mwm-y 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 A PEW PRESS OPINIONS ON 
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 By "IOTA." 
 
 ATHENAEUM. 
 
 "The warmest of welcomes is due from the reading 
 public to any new author who conspicuously unites the 
 qualities of intuition, candour, respect for the human and 
 the divine, and such a natural straightforwardness as, taken 
 together with the other three qualities, cannot fail to touch 
 and move the heart. A welcome of this kind is unques- 
 tionably due to ' Iota.' Few who read these three volumes 
 will deny to ' Iota ' an ample, if need be a generous, recog- 
 nition of the manner in which she has achieved her purpose. 
 The characters are drawn with a notable combination of 
 delicacy and downrightness, and with a pathos which is as 
 effective as it is refined." 
 
 SPECTATOR. 
 
 " A remarkable performance, the author having singular 
 command of striking phrases and a genius for suggesting 
 rather than describing character." 
 
 SPEAKER. 
 
 "We do not pretend to be able to do justice to A 
 Yellow Aster in the space at our command. It is no 
 ordinary novel, either in conception or in treatment, and 
 we feel no surprise at the gossip which has attributed it to 
 at least one woman of well-recognised genius. Altogether 
 a notable book." 
 
 DAILY TELEGRAPH. 
 
 " A Saul has arisen among the fictional prophets. A 
 Yellow Aster is distinctly a work of genius remarkable for 
 novelty of plot, force of diction, grace of literary style, and 
 subtlety of psychical analysis. In short, A Yellow Aster 
 is one of those rare novels of superb quality which compel 
 the iciest criticism to thaw and resolve itself into warm 
 admiration and unqualified praise." 
 
 WESTMINSTER GAZETTE. 
 " A first impression is that A 'e/low Aster is one of 
 the very best novels we have read for many months ; a 
 
 A 
 
 a
 
 PRESS OPINIONS (Continued). 
 
 second, that, in saying this, we do it rather less than justice. 
 For it is a novel apart, with a strikingly original subject, 
 which is worked out with a skill which is altogether unusual. 
 This is a strong and excellent story, which, with all its 
 pathos and tragedy, has the refreshment of a tonic." 
 
 DAILY CHRONICLE. 
 
 " The main idea is a fine one, and is finely treated ; 
 half a dozen chapters of real power follow one another 
 with a noble swing and a sustained force that never 
 degenerates into mere excitement. The book is a Clevel- 
 and interesting one ; it is about something, and about 
 something which is new, because people have only just 
 begun to think and talk about it. It will not only be read, 
 it will be useful as well as entertaining to those who 
 read it." 
 
 THE WEEKLY SUN. 
 
 " Unmistakably the book of the hour. The dialogue is 
 sparkling, and is irradiated ever and anon by bright flashes 
 of humour ; and it abounds in fine passages. A Yellow 
 Aster must leap into wide and ever wider popularity." 
 
 LADY'S PICTORIAL. 
 " Every one has been discussing a new novel. A Yellozu 
 Aster has made a great and immediate success purely on 
 its own merits." 
 
 QUEEN. 
 " ' Iota ' has achieved a brilliant success." 
 
 GLASGOW HERALD. 
 "The theme is an interesting one, and it is treated with 
 remarkable ability by ' Iota,' whose touch is singularly 
 firm, and whose portraiture is brilliant and telling. A 
 Yellow Aster is quite distinctly above the ordinary run 
 of novels, and we are glad to welcome so shrewd and 
 clever a writer as ' Iota.' " 
 
 WESTERN MORNING NEWS. 
 " A book which is so powerful, that whether you like 
 it or not, an obligation is upon you to return to it and 
 look again." 
 
 London : HUTCHINSON & CO., 34, Paternoster Row.
 
 A TELLOW ASTER
 
 "And if this fought-for climax h ever 
 reached, and science, creeping along 
 the path of experiment, so invades the 
 realm of Nature that a blue chrys- 
 anthemum or a yellow aster can be 
 produced at will, the question still re- 
 mains, has Nature been made more 
 beautiful thereby?" 
 
 TWELFTH EDITION 
 COMPLETING FIF- 
 TEENTH THOUSAND
 
 A 
 
 YELLOW 
 
 ASTER 
 
 BY 
 
 IOTA 
 
 LONDON f894 
 
 HUTCHINSON £rC9 
 
 3-fr PATERNOSTER ROW 

 
 Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
 
 43 
 C\\7u 
 
 IS 
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The stable-yard of Waring Park seemed to be slightly 
 off its head on a certain fine afternoon in June. Such 
 an afternoon as it was, so sweet and so soft, so full 
 of fragrant, sleepy haze, that any sound louder than 
 the sing-song of a cricket must have distracted any 
 ordinary nerve-possessing mortal. 
 
 On this particular afternoon, however, the sole occu- 
 pants of the yard were the stable-boys, the groom's 
 urchin, and the under-gardener's lad. And as none of 
 these had yet reached the level of nerves, whilst the 
 blood of all of them throbbed with the greed for illegal 
 sport in every shape, their state of lazy content was 
 in no way upset by a medley of blood-curdling shrieks, 
 squeals, and gobbles that issued from the throats of a 
 little boy and a big turkey, which the boy was swinging 
 round and round by the tail, from the vantage-ground 
 of a large, smooth, round stone. And this he accom- 
 plished with an amount of strength that was preter- 
 natural, if one had judged by the mere length of him, 
 
 15: >
 
 2 A YELL OW A STER. 
 
 and had not taken into consideration the enormous 
 development of the imp's legs and arms. 
 
 The stable-boys grinned, and smoked like furnaces 
 as the show proceeded, and the other two cheered 
 like Trojans, in the cruelty of the natural boy ; and it 
 might have gone badly for the turkey if there had not 
 swooped down upon him and his tormentor, just in 
 the nick of time, a little, lean, wiry woman, armed with 
 an authority which even the imp, after one spasmodic 
 struggle, saw best not to gainsay. 
 
 "Master Dacre, whatever do you do it for? Dc 
 you think the bird has no feelings ? There is nc 
 sense in such goings-on." 
 
 " There is sense," spluttered the boy at full speed 
 " I like bein' swung, and I like swingin' the turkey, 
 and I'll learn him to like it too ; and if he don't learn 
 that, anyway, he'll learn something else, which is life's 
 discerpline, which father says I'm learnin' when you 
 whip me. If I want it, so does the turkey, and wuss. 
 I b'longs to higher orders nor beasts and birds." 
 
 Here the grins of the stable-boys broke into hoarse 
 guffaws, and Mary's ire culminated in a sharp rebuke 
 all round. 
 
 14 Go to your work, you idle fellows ! I told your 
 father long ago, Jim, what 'ud be the latter end of you. 
 As for you, Robert, I could cry when I think of 
 your blessed mother ! And what business have you 
 in the yard ? " she cried, turning on the two younger 
 sinners. " Be off with you this instant ! 'Tis easy to 
 see none of the men are about. You two, Jim and 
 Robert, you'd be surprised yourselves if you could see 
 what soft idiots you look, with them stumps of pipes 
 between your jaws. Look, Master Dacre, look at the
 
 A YELL OW A STER. 3 
 
 bird's tail ! Haven't you any heart at all ? The 
 creature might have been through the furze covert." 
 
 "There's not a feather broke," said the boy, after 
 a critical survey — " not one. I believe that tail were 
 made for swingin' as much as my arms was." 
 
 For an instant words failed Mary, and she employed 
 herself hushing the bird into his pen. When she 
 came back, Dacre had disappeared, and the yard 
 seemed to be quite clear of human life, not to be 
 traced even by the smell of shag tobacco. 
 
 Pursuit was useless, as Mary very well knew, so she 
 returned to her nursery a good deal down at heart, 
 muttering and murmuring as she went, — 
 
 " Oh Lord ! whatever is to be the end of it all ? 
 Learning is the ruin of the whole place ; and yet them 
 children is as ignorant as bears, excepting for their 
 queer words and ways. Set them to read a Royal 
 Reader, or to tot up a sum, bless you, they couldn't for 
 the life of them. And the tempers of the two," she 
 went on, putting the cross stitches on a darn, " their 
 parents had no hand in them, anyway. Where they 
 got 'em from the Lord only knows. Tempers, indeed ! 
 And from them two blessed babies as bore 'em ! " She 
 lifted her head and glanced out of the window. 
 
 " Look at 'em," she whispered, " hand in hand up 
 and down the drive, talking mathymatics, I'll be bound; " 
 and Mary's eyes returned to her basket a trifle moist. 
 She had nursed Mrs. Waring and Mrs. Waring's 
 children, and she was a good soul, with a deal of 
 sentiment about her. 
 
 As it happened, Mr. and Mrs. Waring were not 
 discussing mathematics. They were just then deeply 
 and solemnly exercised in their minds as to the exact
 
 4 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 date of a skeleton recently unearthed from some red 
 sandstone in the neighbourhood. They had dismissed 
 the carriage at the hall gates, and were now hot in 
 argument concerning the bones, each holding diamet- 
 rically opposed views on the subject, and each 
 struggling hard to prove his or her side. 
 
 Now and again the husband's voice rose to a pretty 
 high pitch, and his fine mouth was touched with a 
 sneer, and the wife's eyes flashed and flamed and shot 
 out indignant wrath. Her hat had fallen off far down 
 the drive, and her rings of yellow fluffy hair fell wildly 
 over her forehead ; one small hand was clenched in 
 eager protest, but the other was clasped tight in her 
 husband's. 
 
 They always went like this, these two ; they had 
 got into the foolish way very early in their acquaintance, 
 and had never been able to get out of it. 
 
 Suc-denly some common hypothesis struck them 
 both at once, and Mrs. Waring cried out with a gasp, — 
 
 " If we can prove it, I am right ! " 
 
 "Yes, if you can prove it, darling, that's the point, 
 and I hope that you never may. Have you any idea, 
 dear love, what the proving of this will undo, what it 
 must upset ? " 
 
 " I think I have," she said slowly, her blue eyes 
 gleaming eagerly ; " but it seems to me whenever a 
 great hubbub is made about the upsetting of some 
 theory, that it generally ends in being much ado about 
 nothing, and that the new thing that springs from the 
 ashes of the old dead is infinitely more beautiful than 
 ever its predecessor was, for it is one step nearer the 
 truth." 
 
 " Dearest, we must end our talk," groaned Mr.
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 5 
 
 Waring, peering with terrified looks through his eye- 
 glasses. " Here is Gwen, most slightly clad, and of a 
 bright blue tint, pursued by Mary. I fear very much that 
 story of Boadicea you told her has instigated her to 
 this action. I think, dearest, that if you will excuse me, 
 I will go to the study and work out this question of 
 date." 
 
 Mr. Waring turned nervously, and made a gentle 
 effort to disengage his hand from his wife's, but she 
 clutched him firmly. " Henry ! " she cried, " you 
 would not desert me ? " 
 
 "Oh, my dear," he gasped, "what can I do ? The 
 child must be cleansed and, I presume, punished. I 
 can be of no use," and he still showed signs of flight ; 
 but the horror-stricken eyes of his wife, fixed plead- 
 ingly on him, made him waver and wait. 
 
 By a superhuman effort Mary got up first. 
 
 " Oh, ma'am," she shrieked, in tones that went 
 through Mrs. Waring's head, " Oh, ma'am, look at her ! 
 I found her with nothing on but this rag and some 
 leaves, painted blue, and varnished — varnished, sir, 
 eating acorns outside of the orchard fence. It's com- 
 mon indecency, ma'am, and if it's to continue I 
 can't " 
 
 By this time Gwen had arrived, desperately blown, 
 but overflowing with words. Rather an advantage 
 under the circumstances, for her parents had not one 
 between them. 
 
 " Mother, I were a woaded Briton, and blue all over. 
 Mag Dow did me behind and I done the front, and it 
 aren't common naked if queens done it like you said. 
 She did, Mary, say it Thursday, when she begun the 
 history course. Dacre was to be a woaded king too,
 
 6 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 but he were a beast, and wouldn't do nothing but 
 swing turkeys for discerpline." 
 
 " Mary, I think perhaps you should give Miss Gwen 
 a bath, and then we will consider what further course 
 to pursue." 
 
 Mrs. Waring caught her skirts nervously and drew a 
 step nearer to her husband. 
 
 " A bath, ma'am ! Don't you see she's painted and 
 varnished ? — no water'll touch that, ma'am ; turpentine 
 must be, and cart grease, not to say paraffin, — and, 
 ma'am, the indecency ! " 
 
 " Please, Mary," implored the tortured woman, " oh, 
 please take her away and put the cart grease on — and 
 — the other things, and we can then talk over the 
 rest." 
 
 Here the light of a sudden inspiration leapt into her 
 face, and she turned to her husband. " Henry," she 
 said solemnly, " do you not think that Gwen should 
 go to bed ? She seems to me," she continued, taking 
 a critical survey of the blue-daubed figure, " she seems 
 to me a little old for such very peculiar adaptations of 
 history." 
 
 " To bed," remarked the husband, infinitely relieved. 
 It seemed quite a happy solution to the whole question, 
 and must fulfil every purpose, — be Gwen's Nemesis, 
 a salve to Mary's hurt morality, and a merciful deliver- 
 ance to all others concerned. " Yes, a very sensible 
 suggestion of yours, dearest. I consider that it would 
 be a most salutary measure to send Gwen to bed." 
 
 " Indeed, sir," remarked Mary, without a particle of 
 the satisfaction that might have been expected from 
 her, " Miss Gwen will be fit for no other place by the 
 time I've done with her, what with the paraffin, and
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 7 
 
 the scrubbing, and her skin that tender. Oh come, 
 Miss, come away," she cried grimly, laying hold of 
 Gwen. 
 
 " Grace, my darling," said Mr. Waring, passing his 
 free hand wearily over his brow, " such scenes as these 
 are indeed upsetting. I am quite unable to take up 
 the thread of our discourse." 
 
 " I feel as you do, Henry," said his wife sadly ; "we 
 seem to have so very little time to ourselves." 
 
 " Do you think, Grace, we should procure a tutor for 
 those children ? Let me see, how old are they ? " 
 
 " I have their ages down somewhere on my tablets," 
 said Mrs. Waring, rummaging in her pocket, and pro- 
 ducing a little book of ivory tablets. She consulted 
 it anxiously. 
 
 " Just fancy ! " she exclaimed, with astonished eyes, 
 " Dacre will be seven in April — I had no idea he 
 was so old — and I see Gwen is just twelve months 
 younger." 
 
 " I think their physical powers are now fairly 
 developed — indeed, I am of opinion that the boy's 
 development will continue to be mainly physical ; he 
 will, I fear, run much to cricket and other brutal 
 sports. But no doubt he has some small amount of 
 brain power; that should be made the most of. We 
 must now get some one who will undertake this business 
 for us, dear love." 
 
 " Ah," said his wife plaintively, " the feeding and 
 physical care of children seem terrible responsibilities ; 
 they weigh upon my life. But the development of 
 their intellectual powers ! — I wish the time for it had 
 kept off just a little longer, until we were farther on in 
 our last, our best work. And if," she said wearily,
 
 8 A YELL O TV A STER. 
 
 "you think the brain power of Dacre, at least, so in- 
 significant, the task becomes Herculean." 
 
 " We must consult the Rector, dear." 
 
 " I feel," said Mrs. Waring, " that in some way we 
 must have failed in our duty. The grammar that child 
 spoke was appalling, as was also the intonation of her 
 words. I wonder how this has come to pass ? I 
 should have thought her mere heredity would have 
 saved us this." 
 
 Mrs. Waring sighed heavily ; fate seemed against 
 her ; even heredity was playing her false. 
 
 " It is shocking, dear, but accountable," said her 
 husband soothingly ; " you are disturbed, and forget 
 how widely modified heredity becomes by conditions. 
 If I recollect aright, Gwen mentioned one — Mag — h'm, 
 Dow. Children are imitative creatures. And now, 
 with regard to another matter. I think, dear love, it 
 were wiser if you discontinued that proposed course 
 of history. The imagination of our daughter Gwen 
 must not be fostered until it has a sounder intellectual 
 basis to work up from." 
 
 " Very well, dear ; " and Mrs. Waring sighed a sigh 
 of relief. No one but herself knew the horrible 
 embarrassment . of having those two children sitting 
 opposite to her, and glaring all over her, while she dis- 
 coursed to them on the customs of the early Britons, 
 and it was only a consuming sense of duty that had 
 seized on her, and forced her to the task.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Not only the entire county of shire, but even the 
 
 whole University of Cambridge, had been thrown into 
 quite a whirl of emotion by the marriage of Henry 
 Waring and Grace Selwyn, the most unexpected ever 
 concocted in heaven or on earth. 
 
 A Senior Wrangler and a Fellow of his college, who, 
 at twenty-six, eats, drinks, and sleeps mathematics, 
 besides being possessed of other devouring passions 
 for certain of the minor sciences, does not seem a very 
 fit subject for matrimony, with its petty follies and 
 cares. 
 
 If a man is, besides, the son of a cynic and a book- 
 worm, who loathed and eschewed the sex with bitter 
 reason, and if his own practical knowledge had been 
 gained chiefly through the classics and the bedmakers, 
 — the one of which appeals as little to one's sense 
 of propriety as the other to one's fleshly sense — to 
 him must the prospect of a domestic and patriarchal 
 career seem as remote as it is undesirable. 
 
 And yet Henry Waring found himself, to his constant 
 and increasing bewilderment, embarked on one almost 
 before he altogether knew where he was. 
 
 The year previous to his marriage he had suffered 
 a good deal from ennui. A favourite theory in geology, 
 
 9
 
 io A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 over which he had peered himself half blind, was 
 suddenly exploded without hope of reconstruction. 
 He felt rather lost and distrait, and cast about for some 
 tangible solid brainwork. 
 
 But to pass the time until the fresh inspiration came 
 on, he took to propounding stray problems, and — 
 through the press — launching them broadcast over the 
 land. Strange to say, he got answers, and by the 
 score. A good many more " mute inglorious Solons " 
 infest our villages than we have any notion of. 
 
 Mr. Waring groaned in spirit and mourned over the 
 depravity of the race as he read their epistles, and 
 drew farther back than ever into his shell. If the 
 average man and woman without the academical walls 
 resembled these productions, the less one had to do 
 with them the better, he very reasonably reflected. 
 
 After this had been going on for the space of three 
 months, he came, one morning, down to breakfast. 
 He felt very sick at heart ; his pupils seemed so 
 amazingly full of enthusiasm for minor concerns, and 
 so absolutely lacking in it for the one thing needful, 
 that he was cut to the quick and moved to much gentle 
 wrath. And then these letters ! They were fast 
 becoming his Nemesis. 
 
 He ate his breakfast, and watched with unwonted 
 pleasure some dust motes dancing in a sunbeam ; and 
 raising his eyes to follow them, they unconsciously 
 strayed farther out into the college quad, where the 
 dew was still sparkling on every grass blade, and 
 shimmering on every flower. 
 
 Mr. Waring felt quite cheerful and revived as he 
 pushed away his plate and cup and began to open his 
 letters. Letter after letter was laid down, a spasm of
 
 A YELL OTV A STER. 1 1 
 
 pain passing each time across his face, and more than 
 once an audible groan escaped him. 
 
 At last he picked up a letter gingerly, as he handled 
 all this variety of correspondence — the village mathe- 
 matician being an unclean beast — but this letter seemed 
 somehow different ; he turned it over with growing 
 interest, and even took the pains to examine the 
 postmark ; then he opened it, and found a quite different 
 production from any he had yet received. 
 
 First, on opening it, a curious indefinite scent struck 
 on his nostrils. He sniffed it up perplexedly ; some 
 queer old memories began to stir in him, and he paused 
 a moment to try and classify them, but he could 
 not, so he set himself to examine the contents of the 
 missive. 
 
 The answer given to his problem was accurate, 
 and the accompanying remarks clear, strong, and to 
 the point, written in a woman's hand, and signed with 
 a woman's name, " Grace Selwyn." 
 
 That letter was answered before the breakfast things 
 were cleared away, and certain fresh problems enclosed 
 which were not sent in any other direction. 
 
 Many letters went and came after that, containing 
 problems and their answers, the answers always full 
 of that strange, vague, delicious scent, which seemed 
 to waft itself through the study and to remain there, 
 caught with the dust motes in the sunbeam. 
 
 A longing and a yearning for those little notes began 
 to take possession of Henry Waring, and to disturb 
 his mind. Old memories of the time when he wore 
 frocks, and toddled, began to haunt him, and his work 
 was no longer done by reflex action. 
 
 He consulted a doctor, but as he only confided half
 
 1 2 A YELL OW A STER. 
 
 his symptoms to that scientific person, quite suppress- 
 ing the letters, the doctor felt rather out of it, and 
 prescribed quinine, which had no effect whatsoever. 
 
 One morning the yearning for a letter grew suddenly 
 quite overmastering ; and none came. This was the 
 climax. By a sudden impulse, which he never 
 succeeded in explaining to himself on any satisfactory 
 grounds, Mr. Waring went to his bedroom, knelt down 
 by his big chest of drawers, and proceeded to pack a 
 little valise with every article he did not want, leaving 
 out all those he did. Then he stepped into a cab and 
 made for the station. 
 
 Towards the close of the day he presented himself 
 at the door of a queer old red-brick manor house in 
 Kent, owned by a Colonel Selwyn and his wife, and 
 asked simply for " Miss Grace Selwyn." 
 
 In three months from that day the two came down 
 the path hand in hand, and stepped out together on 
 life's journey ; and six months later, through the death 
 of a cousin, Waring Park fell to them and mads up for 
 the loss of the Fellowship.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The very day after Gwen's flight into history, Mr, and 
 Mrs. Waring walked up to the Rectory, and got 
 through their talk with the master of it. 
 
 They might not have been altogether so prompt, 
 being still absorbed body and soul in the skeleton, had 
 not Gwen been suffering tortures from the state of 
 her skin, through the combined action of paint, paraffin, 
 and other unguents, and from a bad and quite abnor- 
 mally noisy cold, which kept her presence en evidence 
 whenever she, by fits and starts, broke loose from the 
 nursery, and which was a weapon judiciously wielded 
 by Mary to keep her parents well up to the mark. 
 
 They had delivered themselves to Mr. Fellowes, 
 and were now walking down the Rectory drive, both 
 looking a little pained. Mr. Waring's disengaged hand 
 was pressed to his forehead and his brows were knit, 
 and Mrs. Waring looked as if she were engaged in a 
 silent struggle against disturbing thoughts. 
 
 The air was still and soft, and some stray stars had 
 already taken possession of the evening sky, where 
 the little streaks of rose, left by the sun, looked quite 
 out of place, — and felt it too, seemingly, for they were 
 creeping behind the hills with a soft little shiver of 
 
 13
 
 14 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 dismay, like a timid guest who suddenly discovers 
 that every soul but himself has left. 
 
 The silence and the calm helped Mr. and Mrs. 
 Waring, who were both trying to throw off the 
 consideration of minor matters and to return to that of 
 vital affairs. Generally so easy, like the slipping back 
 of a pair of seals into the water after a rugged land 
 journey, to-night this seemed a strangely hard task 
 to tackle. 
 
 They often seemed to receive the same impression 
 at the same moment, and something or other in the 
 bright glow of the Rectory study, and in the perfectly 
 at-home and at-ease air of a pair of twins of whom 
 the Rector's wife had temporary charge, and had 
 brought in to say good-night, had given them a little 
 jar which would keep quivering. 
 
 These were not sufficiently tangible sensations for 
 discussion ; there seemed nothing in them that these 
 two persons could seize upon and argue from to any 
 definite purpose, so they were struggling to put them 
 behind them. Mr. Waring succeeded, his wife was 
 not so fortunate. 
 
 The vague feeling was quite like a Jack-in-the-box 
 for sudden appearances during the next few days, and 
 whenever it sprang up, a little ache followed hot on the 
 heels of it. 
 
 At last she made a supreme effort to regain her 
 reason, and remarked, with rather deceptive cheerful- 
 ness, — 
 
 " I think, dearest, we may now dismiss this matter 
 from our minds. I am quite willing to trust it in Mr. 
 Fellowes' hands, as I presume you are. You do feel 
 perfect confidence in him ? " she questioned a little
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 15 
 
 anxiously, as Mr. Waring did not speak for a 
 moment. 
 
 " Darling, yes ! " he said with a start, " in this 
 matter certainly — yes, — this is quite within his role ; I 
 do not think we could find a wiser helper or counsellor. 
 And he is so thoroughly a gentleman; he so kindly 
 waived his theological objections when he found that 
 on this part of the question we had both arrived at a 
 fixed conclusion. Yes, in the choice of a tutor we 
 could desire no better adviser. At the moment you 
 spoke I was speculating upon Fellowes from another 
 point of view ; I am really quite astonished that a man 
 so advanced in some phases of thought should be so 
 limited, so — almost retrograde in others, and, above 
 all, so strangely content with his life, with hardly a 
 moment in it for undisturbed reflection, and no moment 
 at all for any attempt at valuable work. I cannot 
 imagine either where he finds companionship." 
 
 He paused to sigh. " We have so little time, love, 
 to give to him, time is so very much to us. Our other 
 neighbours seem to hunt when they do not fish, and 
 fish when they do not hunt ; they can have neither time 
 nor strength left for intellectual culture. Then they 
 have, I believe, duties ; they sit on Boards and Councils, 
 and no doubt follow other pursuits of like order; but 
 as companions, naturally, they must be impossible. 
 Then as to his wife, she is a comely person — she is, 
 is she not, dearest ? I am so very poor a judge — but 
 I do not perceive any glimmerings of thought in her. 
 You can better judge of her, dear ; have you ever dis- 
 covered any ? " 
 
 Mrs. Waring considered for a mcmaent, then she 
 shook her head.
 
 1 6 A YELL OW A STER. 
 
 11 1 do not think I have expected any," she said, " so 
 indeed I have hardly looked. I have only thought of 
 her kindness, and of her knowledge of children and 
 their feeding. I am very fond of her — and so very 
 grateful — but I have never once really talked to her." 
 
 " I thought so ; it is strange — very strange. How- 
 ever, I am most thankful this business is concluded, we 
 may now be able to begin those papers to-night — I 
 look forward with much pleasure to them. Curious 
 what very opposed views we take on this subject — 
 h'm, I fancy I am right, dear." 
 
 Mrs. Waring thought not, and signified the fact by a 
 very decided shake of her sweet golden locks, which 
 looked more like spun silver in the moon's rays. 
 
 They had now reached the great flight of steps that 
 flanked either side of the entrance door. 
 
 When they got to the top, by one accord they 
 paused, and leaned over the castellated ivy-clad wall 
 that protected the platform of granite slabs connecting 
 the two flights of steps, and gazed out into the evening ; 
 but a sudden horrible sound made Mrs. Waring jump 
 nervously, then quiver from head to foot, and caused 
 her husband's brows to contract as sharply as if there 
 had been a spring in them. 
 
 It turned out to be Gwen scraping an old violin, and 
 coughing frightfully all down the corridor. 
 
 " Dearest, do you think we should summon Dr. 
 Guy ? " said Mr. Waring, when they had somewhat 
 recovered. 
 
 " Oh no, love ; Mary assures me that there is no 
 danger whatever ; she calls this dreadful noise ' a simple 
 stomach cough.' " 
 
 " In that case we must request Mary to keep her in
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 17 
 
 the nursery, such noises are most upsetting. Pray be 
 as quick as you can, my darling, we might get to work 
 at once. But surely it is not the gong I hear ? " 
 
 "Love, I fear it is only too true," cried Mrs. 
 Waring in trembling distress. " I had no idea of the 
 lateness of the hour ; and oh, Henry, we were also late 
 yesterday, and the servants were quite upset. Oh, you 
 will be quick with your dressing, will you not ? " 
 
 Then with one last little hand-squeeze she fled to 
 her room, with a terrified glance into the solemn face 
 of a hurt-looking footman.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 When he had bidden farewell to the Warings in his 
 porch, and watched them curiously till a clump of firs 
 hid them from him, Mr. Fellowes went back to his 
 study, with a very curious assortment of expressions on 
 his face ; there was a good deal of amusement there, 
 a decided touch of sadness, much doubt, and some 
 dismay. 
 
 He had, however, little time to reduce this confusion 
 to order ; an impatient tap at the door was followed by 
 the entrance of a bright, eager little woman, in a long, 
 trailing garment of a curious combination of heliotrope 
 and pale yellow. 
 
 " John, are you ready for me ? May I hear all of 
 it ? " she demanded, putting her little hand on his big 
 one. 
 
 " I feel in rather a yeasty condition at this minute, 
 but I'll subside shortly, no doubt. Will you be able to 
 hold out a little longer ? " 
 
 " Haven't I borne it for two mortal hours and twenty 
 minutes ? Were they talking all the time ? I was in 
 an awful fright it was something I mustn't hear. Two 
 scientists in trouble about their souls, perhaps ? " 
 
 "Fortunately I can divulge all I know, but you 
 
 needn't be flippant. It's all very funny, but it's just as 
 
 woefully sad. What on earth are you at ? " 
 
 iS
 
 A YELL OW A STER. 1 9 
 
 " Pinning up my skirts ; the fire would ruin this 
 colour in a night. Do you like my gown ? " 
 
 " I do, but whether the parish will is another 
 question." 
 
 " Oh, never mind the parish, I'll teach it ; you have 
 no idea how easy it is to get round people if you know 
 the track. Is that yeast risen high enough, or has it 
 gone sad ? Remember, I have held out a frightful 
 time." 
 
 " Hold out another five minutes while I write a note. 
 I must catch this post." 
 
 When Mr. Fellowes brought his little seventeen- 
 year-old wife home to the respectable parish of Waring, 
 just four years before this time, it was the generally 
 expressed opinion of most competent judges that he had 
 a good deal to answer for. 
 
 To begin with, she was an American — that fact in 
 itself was quite without precedent. The entire clerical 
 annals of the diocese did not furnish a like example. 
 This, to any right-minded judgment, was as much as 
 an insult to the parishioners, who were in consequence 
 put to much trouble and inconvenience in rubbing up 
 their imaginations to tackle the case, having no previous 
 experience to go upon. 
 
 A deceased colonel, of whom they knew a great deal 
 too much, and a living peer, of whom, on the contrary, 
 they knew a great deal too little, both inhabitants of 
 the county, had indeed married Americans, the results 
 in the one case being disastrous ; of the other they 
 possessed no proven data, but they were at least at 
 liberty to draw their own conclusions. 
 
 But for a parson to do this thing ! It was unheard 
 of, and partook of the nature of a scandal.
 
 2 o A YELL OW A STER. 
 
 Then Mrs. Fellowes was pretty, and gay, and, it 
 must be confessed, chic. 
 
 They could have put up with the prettiness, and even 
 the brightness, — they were used to certain varieties of 
 both these things in their own girls, — but the chicncss ! 
 — that was the quality their souls struck against ; it 
 seemed expressly to have been sent by Satan himself 
 " to buffet them withal." And the girl's dress for a 
 clergyman's wife was simply audacious ! And yet 
 when a large and representative female conclave had 
 met and dissected her " things " over half a dozen 
 teas, they were forced to the conclusion that she had 
 not a complex or expensive article in her whole 
 wardrobe. 
 
 " So much the worse," Lady Mary, the leader of the 
 parish ton, remarked, and with some reason too ; " it 
 shows that it is not the clothes that stamp the girl, it 
 is the girl who stamps the clothes. There is some- 
 thing fundamentally wrong there." 
 
 This, being put in the form of an axiom, spread 
 widely, and carried much weight. 
 
 This was four years ago, however, and things had 
 changed a good deal. Mrs. Fellowes' husband was no 
 fool ; he knew what he was about when he brought 
 home, as the finish to the one long holiday of his life, 
 the little New England girl to be his helpmeet.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " Now, Ruth," said Mr. Fellowes when he had finished 
 and despatched his note, and, lighting a cigarette, had 
 settled himself in his armchair opposite to her, " I'll 
 yield you up all I know. It was the queerest inter- 
 view I ever had with that queer pair. — You needn't 
 wriggle with anticipation, my dear, no human creature 
 could reproduce the scene with any justice to himself 
 or to his subject. — Waring had most palpably put on 
 for the occasion a brisk man-of-the-world air that was 
 superb, but his wife seemed dreamier than ever, and 
 limper, and her hat looked rather askew." 
 
 " It always does, but do go on." 
 
 " Directly you give me a chance, dear. Waring 
 opened the campaign with a little small talk as he 
 always does, but it was quite off-hand and reckless 
 to-day. He had hardly set his gentle tap fairly flowing, 
 however, when his wife suddenly woke up, and chipped 
 in with quite phenomenal clearness and precision. 
 
 " ' Dear Henry,' she said, with mild authority, ' sup- 
 pose we state the object of our call, we can converse 
 afterwards.' 
 
 "Then it all came out. First one stated a fact or 
 a theory, then the other had his innings. It was hard 
 enough to follow the two, and to watch them at the 
 
 21
 
 22 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 same time ; one never likes to miss the moment when 
 they clasp hands again, and the little looks they cast 
 on each other in the process. It appears the pair 
 meditate a definite experiment on those wretched 
 children, and want my help in securing a bear-leader 
 for the task." 
 
 " Good gracious ! " gasped Mrs. Fellowes. " Go 
 on," she commanded grimly, " what is it ? " 
 
 " On no account whatever is either to be sent to 
 school or allowed to hold intercourse with other 
 children; no woman is to have any hand in their 
 tuition; naturally, cricket, football, and every other 
 boyish sport is to be carefully excluded from the 
 curriculum, and all Christian teaching is to be utterly 
 tabooed." 
 
 " Mercy on us ! " 
 
 " The facts of the Old Testament are to be imparted 
 to them with other ancient history, and they are to be 
 well instructed in the natural sciences. By these 
 means they will learn to know God in His Works — 
 with a capital ' W ' — Mrs. Waring observed this 
 solemnly to her husband for my benefit. ' Exactly, 
 my darling,' he replied, with a most surprising alacrity 
 — they had rehearsed this point, those two babies ! 
 
 " When the children are launched into their teens, 
 and have presumably arrived at an age of more or 
 less discretion, the Bible and any other existing 
 evidences of Christianity obtainable are to be formally 
 presented to them. The imps may then receive these 
 or reject them, according to their particular turn of 
 mind, but in no case are they to be biassed. 
 
 "The parents have seemingly occupied themselves 
 a good deal with this part of the experiment, and
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 23 
 
 regard this presentation of a choice of beliefs as a sort 
 of function on which they mean to take exhaustive 
 observation." 
 
 The Rector paused to roll another cigarette. When 
 he had finished and lighted it, he went on, — 
 
 "Ruth, you are an intelligent woman, and won't 
 misjudge me when I say that this experiment in itself 
 seems to be a reasonable one. 
 
 " This Bible-reading question is an awful one," he 
 went on, musing aloud. " We all have had — every 
 decent English man, woman, and child of us — the Bible 
 religiously drilled into us from the time of conscious- 
 ness till whatever time we can manage to read it for 
 ourselves ; then we are exhorted to carry on the exercise 
 independently. And a good percentage of people do. 
 You'd be astonished at the number of people who never 
 miss reading their Bible every day of their lives, and 
 perhaps more astonished still if you were to know the 
 amazingly small effect it has on the lives of these 
 people. Even from an intellectual point of view, it is 
 incredible to me how little the average human being has 
 grasped the heritage he possesses in this book. 
 
 " I was speaking to a girl the other day — by far the 
 most intelligent one I know in these regions ; she was 
 talking to me with perfect unrestraint and frankness 
 about all sorts of things. She told me she could see 
 no beauty whatsoever in the Bible, and that she had 
 never been able to derive an atom of encouragement 
 or assurance from anything in it. If it did not bore, 
 it upset her, and made belief harder. It had become a 
 mere patter to her by vile reading and intonation, and 
 the remarkable turns of thought given to it by many 
 minds insulted her reason. Even the poetry of the
 
 24 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 diction had been spoilt for her, and seemed, she said, 
 to reek of half-fledged curates. Under some conditions 
 this experiment of the Warings might prove a success." 
 
 " Oh, but with that mother ! " 
 
 "Ah, yes, that alters the whole aspect of affairs ! If 
 you could only have heard the passionless, analytical 
 style in which Waring and his wife discussed the 
 matter, and speculated on the issue, which they think 
 will be more typical in Gwen than in Dacre, his brute 
 strength being, in their opinion, his strong point, and 
 his theological side hardly worth considering. They 
 throw it in, however, ' careless like,' as, if the experi- 
 ment is to be tried, it is just as easy to try it on two 
 as on one." 
 
 " Mercy on us ! " again said Mrs. Fellowes, clattering 
 the fireirons viciously. 
 
 " By the way, Waring amused me intensely by one 
 revelation he made ; he could hardly get it out, and I 
 saw him fling a pathetically-deprecating glance at his 
 wife, and give her hand a squeeze before he began. 
 He felt he had to account for the luckless Dacre's 
 strength of legs, of which he seems to have as poor an 
 opinion as the Psalmist; he feared I might fall into the 
 error of casting the blame on him or his wife, so he 
 determined I should know the real cause. ' You will 
 hardly believe me,' he observed, ' when I tell you that 
 my wife, with her refined intellectuality, is the outcome 
 of long generations of soldiers and of — ahem — famous 
 duellists, and I fear our son, Dacre, is a very clearly- 
 defined specimen of throwing-back.' Poor Mrs. Waring ! 
 she felt her ancestry keenly, and got as red as a rose 
 during the confession." 
 
 " Goodness gracious me ! What a woman ! what
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 25 
 
 a pair ! What in the name of goodness brought the 
 two together, and made them marry each other, and 
 produce children ? If I were Providence and had that 
 on my mind, I'd never look up again." 
 
 " My dear child ! " 
 
 "John, in the present state of my feelings — brought 
 on by you yourself, recollect — you must forget your 
 sacerdotal character, and only remember my state of 
 original sin. Why should two beautiful children's 
 lives be spoilt for the vagaries of a pair who never had 
 any right to bear children ? Think of Gwen's sad old 
 face, full of the trouble of all ages ; think of her naughti- 
 ness, with that horrible unique sort of infernal touch 
 about it : that painting herself blue is the most childish 
 escapade I remember. 
 
 " I was at Mrs. Doyle's yesterday, and she was 
 telling me a lot about Mrs. Waring before we came. 
 After Dacre's birth, she said, it was absolutely ghastly 
 to see her with the child ; she was terrified to hold 
 it, and trembled like a leaf whenever she absolutely 
 had to. Poor Mrs. Doyle, she got quite irritated and 
 excited about one thing. It seems she could not nurse 
 her own children at all, and that Mrs. Waring was a 
 capital mother from that point of view, and Mrs. Doyle 
 seemingly could not see at all why an unnatural little 
 bundle of scientific data should score off her, a good 
 wholesome creature made for a mother, in this manner." 
 
 " It was certainly too bad, and one would never have 
 expected it of Mrs. Waring," said the Rector, laughing. 
 
 " Oh, and whenever Mary brought either of the 
 babies to her, or that she met them in the corridors or 
 about the grounds, Mrs. Doyle says her one request 
 was that Mary should take the creature away and give
 
 26 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 it food, it looked faint ! They were both huge, flourish- 
 ing, healthy babies, I hear." 
 
 " Ruth," said Mr. Fellowes suddenly, "I wish those 
 people would keep away from church." 
 
 " You are shedding your sacerdotal character with a 
 vengeance ! What do you mean ? " 
 
 " You have no idea how they distract me, sitting 
 there together with their eyes far away, and their ears 
 sealed, except at the odd times they give those spas- 
 modic simultaneous starts, and twist their thoughts 
 back for the minute to what's going on." 
 
 " But, John, for the sake of the parish " 
 
 "If the parish can't keep up to its ordinary pretty 
 low water-mark without this prick to its piety, it must 
 be in a poor state, and even more of a discredit to me 
 than I imagined. They are far too good to be asked 
 to play this weekly farce for the parish's sake. It was 
 Hopkins, not I, who insisted upon this church-going, 
 and of course they gave in in their gracious, simple 
 way ; and now, not even a water spout would stop 
 them from coming, they are so concerned for my feel- 
 ings. What a pair of unconscious Christians they are 
 to be sure ! One sees it cropping up in all directions." 
 
 " I wish it would appear anyway in the management 
 of their children ; I don't see many traces of it there. 
 When is this wretched experiment to be set going ? " 
 asked Mrs. Fellowes. 
 
 "As soon as I can procure a suitable person to 
 conduct it. I think I know a fellow who might do." 
 
 "What business have they with children, those 
 two ? " cried Mrs. Fellowes, with a little spasm of pain 
 twisting about her mouth. " I don't believe those 
 children ever got properly hugged in all their lives by
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 27 
 
 that inhuman little mother of theirs. And oh, Gwen's 
 dress ! That is awful ! " 
 
 "Ah, yes, that makes the whole affair very much 
 sadder ! Don't you think dinner is ready ? Yes, those 
 children have a great deal to fight against ; it isn't their 
 ancestors alone who will handicap them, poor little 
 beggars." 
 
 " Cartloads of saints for ancestors wouldn't be worth 
 a rap to them with an eerie little creature like that for 
 a mother," said Mrs. Fellowes hotly, in the pretty, lazy 
 drawl into which her touch of twang had developed 
 itself. " I pity that wretched coming tutor." 
 
 She let her skirts drop, and gave them a 'dexterous 
 kick as she went out, to give them the correct "hang."
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 There was no time lost in setting the experiment going, 
 and it was soon in full swing. Its birth pangs were 
 awful, and embraced in their throes a great number of 
 persons. The parents' sufferings were so complex and 
 so quite peculiar to themselves that it is impossible to 
 expound them to an unsympathising public. 
 
 The tortures that couple endured during the first 
 few months after the initial stage of intellectual develop- 
 ment had been instituted, and was being dealt with, 
 were severe ; but they were in no wise connected with 
 their children's anguish at the sudden and unexpected 
 onslaught on their higher parts. 
 
 Their misery arose chiefly from the jarring and 
 inconveniently close contact with tutors, whom, in their 
 unconscious Christian way, they found it their duty to 
 admit for some part of every day into the edge of their 
 lives. This was a terrible discipline, more especially 
 as during these times the unhappy instructors also 
 thought it their duty to ease off their slough of learning 
 and to expand their social parts, and thus the manufac- 
 ture of small talk became a daily necessity in the lives 
 of the distracted pair. 
 
 They had both taken infinite pains to provide silent 
 entertainment for their guests, — or rather succession 
 
 of guests, — in the tutoring line. The standard scientists 
 
 28
 
 A YELL O W A STER. 29 
 
 were first tried, and these seeming to have but little 
 effect, a whole cartload of mixed literature, including 
 all the rag-tag and bobtail of fiction the bookseller 
 wanted to get off his hands, was imported, and spread 
 about enticingly. Theology and ethics were also given 
 a show ; till at last all the tables at one side of the room 
 were spotted with slate, yellow, and dull blues and 
 browns, and every form of journal from the Times to 
 the Police News was scattered broadcast over the place, 
 and all with a view to lay hold on the tutorial mind, 
 and keep it independent of its entertainers. 
 
 Directly the tutor — for the time being — entered at 
 his appointed hour, they rose simultaneously from 
 their work, as if the same spring moved them. They 
 hurried towards him with outstretched hands, sat down 
 side by side facing him, and broke into conversation, 
 which, if gaspy, and at times inconsequent, from the 
 sudden upheaval of waves of thought in one or the 
 other of them, was kept up with gallant relentlessness 
 till the period of detention was at an end. 
 
 As soon as the clock announced this event, they 
 broke off suddenly with a click, and the tutor was, so 
 to speak, shot out, — and the rent he had made in the 
 lives of his entertainers was patched up as well as 
 might be for that day. 
 
 But during the entire first course of those tutors, 
 Mr. and Mrs. Waring felt always as if they were 
 suffering from ragged edges. 
 
 As for Gwen and Dacre, their first taste of reclama- 
 tion from the savage state was bitter, sudden, and 
 condign. Civilisation seems the last thing in the world 
 capable of soothing the savage breast, especially if the 
 savage who owns it is young, and in rude health.
 
 30 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 Then Mary suffered. It was a hard blow to find 
 her fledgelings torn from her in one fell stroke, and 
 only allowed to return at odd moments for repairs to 
 skin and clothes. 
 
 Poor Mrs. Fellowes fretted herself into a regular 
 feverish attack. 
 
 As for the tutors themselves, the less said of their 
 sufferings the better. Three succumbed to them in 
 four months. 
 
 The one that followed, a most excellent person, and 
 cut out for a family man, broke off his engagement for 
 fear of consequences ; his slight substratum ot scientific 
 knowledge having got so much stirred up while at 
 Waring Park that he grew bewildered. 
 
 If such results as he had to deal with, he reflected, 
 were to be seen in the green tree, what might not come 
 to pass in the dry ? And he was well aware of the 
 cloudy ancestry of his lady-love, and on his own side 
 had not very much to boast of. It was unfortunate ; 
 but it certainly did seem sacrilegious impertinence in 
 him to attempt what his betters had so egregiously 
 failed in.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Many tutors had come and gone, and much had been 
 endured both from the children's point of view and 
 from that of the instructors. 
 
 But time went on unheeding, and Gwen and Dacre 
 were lying under an old cherry-tree in the orchard one 
 day late in August. 
 
 The sun shone aslant through the crimson-tinted 
 leaves above them, and threw flickering rosy shadows 
 across the faces of the two as they lay there in the 
 cool grass, with wisps of fern under their heads for 
 pillows. 
 
 Dacre, however, seemed to benefit but little from 
 this arrangement ; his head was oftener off its support 
 than on ; he twisted and turned, and wriggled and 
 plunged ; even his toes moved visibly through his thick 
 boots. 
 
 He was supposed to be reading, and kept up the 
 pretence from time to time ; but the words conveyed no 
 sense to his restless eyes, which moved as if they were 
 on wires. Now and again he got irritated, and threw 
 the book down with a snort. 
 
 The sister and brother spent much of their time 
 together nowadays. Fate had perhaps quite as much 
 
 3i
 
 3 2 A YELL 01V A STER. 
 
 to do with this close companionship as inclination, the 
 groom's boy and his like, except at stolen moments, 
 being for Dacre things of the past. 
 
 This and various other reforms had been brought 
 about by Mr. Fellowes and one tutor of an exceptionally 
 strong mind. 
 
 While Dacre wriggled, his sister lay quite still on 
 her back, with her legs stretched out, and with a 
 considerable reach of stocking visible between the 
 ed^e of her frock and her shoes. She had one arm 
 curled round her neck, with the sharp elbow stuck 
 out uncompromisingly in Dacre's direction. It was 
 useful as a buffer and saved her many a lunge. The 
 other hand held a book, a queer old edition of Elia > 
 which she was deeply sunk in until she fell to watching 
 Dacre, with a look of curious mockery on her red 
 curled lips. 
 
 " I'd give my eyes to go to school ! " burst out the 
 boy after an interval of comparative silence. Mutterings 
 never counted in Dacre. 
 
 "So you have said six times this afternoon, not to 
 mention the mutters," said the girl. " What do you 
 want to go to school for ? " 
 
 "You know without any telling." 
 
 " I want to hear again." 
 
 " To jeer at a fellow, I suppose ? " 
 
 11 I won't jeer, and I might help you," she said with 
 a laugh. 
 
 He looked at her face dubiously ; it was inscrutable 
 enough, but the mockery had left her lips. 
 
 " I want to go ; I hate to be here ; Greggs is big 
 enough fool, but not quite so much as the others ; he 
 ain't all bad, I'll say that. But what's he to other
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 33 
 
 boys, and cricket, and football, and larks — oh, you 
 
 know!" 
 
 " I wonder why on earth they let you read ' Tom 
 Brown,' when such heaps of books are forbidden," 
 said Gwen reflectively. " They have brought all this 
 on themselves," she added, knitting her brows in the 
 exact manner of her mother. "We have to bear 
 what we earn — we hear that often enough ; I don't 
 see why they shouldn't apply it to themselves. Dacre, 
 you're an awful ass; if I wanted all those things I 
 should have had them long ago." 
 
 ' All very well to say that," grunted the boy ; " I'd 
 like to know how." 
 
 " I'll tell you,— I'd worry till I got them." 
 
 " I worry pretty well as it is," he said, with a self- 
 satisfied grin. 
 
 "Yes, in a stupid, squally way. You get into a 
 rage, and make a row and an ass of yourself generally ; 
 then you get punished and repent, or pretend to, — 
 anyway, nothing is heard of you till the next bout. 
 You might be a dead cat for all the importance you 
 are— of course you're forgotten, and they go on working 
 in peace. 
 
 "Now, if I wanted a thing, and wanted it badly, 
 I should take good care never to be forgotten ; I 
 should let them see there was to be no peace as 
 long as I was in the house ; I should make myself 
 felt from the garrets to the kitchen ; — I should gain my 
 end," she concluded with calm finality. 
 
 By this time the sun had forsaken their tree and 
 had flickered on to one nearer the west, and in the 
 evening light her face gleamed out almost ghastly in 
 its pallor. 
 
 3
 
 34 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 " Gwen, you're queerer and queerer ! Why don't 
 you do all this for yourself? You are quiet enough 
 now, nothing only sulky : why don't you do what you 
 say I ought to yourself ? " 
 
 " For what ? " was the sharp retort. u I don't want 
 boys and cricket and football and larks." 
 
 " What do you want then ? " 
 
 She jumped up from her pillow and looked out 
 after the westering sun, her eyes dark and dilated, 
 her red lips parted. 
 
 " What do I want ? " she slowly repeated. " I want 
 — oh, you would not understand what I want, but 
 worrying won't get it." 
 
 She caught up her book again and threw herself face 
 downwards on the sward. 
 
 " That's the way ! You'll never tell me anything," 
 said Dacre angrily. 
 
 " I'll tell you one thing, and that is, I'll help you to 
 go to school ; and you'll go if you aren't a common ass, 
 and if you'll do all I tell you." 
 
 " Golly ! I'll do anything in the world for you if 
 you'll only get me out of this hole," he blurted out in 
 a spluttering fit of gratitude. " Perhaps, even, I might 
 help you to get what you want, if you didn't make 
 such a deadly secret of it," he added, looking at her 
 as if he might somehow extract it from her unawares. 
 
 But her lips were tightly shut, and her eyes looked 
 dead and cold. 
 
 "One might as well expect to get blood from a 
 turnip," muttered Dacre, in the choice vernacular of the 
 groom's boy. " Oh Lord ! that brutal bell ; lessons 
 again ! But you like 'em," he said, raising himself 
 slowly and turning on her vindictively.
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 35 
 
 " There's nothing else to like. Pick up your book 
 and come. I hate to look at Gregg's eyes when we 
 are late ; I think he had cats for his ancestors, and not 
 very long ago either — when he talks quick he always 
 spits. Oh, that vile bell ! we may as well run ; he can't 
 see us from the schoolroom window, or I wouldn't give 
 him that much satisfaction." 
 
 " When will you begin the help ? " panted Dacre, 
 as they pulled up at the nearest point out of sight of 
 the schoolroom. 
 
 " I'll think to-night and tell you. Ugh, Dacre ! wipe 
 your face, you get so perspirationy after the shortest 
 run ; I never do." 
 
 " No thanks to you, when one can see through you 
 for thinness." 
 
 The next evening, when lessons were put away and 
 the schoolroom tea over, Gwen, instead of absorbing 
 herself in a book until bedtime, as she generally did, 
 took a restless fit. She moved about in a noise- 
 less, sweeping way she had, threw the window open 
 breathlessly, and craned her head far into the breezy 
 night. 
 
 A sudden gust that was carrying on a wild dance 
 with some maple leaves caught sight of her hair and 
 seized on it as a new plaything, or perhaps mistook it 
 for some of the orange-gold leaves, and swept great 
 lengths of it out among them till her white face seemed 
 caught in a whirling net of brilliant gold. When she 
 drew back at last, panting, she shut the window, and 
 went over to Dacre. 
 
 " You're pretty tidy," she said, " for you ; but you 
 ihight just take that black smudge off your nose. Do 
 I look right ? "
 
 36 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 " You look as mad as a hatter, but you generally 
 do that, only I think your hair makes you look madder 
 than ever." 
 
 She caught her hair bodily, gave it a violent shake, 
 then took out her handkerchief and rubbed her cheeks 
 until they glowed scarlet. 
 
 "What are you at, making yourself like a turkey- 
 cock ? " demanded Dacre. 
 
 " We'll both go into the library," said she, in a sort 
 of studied calm. " I heard them go in after dinner, 
 and they think I'm sick and don't eat if I'm white. 
 Come on quick, now, while I'm red." 
 
 Dacre came near and looked into her face with some 
 curiosity. 
 
 " You're madder to-night than I ever saw you," he 
 observed. " You can go ; you will if you want to, of 
 course, — I'll not, not if I knows it." 
 
 " If you don't I shall do all I possibly can to keep 
 you at home." 
 
 That and her look were decisive. He followed her 
 with an angry snort, and they went swiftly down the 
 low, broad oak stairs, with their winding, curved balus- 
 trade, down through the softly-carpeted corridors. 
 When they reached the library door they stood, with 
 one accord, stock still. 
 
 " You're whiter than ever," said he. 
 
 "Wipe your nose; you've rubbed the black all over 
 it instead of off it. Am I red now ? " 
 
 " You're magenta." 
 
 " Come on, then." 
 
