Mark says. He has to go to London to 
 decide upon details and to settle terms with the publisher. 
 It is to be an edition de luxe — two guineas a volume. 
 
 "I am miserable at the idea of his being away. How 
 can I live without his watchful care ? How can I live 
 without the sight of his splendid face ? 
 
 "He is all goodness ; he creeps into my room in the 
 middle of the night, and looks at me. I pretend to be 
 asleep, and sometimes he kisses my forehead. And he 
 looks at the medicine bottles on the table, to be sure that 
 all is right, ready for the nurse when she comes in to give 
 me my mixture." 
 
 " He is gone. He travelled by the night train to save 
 time. But he must be away at least three days, three 
 long, miserable days." 
 
 The next entry was two days later. 
 
 " I have nothing to write about while he is away. I 
 should be utterly wretched if it were not for the relief 
 from pain. Oh, what a blessed relief it is ! Just to lie 
 quiet, and not to suffer ! That seems almost happiness. 
 
394 MIRANDA 
 
 Dr. Mason changed my medicine yesterday for the fourth 
 time, and this new mixture is a success, and not so nasty 
 as the others. I am better ; I have not been sick all day, 
 nor yesterday. Nurse is delighted, and takes credit for 
 her severity about my diet. 
 
 " I hope I shall be cheerful and bright when Mark 
 comes home." 
 
 " Nurse is kind, and she is a great help when I am at 
 my worst ; but she is horridly fussy about my writing 
 in this dear book — Mark's gift. She says I am too weak to 
 sit up in bed and write, and she comes fussing about me 
 and dabbing my forehead with eau de Cologne ; and once, 
 after I had fainted, she took my book away before I came 
 to, and told me she had hidden it, and I should not have 
 it again till I was well. Then I was really in a rage. 
 I told her a journal was even more sacred than a letter, 
 and that it was dishonourable to read it. 
 
 " ' Do you suppose I want to read it ? I haven't so 
 much as opened your book. I only want to stop your 
 writing in it while you have hardly strength to hold a 
 pen. I told the doctor about it, and he said you oughtn't 
 to be allowed to sit up or to write.' 
 
 " After that she was kind and let me have my book 
 under my pillow, and I don't think she has read it. She 
 is almost a lady." 
 
 " It hurts me to sit up, and it hurts me to write, but it 
 is the only pleasure I have now I am so ill. 
 
 " Nurse reads to me. She is reading ' The Heart of 
 Midlothian.' It is very long. When Mark comes back I 
 will ask him to read his pet pages in ' Dr. Forster.' " 
 
 ** He has come back and I am happy. He sat by my 
 bed, and I put my arms round his neck, and sobbed and 
 sobbed in a dreadful, hysterical way ; I could not stop 
 myself. But, oh, how kind and gentle he was, and how 
 different life seems now that he is here ! 
 
MIRANDA 395 
 
 " Nurse told him I was better, and I told him that I 
 should be downstairs soon, and how lovely it would be 
 to lie on a sofa in the garden and watch the sky and the 
 clouds and imagine strange things in them, as he taught 
 me to do, when we were in Italy." 
 
 " I am ill again, worse than ever, and now I know it 
 is a fatal illness. 
 
 " He came into my room last night, sat by my bed and 
 watched me while I pretended to be asleep. He stayed 
 for an hour or more, and I loved to have him. It was 
 sweet to lie there with closed eyes, in a half-sleep, and to 
 know that he was there. 
 
 " I think I must have been quite asleep for some time, 
 when something startled me, and I woke suddenly, 
 frightened. 
 
 " Mark was sitting there still. I saw his shadow on the 
 wall on the other side of my bed. He was doing some- 
 thing with the bottles, pouring something from one bottle 
 into another. 
 
 " It was the clinking of the glass that awakened me. 
 I shut my eyes again, and presently he looked at me, 
 bending his face down till it was close to mine." 
 
 Suddenly there came a change ; the rest was written 
 with a pencil. The hand had trembled ; tears blurred the 
 page ; there was incoherence, words repeated, words 
 omitted. 
 
 " I must write it all, I must. I can hardly hold my 
 pencil, my hand shakes so. I don't want to write, but 
 some devil drives me — murders me as he is murdering 
 me. 
 
 " I knew last night what he was doing, when I saw his 
 shadow on the wall. When he came to see me this 
 morning, I asked him if he was in my room last night. 
 
 " ' Yes, I just stole in to see if you were asleep,' he said. 
 
 " ' Yes, I was asleep part of the time,' I told him. 
 
 " I know what the shadow meant. He is killing me. 
 
396 MIRANDA 
 
 Oh, he is wicked, unutterably wicked, my lover, my hus- 
 band, the man I have worshipped, the God of my idolatry. 
 
 " I am going to die. I might refuse to take the medicine 
 that he has poisoned. I might tell nurse, and she would 
 tell the doctor, and they would make a fuss ; and he 
 would be sent to prison, and would be disgraced and 
 miserable for the rest of his life. 
 
 " And I should live — without his love — far away from 
 him, knowing that all that was sweet in all those happy 
 years was a delusion and a sham. 
 
 '• I would rather die. 
 
 " I want to hide this book where he cannot find it, 
 and where it will be found some day ; perhaps when I 
 have been dead a long time, and when he is dead. I 
 want someone, some stranger, to know how I was 
 deceived, and how I died. 
 
 " I know a good place, but shall I have strength to 
 creep there to-night when the nurse is asleep ? Anyhow, 
 I will try. I am horribly weak ; I have taken his medicine 
 for the last time perhaps. I do not care how soon the end 
 comes. It will only be a sleep and a forgetting. I don't 
 care, if I can but crawl up to the loft and hide my book. 
 
 " It will be awfully difficult ; but I shall have three 
 hours, from eleven till two, when the nurse is asleep, her 
 first sleep, and when Mark is writing downstairs. No one 
 will know." 
 
 Staring straight before her like a stone figure, Miranda 
 sat with the book in her lap. The fire had gone out, and 
 Zenobia was at the door barking for admittance. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 AGAIN, after three years of tranquil monotony, in which 
 Melford had enjoyed no local event worth talking 
 about, except the humdrum marriage of another Lester 
 girl for whom sisterly influence had provided a horsy 
 bridegroom, and the more interesting sorrows of the 
 cultured Miss Parlby, who had been basely jilted by Mr. 
 Vincent's high-church curate, a person of good family 
 and bad manners. " High and mighty," Melford called 
 him. These two events had provided indifferent gossip 
 for Melford tea-tables ; but now, only now, something 
 had happened that set every tongue in the parish in 
 motion, and from the " Places " to the cottages, nothing 
 was talked of but the stupendous event at The Dene. 
 
 Mrs. Raynham had gone ; she had run away. She had 
 taken flight. There was no other way of describing a 
 departure so unpremeditated, so absolutely unprepared for. 
 
 She had sat up all night, shut in her little book-room, 
 and she had left Melford by the nine o'clock express with 
 Baker her maid ; only Baker, and three immense trunks, 
 luggage enough to indicate that she was going away for 
 a long time. She had left The Dene in the morning, 
 although her husband's return was expected in the 
 evening. 
 
 It could hardly be a quarrel, for she and Mark had 
 parted affectionately a fortnight before, and she had made 
 preparations for his home-coming with all a wife's 
 solicitude. The house-servants had heard no syllable of 
 
 397 
 
398 MIRANDA 
 
 her intention, and no packing had been done on the day 
 before this extraordinary departure. 
 
 What Baker may have known was open to conjecture, 
 for Baker was always close, and gave herself prodigious 
 airs on the strength of having been her mistress's nurse, 
 and her maid for over twenty years. The gardeners and 
 odd man who carried the luggage to the station, knew 
 nothing, except that it was all labelled for London ; and 
 that there had been tremendous hurry in getting it ready 
 to be brought downstairs, Mrs. Baker being in a terrible 
 " tew " after packing by lamplight since three o'clock. 
 
 There had been runaway wives before in the neigh- 
 bourhood, wives whose misconduct had rippled the 
 sluggish pool of rural life, not unpleasantly, for those 
 whose interests were not involved, but not one of those 
 delinquent ladies had run away alone. In no case had 
 there been the charm of mystery. 
 
 And in Miranda's case — the first idea had been that 
 she had "gone off " with the arch-Jesuit at St. Barnabas'. 
 
 But seeing that the Jesuit had not been missed at one 
 of his papistical services, morning or evening, it was 
 clear that the Vicar of St. Barnabas' had not, short of 
 necromancy, gone to London with Miranda. 
 
 Julia was still at The Barrow, and Julia was called upon 
 and interrogated, this time with frank inquisitiveness. 
 
 " Do tell us all about it, dear Miss Wagstaff. We so 
 awfully want to know. And we all love Miranda, and are 
 afraid there must be a tragedy at the bottom of it." 
 
 Julia knew of no tragedy. Miranda had no secrets 
 from her. Miranda had written to her from an hotel 
 in London, to explain that she had felt a longing to go 
 back to Italy, and had taken rather a dislike to The Dene ; 
 and she had gone away on the spur of the moment, lest 
 her husband should try to prevent her. " You know 
 what a creature of impulse she has always been," Julia 
 said finally, and to this everyone assented ; whereupon 
 Miss Wagstaff adopted this explanation almost as a 
 formula. " Miranda is so impulsive. One never can 
 account for what she may do on the spur of the moment." 
 
MIRANDA 399 
 
 " The spur of the moment is to account for every- 
 thing," Mrs. Devereux said at her own tea-table, Miss 
 Wagstaff not being present. " Don't tell me ! She found 
 out some horrible conduct of that man in Paris. He 
 was always sneaking off to Paris — some left-handed estab- 
 lishment there, I have no doubt ; an appartimong near 
 the Chongs Eleezay, where he squanders his wife's money 
 on one of say darm. I dare say she had an anonymous 
 letter about him. Or perhaps her uncle wrote to her, 
 since from what I hear, Lord Airdale is just as bad as 
 Mark Raynham." 
 
 Miss Wagstaff' s unalterable tranquillity offended every- 
 body. 
 
 " I hate inscrutable spinsters," Mrs. Devereux observed, 
 in her most majestic manner. 
 
 Perhaps Julia was the only inhabitant of Melford who 
 had ever kept her at arm's length. 
 
 Everyone was on the watch for Mark's return. He 
 had not come back on the evening he was expected. 
 Dinner had been prepared and kept on the hot plate till 
 ten o'clock, his train being due soon after eight. There 
 had been a telegram addressed to his wife, and on the 
 following day there was again a telegram. 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder if Miranda rushed off to him, in a 
 fit of the blues," Mrs. Parlby said. 
 
 " Then why those telegrams ? " 
 
 It was in the cottages — from the kitchenmaid's mother 
 and the under-housemaid's aunt — that specific informa- 
 tion could be obtained, and all the mothers' meeting 
 ladies had the first edition ; those who went after found 
 disconcerting variations and expansions, which sug- 
 gested flights of fancy on the part of these estimable 
 persons — mother and aunt ; and it ended by Mrs. 
 Devereux declaring that she hated tittle-tattle and wanted 
 to hear no more about The Dene or the Raynhams. What 
 could those chattering girls know worth a lady's atten- 
 tion ? She, however, stopped short of offending Gladys's 
 aunt and Ethel's mother, lest there might be backstairs 
 gossip worth hearing in the near future. 
 
400 MIRANDA 
 
 There came a day, very soon after this, when the 
 smallest shred of information obtained directly from 
 Gladys or Ethel was distinctly precious. 
 
 It was more than a week after Miranda's disappearance 
 when Mark Raynham came home, late at night, after 
 the servants had gone to bed. The butler had gone 
 downstairs half dressed to open the door. Mr. Raynham 
 had been very much upset on finding that his wife had 
 gone away. Had she left no letter for him ? No, there 
 was no letter, but there was a parcel in Mrs. Raynham's 
 sitting-room. The butler thought it was a book. His 
 master had seemed very much agitated. It was clear to 
 the man that he had known nothing about his wife's 
 having left the house till that moment. He went straight 
 to her book-room. He asked for brandy — nothing else. 
 He had dined in the train. The man took the decanter 
 and glass to the book-room, and found his master sitting 
 there, the parcel unopened on the table in front of him. 
 He lighted the fire and left the room, his master not 
 having uttered a word, not even to tell him he could go 
 back to bed. 
 
 Next morning, when the servants went downstairs and 
 doors and windows were opened, the housemaid who 
 had charge of the ground-floor rooms went into Mrs. 
 Raynham's study, and rushed out again shrieking, and 
 the other servants came, and they all went into the 
 room together and found Mr. Raynham sitting in his 
 chair, a horrid spectacle, having blown out his brains. 
 
 This was what Gladys, the kitchenmaid, had to tell in 
 her mother's cottage to any visitor who wanted to hear ; 
 and the visitors were many, and Gladys told her story 
 over and over again, with variations and enlargements, 
 but with fidelity as to the main facts. 
 
 He had died and made no sign. A great heap of burnt 
 paper lay on the hearth among the wood-ashes, and some- 
 thing amongst the paper, something thick and hard, that 
 the fire had scorched and bent, but not consumed, pre- 
 sumably the cover of a book. 
 
 Melford heard all this in open-eyed wonder, and horror 
 
MIRANDA 401 
 
 not unmixed with a touch of self-satisfaction. Had they 
 not all known that there was a tragedy at the bottom of 
 Miranda's behaviour ? 
 
 There was to be an inquest next day — at The Dene. 
 
 " Among all that lovely furniture," sighed Mrs. Parlby. 
 " Oh, the pity of it ! " 
 
 Mrs. Devereux rushed to The Barrow, resolved to have 
 the truth out of Julia, and prepared to stand no nonsense. 
 
 Only to be told at the door that Miss Wagstaff had 
 gone to London by the eleven-o'clock train. Whipple's 
 parlour, giving on the stable-yard, was thereupon invaded 
 by the indomitable lady. He was polite, and only looked 
 bored. 
 
 11 Yes, ma'am, it's a dreadful business. Miss Wagstaff 
 has gone straight off to Miss Miranda, and hopes to be 
 with her before she reads the news in the papers." 
 
