CONVICT B 14 
 
 R.K.WEEKES
 
 Ih 
 
 CONVICT B14 
 
 . W CAWF. MWUHY.
 
 CONVICT B14 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 BY 
 
 R. K. WEEKES 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 BRENTANO'S 
 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 Copyright, 1920, by 
 BRENTANO'S 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 MADE IN U. S. A.
 
 TO 
 
 LffiTITIA JANE GARDINER 
 WITH APOLOGIES 
 
 2133517
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PACE 
 
 I. JANUA VITJE i 
 
 II. A LIB THAT is HALF A TRUTH .... 12 
 
 III. NOCTURNE 19 
 
 IV. WHEN FIRST WE PRACTICE TO DECEIVE . . 26 
 V. THE FLY ON THE WALL 34 
 
 VI. Sic TRANSIT 43 
 
 VII. AUBADE , 50 
 
 VIII. AMANDUS, -A, -UM 61 
 
 IX. MELODRAMATIC 73 
 
 X. A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS 83 
 
 XL COSAS DE BRUJAS 94 
 
 XII. ALL IN THE AIR 102 
 
 XIII. ONE NAIL DRIVES OUT ANOTHER . . . .113 
 
 XIV. A TWO-EDGED SWORD 121 
 
 XV. WANTED 129 
 
 XVI. COUNSEL OF PERFECTION 138 
 
 XVII. A GREEN THOUGHT IN A GREEN SHADE . . 147 
 XVIII. WHEN THE HEART SUFFERS A BLOW . . . 153 
 
 XIX. Du PARTI DU GRAND AIR 161 
 
 XX. ROUGH JUSTICE 170 
 
 XXL HEU QUAM MUTATUS 181 
 
 XXII. BREAD AND SALT . . 188
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXIII. DlEU DISPOSE 195 
 
 XXIV. THE FIRST ROUND 201 
 
 XXV. I SENT A LETTER TO MY LOVE 210 
 
 XXVI. " E " 223 
 
 XXVII. SHE BEING DEAD YET SPEAKETH .... 237 
 
 XXVIII. DEUTSCHLAND UBER ALLES 244 
 
 XXIX. THE GOOD HOURS 252 
 
 XXX. CONFESSIO AMANTIS 258 
 
 XXXI. THE LUCKIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD . . . 265 
 XXXII. PER ARDUA AD ASTRA 272 
 
 XXXIII. THE ONE SHALL BE TAKEN 281 
 
 XXXIV. SHE ALONE CHARMETH MY SADNESS . . . 294
 
 CONVICT B14 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 JANUA VIT;E 
 
 When men shall say, Peace, and all things are safe, then shall sud- 
 den destruction come upon them, as sorrow cometh upon a woman 
 travailing with child, anl they shall not escape. 
 
 AT the entrance of a green valley, where the Easedale beck 
 came down from Easedale Tarn, scattering its silver tresses 
 loose over the rocks at Sour Milk Gill, and hurrying to 
 join the Rotha at Goody Bridge, stood a wayside hos- 
 telry: a spruce gray villa, overflowing with flowers under 
 white and green sun-blinds and a glass piazza. Not by any 
 means a grand place, but attractive ; the hesitating traveler 
 might guess that the comforts inside would answer to the 
 trimness outside, nor would he be wrong. Within its limits, 
 the Easedale Hotel was that rarity, a thoroughly well-run 
 English inn. 
 
 The proprietor of the place and only begetter of its pros- 
 perity was reposing on the veranda in an easy attitude, with 
 his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the Grasmere road. 
 Spidering, he called it ; which meant that he was looking 
 out for possible guests. He liked to make a play of his 
 work. Harry Gardiner, the son of a country parson, was 
 a slight young man of middle height, and very brown 
 olive-brown, sun-brown. He did not look wholly English; 
 a quarter part of Spanish blood ran in his veins. He had 
 dark eyes and a small head, small hands and wiry muscles, 
 small features and a thin mouth. He was quick in all he 
 thought and said and did, shrewd at a bargain, fond of 
 1
 
 2 CONVICT B14. 
 
 money, but fonder still of liberty. After being pitchforked 
 by circumstances into his odd trade, he had stuck to it for 
 love and made it pay ; he had already progressed from a 
 humble fonda in the Canaries to a boarding-house in Sydney, 
 and from the boarding-house to the Easedale Hotel. But 
 he was a rolling stone, and would never stay long enough 
 in any one place to reap the full fruit of his toil. 
 
 He turned at the sound of a step behind him, and his 
 eyes laughed. 
 
 " Hullo, Denis ! Got into all your glad rags ? You'll 
 scare my people they aren't used to such visions." 
 
 " You'd not have me sit down to dinner without washin' 
 my hands, would you ? " inquired the new-comer in a voice 
 which his best efforts could never rid of a trace of soft 
 Irish brogue. He was wearing ordinary evening clothes, not 
 very new, but in some subtle way he did contrive to give 
 the impression of being point device in every detail. Denis 
 Merion-Smith was partner in an aeroplane firm ; but he had 
 once been in the Royal Engineers, and though it was years 
 since he had resigned his commission, he still carried his 
 handsome nose in the air and looked down on inferior 
 mortals through a single eyeglass. 
 
 Gardiner laughed. "Why not? My crowd mostly do. 
 But we're going up in the social scale. I began with 
 travelers, I went on to artists, I've attained the Church, and 
 I live in hopes of even rising to the army some day. You 
 didn't happen to look into the dining-room on your way 
 down? " 
 
 " I did not." 
 
 " I wasn't suggesting that you were nosing out the dinner," 
 Gardiner explained. " I thought you might have noticed 
 the flowers. They're rather special. I did 'em myself. 
 That's the way to work it. Ginger up the servants all 
 round, and add flowers to choice. Sweet-peas I recommend 
 for the table, blue lobelia and pink geranium for window- 
 boxes. The English tourist can't resist window-boxes. I 
 could write the innkeeper's vademecun. It's a great game." 
 
 " I can't think how you do it ! " said Denis in disgust.
 
 JANUA VIT.E 3 
 
 " I can't think how you ever took it on ! Kotowing to all 
 these beastly people and licking their boots " 
 
 " No, no. The boy does that spits on them, anyhow. 
 We can't all be in the Sappers, Denis." Denis snorted. 
 " My trade suits me all right, though it wouldn't you," said 
 Gardiner more seriously. " I like it, you know I like tak- 
 ing over a disreputable pigsty of a place like this was, and 
 turning it out in a couple of years blooming like the rose. 
 This Easedale's quite a decent little pub now. I shall be 
 half sorry to leave it." 
 
 Denis paused, with a lighted match in his hand. " You're 
 never thinking of givin' it up? " 
 
 " I've already done so." 
 
 " You've given up the Easedale ? " 
 
 " A si es, senor. The place is sold, and I clear out in Octo- 
 ber." 
 