 When the door opened slowly, and showed both 
 their children standing in the soft glow of the lamps, 
 Mr. and Mrs. Waring started up in some dismay.
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 37 
 
 " Is anything wrong, my dears ? Are you ill ? " 
 cried Mr. Waring, while his wife came forward ner- 
 vously, and peered anxiously at the two from head to 
 foot. 
 
 By this time even Gwen's courage had waned, 
 and the old feeling of having come to judgment was 
 fast gaining on her. Dacre was already a flaccid 
 lump. 
 
 " You appear well, dears," said Mrs. Waring, raising 
 herself from her inspection ; " and Gwen's colour seems 
 to me to be healthier than usual." 
 
 Gwen felt smothered and speechless, but she made a 
 vehement effort, and got out in an appealing hushed 
 kind of way, — 
 
 "We are quite well, mother, but we came to see 
 you ; we thought you might have time to talk to us and 
 let us stay a little, we have been good at our lessons so 
 long." 
 
 The child lifted her eyes as she spoke, and turned 
 them hungrily from father to mother in a way that 
 sensibly embarrassed them. 
 
 Mr. Waring took his finger from between the pages 
 of a book, came forward, and looked searchingly into 
 his child's face and then at his wife, who seemed too 
 astonished to take any active part in the proceedings. 
 
 " Will you not sit down ? " he said politely, pulling a 
 couple of chairs towards the pair. "Pray sit down. 
 You have no objection, dearest, have you ? " 
 
 "No, oh no, I am very pleased indeed, and it is 
 also very pleasant to hear you are advancing in your 
 studies," said Mrs. Waring rather supinely. There 
 seemed so very little one could say to one's children. 
 Mrs. Waring passed her small hand across her brow,
 
 38 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 and tried to look unpreoccupied ; but it was hard not to 
 show feeling when a valuable train of thought was 
 broken, and hours of good work rendered null and void 
 by this unfortunate intrusion. 
 
 Her husband felt keenly for the gentle little woman, 
 and naturally a slight feeling of irritation smote him as 
 he turned his gaze on his inconvenient offspring, who 
 bore it in stolid silence. 
 
 Dacre cast one rapid murderous look on his sister, 
 then he sullenly accommodated himself to his surround- 
 ings, and sat on like a log. 
 
 As for Gwen, her tears were so near the surface that 
 she had to swallow them with a gulp, her eyes grew 
 dull and lifeless, the brilliant colour had all faded, and 
 her cheeks had a ghastly, streak}', livid look, from the 
 scrubbing. 
 
 "Would you like something to eat, my dears?" 
 said Mrs. Waring eagerly. She would not sit down, 
 but hovered about her children ; she could not fathom 
 Gwen's horrid look of temper, and by this time the 
 streaky cheeks had quite a revolting look. Her mother 
 started at sight of it, and whispered in a perfectly 
 audible voice, — 
 
 " Her skin seems unclean and mottled. Dearest, I 
 will speak to Mary — a Gregory's powder I should 
 recommend." 
 
 Gwen's flush deepened the streaks to lines of blood, 
 and she could hardly keep from shrieking out her 
 wrath and indignation, but she controlled herself, and 
 said, in a harsh, level voice, — 
 
 "We would like nothing to eat, thank you, we've 
 had our tea ; we came to see you, you don't want us. 
 Dacre, I think we might go."
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 39 
 
 Then, to the absolute staggering of the boy, she 
 turned, caught his hand, and, dragging him along by it, 
 went up and stood before her parents, her eyes gleam- 
 ing strangely. 
 
 " Good-night, mother ; good-night, father — oh, good- 
 night ! " 
 
 "Good-night, my dears," said Mr. Waring blandly, 
 and seeing that they still waited he stooped down 
 stiffly, and kissed the foreheads of both of them ; then, 
 with the air of a man who has done his duty, he 
 remarked, — 
 
 " Dacre's health seems to be more robust than his 
 sister's ; I think you are wise in recommending some- 
 thing of an anti-febrile nature." 
 
 The children were half out of the room by this time, 
 and Mrs. Waring's eyes followed them with a puzzled 
 stare. Something had evidently been forgotten. 
 
 "Ah, of course," she cried, her face lighting; and 
 running forward she put a soft detaining hand on a 
 shoulder of each of her children, and laid a small kiss 
 on the middle of Gwen's cheek. Then she stooped to 
 Dacre, and did the same by him. 
 
 She wondered a little, as she went up to Mary's 
 room, why Gwen shuddered when she touched her. 
 
 " I wonder if she's feverish," she thought. " Oh, 
 what agonies of responsibility parents have to endure," 
 she sighed, with yearning self-pity, as soon as she 
 reached the head of the stairs. 
 
 When the children got to the nursery, Dacre faced 
 his sister with glaring eyes. 
 
 1 Eeast ! " was his sole observation. 
 
 " Let me alone, oh, let me alone ! " she cried. " And, 
 Dacre, open the windows, I feel smothered."
 
 40 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 "You should live on the top of a windmill," he 
 grumbled, but he did as she bade him, and watched her 
 with some puzzled concern. 
 
 She soon recovered from her smothering, drew in 
 her head, and leaned against the window in silence for 
 a few minutes ; then she said, with calm decision, — 
 
 "Oh yes, you can go to school; there is neither 
 reason nor justice in your staying here. They might 
 have prevented it to-night if they'd liked." 
 
 " How ? " 
 
 " Oh, you wouldn't understand." 
 
 " Well, of all the beasts ! Girls' secrets are such 
 fools of things, too ! Don't look like that, it's awful, 
 with your scratchy face." 
 
 " Oh, go to bed, do ! " 
 
 " I wish you would ; I think you are going to be 
 sick; I'll call Mary." 
 
 "Dacre, don't dare to, I'm as well as anything. I 
 wish I was a witch, and could fly over those trees on 
 a broomstick." 
 
 She peered eagerly out of the window, out over the 
 tree tops, and the whirling leaves, up into the dark 
 heavens. 
 
 "You look witchy enough now, with your awful 
 yellow hair that looks as if it was alive with fire-flies." 
 
 "Dacre, go to bed, do; I want to think of the 
 plan." 
 
 " Oh, if you want that, I'll clear ; I'd have gone 
 before only I thought you were going to be sick." 
 
 Gwen turned a half-mocking, half-wistful look upon 
 him. 
 
 " You're a good old thing, and it isn't your fault if 
 you are an ass, only I wish you weren't," she said to
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 41 
 
 herself when he had gone; "it wouldn't all be so 
 wretched then." 
 
 She went off slowly to her little blue-and-white 
 bedroom, and let Mary put her to bed in a cold silence 5 
 which she positively refused to break.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The ins and outs and general details of Gwen's plan 
 of campaign would in nowise interest, much less edify 
 the moral reader. It is enough that the plan was a 
 brilliant success, and its organisation and execution 
 would have done credit to the Prince of Darkness 
 himself. Her tactics were by no means volcanic ; they 
 were resolute, gradual, and in a way scriptural. Line 
 upon line, precept upon precept, first the seed, then 
 the blade, then the full corn in the ear. When the 
 initial steps had been taken, just leaving the air well 
 charged with vague apprehension, and the minds of 
 men ripe for some new development, active measures 
 set in, in a careless, unconscious sort of way, as if the 
 divine order of things had just received a passing jar, 
 no more. But then this jar continued and increased 
 and grew in dimensions, till the very bones of the 
 jarred shook in their skins, and it was as much as their 
 souls could do to hold themselves in their bodies. 
 
 Three months after the plan's inception, the amazing 
 goings-on of Dacre, the wild originality of his pranks, 
 the consistent sustained diablerie of his outbursts, the 
 terrible all-pervadingness of his personality, had suc- 
 ceeded in completely upheaving the souls of his parents, 
 and filling the entire household with a fearful sense of 
 
 42
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 43 
 
 insecur^, as of a community conscious of the presence 
 amongst them of an invisible infernal machine, which 
 moves by some hidden power all over everywhere, and 
 can neither be caught nor compassed. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Fellowes, who kept a close eye on the 
 affairs of the Hall children, had felt now some time 
 that there was too much subtlety in this departure of 
 Dacre's to be all his own. 
 
 "The days of devil-possession are gone; I could 
 swear it's Gvven," said Mrs. Fellowes one day, smiting 
 her small hands together, and dropping a child's petti- 
 coat on which she had been sewing a button. 
 
 "I've been thinking so for some time," said her 
 husband; "all the same, I hardly see where the 
 'swear' mends matters." 
 
 " Oh, never mind ! When a woman's perturbed, 
 she often relapses into original sin ; it's a full year 
 smce I 'reckoned' — 'swear,' at least, is cosmopolitan. 
 I'll go up this minute and get to the truth of this; 
 Gwen hasn't been near me for a fortnight, and I've 
 been so busy, you see, I couldn't go near them." 
 
 " I shall go too, I must get a subscription for those 
 miserable Gows from Waring ; but, little woman, hadn't 
 you better lie down ? After five nights up with Jim 
 Brown, even you must want rest ! " 
 
 " Lie down ! No, no ; with this on my mind, why, 
 I couldn't rest a minute." 
 
 After a rather ineffectual attempt to bring Mrs. 
 Waring to a decent flesh-and-blood consistency, Mrs. 
 Fellowes retreated to the schoolroom. 
 
 " She grows worse and worse," she muttered, as she 
 let out some of her feelings in a sharp rap on the door. 
 
 Mr. Gedge, the present instructor, was not her
 
 44 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 husband's choice ; he was launched on the children by 
 a well-meaning uncle of Mrs. Waring's, who from time 
 to time swooped down on the family in a protective if 
 rather hawk-like fashion, and invariably set some 
 reform afloat among man or beast. 
 
 In this last visit he had let Gedge loose in the 
 schoolroom. The man was as little fitted to deal with 
 the plan's ramifications as a babe unborn. 
 
 When Mrs. Fellowes went in she got a howl of 
 welcome from Dacre ; Gwen gave her only a quiet 
 handshake, but the warm light that flashed into her 
 cold eyes told more than any howl. Mr. Gedge stood 
 up wearily and looked pleased. 
 
 "Do sit down," said he, casting a furtive, fearful 
 glance on Dacre. 
 
 He was in constant horrid dread of a new sensation. 
 They were so diverse, so swift in succession, one never 
 knew when one might not come on, and it might be 
 embarrassing if set going in the presence of a lady. 
 
 Dacre, however, his familiar being otherwise en- 
 gaged, was quiescent, and Gedge breathed freer. 
 
 " May I have Gwen for the afternoon ? " asked Mrs. 
 Fellowes. 
 
 She was amazed to see the hesitation on Gwen's 
 face and the actual look of dismay on Dacre's, but she 
 speedily fathomed the reason. 
 
 "I knew it," she said to herself; "Gwen is the 
 mover in the whole business." Then aloud, " Gwen, 
 you will come, dear, Mr. Gedge's eyes have said ' yes ' 
 already." 
 
 Mr. Gedge had a lively though bashful admiration 
 for the little American ; he beamed his assent in quite a 
 sprightly way. " It will be one less to cope with," he
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 45 
 
 reflected, " and I can perhaps get my poor Amy's letter 
 finished." 
 
 The devil, in a specially evil moment, had revealed 
 to Mr. Gedge's pupils the existence of this sweet young 
 woman, and had thereby added another hundredweight 
 to the millstone already encircling the neck of her 
 affianced. 
 
 Mrs. Fellowes looked with sudden sympathy at the 
 young man, then with twinkling eyes at his charges ; 
 he seemed so ludicrously out of proportion to his task. 
 
 " Poor thing ! " She thought it with such amused 
 vehemence it almost got spoken aloud. " Poor thing, 
 you shall have a peaceful afternoon for once ! " 
 
 " Mr. Gedge, do give me Dacre too ; do, just for one 
 day ! He shall go for a ride with Mr. Fellowes." 
 
 " Oh golly ! " muttered Dacre, dancing in his glee. 
 
 Gwen's face grew brilliant with joy ; she could now 
 go with an easy conscience ; she couldn't by any 
 possibility have left Dacre alone, he was too utterly 
 " an ass." She could now have a whole long afternoon 
 to be happy in ; she needn't think once all the time, 
 only just laugh and play and let herself be kissed — she 
 never by any chance ventured a kiss on her own 
 account — and she would feel Mrs. Fellowes' soft hands 
 on her head — she always brushed her hair for tea — 
 and hear her soft voice, and it would stay in her ears 
 making little tunes. And the Rector, he would be 
 good too, and remain in the drawing-room after tea — he 
 always did when they came — and he was always kind, 
 and told such funny stories. 
 
 Gwen's contained joy broke out in a prolonged 
 "Oh-!" 
 
 Mrs. Fellowes looked rapidly round the handsome
 
 46 A YELL OW A STER. 
 
 room and out into the Park, the finest in the county, 
 and back to the child's face. 
 
 " It is abominable, abominable," she thought angrily, 
 "Just to be away from the place for a few hours 
 transforms the child ; she is simply beautiful this 
 minute with that look — oh, it is outrageous ! Gwen, 
 love, run at once and put on your things, and, Dacre, 
 run down into the porch, I'll teli Mr. Fellowes that 
 you are going with him." 
 
 As soon as the children were gone she said kindly, — 
 
 " Mr. Gedge, you'll have a respite, anyway." 
 
 "Mrs. Fellowes," he burst out, " I am coming to see 
 the Rector; I have endeavoured, and I truly hope 
 conscientiously, to do my duty, but I find my present 
 position altogether untenable. I am not a very strong 
 man, Mrs. Fellowes, and I find that this life is fast 
 undermining my constitution." 
 
 He paused for a moment ; then he went on hurriedly, 
 in a sudden impulse of confidence, — 
 
 " Mrs. Fellowes, forgive my troubling you with my 
 affairs, but you are so very kind. I have hopes, very 
 dear hopes, and from various strange sensations in the 
 region of my heart when my struggles with Dacre have 
 been specially trying and prolonged, I have reason to 
 fear some fundamental lesion of the organ." 
 
 Mr. Gedge had just been reading up the heart in 
 some medical journal; he had also lately ascertained 
 that his maternal aunt had died of angina-pectoris, 
 so he was naturally upset in his mind. 
 
 " If one has hopes, Mrs. Fellowes," he went on 
 sadly, " one's duty seems to be to guard against 
 anything that must interfere with such hopes, always 
 supposing them to be lawful and right."
 
 A YELL OW A STER. 47 
 
 " Indeed, I quite agree with you," said Mrs. Fellowes 
 with much heartiness, and with an unholy tendency to 
 .laughter, — " I agree with you, and, no doubt, as is the 
 way of such things, your hopes are bound up in the 
 hopes and happiness of another. For her sake alone 
 you must consider your position seriously." 
 
 " Yes, I will turn my thoughts to some other sphere 
 of action ; but before I leave here," he added with 
 solemn resolve, " I deem it my duty to my employers 
 to represent to them the urgent advisability of sending 
 my elder pupil to a public school. I know you agree 
 with me in this, Mrs. Fellowes ? " 
 
 " Agree with you ! why, we have been fighting for 
 it for years." 
 
 " Then I may rely on your and your husband's 
 help in this matter ? " he asked, looking rather askew 
 admiration at her through his eyeglasses. 
 
 He had received a slight injury to one eye in his 
 youth, and according to Dacre it was now " a game 
 one." 
 
 By these suggestions of Mr. Gedge it will be seen 
 that G wen's leaven was working.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The decree had gone forth, and Dacre was to go to 
 Eton. Ancestral taint and sisterly guile had won the 
 day, though not without a tough struggle. The idea 
 of home culture, vague and ill-defined as it was, died 
 hard, and Mr. and Mrs. Waring still bemoaned their 
 fate daily in the intervals of work. 
 
 They were now much disturbed in their minds 
 concerning the plan of religion which they had con- 
 ceived in the tender youth of their offspring, and 
 which had been worked up to with rather more con- 
 sistency than usually characterised those plans of theirs 
 that dealt with outside and minor matters. 
 
 That it should have occurred to Henry and Grace 
 Waring was the most remarkable part of this plan. 
 They both looked upon religion as they did upon 
 art, as a thing apart and on a somewhat low level, 
 to be considered in leisure hours. In some phases 
 of mind they might indeed almost have been said 
 to glory in it, and to rejoice that the ages should own 
 such a heritage, just as one might rejoice in the work 
 of a great master. 
 
 They were, of course, both too appreciative of good 
 literature to have neglected the Bible; they knew 
 
 48
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 49 
 
 every twist and turn in it, as they did of the Koran 
 and the Brahminic Vedas. 
 
 As for doubts and things of that sort, they never, 
 so to speak, went in for them, their minds were not 
 of that order. In the same way the truths or the 
 untruths of Christianity seemed to them an interesting 
 enough study between working hours. In Mrs. 
 Waring's case, perhaps, they appealed fitfully to some 
 part of herself she never quite understood, that same 
 sentimental part that often suffered a keen stab, — for 
 instance in the case of the Rectory babies, and some- 
 times from a strange look in Gwen's face. But she 
 had almost ceased to speculate upon these odd sensa- 
 tions, and was inclined to put them down to a strain 
 of puritan blood that had somehow trickled into the 
 more vigorous fluid of her fighting forebears, which 
 perhaps might also account for her preference for 
 Christianity over other creeds. 
 
 It will be seen, then, that the mere reception or 
 rejection of Christianity by their children was a matter 
 of no vital importance to these parents. They were, 
 however, intensely interested in the result itself — that 
 was quite another thing. The phases of mind the 
 function must unfold, seemed certainly a subject worth 
 research, and filled them with the keenest interest. 
 
 "You are quite sure, dearest," said Mr. Waring, 
 a few days before Dacre's departure was to take place, 
 " that Mary has not tampered with the minds of our 
 children ? " 
 
 " I am certain — quite certain. She has certainly 
 seemed to resent my orders in this matter, but she 
 has not disobeyed them." 
 
 Mrs. Waring sat down and tried to take up the 
 
 4
 
 5 o A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 thread of her thoughts, but it was broken again in 
 a minute by Mr. Waring pushing back his chair 
 suddenly, and looking at her in a disturbed, restless 
 way. She went over, laid her hand on his shoulder, 
 and looked anxiously into his face. 
 
 " Are you troubled, love ? can I not help you ? " 
 
 " I should be glad, my Grace, if I felt more con- 
 vinced that the minds of our children are really a 
 blank as far as any knowledge of religion goes." 
 
 " I am sure Mr. and Mrs. Fellowes " 
 
 " Dearest, the idea is revolting ! Fellowes, a gentle- 
 man ! And his wife ! She is your friend, that is 
 sufficient." He bowed as his grandfather, the courtliest 
 man in a courtly court, might have done. " But I fear 
 that when very young the children may have received 
 foreign impressions; the class that people the stable- 
 yard are often quite versed in what they term ' the 
 truths of the Gospel.' " 
 
 " But so long ago ? " 
 
 "Not so very long after all, and impressions are 
 most tenacious things, more especially erroneous ones. 
 Does the fact not hamper us daily, dearest? Even 
 this moment," he went on musingly, "after all these 
 years, I can recollect praying at my mother's knee 
 with a quite astonishing fervour, which now seems 
 next to reasonless, and yet I doubt if the impression 
 of that fervour will ever leave me." 
 
 " In our children's case we can only hope, dearest," 
 she said. 
 
 Her husband's fear depressed her ; she was herself 
 feeling just then, and rather to her cost, how very 
 remarkably clinging old impressions were. They were 
 hovering round her at that very moment, and entwining
 
 A YELL OW A STER. 5 1 
 
 her in a maze of the old dead visions of dead days, 
 when she was a child herself, and wore long lawn 
 night-gowns with frilled sashes, and said prayers. 
 She went over to the fire to make it up, and ended by 
 putting it out. 
 
 "Oh, Henry," she said at last, from the hearthrug, 
 shivering a little, " what if, after all, we might just as 
 well have allowed our children to run along the common 
 groove like those very fat children of Mrs. Manners ? 
 They seem wholesome and not devoid of intelligence. 
 And then they are handsome and well grown, yet the 
 boy is ten and not even in Latin — Mrs. Manners 
 considers that in ten years the fact will make no differ- 
 ence in his career. On the contrary, look at Dacre ; 
 think of the load of anxiety and thought we have 
 
 expended upon him, and yet " She broke off 
 
 sadly. 
 
 Her husband regarded her for a minute with sympa- 
 thising eyes. 
 
 "Dearest," he said at last softly, "you are apt to 
 forget the fact that our poor Dacre is — I hate to hurt 
 you, dear, but you know it — he is most unfortunately 
 a throwing-back, and must follow the fate of his kind. 
 He must enter the army ;— it is deplorable, but so it 
 must be." 
 
 " The army !" murmured the small woman, wringing 
 her hands softly. " It is sad, it is hard on us. I do 
 think, dearest, we might have been more successful in 
 our children." 
 
 " Our child," interrupted her husband. 
 
 Her eyes clouded, and she repeated hesitatingly, 
 " Yes, our child — G wen's abilities are considerable." 
 
 "Yes," said her father with unmixed satisfaction;
 
 52 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 " my hopes rest on Gwen, her abilities are indeed 
 most gratifying." 
 
 For one fleeting moment, which she blotted from 
 her memory with shame, her mother almost wished 
 they weren't ; she might then be easier to get some 
 knowledge of, and not quite so alarming.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The function was arranged for a certain Wednesday 
 in February, the day before Dacre was to leave for 
 school, and the children had been given formal notice 
 to appear in the drawing-room at three o'clock. They 
 were now waiting in the schoolroom speculating on 
 the event. They knew it must be something very 
 unusual, from the fact of the drawing-room, of all 
 places in the world, being appointed as the scene of 
 action. 
 
 It was at the end of a dismal six weeks of holidays, 
 mostly spent, by reason of colds, between the nursery 
 and the schoolroom. Indeed, it had been the very 
 flattest bout of holidays the two had ever yet endured. 
 
 Dacre's object being attained, there was no further 
 use for organised " cussedness," so he had relapsed 
 into his ordinary state of gusty wickedness, which, 
 being natural, was nothing very especial in the way 
 of a pastime, — quite unlike the six months' excitement 
 of his raid on society. There was nothing to supply 
 the place of this now, nothing — neither cricket, foot- 
 ball, nor even riding : so small wonder that life was 
 pretty much of a blank to the boy. 
 
 It was even worse for Gwen, the mover and the 
 mainspring of the enterprise. When she found herself 
 
 53
 
 54 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 landed victoriously on the threshold of her goal, with 
 her conscious triumph there got mixed other sensations 
 of a more unpleasant nature. The horrible feeling of 
 flat inaction after the whirl of action, that plays havoc 
 with all great conquerors, seized on this little one, 
 and did the same by her. And then she had none of 
 the fetes and the follies that follow hot on the heels of 
 other conquerors for their consolation. She felt the 
 most miserable victor breathing; her soul was brimming 
 with bitterness, and the overflow vented itself largely 
 on Dacre's luckless pate. 
 
 The children, having nothing to go upon, could arrive 
 at no very satisfactory solution of their mysterious 
 summons. Mary's look, as she smoothed Gwen's hair, 
 put Dacre's collar straight, and kept on fussing round 
 when she had no more to do, made things look more 
 mysterious still ; then she sighed like a steam-engine 
 the whole time, which added a presage-of-ill character 
 to the mystery that irritated Gwen horribly. 
 
 " For goodness' sake, Mary, do go ! " she cried at 
 last in despair, " go ! You are like the old turkey 
 when her ducklings ran out into the lake the other 
 day." 
 
 Mary straightened her glasses and looked at the 
 child. " 'Tis brains is the matter with you, my dear," 
 she said ; " however could you guess at the very 
 thoughts as were running in my head ? I was think- 
 ing of the creature, flapping there helpless, and I was 
 lik'ning myself to her that very minute. Master Dacre 
 would never have guessed it, bless him ! " 
 
 Gwen felt she had scored a point, and continued, — 
 
 " What is going to happen to us, Mary ? " 
 
 Mary regarded her in silence.
 
 A YELL OW A STER. 55 
 
 " If you know you might tell us," said the girl im- 
 patiently ; " or," she added scornfully, " are you still 
 more like the turkey, and are only frightened because 
 you know so little ?— you look like that." 
 
 " Oh Lord ! " muttered the woman under her breath, 
 feeling very hard hit ; but she replied with dignity, 
 " My dear, it certainly ain't my place to tell you what 
 your parents have thought fit not to acquaint you 
 with." 
 
 " They see fit to acquaint us with nothing, as far as 
 I can see. Well, as you can't tell us, or don't know 
 anything to tell us, do go away, please. You move 
 about so, and look so queer, you make one think 
 that a horrible new thing is coming on us — so do 
 go, please. I'm not cross or nasty, only I feel queer 
 myself and frightened. I could scream and yell and 
 howl this minute— oh, I wish Mrs. Fellowes was 
 here." 
 
 "She is coming, my dear," said Mary, looking 
 anxiously at the girl. 
 
 "Oh, she often looks like that," said Dacre con- 
 solingly ; " I believe she is mad — she is dying to squeal 
 and screech, and yet she is as quiet as an old rat ; I 
 believe myself one good roar would do her good." 
 
 Mary was a sensible body, and knew when a thing 
 was beyond her powers ; she said nothing, but went 
 down and intercepted Mrs. Fellowes on her way to 
 the drawing-room and carried her off. 
 
 "Is Gwen well, Mary?" she asked, as they went 
 upstairs. 
 
 " Eats and sleeps well, ma'am, but she has an over- 
 active brain, ma'am, I should say, and if 'tis, 'tis only 
 God can help her," whispered Mary solemnly.
 
 56 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 Gvvcn had recovered by this time, and she and Dacxe 
 were engaged in a wrangle, stormy on Dacre's side, 
 sarcastic and calm on Gwen's. At sight of Mrs 
 Fellowes they left off. 
 
 " Oh you dear, you dear ! " cried Gwen, sweeping 
 up to her, and taking her kiss with a sort of gasp ; "we 
 feel awful, as if some new horror was coming on." 
 
 " You'll stand by us, Mrs. Fellowes ? Do you think 
 they might repent of Eton ? Gwen gets mad when I 
 say that, but, you know, no fellow knows what they'll 
 do next," Dacre added plaintively. 
 
 " Dacre, I wonder if you know how horribly im- 
 pertinent you are ? If you belonged to me and spoke 
 of me like that, I'd cut you for a week ! " 
 
 " Oh, but you're quite different ; of course no one 
 would speak of you like that — Oh, come in ! " 
 
 A new footman, a tall, awkward creature, who found 
 his brains softening in this astonishing family, had 
 been giving a succession of small knocks for the last 
 five minutes; at last he supplemented them by a 
 choking cough. 
 
 "There is that giraffe," said Gwen impatiently; "I 
 suppose we are wanted ! Mrs. Fellowes, look at him," 
 she whispered ; " ever}'body who comes to this house 
 looks like that in a week, and as for Mary, she is 
 awful, going about in a muttering way and glaring 
 at me as if I was a penny show. The tutors are the 
 same, even that great leggy gawk — oh dear, what's 
 the matter with us all? 
 
 "And another thing — oh, wait just a moment, they'll 
 never know if we're one minute late or twenty; they 
 don't want us a bit, — oh no, they never do ; I tell you, 
 they are quite happy, and oh, so busy, so appallingly
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 57 
 
 busy. I want to tell you another horrible habit the 
 people here have. I must tell you all this," she added, 
 seeing Dacre's rather astonished face, " it has all just 
 come \p to the surface of me. The people in this 
 place always whisper in the most diabolical way ; there 
 is never a single sound in these corridors, never, and 
 that's why I often nearly burst to howl and screech. 
 Dacre is an idiot as every one knows, and he says I'm 
 mad." 
 
 " Hush, child ! " 
 
 " Oh well, come on then ; but there's not an atom 
 of hurry, they don't want us." 
 
 "Mrs. Fellowes isn't such an ass as not to know 
 that," said Dacre scornfully ; " but I want to know 
 what's on in there, so does she, so come on." 
 
 "It's nothing nice, you may be quite sure; it's 
 probably got something to do with lessons. Perhaps 
 they want to examine you before you go to school," 
 added Gwen, with a fiendish laugh. 
 
 Her mouth was terrible in its hardness. Mrs. 
 Fellowes stooped down quickly and kissed her on it. 
 
 "Gwen, love, you don't know ; something very nice 
 may be going to happen to you, the very nicest thing 
 that has ever yet happened." 
 
 Gwen looked up at her astonished ; some tone in her 
 soft voice touched her. 
 
 "I wonder — " she said slowly, "I wish " 
 
 " What dear ? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't think I know," said she, with a short 
 laugh. "Come on! Gru ! look at the table covered 
 with books and things ! I knew it was an exam. ! 
 Look, Dacre ! " 
 
 When her greetings to her host and hostess were
 
 58 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 over, Mrs. Fellowes went over to her husband, who 
 was standing by the table of books. 
 
 11 One of the evidences of Christianity to be placed 
 before the infant mind," he said softly, poi iting to 
 "Lord Amberley." " Another!" and he put his finger 
 on Renan's "Life of Jesus." 
 
 " Good gracious ! you'll stop that ? " 
 
 " If I can — what's wrong with Gwen ? " 
 
 " I don't know, I put my foot in it just now by 
 pressing for an explanation." 
 
 Dacre, meanwhile, was feeling less than a worm 
 under the concentrated gaze of his parents. After 
 the first remarks concerning health addressed to both 
 children, with a casual allusion to his projected depar- 
 ture for school for Dacre's benefit, and an earnest 
 request from his mother to consider his teeth and his 
 stomach, and to eschew sweetstuff, " the great tempta- 
 tion of public schools," she observed sadly, and when 
 some supine observations with regard to things in 
 general had been turned on Gwen, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Waring looked appealingly at each other, and subsided 
 into a silent and curious inspection of their son. 
 
 The dumb endurance of the boy showed a good deal 
 of pluck ; he merely wriggled spasmodically from time 
 to time. But he had come to the extremest end of his 
 tether, and was on the point of some outbreak, when 
 deliverance reached him in a low, swift sigh from his 
 mother, and a queer, sudden movement on his father's 
 part, who pushed back his chair, loosed his wife's hand, 
 with a deprecating " Pray, my love ! " and began to 
 speak in a general inoffensive way, fixing his gaze on 
 no one in particular, to Dacre's infinite relief. 
 
 11 There are subjects which are usually comprised in
 
 A YELL OW A STER. 59 
 
 the education of young children," said he, " which we, 
 after deep and anxious thought, have seen fit to omit 
 from the curriculum of our son and daughter. We 
 have taken special pains to impress upon their various 
 instructors, as also upon the persons appointed to 
 their personal service, that a certain part of their minds 
 should be kept free, entirely clear and free, from certain 
 impressions; that they should remain, so to speak, 
 a blank as far as regards this form of knowledge. 
 The form of knowledge I allude to — " he continued, 
 his eye falling once more on the luckless Dacre, who 
 was drinking in his words with open-eyed wonder ; and 
 finding the boy useful as a target, he fixed him 
 inexorably until the end of the discourse, — " The form 
 of knowledge I allude to is that known as the know- 
 ledge of religion. It is sometimes called a sense, and 
 has, in a manner, become so by heredity ; but I doubt 
 much whether it was innate in the race in the begin- 
 ning. This point of view has of course powerful 
 advocates, as we all know ; at least," he added, 
 coughing nervously, "as Mr. Fellowes and his wife 
 know. However, this question, though most interest- 
 ing, is not necessary to my explanation." 
 
 Here his eye, which had swerved for a moment, 
 again caught Dacre's. "The reasons why we have 
 insisted upon the denial of this knowledge to our 
 children are manifold. Firstly, my wife and I consider 
 that it is hardly fair to any human creature, with 
 normal brain power in its young, receptive condition, 
 to give this brain power a distinct bias with regard to 
 the fundamental points of any science. I speak of it, 
 not in the common, but in the original application of 
 the word, which is merely empiric, and can certainly
 
 60 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 not be looked upon as proven in any part, — however 
 great its ethical value as a factor of culture may be," 
 he added, with an apologetic glance at the Rector. 
 " For the same reason we have withheld geology and 
 the advanced parts of several of the natural sciences, 
 wherein is evolved the doctrine of evolution. But of 
 these later. 
 
 "We have been more stringent in our regulations 
 with regard to religion and its most advanced and 
 refined development — that known as Christianity — 
 because it enters so largely into all current questions, 
 and entrenches, or at least the arguments of its ex- 
 ponents do, on so many of our more exact sciences. 
 Another reason for withholding this knowledge was 
 the strange methods so many of its disciples have of 
 apprehending and applying it — even of considering its 
 literature. The process of exclusion by which we have 
 striven to our goal has, I fear, seemed to our dear 
 friends here to-day an unwise one ; but we have taken 
 deep thought concerning this matter, and have taken 
 no step lightly. We have awaited a state of conscious- 
 ness in our children capable of receiving and judging 
 the evidences of religion — more especially of that form 
 of it known as Christianity — in an unprejudiced and 
 reasonable manner, without bias, and with no early 
 half-true, half-false impressions to confuse and mislead. 
 
 " Mr. Fellowes," he concluded with solemnity, "we 
 have done, as we consider, our duty, and in the best 
 way we know of. Heredity and other inner influences 
 will no doubt in some measure nullify our efforts, as 
 will also the possible impressions — no doubt of a low 
 order — which our children, in that period of mere 
 physical development before the culture of their higher
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 61 
 
 parts began, may have received from outside ; but with 
 these exceptions, I feel confident that, as regards all 
 knowledge of religion, the minds of our children are 
 a blank." 
 
 He was silent for a moment, and regarded the blanks 
 with supreme satisfaction. 
 
 "Mr. Fellowes," he began again, "my wife and I 
 are most anxious that our children should receive all 
 the facts and arguments in favour of Christianity before 
 the counter arguments are put before them, and in the 
 most reasonable and enlightened manner. We have 
 therefore invited you to be present to-day, and would 
 feel ourselves under still one more obligation to you 
 
 " here he looked from Mr. Fellowes to his wife, 
 
 and so made one of them, " you who are so eminently 
 fitted for the task — if you would make our children 
 acquainted with the leading points in the history of 
 religion. Would you also be so good as to direct 
 them in their course of reading — our daughter at least, 
 for Dacre, I believe, goes to Eton to-morrow? "My 
 wife and I have, as you know, been reluctantly obliged 
 to relinquish our plans in this instance, owing to the 
 pressure of strong ancestral bias, which will, I fear, 
 also compel us to allow the boy to devote himself to 
 brutal pursuits, and finally to enter the army. His 
 ordinary culture, then, in religious matters, must be 
 entrusted to the tutors of his school, who, no doubt, 
 will fill his mind with strange vagaries. However," 
 he went on, with a fixed melancholy look at the boy, 
 "Dacre's intellect is not of a high order, it matters 
 little; but with Gwen very specially we desire your 
 aid. We have discovered in her an unusual power 
 of applying knowledge, and we would be glad if you
 
 62 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 would examine her from time to time, that she may 
 have a sound and reasonable knowledge of the argu- 
 ments on the one side of this very interesting question, 
 before she considers those on the other. We may 
 be accused," he continued with a sigh, " and perhaps 
 justly, of an unfair attempt to bias the girl's mind by 
 not arranging that the study of the opposed facts and 
 arguments should run side by side with these. But 
 in this matter, I fancy," he said, with a little smile at 
 his wife, " I fancy both my wife's and my hereditary 
 tendencies have rather handicapped our intelligence, 
 I do trust with no ill-results to our children," he added, 
 embracing them both in one perturbed glance, and 
 sitting down rather wearily.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 During the latter part of this discourse Mr. Fellowes 
 had been sorting the books on the small table, and 
 had them now arranged in two separate heaps. 
 
 Gwen had been gradually edging her chair near Mrs. 
 Fellowes, and her face was alight and eager. 
 
 Any new thing is always full of possibilities to a 
 young creature moving out in all directions after 
 experience. Besides, there was an undercurrent of 
 quiet, anxious affection running all through her father's 
 half-incomprehensible speech, that struck her, and kept 
 down for the moment her usual defiant attitude of 
 mind when had up before her parents. 
 
 Dacre's reflections, whenever the paternal eye was 
 off him, partook of the most primitive simplicity. 
 
 "Thank goodness, I'm out of it. After all, it's 
 a good thing to be an ass ; and the army, oh golly ! 
 I never expected anything so sensible as that from 'em." 
 
 With that he winked lugubriously in Gwen's direc- 
 tion, and was rather upset by catching Mr. Fellowes' 
 eye instead. 
 
 " I am quite certain that whatever you and Mrs. 
 Waring have done in this matter has been done most 
 conscientiously," said Mr. Fellowes, discreetly. "I 
 am glad you think me capable of teaching your 
 
 63
 
 64 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 children what, to my way of thinking, is the head 
 and front of all knowledge — the knowledge of God and 
 of His Son, Jesus Christ " 
 
 Gwen looked at Mr. Fellowes with an astonished, 
 eager gaze. 
 
 " This all sounds quite good," she reflected ; " but 
 then, is it ? Things are so very different from sounds, 
 — every tutor, before he comes, sounds lovely." 
 
 " But, Mr. Waring," continued the Rector mildly, 
 " if you entrust this matter to me you must also 
 entrust me with the choosing of the books bearing 
 on the subject; for instance, I should decidedly reserve 
 this book, 'Lord Amberley,' also this, Renan's 'Life 
 of Jesus,' for that future period when you intend to 
 give your children the evidences against Christianity. 
 These, to my mode of thinking, would certainly be 
 valueless for our purpose." 
 
 " Indeed, Mr. Fellowes, you surprise me ! " 
 
 He went over and glanced in rather a hurt way at 
 the books. " I consider that work of Lord Amberley's 
 a most unimpassioned, useful, and an eminently trust- 
 worthy history of religions. Lord Amberley seems 
 quite of our way of thinking — my wife's and mine — 
 for though he theorises so little, confining himself chiefly 
 to the recording of facts, yet, in the whole tone of 
 the work, one notices his predilection for that religion 
 instituted by Christ over other faiths. I must say 
 that I should have considered that book a valuable 
 one in your cult; however, you are a specialist," he 
 remarked, magnanimously, " we, but dabblers in 
 these matters ; therefore we are bound to yield our 
 judgment. 
 
 "As for Renan's 'Life,' it appears to me to be a
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 65 
 
 charming composition, simple, and in style delightful. 
 I should have thought it would have appealed pleasantly 
 to the childish comprehension ; however, as you object, 
 with, no doubt, full and sufficient ground for your 
 objections, we will leave the matter entirely in your 
 own hands and in those of your dear wife," he added, 
 with a stiff bow in her direction, "a most excellent 
 helpmeet in this as in all other things." 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Waring, please don't imagine that I 
 meddle in all my husband's business ! " cried Mrs. 
 Fellowes, half-amused and half-angry; it was too 
 abominable to be made a sort of co- or under-curate 
 to her husband, even by this pair of curiosities. " I 
 should never dream of interfering in the religious 
 instruction of any one, either young or old ; and if 
 I had any mind to, I assure you my husband would 
 soon strangle that tendency in me." 
 
 " Oh dear me ! " murmured Mr. Waring, " we always 
 act so much together that I never thought of inter- 
 ference in such a connection; pray excuse me, dear 
 Mrs. Fellowes," he entreated nervously. 
 
 Mrs. Fellowes could have slain him and herself. 
 She kept her eyes carefully turned from her husband, 
 but she felt his silent malicious laughter to the very 
 tips of her fingers. 
 
 " Mr. Waring, there is nothing whatever to excuse ; 
 it is only a little silly clerical point of etiquette. You 
 have no idea how the clerical mind runs to trifles. I 
 am only beginning to get any correct notions, and I have 
 been studying it now over eight years. It is much 
 more interesting than geology," she continued, turning 
 to Mrs. Waring and awakening her out of her reverie, 
 " and requires quite as much hammering to get any- 
 
 5
 
 66 A YELL O TV A STER. 
 
 thing worth having out of it. John quite agrees with 
 me." 
 
 "Ah, Mrs. Fellowes, it is so easy for you to see fun 
 in things," said Mrs. Waring in a pretty, wistful way ; 
 "it is quite a gift; I fear it has not been bestowed 
 upon me." 
 
 " Good gracious, I should think it hadn't ! " said Mrs. 
 Fellowes to herself; " if you had a spark of it you'd 
 keep him in his right mind as well as yourself." 
 
 " Don't you think Dacre looks rather idiotic ? " 
 whispered Gwen suddenly to Mrs. Fellowes. 
 
 He certainly did, with his mouth ajar and the bright 
 red tip of his tongue visible through his teeth. 
 
 "They always have that effect upon him," continued 
 Gwen ; " a frequent course of it would very soon land 
 him in an idiot asylum." 
 
 "Hush, dear!" 
 
 Mr. Waring seemed now ill at ease, and not at all 
 satisfied at the way things were shaping. The affair 
 was missing fire both for him and for his wife ; they 
 wanted, so to speak, a thorough microscopic examina- 
 tion of their children ; they wanted them then and 
 there put out on the table and carefully gone over as 
 a preliminary proceeding, even if as yet no final and 
 systematic classification of their contents could be 
 attempted. 
 
 Where was the result of research to come in if the 
 one was to be shipped off to school the very next day, 
 and the other to be turned over to Mr. Fellowes ? 
 Mrs. Waring's mind also ran in this groove. 
 
 "Will there not be an examination now at once?" 
 she asked, in pained surprise. " I quite understood 
 this was our arrangement."
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 67 
 
 " I too, dear love ; we must discuss the matter. Mr. 
 Fellowes, — ahem, my wife and I thought it might be as 
 well to examine the state of our children's minds now 
 at once; it seems important to ascertain clearly how 
 far our plans have been successful, and in this we 
 might be of some help to you." 
 
 Mr. Fellowes looked gravely annoyed. Dacre started 
 violently and nearly took the tip off his tongue, and 
 Gwen's face fell ; she straightened herself and a trans- 
 figuration fell upon her; her mouth hardened, her colour 
 faded to a dull grey, and her eyes took on the masked 
 look that Mrs. Fellowes so detested to see. 
 
 " Always the same ! " muttered Gwen, " always the 
 same ! I was beginning to think that with Dacre going 
 to school and everything we might be let off and have 
 tea instead. Look, there it is, getting stone cold, they've 
 clean forgotten it ! I never can answer a word when 
 they question me ; it's very unfair to force one into look- 
 ing like a fool when one isn't. Dacre, of course, might 
 be a cabbage this minute — look at him ! They treat 
 one's brains like puppets, to dance when they whistle ! " 
 
 " Gwen, dear Gwen, you let your tongue go mad !" 
 
 Gwen winced ; she prided herself a good deal on her 
 strength and reticence. 
 
 " As for the examination," Mrs. Fellowes continued, 
 "it is quite natural your father and mother should 
 arrive at some idea of your state of mind, and as they 
 start on the premise that you know nothing they won't 
 expect you to shine." 
 
 " You don't know," said the girl surlily ; " one can't 
 argue from experience with regard to them ever ; they 
 are as reasonless and as unjust in their expectations as 
 they are in everything."
 
 68 A YELL OTV A STER. 
 
 u Gwen, I am ashamed of you ; you are unjust, and 
 no one else ; and rather rude, seeing that any questions 
 you have to answer will be asked by Mr. Fellowes. 
 Now listen, either your father or my husband is going 
 to speak." 
 
 " Your father and mother," said Mr. Fellowes, com- 
 ing over and standing so that he could watch both of 
 the children, " have asked me to put a few simple 
 questions to you." 
 
 The countenances of Mr. and Mrs. Waring fell 
 visibly ; this informal, good-humoured, casual way of 
 carrying on, was not the sort of thing they had 
 expected. 
 
 " One should make a specialty of every form of 
 knowledge, however trivial," said Mr. Waring, in a low 
 voice ; " we should have put ourselves in a position to 
 be competent personally to conduct this affair." 
 
 His wife looked comprehension, and clasped his 
 hand a trifle harder. 
 
 No one but themselves and possibly their Creator 
 had any idea of the amount this unfortunate couple 
 had to endure. 
 
 " If I ask you anything," went on the Rector, "and 
 you can't answer it, you mustn't mind, for, as you just 
 now heard from your father, you are not expected to 
 know anything definitely." 
 
 Gwen looked up with a quick, sarcastic question in 
 her face. 
 
 Mr. Fellowes laughed. " You think in that case 1 
 had better hold my tongue ; well, perhaps I had, but 
 even if one gains no absolute knowledge of the ques- 
 tion asked, from the answers to it, one sometimes finds 
 out other things just as useful. In your classical
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 69 
 
 readings you have come across many allusions to the 
 gods of Greece and Rome, haven't you ? " 
 
 " Yes," they assented. " That wasn't much of a 
 poser," reflected Dacre glibly. 
 
 " On the whole, what did you think of them ? " 
 
 "They were pretty mean," said Dacre, with con- 
 viction. 
 
 " They were just like other people, only stronger, 
 and better looking, and bigger," said Gwen. 
 
 " Would you be inclined to think any one of them 
 capable of any great or stupendous work ? " 
 
 " Goodness no ! " said Gwen ; " they had a great deal 
 too much to do with their little things ; punishing 
 mortals, too, — that took up half their time." 
 
 " Well, then, who do you imagine made the world ? 
 — have you ever thought on the subject ? " 
 
 " This is most distressing," whispered Mr. Waring ; 
 " he seems about to give all these rank hypotheses as 
 facts ; this is childish, unworthy of Gwen's intellect ! " 
 
 " Dear love, you are unfair ; there is absolutely 
 nothing proven on either side." 
 
 " But the counter arguments will not be presented 
 as facts." 
 
 " The religious school has firm convictions and 
 admits no hypotheses, I have heard. I confess this 
 primitive mode rather interests me ; I wonder what 
 Gwen's reply will be — hush, here it comes ! " 
 
 " I never could think of any one person undertaking 
 such a work," said Gwen, looking rather interested. " I 
 have always thought it was done by some ceaseless 
 force that keeps things wound up." 
 
 " Do you think this force a beneficent one or the 
 contrary ? "
 
 70 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 "Just as the humour takes it. It seems sometimes 
 quite human in its tempers and its injustice ; rather 
 capricious and old-womanish, too, — I often think that." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Why ! From the stupid times and places that 
 earthquakes and waterspouts and things come ; they 
 hardly ever burst up or beat down desert islands or 
 places like that ; they always flock to populated places 
 where people have been working for years to make 
 themselves comfortable, and then all in a minute their 
 work is undone and they may think themselves lucky 
 if they aren't undone themselves. That sort of thing 
 seems reasonless and like an old woman." 
 
 " Poor little foolish Gwen ! " said Mrs. Fellowes, 
 with such a funny look that Gwen had to laugh. 
 
 "When you are older," said Mr. Fellowes, "and 
 know more, you won't be so final in } r our judgments. 
 I'm going to tell you a fact now : will you believe it ? " 
 
 Gwen got scarlet, the question seemed to her a 
 reproach. " Mr. Fellowes, of course I will 1 " 
 
 "Then, Gwen, incredible as it sounds, a great, a 
 glorious, and an Almighty God, a Spirit, who has had 
 neither beginning nor end, made this world and keeps 
 it going ; and He is neither unjust nor unreasonable, 
 capricious nor an old woman ; though," he continued, 
 to the open-eyed wonder of two in that room, " that 
 you should accredit Him with all of these rather 
 despicable qualities, does not astonish me in the least. 
 Can you take my word for this fact I have told you ? 
 If you can't, say so. I need not ask you, however, 
 you will be honest," he added, with a little amused 
 laugh. 
 
 "It sounds rather queer and mixed up, considering
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. Ti 
 
 things as things are," said Gwen quaintly; "but I'd 
 take your word for anything, Mr. Fellowes." 
 
 Just then some unlucky impulse guided her eyes 
 in her mother's direction ; a little softening towards 
 her had seized on the girl for the instant, and her 
 eyes had followed her thoughts ; but they dropped like 
 a shot, she stiffened, and loosed hold of the piece of 
 Mrs. Fellowes' dress she had furtively been clinging 
 to. Her mother's eyes were fixed on her in a puzzled, 
 uncomprehending, rather disappointed way, horribly 
 trying to her pride. 
 
 " I'll not say another word, not if they tear me with 
 wild horses ! " she said to herself tragically. " How 
 dare she look at me like that ! Now, Dacre, upon my 
 word, I would not blame her if she did it to him ! 
 Dacre, you look awful ! " she whispered viciously, 
 " more beastly than human ! Shut your mouth ! " 
 
 And not another word could Mr. Fellowes, to his 
 infinite relief, extract from the girl. 
 
 As for the boy, he was, on the face of it, hopeless ; 
 so in defiance of, and despite the protesting attitude 
 of, the harassed parents, the Rector calmly put his foot 
 down, and brought this ceremony to a conclusion. 
 
 " Mr. Waring," he said, " I think you must be 
 satisfied that at least we have fairly virgin soil to 
 work in." 
 
 Mr. Waring mumbled a gentl , "H'm!" He was 
 thoroughly dissatisfied with the whole business. 
 
 li Will you allow Gwen to come to our house," went 
 on Mr. Fellowes imperturbably, " every Tuesday and, 
 let me see, every Friday afternoon ? " 
 
 Gwen flashed a glance of delight on Mrs. Fellowes, 
 and across her she flung a ^;rin ci defiant on Dacre.
 
 ;2 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 " And to Dacre, if you will allow me, I will give one 
 or two books to read when he happens to get time. 
 Story books, Dacre — don't squirm." 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Waring again looked with melancholy 
 regret at each other, then extended the glance to their 
 offspring. When it reached Mr. Fellowes a slight 
 touch of gentle wrath had flittered into it ; but it was 
 in vain to kick against the pricks, the proceedings were 
 at an end, and another failure had died and was buried 
 out of their sight. 
 
 And then they all drank some cold tea, and little 
 atoms of cake were presented to the children, with a 
 timid request from their mother to pick the currants 
 out of them, — this bugbear of their infancy still 
 clinging to the little woman, — and the drawing-room 
 twilight was left at last free to the pair, who looked 
 haggard, tired, and frustrated.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Dacre had been shot through Eton into Sandhurst, 
 and Gwen was fast growing up and imbibing religious 
 instruction in precisely the fashion one might have 
 expected from her surroundings and her turn of 
 mind. 
 
 She received the facts as facts, and grew very keen 
 and eager over those that had any dramatic interest in 
 them. She dug into their depths and revelled in them 
 as any other boy or girl of sound intellectual capacity 
 would do, when they were put as Mr. Fellowes put 
 them. The unsatisfactory part of the business was 
 when the horrible critical faculty of the girl began to 
 ransack the facts, and the theories hung on them, and 
 to turn them inside out, and to compare and classify 
 them with an honest downright unscrupulousness that 
 no girl suckled on the Bible could ever find it in her 
 heart to use ; no matter what her opinions might be, — 
 or rather her own opinion of her opinions, — and the 
 summing up of Gwen's searchings and comparings was 
 monotonous and commonplace enough. 
 
 " The whole scheme is very fine," she said one day ; 
 " it is a perfect idyll in its way, and divine from the 
 mere exaltation and grandeur of it; but where any 
 
 73
 
 74 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 proof of a personal God comes in I can't see, any more 
 than in any of the other creeds. They all seem to be 
 chips off the same block. The ideal God seems uni- 
 versally human — this Jewish one with the rest. He 
 is feeble and tyrannical, and He, in the old Testament, 
 is so inconsistent ; and in the New — well, after all, that 
 is only rather a more modern reflection of the Old. As 
 for Christ, we know so little of Him,. — and then when 
 all's said, His loveliest and best thoughts were also 
 thought in the Vedas by the Brahmins. It is wonder- 
 ful beyond comprehension to me how so many have 
 lived and died for such myths. The greatest and 
 divinest quality of God seems to me to be His inexor- 
 ableness, and even that failed Him more than once at 
 a pinch." 
 
 " It is a sense wanting in me," she often told Mr. 
 Fellowes ; " the sense of religion, as in Dacre the 
 sense of poetry ; you can't supply it, no one can. I 
 lose an infinite deal, I know ; your face literally shining 
 over these things tells me so, plainer than a thousand 
 words. I would give anything to experience such 
 rapture, which is itself divine ; but I couldn't to save 
 my life — it's curious ! " 
 
 " Dacre tells me," she began suddenly another day, 
 " that he quite believes in Christianity. Now, if his 
 shallow, feeble acceptance of the thing — and he says it 
 is just like all the other fellows' beliefs — is accepted, 
 average Christianity must be poor stuff. I will wait 
 until I get a better hold on it than that, before I say 
 anything definite about believing or disbelieving. I 
 say merely, the scheme does not appeal to me ; the fault 
 is in myself, no doubt ; your judgment is sound in all 
 other things, I quite believe it is just as sound in this."
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 75 
 
 On her seventeenth birthday, Mr. and Mrs. Fellowes 
 gave her an edition of Browning. 
 
 " The parts she understands will be a revelation to 
 her," Mr. Fellowes said, " and those she doesn't will 
 serve as a brain tonic, for she will be sure to thresh 
 them out with blood-curdling thoroughness." 
 
 They were all this and more, as Mr. Fellowes felt to 
 his cost when a few days later she brought him " Caliban 
 on Setebos." 
 
 " Now here," she said, " is my exact impression of 
 the Christian God. I wonder if I shall ever change 
 it, and by what process ? I must be in a horribly 
 unfinished initial state, if I can think side by side with 
 a brutal creature like that. It's queer, — I am not 
 altogether like him in other respects," she added, with 
 a laugh. 
 
 Mr. Fellowes answered her, as he always did, with 
 perfect good humour and sound good sense. 
 
 It was hard, uphill, melancholy work for him, but he 
 did it like a man, and as well as he knew how — he tried 
 to hope, and left the rest with God. 
 