 " Do you mean that Mrs. Raynham is in London ? " 
 
 " No, ma'am, Mrs. Raynham is in Italy." 
 
 " Where ? " 
 
 " I don't know, ma'am. Italy is a large place." 
 
 " And do you know when they are coming back ? " 
 
 " No, ma'am. Not for a goodish time, I think. The 
 dogs will miss them." 
 
 " Too sad for words," Mrs. Devereux told Mrs. Parlby. 
 11 And one cannot even send a wreath. It would seem 
 a mockery while the Coroner is in the house." 
 
 So nobody sent flowers, except a " flapper" in one of 
 the new rough-cast villas on the Trownham Road, who 
 had nursed a romantic passion for the poet with the 
 Raphael face, and who spent a month's pocket-money on 
 a garland of bay-leaves and Parma violets — a tribute that 
 was thrown upon the hearth among the blackened ashes 
 of Flora's journal. 
 
 26 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 IT was more than a year after the tragedy at The Dene, 
 and new tenants filled the haunted house, a swarm 
 of chubby-faced open-air boys and girls, who played lawn 
 tennis and croquet, and said a ghost would be fun ; and 
 buxom nursemaids, a typical English household, full of 
 noise and life, father and mother, grandmother and aunts — 
 a house so full of life that one forgot there had ever been 
 tragedy within those stout old walls. 
 
 All Miss France's lovely furniture had been sold ; and 
 with the books and the furniture vanished every trace of 
 the man whose coming to The Dene had counted as an event. 
 It was like a tale that was told, a strange and tragic 
 tale, not soon to be forgotten in Melford and its environs. 
 
 The echo of a familiar voice sounded no more under 
 the early English roof of St. Barnabas' in the late autumn 
 days that were generally days of gloom at Trownham. 
 The shepherd had left his flock for a long holiday. He 
 had not gone willingly. It was only when his best friends 
 in the parish, and the most devoted of his Parish Sisters, 
 had urged upon him the absolute necessity of an interval 
 in that continuous round of work, in that monotony of 
 ceaseless effort, and only when the physician he had 
 reluctantly consulted had justified the opinion of his 
 friends, and had told him bluntly that he was on the verge 
 of a serious break-down, that Gilbert Ferrar consented 
 to entrust his parish to a stranger. 
 
 Not a stranger chosen hap-hazard from the advertise- 
 
 402 
 
MIRANDA 403 
 
 ments in a clerical newspaper, but a man with whom he 
 had rubbed shoulders at Oriel, and whose labours in the 
 East End of London gave assurance of his merit. 
 
 The Reverend Maurice Bateman came prepared to do 
 good work at Trownham, which smoke-darkened settle- 
 ment, lying between the moor and the sea, was a paradise 
 as compared with the place where he had been living. 
 Gilbert left his horses and his library at his substitute's 
 disposition, and took care to engage the kindness of all 
 the nice people in his parish for the new-comer. 
 
 Hospitalities which he had himself refused would be 
 generously offered to the stranger by the elite of Trown- 
 ham, chiefly of the manufacturing class. 
 
 He was gone, and although the Rev. Maurice Bateman 
 might fairly be considered a success, every factory hand 
 in the town, every child in the Sunday School, deplored 
 the absence of " Vicar." The men missed him in their 
 clubs, the women missed his weekly visits, and felt them- 
 selves the worse for want of familiar lectures about house- 
 keeping and mothering that they had often inwardly 
 resented, while he was talking to them. They knew that 
 he had made them better mothers and better housekeepers, 
 and that he had shown them the way to make their 
 husbands better men. 
 
 " There weren't nothing ' Vicar ' wouldn't go into," 
 one of them said, " even to asking me what I was going 
 to give my master for his supper, and would go on awful 
 against tinned beef and soused mackerel. 'Twasn't 
 nourishing enough for a working-man. And then he'd 
 tell me about the French people's potty furs, as if my 
 master would stomach French messes." In spite of which 
 contemptuous reference, the fot-au-feu had become an 
 institution in some Trownham households ; and the reek 
 of it had been savoury in the nostrils of some bread- 
 winners. 
 
 He was gone — but only for a winter. He was to 
 come back in the spring sunshine, and in the meantime, 
 Mr. Bateman was a decent chap, and meant well, though 
 he was no match for the best of the club men in an 
 
 26* 
 
4 o 4 
 
 MIRANDA 
 
 argument about Church or State, and the rights or wrongs 
 of the people. 
 
 Mr. Ferrar was gone. He had worked more strenu- 
 ously than he had ever done after the tragedy at The 
 Dene. He had worked as a man works who cannot trust 
 himself to think. That quiet space of life between midnight 
 and the first hour of morning, which had once been a time 
 of rest and mental refreshment, had become impossible. 
 To think was to yearn with an aching heart for the face 
 and the voice of the woman who from the first bloom of 
 her girlhood had been the desire and the dream of his 
 life. 
 
 Churchwardens, sidesmen, parish sisters, and the 
 leading members of his congregation, had all urged him 
 to take a long rest, and his own sense of strained nerves 
 and bodily weakness had given force to their arguments. 
 
 " Yes," he had told them at last, " I want rest. It is 
 a true bill." 
 
 A few days of preparation, and he was gone. To Italy, 
 to Ravenna, where he knew he would find her. 
 
 Julia had been kind to him, Julia had written to him 
 from time to time, and her last letter told him that she 
 was with Miranda at Ravenna. 
 
 " I could not dissuade her from coming to this melan- 
 choly place. Her son was born here. She wanted to 
 live his short life over again, she told me. She never 
 speaks of her husband, not even here, where they were 
 together so long, and where the sight of familiar places 
 must have brought back to her the thought of those 
 days when he was so tender and so devoted. Once when 
 I reminded her of all she had told me of his affection when 
 her life trembled in the balance, his sympathy when the 
 child she adored was taken from her, she was dumb. 
 The tragedy of that last week at The Dene must have been 
 something unimaginable." 
 
 Gilbert took the journey from London to Milan in a 
 leisurely way, for it was only after he left Trownham 
 
MIRANDA 405 
 
 that he knew how near he had been to a complete break- 
 down. The change from smoky sky and narrow streets 
 to the banks of the Rhone, the wide horizon — the bound- 
 less stretch of plain and hill — with here and there a massive 
 grey stone bridge, and here and there a ruined tower 
 beside the rushing river, had been the most delightful 
 form of repose. He had not travelled since his early youth, 
 and his memory recalled a long vacation, when he and 
 a friend or two set out with their burden of books, for 
 a holiday to be spent in the mountain towns of Provence, 
 quiet places where there would be nothing to distract 
 them from the great thoughts of the dead. He looked 
 back and tried to remember what he had been in those 
 young days — the sanguine mind, the far-reaching hopes, 
 the vast scheme of life on as grand a scale as if he were 
 to live a thousand years — vague ideas of work as a mis- 
 sionary in Africa or India. He had dreamt many dreams 
 in those old days when first he had come along that lonely 
 road to the Mediterranean, where signs of human life were 
 so few, and where solitude had so noble an aspect. Plain, 
 and hill, and river ; river, and plain, and hill. Oh, the 
 blessed change from the narrow streets and the chimneys ! 
 
 He had come this way, rather than by Basle and the 
 Rhine, because he wanted to remember the days of his 
 youth. 
 
 Marseilles, Nice, Genoa, a long day in the glorious old 
 city, the port of nations ; a long day looking at churches 
 and pictures, things that seemed so old and so new ; 
 and then in the pale grey morning he was on his way to 
 Milan ; and then, only a few hours' journey, and he 
 was in Ravenna, the city of dead things, the city of 
 churches over a thousand years old, shrines and palaces 
 of the dead, the city of Dante's exile and death. 
 
 He was near her in this quiet place between the marshes 
 and the sea. It was still early in the afternoon, and he 
 could have gone straight to the house where she lived. 
 Julia had told him where they were to be found. They 
 had rooms in one of the palaces of the dead, desolate 
 and splendid rooms, made noble by space and lofty ceilings, 
 
4 o6 MIRANDA 
 
 and windows with a far-off view of the Adriatic. The 
 Adriatic ! A name to conjure with ! To-day it left him 
 cold. There was only one image in his mind — one thought 
 — one care. He was here in the place where she lived. 
 How and when were they to meet ? 
 
 Now he was so near her, under the same gossamer 
 clouds, he shrank somehow, with a feeling that was 
 almost fear, from that first meeting. 
 
 Would she be angry with him for having followed 
 her ? Would she turn from him as the man who 
 brought her the memory of an unhappy past, of a past 
 that had ended in tragedy ? Her strange flight from The 
 Dene must have been the outcome of something dreadful 
 in her life, something unpardonable on the part of her 
 husband to which his ghastly suicide bore witness. That 
 he had taken his wife's abandonment of her home as if 
 it were his death-sentence, that he should have made 
 no attempt to follow her, would indicate his consciousness 
 of guilt that made reconciliation impossible. 
 
 Gilbert wrote to Julia : 
 
 "lam here, my kind friend, but I wait for you to tell 
 me when I may see Miranda. Tell her that I will not 
 come to her until I know she would like to see me. 
 
 "G. F." 
 
 He sent the note by a messenger from the hotel, and 
 waited till the man came back. 
 
 " Do not let there be any formal meeting," Julia wrote. 
 " She is still far from well, and her nerves are in a bad 
 state. Whatever the shock was that made her leave The 
 Dene she has not yet recovered from it. We walk in 
 the Pineta every afternoon till near sunset. You can 
 find us there sooner or later. I believe when the first 
 surprise is over, she will be glad to see you." 
 
 The pine wood is large, and the glory of the westering 
 sun was shining behind the dark trees when Gilbert saw 
 
MIRANDA 407 
 
 the white gowns of the two women in the golden distance 
 — two slender figures shining like the angels in an early 
 Italian picture. 
 
 Ten minutes more and he was standing face to face 
 with Miranda, holding her hand in both of his. 
 
 There was no shock of surprise. Julia had told her that 
 he was in Ravenna. 
 
 " What brought you to the city of the dead ? " she 
 asked gently. " I hope it was not illness ? But you are 
 looking very thin and white. Have you been ill ? " 
 
 " Only overworked. My kind parishioners insisted 
 that I was in a bad way, and sent me away for a holiday. 
 It is twenty years since I was in the South, and my first 
 thought was Italy." 
 
 " Naturally. But why Ravenna ? " 
 
 " I came here to look for my old pupil. Have you 
 forgotten that we read the * Paradiso ' together ? " 
 
 " Poor old Dante ! Ravenna is full of him — the houst 
 he lived in, the convent where he died, his tomb, his 
 statue, his wood. This dear Pineta was his favourite 
 haunt." 
 
 She spoke lightly, but her voice was tremulous, and there 
 was a flush in the hollow cheeks. 
 
 He walked home with her, Julia dropping behind, while 
 those two went side by side through the quiet streets, 
 to the great white palace with green shutters, where 
 Miranda and her friend occupied the piano nobile. The 
 first feeling of constraint had worn off before they were 
 on the threshold of the stately door, and Miranda was 
 talking at her ease and almost happily. 
 
 She had so many questions to ask about Trownham, 
 the women and the children, her clubs, her old English 
 garden, her classes for musical drill. Had everything 
 gone to sleep ? Were people tired of things ? 
 
 Nothing had gone to sleep ; every work to which she 
 had put her hand had prospered — had prospered and 
 developed. 
 
 " The development would be your doing," she said 
 softly. 
 
408 MIRANDA 
 
 •■ I have done very little, only carried out some of 
 your ideas about the club, and the evening lectures — 
 the conferences, as we call them in our grand way, where 
 the women and girls over fifteen are allowed to speak. 
 Sister Julia would be amused if she heard great girls of 
 sixteen and seventeen hold forth upon the follies of 
 fashion — narrow skirts and wide hats, pointed toes and 
 high heels for women who have worn clogs." 
 
 Julia laughed. 
 
 " I know those girls," she said. " If Miranda has 
 done nothing else, she has taught Trownham girls to 
 dress themselves like human beings." 
 
 "And The Barrow?" Miranda asked. "Is the old 
 garden full of weeds and broken branches ? Are there 
 cobwebs and dust in the dear old rooms where my mother 
 and I were so happy ? " 
 
 " Nothing has been neglected. 
 
 " How do you know ? " 
 
 " I have been there as often as I could. I have been 
 to see your garden, your horses, and your dogs. Every- 
 thing has been cared for. Whipple is a faithful steward, 
 and your gardeners are honest men. I believe they love 
 the garden, and that is the chief characteristic of a good 
 gardener." 
 
 " And the dogs ? Oh, Gilbert, pray tell me about my 
 dogs ! Whipple writes to me once a week, but I want 
 particulars, more and more particulars." 
 
 She had called him Gilbert, and this talk about the 
 dogs obliged Julia to ask him to go up to their salon for 
 tea, and presently they were sitting at a table in the 
 window, talking as easily as in the schoolroom at The 
 Barrow ; and it was only Julia's grey hair and Miranda's 
 black gown and pale, thin face that marked the passage 
 of time since those old days when Lady Laura's daughter 
 began her serious education under Mr. Ferrar's guidance. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 HE was with them next day for all the quiet 
 afternoon hours. He had been exploring the 
 churches, the streets, everything that Ravenna could 
 show him, all the morning ; but the afternoon was spent 
 mostly in the pine forest, where he was able to tell 
 Miranda the result of his morning investigations. 
 
 " You have seen things I have never seen," she said, 
 " though I lived half a year in this place ; and though 
 Julia and I have been alone and idle for a month, with 
 nothing to do but look at churches and wonder about the 
 people — the early Italian people, in their picturesque 
 clothes, who lived in the palaces when Dante came here 
 at the end of his wanderings." 
 
 " You have been to the lonely church among the 
 marshes ? " 
 
 " Yes, a long time ago." 
 
 " Shall we all go there to-morrow ? " 
 
 " If you like," she answered listlessly. 
 