 " Well ! " said Denis, after a vain struggle with the house- 
 holder's distrust of the nomad, "you know your own 
 business, I suppose; but I should have thought this 
 was good enough for you. Are you never goin' to settle 
 down ? " 
 
 " You're so beastly impatient ! " said Gardiner, with a 
 laugh. He waited to light a cigarette, cherishing it between 
 his palms, and then jerking the match with a quick gesture 
 across the road. " I've been searching for my ideal ; you 
 wouldn't have me hurry over that, would you? I've tried 
 the Canaries, and I've tried Austrylier, and I've tried Eng- 
 land, and they're all vanity and vexation of spirit. But I 
 think I've got the real thing at last." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "On the Semois. You never heard of it? Quite. No- 
 body has. The Semois is a river, a ravishing river who ties 
 herself into complicated knots round forest-covered moun- 
 tains. On the map she looks like a bedivvled corkscrew. 
 / don't know where the charm lies I've seen fifty places 
 more conventionally beautiful, but I tell you, Denis, I've got 
 that river in my bones! Figure to yourself a young moun- 
 tain, with the river plumb before it, in a gorge. You look
 
 4 CONVICT B14 
 
 down into that gorge, and beyond it over the tops of hills and 
 hills and hills, range behind range, getting bluer, and dim- 
 mer, and blurrier, till they're a mere wash of cobalt against 
 the sky " 
 
 " Hills ! " said Denis. " I've asked you : where is this 
 place ? " 
 
 " The Ardennes. Belgian Luxemburg. Close to the 
 French frontier and twenty miles from Sedan." 
 
 " Well, I suppose you know your own business best," 
 said Denis for the second time it was plain he supposed 
 nothing of the kind " but I'd not settle there if you paid 
 me." 
 
 "Why on earth not? Oh ah, of course! the German 
 menace, isn't it? Well, if they come, I shall suffer with my 
 adopted country, that's all." 
 
 " If you'd spent a year in Germany, as I have, and seen 
 what I did, you'd not laugh," said Denis, patiently and 
 obstinately. The German danger was one of his hobbies. 
 It was surprising that, with so many hoary prejudices, he 
 should ever have taken up with a new-fangled science like 
 aeronautics ; but who is consistent ? 
 
 " I'm not laughing, my dear chap. You know more 
 about it than I do, and if you say it's on the cards I believe 
 you. But they're not coming to-day, are they? and manana 
 es otro dia. Meanwhile I go ahead with my Bellevue 
 (that's to be the name of it: beautifully banal, what?) and 
 trust to luck. It hasn't served me badly so far. Besides, 
 I don't stand to lose much. I like money all right, but I'm 
 not a slave to that or anything else. If I lose every penny 
 to-morrow I shouldn't put myself about except for daddy's 
 sake ; and after all he's not actually dependent on me, I 
 only supply the amenities. Yes ; bar accidents, I can pretty 
 well defy Fate." 
 
 He stretched himself complacently, as if rejoicing in his 
 freedom. Denis preserved silence. 
 
 "I suppose you wouldn't say a thing like that?" asked 
 Gardiner, looking at him curiously. 
 
 " I would not."
 
 JANUA VIT^E 5 
 
 " Irishman ! " 
 
 " I hate boastin'," said Denis shortly. 
 
 " I thought you believed in an overruling Providence, 
 which orders everything for us from the cradle to the 
 grave ? " 
 
 " It's not incompatible. And I wish you'd settle down," 
 said Denis, who was a person of few and simple ideas. 
 
 " Well, if you're good perhaps I will." 
 
 " But not in Belgium, Harry ! Belgium's such a rotten 
 hole. And the people are half dagoes. Why can't you be 
 content with England? " 
 
 Gardiner laughed. " Because I ain't English, old son 
 nor Irish neither. I'm a bit of a dago myself, for that 
 matter. B' the powers, here's a car coming ! You sit tight 
 now, and see me do the fascinating landlord." 
 
 The car, an expensive touring model, drew up at the gate. 
 The driver was a big man with dark gray eyes, regular 
 features and a dark mustache. It was a handsome head, 
 but not wholly pleasant ; in the accepted phrase, he had 
 evidently lived hard. Denis with unerring fastidiousness 
 put him down as a bounder. Beside him sat a lady, muffled 
 up in a long dust-cloak and a veil, and there was a maid 
 behind. 
 
 " How far on is it to Keswick?" asked the driver, lean- 
 ing out to address Gardiner with careless incivility. 
 
 " Nine miles." 
 
 " Nine, eh? Are you the proprietor of this place?" He 
 looked the young man up and down with cursory interest. 
 " Well, we may want rooms for the night. Can you do 
 us?" 
 
 " The house is rather full, but I can show you what I 
 have." 
 
 " What do you say, Dot ? We can't get on to Keswick 
 to-night on this confounded tire. Might as well stop, do 
 you think? Of course it's a wretched little hole, but we 
 haven't much choice." The aside was wholly audible both 
 to Gardiner and to Denis. 
 
 " I don't care, provided it's clean," said the girl. Her
 
 6 CONVICT B14 
 
 features were invisible behind her veil, but the voice sounded 
 young. 
 
 " What ? Oh yes, I should say it's fairly clean. Yes, 
 we'll stay," he added, turning to the owner of the fairly 
 clean hotel. " No, never mind the rooms, we'll have dinner 
 at once. Here, and send some one round to see after my 
 car, will you? That tire's punctured." 
 
 " Very good, sir," said Gardiner, standing aside for the 
 lady to pass in. Her husband followed, and they were lost 
 to view. Denis remained fuming on the veranda. It was 
 one thing to put on airs himself, another to see them on 
 somebody else. Besides, Denis was always scrupulously 
 courteous to inferiors; he considered it bad form to hit a 
 man who was debarred from hitting back. He hoped the 
 new-comers would not stay; but time passed, and nobody 
 appeared except a man to take the Rolls-Royce to the garage ; 
 and presently the gong sounded, and Denis went in. 
 
 At the back of the hotel two wings jutted out from the 
 main block, forming three sides of a quadrangle; and in 
 the right wing, just at the corner, Gardiner had his den. 
 It looked, of course, directly across the garden into the 
 windows opposite, but the house did not shut out all the 
 view. Sitting sideways, one could see the broad green vale 
 running westwards and narrowing swiftly to a gorge, down 
 which the stream tumbled, white as milk. Dark gray the 
 hills were, slate-gray, almost purple, with emerald verdure 
 worn thin in places and showing the naked rock Helm 
 Crag, Seat Sandal, Dollywagon Pike, St. Sunday Crag, 
 Silver How, what names of romance ! A sweet and pleasant 
 scene, in this summer twilight ; mists upstealing along the 
 brook, and a half-transparent moon sharpening into silver 
 as she sank into the lemon-colored west. When the sounds 
 of the house for a moment lulled, one could hear the murmur 
 of the cascade which seemed to hang motionless against the 
 rock, flattened out like a skein of white wool. 
 
 The room was small; it had a big window in the left 
 wall, a fireplace opposite, and a table between, on which 
 stood a packing-case in a litter of straw. Gardiner had
 
 JANUA VIT.E 7 
 
 been opening a case of whisky for Denis, who liked to fancy 
 himself a connoisseur. 
 