 Mrs. Fellowes did her little part as soon as the 
 solemnities were at an end. She seized on the girl, 
 and petted and made much of her, and opened out 
 her mother's heart to her. 
 
 " She must learn what love is, then perhaps she will 
 stop prying about after justice and other matters. Be- 
 sides, it is absolutely necessary she should before she 
 has children of her own. She must be bathed in it, 
 so that she actually has to absorb it, as children do 
 nourishment in their bath of veal broth. I shall keep 
 driving it into her at every possible opportunity. It 
 would be an awful satisfaction if just once in a while
 
 76 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 she would let one get a real good glimpse into her, to 
 see how it works. I hate doing things in the dark !" 
 
 "But you do get a sight of the result sometimes. I 
 remember myself having had several. I believe the 
 girl has an immense power of affection," said Mrs. 
 Fellowes. 
 
 " Mercy on us ! As if I did not know that ! When 
 it does break out, an earthquake is a fool to it ; but then 
 the eruptions are always so sudden, and the calming 
 down so preternaturally swift, that when they happen 
 one is far too overwhelmed to have any time or faculty 
 left for observation, and one never dares to go back on 
 those outbursts, as you very well know. Oh, my Gwen, 
 my poor, poor little Gwen, God will have to help your 
 husband very considerably ! " 
 
 And so Gwen grew up and her story began.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The very air of Gwen's two rooms, the bedroom and 
 the dressing-room off it, shimmered with excitement. 
 It glowed in the soft light of the innumerable wax 
 candles with which Mary had studded the tables ; it 
 hung in the rose-pink curtains ; it shone in the leaping 
 blue flame of the fire ; it was everywhere, and most 
 inconveniently so in the fingers of the new lady's maid, 
 a creature of sentiment, who was putting the finishing 
 touches to her young mistress's bodice, while Mary was 
 trotting round restlessly, disturbed in every individual 
 hair of her head, casting rapt glances at Gwen and 
 furtive ones at the door. 
 
 At the sound of a footstep on the stairs she gave a 
 sudden start and her face lighted, but it shaded as 
 suddenly. 
 
 " Only Mrs. Fellowes ! " she murmured, and she 
 showed her in with some grimness. 
 
 Mrs. Fellowes stopped on the threshold and took in 
 Gwen leisurely, with a half-choked gasp of wonder ; then 
 she went over and kissed her. 
 
 " Gwen, love, you are beautiful ! I never knew it 
 before." 
 
 Gwen looked up at her, then turned to the glass and
 
 78 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 laughed. " I am," she said, " I am beautiful, and I 
 never knew it before ! " 
 
 Then she stood up and shook down the soft, gleam- 
 ing folds of her tulle-shrouded silk and straightened 
 herself. 
 
 It was her first long dress, and added two inches to 
 her height. 
 
 " Look, I am changed ; I am a new creature ; I am 
 afraid of nothing ! I feel like a knight-errant, setting 
 
 forth on his quest ; his was glory, mine " she 
 
 paused. 
 
 " What's yours ? " said Mrs. Fellowes, smiling on 
 her. 
 
 11 Mine ? Mine's glory too." 
 
 She paused again, and a sudden trouble leaped into 
 her face. 
 
 " But it's due to me, see. Why not ? " And her 
 great eyes flashed triumphantly into the glass. " ' / 
 will attain ' like Paracelsus." 
 
 She laughed again, but her mirth had a jar in it. 
 
 " He went the wrong way about it," remarked Mrs. 
 Fellowes placidly ; " take care you don't do the same ! " 
 
 " He was a fraud to begin with ; I'm not, neither in 
 brain nor body." 
 
 Mrs. Fellowes looked at her critically. " The outside 
 of you is flawless enough, and, goodness knows ! you 
 are all there as far as brain goes. But I'm not so sure 
 as to the inside of you ; there, an inch or so to the left 
 of that diamond star, I believe you are perfectly 
 empty ! " 
 
 " Ugh ! That s empty of course, except for the bits 
 of you and the Rector it holds ; there's been nothing to 
 fill it."
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 79 
 
 "A thing must have a capacity for holding before 
 it can hold, my good child, and original capacity 
 dwindles from disuse, as your father's daughter 
 must know. Atrophy is the word in your jargon, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 " Oh, all glory doesn't come through that mawkish 
 muscle ! I have lived for nineteen years without 
 anything to try the holding capacity of mine, and I can 
 go on for a while yet and get my glory through other 
 channels." 
 
 " No, you can't ; a woman's crown of glory comes 
 through her heart, or it isn't worth the wearing ; her 
 heart leads her reason — and is often the surer guide 
 into the bargain." 
 
 " Why do you speak like this," said the girl, flushing, 
 and flashing out a white arm towards her, " on my 
 coming-out night ? It isn't fair of you ! " 
 
 " You brought it on yourself, my Gwen ; you're 
 setting out on a wrong tack. Let yourself go, child, be 
 natural, and strive after — nothing. All good will come 
 to you by Divine right." 
 
 A sudden chill ran down Mrs. Fellowes' back, and a 
 horrid little song began to croon in her ears. " Through 
 much tribulation " were the words of it, and it kept on 
 by fits all that evening. 
 
 "Turn round again and let me look at you, dear. 
 Ah, I feel as if it were the coming-out night of my own 
 child ! " 
 
 There was a quick, short catch in her voice. " Kiss 
 me, Gwen ; and, darling, don't think of victory, there's 
 blood in the very thought ! The head and front of 
 a woman's life is love, — God's, and mother's, and 
 man's I
 
 80 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 " You've forgotten your audience," said Gwen sar- 
 castically ; " I know nothing of the two first, the third 
 will come, I suppose, in time — by all accounts, it comes 
 always to the beautiful ; but I shall not know what 
 on earth to do with it when it arrives, and oh ! I 
 don't want it ! I want to ' live at full pitch ; ' I 
 couldn't manage that with my feet clogged with 
 honey ! " 
 
 "You want to be loved, my dear, to be loved, loved, 
 loved ; and when you are, you'll find out what an arrant 
 little goose you are making of yourself." 
 
 The girl turned suddenly upon her and gave her 
 one of her most volcanic hugs. When Mrs. Fellowes 
 got out of it, panting, she set to putting Gwen's 
 dress in order, with sundry soft touches to neck and 
 arms. 
 
 " I do love nice, soft, girlish flesh," she said, with 
 a little laugh. " Oh, how I do wish to goodness that 
 John wasn't a parson this night of all others ! I want 
 dreadfully to see you there, but he can't come, it's 
 impossible; you know Sam Tidd is dying, and even 
 for you I couldn't go without him ! " 
 
 " Mrs. Fellowes ! " she cried, sweeping round, " are 
 you not coming ? This is, oh, this is awful ! J. never 
 looked at your dress, I was so taken up with my own. 
 Oh, to go alone with Lady Mary, and to my first 
 ball ! " 
 
 Her face was furious, and Mrs. Fellowes could have 
 cried. " I did not tell you at first, I was so astonished 
 at your brilliant completeness ; I am sorry." 
 
 Gwen stamped. 
 
 " It is atrocious, abominable ! To go alone, with 
 no one in the room to care a rap how I look ! You
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 81 
 
 can't help it, I know, but oh, you must see the horrid- 
 ness of the whole thing." 
 
 "The carriage is coming, darling, come down to 
 your mother." 
 
 " I ? Certainly not ! Mary and Simpson ! " she 
 called. 
 
 "There, isn't it lovely?" said Gwen, as Simpson 
 wrapped her in her cloak. " I do love the sheeny 
 changes in white plush ! Mrs. Fellowes, you will 
 come down with me, won't you ? I hardly know Lady 
 Mary." 
 
 When they came to the foot of the stairs Mary came 
 forward, and said, in a quick, frightened tone, — 
 
 " Miss Gwen, God bless you, dear ! They will be 
 proud of you ! The room is well lighted, shall I open 
 the door, Miss ? " 
 
 " Did they ask for me ? " demanded Gwen. She 
 had let her cloak drop, and was turning slowly 
 round, that the old woman might have a good view 
 of her. 
 
 " Ask, Miss ! "—She broke off. 
 
 " I know they did not, and they don't want me 
 either, and Mrs. Fellowes isn't coming — did you know 
 that ? I am glad you like me, Mary ! " 
 
 She stooped suddenly seeing a tear on Mary's cheek, 
 and kissed it into a wet smudge on the bed of wrinkles, 
 then she turned and kissed Mrs. Fellowes lightly, and 
 walked down the great hall like a young queen setting 
 out on a triumphal progress. 
 
 When Gwen dropped her cloak and displayed herself 
 for Mary's admiration, she had two spectators she 
 certainly never bargained for. 
 
 A wave of the universal excitement had somehow 
 
 6
 
 82 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 reached Mr. and Mrs. Waring in their learned retire- 
 ment, probably carried there by Mary's frequent 
 appearances for trivial causes, — she dared not make 
 any definite suggestion, for fear of Gwen's most in- 
 exorable wrath. 
 
 " My love," said Mr. Waring at last, " something 
 unusual seems to be the matter ! " 
 
 Mrs. Waring's brows knitted as usual, then gradually 
 cleared. 
 
 " Yes, I really believe this is the occasion of Gwen's 
 first ball. I remember now Lady Mary mentioning 
 something about it, and — ah, yes, don't you remember 
 you gave Mrs. Fellowes a cheque for some dresses, and 
 other things to do with balls ? Ah, nine o'clock, is 
 it really ? And I fancy I hear a carriage — didn't 
 Lady Mary say she would come for her ? I think, 
 dear," she said, " I think, dear, I should like to see 
 Gwen." 
 
 "And I too," said Mr. Waring, standing up with 
 quiet eagerness. " Shall we go to her room ? I sup- 
 pose we might do so," he added, half fearfully. 
 
 It certainly did seem rather a liberty on their 
 part. 
 
 " Oh yes, I think that perhaps she might like it." 
 
 So they opened the door, and were just about to set 
 forth, when the sight of her in shimmering soft waves 
 of silk and tulle, her round column of a neck poised 
 like that of an empress, and her arms thrown out 
 gracefully that Mary might see the whole of her, 
 arrested the two, and held them in a silent spell, 
 standing hand in hand on the threshold. Then, hand 
 in hand still, they went back into the library, as if in 
 a dream, and over to the deep embrasured window
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 83 
 
 that opened on the carriage drive, and listened to the 
 very last sound of Lady Mary's wheels. When they 
 came back to the fire there was a tear in Mrs. Waring's 
 eye, and her husband felt disconsolate — just as if he 
 had lost a good thought.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 If ever a girl's coming-out was a triumphal progress, 
 Gvven's was. There was just the same suggestion of 
 stifled groans, and hidden wounds, and silent blood 
 streams in it as there is in the processions of all 
 conquerors, and just the same cool indifference to this 
 part of the show distinguished the girl's face, and added 
 euriously to its charm. 
 
 As she swept calmly on her way her victims fell to 
 right and to left of her without a groan or a murmur. 
 Noisy appeal seemed quite out of the question in the 
 presence of this magnificent, cool creature. 
 
 In her grand, scornful way she revelled in the glory 
 of her march, and wore her laurels as if she had been 
 used to them since her long-clothes' days. This sort of 
 thing just suited her; it was so thoroughly just, so 
 fair — her mere due and no more ; and she felt neither 
 elation nor any special gratitude in accepting it all. 
 
 For a whole year — first in the country, then in 
 London — this went on, and Gwen never felt so uncon- 
 sciously Christian-like in her life ; she had no cause 
 to rail against anything ; she had no time to feel empty 
 about the heart. Besides, her heart was filled in a 
 way with the steam from the victims sacrificed in her 
 
 84
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 85 
 
 honour, and the intangibility of the stuffing didn't 
 trouble her — it was warm, and smelt like spikenard. 
 
 As for the feelings of the victims, these did not enter 
 into her calculations, the whole show was so absolutely 
 impersonal to her. Any pangs she might feel for the 
 aloofness of the two she called father and mother, 
 she had decided some time ago to smother, and to 
 cast out, harbouring and encouraging them never 
 having altered or influenced the state of affairs by 
 one finger's breadth. 
 
 She saw little of Mr. and Mrs. Fellowes in these 
 days. The Scripture lessons had come to an end, and 
 she had turned the whole subject into her mind's 
 rubbish hole ; what she had learned was sufficiently 
 interesting at the time, but it had never come any 
 farther than to the outer edge of her life, even when 
 it was warmed and lighted by Mr. Fellowes' love for 
 his subject, and when the hours spent at the Rectory 
 were the only bright flecks in the week's dinginess. 
 
 Now all these surroundings were withdrawn ; the 
 slight mist of glamour that used to hang round the 
 subject had floated off, and Gwen was quite ready to 
 shoot her stored-up accumulation of facts and deduc- 
 tions anywhere, to make room for more serviceable 
 stuff. Only, what we have learned, good or bad, we 
 must keep somewhere, God help us ! 
 
 She was a clever girl, however, and well-bred, and 
 had read a good deal one way and the other, so she 
 had the sense to hold her tongue, and to keep her 
 embryo opinions to herself. This made her equally 
 magnanimous as regarded the opinions of her neigh- 
 bours. 
 
 " Gwen's attitude of mind makes me quite sick," said
 
 86 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 Mrs. Fellowes one day ; " that is, when she shows a 
 glimpse of it, which isn't often nowadays. She hasn't 
 had a volcanic outbreak for a century ; they are ruinous 
 to one's clothes, but I'd bear the spoiling of my new 
 front for one this minute." 
 
 Mr. Fellowes laughed. 
 
 " There is a twist in her somehow, and we have 
 come to a nasty obstruction. When she is properly 
 straightened she'll be a fine creature ; but the untwist- 
 ing will be too gradual for you, my poor Ruth, you'll 
 be worn out before it's finished." 
 
 " One would think she was a boa constrictor, — I 
 believe she has a touch of its nature too ; she crushes 
 hearts enough, anyway, and with just as little compunc- 
 tion. I am sorry for young Patrick Hamilton ; I love 
 that boy." 
 
 " Which is no reason at all why Gwen should. The 
 girl doesn't flirt, and he sought his crushing with 
 open eyes. I believe it's the girl's brains as much 
 as her beauty which dominates and reduces men's 
 hearts." 
 
 " Very likely. The bigger fool a man is, the more he 
 is vanquished by brain, especially if it keeps itself in 
 the background and doesn't frighten him. He likes 
 the agreeable sensation of importance the possible 
 possession of such a power gives him, and in his state 
 of nervous tension, the creature is apt to get mixed, 
 and to imagine that the power he worships radiates 
 somehow from him to his idol instead of contrari- 
 wise." 
 
 "A very comprehensive summary of our modes of 
 thought, my dear, racy but untrustworthy. I don't, how- 
 ever, imagine that in Gwen's case any man is quite ass
 
 A YELL OTV A STER 87 
 
 enough to imagine himself the source of her intellectual 
 strength." 
 
 "Oh, perhaps not; Gwen's getting beyond me. If 
 she goes on like this, between brains and beauty she'll 
 be no better than a charnel-house for crushed hearts. 
 Pah ! " 
 
 " For the shadow of the things, not the substance — 
 do you imagine the victims haven't as firm a hold on 
 their organs as ever they had ? It's only an idea they 
 lose half the time." 
 
 " Well, they make as much moan over it as if it were 
 a very tangible flesh-and-blood article all bristling with 
 nerves. I hate to look at Patrick's face ; I wish he 
 would go and shoot buffaloes, or take a tonic, or do 
 anything but drink tea in that chair and draw sympathy 
 out of me with those soft, foolish eyes of his ! He had 
 only just left when you came." 
 
 " I should be glad for your digestion's sake if he 
 would recover himself, — you've swallowed three cups 
 of tea in ten minutes." 
 
 " Yes, to wash out the memory of that boy ! " 
 
 " Rather a roundabout way to go to work ; if you 
 don't look out, Pat's heart will be sound long before 
 your digestive organs are." 
 
 " Never mind, they haven't a tinge of Americanism 
 about them ; they haven't so much as caught the accent. 
 But how can you keep on being so hopeful of Gwen ? 
 I am downright miserable about her." 
 
 " I have the greatest trust in the girl ; my feeling 
 about her is like faith, it is inexplicable, but it's so 
 natural, so instinctive and ingrained one feels its 
 truth." 
 
 " I suppose in the end she will marry," said Mrs.
 
 88 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 Fellowes ; " it's the natural end or beginning of 
 her." 
 
 " Then — well, it's not a very original observation to 
 make, but it's the only one that comes to my mind — 
 God help her ! " 
 
 "God help him more! Poor wretch, he'll want it 
 all!"
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Humphrey Strange gave a sort of snort, made for the 
 window, and threw it open. 
 
 " Phew ! This room is beastly. I'll swear that 
 window hasn't been open for a month, the whole place 
 is fusty with mildew. The beggar is drunk or the 
 wire was delayed. I'll have a fire, anyway." 
 
 By the way he went about making it, it was easy to 
 see the man knew his work. First he shoved his stick 
 up the chimney to see if that was free, then he looked 
 round. 
 
 " Plenty of kindling ! " he muttered, pouncing on a 
 bandbox in the corner with a battered old hat in it. 
 " Tolly's, I'll be bound, reeking with grease, — a direct 
 interposition of Providence, this !" 
 
 He crushed it up, crammed it into the grate, and 
 arranged broken pieces of bandbox above it with 
 mathematical precision ; then he rummaged a broken 
 chair out of an inner room, smashed the rotten legs 
 across his knees, and added them to the heap, which 
 at the first touch of the match shot into flame. 
 
 " It will clean the air," he remarked, " and it is quite 
 cold enough for a fire. I wish I had stayed where I 
 was till June. Tolly's bout might have been over by 
 that time. Not so much as the smell of an oil rag here," 
 he continued reflecting ; " I must go out and forage." 
 
 89
 
 9 o A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 Putting another chunk of chair on the fire, and 
 forcing a side window open with an ease that spoke 
 well for his condition, he went out, and returned 
 shortly with a big knobbly parcel in one hand, and a 
 smooth brown-paper one in the other. 
 
 From the first he produced a huge wedge of steak, 
 some cut slices of ham, and a loaf of bread — the brown 
 held a bottle of beer. 
 
 When the fire had burnt down to a hot bed of 
 cinders, Strange put the tongs across it, the poker and 
 a piece of thick wire he had poked out of a cupboard 
 across these, then balanced the steak on the top of this 
 gridiron, and watched it fizzling and sputtering with a 
 gratified air of expectancy. 
 
 " I left a gridiron, a saucepan, and a kettle in the 
 bottom of that cupboard," he mused, keeping a keen 
 eye on the grill, " all in decent condition. Tolly again ! 
 I'll put the fear of God in the fellow's heart before to- 
 morrow's out — ' That must be to-morrow, not to-night.' 
 A sell for me, my boy, if not for you. I feel just up to 
 it now ; by to-morrow the desire may have lost its 
 savour. I must find something to put this steak on 
 and to hold the beer. Not a sign of my pewter ! and 
 one cracked glass ! Lord ! there were dozens ! and 
 one hot-water plate with half the delft off it ! I could 
 swear I left that shelf full of crockery ! and after this 
 a Christian man is expected to do no murder ! " 
 
 When he had got half through the slab of steak a 
 strong thirst came on Strange. 
 
 " There is a corkscrew in one of my inner pockets," 
 he reflected, looking lazily round; "never mind, this is 
 shorter ! " 
 
 He stretched out his arm for the poker, and with it
 
 A YELL OTV A STER. g i 
 
 knocked the top of the bottle clean off, and drank his 
 beer with wholesome satisfaction. 
 
 When he had eaten and drunk enough, he pushed 
 back his plate and glass, and took a bundle of quills 
 and some MS. paper out of a small cabinet. 
 
 " Seemingly Tolly has found no use for these," he 
 thought, as he sharpened a quill. 
 
 He then produced a bundle of smudgy notes from an 
 inner pocket and laid them by the paper. 
 
 " I'll have a thorough good smoke," he said, 
 stretching his legs, "and then I'll be game for six 
 hours' work. I swear," he continued, rubbing his 
 hideous, inch-long, bristly, reddish beard, " I'll not 
 touch an individual bristle of this mat till Lynton has 
 got his first consignment of 'copy,' then I shall clean 
 up and resume civilisation." 
 
 Strange was a good many things, but he was above all 
 others a traveller ; he had neither nerves nor stomach, 
 which is proof sufficient that he had been pre-ordained 
 to the role, and he had discovered his election very 
 early in life. 
 
 At the opening of one of his Eton vacations, when 
 to look at he was a mere chit of a child, with a pair of 
 grey eyes that were staggering from the sheer artless- 
 ness of them, he had dodged the parental eye at 
 Waterloo, and instead of going down into Plowshire, 
 he had taken ship at Rotherhithe, and had reached 
 Amsterdam by the skin of his teeth, the tub being un- 
 trustworthy, and nearly foundering in mid-channel. 
 
 When he came back, more artless than ever to look 
 at, he knew as much of the life of the Hollanders of all 
 classes, and of every side of the life, moreover, as if he 
 had dwelt among them for a round five years.
 
 92 A YELL O TV A STER. 
 
 On his return to school he proceeded to record his 
 experiences in the school organ, and on their appear- 
 ance in that chaste journal he was had up before his 
 house master. 
 
 " Where did you hear all this, Strange ? " demanded 
 the scandalised gentleman. 
 
 "I saw it, sir, and it's quite true," was the artless 
 reply. 
 
 " The deuce it is ! " muttered Dr. Bromby. " That 
 hardly betters matters. I have ordered every copy 
 of this paper to be burnt, Strange," said the Doctor, 
 severely; "and in future I wish to look through your 
 manuscript myself before it goes to the press. Un- 
 alloyed truth is sometimes out of place. Stick to your 
 classics, Strange ; you will write well some day, that 
 is, if you become a little surer in your Latin, other- 
 wise your English will always be slovenly. If I were 
 you I should reserve some of my experiences, if you 
 are in the habit of entertaining your fags with them 
 in off-times," concluded the Doctor. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Humphrey, and departed cheerily. 
 
 Strange had just now come back unexpectedly from 
 a long tour in Algeria. According to his own way 
 of thinking he had had a glorious time if ever man 
 had. He had lived in the tents of the Arabs, in 
 the camps of the coast Zouaves, and in the hills and 
 the deserts with the Bedouins. Like David, he had 
 known 
 
 " Of the plunge in a pool's living water, 
 the hunt of the bear, 
 And the sultriness showing the lion 
 
 is couched in his lair, 
 And the meal, the rich dates yellowed 
 over with gold-dust divine,
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 93 
 
 And the locust flesh steeped in the pitcher, 
 the full draught of wine." 
 
 He had braved heat, cold, hunger, thirst, filth and 
 squalor, fleas and worse than fleas, snakes and beasts 
 of prey, but he had learned a new variety of man 
 and of the conditions which mould men's lives. 
 
 He had lived the life himself, and could think as 
 such men think, feel as they feel, speak and act as 
 they do. He had gained a new power and felt a new 
 growth of manhood quickening in his veins, and now 
 he was recording what he knew. 
 
 Many travellers only see, he knew. He had touched 
 the core of the heart of things, and every word he 
 wrote carried conviction to those who read, and 
 marvelled at the wonderful knack the fellow had of 
 telling primitive truths cleanly. 
 
 Strange kept his word and worked without break 
 for six hours on end, then he tumbled off his seat with 
 sudden sleep, having just sense enough to first roll 
 himself in his ulster. When Tolly arrived next 
 morning at eleven o'clock, the delayed wire in his 
 hand, and his hair erect with terror, he found his 
 master snoring in a strong breeze, with the full sun 
 on him, and at least a pound of dried grease all over 
 the fender. Tolly groaned.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Tolly proceeded in a vague sort of scurry to clear 
 up. But in general confusion of conscience and in 
 his gin-begotten shakiness, he presently dropped the 
 poker with a clatter, and Strange awoke and sat bolt 
 upright in his ulster. 
 
 " Well, Tolly, how do you feel ? " he demanded 
 blandly, regarding the forlorn, dirty figure with a 
 persistent and contemplative stare that caused it to 
 wriggle and writhe like a worm. 
 
 Tolly was a very long, thin, crooked person, whether 
 young or old it was impossible to decide, unless you 
 happened to have seen his baptismal register. 
 
 His mother herself was rather at sea on the ques- 
 tion. " He has always looked like that from a baby," 
 she remarked to the school inspector, when he called 
 one day to round up the urchin, who from his lanky 
 length certainly looked quite meet for Primers. " I 
 don't believe myself he's that old, but he may be, there 
 ain't no tellin' ; he's that queer, one can't never say 
 nothin' certain regardin' him." 
 
 Tolly's freckles were his great point, they were so 
 many, so parti-coloured and so varied in form ; they 
 congregated most on his long, thin nose, and tumbled 
 over one another in a way that gave the appendage 
 
 94
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 95 
 
 a scaly look like the tail of a fish. Tolly's teeth 
 suffered from early decay; he may have had a few 
 back-grinders, but all he could boast of in front was 
 one abnormally long fang at the right side, that wobbled 
 frightfully at every word, and when he was nervous 
 from gin, wobbled even when he was silent. 
 
 " If I remember aright," continued Strange, " you 
 took the pledge the night before I left ; you cried too — 
 let alone roared — with remorse." 
 
 " Yes, sir, I don't deny nothin'." 
 
 " I'd like to catch you at it ! Well, how long did you 
 keep the pledge ? " 
 
 " I believe it were a matter of three weeks, sir ; then 
 I cotched cold." 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! And the gin cotched you ? Now, 
 clear up that place. I shall cook breakfast myself. 
 When you have put things ship-shape — from my point 
 of view, not yours, recollect — I shall give you sixpence ; 
 then you can go to the baths round the corner, and 
 scrub yourself from head to foot. Your things — except 
 the hat, I burnt that ; you appear to have stored dripping 
 in it — are in the box I gave you ; put them on and then 
 wait here for me. That gridiron, those tumblers, those 
 cups and other things you have smashed or pawned, 
 you will buy out of your next three weeks' wages — 
 Farris's gin-hole has all your savings, no doubt. And 
 to-night I shall give you a dose of castor oil mixed with 
 senna." 
 
 " Oh, Lord help me ! " groaned Tolly, and he 
 shuffled nearer to his master, with his slits of lips 
 drawn tight across his fang— he had experienced 
 Strange's treatment before this. 
 
 " Now stop groaning, and do your work ; neither I
 
 96 A YELL OW A STER. 
 
 nor the Lord would touch you with a pair of tongs in 
 your present condition. You have earned your punish- 
 ment, and of course you shall get it. If you lived de- 
 cently you would have a first-rate place, and you know 
 it ; and look here, I have come to the end of my patience ; 
 if I find you in this state again I shall sack you." 
 
 Tolly gave an anguished squeal. 
 
 " Oh, I'll try, sir ; I does try, I swear to God I does. 
 I tries, I does, till I sweats like a bullock, and doesn't 
 know if I'm on my head or my heels, but summow it 
 ain't no go. Don't sack me, for the love of God, don't, 
 sir." 
 
 " Finish your sweeping, and go over that place under 
 the table again. I shall see how you get on after the 
 bath and the castor oil. 
 
 " Poor beggar ! " said Strange to himself, as he ate 
 his ham and drank his well-sweetened tea. ■" Poor 
 beggar ! I wonder if I shall ever make anything out 
 of him ! Only that the creature is so weakly — look at 
 the miserable hold of his claws on that dustpan ! — I 
 should take him about with me ; the Arabs would teach 
 him sobriety anyway, and he might pose as an apostle 
 of Christianity among them." 
 
 At this thought Strange chuckled aloud, and helped 
 himself to another slice of ham. 
 
 Tolly's face brightened as he heard the sound ; he 
 turned furtively to watch his earthly Providence, and 
 went on with his dusting with redoubled fury. 
 
 " Now," said Strange, when he had finished, " carry 
 all these things into the next room and have a good 
 feed. When did you happen to have your last 
 meal ? " 
 
 On the point of truth Strange was inexorable ; the
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 97 
 
 fellow dared not lie ; but he had a sort of bastard pride 
 about him, and felt the question keenly. Turning a 
 sickly puce, he stammered, — 
 
 "I haven't had nothing yesterday, sir; sumraow I 
 didn't feel like it." 
 
 " No ? Well, if I were you I'd cultivate the feeling 
 now. Send in the barber on your way to the bath, 
 and hand down that ink bottle from the shelf before 
 you go. Pah ! you can't even fill an ink bottle, your 
 hand shakes so ! Upon my word, if I have to sack 
 you I don't know what you'll do, you aren't worth 
 fourpence a week in this condition." 
 
 Tolly gave a dumb shudder, and his fang kept time 
 to it. 
 
 Five years before, Strange had picked him up out 
 of a sewer, where he went to learn the trade of ratting. 
 Strange liked to learn the ins and outs of anything 
 that had any suggestion of human interest in it. 
 
 He had brought the half-dead, mouldy creature to 
 his rooms; and after saving his life, it struck him to 
 keep it, and see what could be done with it. This 
 was the result. 
 
 As long as Strange was at home Tolly kept straight, 
 but directly he was out of reach, the miserable, 
 absorbing craving took hold of the wretch, and 
 pinched, and pulled, and nipped, as with raging hot 
 irons, at the very soul of him, till at last he swallowed 
 his humanity at a gulp, gave way to the beast, and 
 fled to the gin-shop. He had endured the torture 
 this last time for three weeks. 
 
 Strange thought, with grim pity, as he watched 
 him through the heavy Eastern curtains, devouring 
 his food to the dropping of tears, " Poor beggar 1 
 
 7
 
 98 A YELL O W A STER. 
 
 I shall never be able to get rid of him as long as 
 life holds whatever morsel of soul he may have in 
 him. Meanwhile, I cannot stand that solitary fang; 
 when he has got over his brew I shall get him a set 
 of teeth." 
 
 He lay back and laughed. " They'll be the ruin 
 of his immortal soul, those teeth. Fancy the grin of 
 the fellow when his lips have a resisting surface to 
 stretch across ! Brown will charge frightfully for 
 filling such a cavern." 
 
 He laughed again and turned to his work ; and in 
 two hours he had the first batch of " copy " ready for 
 the printer. Then he yawned and stretched, and 
 apologised to the barber, whom he had kept waiting 
 an hour and ten minutes. 
 
 When he was shaved, he dressed, and set forth to 
 resume civilisation.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 When he got outside his rooms, which were in a 
 turning off Piccadilly, Strange looked up and down 
 the street and at his watch. 
 
 " I shall not bother with luncheon ; that ham will 
 last till eight," he said. " I shall go to the Club, and I 
 suppose I must see Aunt Moll. I'll go there to tea, 
 she'll be up probably, and perhaps awake by that 
 time." 
 
 He struck out for his Club, and made a rapid tour 
 of the premises ; but he found there was no good to be 
 got there, the billiard-rooms were empty, and the 
 reading-rooms were given over to half a dozen old 
 fellows suffering from gout and senile decay. 
 
 " It's too early and too late for anything," he 
 muttered, as he lighted a fresh cigar on the steps ; 
 " it will be a full week, besides, before I get into the 
 swing again. I shall try Brydon." 
 
 With that he swung off down the street, past some 
 big thoroughfares, then he cut across a mesh of alleys 
 and courts, out into some dingy squares, landing at 
 last in Bloomsbury Square. He walked round till he 
 got to a tall, narrow house in a corner, where he pulled 
 up, pushed open the door, which was ajar, and went 
 upstairs to the fifth story, where he found a door with 
 
 99
 
 ioo A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 " Mr. Brydon " painted on it in big letters. He opened 
 it, and walked in. 
 
 A big, fair boy with a cigarette in his mouth was 
 sitting before an easel, touching up a background ; 
 he spoke in a soft, tired voice, without turning an inch 
 of himself. 
 
 "Excuse me, Carry, I can't possibly stand up, I am 
 wrestling with a curtain. Kindly sit down and begin 
 your apologies. Is Ma's ' neuralgy ' bad, or the 
 baby ? Is it ' it ' ? I am not quite certain as to 
 the sex of the last. By the way, don't they come with 
 undue speed, those babies, or do you spread all the 
 diseases out on one ? — Or did Pa go for you, and 
 render your nose unfit for immortality ? Two hours 
 behind time to-day ; that's nothing to you in the day's 
 work, no doubt, but I may remark that it's slightly 
 inconvenient to me, as I prefer daylight to dark to catch 
 the super-excellent tones of your skin." 
 
 " I should have thought, on the whole, that the 
 glow " 
 
 " Strange ! " he cried, with a soft, slow gurgle of 
 intense delight, and lifting himself clumsily up from 
 his seat, he caught Strange's hand in a close clasp, and 
 pushed him back into an old frilled arm-chair. 
 
 " I thought you were in Algeria. It was a dangerous 
 experiment, old fellow ; the betting was ten to one 
 that I was painting off a model, and I am continually 
 overlooking that lock. You're only just back, I see. 
 What a glorious, dusty, smooth red you've got on your 
 cheeks ! For goodness' sake let me have it before gas 
 and sich play the deuce with it." 
 
 " Take it, my child, take it. What a pity you didn't 
 have the beard too ! That was a far more glorious
 
 A YELLOTV ASTER. 101 
 
 red, and a sight dustier, but I parted with it this 
 morning ! " 
 
 " Thank you ; I've seen your bristles once ; I never 
 wish to behold them again. Now smoke, and I'll just 
 have a shy at catching that tint ; it's precisely what I 
 want for this beggar's cheek. My model had it to 
 perfection ; but they clapped him into quad for prigging 
 saveloys, and when he comes out he will be useless — 
 the colour of bad paste." 
 
 " Your room's hardly serious enough ; it's pretty, in 
 a doll's-house style." 
 
 " Serious ! I can't afford that. One can't extract 
 seriousness from rags ; but the colours are good and 
 the cost small. Look at the drapery hiding the crack 
 in the wall in that corner — fourpence-halfpenny the 
 yard, and a reduction by the piece 1 " 
 
 "And you probably went dinnerless for that!" 
 thought Strange, watching the tall, heavy-looking 
 fellow, with his straight, limp brown hair hanging 
 over his forehead in a way that gave him a queer, 
 foolish look ; an effect that his big, alive eyes were 
 constantly contradicting. 
 
 The soft, sleepy tones of his voice, which, only that 
 they happened to be peculiarly clear, would never have 
 been heard at all, added rather to this effect. Strange, 
 however, was quite aware that the eyes of the fellow 
 spoke the truth, and that the hair and the soft speech 
 lied. 
 
 His father had been curate in the parish where 
 Strange's father was the squire ; and even then the big 
 boy had been good to the little one, and the unequal 
 friendship was still kept up between the two. It was 
 a pleasant little corner in the life of the older man ; it
 
 102 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 was the best part of life to the boy ; and no one had a 
 notion of the intense love and gratitude he bore to the 
 big, notable man who took the trouble to know him. 
 
 Strange had stood by him in the bad crisis of his 
 life, when things had come to a head, and his father, 
 the curate, had put down his foot and damned art 
 permanently, and the boy, for his part, had compre- 
 hensively damned the Church, and had then stepped 
 out of the parental porch with a five-pound note in his 
 pocket, and in his eyes the yearning greed for colour. 
 
 " How are you getting on ? " said Strange. 
 
 "Oh, I live, and I hardly owe a thing, — which is a 
 consolation, in case I happened to die off in a hurry, 
 and had to be beholden to the governor to fork up. I 
 have no feelings at all about the funeral expenses or 
 the shroud ; I shall make no provision for these — they 
 seem in his line, somehow. But it would cut the old 
 man up frightfully if he had to pay the models or the 
 beer, or anything smacking of the devil, you know. — 
 Would you mind turning your face an inch to the 
 right ? " 
 
 " What are you at ? Haven't you got the brick- 
 dust yet ? " 
 
 " Yes — in a way ; but I want to sketch you," said 
 Brydon, measuring him with his pencil. " I won't be 
 long ; you look so cool, and big, and ' kinder ' dogged, 
 you've given me a notion. You've grown frightfully 
 since you went away, especially about the eyes ; 
 they've got so confoundedly deep and intricate. Why 
 don't you have eyes like decent God-fearing mortals ? " 
 
 " Ask my parents. If they refuse you the information, 
 I can only refer you to my godfather and godmother. 
 By the way, what's wrong with you, Charlie ? "
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 103 
 
 << Me ! — Nothing ! — I had another bout of rheumatic 
 fever a month ago, and I have felt a trifle stodgy since 
 at times, especially after a grind up these stairs." 
 
 " Heart ! " thought Strange. " Poor beggar ! it'll be 
 hard on him if he's carried off before he learns to draw. 
 Will you dine with me to-day ? " 
 
 Brydon's face lit ; he had ecstatic memories of dinners 
 with Strange, and, as a matter of fact, his dinners for 
 two days past had consisted of bread — and mustard to 
 give it a relish. 
 
 " Thank you, old man, I can't— I can't go anywhere 
 till Friday." 
 
 " Why, in Heaven's name ? " 
 
 " I have some black and white to do," he said, mixing 
 some paint hurriedly. 
 
 Strange took a glance at his back view and shrugged 
 his shoulders. 
 
 "The beggar's sure to let it out ; he always does," he 
 reflected. 
 
 After a few minutes' silent painting Brydon turned 
 round. 
 
 " I generally tell you most things," he said, " if you 
 wait long enough, and you know by this time what an 
 abject ass I am, so you may as well hear the climax. 
 
 "I was down sketching in Surrey last month. I 
 went after the fever — I didn't feel as if I could stand 
 the stairs just then — and I found a girl in a cottage 
 there, who was willing to sit for me whenever I wanted 
 her. She was— divine ! Look ! " he got up slowly 
 and took a little canvas from behind the door. " Look ! 
 Did Greuse ever have such a head to paint from ? I 
 fell in love with her. Of course, it was that colour 
 that did it ; — that, and her poses, and all her little ways
 
 104 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 and movements, and her soft little voice— oh— oh — you 
 know the sort of fool I am ! I lodged at her mother's 
 house, and the pair nursed me as if I were a sick cat. 
 Well — I had to leave that place at a moment's notice, or 
 I don't know what might have happened— you know. 
 I paid up and cleared. 
 
 " Would you believe it, I hadn't been home a week, 
 when who should appear one night, past ten o'clock, but 
 that girl ? Upon my word, I broke out in a cold sweat 
 all over. I'm as weak as water, and— she was divine. 
 I tell you— I had an awful job altogether. I quieted 
 her down first, then I had to bathe her feet, such pretty 
 pink little ones, but all torn and bruised. If you believe 
 me, she had walked from some miles this side of 
 Godalming. I got her some food, and gave her up my 
 bed, and, somehow or other, I got her back next day ; 
 she'd have stayed on any terms, poor little soul ! 
 Girls are queer fish," he said modestly, " one never can 
 tell what'll fetch them. It was all pretty hot on the 
 mother, however, so I gave her the few shillings I had ; 
 and then she wrote to say that the girl got fever from 
 the walk, so of course I've had to help them, and I 
 regret to say my boots have gone for a change to mine 
 uncle's. I shall be paid on Friday, and then I'll bloom 
 back into my pristine glory and accept invitations. 
 
 " I wonder," he went on reflectively, " if there's any 
 way of keeping a fellow from making a fool of himself. 
 If you have happened to hear of any in your travels, 
 an anti-love philtre now, for Heaven's sake divulge it ; 
 it ruins one's work getting in love in a promiscuous 
 way; it's a nuisance too, and devilish expensive. I 
 know I always have to pay compound interest for my 
 pleasures in this line, and they're absolutely mawkish
 
 A YELLO TV ASTER. 105 
 
 too, in their innocence," he added, with a little injured 
 sigh. 
 
 Strange watched the boy curiously, wondering what 
 possible motive, or train of motives, combined to keep 
 his life so clean, with its every condition on the side of 
 uncleanness. 
 
 " He has neither convictions nor religion to hold him ; 
 he is as passionate and sensual a fellow as any going ; 
 he is steeped to the lips in Zola and others of that ilk ; 
 theoretically, innocence and he are as far apart as the 
 poles. He is a fool, no doubt, but I wish to God the 
 folly would last." 
 
 Brydon guessed the elder man's thoughts, or perhaps 
 his own were running on the same lines, as he sketched 
 in the strong, steady, cool face, with a breadth of 
 technique that was marvellous in a boy of his age and 
 opportunities. 
 
 " I wonder myself," he said, " I don't make more of 
 my pleasures. A fellow has opportunities somehow," 
 he added, with pleasing diffidence, "no matter how 
 poor he is ; but I have a sort of notion I might lose 
 in Art what I should gain in pleasure. It would be 
 idiotic to run that risk, wouldn't it? I have a sort 
 of theory — it's probably rot, though it has a sound of 
 truth about it — that the cleaner one keeps one's body 
 and soul, the clearer one's eyes keep, and the better 
 able to tackle the truth in Nature." 
 
 He paused, a little embarrassed. Any expression, 
 even of the most primitive morality, brings a blush of 
 shame to the cheek of youth. 
 
 "That sounds like a workable theory," assented 
 Strange ; " and, upon my word, I believe you will find 
 it so. The opposite is playing the deuce with the
 
 1 06 A YELL 01V A STER. 
 
 modern Italian school, and it strikes one like a blow 
 in a lot of the work of the youngsters there. I would 
 thresh out that theory if I were you, nothing half 
 and half will do." 
 
 " No," said Brydon ruefully ; " no, that is where the 
 grind comes in." 
 
 Strange laughed, the fellow's face and accent fitted 
 his speech so comically. 
 
 " I suppose I must let him get over the boot business 
 himself, he's so unpleasantly cocky; but I'm convinced 
 he's hungry. I wonder how much the jade got out 
 of him ! Charlie," he then said aloud, "I must be off; 
 I shall expect you on Friday at my Club. If I were 
 you, old chap, I should stop that young person's 
 supplies, the fever must be off her by this time." 
 
 " I have a sort of awful conviction that it's going 
 to be intermittent, and that nothing but a change of 
 address will have any effect upon it. But, oh, old man, 
 if you could have seen that girl," he concluded, regard- 
 ing her head mournfully, with his own on one side, 
 and with an overwhelming longing for the Egyptian 
 flesh-pots surging up within him. 
 
 Strange slapped him on the shoulder. " Just as well 
 not ; fevers come expensive, whether they take you 
 or the victim to your charms. Good-bye."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 "To look at the fellow one would never give him 
 credit for half the grit he has," thought Strange, as he 
 glanced round for a cab at the street corner. " If I 
 had money I should send him to Paris," he went on 
 as soon as he had settled himself comfortably ; " the 
 Kensington methods are no manner of use to him. It's 
 the deuce of a shame, too, that he has to attempt 
 finished work for a living when he should be swatting 
 over the beginning. And that colour mania — that will 
 get chronic and overgrow him, and then God help 
 him!" 
 
 As it happened, Lady Mary was at home and quite 
 wide-awake. As a rule, this was not the case until 
 much later in the day ; but just now various things 
 combined to keep her sensitised. 
 
 When Strange was announced, she was sitting well 
 screened from the small, bright fire, gazing in soft 
 meditation at her plump, white hands, with the corners 
 of her mouth slightly drawn downwards, and her 
 smooth, round forehead wrinkled up in a way that 
 would have gone to the heart of a stone to see in such 
 a picture of comfort as she was made to be. 
 
 "Humphrey ! " she exclaimed, making a vain try at a 
 
 spring and flopping down again limply, " Humphrey ! " 
 
 107
 
 108 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 " Myself and no other," said Strange, receiving 
 her kiss cheerfully, and settling himself into a chair 
 after he had shaken it to see if it would bear. " I 
 needn't ask you how you are, Aunt Moll, you look just 
 as you have always done — like a catkin." 
 
 " A what, Humphrey ? " she enquired anxiously. 
 
 " A catkin : we used to call them goslings — soft, oval, 
 pale gold, silky, fluffy masses — you have a weakness 
 for adjectives I know, judging from the line in literature 
 you patronise. The harshest wind has never been 
 known to ruffle a gosling ; it always skips them ; they 
 always feel warm to the touch, as if the sun were on 
 them ; they are delicious things. The sun is always 
 on you, Aunt Moll, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Ah, Humphrey, you little know ; you can make but 
 a faint guess at my troubles. The death of my 
 dear ' 
 
 "Aunt Moll, we'll skip that!" interrupted Strange, 
 with a twinkle. 
 
 He knew quite well what an unmixed relief the 
 deceased peer's removal was to all his kith and kin, 
 more especially to his wife. 
 
 " If you recollect, before I went to Algiers we agreed 
 to let my uncle rest, undisturbed, in his present retreat, 
 which, from what we know of his past, must be unex- 
 ceptionable. Whatever his faults may have been, no 
 one can deny that he was a most exclusive person, and 
 had a very just notion of his position." 
 
 " Dear Humphrey ! this flippancy ! I had hoped 
 that the many dangers you have experienced, the many 
 times you have come face to face with death — and, 
 Humphrey, with Eternity — would have brought the 
 seriousness of life before your eyes."
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 109 
 
 " Aunt Moll, the sight of you there in that chair 
 brings that view of the case more clearly before me 
 than ever the sight of death did." 
 
 Lady Mary again looked anxious ; her nephew always 
 made her feel like that ; his eyes seemed to rake her 
 from stem to stern, and to find some mute amusement 
 in the process. Suddenly she gave a little start. 
 
 "What have I been thinking of?" she murmured. 
 " Humphrey ," she began again, " we must speak of 
 your prospects." 
 
 She was bubbling over with them as it happened; 
 besides, they would keep him off her. 
 
 " What are you thinking of doing now ? " 
 
 " What I have always been thinking of doing, and 
 have never done yet, — making the result of my face 
 to face encounters with death — and Eternity — of some 
 practical value to the world in general, and to myself 
 in particular, by filling my trousers' pockets, which at 
 this present moment contain one pound six and three- 
 pence, and that's mostly due for beer." 
 
 "Humphrey! Have you heard nothing? Your 
 letters ? " 
 
 " I never read them. For Heaven's sake, speak, 
 divulge, — I'm ready for anything ! " 
 
 " Your great-uncle is dead — died last month. Before 
 he went he confessed a heavy sin that had lain for 
 years on his soul, poor dear creature. That great, 
 lanky son of his, — about whom, as you know, I always 
 had a nasty feeling, as if he were not altogether quite 
 right, as if somehow he was not one of us : this now 
 proves to have been a quite prophetic instinct, — he 
 turns out to be — ahem — illegitimate, and you, you, 
 Humphrey, are the heir."
 
 no A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 " I say ! It's awfully hard lines on Tom ! " 
 
 Strange was quite as staggered with the news as 
 any other younger son in his condition would have 
 been. It vibrated through and through him ; but as 
 one cannot clothe thunder in harmonies, any more than 
 one can a tumultuous muddle of sensations in speech, 
 in the presence of a woman chiefly gush and stoutness, 
 he swallowed his muddle and was flippant. 
 
 " Humphrey ! " said Lady Mary with dignity, 
 wondering a little if Humphrey himself were quite 
 right, "this minute you have ten thousand a year, 
 and you, my nephew, are Sir Humphrey Strange." 
 
 " Am I ? You'll be astonished to hear I don't feel 
 a bit like it ; I feel exactly as I did before. Is there 
 any difference to the naked eye? If so, do you mind 
 telling me ? " 
 
 Lady Mary stirred uneasily and crossed her hands. 
 
 " Dear Humphrey ! " she cried at last, with a soft, 
 wailing bleat, " I confess I did expect some show of 
 proper feeling from you on this occasion. It is a shock 
 to me to see you in your present frame of mind ; it 
 seems like flying in the face of Providence, and may 
 end in bringing down a judgment on your head." 
 
 Lady Mary sighed, and continued, lowering her 
 voice to a coo, "When I heard the news, Humphrey, 
 I went down on my knees, and prayed that my poor, 
 sinful uncle might be forgiven for foisting that counter- 
 feit young man off on our family, and that you, my 
 nephew, might face your responsibilities with a serious- 
 ness befitting the occasion. My dear, if you knew 
 what it costs me to kneel, now that I have grown a 
 little stout, you might perhaps appreciate this act." 
 
 Humphrey grinned.
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. in 
 
 "Aunt Moll, my feelings are always too deep for 
 expression ; it would upset you for a month if I were 
 to give you the merest glimpse of the emotions that 
 are ravaging me this minute. These inward upheavals 
 are frightfully wasting ; your acts of prayer and thanks- 
 giving are a fool to them. There doesn't happen to 
 be any tea going, does there ? " 
 
 " Tea ! Is it five o'clock ? What can have hap- 
 pened? Pray ring. The misery I have to endure 
 with servants! I wonder my hair isn't even greyer 
 than it is, and my poor face more worn." 
 
 "Your hair is as brown as a nut, and there isn't 
 a crease in your dear, soft young face. What was 
 wrong with you when I came in ? — the corners of your 
 mouth were turned the wrong way." 
 
 Lady Mary reflected as she made his tea. 
 
 " Ah, it was Gwen ; she has thrown aside another 
 most desirable match, the third in three months." 
 
 " Gwen,— what ? " 
 
 " Gwen Waring : she is with me for the season." 
 
 "Ah, that queer, sulky, imperturbable, long-legged 
 girl, belonging to those wonderful young fossils at 
 Waring Park. I shouldn't have thought she'd have 
 got the chance to throw over any match, let alone 
 three desirable ones " 
 
 "Humphrey!" 
 
 "What's up? Gru! " 
 
 He sprang to his feet. 
 
 A tall, superb girl, with a face like a hothouse flower, 
 was standing in the middle of the room, looking at him 
 with a cool aloofness that made his blood run cold. 
 She had heard every word — she must have, his voice 
 was a big one.
 
 112 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 This magnificent, dominant creature, before whom 
 he felt as a worm, was only an enlarged, completed 
 edition of the " sulky, long-legged " slip, of whom he 
 used to catch fitful glances in his stays with his aunt. 
 
 If only he hadn't classified her in such cool, pleasant 
 tones ! It was not often " a fellow felt at such a 
 disadvantage. If the girl had made a joke now, or 
 even looked as if she could make one ! " But she 
 knew better than to joke ; she had her tactics ready to 
 her hand, and she was determined his impertinence 
 should be brought home to him. 
 
 Her own classification never troubled her in the 
 least ; it was the good-humoured sneer at her parents 
 which touched her. Was she always to suffer for 
 being the product of such a house ? 
 
 The next few minutes Strange felt younger than he 
 had done for ten years. 
 
 " Lady Mary has been telling me of your good 
 fortune," she remarked kindly, sipping her tea, and 
 looking at him in as motherly a way as so very splendid 
 a person could look. " You must be quite excited — I 
 suppose you are already making a hundred plans ? 
 
 " I seem to know you quite well," she went on, not 
 giving him the chance to reply ; " Lady Mary is always 
 telling anecdotes of ' her boy,' — very entertaining ones 
 they are too, and I should fancy characteristic." 
 
 She helped herself to more cream, and regarded him 
 coolly. 
 
 " When she reads prayers she always makes a 
 special and very full mention of you." 
 
 Lady Mary winced abjectly, and looked deprecatingly 
 at her nephew, but his eyes were fastened on Gwen. 
 His aunt felt she had escaped for once. She settled
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 113 
 
 herself into her pillows, and wondered vaguely what 
 would happen next. 
 
 She had a horrid feeling that there were breakers 
 ahead somewhere ; but as she never by any chance 
 could see farther than her own nose, she decided not 
 to make any effort at sighting them, but to drift on 
 with faith. 
 
 " Very considerate of my aunt ! " said Strange, in a 
 pause. 
 
 " Oh, that is only one instance of her consideration, 
 and the least important. She has done much more 
 than that for you ; she is like John the Baptist without 
 the skins and locusts ; she has ' been preparing the way 
 before you,' and you have only to appear to be mobbed, 
 Sir Humphrey. There's not a matron nor a maid in 
 London who doesn't babble of you ; your name is 
 rippling off a hundred tongues at this very minute ; 
 you are the hero of a hundred teas. All this came on 
 after a long round of calls Lady Mary and I paid last 
 Monda}^" she continued, scanning him. " I had only 
 heard your name before, in the outward world, that is, 
 in a queer aside way, as if one hinted at dark things 
 that had better not be unearthed — the Baronetcy of 
 course never affected Lady Mary's prayers and anec- 
 dotes ; they were always with us. Ah, but that is all 
 changed ! You have no notion, though, how exhausting 
 the process has been to Lady Mary." 
 
 She stopped at last. 
 
 11 No," he said, looking at his aunt, " I certainly 
 hadn't perceived any symptoms of a cave-in about her. 
 Monday, did you say, Miss Waring ? Would you 
 mind letting me have your visiting list for that day, 
 Aunt Moll ? I suppose I know some of the people, 
 
 8
 
 114 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 and my soul's one desire for years has been to pose as 
 a tea-hero. I shall just have time to get a foretaste of 
 the joys this afternoon. Good-bye, Aunt Moll ; pray 
 don't look anxious on my account ; my morals are tough 
 enough to run the gauntlet of all the teas in London, 
 and my digestion is unimpaired. Good-bye, Miss 
 Waring," he said, bowing gravely in her direction ; 
 " thank you for standing by my aunt on Monday's 
 warpath ; I am gratified to see you are in no sort of 
 way exhausted by the process. — Hang it all!" he 
 muttered, as he got out into the street, "she smells of 
 a hothouse, with her overpowering beauty, and her 
 insolent airs, and that cool, inexorable way of hers. 
 Oh, Aunt Moll, you'll rue the day you made me a by- 
 word. To think I had to swallow all that, and let a 
 girl bait me ! " 
 
 He laughed aloud. 
 