 He found a strange listlessness in all she said. She 
 was curious about nothing. There was no thrill, none 
 of her old eagerness. It seemed as if the romantic 
 spirit in her was dead. A spring was broken in the 
 delicate mechanism of that vivid fancy. The Miranda 
 of those younger years was dead or asleep, and had to 
 be awakened. 
 
 They were together every day after this, all three of 
 them, Julia "so completely bne with^them in all her thoughts 
 
 409 
 
410 MIRANDA 
 
 and desires, that her speech never jarred, her ideas were 
 never out of harmony. Gilbert made himself their 
 courier and valet-de-place. Miranda called him her 
 ambulatory guide-book. 
 
 " You are better than Murray," she said, " for one has 
 not the trouble of looking at the index or turning the 
 pages. You seem to know everything that can be known 
 about Italy, although you have never been here." 
 
 " That is why I know so much. In all those days 
 when I could not come here I had to appease my longing 
 by following other men's footsteps. Symonds, or Hare, 
 or Story, has kept me company in many a sleepless 
 night." 
 
 Gilbert was sorry next day that he had taken Miranda 
 to that ancient church of Saint Apollinare ; for after she 
 had gone about with him looking at the monuments in a 
 silence that was in harmony with the place, her colour 
 faded suddenly, and she looked as if she were going to 
 faint. 
 
 " We have tired you," he said. " You shall look at 
 nothing else to-day. Julia has been too exacting. She 
 wants to know everything in a hurry." 
 
 •' No, I am not tired, but the forsaken church is too 
 mournful." 
 
 He had taken her arm and was leading her to the door. 
 She remembered the day she had been there with Mark, 
 when he had called to her with a voice of horror, " Get me 
 out of this place." 
 
 She remembered what he had said to her as he sat 
 pale and shivering in front of the high altar : 
 
 " A dead hand touched me." 
 
 She had thought sometimes of those moments of his, 
 those sudden fits of gloom, moments in which he seemed 
 to lose consciousness of existing things, to be far off in 
 some unknown world, moments when his face was 
 expressionless and terrible, a pallid mask, with eyes 
 staring at vacancy. Could she ever forget such 
 moments, made infinitely horrible by the knowledge that 
 came afterwards ? 
 
MIRANDA 411 
 
 Gilbert was their courier; they made all their plans 
 together. He was to spend the winter in the South; on 
 that point the great man in Harley Street had been 
 peremptory. 
 
 " You say you have never been in Italy. You have 
 longed to see Rome and Venice, but have been too busy 
 to go there. Well, now is your time. Spend the winter 
 in Rome, quietly, just dawdling between the city and 
 the places within an easy drive. Don't come back till 
 you are a strong man. Remember it must be either that 
 or a nursing-home at Ventnor or Seaford, something 
 dull and humdrum : baths, massage, scientific feeding, 
 nurses. Everything that you would hate. You can cure 
 yourself if you like. You have only to take things easily 
 and to be happy." 
 
 Be happy ! What a cruel mockery that advice may 
 sometimes sound in the patient's ear ! How impossible 
 to obey ! But it had been easy for Gilbert Ferrar since 
 that quiet meeting in the pine wood by the Adriatic. To 
 be in Miranda's company day after day was like a draught 
 from some enchanted fountain. To feel health and 
 strength returning gradually as the days went by, shat- 
 tered nerves growing calm, placid thoughts where there 
 had been feverish anxiety, and to see the bloom coming 
 slowly back to Miranda's sunken cheeks, and the brightness 
 to the deep violet eyes, was not this enough to make any 
 man happy, and to keep Gilbert Ferrar on his knees at 
 nightfall in an ecstasy of thanksgiving ? 
 
 No word of love had been spoken, but in the sweet 
 familiarity that recalled their friendship in days when 
 he had been to her as an elder brother there was a some- 
 thing new and strange, an all-pervading emotion and a 
 restraint that had not been in the old time. 
 
 They were in Rome in the winter sunshine. Miranda 
 would not hear of an hotel, a place where there would be 
 other people. Gilbert had to do everything she wanted, 
 to find spacious rooms near the Pincio Gardens, to engage 
 a carriage and good horses — not a motor-car. 
 
412 MIRANDA 
 
 " I want to see everything between this door and Ostia. 
 I want to get the atmosphere of the Campagna into my 
 mind ; I want to remember where I have been," Miranda 
 said, with her old authoritative air. 
 
 Something of her old self had come back since Mr. 
 Ferrar joined them, the touch of wilfulness that had 
 charmed him in her young years, something even of her 
 delight in life, the old romantic rapture. She was 
 beginning to forget that dark abyss in time when she had 
 been Mark Raynham's wife. 
 
 For her and for Gilbert that Roman winter went by 
 in a flash ; the churches, the palaces, the music, all that 
 splendour, drifted past as if in a happy dream, and 
 presently it was the New Year, and January was melting 
 away, and Gilbert was to go back to Trownham early 
 in March. 
 
 Miranda and Julia both pleaded for delay. He had 
 been told to stay in the South till the spring. March was 
 not spring. Nobody could call that treacherous month 
 by so lovely a name. 
 
 He stayed at their bidding. Maurice Bateman had taken 
 kindly to his work, and his letters were frequent and 
 reassuring. He would stick to his post till it suited the 
 Vicar to return. 
 
 " Your people are longing for you, but it will be good 
 for them to feel your value," he wrote. "I am still at 
 a loose end, as neither of the livings that have been 
 offered to me come up to my idea of the work I was sent 
 into the world to do. To exchange Poplar for the lap of 
 luxury in a place like Cheltenham or Bournemouth 
 wouldn't suit Father Bateman. I shall wait for something 
 crowded and throbbing with life, like Trownham — perhaps 
 in the Potteries." 
 
 They spent February in Venice, and it was in that city 
 of lovely dreams that Gilbert asked Miranda to be his 
 wife ; one golden afternoon when they had gone out 
 
MIRANDA 413 
 
 alone to look at Canova's monument, and had sauntered 
 afterwards to a quiet spot where they could sit on a 
 bench facing the blue water to watch the fishermen's 
 boats coming home. 
 
 He told her how poor a life he was offering her, how 
 much of the world's delight he was asking her to forego : 
 travel in strange places, the daily association with great 
 minds, the princes of art, science, letters — all that is most 
 interesting in that quintessence of progress which we 
 call Society. Could she forego these things and be content 
 to share a life that had to be lived for others ? 
 
 He heard her murmur softly, " To share with you I " 
 and those few faltering words assured him of her love. 
 
 " You know what my parish means for me, Miranda. 
 You know what I told you years ago. I have given them 
 my life, not as a thing to give and take back when some 
 fairer prospect tempted. I am the same man who stood 
 in the pulpit at Trownham twelve years ago and spoke to 
 my people for the first time. I told them I had come to 
 live among them and to die among them, and nothing 
 should part us but the conviction that I was a failure. 
 Well, dear, I do not think I have failed, and that being 
 so I have to stay. Can you share such a life as that — 
 you, who have wealth and beauty, talent, and charm, 
 and might be a great lady in London, Paris or Rome ? 
 Can you share my life in Trownham ? " 
 
 She answered him simply and without an instant of 
 hesitation. She told him that the life he offered her was 
 the higher life — the only life that could make up to her 
 for the past. 
 
 "It is light after darkness, the darkness that was my 
 own choosing," she said. " My mother told me of your 
 love when it was too late. Perhaps if she had told me 
 sooner my life might have been different. God forbid 
 that I should blame her. She knew me better than I 
 knew myself. She knew what a wilful, shallow-minded 
 creature I was, before I had learned the lesson of life. 
 I have had my lesson, Gilbert, and I think I am just a 
 little worthier of you now than I was when my mother 
 
4H MIRANDA 
 
 was afraid to tell me lest she should spoil our friendship. 
 Our friendship has lasted through all." 
 
 " And has grown into love. Is that true ? " 
 
 " It is true. I never knew what a good man's love 
 could mean of joy and peace, until after those days at 
 Ravenna when I began to love you." 
 
 Florence was the end of their Italian journey. They 
 were married in Florence, with only Julia for witness and 
 friend, Julia, who had been at the black wedding, and to 
 whom, as contrasted with that dismal scene, this quiet 
 ceremony in a chapel full of roses and lilies and April 
 sunshine seemed like a wedding in fairy-land. It was 
 Julia who gave Miranda to her husband, and she left them 
 by the evening train to go back to Melford-on-the-Moor, 
 in order to make all things ready for Miranda. 
 
 " Whipple will be overjoyed when he knows he is going 
 to have a master who can handle a horse," Julia said. 
 " But, oh, the Melford people — the questions they will 
 ask, and the way they will brag of their omniscience in the 
 past ! ' Of course we always knew that she would end by 
 marrying the Vicar of St. Barnabas'.' But they had 
 better not call you a Jesuit in my hearing ! " 
 
 They were alone, and Gilbert had attained the supreme 
 good, the dream and desire of his manhood. He had won 
 the only woman he had loved, through shame and tragedy, 
 through years of hopeless longing, and vain regret. They 
 went home by easy stages along that lovely coast, from 
 Genoa to Marseilles, lingering in the quiet places where 
 spring was exquisite and where the crowd did not come. 
 The people who wore fine clothes and played rouge-et-noir 
 had gone home, and the smartest among the smart hotels 
 were shut. The glory of the earth was left for the loiterers, 
 for newly-wedded lovers, like Gilbert and Miranda, who 
 could saunter in olive woods where the ground was 
 carpeted with violets, and talk of the life that lay before 
 them between the moor and the sea — for henceforward The 
 Barrow was to be only Miranda's holiday home. Her 
 serious life must belong to Trownham. She had accepted 
 that life with all its drawbacks and limitations — a life to 
 
MIRANDA 415 
 
 be lived mostly for others. Her husband had no need 
 to remind her that he had put his hand to the plough and 
 must go to the end of his furrow. 
 
 One thing he told her in the course of that exquisite 
 journey which could not fail to make her glad. She was 
 not to live in the dark stone house in the dull street. Her 
 husband had found her a house just outside the town and 
 its smoke ; a quaint place off the high road, once the 
 Squire's house, standing alone in gardens and orchards 
 three centuries old. The good old Jacobean house had 
 gone begging for years ; nobody wanted to live in it, 
 and no speculating builder wanted the ground it stood 
 upon, whereby the massive walls and clustered chimneys 
 had escaped demolition. 
 
 Gilbert had bought the property for a song, and a 
 Trownham builder was putting the house into substantial 
 repair, and a scientific gentleman had come from West- 
 minster to plan a perfect system of drainage. Julia was 
 looking after everything, and Julia had admirable taste 
 in household gear. 
 
 The Vicarage in the dull street was to be turned into 
 something useful for the parish — Church House or Sisters' 
 Home, or Dispensary. 
 
 She knew why he had done this thing. She knew that 
 though they might have lived happily in the poorest house 
 that ever kept out wind and weather, they could not have 
 been happy in that room of dark memories, where she had 
 knelt in her self-abasement and told him the tragedy that 
 had ruined her young life. No. They could not have lived 
 in that place, with its bitter contrasts — the hour of her 
 happy girlhood, when she had looked round the book-lined 
 walls and questioned him gaily about his life, and the 
 hour of her despair. 
 
 No thought of dividing him from his people had ever 
 entered her mind. She knew him too well to believe for a 
 moment that love would make him false to the vow he 
 made when he took the great, neglected parish for his 
 portion. 
 
 " You gave them your life," she said, in their first talk 
 
416 
 
 MIRANDA 
 
 of their future, " and I will not come between the shepherd 
 and his sheep. I will help you to help them, and I will 
 make you so happy that you will forget how much you 
 have given up of the things that for the common herd 
 make life worth living. They may have all the world's 
 choicest pleasures. We shall have three thousand people 
 to make good and happy." 
 
 " The oddest of all the things that I never expected to 
 happen in this topsy-turvy world is that Miranda Strick- 
 land would wind up her flighty career as an ideal vicar's 
 wife," said Mrs. Devereux, a year after the wedding in 
 Florence. 
 
 " Miranda would always be ideal," replied Mary 
 Wilborough ; " but after all her romantic flights and wild 
 fancies it does seem strange to settle down in a life of hum- 
 drum — and, strangest of all, she seems absolutely happy." 
 
 " Absolutely." If an adjective were needed, that was 
 the right word. 
 
 Miranda was happy. The fair vista of life stretched 
 before her ; a life lived with the man she loved, helping 
 him to work for the people he loved. 
 
 Printed at The Chapel River Press, Kingston, Surrey. 
 
Messrs. Hutchinson & Co. 
 
 are pleased to announce Novels for the Autumn of 1913 by the 
 
 following LEADING AUTHORS, particulars of which will be 
 
 found in the ensuing pages. 
 
 LUCAS MALET 
 
 W. B. MAXWELL 
 
 BARONESS VON HUTTEN 
 
 S. R. CROCKETT 
 
 H. DE VERE STACPOOLE 
 
 EDGAR JEPSON 
 
 F. FRANKFORT MOORE 
 
 PHILIP GIBBS 
 
 M. P. WILLCOCKS 
 
 MRS. H. DE VERE STACPOOLE 
 
 ANNIE E. HOLDSWORTH 
 
 JANE BARLOW 
 
 MRS. WILFRID WARD 
 
 MRS. K. J. KEY 
 
 ROBERT HUGH BENSON 
 
 KATHLYN RHODES 
 
 M. E. BRADDON 
 
 EVELYN EVERETT GREEN 
 
 F. BANCROFT 
 
 JOHN N. RAPHAEL 
 
 TICKNER EDWARDES 
 
 RALPH STOCK 
 
 ISABEL C. CLARKE 
 
 MRS. HUGH FRASER 
 
 HENRY SCHUMACHER 
 
 MARGUERITE BRYANT and 
 
 H. B. SOMERVILLE 
 
New 6s. Novels. 
 
 Happy House 
 
 By BARONESS VON HUTTEN 
 
 Author of " Sharrow," " Pam," etc. 
 