 " Do you trot round after everybiddy as you did with 
 those people to-night ? " he asked gloomily. Dinner had 
 passed since the scene on the terrace, but it had not buried 
 his resentment. 
 
 " Not as a rule I don't. Miss Marvin, my housekeeper, 
 who's a real treasure, she's supposed to see to visitors. But 
 I do it when I want to. Is it the Trents rankling still/? I 
 rather enjoyed them." 
 
 " Is his name Trent? " 
 
 "His name is Trent. Major Trent, D.S.O., and wife, 
 of Thurlow Park, Surrey ; he inscribed it in the visitors' 
 book. That's him you hear overhead; they dined upstairs. 
 I've had to put them in the old part of the house, every 
 other corner is full. I don't know what'll happen when he 
 sees his bedroom." 
 
 " A line regiment, of course," said Denis, gloomily scorn- 
 ful. " No decent corps would stand him. I wish you'd 
 kick him out." 
 
 " That, my young friend, is not the spirit in which one 
 runs a successful hotel. Do you know he's paying me up- 
 wards of three guineas a day? Besides, he didn't mean to 
 be rude, he was simply talking over my head. What am I 
 to him? The landlord of a third-rate inn. I'd give myself 
 airs too if I had a place in Surrey and a 1912 Rolls- 
 Royce." 
 
 " Insufferable bounder ! " said Denis. Gardiner laughed. 
 
 " No, no ; that he's not. Rather a fine head a good 
 man gone wrong. Oddly enough, I believe Tom knew him 
 in India. If it's the same man, he got his D.S.O. in South 
 Africa, a very gallant piece of work, and then had to send 
 in his papers because of some row about a woman a sub- 
 altern's wife, to make things pleasant all round. Tom rather 
 liked him, bar his little weakness for the sex. But he must 
 have come into money since through his wife, I wouldn't 
 mind betting, and that's why he's so civil to her. For he's 
 the sort who's usually more civil to other people's wives."
 
 8 CONVICT B14 
 
 " I can't think how you can bring yourself to speak to 
 him ! " said Denis. He was one of those who find it hard 
 to understand how others can act differently from them- 
 selves. Gardiner laughed more than ever. 
 
 " We can't all be idealists, my good Denis. I've my bread 
 and butter to earn. I had all my fine feelings knocked out 
 of me long ago. Yes, Miss Marvin, what is it? " 
 
 Miss Marvin, a comely, capable woman of forty, seemed 
 a little flustered. 
 
 " I'm sorry to disturb you, sir, but it's the gentleman in 
 No. 18. He's been at me about his room, and I think " 
 her voice dropped " I think he isn't quite himself. If you 
 wouldn't mind speaking to him " 
 
 " What the devil do you mean by putting me to sleep in 
 a hay-loft?" 
 
 Miss Marvin jumped, for the gentleman from No. 18 
 had followed uninvited and was talking over her shoulder. 
 He stretched an arm across the door to bar her escape. 
 " No, you don't. I don't know which of you two is re- 
 sponsible here, but I am going to have an answer out of 
 somebody. I pay a decent price, I expect a decent room, 
 and you put me in a garret that stinks like a rabbit hutch, 
 and nearly brains me if I walk across the floor! Why, I 
 wouldn't put a nigger to sleep in such a hole ! What do 
 you mean by it, I want to know ? " 
 
 " One moment," said Gardiner. " Miss Marvin, may I 
 trouble you for that register? Thanks. Here we are. I 
 had to give you No. 18 because it was absolutely the last 
 unoccupied room in the house. If you look, you can see 
 for yourself that I'm speaking the truth." 
 
 A little checked, Trent bent his handsome head over the 
 page. He was not drunk ; but he had been drinking. 
 Gardiner, sitting by the window on the far side of the 
 table, leaned across, pointing out the entries with a small, 
 brown, well-kept forefinger. 
 
 " These are my best rooms. They're occupied now by 
 a Leeds fishmonger, but I can't very well turn him out for 
 that. If I'd known you were coming but as it was I
 
 JANUA VIT^E 9 
 
 simply had to put you where I could. There's not a corner 
 anywhere else." 
 
 " The place stinks," said Trent. 
 
 " Of apples. My predecessor used to store them there." 
 " Well, you should have warned me, then." 
 " I did," said Gardiner. " If you remember, I told you I 
 was full, and wanted to show you the rooms, and you 
 declined." 
 
 " That's right enough," said Trent. He swept up his 
 thick, dark lashes and looked steadily at Gardiner, summing 
 him up. Traveling on, his eyes met and fixed on a photo- 
 graph that hung on the wall. " Hullo, I know that face," 
 he said in a totally different tone, getting up and going 
 towards it. 
 
 " My brother," said Gardiner. 
 
 " Your brother ? Tom Gardiner of the Sappers is your 
 brother? Why the deuce couldn't you say so before? 
 Here, my good woman " He held out half-a-crown to 
 Miss Marvin, who nearly dropped it in her indignation, and 
 was only restrained by an imperative sign from Gardiner 
 which sent her out of the room. " Mhow : yes, I was 
 actually with him when this was taken," Trent continued, 
 with the frame in his hand. " I used to see a lot of him in 
 those days. Nice youngster ; only a mania for church- 
 goin', and couldn't or wouldn't play bridge. And so you're 
 his brother! What on earth do you want to keep a pot- 
 house for ? " 
 
 " It's a way of earning your living, like another." 
 *' Leads to misunderstandings, though. Didn't he ever 
 mention me ? " 
 
 " Yes ; but I couldn't be sure you were the same man." 
 " Well, I wouldn't say I am ; times have changed since 
 then," said Trent. He replaced the frame and established 
 himself on the rug, squaring his broad shoulders against the 
 mantelpiece, apparently settling down for a comfortable 
 gossip. " I was a bit of a fire-eater in those days. I re- 
 member one time we were out riding " 
 
 The tale he told was one of those which modest men leave
 
 10 CONVICT B14. 
 
 their friends to tell for them. It seemed to concern him 
 no more than a casual newspaper paragraph about a casual 
 stranger. " I couldn't do that now, you know," was his 
 comment. He had quite forgotten his anger; indeed, he 
 seemed to have worn out all power of sustained feeling, 
 to be without shame as without vanity. He rambled on 
 from story to story; presently he was pouring into their 
 ears the tale of the scandal that had led to his retirement. 
 Out it all came, in a curious mixture of indifference and 
 maudlin self-pity. " That was the end of me," he said, 
 staring at Gardiner with hazy, apathetic eyes. " I wasn't 
 a bad sort of feller before did one or two things a man 
 might be proud of ; but it was all up when I had to leave 
 the old regiment. And just for the sake of a little devil 
 who didn't care a rap about me not a rap, I swear she 
 didn't ! Yes ! it's the women who've been my ruin." 
 