 "And so I am the coming parti I Good Lord ! I'll 
 be fine practice for the ' sport,' — an}'way they'll find me 
 shy game. I'll go home, finish a chapter or two, dose 
 Tolly, and then I'll dine. 
 
 " Hullo ! " he exclaimed suddenly, " things are looking 
 up for Charlie ; he can go to Paris now when he likes. 
 I wonder how I can reduce his high stomach to seeing 
 it in that light 1 "
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Strange found the preliminaries of his induction into 
 the role of an English squire even more unpleasant 
 than he had expected. 
 
 During the period when he had read Roman law, 
 and knocked about the Courts with the hope of supple- 
 menting his income by the experience he picked up 
 there, the technicalities of the law had bored him to 
 excruciation point. Now, when they were brought 
 specially to bear on him, he found them more galling 
 still; but being a wise man in his way, he shirked 
 none of them, and took good care not to take a solitary 
 step in the dark, till, by the time they had got him 
 off their hands, the solicitors of the Stranges were in 
 a position to congratulate themselves at last on the 
 fact of having found a whole man in the family. 
 
 He had gone the rounds of his duties doggedly, 
 and had found them insufferably dull; he had been 
 down to Strange Hall, had left things there in trim, 
 and had now flown back to London. 
 
 One afternoon in June he was standing in the 
 shadow of a deep window, in one of his rooms in 
 Piccadilly, lazily sharpening a pencil. 
 
 He had plenty of work to do, but somehow he had 
 no stomach for it ; the change in his life had > got into 
 his bones, and had filled him with unrest and a certain 
 
 "5
 
 u6 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 loss of faith in himself. When at last, after a long 
 meditation, the truth of this broke upon him, it came 
 with an audible and ample " Damn ! " 
 
 "I may as well give it up and amuse myself in a 
 mild way," he thought, after a hasty review of matters ; 
 " nothing can be too weak and vapid for my present 
 condition — I feel flabb}^" 
 
 A mild grunt at his back made him swing round. 
 It was Tolly, just back from the dentist, of a deeper 
 puce than usual, and with a terrible, uncompromising 
 row of glistening teeth shooting out aggressively 
 between his thin lips. 
 
 He gave a deferential duck, and stood on approval, 
 with a laboured attempt at an appearance of modest 
 deprecation. 
 
 " Turn round, Tolly," said his master, " away from 
 me. I can't bear them all at once ! " 
 
 He was shaking with silent laughter. 
 
 " How do you feel about them yourself, Tolly ? " 
 
 " Fust-rate, sir — your wussup." 
 
 Since his master's rise in life he was much exercised 
 as to the best terms by which to give him honour, and 
 he varied them daily. 
 
 " I can bite nails, your wussup." 
 
 " Ah ! You mustn't play fast and loose with these 
 tusks, as you might with ones bred and reared on the 
 premises." 
 
 " Lord, your wussup ! I wouldn : t make that free, 
 being as they are your property, sir ; besides, any fool 
 can see as how they be the real bought article, money 
 down — not your everyday, common grinders. There 
 weren't a toff I met as didn't mention 'em. I tried to 
 keep 'em dark, sir,"
 
 A YELL O IV A STER. 1 1 7 
 
 "I shall expect a good deal more from you," said 
 Strange, pointing the moral, "now you're complete. 
 If any one calls to-day, say I'm out, and I won't be 
 home till night ; and take these to the post before I 
 start," he pointed to a big heap of notes on the table, 
 " and don't drop any of them — or swallow your teeth." 
 
 "Twenty invitations in a week," reflected Tolly's 
 master ; " the first-fruits of my rise in life ! they used 
 to average six a week. I'll go and see Lady Mary. 
 Damn it all ! why need a man lie to himself ? I'll go 
 and see Miss Waring ! " 
 
 And he went ; and somehow the next day he went 
 again, and the next, and the next after that. Then he 
 and Gwen discovered a mutual passion for riding ; not 
 up and down the Row — that seemed as tame a pastime 
 to the one as to the other — but in the early mornings, 
 out on the heath at Hampstead, or sometimes far out 
 on the Surrey side. 
 
 Once they went as far as Surbiton, where they got 
 drenched in a shower — and had to take refuge and 
 have tea in an old inn. 
 
 But it is not at all to be supposed that with all this 
 intimacy those two got an inch nearer one another; 
 they were intellectual companions — nothing more ; not 
 even to be called comrades. 
 
 Gwen neither evaded nor shirked conventions ; she 
 simply swept them aside, as she did her lovers. As 
 for Strange, he felt her and the rides very distinctly a 
 boon. She was an excellent flint to make sparks 
 with ; her ways of thought were so new, let alone 
 startling ; her modes of expression so quaint, her 
 tongue so remarkably sharp, and she had such a brutal 
 habit of speaking undiluted truths. For the once the
 
 n8 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 two agreed, they disagreed at least three times, and a 
 good pitched battle had to be fought to settle any 
 question. The sponge was never by any chance 
 thrown up, it was forced out of the hand of one or of 
 the other of them. It was a most bracing and delight- 
 ful experience for Gwen ; it was so satisfactory, and so 
 absolutely free from mawkishness, and she reflected, 
 with superb self-congratulation, that the man had just 
 as little capacity for that phase as herself. 
 
 "She's hard — hard as nails," he reflected, after an 
 evening at Lady Mary's ; " and yet, she wasn't made 
 like that, I could swear. I wonder what the devil's 
 wrong with her eyes, and what'll put them right? 
 There's not a man living that would have any effect 
 upon them, and yet there are fellows going who would 
 take that dewiness for softness. Hang it ! it's mere 
 moisture ; but — ah, well, the effect is magnificent ! " 
 
 He took out his watch, but his hand shook so that 
 he could not open it. 
 
 " God forgive me ! " he muttered, " this is awful I 
 I have had a good deal in the way of education at 
 women's hands, but this is a new experience," he 
 remarked after a pause, grinning, and flicking a spot 
 of ash off his coat. " Her want of self-consciousness is 
 next to ghastly ; it has an uncanny, sexless sort of air 
 about it that gives one the shivers." 
 
 The intellectual companionship continued unabated 
 for ten more days; then, one evening at the end of 
 June, Gwen Waring told Strange that she and Lady 
 Mary were going down into the country early in July. 
 
 When he got home that night he had a difficulty in 
 mounting the stairs. When he succeeded, he got 
 himself to the glass, and found he was white to the
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 119 
 
 lips. He had had a shock — he had discovered, as he 
 had turned out of Lady Mary's softly-lighted hall into 
 the street, that he loved the girl irretrievably ; and with 
 the knowledge came fear. 
 
 For a few minutes he leaned against the mantel- 
 piece, his head sunk into his hands ; then he raised 
 himself with a sigh, threw off his light overcoat, and 
 sat down to smoke ; but he couldn't draw a puff; then 
 it struck him that he was numb with cold. 
 
 He looked at the grate with a purpose to make a 
 fire lighting in his eyes, but with a shrug he shirked 
 the trouble. He could not go to bed, that was out of 
 the question; as for sitting there freezing, that was 
 just as impossible. He must move ; he must feel the 
 life stir in him again. He stood up and shook himself; 
 then a thought struck him ; he hurried to his room, 
 changed his clothes, and went out round the corner to 
 the mews where he kept the horses he had brought up 
 from Strange Hall. 
 
 He found the gear, saddled the freshest, and rode 
 away through short cuts and byways, away from the 
 noise and hurly-burly, out into the quiet of the country. 
 Then he drew rein, pulled the mare aside on to a green 
 strip flanking the road, and let her go her own pace. 
 For a long time he gave her grace, and smoked 
 savagely. 
 
 " It is about the most killing blow that could have 
 fallen on a man. It would be bad for any fellow ; but 
 for me, who can love if I can do anything, to have to 
 pour it all out at the feet of a girl who couldn't under- 
 stand what love, much less passion, means, to save her 
 life ! It's a nasty backhanded stroke of fate, and I 
 don't know that I've ever done anything bad enough
 
 120 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 to deserve it. Lord, how the mare's sides smoke ! I 
 must have ridden like a maniac. The worst of it is, 
 this isn't a thing one can clear off and forget with the 
 eternal face of her in one's soul ! — the fine, gran J, 
 proud creature ! It's almost sacrilege to expect her 
 to love, with love in the state it is — to love any man- 
 Jack of us ; it's honour enough to love her, and yet, — 
 yet, — when a man has once done it, done it once and 
 for ever, the only thing in life seems to be to get 
 something in return. What commercial brutes we are 
 even in this holiest connection of all ! But let her love 
 or not, I'll give her my love if she'll take it, and I 
 shall pick up crumbs like Lazarus. — Phew ! how she 
 dominates one ! — And when her love wakes up — but, 
 the devil ! suppose another fellow is the instrument 
 chosen ! Ah ! — ah ! hold up, mare, are you stumbling 
 or am I reeling ? It's myself, by Jove. God help 
 us ! " 
 
 Involuntarily he drove his spurs into the beast ; she 
 started forward angrily, unused to maniacs. Presently 
 he came to his senses, and pulled her up with a drag 
 on her mouth that she did not forget for some time. 
 She went sulky and stumbled for the next mile, small 
 blame to her ! A Christian would have done more. 
 
 Gradually her master's face cleared itself and 
 softened. 
 
 " Perhaps," he muttered, " perhaps it may come 
 right after all. There's no knowing how much of the 
 perfect woman lies hidden beneath the shell of such 
 girlhood."
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 When Strange got back to town, after baiting man 
 and beast at a little inn on the outskirts of Weybridge, 
 Telly's greeting, which was blasphemous and amazed, 
 and the unusual look in his green e}'es, caused his 
 master to glance at himself in the glass. 
 
 " Well ! " he thought, turning away, " I'm a nice 
 object to go courting ! One would think I had just 
 emerged from D.T., or Bedlam ! Tolly, turn on the 
 hot water, empty a bottle of vinegar into it, and put 
 out clean clothes for me. I feel like jelly. Good 
 Lord ! has love this limping effect often ? " 
 
 He turned into his bedroom. As he was wrestling 
 with one of his shirt buttons he muttered, — 
 
 " However this goes, it's a toss-up what the gain 
 will be, heaven or hell. Well, a man might do worse 
 than face hell for her, — or better still with her. " 
 
 He had hardly made this heroic remark when the 
 absurdity of it struck him ; he laughed aloud. " I had 
 better face my bath," he said. 
 
 When he was washed and dressed, he rather thought 
 of the Club and a good lunch, but the game didn't seem 
 worth the candle. He felt that his hands were quite 
 sufficiently full with one woman, he had no desire for 
 men, more especially at feeding-time. 
 
 121
 
 122 A YELL O XV A STER. 
 
 " I shall have my lunch here," he said, looking up 
 from his paper ; " get out some bread and cheese, and 
 beer, and anything else you can lay your hands on." 
 
 In five minutes Tolly had covered a little round table 
 with a cloth, and had set out on it a mixed assortment 
 of cheese, beer, jam, and a freshly-opened tin of foie 
 gras, and he stood proudly in attendance with napkin 
 on arm, keeping down with difficulty a grin of self- 
 satisfaction. 
 
 However full he was of himself, Strange never let a 
 new accomplishment of Tolly's escape him ; if he had 
 done so the effect on the boy would have been dis- 
 astrous. No sinner ever strove after God as this 
 sinner after his owner. 
 
 "Well done, Tolly, you'll shine in life yet; the way 
 you flourish that damask is sublime ! " 
 
 " Beggin' your pardon, your wussup," said Tolly, 
 "Bill, the groom, 'e were round after ye, a-stormin' 
 at me because the horse was out. Bill always lets out 
 at me like when he feels hisself put about in his mind, 
 and he thought you and the beast were lost," sniggered 
 Tolly. " I told him you was big enough to take care 
 of yourself, and that gents often finds the nights more 
 convenienter than the days," he remarked, confiden- 
 tially, pushing the salt under his master's nose. " Bill 
 is that ignorant, sir, of loife and sich, he erstonishes 
 me." 
 
 Strange drank his beer with a look at the half-made 
 creature who had plumbed ' loife ' from the vantage- 
 ground of her sewers. 
 
 " Very like his betters," he thought ; " we get lots of 
 our views from a standpoint not one whit sweeter or 
 cleaner than Tolly's."
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 123 
 
 He made a fresh dive into the pate, and his thoughts 
 broke out on a new track. 
 
 " I think we're going off somehow. I believe it is 
 a good deal the women's fault. This new craze for 
 advanced talk between the sexes is no good ; the women 
 who affect it are never clever enough nor good enough 
 to make a success of the thing ; it's a pose mostly, as 
 their smoking is, just done for effect. Tolly, pass 
 that jam ! " 
 
 When he had rounded off his meal with a hunch 
 of bread and strawberry jam, he stretched himself, 
 went to the window and looked out, drumming gently 
 on the pane. 
 
 " I wonder," he thought, " I wonder if I am quite a 
 fool or not ; but — but, God ! how I love her ! " 
 
 Then he stopped drumming, and began to wonder 
 vaguely how in the name of Heaven he was able to 
 eat great hunches of bread and jam not five minutes 
 before. 
 
 He turned and watched Tolly through the door, 
 devouring at his ease, with a sudden shock of disgust, 
 more at himself than at the fellow, with his hideous 
 mouth all moist and jammy. He turned again to the 
 window and tried to steady his brain, but it reeled, and 
 everything in the room swam before him ; he dropped 
 his head in his hands, and trembled from head to foot ; 
 when he raised it he felt steadier, and not so raging 
 hot. 
 
 " I shall chance it," he said, " I shall chance it." 
 
 When he reached Lady Mary's he was in a much 
 more wholesome frame of mind. He had gone there 
 by roundabout ways, where he saw a good deal of 
 stark, staring, naked humanity ; this helped to crystallise
 
 i2 4 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 his emotions, to sift the dross out, and leave the clean 
 stuff. 
 
 He never in his life felt clearer-headed than when he 
 went up the stairs unannounced, and paused to look 
 through the half-opened door at Gwen, sitting near a 
 window in a cloudy dress of soft yellow crepey stuff, 
 and with her strong, long-fingered, composed hands 
 lying idle in her lap, and the guard dropped from her 
 eyes, showing a good deal more of herself than he had 
 ever seen before. 
 
 He only paused for one minute, he had no right 
 yet to the girl's secrets; then he threw open the 
 door with a little bang, and brought her back to the 
 present. 
 
 " Oh, is it you ? " she said, with the ghost of a start, 
 looking up at him. 
 
 She felt in a vague way that he knew more of her 
 in that one minute than he had any business to do, and 
 she was not quite sure if she liked it or not. He did 
 not offer to shake hands with her, but glanced round 
 the room silently. Gwen laughed. 
 
 " You are looking for Lady Mary ? " she said. " She 
 has a bad headache, an abnormally bad one, and won't 
 be down till five." 
 
 He offered up a dumb thanksgiving, and sat down 
 carefully ; then he felt a horrible desire to say, " Hem ! " 
 or to mention the deuce, or the weather. 
 
 He had felt intensely reasonable the minute before, 
 but he was confused by the beauty of the girl sitting 
 so close to him, with the flickering sunshine running 
 golden threads in and out her twisted russet hair, and 
 clothing her in pale molten gold. 
 
 " She shall have nothing to add to her beauty," he
 
 A YELL OTV A STER. 1 25 
 
 thought ; " I'll try at least not to desire the least of her 
 when it is the greatest I want." 
 
 He started up, and asked if he might draw down 
 the blinds. 
 
 " Yes," said Gwen wondering!}', as she saw his big 
 brown hand tremble on the blind line. 
 
 Then a sudden certainty of his intention came upon 
 her with a burst of angry horror, but she swept this 
 off and waited coolly, with a sort of sneering excitement. 
 
 Strange drew his chair farther forward and sat facing 
 her. 
 
 " Miss Waring," he said, " I have come to ask you if 
 you will listen to the shady side of a man's life." 
 
 There was no more tremble or hesitation about him 
 now, he looked as cool as she did. 
 
 " It is a side that men as a rule keep to themselves, 
 and to their male companions ; no matter how near a 
 man and a woman come to each other, this impalpable 
 barrier keeps them apart. This has always struck me 
 as a rather low form of lie, and distinctly dishonourable, 
 especially when practised, as it is, by the stronger on 
 the presumably weaker. If a woman is not strong, 
 and pure, and magnanimous enough to bear this know- 
 ledge, a man should find it out, and go his way before 
 he has dared to touch her life. If she is strong enough 
 she should be given the opportunity of gaining this 
 knowledge at first hand, and taking her subsequent 
 course accordingly. You are immeasurably nobler than 
 any other woman who has crossed my path." 
 
 Involuntarily he lowered his head as he spoke, in a 
 reverential way that touched Gwen, and forced her to 
 hear him. After the first disgusted shock, her impulse 
 had been to send him about his business. She had
 
 126 A YELL OW A STER. 
 
 half-risen from her seat on the spur of this impulse, 
 but somehow she had sat down again, and in spite ot 
 herself she had let him speak. 
 
 "No decent man could deceive you," he went on, 
 "even if every word he spoke were to cut his own 
 throat. May I speak to you as man to man ? " 
 
 He watched the palpitations of her throat — which 
 unfortunately were beyond her control — with a sort of 
 choking sensation. 
 
 " Or more," he added simply, " as if you were God." 
 
 Gwen's colour neither increased nor left her, 
 she neither trembled nor stirred. For a minute she 
 was quite silent, except for one quick little swallowing 
 sound ; she was fighting with a concentrated, restrained 
 frenzy of despair against her fate, against the over- 
 powering longing to hear this man, as he sat there 
 ready to spoil his own life sooner than lie to her, even 
 in a fashion recognised by the use of generations. 
 
 She was quite aware she had nothing whatsoever 
 to give him in exchange ; she knew perfectly well she 
 was about to do him a grievous wrong ; and yet her 
 whole being was concentrated into one imperative 
 demand to hear what he had to say. 
 
 "You may speak," she said in a hard, emotionless 
 voice. 
 
 Then he told her simply, with neither condonation 
 nor reservation, the whole truth about his life. 
 
 It is all very well to talk glibly about the advantages 
 of calling a spade a spade, but when it comes to giving 
 dozens of spades their unvarnished titles in the 
 presence of one virgin clean woman, and when every 
 fresh spade may be about to dig up the heart you 
 would foster, the matter is no joke.
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 127 
 
 By the time that Strange had arrived at the end 
 of his unadorned record, his smooth, brick-dust 
 cheeks looked grey and haggard, and his voice sounded 
 tired. 
 
 Once during the recital Gwen had lost guard over 
 herself and had let a flash of half-triumphant interest 
 escape from her eyes. It was when he had said — 
 " Thank Heaven ! I never loved one of these women ; 
 that is, taking love in its all-round, large sense." 
 
 When he had finished he stood up and looked at 
 her, waiting. 
 
 She had herself still in her power, she felt, with a 
 wild leap of her spirit ; she could yet ward off her fate 
 and his ; " his," she thought with a wave of soft, 
 unaccustomed pity. She had nothing to give this 
 man, nothing, not even the germs of a possible some- 
 thing — something called Love. 
 
 She laughed aloud, and looked in his face when the 
 empty word stirred her brain ; then she lowered her 
 eyes, and turned all her thoughts in on herself, 
 moving a small pearl ring up and down her finger, 
 with a swift, rhythmic movement. This man would 
 take her for mere hope — hope that had no foundation 
 in fact ; it was a mean exchange, nothing for every- 
 thing, — mean and unjust ; for the minute she was 
 hideous to herself, with her own whole life a protest 
 against the injustice of others. 
 
 She looked at him again, and a horrible power 
 seemed to drag and bind her to him ; she turned her 
 eyes away angrily and made a little involuntary sound 
 of trouble. 
 
 " Oh, if I only could treat him as I did the others ! " 
 she muttered under her breath, " but I can't, I can't I "
 
 128 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 She was frightened at herself — at the power which 
 drove her to the man inexorably ; she looked at the 
 door and stirred in her seat, half-rising, but she sat 
 down again, and began to move her ring with the old 
 movement, only quicker, and with tenser fingers. 
 
 Then a cold feeling of finality came on her ; she 
 knew she must say something, and she knew she 
 was going to say the wrong thing; an inexplicable 
 smile flickered across her face and touched her mouth ; 
 she grew quite calm and ceased to move her ring. 
 
 "You have done me a very high honour," she said ; 
 "thank you." 
 
 He came nearer and looked down on her. 
 
 " I have tried to be perfectly honest," he said, " and 
 you have no idea what an awful grind it has been. It 
 would be quite impossible for me to give you any idea 
 of how I honour you, and as for love — " he stopped, 
 breathing hard, " I have a heart full for you, dear ; 
 I don't think I know myself how much I love you." 
 
 The girl looked at him curiously; the simple in- 
 tensity of his manner struck her, then her eyes fell and 
 she sighed. 
 
 " Love is such a mere name to me," she said ; " it 
 seems such a collapsible, bubbly thing, and put to such 
 feeble uses. You want me to be your wife, then, and 
 you offer me a whole heart full of love, whatever that 
 may mean. I must be honest too, and tell you that 
 I shouldn't know how to dispose of a whole heart 
 full of love. I know nothing at all practically about 
 the matter, and theoretically it has never interested 
 me. My situation is hard to explain," she exclaimed, 
 with a petulant sweeping movement of her hand ; "in 
 the face of all this I want to accept your offer, I don't
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 129 
 
 know why ; I really believe it is not I, Gwen Waring, 
 who wants this, it is something outside me that wants 
 it for me. I never felt so impersonal in all my life." 
 
 He winced ; her honesty, to say the least of it, was a 
 trifle bald. 
 
 " Perhaps I am more concerned in it than I think," 
 she went on with a queer, intense serenity, dissecting 
 herself audibly ; " I like new sensations ; I am curious ; 
 most things are so flat and boring." 
 
 Strange started forward and was about to speak ; she 
 raised her hand imperiously. 
 
 " Stop ! " she cried, " I must finish ; I want you quite 
 clearly to understand that if I take you at your word 
 and become your wife — wife," she repeated, " how 
 astonishing the word sounds in connection with me ! " 
 
 She laughed in an odd way and went on, — 
 
 " Remember and understand that I am doing it as 
 an experiment." 
 
 He flushed ; it was his own precise thought, but 
 it seemed less hideous when thought than when 
 spoken. 
 
 " An experiment," she repeated, " but whether it is 
 fair to try experiments in lives is another matter. I 
 wish — " she cast a half-wistful, half-provoked look at 
 him, " I wish you were sufficiently clear and reasonable 
 yourself to help me to answer the question — I am so 
 ignorant in these matters." 
 
 A sudden crimson rushed to her cheeks; she was 
 furious. What right had she to blush like a dairy-maid 
 and mislead the man ? 
 
 " I'm not blushing properly, as girls ought to blush," 
 she explained ; " I am merely angry ; I feel caught in a 
 trap. Why can't I tell you to begone, and leave me at 
 
 9
 
 i 3 o A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 peace?" she demanded, looking at him with curious 
 swift repulsion, " I have never found any difficulty 
 before, — why don't you help me ? " 
 
 In spite of his love, Strange shook with laughter. 
 
 It was no laughing matter for Gwen ; she kept her 
 eyes fixed on him, angry and full of pain. 
 
 "You stand there and laugh — laugh! I wish to 
 mercy I could. Don't you know I am going to accept 
 you — I, who don't know what love means — I, who am, 
 I believe, sexless ; don't you know you're mad, and 
 don't you think it's rather degrading to give all you 
 offer me for nothing? After all, it is not absolutely 
 necessary to my salvation that I should make experi- 
 ments on you." 
 
 She felt a sudden tiredness come on her, and nestled 
 back in her cushions. 
 
 " I am ready to take you with open eyes, Gwen ; 
 you are very honest, dear ; you will lose some of that 
 when you have suffered a little," he added, with a ring 
 of sadness in his voice, as he looked tenderly down on 
 her. 
 
 She raised her head quickly. " Suffer ! Why should 
 I suffer ? " 
 
 He watched her for a minute with sombre eyes. 
 
 " I don't know," he said half-absently, " but you 
 will. Then this is our betrothal, is it, dear ? " 
 
 She bowed her head. 
 
 " Oh, my darling ! " he said suddenly. 
 
 " Will he often say it ? " she thought curiously. 
 "Can I stand this?" 
 
 " My darling, you have no idea how I shall enjoy 
 giving you lessons in love." 
 
 " Will you ? " she said grimly, " I doubt it ; I tell
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 131 
 
 you I have no taste for the cult. Well, it is at least 
 fortunate that one can be honest, and that it isn't 
 necessary for me to befool you for the sake of your 
 income. This marriage is the very perfection of an 
 alliance from all such points of view, and yet — do you 
 know, Sir Humphrey, I wish quite intensely we were 
 both of us in another position, in quite a low, unknown 
 one, then we need not marry. Engagements are 
 nothing ; I know as much of you now as any engage- 
 ment can teach me. We might then try a preliminary 
 experiment as to how life together goes ; if it did not 
 do, we might each go our own way and bury the past. 
 I never wished for such a thing before ; it follows, I 
 suppose," she added, with a mirthless little laugh, " that 
 I care this much for you or for my experiment. Have 
 you grasped the whole situation ? " she demanded, 
 turning her troubled eyes full on him. 
 
 " My child, you have been very explicit ; I think I 
 have quite grasped it. When will you marry me ? " 
 
 She gave a little start. 
 
 " I was wondering," the said, at last, " if this were 
 final ? " 
 
 " It is final," he said ; " you know it is." 
 
 " Yes, I know ; it was rather paltry to pretend I 
 didn't— oh ! " 
 
 She looked up at him, with her face held in both her 
 hands. " Final ? yes, so it is. I am one section of 
 a puzzle moved by fate, you're another. It is humili- 
 ating when one comes to think of it." 
 
 « Well ? " 
 
 11 I will marry you when you like." 
 
 " The end of next month ? " 
 
 "Won't it interfere with the shooting ? "
 
 132 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 " I had forgotten that— I don't think I shall mind — 
 the end of July, then." 
 
 He took her hands and kissed them, and he thought, 
 as he got out into the street, that he had felt them 
 tremble. It was a pleasant surprise, on which he felt 
 inclined to congratulate himself. 
 
 The knowledge had a quite other effect on his 
 betrothed. She smote her clenched fists angrily to- 
 gether, and scorned herself for the feebleness of her 
 extremities. 
 
 "Mean, deceitful wretch," she cried, "to mislead 
 that man, when 1 am only tired, and wanting my 
 tea!"
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 There were some slight eruptions in the domestic 
 circle at Waring Park before it was decided what 
 form the wedding was to take. As might be expected, 
 Mr. and Mrs. Waring in no way interfered, but kept 
 themselves carefully aloof from the whole concern. 
 But not so Dacre. 
 
 On hearing of the engagement, he swooped down 
 on the paternal abode, all agog to have his say in the 
 arrangements. He was now a budding warrior, full 
 of himself and his profession, and horribly cocksure 
 on all subjects in heaven and on earth ; a good, honest, 
 affectionate creature of conventions, but with " a coarse 
 thumb," which he wielded in a promiscuous style, and 
 often planted sheer on the quick. 
 
 Dacre wanted a wedding that would have astonished 
 the neighbours, and would more than probably have 
 been the death of the two rarefied beings who had 
 borne him ; but Gwen, backed by Mr. and Mrs. Fellowes, 
 arranged things quite her own way. 
 
 The wedding was to be as quiet as a wedding can 
 be. Neither Strange nor Gwen was rich in relations, 
 which simplified matters. Lady Mary must come, 
 of course, and the old Waring uncle, and one or 
 two creatures of an unobservant and fossilised type, 
 
 i33
 
 r 34 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 not worth mentioning, besides a few of Strange's 
 belongings. 
 
 As for friends, when Gwen began to cast about 
 in her mind on that subject, she found that for her, 
 putting aside Mr. and Mrs. Fellowes, none existed. 
 Of the girl friends who usually flock in the wake of 
 a bride Gwen hadn't a vestige. 
 
 She had gone to her room to straighten her thoughts 
 after a hot encounter with Dacre, whose carnal mind 
 still hankered after a proper full-blown wedding, and 
 had been making itself objectionable in a bumptious, 
 youthful style. She had lost her cool, scornful calm 
 at last, and had given him such a glance from her 
 big eyes as had quelled the British lion in him, and 
 had accompanied it with a lash of her able tongue. 
 
 " Oh," she said, " you are anxious to amuse yourself 
 by importing the world and the flesh down here — 
 here ! that they may sneer at two people who, if they 
 have brought children into the world for pure purposes 
 of investigation, are at any rate too good to make sport 
 for your friends. You can get your world and your 
 flesh elsewhere, not here, at my expense." 
 
 " I never saw any one just going to be married like 
 you, before ! " said Dacre, with a dash of his old 
 astonished terror at her. 
 
 " Probably not, your experience not being wide." 
 
 " Strange is a million times too good for you ! " 
 
 To his astonishment he got no immediate retort. 
 
 Gwen stood up, getting rather white, and went to 
 the door. She stopped in the shadow of the threshold, 
 and a grey shade fell on her face and made it whiter, 
 but a sunbeam caught her hair, and turned it to the 
 orange-gold that Dacre hated.
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 135 
 
 11 Fools speak the truth a great deal oftener than 
 they have any notion of/' she said ; " it is a pity that 
 being thick-headed themselves they can't know how 
 it hurts." 
 
 Now she was in her room reflecting gloomily on 
 things in general. 
 
 " I never thought," she said, " I never thought that 
 by any process of reasoning I should be ashamed of 
 the fact of having no girl friends — I used rather to 
 pique myself on it, but upon my word I am ashamed, 
 I am degradingly, abjectly ashamed of it ; it is one of 
 the symptoms of my disease." 
 
 She went to the glass, and, crossing her arms on a 
 little table near, she looked at herself, laughing. 
 
 " Would any one think it to look at me ? I look so 
 very sound and complete, and yet I am rotten at the 
 core, a sort of Dead Sea apple. What a hackneyed 
 order of fruit to belong to ! I am not even original — 
 ugh ! I am inclined to think that if I were a down- 
 right bad woman, who had sinned, sinned solidly, and 
 all for love — I wish to Heaven I could get the feelings 
 of one of them just for five minutes, to understand this 
 temptation which to me is so utterly incomprehensible 
 — well, I really think that Humphrey would do better 
 to marry a woman of this sort than me. It has come 
 to a pretty pass when I — I, Gwen Waring, have taken 
 to envying that sort of person ! " 
 
 She raised her head, got to her feet, and went down 
 and played for an hour ; then she went out and walked, 
 walked, walked, till she hadn't a leg to stand on, and 
 could no more think than she could fly. 
 
 About a week before his marriage, Strange ran up 
 to London for a couple of days ; but even to Gwen
 
 136 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 he did not specify the nature of his business, which 
 altogether concerned Brydon's launching in life. 
 
 When he reached the studio, he found things looking 
 pretty bad. Like many a better man, if his Art didn't 
 drive him, — Brydon couldn't drive his Art ; besides, his 
 health was below par ; there were days and days when 
 he couldn't so much as paint a potboiler; then he 
 starved. 
 
 He was learning Italian just now, to solace himself. 
 Strange perceived, however, that the soft vowels hardly 
 appealed to an empty stomach. Brydon was a haggard 
 and distressful object, sitting with Dante on the table 
 before him, smoking cheap tobacco, and with the 
 ghastly beginning of a sketch crying shame on him 
 from every corner. 
 
 " Goodness, how outrageously jolly you look ! Is it 
 engagement or ten thousand a year ? " 
 
 " Oh, I'm all right, which is more than you look ! 
 Taken to shag, I see — well, I can stomach a lot, but 
 not that. Would you mind chucking that pipe some- 
 where where it won't smell, and try some of my stuff, 
 just to oblige me ? Overheated Arab and shag are the 
 two smells I draw the line at. Hallo ! " he exclaimed, 
 looking at one of the sketches. 
 
 " I am taking a holiday." 
 
 He was going on to lie a little, — but with a shrug he 
 changed his course. 
 
 " I have to, as a matter of fact. I can't paint, I've 
 lost the way. Do you ever forget the way to write ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " Do I ? The deuce I do ! We all do at times ; 
 then we feel like throat-cutting or ' Rough on Rats.' 
 However, I came on business. I have some spare
 
 A YELL OW A STER. 137 
 
 cash and I want to invest it, and on looking round I 
 have come to the conclusion that you would be rather 
 a good thing to put some of it into." 
 
 "I?" 
 
 " Yes, even your beastliest daubs have something 
 in them that saves their souls. One has to look more 
 than once at everything you do, even if it is only to 
 swear at it. You have capacity somewhere about you, 
 wherever you hide it — as for drawing, you don't know 
 the beginnings of it ! But what's that ? You can 
 learn ; it's a mere question of swatting. If I had any 
 doubt as to your success I wouldn't be here to-day. 
 I never on principle put a penny into a rotten concern, 
 and I am here to make you a definite, distinct offer, as 
 binding on you as on me. I will defray your expenses 
 in Paris for three years ; I will give you enough to 
 learn under the best men, and to live decently, not a 
 farthing more, — don't speak yet ! " 
 
 Brydon had jumped up rather wildly. 
 
 " Wait till you hear all about it — your conditions 
 are pretty hard. In case you should die during your 
 apprenticeship — the best of us are liable to that con- 
 tingency — I shall insist on you insuring your life for 
 an amount equivalent to that I lay out on you. If 
 you live (the best thing you can do under the circum- 
 stances), you shall pay me back principal and interest 
 in a given term of years, say fifteen, after you begin 
 to sell." 
 
 Brydon threw himself down into his chair, and 
 buried his head in his hands ; a limited diet of bread 
 and mustard had taken the starch out of him. He 
 was soft, and his eyes were brimful of tears ; he was 
 young too, and nearly burst in his efforts to bolt them ;
 
 138 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 then he lifted his head from his hands, and began 
 precipitately, — 
 
 "You have given me the chance of a career, you 
 put the world within reach of me, you trust me down 
 to the ground, all in one breath. Look here ! " 
 
 For one minute he was about to throw back the 
 salvation waiting under his nose with most laudable 
 self-respect, but he looked at Strange, and his heart 
 got soft again. 
 
 " I'd black 3'our boots for you, why shouldn't I be 
 dependent on you ? I'll take your offer, and — and— 
 and " 
 
 " I told you the conditions, I shall stick to them ; 
 we don't thank one another or get emotional in these 
 transactions ; I mean to have my money back, principal 
 and interest, my full pound of flesh. I'm doing a trade 
 with you — take it or leave it, as you like." 
 
 " Do you know, I'd die for you ? " cried Brydon, in 
 a burst of low-diet mawkishness. 
 
 " Die, before you've paid in a penny of your premium ! 
 If we can come to terms off-hand, I should like to 
 finish up the matter at once, and start for my lawyer's." 
 
 Brydon got up without a word, and began to make 
 himself decent, with shaking hands. At last he found 
 safety in a wild burst of gaiety, and by the time he 
 had his best coat on, he was bubbling over with a 
 nervous, gentle sort of fun peculiar to his kind. 
 
 When they were going downstairs he stopped, and 
 remarked in a soft, deprecatory sort of way, — 
 
 " I say ! I believe my heart's next to gone. Three 
 goes of rheumatic fever leave that part of a fellow not 
 worth mentioning. Won't that make the premium 
 pretty stiff?"
 
 A YELL OJV A STEP. 139 
 
 " Probably, I never thought of that. However, it's 
 you who will have to pay the piper, not I." 
 
 " You're an artist in conferring favours " 
 
 " Oh, for Heaven's sake, stow that ! " 
 
 " I wouldn't take your offer, by Jove ! I wouldn't, but 
 that I mean to repay you." 
 
 " But I've already taken good care of that ! " 
 
 " The money isn't everything," said Brydon im- 
 patiently; "there is such a thing as being proud of a 
 fellow you've made, of valuing your own creation " 
 
 " All that comes in the contract ; the sense of moral 
 elevation it gives one to run a successful concern, even 
 if it's only an artist, pleases the carnal mind. There 
 was only the choice between you and a patent medicine ; 
 I'd have gone for that, but that I heard at the last 
 moment that peppermint was the active principle in 
 its manufacture. I draw the line at peppermint — and 
 3'ou were the only alternative. And, look here, old 
 man. — But, good Lord ! See that child there ? Which 
 is more human, the child's face or the monkey's on 
 the organ ? Upon my word, the imp scores off the 
 beast only in the matter of cheek pouch. Look I how 
 it hangs ! " 
 
 Brydon shuddered. 
 
 " You always see the most hideous details ! Couldn't 
 you keep them to yourself! I shall dream of that 
 child for a week." 
 
 " And yet }<ou devour Zola ? I had begun some- 
 thing, what was it ? Oh, — if I were you I should walk 
 gingerly as soon as you strike Paris pavement ; there 
 is something in it that drives fellows mad. London 
 is a fool to it ! It's a bad investment for any man, 
 but it would spoil }'our work for a twelvemonth, if it
 
 i 4 o A YELL O TV A STER. 
 
 didn't give me my premium sooner than I want it. 
 That weak heart of yours, Charlie, if you work the 
 think properly, should be as good as a family chaplain 
 to you, and it isn't every man who can boast of as 
 much." 
 
 "Talk of utilitarianism," sighed Brydon ; "it is to 
 be a struggle, then, between my natural instincts and 
 my game heart. I wonder which will win ? "
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 When Gvven was dressing for her wedding, it never 
 somehow struck her mother to go to her room, and 
 Gwen had herself given an absolute command that no 
 one should ask her to do so. She made no remark at 
 all on the subject when she did not come, but she in- 
 sisted on going to the church in the carriage with Mrs. 
 Fellowes. 
 
 It was useless to oppose her, she was like adamant 
 on this point, which set Dacre swearing madly. 
 She was white and silent as they drove off. Mrs. 
 Fellowes was silent too, and rather whiter, but she 
 daren't show any feeling; they were on the brink of 
 a general upheaval, and her whole energy must be 
 concentrated to ward it off. 
 
 Gwen felt her situation with such cruel intensity, 
 that even to herself she had to pretend to a total stony 
 indifference ; but when they got to the gates she sighed 
 and stirred softly, and putting out her hand with 
 unaccustomed wistfulness she laid it on Mrs. Fellowes'. 
 It was cold and stiff. Mrs. Fellowes rubbed it gently 
 between hers, and laid it lovingly against her cheek, 
 and kept in her tears ; she dared not speak. 
 
 " God help her, God help her, and God help 
 
 141
 
 1 42 A YELL OW A STER. 
 
 Humphrey ! " she kept repeating to herself in a sort of 
 childish entreaty. 
 
 " Gwen," she said at last, " you must not look like 
 this when Humphrey sees you. Gwen, my darling, 
 you have nothing to fear with such a man ! " 
 
 " Do you think I fear him ? I thought you would 
 have known better : it is myself I fear." 
 
 "Yourself is a bogie you have set up, Gwen. 
 Humphrey will soon demolish that ! " 
 
 " I wish I felt sure of it. I wish I felt sure of 
 anything. Upon my word, Mrs. Fellowes, upon my 
 word, I wish from the bottom of my soul that I could 
 say, with any decent show of honesty, God help us, 
 Humphrey and me ! But God never felt so un- 
 real, such a mere bubble to please fools, as He does 
 at this minute. — Don't, don't exclaim, or protest, or be 
 shocked — not to-day, my wedding day, and such a 
 brilliant match, too ! " she added, laughing. " Ah, well ! 
 I won't hurt you, we'll leave that part. My father is 
 to go through the farce of bringing me up to the altar, 
 is he not ? " she asked, thrusting all trace of emotion 
 from her face, and sitting up straight. 
 
 "If you don't keep a very sharp eye on him he is 
 sure to do something quite unique. If one could only 
 wind him up, and touch springs at intervals ! One 
 can't, unfortunately, and I feel sure I shall be made 
 ridiculous. Your eye must get off him now and again, 
 so I suppose I may as well accustom myself to the 
 thought," she went on with a shrug, "and resolve to 
 swallow the whole hog without grimacing ; but I do so 
 loathe being made to look like a fool. Are we here ? 
 Oh, my flowers 1 The children have them perhaps ? 
 Yes, lookl"
 
 A YELL O W A STER. 1 43 
 
 As she walked up the church, just touching her 
 father's arm, and Mrs. Fellowes* two little nieces in 
 white gauze and water lilies, looking like a pair of 
 lilies themselves for softness and cool creaminess, 
 trotting after her, her mother from her chancel pew 
 caught sight of her for the first time. 
 
 For a minute Mrs. Waring looked dazed and 
 frightened, then suddenly, with a broken, smothered 
 cry, she leaned forward and threw out both her hands 
 to her daughter, two big tears in her eyes, and her face 
 tremulous with a great joy that was pain. 
 
 Mrs. Fellowes saw it; it was intensely pathetic to 
 her, and a revelation. She had at last, at the end of 
 all these years, seen a glimpse of this small, golden- 
 headed creature's motherhood — after all she was really 
 human ! She hurried up, sat down beside her, and 
 gently brought her back to herself. Then, with one of 
 Mrs. Waring's hands caught in hers, as if she had been 
 a child, she looked at Gwen, and wondered how on 
 earth any girl with a stone for a heart could look as 
 divine as she did. She looked round the church, and 
 saw that every man, woman, and child was worshipping 
 her in breathless silence. There was not a whisper, 
 not a joke, not a smile. 
 
 As soon as the cake was cut, Gwen went away to 
 dress. As she passed Mrs. Fellowes she whispered, — 
 
 "Will you help me? .1 want to speak to you. 
 Mary, Mrs. Fellowes will help me to dress, and please 
 don't cry," she said wearily ; " I shall see you often, 
 and — really, I have given you no very special reason 
 to cry for me." 
 
 She half laughed, then she stooped and kissed the
 
 M4 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 old woman's cheek, and said, " You have always 
 been so good to me, come and see me before I go." 
 
 When Mary had disappeared, choking, Gwen turned 
 to the glass, and began to take off her bracelets. 
 
 "Sit down and let me take off your wreath," said 
 Mrs. Fellowes. 
 
 " I wish I had done as Mr. Fellowes suggested," 
 said Gwen at last, playing with a diamond dagger 
 that Strange had given her, " and looked through that 
 marriage service ; it is a degrading thing to lie as I 
 have done to-day. I might have been any common- 
 minded, vulgar woman perjuring myself for a settlement. 
 You see, I am marrying as a sort of experiment! — 
 Oh, don't, you gave my hair an awful pull ! — Humphrey 
 knows it, but I didn't realise that I should actually 
 have to swear to a lie — no experiment is worth that. 
 I have put myself in a false position," she continued, 
 stirring irritably, ''from having told those miserable, 
 blatant lies. I was never at a wedding in a church, 
 in my life I always managed to escape that part, and 
 I really never thought of the words, ' love, honour, 
 and obey,' in any solemn, binding, personal connection. 
 On the whole, it is a pity for women not to have been 
 reared on Bibles and Prayer-books, it might keep 
 them from some pitfalls, and no doubt the ordinary 
 mother is useful too, in such cases." 
 
 Mrs. Fellowes' heart quivered painfully, and her 
 hands trembled as she twisted up a coil of Gwen's hair 
 that had come loose. She had suspected the truth 
 very early in the day, but all through her short 
 engagement Gwen had kept both Mrs. Fellowes and 
 the Rector at arm's length. 
 
 "When I found out what I really was in for," went
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 145 
 
 on Gwen, "it was too late to draw back — no, it 
 wasn't ! " she cried, " the habit of lying is growing on 
 me, but then I was ashamed, too much of a coward." 
 
 "This is very sad," said Mrs. Fellowes at last; "it 
 is so sad, dear, that one can hardly speak of it. No 
 woman has the right to try experiments, to play 
 pranks with hearts and souls. You deserve — ah, what 
 a brute I am ! I have no right to scold you, my poor 
 Gwen, you'll have to pay dearly enough for your play. 
 You will know some day what you have done," said 
 she, laying her soft, warm cheek down on the girl's 
 head in the caressing way she had when Gwen was 
 a child ; "then you will suffer — ah, child, how you will 
 suffer ! But it is Humphrey one feels for now. Gwen, 
 you must not let him feel you are so far from loving 
 him." 
 
 " He knows. You don't suppose I lied to him ? " 
 
 " He knows in a way, but he doesn't realise the 
 knowledge, nor does he quite know the material he 
 has to work on, or how the twist came into the warp 
 and woof of it. Gwen, don't let your horrid truthfulness 
 make you cruel ; be patient, dearest, be patient ; this 
 love won't come like a shock, it will steal in on you, 
 and I am perfectly convinced your first impulse will 
 be to kick it out." 
 
 Gwen gave a little laugh. 
 
 Mrs. Fellowes dropped the brooch with which she 
 was going to fasten Gwen's collar, went a few steps 
 away, and looked at her. 
 
 " Humphrey knows precious little about you," she 
 cried, with some natural irritation, " he is dazed, small 
 blame to him ! so am I, so is John, we are all dazed." 
 
 Her eyes filled suddenly with tears 
 
 10
 
 146 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 " We all pour out our love on you, ana — and for 
 what ? Just for a cold ghost of a thing, for mere hope. 
 Hope ! what good is that to any man ? Now, look 
 here, Gwen, don't let Humphrey know this, naked 
 truth though it be. There is no lie in the matter ; 
 you can love, darling, you can ; 'tis only the learning 
 that is the trouble for you ; but I have a dreadful, 
 hateful presentiment, in spite of all I can say, that your 
 most objectionable direct methods will run you into 
 deplorable difficulties." 
 
 "Truth is tangible, even if it is brutal," said Gwen; 
 " but love — love — love, this intangible, vague horror, 
 why should I be persecuted with it, why should I 
 realise now, that, vague as the thing is, it is sacred, 
 and a sort of crime of a very low order to be incapable 
 of it ? I got as far as that in church to-day, with all 
 those glaring faces on me, and Mr. Fellowes' eyes — he 
 has no right to look through people like 'that ! " 
 
 She turned away to hide the crimson in her cheeks. 
 
 "Then this one-flesh business, this is a horrid 
 thing." 
 
 She squeezed her hands into her eyes. 
 
 " This is maddening ! " she cried, and sprang up and 
 stood looking out of the window. 
 
 "One flesh!" she murmured breathlessly. "One 
 flesh ! " 
 
 Presently she shook herself, and with a long sigh 
 brought the calmness back into her face ; then she went 
 and put her two hands on Mrs. Fellowes' shoulders 
 and looked down on the sad face with a little laugh. 
 
 " Look here ! " she said, " advise every girl you care 
 about, not to try experiments in marriage, and to read 
 the marriage service with the man she is engaged to
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 147 
 
 standing opposite to her, before she dares to quote 
 from it in church before all the rag-tag and bobtail of 
 society. And now, give me my hat and kiss me ; you 
 don't know how much a part of my life your love for 
 me is, even though it is fed on hope only, and — I shall 
 try to be honest to myself without any flagrant brutality 
 to Humphrey," she said, laughing; "I think that is all 
 I can promise just yet. Ah, what a lovely scheme of 
 colour ! " she cried, looking at her superb figure, in its 
 dusty-amethyst gown, with the flashes of lemon-yellow 
 in it. ^ 
 
 " Do you think my father and mother are awake to 
 the fact that I am married to-day ? " she demanded. 
 
 " If you had heard your mother's cry when she saw 
 you go up the aisle, and had seen her face — as long 
 as I live I shall never forget either ! — you would have 
 no need to ask such a question," said Mrs. Fellowes, 
 with gentle gravity. 
 
 " I thought she looked rather different from what she 
 usually does ; and I fancied my father's arm trembled 
 when I held it. So ! " she said, with a half-mocking 
 smile, as she fastened the top button of her glove, " so 
 marriage is so solemn and sacred a subject that it has 
 actually touched the human part of those two people ! 
 — Ah, Mary, here I am, ready for my new life — do you 
 like me ? The outside is satisfactory, is it not ? It 
 is quite pleasant to feel so like a whited sepulchre!" 
 she said to Mrs. Fellowes, as they went down the 
 stairs, " it excites me."
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 When the two drove away on the first stage of their 
 experiment, Mr. and Mrs. Waring, the Rector and 
 Mrs. Fellowes, Dacre, and a few others, stood watching 
 them from the great stone steps of the hall. 
 
 Mrs. Fellowes was reflecting with mixed feelings 
 on Gwen's good-bye to her mother, which by chance 
 she had witnessed. The girl had already, in the face 
 of every one, bidden her a quiet and emotionless fare- 
 well ; but just at the last she had swept round suddenly, 
 as if she were driven, and had caught the little, dazed 
 creature — a deal too young to be her mother — in her 
 arms, and had given her an imperative hug of the 
 volcanic order. As it was a first experience, no one 
 could blame the little woman for shrinking visibly 
 from it, and, when it was over, for escaping with a 
 sigh to the side of her husband, and slipping her hand 
 into his with the air of one who has escaped a danger. 
 Gwen allowed one flash of angry pain to shoot from 
 her eyes, then she walked grandly out of the house 
 with her hand quite properly on her father's arm, 
 which Dacre took good care to have in readiness. 
 
 " Dacre ! " said Mrs. Fellowes, as soon as they 
 were well off, "we must get rid of these people. I 
 am sure we have all done our duty by them, and 
 
 14S
 
 A YELL OW A STER. 1 49 
 
 your father and mother have, very obviously, had 
 enough of them." 
 
 " I am ready to swear that Admiral Trowe has 
 had a good sight too much of the governor. He has 
 been hammering into him the life and blow-up of that 
 grey rock at Henty's they are always grubbing at, for 
 a solid ten minutes. Now he's on selection, and the 
 Admiral has murder in his eye — look ! " 
 
 " Yes, and your mother, see how tired she looks ! 
 She is telling Mrs. Irvine the most wonderful new facts 
 about babies. Mrs. Irvine has ten, two sets of twins 
 among them, and she is the champion mother of the 
 parish. Dacre, you cover one wing, I shall manoeuvre 
 the other, there's not a minute to lose." 
 
 In next to no time they had cleared the field, and 
 Mr. and Mrs. Fellowes were just about to say good- 
 bye, and to carry Dacre off to dinner, when to their 
 amazement, after a hurried consultation, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Waring begged them to stay, and drew them into 
 the library, utterly ignoring the furious Dacre, who 
 betook himself, softly swearing, to the stables, where 
 he wandered disconsolately, scathing the screws that 
 lumbered the stalls, and thanking God lustily that his 
 stud was elsewhere. 
 
 Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Fellowes were closeted 
 together in the library. While the other two looked 
 silently and questioningly at one another Mrs. Fellowes 
 telegraphed despairing signals to her husband. 
 
 " It has been a most wearing day," said Mr. Waring, 
 at last ; " I feared my wife would break down under 
 the strain. No doubt you felt it too ? " he went on, 
 with his eyebrows raised, looking concernedly at his 
 guests. u I thought, my dear," and he pressed her hand,
 
 1 5 o A YELL 0W A STER. 
 
 " I thought, my dear, that our daughter Gwen bore 
 it admirably ; the girl appears to have much courage, 
 the courage of your race, my love." 
 
 He beamed softly down on her, and paused for an 
 unconscionable time, then suddenly he remembered 
 himself, and started. 
 
 "Our daughter Gwen is a very beautiful person," 
 he went on, musing aloud. " I do not think I ever 
 noticed the fact until lately, until that night she went 
 to some — h'm — party with Lady Mary. Dearest, do 
 you recollect ? " 
 
 " Perfectly," said Mrs. Waring, getting a shade 
 paler, and with a troubled look in her eyes ; " you 
 saw her, Mrs. Fellowes," she said, with sudden eager- 
 ness, " that night ? " 
 
 " I did indeed ; Gwen's beauty was a shock to me. 
 But I didn't know — that is, I thought you were busy." 
 
 " Ah yes, very busy, I remember ; but we came 
 out to see Gwen ; she was on the stairs, and we got 
 no farther than the door ; the lamplight shone on her 
 and cast soft, strange, lovely shadows on her white 
 silk — it was silk, was it not, Mrs. Fellowes ? " — She 
 nodded. "And her arms and neck were like — 
 down " 
 
 "Snow," murmured her husband. 
 
 " No, dear, they looked too warm for that ; and her 
 face ! We were, I think, a little frightened at its 
 beauty." 
 
 She gave a little shy laugh. 
 
 " We should have come out, but just then I do not 
 think I could have spoken. My husband thought I 
 was not very well, and he brought me back — Henry 
 spoils me, Mrs. Fellowes — but to-day I shall never
 
 A YELL OW A STER. 15 1 
 
 forget Gwen's look, never ! " and her small face got 
 still one shade whiter. 
 
 She tried to say something, but she only made a 
 little husky noise ; she turned to Mrs. Fellowes, and 
 tried again. 
 
 " You know Gwen," she said faintly ; " do you 
 think she was happy to-day, as a bride should be ? " 
 
 Mrs. Fellowes looked keenly at her, and turned to 
 her husband. 
 
 " Mrs. Waring must lie down, she is worn out," 
 she said. 
 
 He made ready the sofa, and drew the trembling, 
 small creature down on it. 
 
 Mr. Waring yielded her up with a disturbed and 
 astonished gaze, and stood aside, contemplating events 
 patiently. 
 
 " Henry," she said softly, after resting silently for 
 a minute, " ask Mrs. Fellowes what we want to know 
 — tell her our — our fears." 
 
 He came over and laid his hand on his wife's sunny 
 head, that time seemed to have quite forgotten. 
 