 Baroness von Hutten's last novel, " Sharrow," now in its 
 ioth edition, was one of the great literary successes of 1912. — 
 The Daily Telegraph spoke of it as " a novel of outstanding quality, 
 and one of the best of the author's works." The many admirers 
 of the stories of Baroness von Hutten will welcome the news that 
 she has completed a new novel, which will be issued with the title 
 of " Happy House." 
 
 The Rescue of Martha 
 
 By F. FRANKFORT MOORE 
 
 Author of "The Jessamy Bride," "A Nest of Linnets," etc. 
 
 In his forthcoming novel Mr. Frankfort Moore will be found 
 to have returned to his favourite eighteenth century with re- 
 newed zest. His story will introduce one of the most remark- 
 able social episodes in the history of the period, in connection 
 with some of the best known and most notorious personages of 
 the Court of George III. 
 
 Marama 
 
 A Tale of the South Seas 
 
 By RALPH STOCK 
 
 Author of " The Pyjama Man," etc. 
 
 With Illustrations 
 
 With " Marama," Mr. Stock returns to the far-off corner of 
 the world he knows and loves so well — the South Pacific Islands. 
 Than this there is no more picturesque setting for a tale of 
 love and adventure, and probably none that requires more inti- 
 mate knowledge to handle successfully. In this story the author 
 not only deals with an intensely interesting problem — that of 
 colour — and weaves about it a vividly dramatic narrative, 
 but writes with a sureness of touch that actual experience alone 
 can provide. 
 
New 6/- Novels 
 
 The Wisdom of Damaris 
 
 By LUCAS MALET 
 
 Author of "Adrian Savage," &c. 
 
 The novel opens in the year 1863, and covers a period of about 
 twenty years, giving the history of the upbringing of a girl of good 
 family and unusual imagination and talent during the mid- 
 Victorian era. The scene of the first portion of the novel is laid 
 in Northern India, where Damaris Verity's father, a famous 
 soldier of the Mutiny, occupies a distinguished command. 
 
 It may be noted that General Verity's career, both as husband 
 and lover, occupies considerable space in the drama, being in 
 itself instructive and interesting and closely affecting his 
 daughter's character. 
 
 The scene afterwards changes to the neighbourhood of Mary- 
 church, an ancient seaport town on the English south coast, where 
 General Verity owns a small property. Here Damaris passes her 
 girlhood, and learns much about men and things not, perhaps, 
 usually known by young ladies of her age. The novel closes with 
 General Verity's death ; and should be interesting as indicating 
 the social conditions which have gone far to produce in this 
 country the Feminist movement of the present day. 
 
 The Honour of the House 
 
 By Mrs. HUGH FRASER and J. I. STAHLMANN 
 
 Joint authors of "The Golden Rose," etc. 
 
 This is a story of Italian life in the XVII Ith century — full of 
 romance and intrigue — with delightful descriptions of an old 
 Roman Palace and country house, together with the exciting 
 adventures of a youthful bride and bridegroom, who are separated 
 for a long period by one of those terrific family tragedies peculiar 
 to their time and country. 
 
 The large public which so much appreciated " The Golden 
 Rose," etc. will welcome another novel by these authors, who have 
 already shewn their intimate knowledge of Italy. Mrs. Hugh 
 Fraser, a sister of Marion Crawford — of course spent all her 
 early life there. 
 
 3 
 
New 6/- Novels 
 
 The Secret Citadel 
 
 2nd Edition 
 
 By ISABEL C. CLARKE 
 
 Author of "By the Blue River," "Prisoners' Years," 
 " Nomad Songs," etc. 
 
 One of the author's critics has said that this story touches 
 the very heart of human nature. It is the history of a woman's 
 engagement and subsequent marriage to a man, not of her own 
 faith, to whom she is deeply attached. In dealing with this 
 problem of souls Miss Isabel Clarke has not adopted a merely 
 controversial attitude, but has endeavoured to trace sympathetic- 
 ally the inevitable conflict that arises between the heroine's 
 devoted loyalty to her Church and her love for her husband, whose 
 deepening prejudices threaten to destroy their happiness. The 
 scenes are laid successively in Rome, England and Tunis, and 
 the descriptions of the latter city and of Carthage will no doubt 
 appeal to admirers of the author's former North African novel, 
 " By the Blue River." 
 
 Marcus Quayle, M.D. 
 
 By EVELYN EVERETT-GREEN 
 
 Author of " The Secret of Wold Hall," etc. 
 
 The story concerns a rising medical man and a girl who consults 
 him secretly, and in whom he becomes gravely interested, fearing 
 foul play for her at the hand of relatives who will profit by her 
 death. Quayle enlists on his side a woman whom he has known 
 from boyhood and whom he sometimes wishes to make his wife. 
 She, on her side, is in sympathy with the woman's movement 
 and wishes to lead an independent life. But she befriends his 
 girl patient, and from her house she is secretly married to Marcus 
 Quayle. 
 
 The Book of Anna 
 
 By ANNIE E. HOLDSWORTH 
 
 Author of "Joanna Traill, Spinster," " The Years that the 
 Locust hath Eaten," etc. 
 
 In this charmingly written story the author tells how the life of Anna, 
 a child of ill-mated parents, is influenced by her early training. She 
 suffers a good deal, but she gains more, by experience and by the ful- 
 filment of her just ambitions. 
 
 4 
 
New 6s. Novels 
 
 The Devil's Garden 
 
 A Story of Elemental Passions 
 
 By W. B. MAXWELL 
 
 Author of u In Cotton Wool," " Mrs. Thompson," etc. 
 
 From Mr. W. B. Maxwell one has become accustomed to look 
 for penetrating psychology and clever character studies. With 
 such gifts it is impossible for him to be dull or for the interest of 
 his books to drag. His new story, " The Devil's Garden," is 
 frankly a study of the elemental passions. 
 
 Every novel from the pen[of this powerful writer is to some extent 
 an advance on its predecessor. No one who takes any interest in 
 the best contemporary English fiction can afford to ignore his books. 
 
 Miranda 
 
 Py M. E. BRADDON 
 
 Author of "Lady Audley's Secret," "The Green Curtain," etc. 
 
 This story shows how a powerful personality, aided by passion, 
 may succeed in dominating the life of another, even when there is 
 an attempt to resist. The spell, however, is broken by the heroine 
 when she lights on a discovery which, though terrible, is the means 
 of liberating her from an unhallowed union. 
 
 Tansy 
 
 By TICKNER EDWARDES 
 
 Author of "The Honey-Star," etc., etc. 
 
 Just as in his last successful novel, " The Honey-Star," Mr. 
 Tickner Edwardes gave us a charming romance steeped in the 
 fragrant atmosphere of old bee-gardens, so, in his new novel , 
 " Tansy," we have the very spirit of the South Downs inter- 
 blended with a story which, for deep human interest, power of 
 characterization, and a subtle presentment in words of the humour 
 and pathos of English village life, is likely to surpass anything 
 Mr. Edwardes has hitherto accomplished. " Tansy " is first and 
 foremost a South Down shepherd story, written by one who has 
 lived for twenty years amongst the quaintly original folk with 
 whom he deals. But the story is more than that. It is an inti- 
 mate, perhaps a ruthless, study of a woman, such an one as might 
 be expected to develop in the midst of an environment at once 
 strangely isolated and unconventionally free. 
 
New 6s. Novels 
 
 The Children of the Sea ; 
 
 An Icelandic Romance 
 
 By H. de VERE STACPOOLE 
 
 Author of " The Ship of Coral," &c. 
 
 " The Children of the Sea " is a companion book to " The 
 Blue Lagoon " and " The Ship of Coral," and, like " The Blue 
 Lagoon," it has that strange quality which, for want of a better 
 name, we call newness. The story comes straight from the 
 primitive heart of things. Effortless, yet cumulative in interest, 
 pictorial and dramatic, this story of a man, a woman and the 
 sea stands quite alone in the world of romantic love stories. 
 
 Doings and Dealings: 
 
 Observed in Ireland 
 
 By JANE BARLOW 
 
 Author of " Bogland Studies," "Irish Neighbours," &c. 
 
 Any record of things observed in Ireland would be imperfectly 
 characteristic if it ignored the influence of a belief in visitations 
 from another world. Accordingly a few of these stories relate 
 occurrences of a kind belief in which has no small effect upon the 
 proceedings of Irish folks ; it may, for instance, send half a parish 
 going habitually miles about to avoid a haunted place. A capacity 
 for doing shrewd turns of business, again, makes itself very per- 
 ceptible in their daily lives, and several of the stories deal there- 
 with. The rest is mainly human nature. 
 
 The Making of a Soul 
 
 By KATHLYN RHODES 
 
 Author of " The Desert Dreamers," "The Will of Allah," etc. 
 
 The story is concerned with the marriage of a girl with a 
 man considerably above her in a social and intellectual sense. 
 Awakened rather cruelly to her inferiority, the young wife at first 
 falls into despondency, but through the timely help of a friend 
 she takes heart and sets herself to conquer her own deficiencies 
 and makes herself a tit companion for the man she has married. 
 In the struggle she comes into the full possession of her soul — 
 a process not unattended with suffering — but thanks to her own 
 sincerity of purpose she wins through and attains a happiness of 
 which she had never dreamed. For the most part, the action 
 takes place in a house overlooking the Thames, and there are 
 many scenes of river life interwoven with the story throughout! 
 
 6 
 
New 6s. Novels 
 
 London 
 
 By Mrs. H. de VERE STACPOOLE 
 
 Author of "Monte Carlo." 
 
 London, with its glitter and gloom, its facts and fancies, its 
 greatness and its littleness, forms the background and supplies 
 the title for Mrs. H. de Vere Stacpoole's new novel. 
 
 It is a story of Phyl Musgrave and her father, guileless South 
 Africans, who find themselves caught in the whirl of Town. 
 
 The book is full of movement and life and dramatic happening, 
 and sparkles with the salt of humour so evident in Mrs. Stacpoole's 
 highly successful story, " Monte Carlo." 
 
 Horace Blake 
 
 By MRS. WILFRID WARD 
 
 Author of "Great Possessions," "Out of Due Time," &c. 
 
 The theme of this novel is, in the first part, the repentance and death 
 of Horace Blake — a famous dramatist who scoffed alike at morals and 
 religion — and his return to the faith of his youth and his forefathers. In 
 the second part of the book Trix Blake, who was with her father at his 
 death, exerts her influence with Stephen Tempest, who has undertaken 
 the dramatist's biography to produce an idealized portrait. Tempest is 
 torn by the conflicting claims of truth and of his affection for Trix Blake. 
 The most interesting character in the book is that of Kate Blake, an 
 agnostic, the dramatist's devoted wife, who is without delusions as to his 
 real character. 
 
 Garthoyle Gardens 
 
 By EDGAR JEPSON 
 
 Author of "The House on the Mall," "Pollyooly," 
 "The Determined Twins." 
 
 In his new novel, "Garthoyle Gardens," Mr. Edgar Jepson 
 tells the story of how Lord Garthoyle, a high-spirited young peer, 
 acts as his own estate-agent. An uncle leaves him Garthoyle 
 Gardens, twenty-one fine houses in the heart of Mayfair, on 
 condition that he manages the property himself. The novel 
 relates his troubles and triumphs as manager of the Gardens, his 
 difficulties and struggles with his fashionable tenants. He is 
 called on to intervene in their love affairs, their scandals and their 
 crimes. He helps to solve two or three mysteries of the Gardens, 
 succours distressful lovers, restrains firmly tenants who try to 
 rush him, and preserves the peace, the propriety, and the prosperity 
 of the Gardens with considerable force of character. His inter- 
 ventions make continuously exciting, or amusing reading ; and 
 there runs through the story a charming, but not smooth-running, 
 love affair of his own. 
 
 7 
 
New 6s. Novels 
 
 The Dominant Passion 
 
 By MARGUERITE BRYANT 
 
 Author of " The Princess Cynthia," "The Adventures of 
 Louis Dural " 
 
 In "The Dominant Passion" the author has attempted and 
 has accomplished with rare distinction a most difficult task. The 
 motif 'of the story is the Master Passion of genius, and there are 
 presented four different types of character and four different 
 geniuses. The story which is most enthralling, has a powerful 
 love interest in the sweet minded heroine, and a study of passionate 
 hatred is supplied by the characterisation of the cruel, inhuman, 
 cunning*, charming artist, Andrea. 
 
 Up Above 
 
 By JOHN N. RAPHAEL 
 
 In "Up Above" Mr. Raphael, the well-known playwright 
 and correspondent of the Referee, Tatler and the Eve?iing Standard, 
 has written a thrilling story of adventure in the manner in which 
 Jules Verne and Mr. H. G. Wells are masters. By this novel Mr. 
 Raphael will gain as great a success, though in a different field, as 
 he did by his translation of " Marie Claire." The Shadow 
 People from " Up Above " visit the earth in an enormous airship 
 to collect specimens of the human race. Themselves and their 
 craft invisible, they strike consternation throughout the country. 
 The abduction of the Prime Minister, the wrecking of Nelson's 
 Column, with many other exciting incidents, must be left to the 
 reader, who will be delighted at the love story which runs through 
 the book and by the humorous comments on political persons and 
 events that relieve the somewhat gruesome part of the story. 
 
 8 
 
New 6s. Noiels 
 
 Ashes of Vengeance 
 
 A Romance of the Court of France 
 
 By H. B. SOMERVILLE 
 
 "Ashes of Vengeance" is a powerfully written historical 
 romance of the Court of France of the time of the Huguenot 
 persecutions. Besides an ingenious plot, the author has given 
 some stirring scenes during the period of the massacre of St. 
 Bartholomew. 
 
 The Custody of the Child 
 
 By PHILIP GIBBS 
 
 Author of "Helen of Lancaster Gate," "The Street of Adventure." 
 
 Mr. Philip Gibbs' new novel deals, as the title suggests, with 
 the problem of divorce, but in an entirely new light and with a 
 very powerful moral. It shows how the break-up of the home 
 is not only a tragedy to the man and woman from which there is 
 no way of escape, but that the child has to pay the heaviest price 
 for the sins of its parents. The story is told entirely from the 
 child's point of view, and reveals with very delicate psychological 
 insight the evolution of the child-mind and the heritage of 
 spiritual perplexities which is bequeathed to the boy of divorced 
 parents when he reaches the threshold of manhood. 
 