 It was a melancholy exhibition. One might gather that 
 he still presented a decent front to the world ; whisky had 
 loosened his tongue to-night, making him a traitor to 
 himself, but he did not habitually drink. He said so, with 
 unblushing candor. " It wasn't wine with me, you know ; 
 that was never my vice." He was, as Gardiner said, a good 
 man gone wrong ; but he had gone very far wrong. There 
 was something cruel in the way the young man led him on 
 to expose himself. Charity would have covered his sins, 
 but cynicism drew them all out to look at. Denis's instincts 
 were more healthy. 
 
 " Why don't you kick him out ? " he said in an angry 
 whisper. 
 
 " I'm not done with him yet. He amuses me." 
 
 " He makes me sick. It's beastly, Harry ! You've no 
 business to do it ! " 
 
 " Think not ? Now, he strikes me as fair game," said 
 Gardiner, contemplating his guest with a complete absence 
 of pity. 
 
 " He's drinking himself drunk on your whisky, and that 
 girl waiting for him upstairs! If you don't think of him, 
 you might of her ! "
 
 JANUA VIT.E 11 
 
 " True. I'd forgotten his wife," said Gardiner. He drew 
 the decanter over to his side of the table and looked up, 
 ready to break in. Unluckily Trent had caught the last 
 word, and it started him off on a new tack. 
 
 "Neither of you young chaps married? Lucky dogs! 
 you've the chances! I knew a little girl in Chatham 
 once " 
 
 Gardiner had kept his friend just a few minutes too 
 long. He had now found his peculiar vein, and he grew 
 eloquent. Denis had a clean life behind him, and a clean 
 mind ; Gardiner felt rather than saw him stirring in his 
 chair, and held up a hand to keep him quiet. He himself 
 was less fastidious, but even he did not much like what he 
 had called up. There are things a man may say, and 
 others he may not, and it was these last that Trent said. 
 He was morally rotten. Still, Gardiner did not want a row. 
 
 " Funny tale, very," he said, when Trent had finished 
 with the little girl at Chatham. " And now, I don't want 
 to hurry you, but isn't it getting rather late? I'm afraid 
 we shall be keeping Mrs. Trent up." 
 
 "My wife?" said Trent. He had just come to the 
 table to fill up his glass from the decanter which Gardiner 
 was keeping under his hand. Looking up with a smile, he 
 added another sentence. Simultaneously, Denis sprang to 
 his feet, the blood rushing into his face, and Gardiner caught 
 up the first thing that came to his hand the chisel that 
 had opened the packing-case and flung it at the speaker's 
 head. 
 
 " Get out, you filthy swine ! " 
 
 It took him in the middle of his forehead, and knocked 
 him over. He fell without an effort to save himself, flat 
 on the whole length of his back with his head in the fender. 
 There he lay. Denis raised the lamp on high; Gardiner 
 stooped over him and recoiled. 
 
 " Good Lord ! " he said, " the man's dead ! "
 
 CHAPTER II 
 A LIE THAT IS HALF A TRUTH 
 
 I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt. 
 
 GENESIS. 
 
 TRENT lay as he had fallen, with his head on the fender, 
 in a pool of blood which slowly enlarged itself and sopped 
 into the carpet. The sharp edge had fractured his skull. 
 He was stone dead, beyond possibility of doubt, yet both 
 men by a common instinct knelt down and tried to loosen 
 his collar. The heavy head tumbled sideways, against 
 Denis's arm. He sprang up and retreated, with a violent 
 shudder. 
 
 " Poor beggar ! Poor beggar ! " said Gardiner under 
 his breath. "I never saw anything so ghastly in my life! 
 This thing's like a razor." He ran his finger down the 
 edge of the fender. " Good Lord ! what an appalling busi- 
 ness ! Well, I suppose the first thing is to have in the 
 doctor ; he can't do any good, of course, but still 
 Luckily there's one actually staying in the house. Ring 
 the bell, do you mind, Denis? Or, wait a bit, I don't 
 want the maids poking round ; I'll go myself." 
 
 He was half-way to the door when Denis seized his arm. 
 
 " Stop a minute, Harry. Think." 
 
 " What's the use of waiting? May as well get it over ! " 
 
 '* No ; bui think think ! Can't you see what this 
 means?" 
 
 His agitation was contagious. " I can see it's going to 
 be very awkward with the house full of visitors, but it's 
 not the time to think of that, is it? What the devil are 
 you driving at ? " 
 
 " You killed him," said Denis baldly. 
 12
 
 A LIE THAT IS HALF A TRUTH 13 
 
 " I did not ! " 
 
 " You did. It's manslaughter, if not murder. It might 
 mean hanging, and it'll pretty certainly mean prison." 
 
 " Prison ! " 
 
 Every trace of color went out of Gardiner's face. In 
 the momentary pause some one tapped at the door. 
 
 Gardiner wrenched himself free, and Denis sprang to 
 shut out the intruder; but he was too late. The door, 
 left unlatched by Miss Marvin, slid open at a touch. There 
 stood Mrs. Trent, in her long muffling cloak and veil ; she 
 had come in quest of her husband. 
 
 Denis tried ineffectually to block out the view of the 
 room, the lamp on the floor, the dead man, and Gardiner. 
 
 " You you mustn't come in, Mrs. Trent. Your hus- 
 band's had a sort of seizure " 
 
 She said nothing, only plucked at his arm, struggling 
 against it, her eyes, her whole being concentrated on the 
 figure on the floor. Suddenly diving under the barrier, she 
 fled to his side and sank down, a mere swirl of draperies. 
 Denis, distracted, stooped over her. " Don't don't ! " he 
 said. " Let us fetch a doctor perhaps he's only 
 fainted " 
 
 " Fainted ! " She raised her tragic little head ; her eyes, 
 ranging round the room, met and fixed on Gardiner. " He's 
 been murdered ! " she cried out. " Murdered and you 
 did it, you ! " 
 
 The imaginative man is at the mercy of his nerves ; 
 there is always an unsound link in his courage, liable to 
 snap at any unexpected strain. It is a question of sheer 
 luck whether he finds out his weakness and is able to take 
 precautions beforehand. The unimaginative man never 
 understands this. To Denis's infinite dismay, Gardiner 
 simply backed into the corner, throwing up his arm as if 
 to ward a blow. Denis himself cried out the first denial 
 that rose to his lips. 
 
 " Mrs. Trent, it was an accident, I give you my word it 
 was ! " 
 
 " It was murder," she contradicted swiftly, her young
 
 14, CONVICT B14 
 
 voice gathering depth and force, scorn and anguish, her 
 outstretched finger quivering. "He did it, he killed him, 
 I read it in his eyes. Oh, he was all I had in the world, 
 and you've taken him away ! Oh, what shall I do what 
 shall I do?" 
 
 " Harry ! Say something tell her it's a mistake ! " 
 
 " He can't ! " cried the girl. " Look, look at him cowering 
 there ! Murderer ! He daren't face me he can't deny 
 it!" 
 
 Less of his own will than because Denis's hands were 
 on his shoulders, Gardiner slowly turned. He looked 
 hang-dog. " I didn't do it ! " he muttered, his eyes on the 
 ground. " You heard what my friend said it was an 
 accident ! " And then more loudly, gaining confidence : 
 " I swear I never laid a finger on him did I, Denis ? I 
 would have said so before I would have explained at 
 once, if I'd taken in what you were saying." 
 