 " My dear friends," he said solemnly, " my wife and 
 I are in some perplexity. The fact is — h'm — we have 
 never, so to speak, known much of our daughter Gwen, 
 she is a difficult person to know. From time to time 
 we have attempted to gain some nearer knowledge of 
 her, but she — ahem — in fact, did not seem inclined 
 to encourage our advances. From her very babyhood," 
 he went on more fluently, " the girl has interested us 
 very keenly, she has been quite a study to us ; but I 
 regret to say we have never arrived at any very definite 
 conclusions about her, we have never quite understood 
 her."
 
 152 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 " Never ! " said Mrs. Waring, suddenly bending 
 towards Mrs. Fellowes, with a look very like terror in 
 her face. 
 
 11 Of course you more than I, dear," said Mr. Waring ; 
 " you have your woman's instincts to guide you, and 
 they, as a rule, are trustworthy." 
 
 " I have never known Gwen," said she, with very 
 unusual decision. 
 
 " What is your opinion on this matter ? " said Mr. 
 Waring, turning to Mr. Fellowes, "you know our 
 daughter." 
 
 It was all cruelly pathetic, — his voice, and his face, 
 and his gesture, and the strained, hopeless look in his 
 small wife's eyes. 
 
 "Gwen is not ready yet for complete happiness," 
 said Mr. Fellowes ; " when she is, it will come to her 
 in full measure." 
 
 "But — she is a person of intelligence, and what is 
 called grown-up," said Mr. Waring anxiously, "and 
 very perfect in her development — outwardly," he added, 
 a doubtful look fleeting across his face. 
 
 " Yes, to look at, she is perfect ; but does it not strike 
 you," said Mrs. Fellowes slowly, "that much of Gwen's 
 womanhood is still elemental ? Do you not think that 
 some of her senses are also still in that condition ? " 
 
 " Ah ! " murmured Mr. Waring, looking sadly down 
 on his wife, "Ah ! I have thought, I have feared this. 
 I cannot see in our daughter Gwen a complete creature ; 
 but I thought, knowing so little of women as I do, that 
 I might have been mistaken. Do you hope for ultimate 
 completeness in our daughter ? " he asked suddenly, 
 watching curiously for the answer. 
 
 The Rector's superior knowledge of Gwen had fixed
 
 A YELL OJV A STER. 1 53 
 
 him very uncomfortably on a pedestal ; there was no 
 getting off it just yet, he had to make the best of the 
 situation. 
 
 " Indeed I do ; no half development will content 
 Gwen when she learns her deficiencies, or her husband 
 either." 
 
 " These elements, then, may develop to ultimate great- 
 ness, or wither and die — to reappear, of course, in some 
 form or other. But to disappear from our knowledge 
 untimelily ! Ah ! that would be sad waste. We will 
 hope it may not occur. Do you happen to know if her 
 husband looks on our daughter as we do, in relation to 
 her ultimate possibilities of development, or if he has 
 chosen her for the thing she looks — a most beautiful 
 and finished young woman of fair intelligence ? " 
 
 " I am quite sure that Strange loves Gwen strongly 
 and truly," began Mr. Fellowes evasively. 
 
 It was a difficult subject to thrash out thoroughly 
 with this wonderful pair ; it might be better to let it 
 fade gradually from their minds, and to aid them to 
 glide back into their own still waters. 
 
 " Yes, but on what grounds ? " went on Mr. Waring 
 with strange persistence. 
 
 " Have you ever spoken to Strange himself on the 
 subject ? " asked Mr. Fellowes. 
 
 "Ahem, no. In fact, under like circumstances," he 
 reddened and coughed a little, " I should myself have 
 resented any attempt of such a nature. No, I did not 
 put any questions to Strange. But will you not favour 
 us with an opinion, you, who know our daughter so 
 well ? " 
 
 " I think that, in a measure, Strange knows what he 
 is about, and we are bound to trust his judgment. It
 
 154 -A YELLO W A STER. 
 
 would be folly to suppose that he sees the entire truth 
 clearly, he is under the usual conditions of a man in 
 love. Gwen dominates him, as she does even us old 
 married people ; hearts and brains will always fall before 
 our Gwen." 
 
 " What is the entire truth ? " said Mrs. Waring, 
 pushing her hair back and sitting up. 
 
 "The truth as it strikes me," said Mr. Fellowes 
 very gently, " is, that Gwen is at present incapable of 
 loving." 
 
 "You refer — ahem, to that phase of the emotion 
 known as sexual love ? " said Mr. Waring hurriedly. 
 
 " Or of any other yet." 
 
 " I knew it, we both knew it, but it was hard to speak 
 out," murmured Mrs. Waring sadly. 
 
 " She was in no way constrained," said Mr. Waring in 
 a frightened way. 
 
 His wife sat still with sad, wide eyes. 
 
 " It seems a reasonless thing in one in Gwen's 
 position," he went on, with a fine touch of pride, " to 
 marry without love. I know such things do happen 
 now and again with young portionless women — women 
 have a feline craving for soft living and pretty things, 
 but our daughter Gwen — ah ! " 
 
 " I thought all this, I knew it," said Mrs. Waring 
 quietly ; " I wished so often to ask Gwen definitely 
 for the truth, but I did not seem able to do so ; I wish 
 now I had." 
 
 Mrs. Fellowes put her hands tenderly on her 
 shoulders and made her lie down again. 
 
 " She will love, she will be happy ! " she whispered 
 softly ; " she is in good hands." 
 
 " Too soon, too soon ! " murmured the mother ;
 
 A YELL OW A STER. 155 
 
 " she should be in mine still. But they never held 
 her. She should be happy now, now," she cried, with 
 sudden passion, her voice still in soft minors, " not 
 in the future ! Why should she have to reach her 
 happiness and her love ' through much tribulation ' ? 
 It should come by divine right. She is so strong, she 
 will suffer strongly ; she is so strong that when passion 
 comes to her it will tear her, torture her, break her 
 to pieces ! Henry, Henry," she gasped, " we are to 
 blame ; we have failed miserably ! We never had any 
 right to have children. While we have been worrying 
 over the dry fossils of the past we have allowed the 
 living — the young — to wither around us. Ah, how 
 sad it all is, how sad ! " she sighed, " how sad ! " 
 
 The Rector came and put his hand on his wife's 
 shoulder softly. He well knew how awful this too-late 
 awakening of the other woman's motherhood was to 
 her, with her own so terribly, persistently wide-awake, 
 and alive with the throbbing of unsatisfied pain. 
 
 There was nothing further to be said — nothing, 
 altogether unsatisfactory as everything was. Mr. 
 Fellowes felt this, and said, in his bright, frank way, — 
 
 " We are all very tired, and you — " he said, turning 
 to his wife, " you are frightfully washed out ! And, 
 good gracious ! Dacre is waiting all this time ! " 
 
 To her own intense amazement, Mrs. Fellowes 
 stooped down and gave Mrs. Waring a kiss. 
 
 The other's tremor went through her like an electric 
 shock, and she did not get over it for the rest of the 
 evening.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 The day after the wedding D?.cre decided to depart 
 in rather indecent haste. The situation was too much 
 for him. 
 
 All the morning he had been receiving a succession 
 of small shocks, but some time after lunch he ex- 
 perienced an awful one. He caught his mother's eyes 
 fixed on him with such a dumb yearning as would have 
 upset a rhinoceros, not to say Dacre, and he could 
 have sworn to two tears that gathered in them and 
 were as suddenly dried up. He blushed furiously 
 and fled, in a terrible access of shyness, to the Rectory, 
 where he astonished Mrs. Fellowes by the heat of 
 his countenance and his greedy consumption of tea. 
 
 "Good gracious 1 " she thought, "is he in love — 
 Dacre ? " 
 
 She took up her cup, and, gulping down her tea in 
 rather a hysterical way, she watched him over the 
 edge of it. 
 
 "The colour, and the stutter, and that awful thirst, 
 they are all deadly symptoms. On the contrary, the 
 amount of cake he swallows goes against it. What 
 can it be, anyway ? Mercy ! Can't he hurry ? I 
 feel worn out between them all." 
 
 Presently Dacre recovered a little and began to talk 
 
 156
 
 A YELLOW A SI ER. 157 
 
 in a desultory way, saying a vast number of things he 
 didn't want to say, but on the whole lucidly enough. 
 
 Mrs. Fellowes pricked up her ears and grew keen all 
 over ; she got for her pains little direct information, 
 but, with a previous experience of the family, enough 
 to go on. 
 
 " Worse than lovers ! " she thought ruefully, " poor 
 little woman ! All the same, I am not the least 
 surprised he wants to ' clear ' — he ought to stay, 
 though ! " 
 
 " Dacre, your mother will miss Gwen more than any 
 of us think ; you have no idea how upsetting a wedding 
 is ; you might come in very useful just now. Won't the 
 regiment survive if you stay down for a few days ? " 
 
 Dacre wriggled on his seat. 
 
 " Mrs. Fellowes, I have to go back ; it is absolutely 
 imperative." 
 
 She laughed. "So it seems by the look of you ! " 
 
 " Look at that big fellow ! " she thought, " who 
 fears neither man, death, nor devil, nor God much to 
 speak of, routed by one flash of feeling from an 
 unexpected quarter. The creatures can't stand the 
 unexpected at all ; they are intrinsically conventional ! 
 If that fool had a glimmer of sense in him, he would 
 have given the poor little woman a hug, and have let 
 her have a comfortable, easy howl for once in her life. 
 I suppose she is doing problems with the old fossil in 
 the library instead." 
 
 Dacre felt his size frightfully, and began to contrast 
 it mentally with the Sevres cup in his hand. He set 
 it down, and, towering huge above Mrs. Fellowes, 
 delivered himself of another solemn asseveration as to 
 the impossibility of staying one day longer.
 
 158 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 * My dear boy, I am quite convinced," she said, 
 "if you did, your country must infallibly burst up." 
 
 " Mrs. Fellowes, that isn't fair I" 
 
 " No more it is ! Sit down, Dacre ; I have to shout 
 to make my voice reach you up there, and yours comes 
 down on me like a thousand bricks. What do you 
 want me to do ? " 
 
 He gave a sigh of relief and settled down comfort- 
 ably. 
 
 " I want you to go and see her," he said, " and — oh, 
 you know best then what to do. Don't you think — I 
 don't know, but perhaps if you were to take her out for 
 a walk or something. — Oh, good-bye, Mrs. Fellowes, 
 and thanks, thanks, most awfully ! " 
 
 Mrs. Fellowes watched him swing along down the 
 drive, then pull up with a jerk to speak to her husband, 
 who was coming up, then swing off again out of sight. 
 
 " Poor old Dacre ! But why didn't he kiss her ? — 
 the fool. I suppose he wasn't ' game.' " 
 
 She put some fresh tea into the pot, and set her 
 kettle on the little spirit lamp to boil up. 
 
 " Has Dacre been making you a declaration of 
 unlawful love?" said the Rector when he came in. 
 " He had precisely that air." 
 
 " Worse than that a thousand times. His mother 
 looked like crying, and was on the point of breaking 
 out into sudden and condign maternal affection. 
 Dacre fled incontinently. He is going to make a 
 precipitate retreat to his regiment, and he came to 
 plant me in the breach. The longer one lives the 
 less one thinks of the courage of your sex." 
 
 " Want of experience makes cowards of us all. 
 You couldn't expect the fellow to face the unknown ! "
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 159 
 
 "Thats it, you are all tarred with the same brush ; 
 you must have brutal sight to steady your nerves. 
 Now — we " 
 
 " You ! You, my love, have intuition. Besides, 
 there is a quotation that might apply, 'Fools rush 
 in 
 
 " Do drink your tea, and don't try to be funny ; 
 I feel awful." " 
 
 " I feel rather off myself ; I have just been at the 
 Park." 
 
 " Oh, oh ! What were they at ? " 
 
 " Waring was lost in some new speculation, his 
 wife was lost in a bad dream. I suppose this late 
 awakening of her nature is good for her, but it seems 
 cruel. It hurts one to see her suffer in that still, 
 patient way of hers, and it will play the deuce with 
 Waring's way of life if it goes on. It wasn't nature, 
 of course, but that absolute oneness of their life was 
 a beautiful thing to watch, and quite unique. I 
 suppose I ought to be glad that it has received this 
 check, but I'm not." 
 
 " Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself for 
 wanting to perpetuate such a life. Have you forgotten 
 Gwen's face ? " 
 
 " Shall I ever forget it, Ruth ? But anything 
 absolutely unusual in a sober married couple, and in 
 a Midland parish on a clay soil, the carnal mind will 
 cling to like any burr. Let us put the moralities 
 aside for a moment and consider the subject with 
 the pagan mind. What would outside life be to you 
 or to me in these smug levels, except for that delicious 
 pair of maniacs ? We both know how stodgy un- 
 diluted duty grows, how one's feet stick and stumble
 
 1 60 A YELL O W A STER. 
 
 in it, faithfully as one tries to keep one's eyes on the 
 ' everlasting hills ' ; how dreary and hopeless work 
 often seems in scattered districts, with neither abject 
 poverty nor active crime to fight against, to raise and 
 keep alive in one the inspiring battle greed. But to 
 be obliged to face a level life daily ; to spend one's 
 soul in trying to raise sodden dough ; to galvanise 
 half-dead things, heavy, dull, sullen hearts, neither 
 hot nor cold, desiring neither good nor evil, knowing 
 neither tears nor laughter, but slogging on to the grave 
 in dreadful patience ! And, in spite of exceptions, this 
 is the life of dozens of country parsons, only we hold 
 our tongues about it, or else we hunt and fatten our- 
 selves, or we have big families to blunt our feelings." 
 
 " John, what's wrong ? " she said. 
 
 He stroked her hair softly. 
 
 " Nothing except myself, I suppose. You know I 
 was at the Low Church Meeting yesterday, and the 
 fellows tried me, some of them are so intense as regards 
 food — that isn't so indecent as haste, however. In 
 the hurry to gobble his brown soup that he might have 
 a go at the white, Lang nearly choked himself. Then 
 it went against one to see how they swallowed syrupy 
 port ; one could feel the saccharine sediment on one's 
 tongue ; it showed somehow a defective development. 
 Then when gossip, chiefly concerning the gone-astray 
 young women of the neighbourhood, set in, they grew 
 so keen on their subject that three of them fairly 
 spluttered. When this course was removed and 
 religion brought on, one seemed to get a blow at 
 every turn, the meat and the drink had got into our 
 souls and it came out in our speech. 
 
 " It looks well for me, little woman, me, a middle-
 
 A YELL O TV A STER. 1 6 1 
 
 aged country parson, with a fat parish, and reputed 
 sane ; but I would give it all, and my eyes into the 
 bargain, to be in the thick of the turmoil — I don't care 
 a rap where, London holds no talisman for me any 
 more than any other big centre — where men teem and 
 life lives, for it seems even better to live in pain than 
 to doze in apathy. Ah ! if only my brutal health 
 would have stood it ! " 
 
 " Poor John, how the old sore will break out ! " she 
 said tenderly, with a short, dry little sob ; " and I, too, 
 I would give it all, and my eyes to boot, if I had just 
 one little child. And Mrs. Waring, up there in her 
 fine house, would give it all if she could only grasp her 
 lost motherhood. Two old sores and a new ! 
 
 " After all," she added, " when all's said and done, 
 we are no worse off than our neighbours. None of 
 us, it seems to me, get any more than the rags and 
 fragments of their hearts' desires, and yet we all 
 manage to make life jolly on them. We do, John," 
 she said, with a gay little laugh. — It was wonderful 
 how she managed it with her heart quivering. — " Look 
 in my face and say we do ! " 
 
 He looked in her face, and he kissed her. 
 
 I !
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 When Strange set out on his honeymoon, it was with 
 a distinct project simmering in his brain. He meditated 
 a good three months' loiter through the byways of the 
 Tyrol, on into Switzerland, and then home through the 
 towns of the Netherlands, and all by routes best known 
 to himself. 
 
 It becomes, however, a moral impossibility for a man 
 to loiter with any comfort by the side of a new-made 
 wife, into whose very bones and marrow the spirit of 
 unrest has crept ; and so, by intangible gradations, the 
 loiter had developed into a tumultuous forging on. 
 
 Gwen seemed possessed by a very dignified and 
 quite calm-seeming devil ; he was a gentlemanly crea- 
 ture, and made no untoward fuss or excitement, but 
 movement he must have, he dared not rest. 
 
 In spite of herself, Gwen found growing in her, from 
 the very day of her marriage, a craving, full of subdued 
 fierceness, to be in the very middle of the hurly-burly, 
 no matter whether it raged in a fashionable hotel, or in 
 the market-place of a country town. She had, besides, 
 other uncomfortable ways. In valleys, where the sun 
 shone and the wind rested, and where ordinary mortals 
 were bathed in a soft entrancement of delight, she 
 seemed to lose half her life. 
 
 On the contrary, she lived — her voice regained its 
 
 162
 
 A YEL LOW A STER. 1 63 
 
 timbre, her eyes shone, her mouth laughed, her hair 
 sparkled with vitality — as soon as ever she got high on 
 a mountain — the bleaker and harsher the better. 
 
 One day they had climbed to the top of the 
 D'Auburg, a dour-looking mountain in the Tyrol, 
 generally avoided of tourists, but for some reason 
 Gwen took it into her head to ascend it. 
 
 She now sat glowing and tingling with radiant 
 health, leaning up against a rock that sheltered her 
 from the blast which was screeching across the ledge 
 of the mountain. She looked as cool, and as beautiful 
 and unruffled, as if she had just dropped from the 
 clouds, instead of climbing up to them by a most 
 villainous path. There was always a sort of exotic 
 splendour about her, and yet she never seemed out 
 of place. 
 
 " Are you never tired ? " said her husband, as he 
 was pouring some wine into a little silver cup. 
 
 " Never ! I don't remember ever once having been 
 tired." 
 
 " Looked at from the carnal mind of a chaperon, that 
 was rather a nuisance, wasn't it ? " 
 
 " It was ; Lady Mary suffered a good deal from it. 
 I used to try to accommodate myself to her in this 
 matter, and to look tired, but I never could manage it." 
 " Have another sandwich ? " 
 She went on in a reflective way as she ate it, — 
 " It is a wretched thing, generally, for a woman to be 
 absolutely untireable. A very strong woman is docked 
 of half the privileges of her sex. If you notice the 
 stock, devoted husband, he has always a sickly creature 
 of a wife to devote himself to — or one who poses as 
 sickly — or if her body isn't sickly her brain is. You
 
 164 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 hardly ever find a woman quite sound in wind and 
 limb and intellect, with an absolutely unselfish husband, 
 ready to think all things for her, and to dance attend- 
 ance on her to all eternity. Helplessness is such 
 supreme flattery. I tell you, the modern man doesn't 
 like intellect, any more than his fathers before him 
 did, if it comes home too much to him." 
 
 " No ! Sickliness and softness of brain don't, how- 
 ever, appeal equally to all men." 
 
 " I suppose not ; but the things they carry in their 
 train do. The parasitical, gracious, leaning ways, the 
 touch of pathos and pleading, — those are the things I 
 should look for if I were a man, they charm me in- 
 finitely. Then that lovely craving for sympathy, and 
 that delicious feeling of insecurity they float in, which 
 makes the touch of strong hands a Heaven-sent 
 boon to them — those women, you see, strew incense 
 in your path and they get it back in service. When 
 one hears of a devoted couple, and is called on to 
 admire with bated breath, I never can till I have dug 
 out the reason of this devotion. I hate sticking up 
 people on pinnacles, and then having to knock them 
 down like a pair of nine-pins." 
 
 " Hero worship isn't your tap evidently ; but if one 
 makes a principle of never smelling a flower or eating 
 fruit until one has ascertained the manure used in its 
 growth, one gets put off a lot. By the way, I haven't 
 noticed any marked symptoms of mental or physical 
 decay in you, and yet, God knows and can possibly 
 score up the number of your lovers — they certainly 
 were beyond all human computation." 
 
 She flashed a quick, curious look at him and smiled. 
 
 u My lovers ? They weren't lovers at all, they were
 
 A YELL O IV A STER. 1 65 
 
 explorers, experimental philosophers. They had the 
 same strong yearning for me that a botanist has for 
 a blue chrysanthemum, or a yellow aster. If a man 
 could succeed in getting this thing he would go mad 
 over it, and put it in the best house in his grounds for 
 all his neighbours and friends to admire ; but do you 
 think he would love it, like an ordinary sweet red rose, 
 that he can gather, and smell, and caress, and bury his 
 nose in, and wear near his heart ? Not he ! 
 
 " Do you think one of these men ever wanted to 
 touch me," she went on calmly, taking little sips of 
 wine, " or to ruffle the hair round my forehead, which 
 is their invariable habit in novels, or to lay his hand on 
 my bare shoulder — they do that, too, I have read — or 
 to clasp me to his breast, the climax to these pretty 
 little customs of theirs ? Goodness ! And imagine my 
 feelings if one had ! But they didn't even want to ; 
 and yet they were my slaves, to do with precisely as 
 I liked. 
 
 " When I was in the thick of it I thought I could not 
 live without all this, yet it was disappointing on the 
 whole, I believe. I remember wishing, now and then, 
 that I could flirt like other girls, and make men make 
 palpable fools of themselves for my sake. It looks 
 such a very delightful pastime ! 1 have seen plain 
 girls look positively quite beautiful when engaged in it. 
 The undercurrent of heaps of girls' lives, upon which 
 it seems to me all the rest is built up, is a sort of 
 simmering, unconfessed, vague longing for the sensa- 
 tion of being ' caught and kissed/ like the little brown 
 maid in the old rhyme ; not in a general vulgar way, 
 but in a well-bred particular way. It is a quite incom- 
 prehensible sensation to me."
 
 1 66 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 " Probably. It's natural all the same," he said, 
 looking at her eyes, which regarded him curiously ; 
 " and Nature is such a vindictive, grasping beast it is 
 as well not to run counter to her, or she will have limb 
 for limb." 
 
 " I wonder which limb of mine she will want ? " 
 
 " Oh you, she'll trip you up in your own coils some- 
 how ! Fill you with an overpowering desire to be 
 ' caught and kissed,' " he said, with a short laugh, " and 
 have no one handy to do it." 
 
 " Oh, then she must make me over again ! " 
 
 She stood up and looked down over the gloomy 
 valley. "What is it to be natural, I wonder ? I don't 
 know." 
 
 " Time will tell you all about it. Now, you want to 
 be down over that precipice ? Well, anyway, I am 
 glad you are warranted sound. Come on, my yellow 
 aster ! " 
 
 They were past the precipice, far down the other 
 side, when Gwen spoke again. 
 
 " Humphrey," she said, with a stronger trace of 
 emotion in her voice than he had ever detected there 
 before, " upon my word, I often wish for your sake I 
 was just a good, common, frowsy red cabbage-rose." 
 
 "Ah, do you ? — Well, ' die Zeit bringt Rosen ! ' "
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 About a week later they arrived in Paris. Gwen had 
 never been there before, and her curiosity to see every- 
 thing was insatiable and unresting. 
 
 She often seemed to herself as if she were caught in 
 the whirl of a mad, intoxicating race with fate ; it was 
 glorious ; it stimulated her like a draught of wine ; it 
 filled her veins with fire ; it was as if the spirit of the 
 world had got into her spirit, and shot streams of the 
 strength of immortality through all her being. 
 
 She was as a god to herself, and fate was as a thing 
 of naught. This was in her times of exaltation, how- 
 ever ; but even in these early days there came moments 
 of reaction in their due season. Fortunately she knew 
 the symptoms of their approach, and could hide herself 
 away from her husband's eyes. Her room could tell 
 strange tales whenever Gwen shut herself in and threw 
 up the sponge till the next round. 
 
 Then there came shame into that proud face, fear 
 into those fearless eyes, a stoop into those stoopless 
 shoulders. She neither ranted nor raved, she dared not ; 
 if she had once raised her voice, she knew quite well 
 she must shriek and howl forth the terror and disgust 
 and dismay with which the possible ending to this race 
 with fate filled her. 
 
 167
 
 168 A YELLO IV ASTER. 
 
 Sometimes she would pull off her shoes and stock- 
 ings, and go barefooted to and fro the length of the 
 long polished floor with its strips of Eastern carpet — 
 the cool, slippery surface soothing the fever of her 
 flying feet. Invariably she would pull off her guard 
 and wedding-ring, and lay them with curious, gentle 
 wistfulness down on the table. Once when she did 
 this, she drew a deep breath, threw out her arms, and 
 laughed. 
 
 "I am free, free!" she cried, "my body is my own 
 again, and my soul, and my brain ! I am myself again, 
 Gwen Waring, a self-respecting creature, with no man's 
 brand on me " 
 
 In a few minutes she came back and looked at the 
 golden bands. 
 
 " What is the use of lying ? " she said, " that mends 
 nothing, and only degrades me. I am not free ; what- 
 ever happens, whatever could possibly happen, I shall 
 never any more be what I was ! Good God ! And 
 yet women take marriage as they do a box at the 
 Opera ! " 
 
 But it was not in the strong nature of her, whole- 
 some what there was of it awake, to lose courage often, 
 and her powers of recuperation were superb. Half 
 an hour after she had been striding wildly through 
 the room she came down as unruffled and more 
 untranslatable than ever, to propose some expedition. 
 
 Strange looked at his watch. " Too late for that ; 
 suppose we go and see Brydon ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, let us go," she said eagerly. 
 
 He looked at her, and knew all about it. 
 
 For a minute he felt an overmastering desire to 
 shake her, and make her eyes speak plain English,
 
 A YELL O W A STER. 1 69 
 
 he was getting tired of their hieroglyphics. He was 
 buttoning her glove at the time, and involuntarily 
 he gave the button a cross twist and twitched it 
 out. 
 
 " Oh, hang it ! Is the glove rotten, or are my 
 methods ? Will it matter ? " he asked. 
 
 " Oh, not at all ; my sleeve will cover it." 
 
 It was a diabolical lottery altogether, and the soul 
 of the man groaned within him. It was even worse 
 than he had anticipated in the first hot glamour of 
 love. He freely confessed this, but he had sworn to 
 himself, in his foolish raptures, that he would face hell 
 for the girl, and he was not the man to eat his words. 
 
 They walked to Brydon's. 
 
 Gwen took a great delight in going in and out 
 among the streets, and a shamefaced pleasure in listen- 
 ing to her husband's stories of every twist and turning 
 in them. 
 
 "There is no one like him for a companion," she 
 often confessed to herself angrily ; " no one I know 
 who comes near him. What made me marry him, 
 what ? Even this part of him I can't accept and enjoy 
 without disgust and self-loathing." 
 
 At last they got to the little street in which Brydon 
 lived, and climbed to the fourth flat of a tall house. 
 
 When Brydon saw Strange he reddened with delight ; 
 but when he was presented to Gwen, he paled suddenly, 
 and his eyes fell. 
 
 "You could have knocked me down with a feather!" 
 he explained afterwards, to his chosen comrade. 
 
 It was a superb compliment to her, and her husband 
 laughed as he saw it. And then a queer wonder took 
 hold of him as to the sort of ending this good-humoured,
 
 1 70 A YELL OW A STER. 
 
 half-impersonal pride he took in her conquests would 
 have ; then this evolved another wonder, which dealt 
 with the birth of a strong woman's passion. 
 
 Strange pulled himself up and thrust this out of his 
 mind with a rough shove. 
 
 " On the whole, what's the result so far, Charlie ? " 
 he asked, when that young man had established his 
 wife in a big cane chair, softening the light from one 
 side and strengthening it from another in a lingering, 
 absorbed way, as with half-closed eyes he furtively 
 drank in the fulness of her beauty. 
 
 The question stripped the glamour from him at a 
 rush ; he flopped limply down on to a seat. 
 
 " If only you hadn't asked that question for three 
 more months ; but now, now, it is cruel ! Just imagine 
 a fellow, free all his life to ride his own nag, — a sorry 
 jade it might be, but anyway fit enough for him, and 
 his own ; just fancy him strapped on to a small donkey 
 belonging to another fellow, that it would be more than 
 his life was worth to prod into a gallop, and to have 
 to peg along on this beast, week in, week out, along 
 the same old road ! Oh Lord ! the grind, it's awful, 
 awful, digging one's heels into that confounded ass — 
 Oh! " 
 
 He jumped up with a guilty start. " Lady Strange, 
 I beg your pardon ; I forget what ladies are like, and 
 Strange is such a comfortable fellow to growl to, bad 
 language slips out before one can catch it, at the very 
 sight of him." 
 
 " Don't apologise to me, especially if my husband is 
 the cause of your offence," said Gwen kindly. 
 
 She had a fancy to be kind to this boy ; if she had 
 confessed it to herself, it was with a distinct view of
 
 A YELL OW A STER. 1 7 1 
 
 getting to know a side of her husband that Brydon knew 
 all about and she nothing. She was making a study of 
 him in spite of herself, and liked to collect evidence. 
 
 Meantime Strange had been looking carefully through 
 some of Brydon's sketches, scattered everywhere. 
 
 "You'll draw as well as you colour, old man," he 
 said at last, " and that is more than I ever expected of 
 you. What does Legrun say ? " 
 
 " He says he'll say nothing until I have unlearned 
 every cursed mannerism I have picked up in England, 
 that den of bad taste. Then l peut etre — who knows ? ' 
 
 " But the fellow rages just as much against his own 
 rapid methods as he does against those we've been 
 born and bred in. How dare we think to get an effect 
 with a few strokes as he does, he, who has worked, 
 parbleu ! who has sweated, who has prayed, who has 
 blasphemed, who has torn the heart out of his body 
 to arrive at this ease, this divine confidence — ' the head 
 of us should be punched ! ' — he is great in English. 
 We must take twenty strokes to one of his ; we 
 must do with pain, with tears, what is but 'deities' 
 to him ; details — we must know them as the ' bon 
 Dieu ' knows them, before we venture to omit or even 
 to suggest one ! Then he ups and splutters out 
 some delicious blasphemy on some unwary youth's 
 head. 
 
 " Look at me, the ghost of a creature, stalking 
 mournfully on eggs, with furtive fear in all my linea- 
 ments. And this is an artist's training ! Good Lord, 
 when I remember how I sat in that garret in Bland 
 Street, and thought of fame and myself in a new suit, 
 dancing a war-dance before my masterpiece on the line, 
 with duchesses squabbling for the first shake of my
 
 i -jz A YELL 01V A STER. 
 
 hand ! — Lady Strange, I am going to make some 
 
 tea." 
 
 " I wish you would," said Gwen laughing ; " we 
 walked, and I am so thirsty." 
 
 " Hu ! " said Brydon, examining his milk-jug when 
 he had filled his kettle and set it on the little charcoal 
 stove, " every drop gone ! I won't be two minutes. 
 The old lady on the first flat and I are affinities to a 
 certain extent ; in return for sundry packets of English 
 tea she keeps me in milk at odd times. Strange, will 
 you shepherd the kettle ? " 
 
 " I wonder if his cups are clean ? " said Strange, 
 rummaging them out of a cupboard over the stove. 
 " Look, an inch thick with dust ; and the handles ! 
 That fellow moons too much to be very cleanly. Look 
 at the tea-cloth, — Lord 1 Have you a clean handker- 
 chief, Gwen ? " 
 
 Gwen's brows contracted slightly. She was a dainty 
 person and unpractical, and teacups in connection with 
 handkerchiefs gave her an uncomfortable feeling of 
 impropriety. 
 
 She gave him a handkerchief, however, with a small 
 gasp of disgust, and watched his doings with a faint, 
 half-scornful interest. 
 
 " How particular you are ! " she said ; " I had no 
 idea you could trouble yourself about such things." 
 
 " I can't stand dirt in man or beast." 
 
 " How did you stand travelling— in Algeria, for 
 example ? " 
 
 " Ah ! there — there were compensations ; the game 
 was worth the candle ; and if civilisation has produced 
 nothing better — give the devil his due — it has produced 
 clean skins and clean eating. 1 fancy I was originally
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 173 
 
 designed for an inspector of nuisances," he continued, 
 running Gwen's lovely morsel of cambric on the end of 
 a pointed stick in and out the handle of a cup. 
 
 Gwen noticed, with some wonder, the curiously 
 delicate way in which he did it. " The thing would 
 have smashed long ago in any other man's hand," she 
 thought. " He treats women like that ; he is very 
 gentle, but he is the master; he holds them in his 
 hand, and does as he likes with them. And I have 
 no doubt whatever that there are at this minute 
 hundreds of women who would like it. Why doesn't 
 that handle break and cut him — there is no legal 
 bond between them ? " This struck her grim sense 
 of humour, and she had to bite her lips to keep in a 
 wild laugh. 
 
 "Yes, as a nuisance man I should have been a 
 success," he went on, " whereas, as a British land- 
 owner ! " he gave an expressive shrug. " Gwen, how 
 do you think you'll stand a flat clay country, overrun 
 with woolly-brained squires, and their dames and 
 daughters ? " 
 
 It was a horrid thought. Gwen gave a swift little 
 turn to put it away from her ; her dress caught in a 
 stretched canvas, put up face inwards against the wall, 
 and brought it down with a muffled crash. 
 
 Strange came forward to help her put it up, and, 
 with a hand of each of them on it, they paused 
 suddenly and started, and with a quick turn of his 
 hand Strange set it this time face outwards in its 
 place, and looked into it with eager excitement, while 
 Gwen's face grew cold and still, with a touch of stern- 
 ness on it. 
 
 While they were looking, the door burst open, and
 
 1 74 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 Brydon came in with the milk and a soft paper parcel 
 — looking like cakes. 
 
 " Strange, how did you find it ? " he cried. " I never 
 meant you to see it. Lady Strange, it is only a 
 sketch." 
 
 " I beg your pardon," she said ; " my dress caught in 
 it and knocked it down, and as we raised it we saw the 
 face ; then, I suppose, curiosity did the rest." 
 
 11 When did you see my wife, Brydon ? " said 
 Strange, still absorbed in the picture. 
 
 "In church, the day she was married. I know I 
 should have been in Paris, but I wanted to make this 
 sketch. I want, when I know well enough how to do 
 it," he said, turning to her humbly, " to make a picture 
 of you, Lady Strange, and to give it to Strange, and 
 this is just the idea for it." 
 
 "I am sure my husband must appreciate your 
 kindness," she said half absently. 
 
 Perhaps she might have put a little more warmth 
 into her voice if she had seen the fallen face of the boy 
 as he turned to look to his kettle. She had, however, 
 already more to occupy her than she wanted. 
 
 The sketch was a stroke of genius. It was a 
 gracious, graceful girl, standing before the altar in her 
 shimmering marriage robes, in actual flesh and blood, 
 the great soul of the woman shining out from the violet 
 eyes ; the tender strength of the mouth, the resolute 
 pose of the rounded chin, the russet gold of the hair — 
 the whole lived and thought. One held one's breath to 
 catch the regular soft rhythm of hers, the very hand 
 held out for its ring was palpitating with life. 
 
 Naturally, the whole thing would have filled the soul 
 of a dilettante with unutterable disgust, being as glar-
 
 A YELL OJV A STER. 1 75 
 
 ingly full of faults of detail as it well could be ; but an 
 artist with half an eye in his head would have put all 
 these by in a place by themselves, to be dealt with 
 later, and would have gone mad over the truth that 
 remained. 
 
 It was the girl's figure alone that made the picture ; 
 the man she stood before was a mere blur of an idea, 
 as were all the surroundings. 
 
 Strange's eyes, as he watched the woman, were 
 brimful of a terrible joy, and of a more terrible sad- 
 ness. 
 
 As for Gwen, she fell to criticising the details in a 
 way that made Brydon's flesh creep on his bones. 
 
 " This is not the original sketch," she said suddenly, 
 stopping short in a sweeping criticism; "I wish you 
 would show us that." 
 
 " It is very bad ; you would like it still less than you 
 do this." 
 
 " I might like it less as a picture, but, as a likeness, 
 more, perhaps. Do show it to me." 
 
 The mere suspicion of entreaty she threw into her 
 voice had never yet been rejected by any man, and 
 soft-hearted Brydon was not going to be the first to 
 run counter to her inclinations ; so altogether against 
 his will he pulled the sketch, about half the size of the 
 other one, out from among a number of others, and put 
 it in a good light where she could examine it at her 
 ease. 
 
 "Ah!" she said, "yes, that's me, myself! What 
 induced you to idealise ? It was unjust towards me 
 and dishonest to yourself." 
 
 " It was neither ; it was prophetic," said Strange in a 
 low voice only audible to her.
 
 176 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 She glanced at him for a second with curling, scornful 
 lips. 
 
 "Was it impossible, then, to make a decent picture 
 of me as I look now? " she asked, with a laugh, turning 
 to Brydon, who was blushing furiously and wishing 
 he could swallow himself. 
 
 " No fellow living could do justice to you," he blurted 
 out painfully, " however you may look ; but I was 
 trying to paint a bride, and there, in that first study, 
 you didn't look just like one — from my own confounded 
 fault, no doubt — so I tried the other." 
 
 " You have certainly succeeded in producing your 
 bride," she remarked, with a curious, absent smile. 
 
 To give her her due, she did not know how cruel 
 her own pain made her. Her husband did, however ; 
 he winced as he put the two sketches side by side to 
 compare them. He had the delicate, sensitive respect 
 of most strong men for feelings and other frail, nervous 
 things of that sort. 
 
 Gwen came and stood beside her husband, and 
 looked from one to the other of the sketches. 
 
 "Now in this first one," she said, "the girl looks 
 as if she were pre-ordained to the role of bride ; in 
 this other one, as you observe, she does not, but she 
 is me. I am so sorry to disillusion you of your 
 idea." 
 
 " You have not," said Brydon softly ; " only showed 
 her many-sidedness." 
 
 " I can get my wedding-dress over," said Gwen, 
 with a touch of malice about her mouth ; " shall I, and 
 give you a few sittings in the character of bride ? " 
 
 u No thank you, Lady Strange," said the boy, with 
 admirable coolness, " 1 aiuJi stick to the ideal for my
 
 A YELL 01V A STER. 177 
 
 picture, I will work hard on it. And when it is 
 finished, will you have it, Strange ? " 
 
 "Will I? The deuce I will! It would be a 
 magnificent present without another stroke of work 
 in it." 
 
 " What will you call it, Humphrey ? " asked his 
 wife. 
 
 " I shall call it ' The Incognita.' " 
 
 " Mr. Brydon, tea is getting cold all this time, and 
 I am so thirsty," she said, with serene imperiousness, 
 turning from the sketches and going over to the little 
 table. " I hope you are as good at making tea as 
 you are at making brides," she went on mockingly. 
 "Sugar? Yes, please, two lumps, and — galette ? 
 How delicious ! I do like French cake." 
 
 "Lady Strange, you said you would sit to me as 
 a bride : did you mean it ? " 
 
 " I did," she said amusedly. 
 
 The ungainly-looking boy with his great, saving 
 clauses of eyes, and his queer, red blushes and open 
 admiration of herself, gave her a sensation of interest. 
 
 "Would you sit just once in that dress — or any 
 other you like ? You don't know how good of you 
 it would be." 
 
 " Is it such a boon then when I require such an 
 amount of idealisation ? " 
 
 " Lady Strange ! " he murmured reproachfully, with 
 ludicrous woe. 
 
 "Ah, well, then, I will sit for you — where? — here ? " 
 
 " Oh, not here ! Did you think I would have the 
 cheek to ask you to climb these stairs to sit for me ? 
 Anywhere you arrange for me to come." 
 
 " Then come to our hotel ; but I know my husband 
 
 12
 
 178 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 intends to ask you to dine with us to-night, so wc can 
 then settle the time." 
 
 " Thank you more than awfully ! " he cried, with 
 most unaffected fervour, " it's such a boon for a fellow 
 like me to get a lady ; we can get more or less colour 
 and lovely flesh, you know, to paint from in the cheap 
 models, but then they are grisette to the very marrow. 
 Besides, it is not safe with Legrun even to experiment 
 on them. We must learn to draw before we go about 
 libelling even models. He says, ' Poor devils, they 
 have enough to put up with without that ! ' So you 
 can see what an inestimable benefit you are bestowing 
 on me. Strange, do you notice my walls ? Not a rag 
 to break the monotony." 
 
 " I do ; I thought the sternness of Art had come on 
 you prematurely." 
 
 " No, but Legrun did. I brought all the old rags 
 from the old shop and renewed the stock here, and 
 those four walls were one delicate glimmer of colour, 
 when, as Satan himself arranged it, who should come 
 shambling and blaspheming up the stairs one blessed 
 Sabbath day but Legrun, who insists upon having our 
 addresses. I thought he'd have a fit when he sat 
 down gasping and glaring at the walls. ' My good 
 lad,' he roared at last, ' how old are you ? ' 'Nineteen,' 
 says I, shaking like a jelly fish. ' I thought you were 
 nine/ he yelled, ' and making a doll's house ; clean 
 down that filth, clean it from the decent lime-washed 
 walls that never injured you, and remember — 
 remember, boy, that Art is serious, severe, stern, 
 grave, terrible,' he shrieked, waving his arms like a 
 maniac, and spitting horribly ; ' it will stand no tricks, 
 no mockings, parbleu ! Rags ! — Filth ! — with the
 
 A YELL OW A STER. 1 79 
 
 disease chock-full in them ! Gur ! Guz ! Hu ! Never 
 no more let me see such sights ! ' and he raged down 
 the stairs into the street, spitting, and scraping his 
 throat, — he lives in an awful funk of infection, — and 
 so I had to strip off my rags and leave the walls to 
 their native nakedness." 
 
 "You can have your revenge when you set up 
 on your own account. Gwen, it is nearly six o'clock." 
 
 " Yes, we must go. We'll see you at dinner, Mr. 
 Brydon ? " 
 
 " Will you walk or drive, Gwen ? " 
 
 " I will drive," she said, and there was a dull, tired 
 tone in her voice.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 Gwen was in an unusual humour this afternoon. She 
 was silent until they got into the fiacre, but directly 
 it moved she began to talk in a swift, even way 
 peculiarly her own. 
 
 Everything she said had the calm, cold brilliancy of 
 steel about it, and she advanced the most dangerously 
 heterodox opinions in a most unimpassioned and frozen 
 style. 
 
 Strange shrugged his shoulders with grim good 
 humour as she went on. He admired her splendid 
 insolence, as any man would have done ; all the same, 
 he felt a half frantic longing for that picture-bride 
 and an ever-increasing wonder as to how any woman 
 cast in the same mould, eye for eye, mouth for mouth, 
 dimple for dimple, curve for curve, could so atrociously 
 belie her nature. 
 
 Suddenly Gwen veered round and turned the con- 
 versation into a personal and analytical channel. She 
 had never done it before, except in her one brief 
 allusion to the yellow aster. 
 
 "That boy of yours is a genius, Humphrey, your 
 swan is no goose," said she ; " but, tell me, did I look 
 in the very least like that woman the day you married 
 me?" 
 
 He looked at her face of fine scorn. 
 
 i So
 
 A YELL O W A STER. 18 J 
 
 44 Not in the least, except in the matter of form, and 
 colour, and pose. These are you in tangible flesh and 
 blood." 
 
 " What did you mean by your ' prophetic ' ? " she 
 demanded, casting pink shadows over her face as 
 she moved the red silk blind slowly to and fro. 
 
 " The possibility of your being as she is one day." 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 The blind moved a little faster, and her hand held it 
 tighter. 
 
 " I put it to you as a reasonable man — do you believe 
 in that possibility ? " 
 
 " As a reasonable man, I do," said he, watching the 
 pink shadows playing in her dimples. 
 
 " Yes ? And how is this to come to pass ? " 
 
 " Ah, there you have me ! " he said ; " I don't 
 know — possibly God may, or the modern monster, 
 Evolution." 
 
 '•' Through what processes, I should very much like 
 to know ? " 
 
 " So should I, but I don't, you see." 
 
 "She'd feel better if her face flushed like other 
 women's," he thought ; " it must be ghastly to have to 
 consume all one's own smoke like that." 
 
 Gwen looked out of the window, laughing softly to 
 herself. 
 
 u You look super-humanly cool," she said, " but 
 this minute your pride is all agog to knead and mould 
 me into that bridal creature. It would be a triumph of 
 Art assuredly, and to your credit. I wish you might 
 have the kudos of it — why can't you ? — why can't I help 
 you to, for the life of me ? " 
 
 There came a rush of calm, restrained vehemence
 
 1 82 A YELL OW A STER. 
 
 into her cold tones that brought them to a sort of 
 white heat. "Why am I not mouldable — or like other 
 women ? " 
 
 " My good child, you could hardly expect that from 
 the daughter of your father and mother; you are un- 
 reasonable ! " 
 
 " Yes, you are right, I had forgotten them," she said. 
 " It is abominable we should be such puppets ; not 
 only present chances to play fast and loose with us, 
 but to have to dance to the tune of old, ignorant, half- 
 daft ones, that should go and rot in the grave of old 
 failures ! Why should they stay and torment us ? 
 We have enough of their kind to deal with on our 
 own account. Have you ever read the Bible ? " 
 
 " Have I ever read the Bible ! Do I not know every 
 inch of Syria, and every second inch of Egypt ? Yes, 
 I have read the Book, and on its native soil." 
 
 " Perhaps that may suit it, I don't think ours does. 
 There was one thing, however, I read in it, that took 
 hold of me ; you may know it — ' God's ways are past 
 finding out.' This seems to me to contain a whole 
 philosophy, capable of universal application, and reach- 
 ing to the present time." 
 
 " You are going too fast, my good Gwen ; isn't that 
 rather the philosophy of ignorance ? You are arguing 
 from a point you rarely affect — from the point of view 
 of Jewish theology with its strong, and primitive, and 
 mystery-loving methods. God's ways, after all, if we 
 choose to dig into them, are no denser, and are just 
 on the same line as Nature's. She permits no cause 
 without an effect, or she will very well know the 
 reason why." 
 
 " I wasn't arguing from any point of view, Jewish
 
 A YELL OW A STER. 1 83 
 
 or otherwise ; I was just applying a theological axiom 
 personally, thinking of parents and other chances." 
 
 " Ah, that's an idle subject, isn't it ? By the way, 
 you have a sneaking regard yourself for that bridal 
 creature — you admire the woman, don't you ? " 
 
 "Admire her! Yes, as a woman of course I do. 
 Why, she is — superb ! With that mature, strong 
 tenderness in every line of her, and that divine pro- 
 tecting patient air of hers, that woman might be a 
 mother of nations." 
 
 Strange started, his mouth twitched suddenly, and 
 red and blue stars swam before his eyes. Gwen went 
 on unheeding, in her passionless tones, — 
 
 "That woman is not, however, me. I am a beau- 
 tiful girl — that, and no more ; I contain nothing, I 
 assure you, nothing that could be moulded into that 
 
 woman." 
 
 "You contain everything," said her husband slowly, 
 " only the deuce of the matter is, that none of us know 
 where to find it ! " 
 
 " No, nor ever will." 
 
 She leant forward so that her breath touched his 
 cheek. " Humphrey, I wish you had never seen that 
 picture ! This necessity for idealisation is an insult 
 to me, and to yourself; you should have had more 
 insight from the beginning." 
 
 " My good child," he said, laughing softly, " I thought 
 the experiment was an avowed fact." 
 
 She drew in her lips sharply, and was silent. 
 
 When she spoke again her voice was rather hoarse. 
 I have often tried to imagine the things that go 
 to a murder," she said, " and I really do think I under- 
 stand the impulse now. I shall never altogether hate
 
 1 84 A YEL LOW A STER. 
 
 a murderer again. I am glad I know ; one feels better, 
 more liberal, for every new sensation." 
 
 Strange laughed. 
 
 "And, after all, it was all supremely silly," she 
 went on, "the experiment is two-sided, but you have 
 no idea how infinitely brutal the bald fact sounded." 
 
 " Bald facts mostly do." 
 
 "Well, there is reason even in experiments, and 
 remember, once for all, I am not a dramatic creature 
 given to sudden new developments, I am no emporium 
 for the creation of fresh sensations ; here I am, finished 
 and complete." 
 
 Strange laughed. 
 
 "'Finished and complete!' Was ever conceit like 
 unto hers ! My good girl, you are neither." 
 
 She threw up her head. 
 
 " Well, here I am then, unfinished and incomplete." 
 
 " Ah, but Nature invariably finishes her work if it's 
 worth the tools." 
 
 " Just as Providence shapes our ends," she sneered 
 with modulated savageness. " Ah, this marriage 
 truly is an experiment ! Look at those two at the 
 window — that girl, and that man, that stunted creature 
 there ! Perhaps he's an artist. She has a measly look, 
 and the man's nose is awful ! They are not a scrap 
 like Browning's artist and the girl, and yet, I fancy, 
 they think themselves in love with one another. Tell 
 the man to stop for a minute ! — here, here, at this 
 house. There, do you see the idiotic simpers ? Ah, 
 yes, that's love ! And the two will marry, no doubt, 
 on next Shrove Tuesday, but it won't be an experiment. 
 I don't think either of the pair looks as if he or she 
 went in for observing new phases."
 
 A YELL OW A STER. 1 85 
 
 "They'll have enough to do to keep the wolf from 
 the door. Perhaps in time, instead of observing new 
 phases, they'll punch one another's heads if they must 
 have fresh sensations." 
 
 " Is that the usual and orthodox end to being in love 
 — punching the head physically or morally, according 
 to the rank of the lovers ? " 
 
 " No, the methods vary according to the quality 
 of the love. Have you had enough, shall we drive 
 on?" 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 " If it's worth its salt, of course there's no end." 
 
 " One even continuous stream into the ocean of — 
 Nothingness ! How appallingly trite and stale ; 
 nothing fresh, nothing new ! " 
 
 " The state has a quite peculiar freshness and 
 newness of its own, I am told, which is perennial — and 
 here we are at the door."
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 Gwen dropped quite easily into the ways of her new 
 home ; she could generally adapt herself to mere 
 physical conditions ; her unnatural unrest and craving 
 for excitement in the first few weeks of her married 
 life were, of course, the symptoms of an abnormal 
 mental condition. 
 
 So when she had to face the inevitable, and to stay 
 her albatross flight, and betake herself to the domestic 
 roost, she did it gracefully enough ; and if her wings did 
 strain and stretch themselves now and again till they 
 often came near snapping, and would pull and tug at 
 her as if they wanted to drag the heart out of her body, 
 no one but herself — and one other, who guessed very 
 near to the truth — was any the wiser. 
 
 But it was perhaps the unconfessed humdrumness of 
 life when her flight had ceased, that set her off on her 
 new track — that, and her sense of justice, which began 
 to fret and peak in her again, now there was no longer 
 constant outer stir and movement to shut thought's 
 mouth. 
 
 The necessity to touch dogs that will sleep no longer 
 is a hideous one, but it must be dealt with. 
 
 When Gwen found this necessity a real and absolute 
 
 186
 
 A YELL OTV A STER. 1 87 
 
 one, and no imaginary demand that could be shelved, 
 she faced it, and proceeded to thrash out the ground 
 with an organised exhaustiveness that was almost 
 brutal in its uncompromising frankness. 
 
 She had gone through it all, by bits, in a desultory 
 way, several times since her home-coming. This was 
 unsatisfactory ; the matter must be laid out in its full 
 bearings and fundamentally cleared up. But the time 
 to do this was hard to find between callers and 
 calling. 
 
 This afternoon she was quite idle, however. 
 Humphrey was off attending a meeting in the neigh- 
 bouring town, and it was snowing heavily. 
 
 " The most daring visitor must jib to-day," thought 
 Gwen ; " I shall claim it unreservedly, and I must have 
 open air for this business." 
 
 Her maid naturally thought her mad ; that mattered 
 little. She was dressed and right out in the storm in 
 ten minutes from the time she had taken her resolution. 
 
 An old hound of Strange's that had taken to her 
 from the first was as much scandalised as the maid, 
 but he was not the one to be outdone by any slip of a 
 girl. He gathered up his great legs, shook himself 
 with a drowsy grunt, and followed her with a half- 
 contemptuous curiosity. 
 
 The Park had a certain beauty of its own ; it was 
 big, and if its undulations were insignificant, their 
 curves were soft and full, and the timber was magni- 
 ficent and well-placed ; the whole looked well under 
 snow. The great dull red-brick house stood out in 
 fine contrast to the dazzling white of the earth and the 
 glittering green of the clump of pines that flanked its 
 left wing, and from which the fierce wind kept stripping
 
 1 83 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 the snow wreaths that tried hard to nestle in the 
 shelter of the cosy branches. 
 
 When Gwen got beyond the terraces to a turn in 
 the drive, she could see the sluggish stream that ran 
 through a mile or so of the Park, turned into a torrent, 
 rushing and foaming onward in its brilliant course. 
 
 She stopped in the very teeth of the storm, and 
 looked round her with a radiant face. 
 
 " The whole place is transformed ! " she thought. 
 "It generally reminds me of a great, soft, white cow, 
 chewing the cud knee-deep in water in the shade of a 
 full, silky beech — it has all that beast's ample, contented, 
 intolerably depressing beauty ; but to-day it is grand, 
 glorious, like anything but a cow. The heart of it is 
 alive and throbbing under that driving storm ; it is the 
 birth of passion in that suave, smooth, green sod, and 
 the snow is the christening robe. Oh, I wish it were 
 always like this ! " 
 
 She threw off her veil and turned round, that the 
 blast might strike every part of her. 
 