 TWO GREAT ROMANCES FOR MEN AND WOMEN 
 
 Nelson's Last Love 
 
 By HENRY SCHUMACHER 
 
 With a Frontispiece in colour and numerous other 
 illustrations on art paper 
 
 In the present volume Mr. Schumacher tells the story of Lady Hamilton and Lord 
 Nelson. Although it has been told before it is one of those great love passions that never 
 seem to grow old. A huge number of copies of his book have already been sold in Ger- 
 many during the last few mouths, and the romance should make even a greater appeal to 
 the public in this country. 
 
 By the same Author, Just Published 
 
 The Fair Enchantress 
 
 A Romance of Lady Hamilton's Early Years 
 
 With a Frontispiece In Colour and 24 Illustrations 
 
 60,000 Copies of this novel have already been sold In Germany 
 
 " Mr. Schumacher achieves a brilliant success. He has read himself iuto the temper 
 and environment of his heroine, ami makes her real to us amongst the licence aud extra- 
 vagances of the period that make her amazing career possible.' 
 
4th Large Edition 
 
 New 6s. Novels 
 
 Initiation 
 
 By ROBERT HUGH BENSON 
 
 The book is a study of the process by which a man, who has every- 
 thing which the world can give him, both in temperament and powers and 
 wealth and position, becomes initiated into the secrets that lie behind 
 these things and are independent of them. The process is in two stages ; 
 the first is brought about by his disillusionment with a girl who, exteriorly 
 and .even to a certain depth interiorly as well, charming and attractive, is 
 a profound and resolute egoist, The second step is that of physical 
 suffering, rising from a constitution wrecked by the sins of his fathers, 
 which involves a serious operation that turns out to be no cure. The hero 
 of the book, left dying at the end, has lost the whole world and gained 
 nis own soul. 
 
 ROBERT HUGH BENSON'S NOVELS 
 
 Each in crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s. 
 
 An Average Man 
 
 " Made with all the penetration and the humour of its 
 author. The little portraits of the minor people are quite 
 brilliant. Monsignor Benson's novels have a quality that is 
 not easy to describe. They admit you into intimacies." — 
 Observer. 
 
 COME RACK! COME ROPE I 
 
 7th Large Edition 
 
 THE NECROMANCERS 
 
 Also popular edition, is. net. 
 
 THE DAWN OF ALL 
 
 Also popular edition, jd. net. 
 
 THE COWARD 
 
 Also popular edition, is. net. 
 
 NONE OTHER GODS 
 
 Also popular edition, is. net. 
 
 a winnowing: 
 
 Also popular editions, 6d. and is. net 
 
 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 
 
 In popular editions only, 6d. and 7d. net. 
 io 
 
New 6s. Novels 
 
 Sandy's Love Affair 
 
 Sad Edition 
 
 By S. R. CROCKETT 
 
 Author of "The Lilac Sun-bonnet,'* &c. 
 
 This novel, like " Bunty Pulls the Strings," has the true, the 
 inimitable Scot's flavour ; and here it is Galloway Scots at that. 
 Sandy is as real and alive as he can be. How, having taken his 
 degree and other honours, he comes hot-foot to London town, and 
 proceeds to make his way, combining literature, love and business 
 — that is your true Scot's mixture. Sandy's love affair with V. V., 
 the charming music-hall artiste, is delightful, and Mr. Crockett 
 has written nothing better since his famous story "The Lilac 
 Sun-bonnet." 
 
 The Power Behind 3rdEditioa 
 
 By M. P. WILLCOCKS 
 
 Author of "The Wingless Victory," "A Man of Genius," 
 "The Way Up," "Wings of Desire," etc. 
 
 Set against a background of moor and sea, which, indeed, 
 enters like a character into the story, we have in Miss Willcocks' 
 new novel the picture of how a woman played with the Unseen 
 Player sometimes called Fate. It is a dramatic narrative of a 
 girl's recoil in the face of disillusion and family ruin, of her fierce 
 use of her own power over men, and finally, through strange vicissi- 
 tudes, of her struggle for an end far higher than any personal 
 one. The action moves quickly, and is full of many types of 
 people — dreamers and business men, lovers of power and lovers 
 of women. Crowded with incident, " The Power Behind " is 
 inspired by the humour that is one-third satire and two-thirds love 
 of humanity. 
 
 A Daughter of Love 2ndEditioa 
 
 By Mrs. K. J. KEY 
 
 " I have been in Corisande's garden," said Lothair, " and she 
 has given me a rose." 
 
 " A charming story for a summer's day." — The Times. 
 ii 
 
New 6s. Novels 
 
 By the author of "A Diplomatist's Wife in Japan." 
 
 A Summer Quadrille 2adEamoft 
 
 By Mrs. HUGH FRASER and HUGH FRASER 
 
 Joint-Authors of "The Queen's Peril," etc. 
 
 The Pyjama Man 
 
 By RALPH STOCK 
 Author of "The Recipe for Rubber." 
 With illustrations by Norman Lindsey and 
 Leonard Linsdell 
 
 In Old Madras — - 
 
 By Mrs. B. M. CROKER 
 
 Thane Brandon 
 
 3rd Large Edition 
 
 By F. BANCROFT 
 
 Author of "The Veldt Dwellers," now in its 6th Edition. 
 
 In crown 8vo, is* net, with coloured pictorial wrapper. 
 
 Captain Corbeau's 
 Adventure 
 
 By MRS. HUGH FRASER and HUGH FRASER 
 
 Joint Authors of " The Queen's Peril." 
 
 The scene of this historical story is laid in Paris and in 
 Brittany during the seventeenth century. The hero, Captain Paul 
 Corbeau, finds himself impecunious and in Paris suffering from 
 the absence of the nobility and the winter cold. He is drawn 
 into a strange adventure for the sake of gold and a readiness to 
 action. The movement of the narrative does not halt or drag 
 from the first to the last page ; it is hardly necessary to say that 
 it is well written and that it contains all those charming qualities 
 which one associates with the work of these authors. 
 
 12 
 
General Literature 
 
 The Voice of Africa 
 
 Being an account of the travels of the German Inner-African 
 Exploration Expedition during the years 1910-12 
 
 By LEO FROBENIUS 
 
 Leader of the Expedition. 
 
 Author of " The Childhood of Man," etc. 
 
 Translated by RUDOLF BLIND 
 
 With 68 full-page plates, over 200 Illustrations la the text and 
 a coloured frontispiece. 
 
 In 2 large handsome volumes t 28/» net. 
 
 " The Voice of Africa " is a book of travel and research of unique 
 character. Professor Frobenius was the leader of the German 
 Scientific Expedition which made its way through Togoland and 
 Northern and Southern Nigeria and the Cameroons during 191 1 and 
 1912. He was initiated as a member of the dread Ogboni League — 
 that mysterious secret and magical society which practises ritual 
 murder and dictates to the native kings of the Yoroubas and other 
 tribes, and influences, maybe, even the European administration 
 of the great Protectorates of the Niger. The book is profusely 
 illustrated by photographs and colour sketches by a member of 
 the expedition. Professor Frobenius describes his archaeological 
 finds, the customs of the tribes, the administration of the country. 
 His discoveries are of ve-jy great importance to Science, and he 
 makes out quite a good case for his theory that this vast land 
 was the lost Atlantis of the Ancients. At any rate, he has dis- 
 covered the remains of an extremely aged civilization of high 
 culture which flourished ages before the present degenerate in- 
 habitants accidentally exhumed fragments of its works of art 
 and worshipped them as gods. 
 
 This imposing book is both for scholar, traveller and general 
 reader. 
 
 13 
 
The Poems of 
 Francois Villon 
 
 Translated by H. DE VERE 3TACPOOLE 
 
 In crown Svo, boards with canvas back, 7/6 net. 
 
 Handsomely printed on fine paper. 
 
 A small Edition de Luxe will be published In fcap. 4to, signed 
 by the Translator. 
 
 Francois Villon is undoubtedly one of the strangest figures in 
 European literature, and in "The Poems of Francois Villon" we 
 have an appreciation of Villon and a translation of his works which 
 sets the man definitely before us as well as the poet and his songs. 
 
 To catch the half humorous, half sinister, wholly human 
 spirit of Villon as expressed in the Testaments and Ballades is a 
 business the hardest to which any translator can set himself, and 
 Mr. Stacpoole has succeeded in his task not, perhaps, so much 
 by labour as by some strange synchronism of temperament, some 
 accident of the mind by which he has caught and made audible 
 for us Villon's voice. 
 
 The Life of James IV 
 
 By I. A. TAYLOR 
 
 Author of " Mme Roland," " Queen Hortense and Her Times," &c. 
 
 With an Introduction by SIR GEORGE DOUGLAS, Bart. 
 
 In demy 8vo, cloth gilt and gilt top, 10,6 nei. 
 
 With photogravure frontispiece and other illustrations. 
 
 "The Life of James IV." is an appropriate publication 
 for the present year. Four centuries ago — in September, 15 13 
 — was fought the disastrous battle of Flodden, when the flower 
 of Scottish chivalry was left dead upon the field, and the King 
 himself, a brilliant figure, endowed to the full with all the attraction 
 and gifts of his ill-starred race, met his end. In this volume 
 his history is told, from his lonely boyhood onwards, with the 
 story of the marriage fraught with consequences so momentous 
 to England and Scotland. His reckless gallantry, his personal 
 charm, his many-sided nature, his deep devotion, his faults and 
 his remorses, all go to make up a character full of interest and of 
 which a portrait is here given. 
 
The Works of P. A. de Laszlo 
 
 With an Introductory Essay on the art of Mr. de Laszlo" 
 
 By COMTE ROBERT DE MONTESQUIOU 
 
 Edited with notes by OAKLEY WILLIAMS 
 
 In 1 handsome folio volume with 60 beautiful photogravure plate* , 
 
 representing some of the choicest examples of Mr. de Laszld's work, £10 10». net. 
 
 And an Edition dc Luxe with 6 extra Plates in colour, £18 18«. net 
 
 The purpose of this the first collection of Mr. P. A. de Laszlo's 
 work is to present a selection of the best of his pictures, portraits 
 of reigning sovereigns, statesmen, diplomats, high ecclesiastics, 
 great ladies and famous beauties, who may be said to summarize 
 the more important phases of the social and political history of 
 Europe during the past twenty years. 
 
 The selection he has made may fairly claim to illustrate the 
 international range of his work. It is given to few men to have 
 established by the time they have reached their fortieth year their 
 reputation simultaneously in London and Paris, in Berlin and 
 Vienna, in Rome and in Buda-Pesth. The distinctions Liszlo 
 has already won show him to be an honoured citizen < f the world - 
 In his own country the Emperor conferred on him a patent of 
 hereditary nobility with the territorial title of Lombos, and the 
 Order of the Iron Crown, an honour which, as a painter, he shares 
 only with his great compatriot Munkacsy ; in France he is a 
 Chevalier of the Legion of Honour ; in Spain he wears the Order 
 of Isabella the Catholic ; in Germany the Emperor personally con- 
 ferred the Order of the Prussian Crown on him. 
 
 The aim of the publishers has been to produce a record of 
 Mr. de Ldszl6's works of permanent value and interest to the 
 collector, the connoisseur, and the art lover alike. The sixty 
 photogravures, from negatives especially taken from the original 
 pictures, are presented on hand-made paper by the very highest 
 expert craftsmanship. To this edition, strictly limited in number, 
 there will be published a very small edition de luxe on larger 
 paper, which in addition to the photogravures will contain six 
 superb examples of Mr. de Laszlo's work in colours, each plate 
 reproduced regardless of expense by a new process, 
 
 IS 
 
A FINE ART BOOK 
 
 The Book of Psalms 
 
 With 24 Illustrations in colour by 
 FRANK PAPE 
 
 In Cr. tfo, cloth, richly gilt, and gilt top, 10/6 net. 
 
 Mr. Frank Pape has already won for himself a high place by 
 his illustrations for " The Pilgrim's Progress " and other works. 
 His imagination, and a true feeling for beauty and colour, are seen 
 to advantage in the present series of illustrations of the Psalms. 
 Mr. Pape has treated his subject more from the point of view of 
 the symbolical and abstract than from the material or historical 
 standpoint. Thus in many cases the phases of Nature are utilised 
 to express the varying emotions of man. Dawn and Evening, 
 Spring-time and Autumn, Storm and Calm being used by the artist 
 in all their symbolical meaning. While in other of the drawings 
 one of the varying attitudes of man's mind is chosen as the keynote : 
 such as Love, Hope, Fear, Faith, Courage and Prayer. 
 
 The book will undoubtedly prove one of the most attractive 
 colour-books of the year. 
 
 Westminster Cathedral 
 and Its Architect 
 
 By W. DE L'HOPITAL 
 
 With numerous Illustrations from Mr. Bentley's 
 
 drawings including coloured plates, plans, and 
 
 reproductions from photographs. 
 
 In two volumes, Super-royal $vo, cloth gilt and gilt top, 32/" net. 
 
 The history of Westminster Cathedral, and of its architect 
 the late John Francis Bentley, will undoubtedly form one of the 
 principal publishing features of the autumn season. Westminster 
 Cathedral is acknowledged to be among the most important 
 buildings of modern times, and as the chief cathedral of the Roman 
 Catholic Church in the British Empire, it has a further importance 
 of the first mark. Bentley's own life, and the story how the great 
 Byzantine cathedral grew into being, from Cardinal Manning's 
 first proposals, and how it fell to his successor, Cardinal Vaughan, 
 to initiate and carry out the work, has been told by the architect's 
 daughter, Mrs. de l'Hopital, who has made full use of her father's 
 papers. An important feature of the book is the illustrations, 
 which comprise some full-page plates in colour from Mr. Bentley's 
 water-colour drawings, numerous illustrations in line and from 
 photographs, besides many plans, 
 
 16 
 
Unknown Mongolia 
 
 A Record of Travel and Exploration 
 on Russo-Chinese Borderlands. 
 