 " You didn't lay a finger on him?" Mrs. Trent laughed 
 out, a queer high note of triumph. " Ah but you killed 
 him all the same! I know! I can prove it! What I 
 have here Besides, look, look at his darling face 
 Oh, Guy ! " The name broke from her in a great tremulous 
 convulsive sob. She put out her hands blindly, clutching 
 the edge of the table. " Oh, what is it ? Oh, oh, it hurts ! 
 I'm frightened Louisa ! " 
 
 " Great heavens ! Ring the bell, Denis quick ! " 
 
 Denis nearly brought down the bell-rope. The next 
 minutes were all confusion. People gathered like flies: 
 the boots, Miss Marvin, half-a-dozen frightened servants, 
 at last Mrs. Trent's elderly maid. She threw up her hands 
 in horror, but she wasted no time on the dead man ; her 
 concern was all for her mistress. " Come away, Miss Dot 
 dear, come ! Tain't fit for you here ! " The girl, shaken 
 now by terrifying sobs, suffered herself to be led away ; their 
 steps died out down the passage. 
 
 Meanwhile the doctor had arrived, a brusque and dapper 
 little man, hastily fetched in from the terrace. Gardiner, 
 who was everywhere at once, arranging everything, cleared
 
 A LIE THAT IS HALF A TRUTH 15 
 
 the room for him to make his examination, leaving only 
 Denis, Miss Marvin, and himself. 
 
 " Fracture of the base of the skull. No, I couldn't have 
 done anything even if I'd been on the spot ; must have been 
 practically instantaneous. Slipped, you say, did he? 
 H'm ! " He bent to sniff at the dead man's lips. " Where 
 was he standing ? " 
 
 Gardiner reconstructed the scene, exact in every detail 
 save one. " He came across to the table, to fill his glass, 
 I suppose, and seemed to lose his balance his feet flew 
 up in the air. We didn't think anything of it, did we, 
 Denis? It was the most ordinary tumble." 
 
 " Didn't strike against anything in falling, did he ? " 
 
 " No ; he went flat on his back, as you do on a slide." 
 
 " Sure ? Well, how do you account for that, then ? " 
 
 He pointed to a tiny star of blood on the dead man's 
 forehead. Gardiner looked as he felt, nonplussed. 
 
 " I can't account for it." 
 
 " You can't, hey? Your friend, then he any idea? " 
 
 " No," said Denis from the window, without turning 
 round. There was an uncomfortable pause. 
 
 " What's all this mess of glass about ? " asked Miss 
 Marvin, who was listening with all her intelligent ears. 
 
 "I don't know yes, I do, though; Major Trent had' 
 been having a whisky and soda, and dropped the tumbler as 
 he fell. I remember hearing it smash." 
 
 " There you are, then, sir. A bit flew up and hit him. 
 There's nothing cuts worse than broken glass, and the 
 splinters they'll fly anywhere, they're that light and frivolous 
 things. Why, I've nearly had my own eye out, falling up 
 the pantry steps with a tray in my arms ! That's what done 
 it, you may depend." 
 
 Thus Miss Marvin, practical and positive. Little Dr. 
 Scott nodded assent. 
 
 " H'm, yes; might have been that. The fellow was half 
 tipsy, of course. No need to tell his wife so, but he smells 
 like a pot-house. She seems to take it pretty queerly, by 
 the way, from the glimpse I had of her," he added, bending
 
 16 CONVICT B14. 
 
 his bright and piercing eyes on Gardiner. " Has a special 
 grudge against you, hey ? " 
 
 " She accused me downright of murdering him at first," 
 said the young man soberly. " Heaven knows why, for 
 I'd never set eyes on either of them before. I hope she 
 won't keep it up; it's rather a serious thing to have laid 
 to one's charge. But I suppose I'd better take no notice ; 
 women in her state of health often take queer fancies into 
 their heads, don't they?" 
 
 "Hey? Is that so? Poor child, poor child! I hope 
 we shan't have any further trouble with her. It's a bad 
 piece of work altogether," he added, getting up and dusting 
 his knees. " You know, of course, that the body mustn't 
 be moved till the police have seen it. You've sent for them, 
 I suppose?" 
 
 " No, I haven't." 
 
 " You haven't ? What are you staring for ? Have to 
 be an inquest, won't there? Can't give the certificate with- 
 out it, can I?" snapped the little man; and then, lowering 
 his voice out of respect for the dead : " You and your 
 long-legged friend over there, who looks as if he'd be the 
 better for a nip of sal volatile, you'll have to give evidence. 
 Any one would think you'd never heard of an inquest 
 before!" 
 
 " Of course. I was an ass not to think of it, but you 
 see it's awkward for me, with the house full of people. 
 However, that can't be helped. I'll telephone at once. 
 Yes, what is it?" 
 
 Mrs. Trent's maid, at the door, had a very grave face. 
 
 " Can the doctor please come at once, sir ? My mistress 
 is taken ill." 
 
 The two men were left alone. Denis, who had been 
 standing at the open window all this time, with his back 
 to the room, turned round now to see Gardiner on his 
 knees, hunting over the floor. " What are you doing? " he 
 asked, breaking his long silence. 
 
 " Looking for my chisel. I don't think I'll leave that 
 for the police to find."
 
 A LIE THAT IS HALF A TRUTH 17 
 
 The little doctor's jibe about sal volatile had not been 
 baseless. Denis, though in his youth he had been through 
 a frontier campaign which should have cured him of such 
 weakness, looked and felt rather sick. Gardiner was less 
 sensitive. He pursued his search without qualms. Denis 
 watched him. 
 
 " What are you goin' to say to the police when they do 
 come ? " 
 
 " What you said to Mrs. Trent. You began it, Denis." 
 
 " You'll have to give evidence on oath at the inquest." 
 
 " That won't trouble my conscience." 
 
 " I suppose they'll call me as well." 
 
 " Safe to," assented Gardiner. Denis said nothing. The 
 younger man, looking up, asked with a certain hardihood : 
 " Are you going to give me away ? " 
 
 " I won't if I can help it." 
 
 " By which you mean ? " 
 
 "If I'm asked right out, Did you throw the chisel at 
 him? I'll have to say Yes; but short of that I'll do all I 
 can to get you out of the scrape. I'd have been in it myself 
 if I'd been standin' where you were." 
 
 " Only you'd have owned up at once, whereas I'm not 
 going to," said Gardiner, with a short laugh. " I might 
 have known you couldn't tell a lie, Denis. Here, I can't 
 find this confounded thing. Where the devil can it have 
 got to ? " 
 
 Denis, putting his qualms in his pocket, went down on 
 his knees and joined in the search. They looked all over 
 the room, in every corner. 
 
 " I should say it must be underneath him," said Gardiner, 
 with a reflective glance at the body, " but I don't know 
 that I exactly want to look and see." 
 
 Denis with an uncontrollable shudder got up and retreated 
 to the window. 
 