 " It's magnificent ! " she shouted in her excitement, 
 " and — after all, passion's a wonderful thing ! " 
 
 She laughed as she bent to the blast. "But it's 
 amazing the way it subsides without leaving a token 
 of its presence. What's a broken bough or two as a 
 witness to these wonders ? In two days, in less, 
 this place will be as uncompromisingly smooth and 
 smug as ever. Ah, passion is a fraud then, or else it 
 requires explanation ! " 
 
 She hurried on to the little ivy-covered bridge that 
 spanned the stream, and looked down into the roaring, 
 seething waters with laughing, parted lips. 
 
 She wanted to stay ; the hurrying foaming mass of
 
 A YELL 01V A STER. 189 
 
 unrest had a fascination for her; but she dragged 
 herself from it, and turned off from the drive on to a 
 narrow path that led to a sheltered, wooded glade about 
 half a mile from the gates. 
 
 " I see the deer and the sheep have taken refuge 
 there ! " she said to herself. " I suppose the fury of the 
 storm goes over their heads. I can think of nothing 
 I ought to here, I shall follow the deer. Bran, what 
 do you mean to do ? " 
 
 She pointed significantly to the antlers peeping 
 through the snow-laden branches. The hound gave 
 a solemn nod. Seemingly he understood her; at any 
 rate he kept by her side and refrained from sport for 
 that afternoon. 
 
 When she got to the trees she looked round for a 
 seat. 
 
 The snow on the ground was too soft for sitting 
 purposes, even for her reckless strength to venture on, 
 but she found at last safe anchorage on a broad, 
 wooden fence that skirted the grove ; then she turned 
 all her senses in on herself. 
 
 She fixed her eyes advisedly on a peaceful group of 
 sheep, cuddled together on the lee-side of an old beech, 
 as being less disturbing to the mind than the tossing 
 antlers of the deer, and then she fell to meditation. 
 
 " To begin with," she said, " I am married. That 
 is the one solid fact to argue from. Into the bargain 
 I was, I believe, sane when I committed the deed 
 which is beyond recall, even on the plea of insanity — 
 that idea struck me once in the early days with 
 tremendous force. I must then give up crying over 
 spilt milk ; it is a degrading pursuit, and offers no 
 loophole of escape; I must just face the future — ah, my
 
 i go A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 dear, that wrings your withers, does it ? " she muttered, 
 as a cold shiver ran down her spine. 
 
 " Humphrey and I are playing at cross-purposes 
 now ; that must be put a stop to. Well, perhaps it is 
 as well to leave that to time, which will do the business 
 for him quite effectually. Ah, that picture ! That has 
 deluded the man ; he has hampered himself with two 
 wives — the sooner he returns to monogamy the better 
 for himself. This," she said, touching her breast, 
 " this is as nothing to that other ! Men might fall 
 down before her and call her blessed ; they fall down 
 before me, sure enough, but they don't call me blessed 
 — quite the contrary! — even Humphrey can't go the 
 length of that ; but fancy him before that other ! I 
 wish I had never looked at her, I shall get to hate 
 her yet ; she confuses me, she complicates matters in 
 the most annoying way ! Pah ! I never intended to 
 dissect her to-day; why can't I keep to myself? — me 
 — who belongs body and soul — soul ! " 
 
 She looked down on herself with curling lips. 
 " Soul ! Well, any soul I have and all my body 
 belong to Humphrey Strange as sure as any horse 
 in his stable does. And he calls this thing wife, and 
 loves it — loves it, bless you ! and in a most astonishing 
 way. Then this wife : she honours Humphrey Strange, 
 she obeys him, — I have never gone contrary to him in 
 one solitary thing, and I never will — that is vulgar. 
 But as for love ! I don't love the man ; I see every 
 good point in him ; he dominates me in a way that is 
 simply horrible ; but love him ! Why, every day it 
 seems less possible to do it, yet it seems that one's 
 first and paramount duty in this amazing contract is 
 to love — and now I have got to face this duty. How,
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 191 
 
 I wonder ? Am I to set diligently to fall in love with 
 this husband of mine, and how ? And how ? " she 
 cried, with a short, hard laugh. 
 
 Then she stopped thinking, and looked out on the 
 whitened earth, and the sheep huddled together still 
 closer under a sudden sharp side blast that whisked 
 round their shelter and set the branches above them 
 sighing and moaning. 
 
 The sun had sunk further into the west and had 
 carried its glow away, and the snow had lost its glitter. 
 Gwen shivered. 
 
 " It chokes one to think of it ! " she said. Pulling 
 her hands out of her muff, and taking off her hat, she 
 turned her face to the blast, and let it beat her at its 
 savage will. 
 
 " Oh, my hair — how heavy it is ! " she muttered, 
 and began pulling out the hairpins until the whole 
 heavy mass fell about her and was caught by the wind, 
 which shrieked with delight at its prize. "Ah, that's 
 better ! Well — now, this duty ! After all, it's only 
 sheer justice. I must, must, must face it ! If only 
 an earthquake would come into our lives, if I were 
 dying or Humphrey mortally wounded, or if some 
 catastrophe could fall on us, in the general shock and 
 upheaval something might snap in me, some undis- 
 covered spring might burst up, and I might feel as 
 duty demands ! But in this everyday existence, in this 
 flat country, among the flatter squires and squiresses, 
 nothing ever happens, no one dies, no one gets a 
 mortal wound, there is never a sign of an earthquake 
 of any description, and yet this duty stands out as 
 clear and as aggressive as ever." 
 
 A strand of her long hair got caught in a nail in
 
 192 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 the fence, she lingered over the disentangling of it, 
 then she turned to Bran and had a little talk with him, 
 but the patient love in his eyes vexed her. 
 
 " Go ! " she said, giving him a little shove with her 
 foot, " go ! You look like that other woman ! Oh, 
 this duty, this duty ! Well, I will make one solitary 
 conscientious try at it, I will begin this very day ! " 
 
 She drew a long breath. 
 
 " Touches and caresses and things of that sort bring 
 thrills, and shakes, and trembles, and flushes, — every 
 female novelist assures one of that fact. Well, I must 
 practise touches and such, and hope for results ; also, 
 I must not let myself shiver and feel sick when I in 
 my turn get them bestowed upon me. I wish to 
 goodness I had thought of all this before ; it would 
 have been far easier to have begun right from the 
 first." 
 
 She suddenly hid her face in her muff. 
 
 " How awful that was, how awful ! oh ! " 
 
 She began to drum her feet with some slight violence 
 on the lower rail of the fence, and she beat her hands 
 together — " to keep them warm," she assured herself. 
 
 " That picture person must be put down, and this, 
 this," she whispered, taking her face, with a sudden soft 
 pathos, between her hands, " this must be brought for- 
 ward, made inevitable, so to speak ; then, then, perhaps, 
 with time and custom the other will be allowed to rest, 
 and — rot ! " she cried sharply, lifting her face and 
 turning it again to the blast. " Ugh ! how vulgar I 
 am, that painted creature demoralises me altogether ! 
 Ah, here comes Humphrey, walking and leading his 
 horse ; I will call him, and launch out on my duty. 
 Look at him, it's a wonder I can say, 'No,' to that
 
 A YELL O W A STER. 
 
 *93 
 
 ' pulse's magnificent come and go ! ' I can though, it 
 doesn't move me the eighth of an inch." 
 
 She stood up on the fence and waved her handkerchief 
 to him. 
 
 " Now, enter duty, exit vague speculation ! " she 
 cried, with a laugh, as she jumped off the fence. 
 
 13
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Strange's horse had stood on a sharp stump hidden 
 by the snow, and had lamed himself, and they were 
 both making the best of their way to the house. It 
 was bad going, the fluttering snow kept constantly 
 balling in Lorraine's hoofs. Any attempt at hurry was 
 out of the question ; so Strange's thoughts turned, as 
 they always did in any unhurried moment, on his wife, 
 and the puzzle they were both dissecting. 
 
 " There is one thing," he said, with a laugh, " we are 
 not likely to pall on one another in a hurry ; there is 
 nothing in the least mawkish in our relations, and we 
 are both of us good-humoured. That half-amused 
 malice in her radiant face, whenever she catches me 
 watching her ! — Was there ever before such radiance 
 in any woman's face ? This wife of mine is superb, 
 and yet I haven't an atom of claim to her, except from 
 the law's brutal point of view. But the mistake was 
 mine, I thought it was in all women to be taught to 
 love, given a decent education, but it seems there are 
 some who want a special dispensation to get it driven 
 into them. What a mystery the whole thing is ! And 
 you try to do your duty, my poor little girl, groping 
 blindly in the cold outer air of ignorance, and you think 
 
 194
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 195 
 
 I know nothing of your unrest and your wild endeavours ! 
 How little you know, after all, with all your big brain ! 
 Hallo, there you are — yourself, on the top of the fence, 
 with 3'our hair flying ! What hair it is ! If you were 
 any one else," he shouted, " I should see visions of colds 
 and swollen noses ; you can laugh and dare anything. 
 Have you been long out ? " 
 
 She came up panting. 
 
 " Since two o'clock. I had no idea I could be moved 
 to enthusiasm for this part of the world. But this storm 
 has rummaged out every latent spark in me. Look at 
 those pines fighting the wind ! Oh, oh, my hat ! " 
 
 " Hold Lorraine, I'll catch it." 
 
 Gwen laughed gaily as she watched the chase. At 
 first it was even betting between the two, but in the end 
 Strange brought it back in triumph. 
 
 " You can't catch cold, but don't you think the dignity 
 of your position in the county demands a hat ? " 
 
 " If it wants a hat as disreputable as this to prop 
 itself up with, it can't be up to much ! By the way, 
 what a united couple the servants will think us, what 
 a striking picture of easy affection ! " 
 
 Strange laughed, but his wife could have bitten out 
 her tongue. After getting nearly frozen to the fence, 
 in her zeal to map out her duty, this to be the outcome 
 of it all ! 
 
 She began to speak quickly, and her voice had a 
 curious new little note in it that interested her husband, 
 and made him turn his eyes on her more than once. 
 But she was talking too fast to notice him, and she 
 had the wind to fight. Besides all this, wild ideas of 
 touches and such like began to float about her brain in 
 rather a fi antic way.
 
 196 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 She brought herself to reason with a shake ; fortu- 
 nately, perhaps, the time being hardly fitting to launch 
 out on any new line. 
 
 When Gwen was coming down to tea in a wonderful 
 gown of white velvet with slashes of crocus yellow, 
 she met Tolly, now the valet's young man, carrying 
 off an armful of Strange's wet clothes. By some 
 sudden impulse she stopped and accosted him. 
 
 " I hope you will be happy here," she said — if the 
 truth must be told, in rather a shy way, the experience 
 was so new and shocking. 
 
 "You must try to keep away from gin," she added 
 sagely, " and then you will be sure to get on well. I 
 know your master wants you to." 
 
 Tolly gave a wild dab at his red mat of stubble, 
 muttered inarticulately, and fled. 
 
 " Oh, what made me do it, what ? That horror 
 will haunt me for a week. What is Humphrey made 
 of that he can endure the constant sight of him ? And, 
 now I remember, Mrs. Fellowes told me one day he 
 nursed that awful thing for three weeks once, because 
 it whimpered at the thought of a hospital. Imagine 
 that mouth, that nose, that ghastly whole, in delirium ! 
 Oh ! Imagine the mere touch of those flabby paws, with 
 their great red knobs — those knobs fascinated me, and, 
 ugh ! they have got into my eyes ! Without doubt, 
 I have a remarkable man for a husband ! I wish, oh, 
 I wish I had my tea, I am dying for it; I think I 
 must be tired." 
 
 She sank down into a big chair, and put her feet 
 out to catch the heat ; then she put her hands up and 
 set to to rub her eyes, in a foolish, futile effort to clear
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 197 
 
 her whirling brain, and then Strange and the tea 
 came in. 
 
 " I have seen Tolly," she said, giving him some tea. 
 
 " In that gown ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Ah, that's good ; it may awaken some sense of 
 religion in the beggar. I have experimented on him 
 with every variety of church, and with a most mixed 
 assortment of parsons, without the slightest effect ; but 
 there is a certain divinity about you in that gown that 
 may appeal to the fellow — be the thin edge of the 
 wedge, and lead to higher things. It would be a new 
 role for you to pose in, Gwen, as an instrument of 
 grace." 
 
 " I think I should do better as an instrument of 
 wrath," she said, with rather a strained smile ; she felt 
 a sudden impulse of loathing against what Strange 
 called her " divinity." 
 
 "It is one of the things which keep me so remote, 
 so absolutely aloof," she thought hurriedly. " What 
 do women want with divinity or any other super- 
 human attribute ? I believe Rossetti must have thought 
 of me for his ' Lilith.'" 
 
 She stood up half absently, and looked into a mirror 
 near at hand, then she moved away suddenly, with 
 sneering lips and a quick flush. 
 
 " That's not the fire ! " her husband thought. " Oh, 
 Lord, what's up now ? " 
 
 After a few minutes she went slowly over to the 
 piano, and began to play in a vague, fitful way. Her 
 husband dropped the paper he had taken up, and 
 listened. It struck him that her playing had altered, — 
 it used to be mechanical and rather expressionless ; no
 
 198 A YEL LOW A STER. 
 
 one could accuse it of want of expression to-night, 
 even if the expression did limit itself to anger and 
 unrest. 
 
 After a time she stopped playing, with one dis- 
 satisfied, disordered chord ; then there was a little 
 pause, which she broke by singing, first softly and 
 half humming ; then she seemed to awaken with a 
 start, and she sang on, song after song, with a sort 
 of excited vehemence. Her voice was a low contralto, 
 there was not a sharp nor a hard tone in it, but 
 there were some strong, harsh ones, like the groans 
 of men, and some deep, guttural ones, like the sighs 
 of women. There was no passion in her voice, but 
 it was full of consuming, soft tumults, of vague, sad 
 unrest. 
 
 " This is rather a pleasanter modification of her first 
 storms ! " thought Strange. " What possibilities there 
 are in that voice. I wonder what would happen if 
 I went over and tried to kiss that dead woman into 
 life ! Pygmalion's task was a fool to mine. What's 
 marble to an undeveloped woman ! " 
 
 He stood behind her and joined in with her song, his 
 bass to her contralto. The combination gave one rather 
 a shock at first, but it grew fascinating as they went 
 on. 
 
 Gwen stopped suddenly in the middle of a song. 
 
 " I could not have believed our two voices could ever 
 mix and make completeness." 
 
 " It is a ' sport.' " 
 
 " I like explicable things best," she said, peering out 
 into the semi-gloom. 
 
 " You go about with a scalpel in your brain, Gwen ! 
 What a thing it is to come of scientific stock 1 "
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 199 
 
 " Oh, it's a diabolical thing for a woman ! " said 
 Gwen. 
 
 She shut the piano up softly — she never by any 
 chance banged things — and went upstairs to dress. 
 
 " I shall wear that silk that looks like flesh," she 
 said. 
 
 " I put it away, your ladyship ; you said you did not 
 like it." 
 
 " If you could get at it quite easily, I should like to 
 wear it to-night." 
 
 " That dress suggests good sound flesh and blood, 
 with no remote divinity about it," she thought. " Oh, 
 I wish I could let things be, and stop poking about 
 among mysteries. I will touch him to-night, yes, I 
 will. I wonder — I wonder — if I can possibly muster 
 up strength for a kiss."
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 Mrs. Fellowes, meanwhile, was having a most unsatis- 
 factory time with the Park people ; it seemed absolutely 
 impossible to dig into them or to be of any service to 
 them. They were wearing her to skin and bone, and 
 she was meditating a change somewhere or other ; 
 when, one day, crossing the hall after lunch, she heard 
 a knock at the door and opened it herself. 
 
 She found Mr. and Mrs. Waring standing in their 
 normal attitude, and looking frightfully embarrassed ; 
 she saw at a glance that they looked queerer than usual, 
 and not feeling equal just at that minute to face them 
 alone, she carried them straight off to the dining-room. 
 
 " Ah, the Nineteenth Century, I perceive," said Mr. 
 Waring, as soon as he found himself in a chair, with his 
 hat grasped in one hand and the other on the edge of 
 his knee, with the fingers stretched out, and feeling 
 nervously in a baulked way. 
 
 " In that last article of St. George Mivart's," con- 
 tinued Mr. Waring, " we find a marked evidence of the 
 deteriorating effect of any special bias on a man's mind. 
 If this man were not an ardent churchman of the 
 Romish persuasion, I have always thought he might 
 have done well in literary science, but as it is — it seems 
 to me he has so much confused the thread of his 
 
 200
 
 A YELL OJV A STER. 20 1 
 
 discourse as to render it comparatively valueless by 
 weaving into it, with most conscientious persistence, 
 stray fragments of the deductions he has drawn from 
 his own crude creed. This demands, on the reader's 
 part, a searching, sifting process, which the intrinsic 
 value of the gentleman's articles to my mind hardly 
 warrants." 
 
 " Ah, you like your science neat," said the Rector ; 
 " so possibly might I, if I had time to collect my own 
 facts." 
 
 "Ah, but for work that must last, time and an 
 undivided mind are necessities, no matter what the 
 cause may be that clouds the brain." 
 
 He looked at his wife, and his floating, near-sighted 
 eyes grew dim with tender pain, and the tendril-like 
 movement of his fingers increased. 
 
 He forgot St. George Mivart, and all at once it 
 occurred to him why he had come. 
 
 " Poor old boy, his punishment is horribly out of 
 proportion to his deserts," thought the Rector, as, in the 
 pause that followed, he caught snatches of the low- 
 toned talk of the women, with Gwen's name entering 
 largely into it, and saw Mrs. Waring's face fixed on his 
 own wife with pathetic, shy yearning, not veering 
 round to her husband with covert eagerness, as it used 
 to do. 
 
 Mr. Fellowes caught himself echoing the other 
 husband's sigh, and he laughed, as the absurdity of 
 the situation struck him. 
 
 " This must be stopped," he thought ; " it grows 
 mawkish. I wonder if they have forgotten to feed — 
 more than likely. Ruth, have you asked Mrs. Waring 
 if she has lunched ? "
 
 202 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 " Indeed I haven't ! " she cried. " I don't know 
 what I can have been thinking about." 
 
 "Oh, please, Mrs. Fellowes," stammered the little 
 woman ; then her eyes turned towards their magnet. 
 
 Mr. Waring was at her side, and with her hand in 
 his, with a speed that made Mrs. Fellowes gasp. 
 
 "The fact is, Mrs. Fellowes," he explained heroically, 
 
 " we were both a little forgetful ; we — we " he 
 
 paused painfully and gulped. "Ah! — I " 
 
 He repented the word sadly; it was the first time 
 his conscience had forced him to separate the two, and 
 it hurt him. "Yes, I was much absorbed in my work 
 — and my wife, I think, is not very well." 
 
 " I am quite well, dear," she murmured. 
 
 "Ah, dearest, I doubt it. I thought some quinine 
 might be beneficial, Mrs. Fellowes. In fact, that was 
 the primary motive of our call." 
 
 "Give her some claret for the present, and make her 
 eat something : wine and meat are as good as quinine 
 any day." 
 
 Mrs. Waring was the most docile creature breathing, 
 she swallowed obediently everything set before her ; 
 when suddenly a little tremble ran all down her and 
 shook her gently, and she let her fork drop with a little 
 clash. 
 
 She had caught sight just over the sideboard of one 
 of Brydon's sketches of Gwen, which she had sent 
 Mrs. Fellowes. 
 
 Her husband had not seen the picture, so he only 
 pressed her knife hand gently, and murmured 
 "Nerves!" 
 
 She went back obediently to her meal ; and if they 
 had given her the whole of a chicken and a quart of
 
 A YELL OW A STER. 203 
 
 claret she would have swallowed both without a 
 murmur, so long as they let her get finished, and go 
 close up to that picture. 
 
 Mr. Waring' s meal, on the contrary, was very in- 
 teresting to him, and he enjoyed it with a zest that 
 set him playing at a quite new and charming departure 
 in classification. A graceful, pretty house-mother, 
 moving on the field of his vision, and supplying every 
 unspoken want of his, was a pleasing variation. 
 
 " A charming type, this serving woman," he reflected, 
 regarding her with gentle favour, " charming. By no 
 means a unique or even an unusual one, but really 
 quite charming and pleasant to observe. In that 
 woman the maternal instinct will be found in a very 
 advanced state of development ; and yet, if I recollect 
 
 aright " He started, frowning, and pausing, as, 
 
 with a morsel of meat on his fork, he contemplated her 
 curiously. "Yes, I believe my recollections are accu- 
 rate ; she has never had any children, and probably, 
 after this lapse of time, will not produce any. Very 
 strange indeed, very strange, another of those most 
 puzzling instances of Nature's waste." 
 
 He sighed, and reflected a little on Mrs. Fellovves 
 as she helped his wife to cream ; then he went rather 
 sadly to his tart, feeling a slight tinge of contempt for 
 Nature's inconsistency. 
 
 When Mrs. Waring had consumed as much nourish- 
 ment as her entertainers thought fit for her, Mr. 
 Fellowes went over to the sideboard, unhooked the 
 sketch, and propped it against the claret jug. 
 
 " The colouring is good, isn't it ? " he said. " Gwen 
 sent it to us last week." 
 
 Mrs. Waring threw up her head and looked at the
 
 2o 4 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 Rector's wife ; then her face flooded with pink, and 
 there came a pain into her heart that she had never 
 felt before. For the first time in her nine-and-thirty 
 years this little woman was jealous. 
 
 "Gwen gave it!" she repeated. "Henry, do you 
 think Gwen would give us one?" 
 
 There was a perceptible choke in her voice, and 
 she put up her little hand to her throat with a swift 
 movement. 
 
 " My love ! " he said, in a rather frightened way, 
 " we could hardly ask our daughter for such a very 
 valuable present." 
 
 " I suppose we could not," she said, with sweet 
 humility. 
 
 " My reasonable, my docile one ! " he thought, with 
 tender satisfaction, " better a thousand times than any 
 other female type, serving or otherwise." 
 
 He might have felt more disturbed if he had had 
 the merest ghost of a notion as to the causes of her 
 humility, which had less to do with him than he would 
 altogether have relished. With all this congestion of 
 novel emotion the woman was losing her pristine 
 transparency. 
 
 " What are your plans for the afternoon ? " asked 
 the Rector. "You know that even the ordinary decencies 
 of civilisation have to be shunted in a parson's life ; I 
 must be off in five minutes. Are you on for a walk, 
 Waring ? " 
 
 "I! — Oh, thank you, but we — I — we " he 
 
 caught nervously on to his wife's eyes, "we — we are 
 very much engaged just now. We just called con- 
 cerning this matter of quinine, and we have already 
 absorbed too much of your time; untimely visitors
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 205 
 
 are a keen trial — my wife and I have suffered much 
 from this form of affliction." 
 
 The Rector laughed. 
 
 "Visitors are a brutal bane, ninety per cent, of them, 
 but you two are most marked exceptions. We can, at 
 any rate, go as far as the Park, for that is on my way, 
 and I know my wife has designs on yours — you won't 
 get her back much before dinner-time." 
 
 Mr. Waring turned round with a start. 
 
 " Is this the case ? " he asked blankly. 
 
 " I would like to stay," said Mrs. Waring softly ; 
 but she hung her head and did not look at her husband. 
 
 He looked at her, however, and his brows lifted 
 themselves. He turned with solemnity to Mrs. Fel- 
 lowes. 
 
 " Pray consider this question of quinine," he said, 
 "and let us know the result — our experience is quite 
 insufficient to go on." 
 
 "You are quite welcome to all mine," said Mrs. 
 Fellowes, laughing. 
 
 He turned to his wife again. " Good-bye, my love. 
 I hope I shall be able to get on with my work, but — 
 ahem — this upsets one sadly." 
 
 Mrs. Fellowes went to her husband in the hall just 
 then, and they were alone. 
 
 "This is quite unusual, love — are you wise to 
 remain ? " he said. 
 
 Mrs. Waring's eyes wandered to Gwen's picture. 
 
 " I would like to stay," she said, then suddenly she 
 bent towards him, and the pink deepened on her cheeks, 
 " but I will go if you like." 
 
 " I wish you to do just as you like yourself, 
 love."
 
 206 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 He loosed his hand gently from her clasp, and 
 followed Mrs. Fellowes into the hall, his fingers 
 twitching. 
 
 In an instant she was after him, and making for her 
 hat, when Mrs. Fellowes caught her. 
 
 " Come to the door and see them off/' she remarked 
 innocently, drawing Mrs. Waring's arm through her own. 
 
 When she had seen them off the premises, Mrs. 
 Fellowes shut her guest up with the picture and went 
 to dress, then she scurried her off to the village, where 
 they spent a rather remarkable two hours. 
 
 Mrs. Fellowes' companion was first discovered by an 
 urchin who was making mud pies in a gutter. At the 
 first shock of his find he gave a whoop, and turned a 
 somersault back into the dust, then he uplifted himself 
 and fled with the news, despatching scouts to right 
 and left on his progress. 
 
 When the ladies reached the village they found it 
 all agog, every door was full of faces, and the howls of 
 scrubbed infancy arose from every yard. 
 
 Mrs. Waring looked shy and twitched a good deal, 
 but on the whole she bore herself gallantly. 
 
 The mothers embarrassed her, they seemed to expect 
 conversation, and this was even the case with the 
 children ; she could just smile at them, however, and 
 be silent. It was among the babies she shone ; not, 
 indeed, in her mode of holding them — she did that with 
 her fingers, delicately, as if they had been pens — but 
 she got so eager over them, so full of interest, asked so 
 many anxious questions as to their appetites, and gave 
 such amazing hints concerning their management, that 
 she made an impression on the village such as 
 astonished the oldest inhabitant, and set the women's
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 207 
 
 tongues wagging at a rate to surprise even their 
 husbands. 
 
 It was an event, an epoch-making day in the village 
 of Waring, when the squire's wife stepped in bodily 
 presence in and out of its houses, and disseminated 
 useful knowledge concerning the human infant. 
 
 When Gwen heard of it, in the same letter that told 
 her to send her mother a sketch of herself without 
 delay, she laughed sarcastically. 
 
 "This is dishonest of Mrs. Fellowes!" she cried, 
 with a little stamp ; " how dare she make all this fresh 
 phase of lunacy into a pathetic story ? There is a 
 ring of false sentiment throughout the whole business."
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 Gwen lost no time in conducting her projected series 
 of experiments ; she carried them on conscientiously, 
 and with an assumption of spontaneity that gave her 
 husband a high opinion of her powers of self-govern- 
 ment. As for the results on Gwen herself, she found 
 them nil, she failed in experiencing one thrill or the 
 ghost of a tremor. 
 
 She had an opportunity about this time of judging 
 of the effects on the situation of a sudden danger to 
 her husband. They had driven into the station to 
 meet a parcel of books from London. They were 
 early, and emplo} r ed their time in watching the goings- 
 on of an imp in human form wrestling with its nurse 
 at one end of the platform. 
 
 " What an inestimable blessing it would be," said 
 Humphrey reflectively, " if the Lord would be pleased 
 to remove that creature. Look at it, biting and 
 screaming like a horse ! " 
 
 " Mr. Drew says the child is half idiotic." 
 
 "If it's not, the nurse soon will be. Phew — take the 
 reins I 
 
 She only knew she had them in a bundle in her 
 hands, and Humphrey was off; then there struck on 
 
 208
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 209 
 
 her ear a crash of sound, and through it one thin, high 
 shriek, and a long wailing. 
 
 For a second her eyes floated in darkness, then the 
 express thundered on and she could see a confused 
 mass of men and women bending down over some- 
 thing. 
 
 "That distinct, definite shriek was awful!" Gwen 
 found herself thinking, with curious composure, though 
 she knew perfectly well that her husband had very 
 likely lost his life to save that of a congenital idiot. 
 
 He was only stunned, however, and the infant had 
 got off scot-free. 
 
 When he came to her, Gwen was very white, in 
 sheer disgust at her own want of emotion, and 
 Strange knew as distinctly as if she had told him the 
 cause of her pallor. 
 
 He would not wait for the books, but turned the 
 horses' heads homewards and set off at a smart trot. 
 
 " That amiable infant," he said, when they had 
 cleared the village, "it seems, felt itself moved to 
 commit suicide in order to spite its nurse ; it has been 
 a long-standing threat, the woman says. It threw 
 itself on its stomach before the in-coming train. By 
 Jove ! it was a close shave ; we only got off by the 
 skin of our teeth ! " 
 
 She would have liked to touch him, to let her eyes 
 melt in his sight, to make her lips tremble, but she 
 could not for the life of her. She knew he had acted 
 like a hero, but, as she had known before, he couldn't 
 do any other thing when the call came ; it did not 
 seem in any way to alter matters. 
 
 Then she began to speculate as to what would have 
 happened if perchance he had not come off by the 
 
 14
 
 210 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 skin of his teeth. She looked curiously at him and 
 wondered. 
 
 " I haven't a notion," she concluded at last, and she 
 was silent for a long time and very pale. 
 
 "Was the game worth the candle?" she asked, as 
 they went through the terrace gates. " You had said 
 a minute before, the Lord would do well to remove the 
 child." 
 
 " Probably not ; but when a man happens to be in a 
 desperate hurry he can't stop to go all round a question. 
 I must go to the stables myself, there is something 
 wrong with Boccaccio's off hoof. Shall I help you up 
 the steps — you look white ? " 
 
 " No, thank you — I wish — I wish " she said 
 
 slowly ; she never finished her sentence, but went 
 wearily into the house without turning her head. 
 
 " I wish to Heaven I knew what he thinks of it all 
 — how much he minds ! " she whispered to herself, 
 with noiseless passion, as soon as she got into her 
 room. 
 
 " Even in this dead-level life a big thing has come 
 and gone, and has left me precisely as it found me." 
 
 She smote her hands together sharply, then she 
 rang for her maid ; she dared not be alone, her control 
 over herself was on its last legs. 
 
 If she had looked into Strange's den half an hour 
 later she might have got some idea of how much he 
 minded, but he ate a good dinner, and afterwards tied 
 flies with a steady hand, and made several quite decent 
 jokes as he watched her standing at the open window, 
 looking with careless interest at his work. 
 
 She wore a Watteau gown of pale primrose, with 
 purple pansies scattered here and there over it; she
 
 A YELL OJV A STER. 2 1 1 
 
 hold a great yellow fan in her hand, and stood bathed 
 in the yellow twilight. 
 
 " If I boxed her ears," he thought, " I wonder what 
 she would do or say ? Anyway, it couldn't hurt her 
 more than those devilish experiments of hers hurt me. 
 I have a good mind to try — if her ears weren't 
 altogether so perfect I swear I would. Ah, my good 
 girl, you are playing with fire ! " 
 
 He paused to fix a wren's tail feather in its place. 
 
 "There may come a time, little fool, when I may 
 get tired of this game, and resort to active measures, 
 and then you'll find your bit of hell, — 
 
 " ' Dann willst du weine, du.liebe kleine I " 
 
 In a moment of abstraction he sang it aloud, and 
 gave Gwen a considerable start. 
 
 " Do you ever sew, Gwen ? " 
 
 " No, but I can, I believe, in a fashion." 
 
 " 1 wish you would then, it might make you look a 
 bit human." 
 
 " Good gracious ! I am not divine again, am I ? 
 I thought I had shut all that away with my white tea- 
 gown. Perhaps you would like to call Tolly ? " 
 
 " Oh dear, no ! You would not conduce to his 
 soul's salvation in the least. On the contrary, I was 
 thinking you had a marked resemblance to Lilith." 
 
 "Oh, Lilith! I am flattered certainly. I think I 
 will go and get some work." 
 
 Strange laughed, and went on tying feathers on 
 hooks. 
 
 " Ha, that touched her up !" he muttered. 
 
 When she was half up the stairs she stopped and 
 stamped.
 
 212 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 " How dare he say — say with a laugh what I won't 
 even dare to think ! " 
 
 However, she was soon back again in her yellow 
 twilight, but sitting this time, and with a big bundle 
 of coarse flannel in her hand that she began to sew 
 with demure diligence. 
 
 " What in the name of fortune is that ! " said Strange, 
 after taking steady stock of it. 
 
 " I don't really know, I got it in Eliza's room — I 
 think it is a jelly-bag, it's just like one I once made 
 for Mrs. Fellowes, and spoiled disgracefully. I sewed 
 up the wrong end ! " 
 
 Strange investigated it with much interest. 
 
 "My good girl," he said, at last, "do you know 
 what you are doing ? You are sewing an old woman's 
 petticoat." 
 
 He gave a laugh that reached Tolly as he sat 
 varnishing boots downstairs. 
 
 " Bless 'em, the pair of 'em," he remarked, " and 
 as 'appy together as if they lived in four rooms ! Queer, 
 too ! as the aristocracy's mostly gone to the dogs in 
 the domestic line I "
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 " I wonder whether the fellow is grasping the ' high 
 seriousness ' of Art, or going to the devil ! " 
 
 Strange was on his road to see Brydon, from whom 
 that morning he had received a rather enigmatical 
 note. 
 
 " I didn't expect you this hour," said Brydon, when 
 he arrived, " I thought it was that brute, the fellow 
 over me, who always forgets his key. I came back 
 to the old place, you see, from a sort of habit, and I 
 thought, too, it would suit Mag and Con. I went to 
 see them. They taught me a lot, those two girls ; 
 they had fine flesh tints, better than the French article 
 as a rule." 
 
 " Have they been to see you ? " 
 
 " Yes, Mag's married, and her figure ! — throw your 
 coat there — it's a sin to see it ; women of that order 
 should die young." 
 
 " And Connie ? " 
 
 " Connie ! she's grown frowsy, I'm afraid it's gin ! 
 There was a blackguard she ' walked with ' who 
 levanted with a cook, so it's censorious to grudge her 
 a drop of comfort. But to think of those pearly tints 
 grown frowsy!" he murmured, "to sell that colouring 
 for a greasy mess of pottage ! The folly of man is 
 
 213
 
 2X4 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 inscrutable ! — Strange, you want desert air, )'our skin 
 has lost tone ! " 
 
 "Season, my good boy ; what else can you expect ? " 
 
 " I wonder if it's all season," thought the fellow, and 
 an unaccountable coldness ran down his spine. " I 
 wonder if he's made a mistake too ! " 
 
 " How are you getting on, as to work ? " 
 
 " I have to speak of something else first, and, for 
 reasons best known to myself, I prefer fresh air for it 
 — will you stroll round ? " 
 
 " I should like to see the picture first," said Strange. 
 
 One of his old blushes mounted to Brydon's cheeks. 
 
 "Wait till afterwards, if you don't mind," he said. 
 
 " Look at the light from that gin-palace on the red 
 head of that child ! " he went on, as they turned the 
 corner, " it's funny what glorious effects one gets from 
 the filthiest combinations ! There is no light more 
 bewildering and lovely than the phosphoric blue flicker 
 from a graveyard. 
 
 "That effect now, those reeking gin lights on that 
 dirty head, and the corpse lights are like a lot of 
 writers' work, no one can pass it by, it has a power to 
 grasp and hold you that cleaner things don't have, and 
 such power means genius, don't you think ? Power 
 strong enough, I mean, to stoop a fellow's mind and 
 nose low enough to batten on corruption. If the cor- 
 ruption wasn't made worth examining, one would only 
 pass on, with a kick at the seething mass. Instead of 
 that, a fellow looks and spits, and looks and spits again, 
 but keeps looking, and then he gets enervated and un- 
 manned before he knows what he is about. He sees 
 the pitiless truth of things, of course, but he loses 
 everything else — the result is very limiting when one
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 215 
 
 thinks of it. Battening on certain books," went on 
 Brydon after a pause, "was the beginning of it, I 
 think, then rottenness smells sweet after a time, and a 
 fellow gets curious and wants to exploit on his own 
 account. I did all sorts of things first ; I tried trees, 
 sun, shade, moonlight; I walked blisters on my feet; I 
 worked in the sweat of my brow ; but nothing would 
 still the brutal throbbing, and I went mad one day in 
 that maddening city. Art wasn't worth a straw to save 
 me. I made a beast of myself, the cheap sort of beast 
 that I had funds for, and — here is the result ! " 
 
 " Well, you're a sorry object, it must be confessed ! " 
 
 " But that's not the worst either — do you know I 
 have altogether lost the way to work ; I can do nothing. 
 Now some fellows can go down in the gutter one day 
 and mount up amongst the gods the next without 
 turning a hair ; it beats me." 
 
 " It's a good deal a question of nationality," said 
 Strange ; " Englishmen, as a rule, can't do complete 
 work while they're mudlarking; French fellows often 
 can ; just as no decent bourgeois John Bull has it in 
 him to write tons of magnificent filth on a sort of 
 principle. The fact is, no fellow of your temperament 
 has any business to wallow in modern French realism, 
 you haven't tone enough. I felt certain this would 
 happen, but you had to take your chance with your 
 betters, and no doubt the experience hasn't been all 
 loss. I am sorry for you all the same ; you'll find 
 your repentance a vast deal bitterer than the delirium 
 was sweet. That is my experience anyway, and it 
 will go harder with you ; your health, you see, can't 
 stand it." 
 
 " It can't, which makes me the bigger fool. To
 
 216 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 think of my work being knocked on the head, and to so 
 little purpose ! Especially," he added naively, " when 
 one has to do that sort of thing on the cheap." 
 
 " Fellows like you feel that sort of thing always, 
 even if they have a pocket full of coin. You see, you 
 are too fastidious and sensitive to enjoy vice properly ; 
 and yet the queer thing is, it debases you sooner than 
 it does men of coarser make, unless it kills you right off 
 the reel, as it mostly does. Stronger men have things 
 to keep them up, you fellows haven't ; they get bruta- 
 lised if you like, but it is the brutalisation of men, not 
 of women." 
 
 Here Brydon winced, possibly Strange saw him. He 
 took no notice, however, but went on coolly, — 
 
 11 They don't get rotten-soft and corrupt. Another 
 thing that's against you, — your father's a parson, and 
 his father before him, and your mother is a parson's 
 daughter." 
 
 " Yes — what on earth has that to do with it ? " 
 
 "A lot. With inherited conscience and spiritual 
 feelings, and a sneaking regard for hell fire in every 
 drop of your blood, things were sure to be made pretty 
 hot for you in next to no time. Small wonder your 
 work went to the devil ! " 
 
 " I suppose it's all the brutal truth," said Brydon. 
 
 "Did you expect this?" he asked, with sudden 
 shyness. " Are you disappointed ? " 
 
 " I am too old ever to be disappointed in any fellow ; 
 probably there's not a thing you have done I wouldn't 
 myself have done had I been in your skin. Now the 
 question is, what's to fit you for work again ? " 
 
 "1 think," said the boy dolefully, "the best thing 
 I could do would be to cut my throat."
 
 A YELL OW A STER. 2 1 7 
 
 " If I felt like an ass I should hold my tongue about 
 it, and take a blue pill. By the way, there's some 
 contradiction, for Blunt saw Legrun the other day, and 
 he's tremendously pleased with you." 
 
 " Oh, I took to swatting for a time, as a sop to 
 Cerberus, and worked like the very devil at drawing ; 
 but somehow I'd rather get a kick any day than praise 
 when I know my work's dishonest, done to cover filth ; 
 it's an insult to Art." 
 
 " My good boy, don't be morbid ! It was a good 
 deal better to bring your lines into order than to do 
 nothing." 
 
 " All the same, I have no satisfaction in any work 
 done then." 
 
 "Ah, parson's blood again — no need you should; 
 but you needn't add it to the list of your sins, that 
 would be rather a work of supererogation, wouldn't 
 it ? " 
 
 " I would like to go out into the desert alone for 
 forty days or so, and wrestle with anything that came 
 along, God or the devil." 
 
 " A very proper attitude of mind and befitting your 
 breed. In the meantime, when do you intend returning 
 to Paris?" 
 
 " I must go to-morrow." 
 
 " Why must you ? " 
 
 " Because " he hesitated, blushing furiously. 
 
 " Good Heavens, man, speak out ! Have we been 
 friends for fifteen years for nothing ? " 
 
 " Well, beastliness, however cheap you do it, is 
 costly. Even your magnificent commission has gone 
 down the gutter." 
 
 " It wouldn't pay either of us for you to return there
 
 
 2 1 8 A YELL OW A STER. 
 
 just now ; besides, I want you to come over and stay 
 at my house." 
 
 " I cannot stay in the house with Lady Strange," 
 said Brydon in a low voice, " I couldn't. If I am not 
 clean enough to work at my Art I am certainly not fit 
 to eat and drink in her presence. I didn't stay in my 
 father's house until my mother and sisters had gone 
 away, and — Lady Strange, somehow, is divine to me. 
 She is always the bride in that picture. I think," he 
 continued, with a strange softness in his voice, "for 
 all her jeering at me, that I have painted the real 
 woman." 
 
 It was Strange's turn to wince this time. 
 
 " Look here, Strange," the boy went on, still softly 
 and with lowered head, " I finished that picture before 
 I went into the sty. I wouldn't have touched her with 
 a dirty brush." 
 
 " My dear fellow, I know it ! I should have liked 
 you to have stayed with us. At any rate, you will stay 
 in London for a few days ; I will be your banker, of 
 course ; it will be, after all, only a very trifling increase 
 of your debt to me, and there's plenty of time to pay 
 that in." 
 
 He took hold of the fellow's arm and swung him 
 round. 
 
 " It's getting late," he said, " and I want to see the 
 picture to-night." 
 
 They walked on in silence ; the boy's chivalrous 
 adoration of his wife touched Strange sharply. All 
 the same, he felt vastly inclined to turn round and 
 punch his head for it. 
 
 " How dared the fellow go speculating on her 
 possibilities!" he thought; "that is my business."
 
 A YELL O W A STER. 2 1 9 
 
 " Yet when one comes to think of it, I'm an ass ; I 
 might just as well go for the dozens of others whose 
 admiration is quite as vicarious. It's not Gwen one 
 of the lot goes mad over, it's her double. Heigh ho ! 
 Bigamy's an awful embarrassment." 
 
 " I tried to keep exactly to Nature in that last picture 
 of Lady Strange," said Brydon, as he set to unfastening 
 the packing of his picture. 
 
 " You succeeded," said Strange. Brydon looked 
 round. 
 
 " You didn't like it then — no more did I, I tried too 
 hard to be faithful to the order." 
 
 "Well, and so you were, and that was what was 
 wanted of you. Mrs. Waring, for whom the portrait 
 was intended, liked it tremendously," said Strange 
 shortly. " Damn the fellow's impudence ! " he thought. 
 
 Brydon continued his cutting and unwinding, pain- 
 fully red in the face. 
 
 When it was all undone he waited for a moment 
 before he removed the last covering, then he pulled 
 it off with a quick, soft movement, and from a vague 
 feeling of half shy delicacy he turned aside and began 
 to cut up tobacco diligently. 
 
 When Strange saw his wife, not the cold living 
 abstraction, but a warm, big-hearted, divinely-natural 
 creature, alive there on the canvas before him, a sudden 
 soft gush of tears flooded his eyes, and he shook and 
 reeled at the queer, warm shock of them. 
 
 " Brydon," he said, turning round suddenly, " one 
 makes a fool of oneself over her, it is a tribute to your 
 genius." 
 
 Brydon looked at him and hesitated, then he said, in 
 a half-fearful tone, looking away, —
 
 220 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 " It is no tribute to my genius, it is that face ! I 
 never cried, I have roared and howled, you know, 
 scores of times, but I never cried properly till I saw 
 it ; it is the strongest and the most touching woman's 
 face I ever saw." 
 
 " It is, and you have done infinite justice to it." 
 
 " I had to paint her as she was there, I couldn't 
 help myself; I shall never again do anything like 
 it." 
 
 "What does Legrun say of it ? " 
 
 He was silent for a minute. 
 
 " Did you think," he asked at last, angrily, " that 
 I did that for Legrun's praise or blame ? Did I paint 
 her to be torn limb from limb by those old steely 
 eyes ? " 
 
 "As a matter of fact, I did not expect anything half 
 so sensible from you ; but this — this," he added slowly, 
 with a spasm of generosity, " this shall hang in the 
 Academy." 
 
 " If it does," said the boy, " I shall never touch a 
 brush again." 
 
 " Well, we won't discuss it now." 
 
 " Nor at any other time. I shouldn't care a tuppenny 
 damn, don't you know, for any fame for which you had 
 to suffer." 
 
 " There was no word of suffering to me, or to 
 any one else." 
 
 " Who said there was ? But do you see the 
 alterations I made?" he went on hurriedly, "I made 
 you even vaguer than you were, and served the parson 
 in the same way, and that carpet in Waring Church 
 was too strong altogether, I got a piece of stem green 
 stuff and substituted it."
 
 A YELL OJV A STER. 221 
 
 " Well, it is a work of genius," said Strange, as he 
 got into his coat. 
 
 " I am not such a fool as to deny that, but I didn't 
 paint it, you know. Here, you'll break your neck on 
 these stairs, let me light you. Good-night, dear old 
 man."
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 When Mrs. Waring got the sketches of her children — 
 for Strange had used almost physical force to compel 
 Dacre to run over to Paris to sit to Brydon — the very 
 first minute she found herself alone with them she 
 cried her heart out over the two, then she sat herself 
 down and S3'stematically adored them. 
 
 She had them hung in the library where she could 
 see them from her writing-table, and but for their 
 weight she would have had them carried to her room 
 every night. 
 
 Mr. Waring, in his emotionless way, valued his 
 daughter's gift, but this chronic passion of adoration 
 was beyond him. He had already borne much with 
 divine patience; he had seen his wife carried away 
 from his side for hours at a stretch, to waste her mind 
 and soul in the duties of an ordinary squire's wife, and 
 she had come back to babble of babies in a way that 
 made his blood run cold. He had caught her thoughts 
 wandering at moments when the crisis of a discovery 
 was setting in, and with tears in her eyes that the 
 subject under discussion could in nowise account 
 for. Ah, he had suffered in a thousand indefinable 
 ways ! 
 
 222
 
 A YELL O TV A STER. 2 23 
 
 But yet there were moments when he had her still, 
 just as in the sweet old times, body and soul and brain, 
 all to himself; when she still put out all the force of 
 her keen, fine intellect, and saw, with her beautiful 
 intuition, puzzles that had made his great man's brain 
 reel. 
 
 Through all time had ever any man such a wife, 
 he would think, as he watched her softly frowning, 
 pondering over a thought and bringing out the result 
 with that charming diffidence, that wonderful venera- 
 tion for the nice intricacies of truth which charac- 
 terised her, looking withal so young, so soft, so 
 serene. 
 
 No wonder that the man's heart clave unto her ! 
 
 And now those pictures ! That sublimely haughty 
 young woman— that big, strong soldier, with pluck of a 
 most soulless British order stamped all over him, came 
 in and robbed him of the better part of himself. 
 
 They still sat side by side, hand in hand, and worked 
 together, but they were no longer one. No wonder, 
 indeed, that untimely age fell upon the man and forced 
 him with its chill hand down on his stick, a little 
 heavier as each day passed ! 
 
 Mrs. Waring did not go out every day ; her restless 
 yearning often took her no farther than the children's 
 old nursery, where she would sit by their little chests 
 of drawers, and finger their old yellowing baby-clothes 
 with a shy, sad, wistful wonderment ; she had never put 
 a stitch into one of them, and their shapes and 
 intricacies were sealed mysteries to her. 
 
 Mary, now grown aged and grey, looked upon the 
 state of affairs with much dissatisfaction, and seemed 
 likely to continue to do so, for things, instead of getting
 
 224 A YEL LOW A STER. 
 
 better, got worse. Mr. and Mrs. Fellowes did all they 
 could to turn her gentle, persistent grief into a more 
 healthy channel, and were by no means careful to 
 spare her any plain speaking ; but it seemed impossible 
 to get her to fit her new, sweet, sad experience into her 
 old life, and to make a whole of it. 
 
 It is a frightful grind to get a great heartful of fresh 
 emotions, cf new sorrows and joys, into a middle-aged 
 woman, and not to cause a general disruption. It 
 seemed rather hard, however, that Mr. Waring should 
 half perish in his wife's own particular earthquake. 
 But though his grief lay down with him at night, and 
 rose with him day by day, he cherished her with 
 ever-increasing tenderness, and never by word or look 
 expressed the smallest atom of reproach. 
 
 Towards the end of July a little fleecy cloud of hope, 
 no bigger than a man's hand, appeared upon the 
 horizon, and Mr. Waring grasped it with nervous 
 despair. 
 
 After repeated puttings off, Gvven was coming for 
 certain, in a week or two, to remain until the shooting 
 took them North. 
 
 " Perhaps now," the poor man thought, "perhaps now 
 she will find what she wants, and can rest and be 
 satisfied, and our life will return to us. This maternal 
 feeling must certainly be a very powerful and a very 
 precious factor in a woman's making, or such an one 
 as my wife would not be so touched and shaken by its 
 advent and growth in her. It is a mystery, in truth, 
 thus to come so late, born out of due season as it were, 
 and so strongly to take possession of her. I certainly 
 never should have classed her among the true mothers, 
 the producing women ; they should be of a more
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 225 
 
 robust, a more animal type altogether. It is a most 
 remarkable case, with curious complications. It is the 
 daughter — the feminine part of her — that my wife 
 yearns and pants for, the masculine element seems to 
 affect her but little; when our son Dacre visits us I 
 have in vain looked for any symptoms of satisfaction or 
 restfulness. 
 
 " I feel so unusually depressed and aged this after- 
 noon," he went on, slowly, laying down his fruitless 
 pen, and gazing with sad eyes out of the window, 
 "even my ordinary lucidity of brain seems clouding 
 and thickening. It cannot be that I have already 
 reached the ultimatum, and that the period of de- 
 cadence is now upon me — that cannot surely be ! 
 Only just forty-seven," he cried softly, and his face 
 sank down in his hands on the study table. 
 
 He raised it again, and went over to his cabinet, and 
 touched his heaps of manuscript one by one with 
 loving, lingering tenderness, but a little shakily. 
 
 "This but just begun!" he murmured; "this but 
 just wanting the verification of an experiment or two ; 
 these, notes for a new work, the most comprehensive, 
 the most exact we have yet made — ah ! this book would 
 have been very close up to the truth, nearer to it than 
 anything yet produced. — And she looked with such 
 keen, such very youthful pleasure to the lighter task of 
 compilation ; that youthfulness in her intellectual plea- 
 sures is a very precious gift of my wife's. 
 
 " Here is a little satirical skit she wrote in a playful 
 moment : how charming it is, how delicate ! Ah, my 
 sweet young wife ! More notes — more — and so few 
 worked out to their final conclusion ! Must I, then, 
 take these symptoms as those of untimely decay," he 
 
 15
 
 226 A YELL O W A STER. 
 
 whispered, sitting down again, "I, who looked to long 
 years of honest labour, in which I might have forged 
 on farther than my fellows, and have erected some fresh 
 finger-posts on the road to everlasting truth ? To stop 
 now, when the world is crying and wailing in the dark- 
 ness of its ignorance, when men grasp any scrap of 
 verified knowledge as a drowning man a straw, and 
 must I be swept down the hill before I have breasted 
 the crest ? Must I sink to oblivion with my work but 
 just begun, and with the heat of battle strong upon me 
 — and she — my wife, my own, my helpmeet ? Do none 
 of these things strike and touch her ? does this over- 
 mastering strange tumult of new emotions shut her 
 heart to the awful beauty of truth ? 
 
 " It is strange," he repeated, " strange, and very sad. 
 The swift-running, smooth course of life has been para- 
 lysed for me ; I am oppressed with torturing doubts, 
 and — and — I believe it is not age, it is not the years 
 which have stunned my powers, I believe it is this new 
 phase of her life ; then comes the consideration : is 
 this a passing phase, or is it permanent ? I cannot 
 face the question !" he cried with a groan, holding his 
 head in both hands to steady it. 
 
 Then he took his hat and stick, and made mechanically 
 for the Rectory. 
 
 She always came irom that direction, and always 
 sadder than when she went forth. 
 
 But to-day she was different. When she saw her 
 husband she did not keep to her ordinary soft, listless 
 movements, and then, when she reached him, slip her 
 hand into his mechanically, from mere reflex action, 
 and strike out eagerly into an infant anecdote. 
 
 She started and flushed, and ran towards him with
 
 A YELL 01V A STER. 2 27 
 
 outstretched hands, and looked wistfully up in his face ; 
 and her mouth trembled as, for the first time, the great 
 change in the man flashed itself into her, and her heart 
 stood still and her brain reeled. 
 
 " Henry ! " she cried, " my Henry, you are tired ! " 
 
 He stooped, wonderingly, closer to her. " Dearest, 
 no ! " 
 
 She gazed with sickening dread up into his face. 
 
 "Ah, yes, you are tired and sad. Mr. Fellowes has 
 been telling me so much, making things clear, and — 
 and — yes, you are older, and I never saw it until this 
 instant." 
 
 " My love, 1 am well ! " he said, caressing her 
 softly. 
 
 " It is I who have done this, Henry " — she silenced 
 his protest with a soft, imperious motion — " they saw 
 it weeks ago; I am a bad wife now, as I have been a 
 bad mother — ah, that is very sad ! " 
 
 She laid her head down on their clasped hands, and 
 with a little shudder broke into soft sobbing. 
 
 "You are a most true, most noble wife," he whis- 
 pered, " my helpmeet in all things ! " 
 
 " I have gone away and neglected you, and you have 
 grown older." 
 
 " Come home, my best beloved, come home and 
 rest." 
 
 " If I only could," she said wistfully ; " but, dear, I am 
 restless, I cannot stay still. 
 