 By DOUGLAS CARRUTHERS 
 
 Gold Medallist of the Royal Geographical Society; 
 
 With three Chapters on Sport 
 
 by J. H. MILLER, F.Z.S.. 
 
 and an Introduction by 
 
 THE RIGHT HON. EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON, K.G. 
 
 With Illustrations on art paper, reproduced from photo- 
 graphs, Panoramas, Diagrams and Maps from original 
 
 surveys. 
 
 /* 2 vela., square demy 8vo, cloth gilt and gilt top, 24s, net. 
 
 For the explorations made by Mr. Carruthers in Mongolia 
 and described by him in this book he was presented with the Gold 
 Medal of the Royal Geographical Society. 
 
 These volumes should come in most opportunely at a time when 
 the Land of the Ancient Mongols has suddenly arisen from obscurity 
 and appeared again upon the world's stage. The partitioning of the 
 Chinese Empire has begun by the sudden release of a portion of her 
 territory, nearly as large as the Indian Empire. The Siberian 
 borderlands of this vast region which is a bone of contention between 
 China and Russia, forms the theme for these two volumes. The 
 region has not been described before. Scientifically as well as 
 politically it is of immense importance. 
 
 The Expedition which set out in 1910, accomplished the ex- 
 ploration of some new country, and collected much material of 
 great interest on a variety of subjects. A detailed description of 
 Marches of Siberia and Mongolia and several original maps is the 
 result. Mr. Carruthers, who has had varied experience in travel 
 and scientific exploration in Asia, and has received the highest 
 awards of the Royal Geographical Society, with his companion — 
 Mr. J. H. Miller, who holds a fine record as a big-game hunter, and 
 Mr. M. P. Price, who devoted his attention to political and 
 economic questions, as well as botanical and geological work, 
 comprised a party well -equipped for such an undertaking. Some 
 people scout the idea of "new" lands, the popular opinion being 
 that there is now not much romance left in stories of exploration. 
 The account of the secluded basin of the Upper Yenisei river, with 
 its strange inhabitants, makes a story of unusual interest and 
 importance. 
 
 17 
 
Athletics in Theory and 
 Practice 
 
 By E. W. HJERTBERG 
 
 Coach of the Swedish Olympic Team. 
 
 Translated by S. S. ABRAHAMS of the Cambridge A.C. and 
 
 the British Olympic Team, 1912. 
 
 In Crown Svo cloth. 
 With over 70 photographs from life. 3s. 6d. 
 
 This is not only the latest book on athletics published in this 
 country, but also the hrst of its kind in that it covers in the most 
 minute details every event on the Olympic programme. 
 
 The famous Swedish- American coach has here embodied his 
 unequalled experience, and both novice and potential champion 
 will have in the work a first-class instructor at hand. Our recent 
 international failures have convinced us of the necessity of tuition 
 in the elaborate minutiae of athletics, and the book should also prove 
 invaluable to associations and intending instructors. 
 
 It is illustrated by over seventy photographs of famous 
 athletes, demonstrating every point imparted, and has been care- 
 fully revised by S. S. Abrahams, of Cambridge University A.C. and 
 the "British Olympian Team, 191 2. 
 
 A Day in the Moon 
 
 By THE ABBE MOREUX 
 
 In crown Svo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. net. 
 
 With 40 illustrations from photographs and drawings by 
 the author. 
 
 The Abbe Moreux, who is Director of the Observatory at 
 Bourges, enjoys a European reputation as the author of many 
 well-known Astronomical Books. In his work, " A Day in the 
 Moon," he has utilised all the most interesting information that 
 we possess, and he only draws on bis imagination when he describes 
 the journey through space to the moon. Owing to the exceptional 
 opportunities that the moon offers for observation, we have more 
 exact information respecting our satellite than of any other body 
 in the heavens. The Abbe has a most delightful method of con- 
 veying his extraordinary knowledge of the subject, and if he does 
 not actually carry the reader bodily to the moon, he succeeds com- 
 pletely in carrying the reader's attention to lunar scenes. 
 
 18 
 
Profusely Illustrated by CHARLES ROBINSON 
 
 A SUPERB GIFT BOOK FOR CHILDREN 
 
 By H. FIELDING-HALL 
 
 Margaret's Book 
 
 By the Author of "The Soul of a People" 
 In cr. \to (g X 6\) cloth richly gilt with biunished idges, boxed, 7/6 net 
 
 Beautifully illustrated with 12 Coloured Plates, over 
 
 30 Line Drawings, designed title page, cover design, 
 
 end papers and other decorations by 
 
 CHARLES ROBINSON 
 
 Every reader of Mr. Fielding Hall's wonderful books 
 must have been struck with his remarkable power of 
 saying most profound things in the simplest possible 
 way. It is therefore a happy inspiration for him to turn 
 this grand gift of expression to account for the benefit 
 of the children. The main idea of this new book is that 
 even the best cared for children are sometimes discon 
 tented with their lot, so by the help of a kind fairy 
 Margaret is transformed according to her desires into 
 a fish, a flower, a bird, etc., and afterwards she and 
 her brother into Burmese children, to find, of course, in 
 the end that no one is happier than the English child. 
 In the early transformations natural history is closely 
 followed as to the life of the fishes, birds, etc., so while 
 the author gives his fine imagination full scope he in this 
 way makes the story more real. All children, girl or boy, 
 will love the book, and even a grown-up may read it with 
 pleasure, finding in it symbols of Love, Faith and Courage. 
 Indeed, there is not a dull page in it for children from 
 six to sixty. 
 
 19 
 
HUTCHINSON'S NATURE LIBRARY 
 
 Each in large crown Svo, cloth gilt, 6/' net, with numerous illustrations 
 
 Every volume In this new series of books, which is inaugurated by the following 
 
 volumes on Natural History and other kindred subjects, will be written by an 
 
 expert, in popular language, but with strict accuracy in detail. A prominent 
 
 feature of the series will be the numerous Illustrations. 
 
 VOLUMES ATmXUSADTT PUBLISHED 
 
 MESSMATES : 
 
 A Book of Strange Companionships 
 
 By EDWARD STEP, F.L.S. 
 
 Author of " The Romance of Wild Flowers," " Shell Life," etc. 
 With 64 illustrations from photographs on art paper. 
 
 "It is a well-written and entertaining book. Mr. Step has 
 gathered an immense number of cases from all sources, and the 
 young naturalist will find the book as amusing as it is instructive. 
 It is indeed popular science in the best sense. The illustrations 
 are many and excellent." — Outlook. 
 
 "Mr. Step posts us up in all the latest developments of the 
 subject, and it is an enthralling picture that he sets before us." — 
 Evening Standard. 
 
 "It is impossible to give more than a mere indication of the 
 fascinating revelations of the wonderful ways of Nature described 
 by Mr. Step, illustrated in many cases with actual photographs 
 from life. The book must be read to be appreciated fully, 
 and no true Nature lover can afford to be without it." — Sheffield 
 Telegraph. 
 
 THE INFANCY OF ANIMALS 
 
 By W. P. PYCRAFT, A.L.S., F.Z.S, 
 
 Zoological Department, British Museum. 
 
 Author of "A History of Birds," M Story of Reptile Life," etc. 
 
 With numerous illustrations on art paper. 
 
 "The author addresses himself to the task of stimulating 
 youthful interest in nature study, and he does so very effectively." 
 — Truth. 
 
 "The book is full of a thousand strange stories of bird, 
 animal, fish and reptile life, as fascinating as any romance." — 
 Standard. 
 
 "Mr. Pycraft's volume is admirable in its simplicity, and as 
 comprehensive as is necessary for an introduction to an exhaustive 
 study. It is furnished with illustrations, and its arrangement 
 throughout is excellent." — Manchester Courier. 
 
 20 
 
HUTCHINSON'S NATURE LIBRARY. 
 
 Each in large crown $vo, cloth gilt, 6/- net. 
 
 This new series of books on Natural History, and other kindred subjects, 
 
 which Is inaugurated by the following volumes, will be written 
 
 by experts, in popular language, but with strict accuracy in detail. 
 
 A prominent feature of the series will be the numerous Illustrations. 
 
 NEW VOLUMES. 
 
 The Courtship of Animals 
 
 By W. P. PYCRAFT, A.L.5., F.Z.S., Zoological Department, British Museum. 
 
 Author of "A History of Birds," " Story of Reptile Life," etc 
 
 With numerous illustrations on art paper. 
 
 The aim of this book is to bring together what will surely 
 prove to be a most astounding collection of facts in regard to the 
 Courtship of Animals of all kinds, from Apes to Ants. It will 
 describe the sanguinary conflicts which obtain when mates are 
 only won by battle, as in the case of deer and sea-lions, and other 
 beasts ; and the no less bloody and often fatal battles fought by 
 birds whose legs and wings are armed by fearsome spurs for this 
 purpose. But quite as interesting will be the survey of the methods 
 which more properly fulfil the meaning of courtship — strange 
 dances, love flights, and musical rivalry, and the display of gorgeous 
 vestments such as are furnished by the birds. 
 
 Insect Artisans and their Work 
 
 By EDWARD STEP, F.L.S. 
 
 Author of " Messmates," " Toadstools and Mushrooms of the Countryside," etc, 
 
 With numerous illustrations on art paper 
 
 From quite early days in the study of Entomology it has been 
 generally known that certain Insects in the perfection of their 
 industry might almost be accepted as the prototypes of the human 
 artificer. Thus, the wasp was taken as the first paper-maker 
 a certain wild bee as a mason, and another bee as a carpenter. In 
 his new book the author has shown that these industries are far 
 more numerous than was imagined by our grandfathers, and has 
 described the methods of an enormous number of little artisans 
 under more than a dozen craft-names. Most of these examples will 
 be quite new to the general reader for whom the work is intended ; 
 and the precision and ingenuity displayed is in many cases abso- 
 lutely startling. 
 
 21 
 
Mrs- Jordan : child of Nature 
 
 By PHILIP W. SERGEANT 
 
 Author of "My Lady Castlemaine," "The Empress Josephine : 
 Napoleon's Enchantress," etc. 
 
 In demy 8vo, cloth gilt and gilt top, 16s. net. 
 
 With photogravure frontispiece and other illustrations. 
 
 Although it is almost as difficult to compare theatrical 
 favourites of different epochs as, say, the Derby winners of to-day, 
 twenty years, and forty years ago, probably Mrs. Jordan's claim 
 to be the greatest comic actress on the English stage is generally 
 admitted. She had another life, apart from the stage, in which 
 comedy was not the prevailing note, and which closed in dismal 
 tragedy. Much mystery surrounds her end, four years after her 
 separation from the Duke of Clarence ; but it may be said that 
 she suffered not so much for her sins as for her virtues — for her 
 kindliness, generosity and forgivingness rather than for her frailty. 
 This biography of " the Child of Nature," as she was so often 
 called by her admirers, is concerned with the woman rather than 
 the actress, and draws largely upon contemporary criticisms (some 
 of them of an extraordinary character) to illustrate her life. The 
 ferocity of some of the attacks upon her is almost inconceivable ; 
 but, on the other hand, the adulation which some heaped upon 
 her as mistress of Bushey Park is astonishing. Mrs. Jordan has 
 been dead nearly a hundred years. In certain respects her 
 experiences seem curiously modern, in others, centuries remote ; 
 and the contrast is piquant. 
 
 The Errand of Mercy 
 
 A History of Ambulance Work upon the Battlefield 
 
 By M. MOSTYN BIRD 
 
 In crown 8vo, cloth, with illustrations. 3 s. 6d. net. 
 
 This book tells the whole story of the growth and gradual 
 organization of Ambulance work for the rescue and treatment 
 of those wounded in War. It describes the methods of dealing 
 with the wounded in the classic days of Greece and Rome, in 
 medieval Europe, in the seventeenth century, and in the European 
 Wars of the last century. The point upon which all the past 
 history of the work is seen to converge is the International Con- 
 vention of Geneva of 1864 : the development of the military medical 
 services and the organization of the voluntary associations which 
 are now grouped under the symbol of the Red Cross dates from 
 that bright spot in the story of the suffering and misery resulting 
 from war. The special features of the Ambulance services adopted 
 in all the great modern wars are described, with the Army medical 
 services of the greater Powers and the Red Cross societies of the 
 world. The important part played by voluntary and civilian effort 
 now, as of old, is shown in these illuminating chapters. 
 
 22 
 
America as I Saw It 
 
 By Mrs. ALEC TWEEDIE 
 
 Author of "Sunny Sicily," " Mexico as I Saw it," etc. 
 In demy Svo, cloth gilt and gilt top, 16s. net. 
 
 With a portrait of the Author in colour by Percy Anderson 
 
 and a photogravure portrait and numerous other 
 
 illustrations, including 13 humorous cartoons, 
 
 by W. K. Haselden. 
 
 In this record of a visit to the United States, Mrs. 
 Alec Tweedie presents a bright and vivacious account of the 
 people and places that came under her observation. She gives 
 her own point of view with freshness and sympathy, and 
 throws light on many things and ways in the chief cities of 
 the Republic. In this manner we see New York, Boston, 
 Washington, Chicago, &c, through her eyes, which are shrewd, 
 though not unkindly. While she is generous in her praise of 
 the country and the people, who were lavish in their hospitality, 
 she is a friend who is not blind to their failings and short- 
 comings. The impression of the book is that it Ms dictated 
 by a delightful individuality, and its cordiality is so sincere 
 that it should assist in the desirable purpose of strengthening 
 the bond of friendship which already exists between England 
 and America. 
 
 Compiled by A. C. R. CARTER 
 
 The Year's Art, 1914 
 
 Thirty-Fifth Year of Itsue 
 
 A concise epitome of all matters relating to the Arts of Paint- 
 ing, Sculpture, Engraving and Architecture, and to Schools of 
 Design which have occurred during the year 1913, together with 
 information respecting the events of 191 4. 
 