 " How can you talk like this? You make me sick! " 
 
 " My good Denis, I don't feel like a murderer before the 
 corpse of his victim, if that's what you're driving at! I 
 deny that I was in the least to blame. Anybody with a
 
 18 CONVICT B14 
 
 spark of decent feeling must have done what I did. If 
 he broke his head, poor brute, that wasn't my fault ; it's 
 what you might call the act of God. I'm not going to 
 prison, if I can help it, for a crime I haven't committed. 
 In the meantime, I want my chisel." 
 
 " Well, it's not where you suggest," said Denis with an 
 effort, " for I remember seeing it after he fell." 
 
 " You did ? Then it must be here somewhere ! " 
 
 But it was not. 
 
 " What the devil can have come to it ? " said Gardiner, 
 biting his mustache, and betraying his agitation by his 
 language ; for he did not usually swear. 
 
 " Mrs. Trent was kneelin' over that side." 
 
 " What, do you think she's got it up her sleeve ? But 
 in that case why didn't she bring it out and denounce me? 
 Here, you'd better have a peg, Denis, you look as though 
 you wanted one. What the deuce should she carry it 
 away with her for ? " 
 
 " I don't know ; but it struck me she had something on 
 the tip of her tongue to say just before she collapsed. Per- 
 haps she meant to produce it, and then felt too sick." 
 
 There was a short silence. Denis sipped the whisky 
 which his friend had forced on him. It was not so much 
 Trent's death which had upset him, as Gardiner's failure, 
 and the part which it forced him to play. He hated any 
 contact with deception. 
 
 "Well, this is a sweet prospect," said Gardiner, with 
 another short laugh. " Mrs. Trent, and you let's hope 
 the coroner won't ask awkward questions ! Come on out 
 now; it's no use hunting for a thing that isn't there. I'll 
 lock up the room and summon the minions of the law." 
 " I wish you'd own up." 
 
 " Oh, confound you for a prig, Denis ! I can't go back 
 on what I've said, can I ? It might perhaps have been 
 better if I'd done it at first, but I'm committed to it now. 
 I must just go on and trust to luck. It was you began it; 
 don't you forget that ! "
 
 CHAPTER III 
 NOCTURNE 
 
 I saw a dream that made me afraid, and the thoughts of my bed 
 and the visions of my head troubled me. DANIEL. 
 
 UNDER the canopy of stars Harry Gardiner lay awake think- 
 ing of his sins ; among which he did not, then or later, 
 include any responsibility for the death of Trent. It was 
 a shocking business, of course, and he was sorry, exceedingly 
 sorry, things had turned out as they had ; but it was no fault 
 of his. You had to put a stopper on that sort of thing, in 
 the interests of public decency. He even counted it to 
 himself for righteousness that he had reacted so promptly 
 and so vigorously against the flesh and the devil. " I didn't 
 know I had it in me at this time of day to flare up like that ! " 
 he reflected ingenuously. Besides and this for Gardiner 
 settled the question and finally canonized his conduct had 
 not Denis said that in his shoes he would have done the 
 same? Only Denis wouldn't have turned coward and told 
 lies. 
 
 Gardiner was not given to introspection ; he did not like 
 himself well enough to think about himself, or stir up 
 his own motives. In Denis's company, however, he was 
 forced to think, because the unconscious Denis pointed the 
 contrast between them at every turn. Video meliora pro- 
 boque, deteriora sequor. This was the more painful, be- 
 cause Gardiner's eye was jaundiced; he saw his own vices 
 very large, his virtues and excuses very small. He knew 
 that the bloom had been rubbed off his sense of honor, but 
 it did not console him in the least to reflect that the rough 
 tumblings he had been through might very well have knocked 
 out of him any sense of honor at all. 
 
 19
 
 20 CONVICT B14 
 
 He and Denis had been together at school, from which 
 Gardiner had run or rather walked away to sea about the 
 time when Denis was going up for Woolwich. Gardiner 
 went, not from any of the usual motives, but because kind 
 friends had offered him a clerkship in one of the Dartford 
 banks. He could not refuse to take himself off his father's 
 hands, but he would not be a clerk. So one fine morning 
 he came to town, hung about the Surrey Commercial Dock 
 (not for the first time), and being a likely looking lad got 
 taken on at a pinch on board the s.s. Immerwald, bound 
 for South America. He signed on as O.S. ; but at the 
 last moment the cook of the Immerwald, coming on board 
 very drunk, fell down the companion and had to be left 
 behind in hospital with a broken leg; and Gardiner, on 
 the strength of some indiscreet boasts, was turned into the 
 galley in his stead to do his worst. It must be owned 
 that his worst was rather bad. But he was quick and 
 handy, and by the time they reached Bahia he was not 
 cursed by the steward after every meal. In Bahia he 
 deserted. Latin America had always been his goal. His 
 mother was half Spanish; he had absorbed the lovely lan- 
 guage of Castile in his cradle. 
 
 In Bahia they do not talk Spanish, but Gardiner was 
 not slow to pick up Portuguese; and in his first shore 
 berth, as cook in a sailors' eating-house, he added to his 
 vocabulary a smattering of Italian, Dutch, and Swedish. 
 French and German he had learned at home. He was 
 un-English in his gift for languages; un-English too in 
 other ways, notably in his readiness to take color from 
 his surroundings. During the next five years he generally 
 passed for a Spaniard. He wandered over the length and 
 breadth of America, going north to Los Angeles, west to 
 Mollendo, south to Santiago de Chile: good cooks are in 
 demand everywhere. He was a rolling stone, but he 
 gathered moss, which he dutifully sent home to the Kentish 
 rectory where he had been born. 
 
 At twenty-two he was in the Canaries, where Fate, in- 
 tervening, pushed him into his true vocation. An Orotavan
 
 NOCTURNE 21 
 
 fondista, who had come into money and was wild to get 
 home to Seville, offered him the goodwill of his place for 
 a song. Gardiner accepted for the fun of the thing, and 
 fell in love with his trade. Inns kept by a butler or a 
 cook are proverbially prosperous, and he had been butler 
 and cook in one. The Tres Amigos flourished ; Gardiner's 
 remittances home became regular and substantial. It seemed 
 that he had found his niche at last. 
 
 He stayed in Orotava three years. Then, without warn- 
 ing, for the first time since his son left home, the rector 
 missed his weekly letter. Four months went by, and Mr. 
 Gardiner nearly fretted himself into his grave. At the end 
 of that time the correspondence was taken up again from 
 Sydney. Over his reasons for this quick change to the 
 Antipodes Gardiner threw an airy veil. " I was plenty 
 sick of the Islands, I thought I'd get a move on," he wrote. 
 Mr. Gardiner accepted the excuse in all good faith. Tom, 
 his younger son, a conscientious young cadet, thought it 
 sounded rather fishy ; but Tom was always a little distrustful 
 of this un-English brother of his. 
 