 " After Gwen went away," she continued softly, with 
 bent head, as they paced slowly up the drive, " my 
 heart seemed to fill with restless growth, new thoughts 
 and feelings were for ever astir in me, 1 could not 
 rest ; old feelings that should have had their budding
 
 2 : S A YELL OJV A STER. 
 
 and birth long ago only then awoke, and beset me with 
 sweet pain." 
 
 She stopped and leaned up against him. " I have 
 never been able to tell you all this before, except in- 
 directly. Ah, Henry, such strange new thoughts 
 torture and soothe me ; they war with one another 
 continually, and there is not one drop of sweetness that 
 has not two drops of bitterness to temper it withal." 
 
 " Let's walk on, dearest, you are cold." 
 
 " I have such strange j^earnings, Henry, for baby 
 touches and baby kisses ; I, who have never felt them 
 for my own, have to seek them among babies not of my 
 flesh and blood. I have to find the pale ghosts of them 
 amongst my lost children's little clothes." 
 
 "My love, not lost." 
 
 " Yes, Henry, lost, more than if the grave had 
 closed over them ; those forfeited things do not 
 return. I have a mother's heart now when I no 
 longer need it," she said, with a wan smile, " and I 
 know — ah, I know so many things, such pitiful 
 things. The other day a tiny baby grasped at my 
 breast and tried to nestle his head there — to suck 
 my breast, Henry ; it was worse than death, for I 
 knew I had lost the best sweetness of life." 
 
 " My love, my love, those things are not lost," 
 cried her husband ; and then, with sudden and 
 surprising astuteness, he added, " there will be Gwen's 
 children." 
 
 She clutched his hand in a sudden tremor of excite- 
 ment. 
 
 " An, and then — then, too, Gwen might understand 
 — now " she coughed softly and broke off. 
 
 ° But, Henry, I have you ; we will go together as
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 229 
 
 we used to do; perhaps work, regular work, may make 
 me feel better." 
 
 " My love," he cried eagerly, " I am certain it is 
 just the thing you want, the very thing." 
 
 " Perhaps," she said sadly, " perhaps it is."
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 One morning Strange came into his wife's boudoir with 
 his whip in his hand, and a light overcoat on his arm. 
 
 "I am going out beyond Highgate," he said, "to 
 see a pointer pup ; it is a pretty drive, would you like 
 to come ? " 
 
 She had been thinking with a sort of dread of the 
 hours that must run before the darkness came, and 
 of the numbers of times she would be expected to 
 smile, to return brilliant answers to dull questions, and 
 generally to keep up her superb deception. 
 
 She had a dozen engagements, but she decided to go 
 with him. 
 
 He drove a high mail-phaeton that ran very lightly. 
 
 " That Highgate hill is a bad one," he said, as they 
 were starting, giving the brake a sharp tug ; " I don't 
 think this will cave-in easily, however." 
 
 " Besides, Hengist and Horsa can be trusted any- 
 where," said Gwen, who knew nothing of ordinary 
 nervousness. 
 
 " I wouldn't trust anything in horseflesh down a 
 steep hill with the brake off. Look down that mesh 
 of streets ! Taking it in patches, there isn't a more 
 hideous, sordid, mean hole in the world than this 
 London; just look through that lane I" 
 
 230
 
 A YELLOW ASTER 231 
 
 Gwen gave a shrug of disgust. 
 
 " It's all frightful, and grey, and deadly dull, but 
 that never strikes me as the worst part of life in these 
 places. It is the hideous want of privacy that revolts 
 me, and the awful nearness of one human creature 
 to another, the sheer impossibility of thinking, or 
 feeling, or looking, except under observation, — the 
 horrible indecent openness of life." 
 
 " What do you know about it ? " he asked, laughing. 
 
 " Oh, I have done slumming in my time, under 
 Mrs. Meades' wing. I like new experiences, you 
 know. We saw a great many frightful things while 
 the craze lasted, but the worst of all was a cobbler's 
 menage. He had a wife and seven children, and they 
 lived in two rooms ; he never went out, that man, 
 neither did his wife ; she squatted on the floor all 
 day and cleaned things with a patent soap which 
 smelt worse than they did, and he saw all she did 
 and thought and felt ; the awful hunted look of that 
 woman was a thing to dream of. 
 
 "While Mrs. Meades talked — 'religion' she called 
 it — the cobbler sewed leather, and glanced now and 
 again at his wife in a way to make your blood freeze, 
 and then he would hold up his awl in a ghastly fashion, 
 and grin at her over it ; it was no bit of steel he 
 was gloating over, it was his wife's soul held up on 
 that awl. 
 
 " But putting husbands and wives out of the 
 question," she went on, " this appalling nearness of 
 living is horrible. One must feel for ever on a dis- 
 secting table, having one's most hidden nerves pulled 
 out one by one." 
 
 "They have no nerves, and they don't experiment
 
 232 A YELL OW A STER. 
 
 on one another, those people ; they don't live enough 
 for that, they exist in a smoky, thick atmosphere of 
 indifference." 
 
 " That man did experiment, and his wife was not 
 indifferent ; she was nerves and nothing else." 
 
 " These were exceptions." 
 
 " The worst tragedies are made out of exceptions." 
 
 " Probably, exceptions are mostly unnatural." 
 
 " It is not unnatural to object to have one's sensa- 
 tions flayed alive ! " 
 
 " Such sensitiveness is unnatural to a low, under-fed, 
 semi-sentient state of life ; such people have enough to 
 do to keep body and soul together, without considering 
 them apart." 
 
 "But I contend they do consider them apart, they 
 do make investigations." 
 
 "Yes, into the vices of their betters, which have a 
 perennial interest for them as being beyond their reach. 
 You won't catch them as a rule classifying one another 
 and flaying souls. These are the distractions of the 
 leisured classes." 
 
 " Then," said Gwen, " I wish I had been born in 
 the other class." 
 
 " To what purpose ? " said her husband ; " you would 
 have been an exception." 
 
 " Oh, then," she said impatiently, " I shall in future 
 reserve all my pity for the exceptions, and retain my 
 normal hardness of heart for the other crowd. I never 
 could get universal philanthropy to appeal to me, and 
 it's comfortable to put one's want of humanity on a 
 reasonable basis. But those generations of square 
 pegs in round holes, they worry one ! And yet people 
 speak of a just God !"
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 2^ 
 
 " Poor God ! What should we do without that 
 universal scape-goat ? As if He had anything to 
 do with the matter ! The fathers have trusted to 
 chance, and the children suffer. 
 
 " But, at any rate," he went on, " whether the fathers 
 or God are the real scape-goats, it's quite original 
 nowadays to profess faith in justice, and to refrain 
 from railing against the Almighty, so we'll let God and 
 heredity have a rest ; besides, we are losing the pauper 
 scent and getting that of the country — did you catch 
 that whiff? I am glad we are down this hill, the 
 horses are unaccountable." 
 
 " Hengist actually looks like kicking," said Gwen. 
 
 " Bell, get off, will you, I believe there's a fly some- 
 where I can't spot." 
 
 " Sure enough, three on 'em, sir ; and them horses 
 is mortal thin-skinned since their clipping yesterday." 
 
 "What a duffer I was," said Strange to his wife, 
 " not to look at them before we started ; they are 
 probably not half groomed and are tickling like the 
 deuce, and I can't even have the satisfaction of swear- 
 ing about it properly, as I was every bit as careless 
 myself." 
 
 A quick little conviction shot into Gwen, that what- 
 ever God and the general ruck of fathers might be, 
 her husband was just enough. 
 
 This silenced her for two solid miles. When they 
 got near the inn, .Strange suggested that they had 
 better stay and lunch there. 
 
 " I ought to be back for luncheon, but it really 
 doesn't matter," she said. 
 
 " I wonder what does, in her present mood ? " 
 thought Strange, as he helped her down.
 
 234 ^ YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 As ill-luck would have it, a wretched faint feeling 
 she had experienced once or twice before, came on her, 
 and she reeled a little in her husband's hands. 
 
 He looked at her in the most utter astonishment ; he 
 hadn't fathomed her yet, it seemed. 
 
 " Are you ill ? " he asked. 
 
 She blushed suddenly. 
 
 " No, my foot got twisted in my shoe-lace." 
 
 "The girl is lying," he thought, with a most un- 
 pleasant shock. 
 
 He brought her into a small, clean, quaint old room, 
 fragrant with mignonette ; a bunch stood in a glass on 
 the cottage piano, and there was a long green box full 
 of it on the window-sill. 
 
 " Now sit here in the shade," he said, " and take off 
 your hat, and rest." 
 
 He stood for a moment and watched her, then he 
 arranged the pillows on the couch and made her lie 
 down, with an involuntary protecting manner quite 
 unlike his usual airs of equality and sexlessness. 
 
 That lie had made her all at once so young to him, 
 so infinitely pathetic. 
 
 He could have taken her in his arms like a little 
 child, and hushed her to sleep. 
 
 When he had gone she clenched her hands in a rage. 
 
 " You can't call your soul your own with such a 
 man !" she muttered ; " it's bondage worse than death. 
 Talk of that cobbler, he's not the only man who holds 
 his wife's soul on an awl — oh, the horrible, horrible, 
 horrible indecency of marriage without love ! And 
 this vile pretence of fair living ! " she went on, sitting 
 up and staring out of the window, " the jokes we have 
 together, and the talks 1 "
 
 A YELL OW A STER. 235 
 
 She got up and went about the room examining the 
 curiosities, the stuffed birds, and the shells, and the 
 awful oleographs. 
 
 " What's this ? " she said, lifting the glass from 
 some glittering object ; but she dropped it as if it had 
 stung her. 
 
 " Ah, why did I touch it ? I am sick to death of 
 everything." 
 
 She went over to the sofa and flung herself back 
 among the cushions. 
 
 It was a great slab of frosted wedding-cake, kept 
 over for the first christening. 
 
 " Oh, it's all a most frantic joke ! " she said. " Here 
 he comes ; I must sit up and play to my audience, 
 knowing all the time that the audience sees into the 
 marrow of my bones." 
 
 She was not perhaps quite sane, as saneness goes, 
 all through their lunch, but she was strangely brilliant, 
 her eyes flashed with a queer, fluttering light, her lips 
 were soft and mobile, and she ate her chicken with 
 a will, and only that her natural fineness of nature 
 restrained her, she would have seized the big old cut- 
 glass decanter of wine, and have drained it at a gulp. 
 But she kept the curb well on, and never once flagged 
 in her course, which surprised herself even more than 
 it did her husband. 
 
 But when he went out to see the horses put in, she 
 had a little private collapse all to herself. 
 
 It was hotter than ever and the flies grew more 
 troublesome, but it was all very fresh and green. 
 
 " I never knew this part was so pretty," she said, as 
 they were driving through a chestnut-bordered lane. 
 Talking was an effort, but it seemed a less exhaustive
 
 236 A YELL01V ASTER. 
 
 one than sitting there mute under her husband's 
 reflections. 
 
 " It's pretty," he said absently, " and almost as little 
 known as Central Africa ; look at the indifferent calm 
 estate of those cows, they might live in the desert for 
 anything they know of the noise of life." 
 
 " Yes, and here we are in the thick of genteel 
 barbarism," said Gwen, as they turned into the high 
 road. "It is well for the cows that they live by sight, 
 not by imagination ; it's a horrid anomaly, the cows 
 and the country, and not a hundred yards away 'Arry 
 rampant." 
 
 " I believe I like the combinations, still life and life in 
 the struggle, and 'Arry everywhere, from cradle to 
 grave, his cemetery not a stone-throw away." 
 
 " Your toleration is rather overpowering," remarked 
 Gwen sardonically; "you speak in the same kindly 
 good-humoured way of 'Arry and of God, adopting the 
 same heavy-fatherly style to both." 
 
 "I really beg their pardons, but, as a matter of fact, 
 I look on them both as much maligned beings, and 
 as requiring the conscientious championship of all 
 honest citizens. We judge the two, the Potter and 
 His clay, by measuring them by our own standards. 
 I think, for my own part, it's amazing impudence to 
 sit at one's ease and damn 'Arry, as is the vogue 
 now ; nearly as much the vogue as sitting at ease and 
 criticising the Almighty. I must, however, leave God 
 and man, and proceed to think chiefly of horses for the 
 present. Look at those brutes of donkey carts ! " 
 
 They were just going up the hill, which was abnor- 
 mally crowded. The donkey carts were ubiquitous. 
 
 " I never saw them so thick before," said Strange.
 
 A YELL OW A STER. 23 7 
 
 " Wh}', I forgot, of course, it's a holiday ! I wonder 
 if it will be so crowded down the hill ? Those tram 
 lines are the deuce for hoofs." 
 
 They drove on silently between the rows of quaint 
 old houses, till they got to the crest of the hill coming 
 down towards Holloway. 
 
 " The horses seem steady enough now," said Gwen. 
 
 " Yes, they're all right — just as well too. Did you 
 ever see such a crowd ! — Phew ! " 
 
 There was a rustle and a flying glimmer of white 
 from a costermonger's cart coming slowly up the hill 
 behind a jaded ass. 
 
 It was the Echo of the day before, caught by a 
 sudden flickering breeze, and carried fantastically to 
 and fro right under the horses' noses ; they threw 
 up their heads and sniffed angrily, but Strange had 
 them well in hand, and soothed their terror gently, 
 and, being no fools, the brutes were just realising the 
 causelessness of their fright, when a demon got into 
 the breeze, caught the paper in its clutches, and with 
 a rushing swirl of leaves, dashed it into Hengist's 
 two eyes, right between the blinkers. 
 
 Blinded, tickled, irritated to madness, the horse 
 lashed out wildly, plunged forward, carrying Horsa 
 with him, and tore down the hill. 
 
 They were beyond restraint now ; it was only 
 possible to swing them by sheer strength out of 
 destruction's way. It was a touch-and-go game from 
 the first. 
 
 Just as they got very nearly down the hill, there 
 was a sudden jarring click. Gwen saw her husband's 
 leg drop sharply. He turned one look on her. 
 
 " Brake's gone ! " he shouted, sawing the mouths
 
 238 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 of the frantic horses till the veins stood out like cords 
 on his wrists. 
 
 He would have felt the whole thing less hideous 
 and awful if even then he could have seen one sign 
 of failing courage in his wife, if she had once clutched 
 him, once cried out, once showed an atom of weak 
 womanhood. But in all the mad, tumultuous race with 
 death her calm, half-scornful face loomed on him, 
 watching each movement of his, and not one shade 
 paler. 
 
 She was more beautiful and less of a woman than 
 she had ever been in all her life. 
 
 They were just at the twist of the hill, the traffic 
 was denser than ever, the carriage swayed wildly, and 
 the shrill screaming of women was giving the last 
 touch to the horses' madness. The final crash was 
 upon them. 
 
 " One last experiment," thought Strange, laughing 
 aloud in a grim spasm of humour. " Gwen ! " he 
 shouted, "will you kiss me once, as women kiss 
 men ? " 
 
 She might have done it without that clause ; she 
 changed colour for the first time, her mouth twitched, 
 she loosed her hands from their half-mechanical grasp 
 on the seat, and looked in her husband's face laughing 
 above her. 
 
 No tears ever held the pathos of that laugh. 
 
 "Why can't I kiss him and be done with it?" she 
 thought wildly. " Truth or lie, what matters it now ! " 
 
 She moved forward slightly with curved lips, then 
 she looked again, one little look, but it was enough ; 
 her hands fell limp into her lap, and she shivered 
 from head to foot.
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 239 
 
 "No!" she shouted, her eyes aflame, "if that had 
 been possible I shouldn't have left it until now." 
 
 Then she pulled herself together to show a decent 
 front to death. 
 
 The silent laugh on Strange's face broke into 
 sound, above all the bedlam of clang and yell, then 
 it ceased suddenly. 
 
 Great gouts of blood and foam flew to right and 
 left from the lips and nostrils of the horses, who were 
 blind now in their anguish. 
 
 "Hold tight, Gwen!" roared her husband hoarsely. 
 
 The horses swayed and shuddered, screaming with 
 terror. 
 
 With one despairing shriek Bell covered his face. 
 
 The swerving wheel caught in the tram-line, and 
 then came the end.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 As always happens in such cases, it was several minutes 
 after the crash before any one with an ounce of reason 
 in his head appeared on the scene. 
 
 Then a fellow — he was in the dog line, " and knew 
 a thing or two " — dropped in and took a rapid and 
 comprehensive view of affairs, and by the help of 
 a fair amount of blasphemy, did what was best under 
 the circumstances. 
 
 Strange was only stunned. After a time he sat up, 
 and looked about him. 
 
 A howl from Bell struck on his ears. He turned 
 and saw the horses shivering among the broken mass 
 of carriage, and the dog-man rubbing their noses to 
 a soft gurgling accompaniment. 
 
 " Where, where ? " he asked faintly, and in reply 
 to a pointed finger, lifted himself up with both hands, 
 and groped half-blindly to a huddled-up lump of 
 muslin and lace. 
 
 He just knew she was lying there, cold, and white, 
 and moveless. He touched her forehead ; it was like 
 marble. He laid his hand on her heart ; it was still. 
 
 A sudden wonder seized him as to who had undressed 
 and covered her with such lovely decency, and he 
 
 240
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 241 
 
 looked with half vague inquiry at the two women 
 hovering near. 
 
 As a matter of fact, it was the dog-man who had 
 done it, with his eyes turned on the two women, whom 
 he cursed foully the whole time. 
 
 " Have you sent for a doctor ? " demanded Strange, 
 forcing the dizziness out of his brain. 
 
 "Yes, yes," was yelled from twenty throats, "and 
 here he is." 
 
 He was a sufficiently foolish young man, and seemed 
 floored. 
 
 " Live far from here ? " he asked. 
 
 " In Ebury Square," said Strange. " Is there any 
 danger in taking her so far ? " 
 
 " None, if conveyed on boards in a four-wheeler." 
 
 Strange saw at once that the dog-man was the only 
 one who had his senses about him ; Bell, though 
 absolutely unhurt, was altogether useless, and the 
 other man had been left at the inn. 
 
 " You know the horses and cabs hereabout ? " said 
 Strange. " Get the smoothest cab and some boards, 
 and here, you'll want help, don't spare tips." 
 
 The man went, and was back before the doctor had 
 made up his mind what to say to cover his ignorance. 
 
 A fat woman, who had lent the mattress to cover 
 the boards, and who had been hovering over his wife 
 for some time, here called Strange aside. 
 
 " You had better have your own doctor at once," 
 she said, " that there young man is soft. She wants 
 skill, and, sir," she added, with a soft twiddle of her 
 thumb, "I have my suspicions." 
 
 Strange looked enquiringly at her, and a cold shiver 
 ran down to his toes. 
 
 16
 
 242 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 For hours after she was brought home Gwen lay 
 insensible. The doctor did nothing. 
 
 " Her physique alone will help her," he said, when 
 Strange seemed to demand action of some sort. 
 
 " She will regain her consciousness all right," he 
 said. " There is another complication, I believe," he 
 added, looking keenly at Strange, "but the treatment 
 of that must come later." 
 
 Again the horrid coldness paralysed Humphrey's 
 very marrow. 
 
 " In view of this," the doctor went on, " what about 
 her mother being summoned ? " 
 
 Strange thought for a moment. Her mother was, 
 of course, quite out of the question, and he remembered 
 that Mrs. Fellowes was ill. 
 
 " Is this necessary at once ? " he asked. 
 
 " No, I will tell you when the need arises — that is, 
 if any should. Her physique would tide over almost 
 anything." 
 
 As the clock began to strike midnight, Strange 
 saw the doctor stoop suddenly, and lay his head on 
 Gwen's heart, then open her eyes and touch her 
 eyeballs. 
 
 When he raised himself his face had altered. 
 
 " Now we shall soon see a change," he said ; 
 " perhaps you had better stand back, even the shock of 
 joy might hurt her." 
 
 Strange gave a ghastly grin in the shadow of the 
 curtain. 
 
 By a superhuman effort in all those hours of 
 anguished waiting, even when the doctor and the nurse, 
 in their consideration, had left him alone for the 
 purpose, Strange had never once kissed or caressed
 
 A YELL OW A STER. 443 
 
 his wife, or even so much as touched her except in 
 matters of service. 
 
 Gwen stirred almost imperceptibly, the doctor looked 
 round the curtain at Strange. 
 
 " Touch her, and speak to her very gently," he said. 
 
 He bent gently over her. 
 
 " Gwen, wake up, dear, wake up, sweetheart ! " 
 
 He wondered the next second why he had said it. 
 
 Perhaps the absurdity of the words struck Gwen's 
 grim sense of humour, she certainly stirred uneasily, 
 and made a feeble, pathetic little try to throw up the 
 limp hand that lay on the quilt. 
 
 Strange moved back under cover of his curtain. 
 
 " Good ! " said the doctor, " try again." He was 
 watching Strange's face with some interest. 
 
 " He has aged ten years in eight hours, poor devil ! " 
 he thought, then he took a long survey of his patient. 
 " I wonder if she is worth it all, she is a trifle too 
 superb for me ! She looks like one of those women 
 who keep their flesh too much under." 
 
 Gradually Gwen's stirrings grew stronger and more 
 frequent, and at last she opened her eyes slowly, and 
 looked out with vague questioning. 
 
 " What is it ? " she whispered. 
 
 "You have been ill, dear." 
 
 " 111 ? " she murmured, perplexedly. " I want light." 
 
 The doctor moved the screens from before the 
 candles, Gwen raised her head feebly. 
 
 " What is it ? " she asked again. 
 
 The doctor lifted her and gave her a draught he had 
 ready ; she was too weak to resist him, and presently 
 she fell off into a drowsy half-slumber. 
 
 After what seemed to Strange a lifetime, she again
 
 244 -4 YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 moved, woke, and repeated the old question, this time 
 audibly and with a tinge of imperiousness. 
 
 "Ah, she'll do now," said the doctor to himself, 
 grinning a saturnine grin ; " when a woman shows her 
 pet weakness she's out of danger." 
 
 He put back the screen. " I am thankful to say," 
 he said to her, " you are the sole sufferer, and you'll 
 soon be all right again." 
 
 Humphrey was well then. She shut her dazed eyes 
 and tried to think, but she could only hover off into 
 drowsiness. 
 
 After a time she opened her eyes again, and said, — 
 
 " I would like my maid ; perhaps you would tell Sir 
 Humphrey that I am better." 
 
 " Your husband hardly requires the information," 
 said the doctor drily. " I shall leave Lady Strange 
 in your hands, Sir Humphrey, and I shall remain on 
 the premises in case you want me." 
 
 His wife turned her eyes away, and began searching 
 for her handkerchief; he stooped and gave it to her. 
 
 The sweat still clung to his ghastly forehead and 
 hung on his hair. 
 
 " He said you were not hurt," she said; "you look 
 as if y ou were." 
 
 " It's been rather a disturbing day," he said, with a 
 short laugh. " Never mind me, I'll be as jolly as a 
 sandboy after a bath." 
 
 She turned herself uneasily on the pillow, and shut 
 her eyes. It was horrible to have him there above 
 her. 
 
 " Poor little child, poor little unfinished thing ! " 
 he thought pitifully. "Shall I send your maid, 
 dear ? "
 
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 245 
 
 " Yes, please, and won't — oh, won't you rest ? " 
 
 " Yes, I'm off," he said, in his old cheery voice, 
 and he went outside the door, and watched there till 
 morning. 
 
 She was very white the next morning, and kept 
 falling off into drowsy little sleeps, but she declared 
 she was all right and meant to get up ; the necessity 
 of staying in bed was a new one and she loathed it. 
 
 She felt more in her husband's power, lying there 
 ill ; she grew suspicious too, for the first time in her 
 life, and set herself to search for meanings in looks. 
 
 " I am demoralised," she kept repeating. Then she 
 turned her face from the light, and neither spoke nor 
 looked except when she absolutely had to. 
 
 Strange could make nothing at all ot her, and he 
 soon left her for sheer mercy's sake. 
 
 When he had gone she raised herself up and rang 
 the bell. 
 
 " Give me what I am to take, and then leave me for 
 two hours, I will sleep if I can." 
 
 The girl brought her a bowl of beef-tea, and she 
 plunged heroically into it. 
 
 "I am doing my duty," she said to herself, with a 
 sneer ; " but oh, will this liquid never get less ? on 
 the contrary, it seems to increase. You won't let me 
 be disturbed, will you, Gill ? " she said. 
 
 As soon as the girl had gone she got up and locked 
 the door, then she rolled up her hair, put on a dressing- 
 gown, and sat down on the floor. 
 
 " I have two hours in which to have it out with 
 myself — this horror made manifest," she said. " How 
 was it that this most natural of all complications 
 never entered my head ? I wasn't even warned by
 
 246 A YELLO TV A STER. 
 
 those new and altogether abominable feelings of 
 weakness." 
 
 She leaned her head against the ottoman and 
 shivered, then she reached over for a shawl that lay 
 on it, and wrapped herself up in it; but still she 
 shivered. 
 
 She stood up and was about to go back to her bed, 
 but she turned sharply round with another shudder. 
 " Bah ! I can't," she said, and, throwing a fur rug on 
 to a couch, she lay down there, and soon grew warm 
 enough to continue her dreary meditations. 
 
 " And so I, I, Gwen Strange, will soon be the 
 mother of a child — and Humphrey its father ! " 
 
 She hid her face in the soft fur. " It is ghastly ! " 
 she cried, " it is degradation, feeling towards him as 
 I do, and as I've always done ! I am debased to think 
 that any man should have the least part of a woman 
 so terribly in his power, when she can't, can't, can't," 
 she almost shrieked, "give him the best. What do 
 girls know of the things they make lawful for them- 
 selves ? If they did, if they were shown the nature 
 of their sacrifice, then marriage would cease till it 
 carried love, absolute love in its train. Was I mad, 
 my God ! was I mad, with all my boasts of sanity ? 
 Nothing, nothing," she moaned, " but perfect love 
 makes marriage sacred, nothing, neither God's law nor 
 man's ; and now the climax has come here in the 
 outward and visible sign of my shame. I have sinned, 
 not only in the present and the past, but in the future. 
 I have hurt an innocent unborn creature, I have set a 
 barrier between it and its mother. 
 
 " And Humphrey ! Now I must sit under those 
 deep, all-pervading eyes of his and feel myself ten
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 247 
 
 thousand times his chattel. Now we have a common 
 hope, a common interest, almost a common existence ; 
 now every touch of his, every look of his, will burn me 
 and remind me of my shame. Talk of the shame of 
 women who have children out of the pale of marriage, 
 it's nothing to the shame of those who have children 
 and don't love. Those others, they have the excuse 
 of love — that's natural, that purifies their shame ; this — 
 our life — the portion of quite half the well-to-do world 
 — this is unnatural, no sin can beat it for cruel 
 baseness ! " 
 
 She huddled into her rug and lay silent, wild, mad 
 thoughts whirling through her brain. Gradually she 
 grew calmer and more reasonable. 
 
 " At least I can do one thing," she whispered. 
 
 " I will do all I can to make up to my child for the 
 harm I have done it ignorantly ; I will take care of 
 myself, I will do everything I can to bring a natural 
 creature into the world, I will try to protect it from 
 its heredity. I am glad I know ; I will do all I can 
 to right your wrong, poor child ! " 
 
 She waved her hands to and fro in a sort of dumb 
 agony. 
 
 "And I could not even kiss your father, I couldn't 
 even kiss him when we both thought we were facing 
 death ! " 
 
 She suddenly laughed aloud, a low, curious, mocking 
 laugh, and put her hands up to her head. 
 
 " I must rest ! " she cried, " I must not think any 
 more. I will have some more of that draught, it makes 
 thinking a pulpy, sweet sort of muddle, it takes all the 
 keen edges off truth. If I did right," she went on, 
 throwing her arms back, " I would go out on a crusade
 
 248 A YEL LOW A STER. 
 
 to girls and tell them all the truth ; then, let them sin 
 hi knowledge, not in ignorance; let them know that 
 love, perfect love, is the only sanctification of marriage ! 
 Churches and rings are a mere farce." 
 
 She had come to the last shred of her strength ; 
 she crept into bed, and rang for her draught.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 A few days after, she was quite well enough to get up ; 
 the doctor told her to do so in the morning, but after 
 looking out into the day she lay down again. She 
 was not quite ready for life yet ; here, in her bed, she 
 was more or less aloof from it, but after a few hours' 
 restless thinking, getting up and lunch came to be a 
 distinct relief. 
 
 Directly after lunch she went out for a drive, and 
 when she returned, and had got into her tea-gown, she 
 went down to her boudoir and threw herself on the 
 sofa with a weary little laugh. 
 
 "Why can't I rest or sew ? why won't my body get 
 as tired as my brain ? I could move a hundredweight 
 this minute." 
 
 She got up and moved, with hardly any exertion, a 
 great cabinet that would have tried the strength of a 
 fair-sized man. 
 
 " Humphrey declared I couldn't," she said, laughing 
 again. " Oh ! I can't sit here and think. I wonder 
 where Humphrey is ? I believe I should like to ride a 
 race, or to spend an hour on a switchback railway ! " 
 
 She went down and wandered from room to room 
 with her long, strong movements, every one of them 
 the very incarnation of healthy grace. 
 
 249
 
 250 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 At last she found herself at the door of Strange's 
 den. With a sudden, wilful impulse she opened the 
 door and went in. Every window was open, and the 
 soft, cool air was playing high jinks among the curtains. 
 
 Strange had brought his collection of odds and ends 
 from his chambers, and had scattered them through 
 the big, alcoved room in a sort of orderly disorder. 
 The floor was stained and spread with an amazing 
 collection of skins. In his divings into studios he had 
 learnt the comfort and use of screens ; there were 
 several in the room, kept well out of the way of knees 
 and shoulders. 
 
 Thanks to the draught the cigar smoke had lost its 
 heaviness, and was floating as a sort of spiritual 
 essence through the textures. 
 
 For some minutes after Gvven came in she could 
 hardly discern it at all ; when she did she wished she 
 could transport it to her part of the house ; it struck 
 her as being a purer scent than one gets in women's 
 rooms. 
 
 " How hospitable those chairs look ! " she said, 
 feeling one. " Does he lose all his right-hand gloves, 
 I wonder ! Do all men ? As a matter of fact, I know 
 amazingly little of men or of their ways ! This is a 
 clean, self-respecting room, I like it ; I wonder I never 
 took any notice of it before ! Ah, another screen ! " 
 
 She moved it aside and found an alcove where an 
 easel stood, and on this a picture hidden by a drapery 
 of primrose and chestnut silk. 
 
 "The way that drapery falls is quite different from 
 anything else," said Gwen, stepping back a pace or two ; 
 " why won't my tea-gowns go like that ! " 
 
 Something suggested to her just then to pry no
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 251 
 
 further, but she swept the suggestion aside with the 
 draperies, and saw before her her own painted image. 
 For one minute she felt inclined to rip the canvas from 
 end to end, and to kill once and for all the vague look 
 of motherhood in the woman's eyes. 
 
 " This wretch ! " she muttered at last ; " so she's in 
 the house ! As if I hadn't enough to handicap me 
 without her." 
 
 She turned away with a look of loathing and jealous 
 hatred, and sat down. 
 
 After a few minutes she got up slowly and turned to 
 leave the room, then almost in spite of herself she 
 went back to the picture, and began again her angry, 
 eager inspection of it. 
 
 As she stood with her head thrown back and her 
 hands clenched involuntarily, her husband came in. He 
 did not see her at first ; when he did, he stopped, and 
 watched her. 
 
 It was a revelation and a shock to see her in this 
 abandonment of jealous anger. He rustled a book on 
 the table to arouse her, and quoted, laughing : — 
 
 " Where the apple reddens, never pry 1 
 Lest we lose our Eden — Eve and I." 
 
 She moved quickly aside into the shade. 
 
 "When did this come?" she asked, in a low, con- 
 strained voice. 
 
 " Brydon sent it a few days ago. You are better ? " 
 
 " I am quite well, thank you." 
 
 " The doctor thinks directly you can travel we had 
 better go into the country." 
 
 She flung a swift, furtive look at him. " How much 
 does he know, I wonder ? "
 
 252 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 "Won't you sit down?" he asked, putting a soft, 
 low chair within her reach ; "and may I smoke ? " 
 
 She bent her head without speaking, and he saw that 
 her hands were moving restlessly. 
 
 He lit his cigar in a leisurely fashion, then he drew 
 up a chair and sat down near her and began to smoke. 
 
 After a time, he set to wonder how long this remark- 
 able vigil was going to hold out. He was determined 
 to keep silence till his wife spoke ; he saw she was 
 fighting in her dumb, concentrated way for expres- 
 sion ; he felt certain some sort of an avalanche was 
 about to descend upon him, and he preferred that she 
 should set it sliding herself. Perhaps the girl had had 
 too much lonely struggle, and her brain as well as her 
 body had weakened with it ; at any rate, the first thought 
 she felt herself producing audibly was, — 
 
 " I wish almost you were a fool, Humphrey ! " 
 
 He took his cigar out of his mouth. " Indeed, why ? " 
 
 "Because then," she said, rather desperately, "I 
 shouldn't feel so altogether like one myself! " 
 
 She stood suddenly up and looked down at him. 
 
 "Look here," she said, "you are better in every 
 point than I am'; you are better in brain, you are 
 stronger, you have seen more, you know more, you are 
 better all round. If you were a fool, you see, I could 
 despise you ; if even you had once made yourself 
 ridiculous in my eyes or had demeaned yourself, what 
 I have to say would come easy." 
 
 " Come to the point at once, Gwen," he said. 
 "What is it?" 
 
 She took no notice of his remark, but went to the 
 picture, and drew the coverings over the face. 
 
 "What has the doctor told you ? "
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 253 
 
 " The doctor has told me nothing definite." 
 
 She turned away to hide her hot face. 
 
 " You know perfectly well," she said, in a low voice, 
 11 that I shall be the mother of a child of yours in some 
 months." 
 
 " Yes," he said, gently. 
 
 " But you do not know," she went on, " you do not 
 know that this is such a shame to me, such a deathly, 
 burning shame, that I hate the light, I hate the e_yes 
 of any human creature on me. I would like to fly in 
 the night to some desert place and hide myself." 
 
 " Are you mad, Gwen ? " 
 
 " No, I am sane, as sane as on the day I sold myself 
 to you for an experiment. Can you not see, Humphrey, 
 that I am as shameful, I, your wife, as any one of 
 those women you told me of, not one of whom you 
 loved — loved ? " she added, with an involuntary raising 
 of her head. 
 
 "I am no nearer to you now," she went on, "than 
 1 was that day, not a jot nearer, and yet I am going 
 to be the mother of your child ! Are } r ou dense, 
 Humphrey, or is it because you are a man, and are 
 grown used to chattels, that you cannot see the depth 
 of my shame and humiliation, and the reasons for 
 it?" 
 
 She faltered and swayed slightly. 
 
 " Sit down, Gwen, sit down at once." 
 
 He drew up the chair to her. " The situation seems 
 a curious one," he said at last, " this outbreak seems to 
 be the climax to a long course of morbid thinking." 
 
 " You cannot understand," she said faintly. 
 
 " I confess I cannot, altogether. When you married 
 me you were no ignorant girl "
 
 254 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 " Humphrey," she cried, her eyes absolutely burning 
 on him, " I did not think that I should have to defend 
 myself to you in this ! I thought you would know the 
 absolute ignorance of girls. It is no veiled ignorance, 
 it is absolute, or else a mere vague " 
 
 " Dear, it was a cowardly and an unjust reproach. 
 However, things have now come to a head with 
 us, it is no use delaying ; you want, I gather, a 
 separation ? " 
 
 She started. 
 
 " I thought I would like to go home for a time — 
 alone." 
 
 For a minute Strange considered. u This is no 
 time for softness or entreaty," was the result of his 
 reflections. 
 
 "We need have no legal separation, Gwen — as yet," 
 he added, with slow emphasis. 
 
 She trembled from head to foot ; he saw it, but went 
 on calmly. 
 
 " You are not strong enough now for any trouble of 
 that sort, but later on, of course, some arrangement 
 must be come to. By the way, what will your father 
 and mother say of this ? " 
 
 " They will not say anything," she said bitterly ; 
 " they will silently wonder together in the library." 
 
 " And Dacre " 
 
 " Dacre is a fool." 
 
 " And the world ? " he asked. 
 
 He felt quite interested in the answer ; the shock 
 was beginning to freeze the pith in him. 
 
 "I don't think the world will speak of me, I have 
 no quality it can seize on for gossip. No gossip has 
 any savour unless it deals with sexual relations, and
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 255 
 
 until now I thought I was absolutely sexless," she 
 said slowly, looking blankly out into space. 
 
 Her face was awful, her husband turned away 
 from it. 
 
 " Gwen, Gwen," he said at last, coming back to 
 her, " do you understand what you are doing ? " 
 
 " I do," she said, heavily ; " I cannot bear this 
 shame in your presence, I should lie down and die 
 under it. Can you think I do this lightly ? can you 
 not understand the awfulness of speaking such things 
 aloud?" 
 
 " I understand it all, dear, but have you counted the 
 cost ? You will be weak and ill, perhaps in danger ; 
 can you bear it all ? If you finally decide to go alone 
 to your home, I will start the same day for Africa. 
 I have been asked to undertake that expedition for 
 the relief of Broad, my old friend, the missionary 
 I told you about. I do not intend to treat this resolve 
 of yours as a freak, Gwen, or to give it the grace 
 of one. You are a strong woman, and, from your own 
 point of view, sane. Once again, have you counted 
 the cost ? " 
 
 " I have lived virtually alone all my life," she 
 said, " I think I can bear sickness and pain alone. 
 Humphrey! Humphrey! let me make one excuse for 
 myself. I did not know what marriage was when 
 I tried my experiment." 
 
 He looked down on her upturned face with a great 
 tenderness. 
 
 " I don't blame you, dear. You are sinning terribly, 
 but you know not what you do. Your sin is unnatural, 
 for it is against yourself ; you have let a morbid spot 
 in you grow sick to rottenness, and as time goes on,
 
 256 A YELL OTV A STER. 
 
 child, you will suffer as few women know how to suffer ; 
 you are sinning ignorantly, and your punishment will 
 come, but from another hand than mine. But there 
 is one thing I will speak of," he said, with grave 
 sternness ; " see that you are not ashamed of your 
 motherhood. Forget, if you like, that the child is 
 in part mine; do not forget that it is wholly yours, 
 bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh ; beware, at 
 least, of sinning knowingly. You have had a warning, 
 Gwen, in this ; profit by it, don't let this child grow 
 up without knowing the everyday uses of a mother. 
 Don't let any other human creature suffer in this as 
 you have suffered." 
 
 Gwen listened to him with bent head, and every 
 word dropped into her soul like molten lead. 
 
 There was an awful resistless finality in every word 
 of his, in every tone. He had to stoop to catch her 
 answer, and her face was almost livid. 
 
 "I will try and be a good mother; I have no wish 
 to fail in every relation of life." 
 
 " Don't move until I return," said her husband. 
 
 He went into the dining-room and brought back 
 some wine. She turned on him a look of dumb 
 protest, but she drank it. "And now, come to this 
 sofa and lie down." 
 
 She obeyed him as if she were in a dream, wishing 
 with vague pain that he would touch her, even if it 
 were only once. 
 
 After a few minutes she turned from the light to shut 
 out his face. He heard her, and drew down the blind 
 softly ; he seemed to her all-hearing as well as all-seeing. 
 
 "Oh, if only he were a fool !" she cried to herself, 
 " I might endure it."
 
 A YELL O TV A STER. 25 7 
 
 The room was cool and still, and the lowered blinds 
 flapping lazily in the breeze were like a lullaby. Gwen 
 was worn out body and mind, and as she lay in the 
 coolness her hurt heart stopped writhing, her poor 
 foolish shame ceased to burn, her fingers relaxed softly 
 and forgot to clench themselves, and at last she fell 
 asleep like a tired child. 
 
 Her husband went softly to the sofa ; she started 
 slightly, and a twist of pain came into her brow. He 
 smiled grimly. 
 
 " Even in her sleep," he muttered, " and I am ready 
 to swear that all the time it is only an idea. And now 
 this child — the best shot in my locker, seems about to 
 run an awful mucker in the business. Ah, Gwen, if 
 you only knew what you cast from you in your splendid 
 way ! — Ah well, there's one satisfaction ; if you're not 
 mine, my Gwen, you're no man's. Ah, my poor Gwen, 
 my darling, God keep you ! " 
 
 He stooped down over her, and for a minute or two 
 let her breath come and go on his cheek ; then he stood 
 up and went to his writing-table, and let his face fall 
 heavily into his hands. 
 
 When he looked up at last at a slight, soft rustle of 
 silk, there had gone out of it, for ever, the look of cool 
 buoyant youth, which was its distinguishing charac- 
 teristic. 
 
 When Gwen awoke the blinds were up and it was 
 dusk, and the tea had just been brought in. 
 
 "Three hours at the very least," she thought with 
 much discomfort, as she sipped her tea ; " and watched 
 by him the whole time !" 
 
 When she had finished her tea she was rising to 
 leave the room.
 
 2 5 8 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 Her husband stopped her. 
 
 " Will you please sit down again for a few minutes ? " 
 
 " The dressing-bell has gone," she said unwillingly. 
 
 " That doesn't matter," he said, " we can be late for 
 once. I fancy," he went on coolly, " that your pride is 
 of a sufficiently rational and well-bred order not to 
 think itself obliged to make any difficulties about money 
 matters." 
 
 " I will do as you wish about that." 
 
 " And if any emergency requiring your interference 
 should arise, will you consent to act ? " 
 
 " Yes," she said simply. 
 
 "And now," he said, "comes the question of how 
 this business is to be presented to the world." 
 
 She raised her head impatiently. " The world won't 
 trouble itself with me." 
 
 " You'll escape better than most women, but you 
 won't get off scot-free ; you are a woman, and the world 
 is the world. I will make the matter right at the Clubs ; 
 you want to go to your mother for a short time, and I 
 wish to go to Africa, where delays are apt to occur, 
 and I have a convenient reputation for vagabondage. 
 If I were you, I would immediately inform every woman 
 of your acquaintance of our arrangement in a candid 
 spirit of information. And, Gwen, as the most awful 
 misfortune that ever befell a child is to be cast on the 
 world without a mother, see that your care for this 
 mother's health and, when the time of peril comes, for 
 her life, is as great as mine would be." 
 
 " I shall not betray your trust in any way," she said 
 quietly. 
 
 " I shall not trouble you to write, I shall find other 
 means of hearing of you. But even if you are dying,
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 259 
 
 Gwen, and I know it, I shall not come to you unless 
 you distinctly and in your right mind ask me to do so ; 
 then, dear, I shall come ; otherwise, and later on, we 
 can make definite arrangements. Good-bye, Gwen, 
 good-bye, dear." 
 
 He went to the door and held it open to let her 
 pass. 
 
 She paused, and turned her two sad eyes on him. 
 
 "Go, child," he said gently, "go quickly." 
 
 When she had gone, he locked the door and fell on 
 the sofa, still warm from her sleeping bod}'', and fought 
 down his agony in decent silence. Then he washed 
 and dressed, and went down to his dinner.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 The next day Strange went down and told Mrs. 
 Fellowes more or less about it, and put his wife entirely 
 into her hands. 
 
 People were less surprised than might have been 
 supposed at Strange's suddenly-organised expedition. 
 He had broken conventional laws now for so long that 
 if he had settled down into a solid everyday life, with- 
 out some characteristic protest, he would have been 
 regarded rather as a fraud. 
 
 The first possible companion his thoughts fell on 
 was Brydon. 
 
 " It would be bringing him out into the wilderness 
 with a vengeance," he said ; and, as a matter of fact, it 
 was just what Brydon wanted at the time, and he was 
 overjoyed at the offer. 
 
 When Tolly heard of the proposed move, he came 
 to a firm resolve to be in it. At first Strange abso- 
 lutely refused to take him, but at last his persistence 
 became so annoying that he gave in, but not till Tolly 
 had taken the most powerfully-expressed oaths of 
 abstinence. 
 
 When all this was settled, Tolly looked up with a 
 grin, and remarked deprecatingly, — 
 
 " If you 'adn't given in to take me straight, I meant 
 
 260
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 261 
 
 to reach you crooked at Suez, sir ; I never intended, 
 your honour, to let you face them black varmint with- 
 out me." 
 
 Strange looked at the hideous grinning creature, 
 whom one good puff of wind could blow off the face 
 of the earth. 
 
 " Do you know that you are an idiot, Tolly ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Tolly cheerfully. 
 
 " And that you're very likely going to your death ? " 
 
 " Not when you're about, sir ; death and you ain't 
 mates." 
 
 "You're to go with Bell to-day and get rigged out," 
 said Strange. 
 
 " Yes, sir, thank your honour ; but I've took notice 
 of them pants and sich as were sent to your honour, 
 and 'ave hordered the same for myself, barrin' a worser 
 quality." 
 
 " Well, upon my word I" 
 
 " Arrivin' at Suez without nothin' to suit the climate 
 might 'ave inconvenienced your honour," remarked 
 Tolly, with bland consideration. " I have likewise 
 perwided a breechloader and a rewolver." 
 
 " Oh, have you ? Bring me those weapons without 
 a moment's delay, and then go with Bell and get your 
 outfit ; I pay for those pants ; and now, don't go about 
 the place crowing over the other servants." 
 
 " Oh Lord, sir, if you were to hear them over my 
 teeth you'd take back that order. Seem' likewise 
 that the teeth came out of your honour's own pocket, 
 and are a credit to your establishment, as the dentist 
 hisself said." 
 
 " Will you be good enough to go to the devil, Tolly ? 
 I'm busy."
 
 262 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Tolly ; and he took himself off to 
 crow conscientiously the rest of the day. 
 
 For the next two months Gwen comported herself 
 to the satisfaction of no one ; she was reticent with 
 the Fellowes, and her mother simply appalled her. 
 
 Mrs. Waring's nervous, gentle little attempts at 
 being a mother ; the delicate tendrils she kept constantly 
 throwing out in her daughter's direction ; her queer, 
 quaint experiments in the expression of the emotions, 
 simply worried Gwen to death. She refused to let 
 herself see the pathos of it all, or to be touched. 
 
 Indeed, as time went on, and her weakness grew 
 more apparent to others, the demeanour of her mother 
 grew into a terror to her. She would fly from it to 
 her own room, where she would sit, with her idle 
 hands lying in her lap, in a quiet agony of loneliness. 
 
 It was a point of honour with her to keep herself 
 calm ; she ate and drank, too, and she rested 
 obediently whenever Mar}', who had taken the 
 physical part of her under her charge, said she needed 
 rest; she drove when the old woman prescribed air, 
 and walked when movement was supposed to be 
 necessary. She was a mere automaton in her absolute 
 yielding to orders concerning her health. 
 
 During this time Mr. Waring made a wild attempt 
 to expand into a father. He would issue from time 
 to time from his library with a bundle of random 
 papers in his hand, and entertain Gwen with discourse, 
 grave and gay, mostly concerning Africa, of which 
 continent he had rather a poor opinion, and which he 
 painted with lurid colours. 
 
 As he reeled out anecdotes of the gruesomeness of
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 263 
 
 the climate, the impracticability of travelling, the 
 hideous forms diseases assumed, the congenital villainy 
 of the natives, more especially of that portion of the 
 land into which Strange meant to penetrate, and of 
 which he certainly possessed a most intimate know- 
 ledge, Gwen used to watch him with a curious cold 
 sort of pain, and wonder if he were human, till one day 
 Mrs. Fellowes found out the existence of these ghastly 
 entertainments, and stopped them. 
 
 One morning, when Mr. Waring was thus engaged, 
 his wife sped away in a half furtive fashion and shut 
 herself into the children's nursery. Kneeling down by 
 the drawers she began to pull out great heaps of soft, 
 white lawn, and lace, and creamy flannel ; then with 
 much puzzled doubt she set to sorting the things into 
 little heaps, each after its kind ; when that was done 
 she went softly out, and in a few minutes returned 
 with old Mary. 
 
 " Has my daughter provided herself with these little 
 things ? " she asked nervously. 
 
 14 I don't know, ma'am ; I was thinking of speaking 
 to her on the subject." 
 
 " These are good, are they not ? — the lace seems to 
 me to be real, and I do not see any holes." 
 
 " Lord, ma'am, they are like new ; it isn't likely that 
 I'd have my clothes torn after two babies ; I've brought 
 a set through six, ma'am ! " 
 
 " Do the fashions in these things change, Mary ? " 
 
 " Bless you, no, ma'am ! Set up long-clothes babies 
 with fashions ! " 
 
 " Mary, would you be good enough to get me a 
 pretty basket ? " 
 
 " You couldn't have a prettier one than this one,
 
 264 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 ma'am," said Mary, pulling out the old lace and muslin 
 one which had held the belongings of her own baby 
 children. 
 
 Mrs. Waring took up the thing, and examined it 
 curiously, and thought of the awe with which she used 
 to regard it. 
 
 " Do babies nowadays use these things ? " she asked. 
 
 " Lord, ma'am, yes, and will till the millennium." 
 
 Mrs. Waring put the little things in delicately, one 
 by one. 
 
 " Now, Mary, I will take them to my daughter," she 
 said, with a little quiver of her lips. 
 
 She knocked gently at her daughter's door. 
 
 As it happened, she could hardly have come at a 
 worse time. Gwen had just escaped from her father ; 
 besides, for three weeks now, there had come no news 
 from Strange, and in spite of herself she was all on 
 edge with unnamed terrors. 
 
 When Mrs. Waring's knock came, she was sitting 
 listlessly looking out of the window. 
 
 " Oh, I am so sickeningly tired," she said, " and I 
 wish she would not always knock in that tremulous 
 way." She hardened her face, and threw the door open. 
 
 Her mother gave a quick little swallow and came 
 forward falteringly, while Gwen still held the door 
 open and watched her. 
 
 " Will you please close the door, dear Gwen ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 Gwen complied, and then came towards the basket 
 and lifted one of the white frilly things carelessly. 
 
 Suddenly the truth flashed on her and she trembled 
 with indignation, while her mother stood pathetically 
 before her, like a criminal at the bar.
 
 A YELL OJV A STER. 265 
 
 Gwen was the first to speak ; her mother's face 
 touched her in a vague way. 
 
 " Won't you sit down, mother ? " she said, in her 
 cold, gentle voice. " Do you wish me to have these 
 tilings ? I am so very much obliged to you. I ordered 
 some before I left London, but I believe it is always 
 better to have a reserve stock of everything." 
 
 " I thought I would like to see a child of yours in 
 the little things," faltered her mother. 
 
 A horrible feeling came on Gwen that her mother was 
 about to cry. She took out one or two of the things. 
 
 " That is lovely lace," she said hurriedly, " better 
 than any the woman showed me. I had no idea you 
 had any interest in such matters." 
 
 Then one fervent wish took possession of her, that 
 her mother would complete her gift, and go. But she 
 was not to be delivered just yet. 
 
 Mrs. Waring was on her way to the door with 
 bowed head, when suddenly with a short, smothered 
 cry she turned and faced her daughter. She saw the 
 quick recoil in the girl's face, and with a supreme effort 
 the small, fragile creature calmed herself and sat down. 
 
 " Gwen," she said, looking at the tall woman brood- 
 ing gloomily above her, then at the basket on the bed, 
 "will you try to suffer my love, dear? I cannot ask 
 you for yours, I have not earned it, I never knew 
 what it was to be a mother till too late. But, dear, 
 take the love I bear you gently, don't recoil from me 
 as you did just now," — Gwen winced — " as you have 
 done many times. I will not intrude on you, dear, I 
 have made a mistake to-day in asking you to accept 
 these things." 
 
 " No, no, mother," interrupted the girl.
 
 266 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 " Yes, dear, I have ; I do not reproach you, but you 
 are hard, and that fault is mine more than yours. 
 When you were a little child, Gwen, did you ever 
 wish for my love — I mean the ordinary outspoken 
 natural love that women give their children ? " 
 
 Mrs. Waring bent forward and looked into her 
 daughter's face with wide, eager eyes. 
 
 Gwen looked into the upturned face, and her heart 
 stirred with pity ; then a dreary feeling came on her 
 that the time was too solemn for lies. 
 
 " I longed for it every day that I lived," she said, in 
 a slow, reluctant voice, turning away. 
 
 "Ah, and now it is too late! I did cling to that 
 last delusion, I did hope that in the careless vigour of 
 childhood, in the fresh joy of a young animal, you 
 might have forgotten to want the outward signs of 
 mother-love. Gwen, Gwen dear, let your child grow 
 into your heart with every breath, and God keep you 
 from suffering such as mine ! " 
 
 She stood up softly, and was about to go, but Gwen 
 stopped her. 
 
 "Mother," she cried, "you couldn't be expected to 
 understand children, you were meant for intellectual 
 uses altogether ! It seems to me hard and unjust that 
 you should now be hampered with these feelings. 
 Why can you not go back to your old peaceful life ? 
 You were happy in it ; now your work is interfered with, 
 and you are not happy. I wish I could do anything 
 for you, I wish I could satisfy you ! " 
 
 " Ah, dear, you don't know how very little love 
 would still my pain, but I don't think that even if you 
 would, you could give it to me — I don't think you 
 understand, dear, what love is."
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 267 
 
 " Mother," said the girl, in a low, curiously soft tone, 
 " I do not." 
 
 Directly she had made the confession, a horrible 
 feeling of shame came on her. 
 
 " She knows everything of me there is to know 
 now !" she thought, with a dull ache; "I wonder what 
 use she will make of it." 
 