 Crown Svo, cloth, 5s. net. Over 600 pages, with illustrations 
 23 
 
Italian Yesterdays 
 
 By Mrs. HUGH FRASER 
 
 Author of " A Diplomatist's Wife in Japan," &c. 
 
 In demy Sdo, cloth gilt and gilt top, 16s. net, with numerous 
 illustrations. 
 
 Anyone who has read the books of Mrs. Hugh Fraser 
 is aware of the very great part that Italy has played in her 
 life, but few can have realised the depth and breadth of 
 her knowledge of Italy in the past and of the present, 
 as with her brother Marion Crawford, Italy, where she passed 
 her childhood and youth and where she received her 
 education, has taken a place in her affections as that of a 
 second fatherland. Her love for the country of her adoption, 
 its history and its people, is manifest whenever she writes 
 of it. In 'Italian Yesterdays' Mrs. Fraser has retold some 
 stories of lesser known legends and historical events of 
 old Italy, but she adds to all of these her claim as a 
 11 raconteuse" She has narrated anecdotes of famous persons 
 and picturesque characters, saints, heroes, and a few villains 
 of bygone days, connected in one way and another with the 
 greater and smaller cities which she knows so well, together 
 with some of her own experiences. Descriptions of works 
 of art, buildings and scenery are woven in throughout, 
 affording a personal note which has proved so attractive in 
 her other volumes of reminiscences. 
 
AN ENTIRELY NEW WORK. 
 
 The most sumptuous Historical Work ever produced 
 
 AND 
 
 A Standard and Art Work for every home. . . 
 HUTCHINSON'S 
 
 History of the Nations 
 
 A popular concise, pictorial, and authoritative 
 
 account of each Nation from the earliest time 
 
 to the present day. 
 
 Edited by WALTER HUTCHINSON, M.A., F.R.G.S., F.R.A.I., 
 
 BARRISTER-AT-LAW. 
 WRITTEN THROUGHOUT BY EMINENT HISTORIANS 
 
 Early Contributors include— 
 Prof. ALBERT PETRIE. F.R.S. The Egyptian Nation. 
 SIR RICHARD TEMPLE The Indian Nations- 
 
 Prof. GILES The Chinese Nation- 
 
 Prof- M. H. MAHAFFY The Greek Nation 
 
 H. LEONARD KING. M.A. The Assyrians. Babylonians and 
 
 Syrians. 
 
 Thousands of beautiful illustrations of scenes in the history of each 
 nation by famous Artists both old and modern, Including many hundreds of 
 pictures executed specially for the Work. 
 
 A BEAUTIFUL COLOURED PLATE WITH EVBRY PART 
 
 To be Issued in Fortnightly Parts 
 7d. net. 
 
 Note. — As an unprecedented demand is expected for this Work, 
 intending Subscribers should place their orders with a bookseller 
 or newsagent as early as possible to ensure obtaining a copy of 
 the first impression, and to avoid disappointment. 
 
 An Illustrated Prospectus will be sent on application. 
 
 25 
 
The Customs of the World 
 
 A Popular Account of the Rites, Ceremonies, Superstitions, and 
 most Interesting Customs of Men and Women in all Countries. 
 
 Edited by WALTER HUTCHINSON, M.A., F.R.G.S., F.R.A.I. 
 
 With an introduction by A. C. HADDON, M.A.. Sc.D , F.R.S., and with 
 Contributions by Eminent Authorities, including 
 
 Sm GEORGE SCOTT, K.O.I.E. 
 SIR HARRY JOHNSTON, G.O.M.G. 
 SIR SVEN HE DIN, K.O.I.E. 
 A. 0. HADDON, M.A., D.Sc, F.R.S. 
 PROF. BALDWIN SPENOER, O.M.G., 
 
 P R S 
 W. W. SKEAT, M.A., F.R.A.I. 
 ERNST VON HESSE- WARTEGG. 
 EDGAR THURSTON, O.T.E., F.R.A.[. 
 DR. KRAMER 
 EARL OF RONALDSHAY, M.P., F.R.G.S. 
 
 Sir EVERARD IM THURN, K.O.M.G. 
 Sir RICHARD TEMPLE, Bart., CLE. 
 C. G. SELIGMANN, M.D., F.R.G.S. 
 HENRI MAITRE 
 
 ADMIRAL SWINTON 0. HOLLAND 
 BARON E. NORDENSKIOLD 
 T. J. ALLDRIDGE, I.S.O. 
 R. W. WILLIAMSON, F.R.A.I. 
 CHARLES HOSE, D.Sc, F.R.G.S. 
 T. ATHOL JOYCE, M.A., F.R.A.I. 
 AND MANY OTHE11S 
 
 Cuitomi connected with Birth. Courtship. Marriage. Accession to Chieftain- 
 ship, Sport, Death. Burial, Religion. Superstition, and many other miscel- 
 laneous customs connected with the men and women of all tribes and 
 nationalities will be included in the book. 
 
 illustrated with over 1,4-00 beautiful pictures on art paper, and 31 
 COLOURED PLATES from paintings specially executed for this work. 
 
 In two handsome volumes, demy 4I0, cloth gilt and gilt edges, about 
 13s. 6d. net per vohime, and in various leather bindings. 
 
 Adventures Among Birds 
 
 By W. H. HUDSON 
 
 In demy Svo, cloth gilt and pit lop, I OS. 6d. net. 
 
 " This delightful book. Mr. Hudson humanizes the whole subject of ornithology, 
 and when he writes about birds he throws almost as much light on the human spirit 
 which enjoys them as on their habits and distribution on English soil. Mr. Hudson 
 shows a rare power of observation." — The Times. 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 New and cheaper editions have been published of the following, each in 
 crown Svo, cloth gilt, 6s. net. 
 
 AFOOT IN ENGLAND 
 
 " • Afoot in England ' has thrown open to us human and natural beauty, mixed and 
 separate, as no other writer's books could dtt.**-- Daily Chronicle. 
 
 THE LANDS END 
 
 With numerous Illustrations by A. H. COLLINS 
 
 " This book on the West of Cornwall should be read by thousands who love nature 
 in all its varied aspects. They will be fascinated by it, and will not be contented with 
 reading it only once."— Daily Mail. 
 
 26 
 
Marvels of the Universe 
 
 NATURE'S MARVELS IN 
 
 THE HEAVENS ANIMAL LIFE THE MIGHTY DEEP 
 
 PLANT LIFE THE EARTH'S BODY 
 
 Told by leading Specialists of the Natural Sciences of the day Including:— 
 
 SIR HARRY JOnNSTON, G.C.M.Q., K.C.B. ; RICHARD LYDEKKER, P.R.S. ; PRANK 
 FINN, F.Z.S. : EDWARD STEP, F.L.S. ; K. W. MAUNDER, P.R.A.S. : W. P. PTCRAPT, 
 A.L.9., P.Z.S. 5 RCTSSELL F. GWINNELL, P.O.S. ; FRANK T. BCLLEN, P.R.O.S. ; TICK- 
 NER EDWARDEs; J. J. WARD; C. FLAMMARIOX ; LIONEL E. ADAMS, B.A. ; E. O. 
 ASH, M.R.A.C. ; HAROLD BASTIN, P.E.S. ; S. LEONARD BASTIN ; SIR HERBERT 
 MAXWELL, F.R.S. ; 0. P. CHAMBERS, F.R.A.S. J n. ST. J. K. DONISTHORPE, P.E.S. ; 
 K. Q. BLAIR, P.E.S.; RICHARD KERR, P.O.S. ; W. P. KIRBT, P.L.S. ; HUGH MAIN 
 F.O.S.; ERNEST MARRIAGE; E. A. MARTIN, P.E.S.; T. E. R. PHILLIPS, F.RA..S. ; 
 R. I. POCOCK, P.R.S. ; MAX BARBEL ; DR. E. I. SPITTA, F.R.M.S. ; J. SINEL ; 
 
 w. MARK WEBB, f.l.s. ; and many others. 
 With an Introduction by LORD AVEBURY, P.C. 
 
 Illustrated with 1,590 Beautiful Pictures, and 64 COLOURED PLATES, 
 
 Irom paintings specially executed for this work. 
 
 In tirohind.-ome ( ><</.?., 4em§ ilo, cloth gilt and gilt edges, 12s. 6d. net per vol., and in 
 various leather binding*. 
 
 The Wonders of the World 
 
 The Marvels of Nature and Man as they Exist To-day 
 
 With over 1.000 Beautiful Illustrations reproduced from Photographs, in- 
 cluding 28 Coloured Plates 
 
 The work comprises an absolutely original collection of Photographs of the Marvels 
 of the World. All the World's most wonderful sights asseen by the most eminent travellers, 
 many of vtstn have supplied the descriptive text. 
 
 The Contributors include 
 
 SIR HARRT JOHNSTON, O.C.M.O., K.C.B. ; EARL OF RONALDSnAT, M.P., ; ALAN BUR- 
 
 OOTNE, M.l\: PERCEVAL LAX DON: CAPT.C.O. B AWLINO, CLE., P.R.O.S.; B. L. PUTNAM 
 
 WEALE: PHIU* w. sehoeaxt; iikhbkup a. poNTtNO, f.r.u.s. and many Other-. 
 
 PRINTED THROUGHOUT ON FINE ART PAPER 
 
 in 2 vols., demy He, cloth richly gilt and gift edget, 12s. 8<J. net per vol., -nd in ration* 
 leather bindings 
 
 Wild-Life Stories 
 
 By S. L. BENSUSAN 
 
 Each 4! in. X 6 in. with about 8 beautiful photogravure plates and 
 illustrated cozier, 6d. net. 
 
 The Life Story of the Fox The Life Story of the Partridge 
 
 The Life Story of the Hare The Life Story of the Fox-Hound 
 
 The Life Story of the Rook The Life Story of the Otter 
 
 The Life Story of the Pheasant The Life Story of the Sparrow 
 
 27 
 
The Concise Knowledge Library 
 
 In large crown 8vo, half-bound leather and gilt, 500-800 pp., 
 freely illustrated, 5s« per volume. 
 
 A new edition, revised and brought thoroughly up-to-date. 
 
 Astronomy 
 
 The History of Astronomy and the Solar System by Agnes 
 M. Clerke. Geometric Astronomy, by A. Fowler, F.R.A.S. 
 The Stellar Universe, by J. Ellard Gore, F.R.A.S. 
 
 With over 600 pages and 104 illustrations, including a beautifully 
 produced Frontispiece in Rembrandt Intaglio. 
 
 Also Just Published. An Encyclopaedia In Concise Form. 
 
 Photography 
 
 By eminent specialists including— E. O. HOPPE, F.R.P.S., F. LOW, 
 W. F. SLATER, F.R.P.S., C. S. COOMBES, B.Sc, 
 J. LITTLEJOHNS, E. A. & G. R. REEVE, HENRY P. 
 MASKELL, Etc. 
 
 With 504 pages and over ISO Illustrations, 
 
 Including Coloured Plates and Illustrations after Photographs by Alvln 
 
 Langdon Goborn, J. Craig Annan, Will Gadby, Fredk. H. Evans, Rev. O. G. 
 
 Cowan, J. W. Church, Lionel Wast, &o., besides Drawings and Diagrams. 
 
 A History of the World 
 
 Over 800 pages, with numerous maps specially drawn for the work. 
 
 From Earliest Historical Times to the year 1898. By Edgar 
 Sanderson, M.A., Author of «' History of the British Empire," etc. 
 
 Natural History 
 
 With nearly 800 pages and 530 original illustrations. Mammals, 
 Reptiles, Fishes, etc., by R. Lydekkkr, F.R.S., V.P.G.S. Birds, 
 by R. Bowdlkr SHARrK, LL.D. Insects, by W. F. Kirby, F.L.S. 
 Other branches by B. B. Woodward, F.L.S., F.G.S., F. A. Bather > 
 M,A.» F.G.S.* R. Kirkpatrick and R. I. Pocock, 
 
 2$ 
 
Popular Pocket Nature Books 
 
 Each in small volumes (7& in. by S in.), richly gilt, 
 rounded corners, 5s. net. 
 
 NEW VOLUME. 
 
 TOADSTOOLS AND MUSHROOMS 
 OF THE COUNTRYSIDE 
 
 By EDWARD STEP, F.L.S. Author of "Wayside and Woodland Blossoms," 
 " Wayside and Woodland Trees," etc. With 8 coloured plates, and 128 other illus- 
 trations from photographs on art paper. 
 
 The author, whose popular botanical works are well-known to many thousands 
 of readers, has been engaged for over ten years in securing the Nature photographs 
 from which a selection has been made to illustrate this book. With these, in com- 
 bination with the clear descriptions in absolutely plain, non-technical language, the 
 country rambler with this book in his pocket will be for the first time enabled to 
 identify the mushrooms and toadstools of woodland, field and wayside. 
 
 VOLUMES ALREADY PUBLISHED. 
 
 ASTRONOMY 
 
 By G. F. CHAMBERS, F.R.A.S. With 8 coloured plates and 35§ illustrations. 
 
 BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 
 
 By SIR HERBERT MAXWELL, Bart. With 24 beautiful colored plates. 
 
 BIRDS OF THE COUNTRYSIDE 
 
 By FRANK FINN, F.Z S. With 12 coloured plates, 118 illustrations from photo- 
 graphs printed on an paper, and numerous outline drawings. 
 
 EQGS AND NESTS OF BRITISH BIRDS 
 
 By FRANK FINN, F.Z.S. With 20 coloured plates, and many other illustrations, 
 both coloured and uncoloured, of all the British Birds' Eggs, reproduced from actual 
 specimens. 
 
 PETS AND HOW TO KEEP THEM 
 
 By FRANK FINN, F.Z.S. With 107 illustrations, mostly from photographs, and 
 including 12 coloured plates on art paper. 
 
 WILD FRUITS of the COUNTRYSIDE 
 
 By F. EDWARD HULME, F.L.S. , F.S.A., etc. With 36 coloured plates by the 
 Author, and 25 illustrations from photographs on art paper. 
 