 The truth being that Gardiner had been burning his fingers 
 in his first love affair. It was strange, in the life he had led, 
 that he should have kept his innocence so long. He owed 
 that to his mother, who had done what few mothers dare 
 taken her courage in both hands and told him plainly what 
 to expect. Then she set the seal on her counsels by dying 
 during his first voyage. She had been very fair, as well as 
 very wise; her son never forgot her, and found it easier 
 to follow her advice because her beauty and wits had trained 
 his senses to be fastidious. But he had a passionate tempera- 
 ment under his superficial hardness, and, never having 
 fribbled away his feelings in light connections, he came to 
 Pilar Anguita with all the fire of unspoiled youth. In her 
 pale tropical lily loveliness she seemed to him the incarna- 
 tion of his dreams, flower of the Virgin for whom she was 
 named. 
 
 She should have been what he thought her ; she belonged 
 to the guarded class, the class that does not allow its daugh-
 
 22 CONVICT B14 
 
 ters to set foot in the streets unattended. Her father was 
 a rich man, as riches go in Tenerife, her mother had been a 
 countess. Nevertheless, this sheltered lily was pleased to 
 run concurrent intrigues with Gardiner and with an idle 
 young sprig of nobility from Madrid. Gardiner, it should 
 be said, had no thought of intrigue ; his intentions were 
 strictly honorable, and he would have been content to " pluck 
 the turkey-hen " outside her window in humble adoration 
 till he was in a position to ask for her hand. When he 
 found himself launched into another course he was horrified, 
 conscience-stricken, eager only to make amends. But Pilar 
 had no intention of getting married. She preferred to enjoy 
 herself in her own way in her own home, with the con- 
 nivance of her ama, a latter-day Celestina. She ran her 
 brace of lovers till she made the inevitable blunder, and 
 Gardiner arrived on an evening dedicated to his rival. 
 
 The scene that followed brought the house about their 
 ears, and Pilar's career found an abrupt close. She was 
 whisked off to a convent, whence she eloped, a month later, 
 with one of her father's grooms, who, as it then came out, 
 had antedated both his rivals by a year or so. 
 
 Gardiner did not hear the end of the story till long 
 after. He had found it expedient to leave the Islands 
 immediately after his duel with Don Luis. You may call 
 a bullet in the chest pneumonia, and so long as you do 
 not die nobody can question your assertion. But the very 
 dogs in the streets of Orotava knew all about the duel, 
 which was conducted on the American plan of turning both 
 combatants loose on opposite sides of a wood, to shoot at 
 sight. Gardiner was out to kill ; only luck, and a silver 
 match-box, diverted his bullet from his rival's heart. 
 
 He went to Sydney to get away from himself. It took 
 him two years. Then he came home. England, which he 
 had seen twice only since he was sixteen, amused him at 
 first ; but he soon grew tired of it it was too cramped, he 
 wanted more space, fewer people. Still, he could not go 
 far ; his father was getting an old man, and clung to him. A 
 winter walking tour discovered his ideal on the Semois. He
 
 NOCTURNE S3 
 
 settled his affairs at the Easedale with his usual luck and 
 expedition, and was free to start his new life if only 
 
 Since the affair with Pilar, Gardiner had given women 
 a wide berth. The burnt child dreads the fire, and besides 
 he was mightily distrustful of his own temperament. He 
 did not make the mistake of despising all women for the 
 fault of one ; but raptures and revenges, duels and despair 
 did not fit into the scheme of life mapped out by his 
 practical mind. Friendships did. He had many friends. 
 He liked middle-aged men, unlucky men, lame dogs of 
 any kind ; and his friends were without exception better 
 men than he. A choice which showed that, given the 
 chance, he would grow upwards and not down. And of 
 all his friends Denis stood first, partly for old time's sake, 
 but mainly for no other reason than that of all men in the 
 world there was none he respected more. 
 
 " Dear old ass ! " he said to himself, between amusement, 
 affection, and envy, contrasting his own easy code with 
 Denis's Puritan stiffness. " One of God's dandies, that's 
 what he is, but I wouldn't have him different, no, I wouldn't, 
 though he's putting me in the divvle of a hole with his 
 whimsies. Of course he's right, I ought to have owned 
 up at once, it would have been far better in every way. But 
 that unlucky speech of his gave me a loophole, and I jumped 
 at it I'd have jumped at anything then. I didn't exactly 
 shine on that occasion, and he sees I didn't. ... I wonder, 
 would it be better even now to eat my own words and make 
 a clean breast of it? Upon my soul, I've half a mind to! 
 Ten to one I shall be caught out over this inquest ; in fact, 
 I don't see how I'm going to escape, unless Mrs. Trent is too 
 ill to show up and I don't desire that, be shot if I do! 
 poor little woman.*' 
 
 A blank supervened. He took his pipe out of his mouth 
 and listened. He was sleeping on the roof, a habit he had 
 learned in Orotava, and earlier in the night there had been 
 significant sounds below. All was quiet now, however. 
 " No, I definitely do not want her to be ill," he resumed 
 his meditation. " I haven't sunk to that yet, no matter
 
 24 CONVICT B14 
 
 what it costs me. And what will it cost me ? Not hanging ; 
 Denis was talking through his hat there, no jury could pos- 
 sibly bring it in murder. But prison? I'm not sure I 
 wouldn't rather hang." 
 
 He stared up at the stars. Walls and a roof instead of 
 the limitless freedom of the night. Day has its bounds, 
 either a bright blue dome or a ceiling of cloud, but night 
 is open to the infinite. You may lose yourself climbing to 
 the pale moon, you may send out your soul for ever through 
 space beyond the ranges of the stars. There were two men 
 in Gardiner. By day he was the prosperous practical inn- 
 keeper; by night even he himself did not know how much 
 he owed to those solitary nights of his, though he did know 
 that he would have hated to have Denis spread his mattress 
 on the roof beside him. In cities Gardiner was an alien ; but 
 trees, mountains, rivers were all alive for him, large calm 
 gracious beings to whom he belonged, with whom he was 
 at ease. Loneliness and freedom were the breath of his 
 life ; and was he to exchange them for an eight-foot cell with 
 a spy-hole in the door? "Decidedly I'd rather hang," he 
 said to himself in a crawling sweat. He faced a new idea. 
 " I believe I funk prison." 
 
 Fear. It was an unfamiliar feeling. He had never been 
 afraid of men, not even as a boy on the Immerwald when 
 the mate had been drinking ; he had kept out of the way at 
 such times, but he had grinned indifferent. Nor was he 
 afraid of death ; he had seen it too often. But this? " I've 
 never had much opinion of men who funk things, but I 
 believe I'd run like a hare if it was a question of prison 
 well, to all intents and purposes I did. Pleasant. I didn't 
 know I was a coward before. Hullo ! is that that poor little 
 woman again? If she loses her kid, I shall feel like a 
 murderer." 
 