 After a long wait she got some little idea. Her 
 mother came and stood beside her silently for a minute 
 or two, then she stooped down and kissed the girl's 
 hand tremulously, took up her basket with its burden, 
 and went out of the room and upstairs. 
 
 Gw r en looked at the little dent made by the basket 
 on the bed, and a new rush of loneliness flooded her.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 There was always a sort of studious hush over Waring 
 Park encompassing the whole place as in a garment, 
 but one day a change crept suddenly into the nature 
 of the hush ; it lost all at once in culture and grew full 
 of trembling awe. For Mrs. Waring lay upstairs on her 
 great oak bed, her blue eyes looking out of her thin 
 face full of a piteous longing. 
 
 She had only a slight attack of pleurisy, nothing to 
 account for her quick run down, but her heart was very 
 weak and irregular, the old doctor said, and he asked 
 for an opinion from town. 
 
 The shock of the thing had a queer effect on Mr. 
 Waring, even from a physical point of view. 
 
 As he sat hour by hour and watched her in a dumb 
 vague horror, one hand always in his, his breath came 
 in short gasps with strong pain, his eyes grew con- 
 gested, his lips turned a dull blue and dried and 
 cracked, the very blood slowed in his veins. 
 
 The old doctor sounded him anxiously as soon as 
 he noticed his condition, and found his lungs as sound 
 as a bell. It was only that the two were absolutely 
 one flesh ; she could suffer nothing and leave him 
 untouched. She was so sorry for him, and whenever 
 
 206
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 269 
 
 she could gather up her strength for the effort, she 
 put a great strain on herself to breathe naturally ; but 
 hour by hour her power over herself grew less, and 
 her breathing more constantly laborious. 
 
 And Gwen ? Fear had found her at last, and it 
 tore and tortured her. She knew very little of sickness, 
 and in this sickness of her mother's there was a pale, 
 ghastly shade of some other thing that touched the 
 infinities. 
 
 She went in and out of her mother's room in a 
 vague search after duty, but she never touched even 
 her bed ; she was afraid of the awful shadowy thing, 
 and more afraid still of her mother's eyes following 
 her hungrily. No softening grew in her eyes, no 
 love — only fear. 
 
 And so the days wore on, and the hush fell closer 
 round the house, and crept into the hearts of those who 
 dwelt there. 
 
 Yet there seemed small cause for it all ; the doctors 
 saw no tangible reason for alarm ; all the same they 
 were uneasy and came frequently. 
 
 It was the eighth day of the illness, just as twilight 
 was falling. 
 
 Mrs. Waring had had her bed moved near the 
 window that commanded the Park, and she was looking 
 wistfully out on to the south terrace watching Gwen 
 walking up and down. 
 
 Gwen, in obedience to her promise to take care of 
 herself, always chose this particular walk, bathing 
 herself in the sunlight, and drinking in great draughts 
 of the sweet, clear air that came across a heathy hill 
 in the distance, and trying to gather up shreds of 
 happy thought to feed her loneliness with, and to
 
 270 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 soothe the vague aching that seemed to have made 
 its home in her. 
 
 " Mary," said Mrs. Waring, suddenly, — her husband 
 had been literally dragged out for a drive by the old 
 doctor — " will you call Gwen ? but first give me that 
 tonic. I feel as if I would slip away in spite of myself, 
 and I know," she murmured softly to herself, " there 
 is something I ought to say. Are her eyes still sealed 
 as she walks there communing with her own sad 
 heart ? " she thought, as she looked but at Gwen. 
 " Will love never touch her — never ? Will the child's 
 life open the gate — or — must it be the death of that 
 little child?" 
 
 She shivered down into the bedclothes, and shut 
 her eyes. 
 
 " Ma'am, dear heart, drink this," said Mary, softly 
 raising her, and with a great leap of her heart she 
 saw death on the white face, " drink it, my dearie," 
 she repeated, returning unconsciously to the old term 
 of thirty-nine years ago, and kissing the little furrows 
 between the brows. " You are very young, dearie," 
 she said, softly stroking her hair ; " not fit to be a 
 grandmother ! " 
 
 A soft pink flush crept into her cheeks. " Will 
 you please call Gwen ? " she murmured. 
 
 When Gwen came in her mother's eyes were closed, 
 and her face was like marble. 
 
 The girl shivered and half turned back ; a horrible 
 inclination to fly took hold of her, but she drove 
 back her cowardice, and came swiftly up to the bed, 
 one of her full sleeves touched it, and she drew it 
 away. 
 
 Her mother's eyes opened just in time to see her
 
 A YELL TV A STER. 271 
 
 little action; she shivered, and Gwen's heart began 
 to ache in a new spot. 
 
 11 It all seems so hopeless," she thought ; " it is so 
 terrible to hurt her, so pitiless, and underbred." 
 
 She stooped over her, a tress of hair escaped from 
 her coil and fell on Mrs. Waring's cheek. Neither of 
 them touched it for a minute. 
 
 The mother felt a sudden longing to ruffle it 
 softly, as she had once done to a village baby's, 
 and to feel the soft silkiness slip through her fingers, 
 but she restrained herself and only breathed a little 
 quicker. 
 
 " You want me, mother ? " said Gwen gently, lifting 
 up her head and fastening up her hair. 
 
 " Yes, I want you, dear." 
 
 She closed her eyes and rested. Gwen moved 
 uneasily ; the stillness oppressed her, and some change 
 in the sick woman's face made her heart feel tight. 
 Presently Mrs. Waring drew a long breath, and threw 
 off some of the clothes feebly. 
 
 " They are so heavy," she said. Mary lifted her 
 higher on the pillows. " Yes, that's better, thank you ; 
 and now, Mary, go and rest. My daughter will stay 
 with me." 
 
 Gwen heard the resolute, masterful use of the word 
 in absolute terror ; she had a coerced, trapped feeling, 
 and for a minute a passionate revolt shook her. What 
 was she to do, to say ? She felt as if she were caught 
 in a mesh of bleeding, quivering nerves. She found 
 herself drawing her breath almost imperceptibly, for 
 fear of touching raw surfaces. 
 
 " What is it, mother ? " she cried out. 
 
 There was a tone of appeal in her voice, born of
 
 272 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 her terror. This strengthened her mother ; she felt 
 older than her child, and with the power to protect 
 her. The ghost of a smile moved her mouth, and 
 flickered in her eyes. 
 
 " It is death, dear," she said, with gentle gravity. 
 
 Gvven stared at her, and in an uncomprehending 
 rigid way she repeated — " Death — death ! " 
 
 "Yes," whispered the woman, "it is hard to realise 
 — I have been so strong, but life has been losing its 
 hold on me for some time, I think. Gwen, let me 
 take your hand, dear — touch me as if you were used 
 to it — as if you had tumbled over me and I had played 
 with you ever since you can remember." 
 
 Gwen's hand shook as she gave it with white lips 
 and wide eyes. What was that growing shadow on 
 the small face ? What was this bringing such con- 
 fidence, such a curious, compelling air of possession 
 into the timid eyes ? 
 
 Mrs. Waring gave a soft, far-away little laugh 
 that made Gwen's blood turn in the ghastly, listening 
 silence. 
 
 " I saw the other day a young mother, a little 
 creature, with blue eyes and yellow hair and so young 
 — so young — put her little baby's fingers into her 
 mouth, and bite them softly in play, and the baby 
 laughed and kicked. Jubettel Why does English 
 sometimes fall so short ? Ah, Gwen, I wish you could 
 have seen it, nothing is like it, nothing " 
 
 Gwen stirred in anguish ; her brain was surging 
 wildly, her whole heart and soul were prostrate in one 
 wild prayer for help from the horrors that were closing 
 her in. There was no idea of God in the prayer, 
 however.
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 273 
 
 " Humphrey, Humphrey, Humphrey ! " was the only 
 thought that possessed her, and tried to break aloud 
 in sound through her dry lips. 
 
 Then her mother's eyes closed again, and she mur- 
 mured in her half sleep ; when she aroused herself, after 
 a few minutes, her gentle eyes were bright and wild. 
 She caught Gwen's dimpled pink fingers, and put them 
 into her mouth ; and she set to bite them softly, and to 
 kiss them, with little ripples of a girl's laughter ; and her 
 few wrinkles smoothed themselves, and the sweet rosy 
 colour came again into the thin cheeks, and she was a 
 careless, happy young mother playing with her first 
 child. 
 
 Mr. Waring had come softly into the room some 
 minutes before ; he paused, and peered eagerly forward, 
 and then there leapt into his eyes a blinding agony ; 
 he swayed, shivering, and dropped on his knees by the 
 bed. But of this Gwen saw nothing. 
 
 As her mother kissed, and bit, and mumbled over 
 her hand, and half sang little quaint snatches of baby 
 song, and took her pretty fingers one by one, and told 
 them, with low silvery laughs, " this little pig went to 
 market and the other stayed at home ! " and broke out 
 into a louder ripple as " the little one cried queak ! " her 
 own baby " leapt in her womb," and the scales fell from 
 her eyes, and her heart melted within her, and the 
 breast of her dying mother was as an open book to her ; 
 she could read all the love there, and the remorse, and 
 the infinite sorrow. 
 
 Gwen's heart stopped, and her breath refused to 
 come — she would have died then. Her soul hovered 
 shuddering on the threshold of life, but her baby stirred 
 imperiously, and pulled it back ; and then a torrent of 
 
 18
 
 274 -A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 tears came to her help, and left her with soft, moist eyes, 
 a child by her mother's side. 
 
 " Mother, oh, mother ! " The infinite tenderness in 
 her voice smote into her own heart, and made Mr. 
 Waring rise quickly and wait, trembling with fear, and 
 a great awe. " Mother, oh, my darling — speak — touch 
 me — love me, your child — Gwen ! " 
 
 " I will not let thee go unless thou bless me." The 
 picture involuntarily rose before Mr. Waring's eyes as 
 he murmured the words. 
 
 " Speak to me once, mother — I know everything, 
 now — everything — do you hear, darling?" 
 
 But the mother still kissed and played with the 
 trembling, clinging fingers, and sang her soft old songs, 
 and her eyes looked up full of sunny, irresponsible 
 happiness, and saw things of which we have not 
 thought in our philosophy. 
 
 " Mother, oh my mother ! " — but still she babbled on, 
 smiling. 
 
 Mr. Waring came forward with bowed head, silent, 
 in fearful reverence. 
 
 It was not for him to speak or to interfere ; the 
 ground whereon he stood was holy ground. 
 
 " Mother, mother, mother ! " 
 
 The babbling had now grown drowsy and low, and 
 Gwen had to bend close to hear it ; then it ceased, and 
 the mother lay very still. Gwen turned in terror and 
 saw her father. 
 
 " Help, help ! " she cried, " she must speak — oh, God ! 
 she must ! " 
 
 Her father took her hand, and bending softly he took 
 her mother's, and held the two in his, and one soft, 
 shivering moan broke from him ; then father and
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 275 
 
 daughter stood in the palpitating silence, and waited 
 breathless ; but the silence grew and spread like a net 
 around them, crushing hearts ; and the breathing of 
 the woman grew less and less, and her face whiter, 
 and then a strong cry rent the veil of awful silence, 
 and Gwen fell forward as one dead on her mother's 
 breast.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 " Was ever grief like unto my grief ? " has been the 
 cry of each wrung heart throughout all ages. The 
 truth is, there is a dreary family likeness among them 
 all, and a horrible absence of originality. 
 
 In this particular Gwen Strange could score over 
 the whole sad brood ; her grief was aloof, alone ; it 
 differed in every point from the kindly race of men, 
 it had no balm and less outlet, she could not cry nor 
 strive, she could not throw her whole soul against 
 fate and fall back with the pain dulled from sheer 
 tiredness. 
 
 Every day, with the little white mother lying cold on 
 her bed, she still walked in the sun on the south 
 terrace, and cherished her child, but virtue had gone 
 out of her. 
 
 " She will kill me," Mrs. Fellowes told her husband, 
 " if she looks like that long ! She's not tragic, not an 
 atom, or dramatic ; I think she must look as Dante did 
 when he stood before the gates of Saint Ilario." 
 
 " Yes, one hardly dares think of the girl, walking, 
 
 and eating, and sleeping ; and she looks younger than 
 
 ever I saw her. What is he doing now ? I must go 
 
 up soon." 
 
 276
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 277 
 
 *' Sitting holding her hand, except when he is told 
 to come to his meals. Of course, knowing the man, 
 one could describe his grief to a T. It's just himself." 
 
 " What will time do for the two, I wonder ? " 
 
 " There is something gone from Gwen that no time 
 will give back to her ; I wish, oh, I wish I knew how 
 it was at the end. Did that woman go down into the 
 grave still seeking her lost motherhood ? Oh, John, 
 John, God in Heaven help women ! I wonder if He 
 knew quite everything when He made us, He is all 
 masculine. I don't think He altogether did, or He 
 would have stayed His hand and have had mercy." 
 
 " My little Ruth, my poor little wife, life even for us 
 is hard ! " 
 
 " But it is simpler ; it is the complications which put 
 barbs on our arrows, the vague yearnings quivering 
 in us ignorantly, not with the knowledgeable, healthy 
 hammer-strokes of men's anguish ; and our bodies are 
 nearer our souls. Think ot Gwen, with her unborn 
 child, under that heartful of unnameable pain ! John, 
 it's only three o'clock — will you drive me into the 
 town ? the market is full on — I must see some women 
 who are too stolid for nerves — oh — the letters, and 
 one from Humphrey ! John, he's down with fever, 
 and Brydon's only half way through ! 
 
 " ' Not a man-Jack of the blacks — being mostly 
 Christianised — is worth his salt ; but for Tolly we'd 
 cave in altogether ; the fellow's a brick, and seems like 
 developing the beginnings of an intellect, just in the 
 nick of time too ; never in all my life was I so knocked 
 into a cocked hat as by this fever.' 
 
 " Look at the writing, John, it's shocking. 
 
 " ' As for Brydon, he had a narrow squeak • he's out
 
 27S A YELL OW A STER. 
 
 >ak a 
 
 of the bush now, but as weak as a rat. On the whole, 
 the sand flies are worse than the fever. Don't dwell 
 on this touch of fever to Gwen, it's really of no 
 consequence, but it's an awful nuisance on account of 
 the delay. From here we go on to a place about a 
 hundred miles off, to wpere we have traced Broad. 
 Hitherto the blacks have 'been friendly, but beyond the 
 hills I hear we are to look out for squalls. Don't 
 expect many letters after this, as the modes of convey- 
 ance are very casual and untrustworthy ; neither can I 
 count upon receiving our letters safely. I will hurry 
 there and back with all possible speed. I know you 
 will always see Gwen at least once a day.' 
 
 " See, John, I can hardly read it, what is it ? Oh, 
 ' love for you/ and something for the Rector I can 
 hardly read." 
 
 "We will go in on our way to the market; the 
 ponies are at the door." 
 
 Gwen was in her boudoir when Mrs. Fellowes went 
 to her. She was sitting with a bundle of papers in her 
 hand. She thrust them into a drawer, and ran and, 
 as it were, got into the other woman's arms, and lay 
 there with a short audible movement of pain. 
 
 " Tell me just how you think my husband is," she 
 said. Mrs. Fellowes started. "Ah, you're afraid 
 too ! " cried Gwen. 
 
 " Gwen, I know really very little ; those attacks are 
 always very sharp, hardly ever dangerous except with 
 bad constitutions, John says — he has been reading up 
 a medical book about African fevers." 
 
 " ' Bad constitutions and complications,' the book 
 says — I have it; and he has a complication in some 
 sort of sunstroke."
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 279 
 
 " Gwen ! " 
 
 " Yes," she went on in a quiet level voice. " He 
 missed the last mail by some idiocy of the blacks, and 
 he walked ten miles all through a swamp to catch it, 
 with the fever still on him ; when he got home he was 
 half delirious. He lay and, it seems, turned his heart 
 inside out, both audibly and on paper ; see, I have it 
 all here in these sheets ! " she said, with bitter irony, 
 catching her breath, as she took them out of the 
 drawer. 
 
 " Gwen, my Gwen, what do you mean ? " 
 
 " I mean he lay there and told out into words — 
 blatant, awful English words — on to these sheets, how 
 he loves me, me ! but in words no other man ever 
 before used, or dared to use, or the soul of every loved 
 woman would have been annihilated long ago, they 
 are not fitted to bear such magnificent burdens ! — He 
 told, too, in precisely the same uncompromising way, 
 what he wants of me, and what he considers I am 
 capable of in this line. Mrs. Fellowes, I know just 
 exactly what it cost him to go away ! Nothing is hid. 
 Then yesterday " 
 
 She stood up rather wildly, — 
 
 " Do you know that yesterday I learned in one chok- 
 ing gulp the grinding truth of my mother's poor tragedy 
 of life ? I learned too," she said slowly, throwing out her 
 arms softly, with a pathetic gesture of appeal, "all in 
 one blinding second my own infinite love for her; but 
 there was no time to tell, she died first. I am crushed 
 with knowledge ; I am spared nothing, and then — ah, 
 sickness is degrading ! Delilah's shears are nothing to 
 it ! To think that here in my hands I hold the whole 
 unsuppressed heart of a man ! "
 
 28o A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 " But, Gwen, I cannot grasp it — how came you by 
 all this knowledge ? Humphrey was too ill to write 
 all that big bundle of sheets." 
 
 " He wrote, as he spoke, in delirium ; part of it is 
 absolutely maniacal ; but, my God ! there is truth 
 enough in it ! I see Humphrey's poor, sick, naked 
 soul in every line ! " 
 
 She hid her face and moaned softly. 
 
 " But, love, I don't understand. How came you by 
 those sheets ? " 
 
 " Brydon sent the letters. Poor boy, fir wrote a 
 little humble scrawl himself, that has a touch of pathos 
 in it." 
 
 "I think Brydon was the more delirious of the two ! 
 What business has he meddling in matters too big for 
 him ! " 
 
 " Oh, he's young and very romantic ; and — have you 
 ever heard of that picture he painted of me ? " 
 
 " That sketch for your mother ? " she said softly. 
 
 Gwen winced. 
 
 " No, oh no ; one he came down and made of me the 
 day I was married. It is not me at all, it is a beautiful, 
 sexful, mother-woman ; it was to that woman Humphrey 
 wrote those things ! I am the rival of my own picture." 
 
 Mrs. Fellowes jumped up and knelt, weeping bitterly, 
 at Gwen's knees. 
 
 " Gwen, send for Humphrey ; you are his first 
 duty; he will come in spite of that miserable mis- 
 sionary, who never had any business venturing his 
 nose where no one wanted it — he will come to you 
 at once ! " 
 
 For a second Gwen stared frozenly at her, then she 
 drew herself a little away.
 
 A YELL O TV A STER. 28 1 
 
 " But why, why should I ? " she asked. " Can you 
 not see, my God ! can you not see that I am not ready 
 for him ? " 
 
 The cold grey of her face turned to a vivid red, and 
 she got up hastily and went to the window.
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 Gwen's duty-forced efforts to comfort her father were 
 incessant and rather tragic ; he said very little, and 
 worked his usual number of hours conscientiously at 
 his latest work, but the best part of him was away. 
 His head bowed a little more every day, his step fell 
 a little more heavily, his eye lost a fresh spark of life ; 
 he was following his wife in his patient, well-bred 
 manner, with neither cry nor moan. 
 
 Sudden fits of half compunctious duty would now 
 and again seize upon him, and remind him that he 
 had a daughter who also knew sorrow ; then he would 
 pursue Gwen softly, and catch her, no matter how 
 inconvenient it might be, and ply her with questions 
 on embarrassing topics. Gwen was very gentle with 
 him, and used to do him small services, with a curious 
 shy anxiety that had a touch of motherliness in it. 
 
 One day, late in August, Mrs. Fellowes was sitting 
 down for a brief rest, when to her astonishment Gwen 
 was announced : she had never sought her of her own 
 accord since her mother's death. 
 
 She sat down now quite naturally, and looked round 
 the room with a pleased smile. 
 
 "Ah ! you have altered that bracket, it used to be 
 
 2S2
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 283 
 
 in the other corner ! And the piano, I hardly know if 
 I like it there — I believe I do. I wonder why my tea 
 is never an atom like yours ; is it the cream, or the 
 cups, or what ? " 
 
 When she had drunk her tea she put the cup down, 
 and said suddenly, " I would like to go to Strange Hall 
 next week : will you come with me ? " 
 
 " Next week ! " repeated Mrs. Fellowes. 
 
 " Yes. I know this sudden move looks rather insane, 
 but I have been thinking it over for some time. The 
 child is Humphrey's ; it has a right to be born in the 
 home of its father, and — and — I cannot go without 
 you ! " 
 
 " I shouldn't dream of letting you, my Gwen, only 
 you took me by surprise. Mary will go too, of course, 
 but what about your father ? " 
 
 Gwen looked disturbed. 
 
 " I don't know. Do you think my going or staying 
 will make much difference to him ? " 
 
 " I do, dear, a very great difference ; but he will 
 think as I do, now you have spoken, that you are doing 
 right. When we are away John will be with him 
 every moment he can spare." 
 
 " As if I didn't know that ! " Gwen said. " I will 
 tell him to-night." 
 
 To the amazement of them all, Mr. Waring, as soon 
 as he had grasped the situation, rose to it in a quite 
 remarkable way ; the proceeding on G wen's part struck 
 him as most fit and proper, and he braced himself up 
 to support her. He also announced his intention of 
 accompanying the cortege. 
 
 In the first shock of his resolve Gwen winced ; the 
 fact of carrying him in her train, and on such an errand,
 
 284 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 brought a spice of ludicrousness into the affair that 
 seemed to her ghastly. 
 
 The day before they started she surprised him in 
 the study, grasping in one hand a heap of manuscript 
 in her mother's pretty hand-writing, and reading, with 
 knit brows, a copy of Chavasse's " Advice to a Mother." 
 
 This was too much for Gwen ; she escaped to her 
 room, and cried and laughed, and cried and laughed 
 again in a perfect paroxysm of grief and piteous 
 amusement. 
 
 It was in the end quite a toss-up as to Gwen's ever 
 seeing her baby at all, she hovered so long on the 
 borders of death. Her silent, lonely, enduring anguish 
 had shattered her more than any of them had guessed, 
 and then, as ill-luck would have it, the first sound that 
 struck on her ear when consciousness was coming back 
 was the shrill shriek of her lusty boy. 
 
 She shuddered down again into the regions of 
 darkness, and it was only after two distracting hours 
 that they got her back among them. 
 
 Day after day she held the child and pondered over 
 it; she was very gentle, and ate and drank in an 
 absent way all that was given her, but she hardly 
 spoke at all, some leaven was working in her. 
 
 " Then this haunting, sweet-bitter pain is mother- 
 hood," she thought, the first day she was up, as she 
 watched the sleeping child gobbling a red fist, "and 
 it's for this that one half the women in the world live 
 and brood Madonna-like over their infants, with that 
 awful peace in their eyes which takes the commonness 
 from the most common of them! Goodness, what 
 wouldn't I give for just the merest knowledge of that
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 2S5 
 
 motherhood that rests and broods and commands the 
 world ! That painted wretch downstairs is teeming 
 with it, and — it's bitter, it's terrible, to want your 
 mother as I want mine now, to teach me the meaning 
 of motherhood ! " 
 
 She stood up, and leaned forward over the baby. 
 
 " If this feeling grows much more in me I shall go 
 mad," she murmured ; " I am not quite sane now. 
 Baby, my own little baby, can't you help me to be 
 in absolute touch with the beautiful, mysterious things 
 that are the crown of womanhood ? Seemingly not," 
 she said, turning away, " with all your warm sweetness. 
 I believe I have a fair understanding of this part of a 
 mother, I could make a fool of myself over the tiny 
 thing there, I could — Oh ! — Mother, mother ! can I 
 never forget you over my hands ! Must a new 
 heartache spring up every hour ? Is there rest no- 
 where ? — Ah, Humphrey, if only I weren't myself 
 and you weren't just you, I'd set off this minute and 
 find you ! — Certainly I am mad, and here are Mrs. 
 Fellowes and Mary upon me 1 "
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 About a month after her child's birth, an urgent 
 message came from Strange's steward to Lady Strange. 
 He was very ill and must see her. 
 
 She drove to his house, and found him dying, 
 and infinitely concerned that he could not deliver 
 up his stewardship into his master's hands. He was 
 a man who had alwa}'S rather suffered from a 
 hypertrophied conscience, and perhaps he exaggerated 
 the importance of his office, and the impossibility of 
 getting any one to follow him in it ; at any rate, he 
 impressed Gwen a good deal, and rather put her on 
 her mettle. 
 
 After reviewing the situation, she came to the con- 
 clusion that if no one else could keep things straight 
 she would undertake to do it herself. As she took 
 off her things a new complication struck her ; to do 
 this she must be on the spot, and how would that suit 
 her father ? 
 
 She was rather absent and full of the question when 
 she got down to tea, and Mrs. Fellowes, as a sort of 
 cure and antidote to her wistful aloofness, went and 
 brought the baby. And then Mr. Waring came in, 
 and contemplated it silentl}', as he had done every day 
 
 since it was born. 
 
 2S6
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 287 
 
 Gwen told them of Hopkins, and in a rather shy, 
 tentative way spoke of her project. 
 
 To her astonishment Mr. Waring woke up full}', and 
 spoke with hearty approval of it ; then, without giving 
 her a chance to reply, he went out, but soon returned 
 with a large parcel of manuscript, tied up laboriously 
 with string, the knots all over it in haphazard style. 
 
 "This is the book," he said slowly, and with 
 frequent pauses, " on which we have worked so long ; 
 it is at last complete. It is sad, is it not, that it is 
 only I who am here to see the end ? I have been 
 more than once afraid that I should be unable to 
 finish it, it is hard to work alone, old habits are strong 
 within us — I will attempt no new work." 
 
 He swayed a little, and leaned heavily on the table. 
 "You, my daughter, have your work here; you must 
 uphold the house of your husband, and of his first- 
 born ; to-morrow I will go home." 
 
 Gwen attempted to say something, but he motioned 
 her to silence. 
 
 " You may perhaps think your duty is with me, 
 it is not ; it is here, and here you must remain to 
 guard your husband's lands and to cherish his child. 
 It is the soul that is just entering life that needs all 
 your care, not that which is done with it." 
 
 Then he went and stood over the child, and suddenly 
 some vague old feeling surged up in him, and he 
 raised his hands that trembled above its head, and 
 his lips were moved by a mute blessing. 
 
 Mrs. Fellowes intended going herself earl}' that 
 week, as she was a good deal wanted at home ; but 
 she could not bring herself to leave Gwen entirely 
 alone. Then she had heard not a word of Humphrey
 
 288 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 from his wife's lips for more than a month now, and 
 his letters to her, after one she got assuring her of 
 his perfect recovery, were anything but satisfactory. 
 They were short and dry, and told her nothing. Be- 
 sides, as the missionary he was in pursuit of had 
 escaped through the intervention of a tribe of friendly 
 blacks some other way, and was already on his way 
 home, probably preparing his experiences for the 
 religious press, Humphrey's continued presence in 
 Africa was simply ridiculous, and she was in a fever 
 of anxiety as to the next step of this most trying 
 couple. 
 
 A few nights after she was very glad she had 
 decided to remain. 
 
 She had just fallen off into her first sleep when 
 she was awakened by a violent shake, and found Gwen 
 standing above her, white and rigid, and too terrified 
 to speak. She pulled her out of the room and into 
 the nursery by her nightdress sleeve, to show her 
 her baby in very bad convulsions in the nurse's arms. 
 
 The whole night through the two women watched 
 the strange, cruel possession that twisted and contorted 
 the small flower-like face and the tender limbs, and 
 next day the spasms ceased, and a sharp attack of 
 bronchitis set in. 
 
 Gwen's mute, tense agony upset even the old doctor, 
 who, as a rule, was emotion-proof enough ; he would 
 have given a great deal to have been able to reassure 
 her, but he could not in conscience do so, the child 
 was about as dangerously ill as it was possible for 
 it to be. 
 
 But he came of a lusty stock, and fought gallantly 
 for his life, while his mother hovered breathless above
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 289 
 
 him, and allowed no one but herself to touch him 
 for any service ; and when she absolutely could keep 
 her eyes open no longer, she would trust him to no 
 one but Mrs. Fellowes. 
 
 As she fought desperately for her child's life, the 
 girl, for the first time in her own, lost herself in 
 supreme self-forgetfulness, and then at last the latent 
 truth in her nature broke through its bonds, and 
 unfolded itself hour by hour, and overpowered though 
 she was by grief and terror on the child's account, 
 Mrs. Fellowes blessed God and rejoiced. 
 
 The splendid reserves of the girl's tenderness, her 
 lovely, frank abandonment to her new-found motherhood, 
 fairly staggered the elder woman. She could hardly 
 keep control over herself, she felt so small, so humble, 
 so absolutely unfit to do as she ought to do. There 
 was to her something most holy, most reverent in 
 the awakening of this virgin mother ; she felt almost 
 indecent in her greedy absorption of its regal loveliness, 
 and this time God did stay His hand, and His heart 
 inclined itself to mercy. 
 
 Seven days after the beginning of the illness, a little 
 ray of hope began to play in the doctor's eyes, and sent 
 a wave of new, sweet life rushing through Gwen's 
 veins. 
 
 The next day, and the next, this grew and strength- 
 ened, and at the end of the day after that the doctor 
 spoke with perfect confidence, and he added, — 
 
 " I never until now knew exactly how much a 
 mother's love can do, Lady Strange. You are an 
 incomparable nurse." 
 
 When he went away Gwen still knelt by the cot, 
 with moist eyes, and looked at the baby, who suddenly 
 
 19
 
 290 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 stirred, and awoke, and began to watch her in that 
 terrible all-knowing way babies have, then a little 
 wavering ghost of a smile touched its mouth. Gwen 
 waited with parted lips, and the smile grew and took 
 proper, tangible human shape, till the tender mouth 
 gave a little tremble with it, and the eyes widened, and 
 suddenly, to Mrs. Fellowes' horror, Gwen fell back 
 against her in a dead swoon. 
 
 When she had recovered and they had brought her 
 to her room, she fell asleep at once, and it was 
 midnight when she awoke. 
 
 She got up directly, and stole softly out to see her 
 baby, who was sleeping peacefully with Mrs. Fellowes 
 on guard. 
 
 " He couldn't possibly be better," she whispered ; 
 "you must go back to bed at once." 
 
 "And you — you must too, you look green with 
 tiredness." 
 
 She knelt down by the cot with a little soft cooing 
 sound that half frightened herself; she turned her head 
 to find out where it came from ; when she knew she 
 smiled up at Mrs. Fellowes, and her eyes were radiant 
 with a sweet mystery. 
 
 When she came in to see her baby next morning 
 she carried a telegram she had just written in her 
 hand. It was to Strange, and very simple. 
 
 " Will you come ? " it said, " we want you, baby 
 and I." 
 
 " Read it," she said to Mrs. Fellowes ; " and will 
 you send it yourself ? " 
 
 She stooped over the cot for a long time, and nothing 
 was to be seen of her but the tips of two pink ears.
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 " How soon can he come ? " said Gwen, when Mrs. 
 Fellowes returned after sending the message. " I have 
 been counting up, it must be three weeks even if he is 
 at the coast ; if he is inland it may be longer. Now 
 the missionary is safe, he must be just hunting ; he 
 will be sure to get my message without much delay." 
 
 She spoke rapidly, and walked about the room with 
 her boy in her arms. 
 
 "She hasn't a doubt as to his reply to her message," 
 thought Mrs. Fellowes; "how absolutely she trusts 
 him ! " 
 
 " Will he wonder when he sees I am here — will he 
 guess why I came ? " she went on in her glad excite- 
 ment. " Darling, sweet, beauty ! What will he think 
 of you ? " 
 
 " Gwen, sit down, or let me take him, you are not 
 perfectly strong yet." 
 
 " I am," she cried, with a happy laugh, " I am a 
 giant refreshed with wine, a whole volume of new 
 life has flowed into me, I could move the world at this 
 moment, not to say carry this mite. I am a woman 
 at last, a full, complete, proper woman, and it is 
 magnificent. No other living woman can feel as I do ; 
 
 other women absorb these feelings as they do their 
 
 291
 
 2gz A YELL OW A STER. 
 
 daily bread and butter, and they have to them the 
 same placid, everyday taste, they slip into their woman- 
 hood ; mine has rushed into me with a great torrent— 
 I love my husband, I worship him, I adore him — do 
 you hear, my dear ? " 
 
 She stopped in her march, and turned on Mrs. 
 Fellowes a radiant, triumphant face. 
 
 "Ah, if I hadn't you to tell all this to, I would go 
 out into the fields and shout it aloud. And what are 
 you crying for ? I am not mad. I am, I suppose, 
 what Humphrey would call natural, but somehow it 
 makes me feel too big for the room. Hold the child 
 while I open the windows." 
 
 Mrs. Fellowes, as soon as she got hold of him, carried 
 him off to the nursery, and simply insisted on Gwen's 
 lying down and holding her tongue. 
 
 " Do you want to bring a fever on yourself," she 
 demanded sternly, " and be a scarecrow when Hum- 
 phrey comes ? You are shockingly young, my Gwen ! " 
 
 She was sane after that, and tried to behave as if 
 nothing had happened to her, but the change in her 
 was quite visible to the naked eye. Next day she 
 buckled to her steward's work with a whole-hearted 
 dominance that ensured success, and Mrs. Fellowes 
 
 went home to her husband big with happy news. 
 
 ***** 
 
 When five weeks had passed, and she had neither 
 message nor sight of Humphrey, Gwen's magnificent 
 abandonment of joy had a break, and a trembling came 
 into it, and into her eyes a wave of fear, and every 
 time she came in from her work in the village, or on 
 the home farm, she betook herself to the baby to steady 
 her nerves.
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 293 
 
 And then the press began to set flying little gnat-like 
 biting doubts as to Strange's unaccountable silence, 
 after it was ascertained, through a long-delayed scrap 
 of a note to Mrs. Fellowes, that he had joined an ivory 
 expedition into an unsettled district. To add to her 
 anxieties, the missionary, grateful for his intended 
 capture, ran down to Strange Hall, and being rather 
 an ass, and having been left with only the tail end of 
 a constitution — a solemn and gloomy one — he gave her 
 a most lurid and awful impression of those parts into 
 which Humphrey had penetrated. 
 
 She put a brave front on, but she had a shocking 
 time of it, and her usual song to her baby in exactly 
 Humphrey's tones was, — 
 
 •'Dann vvillst du weine, du Hebe kleinel" 
 
 which the baby looked upon as a huge joke. 
 
 Week after week passed and not a word, and then 
 whisperings of relief expeditions began to stir the 
 papers, and Mrs. Fellowes was hurrying up wildly 
 with her work to be able to get to Gwen. 
 
 At last she came over from the station in a fly, a 
 day or two before she was expected, and found Gwen 
 in Strange's den, which showed tokens of her all over 
 the place, playing with her child, now a big fellow, who 
 beat the record in the matter of crawling. 
 
 When the nurse took him at last, Gwen said to Mrs. 
 Fellowes rather grimly, — 
 
 "The county considers I should wear a widow's cap, 
 and sport crepe, and my horrible state of plumpness 
 makes me 'to stink in their nostrils.' Just look at my 
 arms ! I wish I could oblige them," she went on
 
 294 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 wearily, " and bear my woe according to their rules of 
 decency. Lady Mary rolled down on me, and stayed 
 a week, and never got out what she came to say until 
 I was putting her into the railway carriage on her way 
 back to London ; then she produced her rebuke on the 
 top of a sigh, and began a prayer, but the train started 
 before she got well into it. 
 
 " ' My dear,' she said, ' I think that under the cir- 
 cumstances a plain black gown and a bonnet — hats to 
 my mind are at present unseemly — and then, my dear 
 Gwen, if by any means you could manage, ahem, not 
 to add to your plumpness — people in our position must 
 set an example — I assure you, for myself, I lost eight 
 pounds and a half the first six months of my widow- 
 hood.' 
 
 " Then she began her rather irrelevant prayer." 
 
 " Gwen, sit down, and I'll make tea, and tell you 
 about your father." 
 
 Gwen leaned back in her chair, and put her hands 
 to her hot head. 
 
 " I forget everything but myself and this fattening 
 misery of mine. He is failing very much, is he not ? 
 His letters somehow have a fragile sound. They have 
 a horrible habit of making me howl, I have got so 
 maudlin I howl now quite easily ; he has been at 
 ' Chavasse ' again, and to rather an awful extent." 
 
 " Yes, he is failing day by day, and unfolding himself 
 at the same time. I never quite realised before how 
 beautiful and single-hearted his character is ; he comes 
 now to see me, or rather to sit and meditate in my 
 presence, after he has been to your mother's grave, 
 and when he has sat and rested he speaks of you. 
 You can gather the way, I fancy, from his letters —
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 295 
 
 oh, the quaintness, the pathetic grotesqueness of his 
 remarks ! " 
 
 "I have often wanted to ask you if Mr. Fellowes 
 ever brings his professional capacity to bear on my 
 father ? " asked Gwen. 
 
 11 Never. ' Only God is fit to undertake the care of 
 such a soul as his/ John says, ' neither he nor his soul 
 is subject to ordinary laws, each lives out the life 
 given it to live.' Good gracious ! fancy John or any 
 other parson attempting to shove theology into such 
 a nature, or to dig down after his beliefs ! Gwen, 
 darling, you may be in good condition, but how very 
 tired you look ! " 
 
 " Tired ! Oh yes, I am, I cannot tell you how 
 tired ! At first I used to live in a whirl, so as to 
 tire myself, now there's no need for it, I am just as 
 tired when I get up as when I go to bed, and nothing 
 will drive the days on, and the endlessness of life 
 sickens one. I feel crepey enough to please any one, 
 goodness knows ; but even if Humphrey never comes, I 
 will neither wear crepe nor put on any of the trappings 
 of decent widowhood, for I know he never got my 
 message. If he is dead, he died knowing nothing, 
 I am no honest widow of his, and I will wear hats 
 to the end of the chapter, and possibly grow fat, and 
 outrival Lady Mary, who knows ! 
 
 " You see, my life is a healthy one ; I ride miles a 
 day all over the farms ; there isn't a fact concerning 
 manure I couldn't tell you ; as to drainage, I feel like 
 turning into a pipe myself; I have even a medicine 
 chest, and doctor the babies, Heaven help them ! If 
 I could only follow him as he would me, it would be 
 less awful ; but, you see, there's baby ; my place is
 
 296 A YELL 07V A STER. 
 
 here, and I must just stand and wait like those wretched 
 creatures in the hymn. As for those relief expeditions, 
 though I send cheques, I look upon them as a farce ; 
 as if he wanted to be caught and brought home like a 
 missionary ! " 
 
 " It seems to me you are on the go from morning to 
 night : what time do you leave yourself for sleeping ? " 
 
 " Oh, any amount ; more than I want." 
 
 " How long did you sleep last night ? " 
 
 " Oh, I forget. Are you too tired to drive to a 
 farm about a mile away ? " 
 
 " Tired ! No, dear," stooping down and kissing her, 
 " but must you go ? Lie down, and let me read to 
 you." 
 
 Anything in the shape of tenderness was just the 
 one stroke too many for Gwen ; she gave a quick, dry 
 sob, and moved away. 
 
 " I can't stand that sort of thing," she said ; " I told 
 you I had got maudlin. Treat me as you would a 
 nice, orthodox Christian widow, who wears crepe and 
 caps, and gets just to the proper state of thinness, 
 pulling herself up, however, just short of scragginess 
 like a self-respecting creature. And now we must 
 hurry, for I hear the carriage." 
 
 She turned round as she was leaving the room, and 
 laughed. 
 
 " I am altogether losing tone. Do you know that 
 young Will Dyer — Sir William's black sheep, whom 
 I have been occupying my spare moments in being 
 a mother to, and in trying to detach from the devil 
 — began yesterday to make violent love to me ? " 
 
 " I don't wonder ! " 
 
 " Good gracious me, wh}' ? "
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 297 
 
 " Look at your face ! You are a woman now, my 
 good Gwen." 
 
 " And is this the first result ? God help us ! 
 Is my one pride in life to become a thorn in my 
 flesh?" 
 
 "That's as you take it! It will, unless you are 
 careful, be a very considerable thorn in other people's. 
 Good gracious, child ! why even virtue in women is 
 very much a matter of temperament, and where the 
 temperament is, there will the opportunities be gathered 
 together."
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 Late one afternoon, two men, looking unspeakably 
 battered, got into a fly at a small off station, and told 
 the man to drive them to Strange Hall. 
 
 11 I'll not show to a soul for a week," said the first 
 man, who, if one looked at him microscopically, seemed 
 like the remains of Strange, " never in all my life 
 have I felt so humiliated. To be held by the leg by 
 a parcel of niggers for the best part of four months, 
 and at my age, is too much for any fellow." 
 
 " You were next to off your head most of the time, 
 and then only for us you'd have escaped long ago," 
 said Brydon. 
 
 " Don't try to find excuses, it's too damnable 
 altogether ; and to think, after all, that those idiots got 
 home months sooner, laden with ivory ! " 
 
 " After the week what will you do ? " asked the 
 other, looking out of the window. " You'll show 
 yourself to your people directly you are presentable, 
 I suppose ?" 
 
 " Give interviews to reporters probably," he returned 
 shortly. 
 
 Brydon furtively watched the gaunt, shattered man, 
 
 old before his time, who not so very long before had 
 
 looked as if he could move the world. 
 
 298
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 299 
 
 " Oh, that woman ! " he thought savagely. 
 
 Almost in spite of himself he had become the keeper 
 of all the elder man's secrets, and the office weighed 
 frightfully on him. 
 
 By some extraordinary mischance, neither the letters 
 sent at that time nor the cablegram ever reached 
 Strange ; they came some time after the expedition 
 had gone, and in transmission were lost, and the 
 negligent messengers thought best to entirely deny 
 the existence of any. 
 
 When Strange enquired at the office at Cairo there 
 was no account of any cable for him, the clerk who had 
 received it had been exchanged, and Strange made no 
 very pressing enquiry, for he hardly expected one, and 
 as a P. and O. boat was starting the next hour he took 
 passage on her and went on board — even giving the 
 reporters the slip. 
 
 As a matter of fact, he was so desperately ill at the 
 time that he was hardly responsible for his actions, or 
 he must have recovered the record of the cable, and 
 both Brydon and Tolly were too much occupied in the 
 attempt to get him home alive to think of anything else. 
 They succeeded, as it turned out, but only by the skin 
 of his teeth. 
 
 On the whole, despite certain eccentricities, both 
 Tolly and Brydon had done better than any other men 
 possibly could have done ; their sentimental devotion to 
 Strange put starch into their rather limp souls, and 
 their uncomplaining heroism under the most shocking 
 sufferings was almost pathetic; and then, by some 
 special providence, they had both escaped the second 
 fever that nearly put an end to Strange. 
 
 " What's that, do you see, in the field there ? My
 
 300 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 eyes are dim yet," said Strange, peering out at some 
 object a few fields off. 
 
 " I don't know, it looks like a hump." 
 
 " Driver, just turn into that lane and take the south 
 road. — It's a silo ! By Jove ! old Hopkins is coming 
 on ; and look, all that waste moor under cultivation ! 
 I always said it would grow potatoes. Seemingly the 
 place is not neglected. Hopkins was always a good 
 fellow, but I had no idea until now he wasn't also an 
 ass. I dreamed frequently of that ensilage scheme, 
 some one else has hatched out my dream for me. Oh 
 Lord, here's this shivering on me again ! Where's the 
 draught ? " 
 
 " In your breast-pocket." 
 
 " Tell him to wait, I can't get in like this, ' there's a 
 decency to be observed ! ' " 
 
 The driver waited, revolving in his mind supposi- 
 tions as to his remarkable fare, and wondering why, 
 " in the devil's name," the trap shook as if it had the 
 palsy. 
 
 After quite half an hour it stopped, and he had 
 orders to go on, while Strange mopped the cold sweat 
 from his face with a trembling hand. 
 
 " This degrades a fellow ! " he muttered. As a rule, 
 he pulled himself well together after these attacks, but 
 this time he got no reaction. 
 
 When they reached the door he was almost un- 
 conscious. 
 
 " Take me quietly to my den," he muttered, " don't 
 let the servants bother me." Then he fainted dead off.
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 As he lay in the death-like sleep of exhaustion that 
 followed his swoon, the change in Strange was terribly 
 evident. He had shrunk to half his former size, his 
 clothes hung in bags on his limp, thin limbs, his eyes 
 were sunk into deep hollows, his skin was yellow and 
 puckered, and his lips were drawn back from his teeth 
 in a way that told of fever and thirst. 
 
 When Brydon, with the help of the panic-stricken 
 servants, had got him to the sofa, — knowing his horror 
 of fuss, — he told them to send at once for the doctor, 
 and then dismissed them with the utmost speed ; and 
 now he stood at the window, revolving many things, 
 and wondering, if Strange grew worse, what would 
 happen — would he send for his wife, and would she 
 come ? 
 
 " My God ! I wish I did not know quite so much of 
 him," he muttered ; " I wish he had not, in his ravings, 
 turned himself inside out in that ghastly way. No man 
 should know so much of another fellow as I do of him, 
 it is like eavesdropping." 
 
 Strange moaned, and Brydon crept over and covered 
 his feet with awkward tenderness ; then he moved 
 softly through the room, looking at the skins, and 
 
 301
 
 3 02 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 Oriental stuffs, the colours of which slid into him, and 
 comforted his soul to some slight extent. 
 
 He was vaguely fingering a piece of drapery, when 
 he struck his foot against the leg of a chair ; he looked 
 round breathlessly to see if he had disturbed Strange. 
 No — he still slept, and Brydon continued his purpose- 
 less inspection, and, drawn by some strange coloured 
 texture, he went towards it, and came face to face with 
 his own bride-picture. 
 
 He staggered back two or three steps in a spasm of 
 terror. He had learnt a deal too much of that picture 
 in Strange's ravings, but the overmastering love for 
 one's own creation — inherent in God and man— forced 
 him back to it ; and, as he looked, all the past died out, 
 right back to that day when he was sitting in Waring 
 Church, painting, and wiping great sweat-drops from 
 his face in the ecstasy of knowing that he had done a 
 great work, and one that would live for ever. 
 
 A sudden indefinable sound from the terrace brought 
 him to himself. 
 
 It was a queer, primitive sound ; he felt somehow 
 that Strange should not hear it, and went to the 
 window to find out what it was. 
 
 Presently it began again, and ended in a chuckle; 
 then he caught sight of a flutter of petticoats around 
 the corner, and could distinguish a murmur of words. 
 Then a distinct squeak startled him, and suddenly a 
 toddling creature appeared on the terrace, and, making 
 a grab at a flower, fell sprawling on its face, and in a 
 fraction of time was pounced upon by the owner of the 
 white skirts, who cuddled it to her breast, with anxious 
 care ; but as it only kicked and crowed she lifted her 
 head from her kissing. And there, within ten paces of
 
 A YELL OW A STER. 303 
 
 him, was his picture made flesh, but with the sorrow 
 of all ages upon her face. 
 
 He swayed, put his hand to his head, then he 
 dropped, like a man in a dream, into a chair, and 
 murmured, — 
 
 " Oh, God ! has the earth opened — has she fallen 
 from Heaven — has — has " 
 
 He looked again, and the flutter of her white dress 
 in the sunlight gave to his dazed, enchanted eyes 
 the figure of a new Madonna, before whom the 
 whole world must kneel and rise up to call her 
 blessed. 
 
 She came on, still murmuring to her baby ; she came 
 up to the French window, and put out her hand to 
 open it — then the madness fell from Brydon, and the 
 whole truth came with a rush. 
 
 He sprang to his feet, cast one perturbed look at 
 Strange, " Kill him or not, I can't face it," he muttered, 
 and fled. 
 
 When Gwen got into the room, she sank wearily 
 into a chair, and throwing off her hat let the baby butt 
 her at his will. 
 
 When the smile for her baby flickered off her face, 
 the final, contained anguish in it was awful; but the 
 child gave her little time to nurse grief. Every 
 moment she had either to rock him, croon little songs 
 to him, or tickle him ; if she were silent or passive for 
 a moment a lusty butt against her breast or a punch 
 from the pink dimpled fist brought her back to his 
 service. 
 
 As she sat — sideways to the window — it was impos- 
 sible for her to see Strange, but there was nothing 
 to hide her from him.
 
 3<M A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 The soft murmur of croons and baby-sounds at last 
 half awoke liim ; he lay for some moments and let 
 the vague music creep into his semi-consciousness, 
 then he opened his eyes impatiently and closed them 
 again ; it was only one more dream, he thought — 
 he was beset with dreams, tortured, shaken by 
 them. 
 
 " Oh, God ! those drugs," he muttered. 
 
 Again the murmurs broke on his ears ; there was a 
 chuckle, a tender, protesting voice, and a sharp little 
 squeal. He shivered, and peered out towards the 
 sounds ; his eyes were dimmed from his great sickness, 
 and could only see " men as trees walking." Gradually 
 he made out the shapes of a woman and a little 
 child. 
 
 " Is it a dream, or death ? " he murmured. " Oh ! 
 God, spare me ! I am haunted by delusions." 
 
 Another little murmur, and a soft sob ; it was the 
 woman this time. Again he opened his eyes, and 
 through his dreaming saw the little yellow-headed child 
 laughing round the chair, and inviting the woman to a 
 game of bo-peep. 
 
 " Oh ! my baby, my own, own baby," she broke out, 
 stooping to him, " do you know what they say — what 
 they din into my ears, little love, dear baby mine ? 
 They say your father is dead, dead, dead, dear one. 
 And must you live, grow up, little manikin, without 
 knowing what a man he was ? Sweet, must I sing ? — 
 Ah ! If you only knew how it hurts ! " 
 
 The smile flickered back to her face, as she took him 
 on her knee, and she sang a little song he evidently 
 knew well, for he kicked and crowed by way of chorus ; 
 then he played with his bare toes for a little — his
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 305 
 
 mother, as she sang, had pulled off his socks to kiss 
 his feet — and as he played she returned to her sad 
 soliloquy. 
 
 " You will have to take all from me on trust, little 
 one, and, of course, you will think I exaggerate, my 
 own, when I tell you that your mother had the best 
 man that God yet made, or will make, to love her, to 
 love her. Ah ! what love it was ! " she repeated 
 gently. 
 
 Then her eyes dreamed, and rested for a moment ; all 
 the pain fled, and her face shone with radiant triumph, 
 and her mouth trembled like a happy child's. 
 
 "Ah! what love!" she said again; but instantly 
 all this was swamped in a big wave of pain ; she 
 caught her child and kissed him rather wildly, whis- 
 pering, " Baby, she killed this man who loved her — 
 killed him, baby, because she was unnatural and 
 couldn't love — she killed her mother, too ; and oh ! 
 baby, when in her loneliness she pleads and prays 
 that God may let her love Him, He hides His face 
 from her ; and it is all quite just, baby mine — her mere 
 desert. 
 
 "Ah ! my own — I can't sing, I am so tired." 
 
 She put him down gently, and looked before her 
 with sad, unseeing eyes. 
 
 Strange struggled to break the spell — to speak — to 
 move; but he was impotent — paralysed. A vague 
 horror — full of sickness and delirium — had him by the 
 throat. He put his hand feebly to his forehead to 
 brush the sweat away. 
 
 "This is more cruel than death," he muttered. 
 
 Meanwhile, the baby — being a young person of an 
 exploring tendency, and loose on the premises — played 
 
 20
 
 306 A YELLOW ASTER. 
 
 havoc with his opportunities. Having smashed two 
 Venetian glasses, and an atom of old Sevres, he per- 
 ceived his father on the sofa, and toddled over to 
 investigate him — but so softly that no notice was taken, 
 till Strange suddenly found a tiny fist thrust into his 
 mouth ; then he started amazedly, and touched the 
 child with quaking awe. 
 
 Just then Gwen discovered her loss, ran a few steps 
 forward with outstretched hands, and saw the two — 
 Humphrey and his child. 
 
 " Humphrey — Humphrey ! " she cried faintly, totter- 
 ing towards them ; then she fell at their feet. 
 
 To Strange it was still a cruel dream — her falling 
 but part of it. Between the two, the child stood 
 wondering, then he caught sight of a diamond on his 
 father's finger. He seized on the finger and dragged 
 it to show his mother ; but as she took no notice he 
 smacked her face soundly with his other hand — and 
 simultaneously the two awoke, he from his delirium, 
 she from her swoon. 
 
 And for one moment the two peered at each other 
 through the fog of a bitter past. Then she sat up 
 slowly, and looked at his face marvelling above her, 
 and at his hand caught in her baby's, and broke into 
 half incoherent, wild explainings. But suddenly the 
 consciousness that words could in no sort of way touch 
 her case silenced her ; she just sat dumbly on the 
 floor, knowing that she had done evil in ignorance, but 
 that she had come up through great tribulation into 
 unutterable joy, full of knowledge, and with a soul as 
 white as Naaman's skin. And so — as best became her 
 — she simply held up her face to be kissed, while the 
 baby clutched hold of one of her fingers and one of his
 
 A YELLOW ASTER. 307 
 
 father's, and in words all his own and untranslatable, 
 but mightier than those of gods or churches, decreed 
 that henceforth and for ever those two should be one 
 flesh. Which, after all, is the especial mission of his 
 kind. 
 
 THE END.
 
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