 OUR BRITISH TREES AND 
 HOW TO KNOW THEM 
 
 By FRANCIS GEORGE HEATH. With 250 illustrations. 
 
 29 
 
RECENT BOOKS 
 
 Unruly Daughters M ' Thou " md 
 
 A Romance of the House of Orleans 
 
 By H. NOEL WILLIAMS 
 
 Author of " Five Fair Sisters," etc 
 With photogravure plate and other Illustrations 
 
 In one volume, demy Svo, cloth gilt and gilt top, 1 6s. net. 
 
 " This extremely lively, and, we mast also say, highly scandalous book. . . . The 
 author is one of the greatest authorities on the period, and his work, which is admirably 
 done, introduces us to a family which, if decidedly objectionable, is, historically speaking, 
 one of the most interesting in the world."— Globe. 
 
 The Tragedy of an Army: 
 
 La Vendee in 1793 
 By I. A. TAYLOR 
 
 Author of "Madame Roland," "Queen Hortense and her Times," 
 " Queen Christina of Sweden," etc 
 
 In one volume, demy Svo, cloth gilt and gilt top. l6s. net. 
 
 With photogravure frontispiece and other illustrations 
 
 " Miss Taylor has scored a .great success. In a perfectly natural way, by the art 
 Which conceals art, she has drawn a most moving picture of one of the most touching 
 •pteodea in the world's history. The book is a historical romance of the first order, and 
 plain history in this case is far more romantic than the fiction of Victor Hugo."— Standard. 
 
 How to Listen to an Orchestra 
 
 By ANNIE W. PATTERSON 
 Mus. Doc, B.A. (Univ. of Ireland) 
 //* crown Svo, cloth gilt, 5s. net. 
 With numerous illustrations on art paper. 
 
 This book is addressal to the vast multitude of listeners to music, who would never 
 think of reading an academical treatise on Instrumentation. Indeed, the vast majority of 
 musical amateurs, particularly those who are hearers rather than performers of music, 
 know nothing of the concert platform beyond what they see of it from the auditorium. 
 It is, therefore, not for those who make music, but for those for whom music is made, 
 that the author has attempted in this book to introduce, with as little formality as possible, 
 each separate member of the great family of Sound sources which constitutes the orchestra. 
 
 100,000 copies of this remarkable work have been already sold. 
 
 The Human Slaughterhouse: 
 
 Scenes from the War that is sure to come 
 
 In crown Svo, with pictorial wrapper in colours, IS. net. 
 
 " Nothing that we have ever read approaches it. We have no doubt that it will make 
 its way all over the world. It is a terrific book— a book whose only excuse is its awful 
 truth."— Globe. 
 
 30 
 
THE FIFTY-TWO LIBRARY, 
 
 Edited by ALFRED H. MILES. 
 
 The "Fifty-Two Series" forms an excellent library of fiction for 
 young people. The stories are by the best writers for boys and girls, 
 including : - 
 
 G. A. Henty 
 W. Clark Russell 
 G. Manville Fenn 
 W. H. G. Kingston 
 R. M. Ballantyne 
 Captain Mayne Reid 
 Gordon Stables, M.D. 
 Ascott Hope 
 
 R.N. 
 
 F. C. Selous 
 Robert Chambers 
 R. E. Francillon 
 David Ker 
 
 Mrs. G. Linnjetjs Banks 
 Rosa Mulholland 
 Alice Corkran 
 Sarah Doudney 
 
 and Many Other Well-known Writers. 
 
 In large crown Svo, luindsome cloth gilt, 400-500 pages, with iH nitrations. 
 
 3/6 each. 
 
 These volumes are also Issued with bevelled boards and 
 full gilt edges, 5 - each. 
 
 FIFTY-TWO STORIES FOR BOYS 
 FIFTY-TWO STORIES FOR GIRLS 
 FIFTY-TWO MORE STORIES FOR BOYS 
 FIFTY-TWO FURTHER STORIES FOR GIRLS 
 FIFTY-TWO STORIES FOR BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 
 FIFTY-TWO STORIES FOR GIRLHOOD AND YOUTH 
 FIFTY-TWO STORIES OF THE INDIAN MUTINY 
 
 AND THE MEN WHO SAVED INDIA 
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 FOR BOYS 
 FIFTY-TWO STORIES OF GRIT AND CHARACTER 
 
 FOR BOYS 
 FIFTY-TWO STORIES OF WILD LIFE, EAST AND 
 
 WEST 
 
 3i 
 
Hutchinson's If- net Novels 
 
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 THE BEST AUTHORS 
 
 An Entirely New Novel 
 In crown 8vo, cloth gilt, with pictorial wrapper 
 
 FATHER O'FLYNN h. de vere stacpoole 
 
 Author of "The Ship of Coral," "The Blue Lagoon," etc. 
 
 This is an Irish story, delightfully told by Mr. Stacpoole. The 
 heroine is a young Irish girl, Eileen Pope, who, after bewitching 
 all the men of her own countryside, herself falls a victim to the 
 charms of a young Englishman, whom she at first affected to 
 despise. But the reader will probably be most interested in Father 
 O'FIynn, the nominally subsidiary character who provides the title 
 for the book ; he is typically Irish, and one of the author's happiest 
 creations. 
 
 ALREADY ISSUED 
 
 Each in crown 8vo, cloth gilt, with coloured wrapper 
 
 ROBERT HUGH BENSON | ROBERT HIGHENS 
 
 1 The Necromancers 7 A Spirit in Prison 
 
 3 None other Gods 
 41 The Coward 
 
 DOROTHEA G0NYER8 
 
 4 The Strayings of Sandy 
 
 MAUD DIVER 
 
 36 Lilamani 
 
 BARONESS VON HUTTEN 
 
 9 The Lordship of Love 
 
 10 The Green Patch 
 
 WILLIAM LE QUEUX 
 
 11 The Confessions of a 
 
 Ladies' Man 
 
HUTCHINSON'S I/- net NOVELS 
 
 VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED— continued. 
 
 F. FRANKFORT MOORE 
 
 12 I Forbid the Banns 
 
 BARONESS ORGZY 
 
 13 Petticoat Government 
 
 14 The Elusive Pimpernel 
 
 15 A True Woman 
 
 ELLEN THORNEYGROFT 
 
 FOWLER 
 
 5 A Double Thread 
 
 TOM GALLON 
 
 6 Tatterley 
 
 EDEN PHILLPOTTS 
 
 16 The Three Brothers 
 
 Bach in crown 8vo, with pictorial cover in colours 
 
 A SPINSTER 
 
 23 The Truth about Man 
 
 ALLEN RA1NE 
 
 17 Torn Sails 
 
 18 A Welsh Singer 
 
 OLIVE 8GHREINER 
 
 19 The Story of an 
 
 African Farm 
 
 KATHERINE CECIL 
 
 THURSTON 
 
 20 Max 
 
 EMILE ZOLA 
 
 21 The Ladies' Paradise 
 
 22 The Mysteries 
 of Marseilles 
 
 RENE BAZIN 
 
 ■2i This— My Son 
 
 DOROTHEA CONYERS 
 
 42 The Arrival of Antony 
 
 FRANK DANBY 
 
 26 Let the Roof Fall in 
 
 COSMO HAMILTON 
 
 27 The Blindness of 
 
 Virtue 
 
 BARONESS VON HUTTEN 
 
 39 Sharrow 
 
 LUCAS MALET 
 
 38 Adrian Savage 
 
 ARTHUR MORRISON 
 
 28 Green Ginger 
 
 W. B. MAXWELL 
 
 37 Mrs. Thompson 
 44 In Cotton Wool 
 
 KATHLYN RHODES 
 
 30 The Desert Dreamers 
 
 H. DE VERE STACPOOLE 
 
 31 The Ship of Coral 
 
 40 The Order of Release 
 
 CYNTHIA STOCKLEV 
 
 32 Virginia of the 
 
 Rhodesians 
 also 
 
 KEBLE HOWARD 
 
 34 "Chicot" in America 
 
 OLIVE CHRISTIAN MALVERY 
 
 35 The Soul Market 
 
 " England's Own Jungle " 
 
 OAKLEY WILLIAMS 
 
 The Human Slaughter 
 House 
 
 33 
 
Hutchinson's 7d. Novels 
 
 Printed in clear type on good paper and tastefully bound 
 
 in art cloth with gold lettering, designed title-page and 
 
 frontispiece on art paper and attractive wrapper in colours. 
 
 7d. net. 
 
 FORTHCOMING VOLUMES 
 
 The Trampling of the Lilies RAFAEL SABATINI 
 The Eternal Quest J. A. STEUART 
 
 The Third Miss Wenderby 
 
 MABEL BARNES-GRUNDY 
 
 RECENTLY 
 
 The Sheep Stealers 
 
 The Dawn of All 
 
 The Shutters of Silence 
 
 Poppies in the Corn 
 
 A Quaker Wooing 
 
 The Web of the Spider 
 
 Kingsmead 
 
 Love and the Poor Suitor 
 
 Christopher 
 
 Colonel Stow 
 
 ISSUED 
 
 VIOLET JACOB 
 
 ROBERT HUGH BENSON 
 
 G. B. BURGIN 
 
 Madame ALBANESI 
 
 Mrs. FRED REYNOLDS 
 
 H. B. MARRIOTT WATSON 
 
 BARONESS VON HUTTEN 
 
 PERCY WHITE 
 
 RICHARD PRYCE 
 
 H. C. BAILEY 
 
 The Confessions of a Ladies' Man WM. LE QUEUX 
 The Speckled Bird By the Author of "St. Elmo" 
 
 OTHER VOLUMES 
 
 Robert Hugh Benson 
 
 The Conventionalists 
 
 M. E. Braddon 
 
 •♦Beyond These Voices 
 A Lost Eden 
 
 Rosa N. Carey 
 
 Mollie's Prince 
 My Lady Frivol 
 
 Mary Cholmondeley 
 
 Prisoners 
 
 Dorothea Conyers 
 
 Lady Elverton's Emeralds 
 Two Impostors and Tinker 
 Some Happenings of Glen- 
 dalyne 
 
 Evelyn Everett- Green 
 
 The Silver Axe 
 
 34 
 
HUTCHINSON'S 7d. NOVELS— continued 
 
 Justus Miles Forman 
 
 The Stumbling Block 
 
 Ellen Thorneycroft 
 
 Fowler 
 
 The Farringdons 
 
 Mrs. Hugh Fraser 
 
 A Little Grey Sheep 
 
 Mabel Barnes -Grundy 
 
 Hilary on Her Own 
 
 "Handasyde " 
 
 The Heart of Marylebone 
 
 H. Rider Haggard 
 
 Fair Margaret 
 
 Henry Harland 
 
 The Royal End 
 
 Joseph Hatton 
 
 By Order of the Czar 
 
 Anthony Hope 
 
 The Indiscretion of the 
 Duchess 
 
 C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne 
 
 The Filibusters 
 
 "Iota" 
 
 A Yellow Aster 
 
 Jerome K. Jerome 
 
 Tommy & Co. 
 
 William Le Queux 
 
 The Gamblers 
 
 The Under Secretary 
 
 A. W. Marchmont 
 
 By Right of Sword 
 
 W. B. Maxwell 
 
 Seymour Charlton 
 
 F. F. Montresor 
 
 At the Cross Roads 
 
 Into the Highways and 
 
 Hedges 
 The One Who Looked On 
 
 David Christie Murray 
 
 A Rising Star 
 
 Eden Phillpotts 
 
 The Thief of Virtue 
 
 Richard Pryce 
 
 Jezebel 
 
 Allen Raine 
 
 Garthowen 
 
 Mrs. Baillie Reynolds 
 
 Thalassa 
 
 The Man Who Won 
 
 The Supreme Test 
 
 Mrs. Baillie Saunders 
 
 Litany Lane 
 
 The Mayoress's Wooing 
 
 The Bride's Mirror 
 
 May Sinclair 
 
 The Helpmate 
 The Divine Fire 
 
 Mrs. Thurston 
 
 The Gambler 
 
 Percy White 
 
 Park Lane 
 
 Dolf Wyllarde 
 
 A Lonely Little Lady 
 
 35 
 
Hutchinson's Sixpenny Novels. 
 
 A 8erles of COPYRICHT NOVELS by the Leading: Authors, clearly and well 
 printed, with attractive coloured pictorial wrappers. 
 
 OYER TEN MILLIONS SOLD. 
 
 New Volumes 
 
 293 The Heart of a Child FRANK DANBY 
 
 365 They and I JEROME K. JEROME 
 
 369 The Green Curtain M. E. BRADDON 
 
 370 For Henri and Navarre DOROTHEA CONYERS 
 
 347 Peggy, the Pilgrim G. B. BURGIN 
 
 348 A Spirit in Prison ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 349 Mrs. Keith Hamilton ANNIE S. SWAN 
 
 350 Fanuela G. B. BURGIN 
 
 366 The Royal End HENRY HARLAND 
 
 351 An Accidental Daughter COSMO HAMILTON 
 
 352 Mademoiselle Celeste A. FERGUSON KNIGHT 
 
 353 The Millionaires F. FRANKFORT MOORE 
 
 354 The Way of the Spirit H. RIDER HAGGARD 
 
 355 Guy Fulkes of the Towers E. EYERETT-GREEN 
 
 356 Gretchen "RITA" 
 
 357 The Burden Bearers ANNIE S. SWAN 
 
 358 A Woman's Way G. B. BURGIN 
 
 359 Lady Q— Mrs. BAILLIE SAUNDERS 
 
 360 The House on the Mall EDGAR JEPSON 
 
 361 The Serpent's Tooth Mrs. B. M. CROKER 
 
 362 Calvary "RITA" 
 
 363 Where there's a Will E. EYERETT-GREEN 
 
 364 A Winnowing ROBERT HUGH BENSON 
 
 367 Satan Sanderson HALLIE ERMINIE RIYERS 
 388 The Pursuit FRANK A. SAYILE 
 
 371 Love's Recompense STELLA M. DURING 
 
 A Complete List of Hutchinson's 6d. Novels can be obtained on application. 
 
 36 
 
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