 An idea, conceived in his mind hours before, had been 
 growing in secret, and now came suddenly to birth as a 
 resolution. "If she loses her kid through me, I'll hold my 
 tongue about Trent's last bit of beastliness," he said, and 
 registered the vow. " I do owe her something, and I'll pay
 
 NOCTURNE 5 
 
 this way. It'll mean a lot to her : I believe nothing, not his 
 death nor even the kid's, would hit her so hard as that last 
 thing he said. Probably it didn't in the least represent his 
 normal attitude, but a woman would never see that. She'd 
 feel as I felt when I heard Filar No, that I'll spare her ! 
 Yet it'll mean a lot to me too great heavens, but it will ! 
 Say I'm committed for trial after this inquest. If I tell the 
 whole truth, I shall probably be acquitted. If I don't I may 
 get six months ? a year ? Oh, Lord ! The point is that 
 mine's such a beastly lame story without that speech; I'm 
 throwing away my one excuse. . . . Yet if I speak I shall 
 make a clean sweep of all she has left, after practically 
 robbing her of her husband and child no, I can't and 
 won't, sea lo que fuere, in common decency I must hold my 
 tongue. Well, anyhow, this disposes of any idea of my 
 owning up voluntarily, as Denis wants by the way, I must 
 give him a hint to shut his mouth too. He'll do it to spare 
 a woman, even if it involves sacrificing me. Chivalrous is 
 Denis ; I suspect he'll come a bad cropper one of these days, 
 and it'll hurt him worse than it did me, because he's finer 
 stuff. There's the dawn I wonder how it looks over the 
 Semois at Frahan? What a jolly place the world is! and 
 I've an impression that in a manslaughter case they won't 
 allow bail. Well, I've done enough soul-searching for the 
 present, and I think I will now go to by-by. Amanecerd 
 Dios, y medraremos." 
 
 Five minutes later he was asleep under the paling stars, 
 while the dawn came up in silver over Helvellyn, this astute 
 young man who was ready to throw away everything for a 
 romantic scruple, and call it common decency. Gardiner 
 was not quite so astute, nor so level-headed, nor so cowardly 
 as he thought himself.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 WHEN FIRST WE PRACTICE TO DECEIVE 
 
 Bread of deceit is sweet to a man ; but afterwards his mouth shall 
 be filled with gravel. PROVERBS. 
 
 FATALITY AT GRASMERE 
 
 THE inquest on the body of Major Trent, who was killed 
 by a fall at the Easedale Hotel, Grasmere, on Thursday 
 evening, was conducted by Dr. Ellis, coroner for West- 
 morland, at the Easedale Hotel on Friday. 
 
 Mr. Helmsley Trent, of Perche Place, Marybourne, Hants, 
 identified the body as that of his brother, Major Guy Glisson 
 Trent, of Thurlow Park, Surrey, and stated that the age 
 of the deceased was thirty-nine years. He was traveling in 
 the Lakes with his wife on a motoring tour. 
 
 Mr. H. C. Gardiner, proprietor of the Easedale Hotel, 
 stated that the deceased, accompanied by his wife and her 
 maid, came to the hotel on Thursday evening and engaged 
 rooms for the night. They dined in their own apartments. 
 About 9.30 P.M. deceased came to witness's private parlor 
 and made a complaint about his room. It was not usual for 
 guests to come to his parlor. Deceased was not drunk, but 
 he was in a quarrelsome mood, and inclined to make a row. 
 Witness satisfied him that the inconvenience complained of 
 was due to the house being full. Deceased then stayed on 
 talking in a friendly way. About ten o'clock witness sug- 
 gested that it was getting late. Deceased came to the table 
 to fill his glass, and was standing by it when his feet slipped 
 from under him, and he fell backwards. No one was in the 
 room except witness and his friend, Mr. Merion-Smith. 
 They were sitting by the window. The table was between 
 them and the deceased. They could not have reached him 
 26
 
 WHEN FIRST WE PRACTICE TO DECEIVE 27 
 
 in time to prevent his falling. Witness went at once to his 
 assistance, and found that he was already dead. His head 
 had struck the fender, which was about eight inches high, 
 and had a sharp edge. Deceased did not speak or move at 
 all after the fall. 
 
 By the Coroner: Deceased had helped himself to whisky 
 several times uninvited. It was witness's private whisky. 
 He had a tumbler in his hand which was broken when he 
 fell. Witness suggested that it was getting late because he 
 thought deceased had had enough. He was not drunk. 
 
 By the Jury : Deceased was perfectly friendly after the 
 first. He was talking about India, where they had dis- 
 covered mutual friends. 
 
 Miss Emily Marvin, housekeeper at the Easedale Hotel, 
 said that the deceased came to her to complain of his room. 
 He was not drunk, but he had had a drop. He seemed a 
 very irritable sort of gentleman. Witness took the com- 
 plaint to Mr. Gardiner because she felt she could not manage 
 him herself. The floors were beeswaxed every Thursday 
 morning. They had been done that day. They were often 
 a bit slippery at first. She had once slipped down herself 
 and broken a tray of glasses. 
 
 Mr. Denis Arthur Merion-Smith, aeronautical engineer, 
 of Bredon, stated that he was in the parlor with Mr. Gardiner 
 when deceased came in. Witness did not join in the con- 
 versation, but he saw all that passed. Deceased's feet 
 seemed to fly up in the air. He was quite dead when they 
 reached him. Witness loosened his collar, but was sure it 
 would do no good. 
 
 The Foreman: What in your opinion was the cause of 
 the deceased's fall ? I should not like to say. He was not 
 intoxicated, but he was not quite steady on his feet. A per- 
 fectly sober man would probably have saved himself. 
 
 Dr. Leonard Scott, of Westby, said that he was staying 
 at the Easedale Hotel, and was called to attend deceased 
 at about 10.30 P.M. Deceased had apparently been dead 
 about ten minutes when he examined him. There was bleed- 
 ing from the ears, with a deep cut at the back of the head ;
 
 28 CONVICT B14 
 
 also a very slight abrasion on the forehead, but this was of 
 no significance. It might have been caused by a splinter 
 of glass flying up and striking him. Death was due to 
 fracture of the base of the skull, and was probably instan- 
 taneous. In cases of severe fracture that is not unusual. 
 
 By the Jury: If the deceased's feet slipped from under 
 him, as described by the other witnesses, his head would 
 strike the fender first. Deceased was a heavy man, and 
 such a fall would be quite sufficient to fracture his skull. 
 
 P. C. Thornborough gave details of the position of the 
 body. . . . 
 
 There was plenty more. Dr. Scott skimmed through it 
 all to the verdict of accidental death, and the jury's expres- 
 sions of sympathy with the widow. He read it standing in 
 the street of Ambleside, and then doubled the paper under 
 his arm and trudged the five miles back to Grasmere. 
 
 The Easedale Hotel was no longer full. A violent death, 
 an inquest, and a confinement had emptied the house and 
 attracted instead a crowd of casual sightseers. The lounge 
 and terrace were full of them. Scott asked for Gardiner, 
 and climbed many stairs to the roof. Coming out of a last 
 trap-door, he beheld Gardiner and his friend among the 
 chimney-pots, in close conversation, which died instantly on 
 his appearance. 
 
 There was a table, there were chairs, there was a bed 
 beneath an awning. Gardiner, at full length on a lounge, 
 swung his feet to the ground and welcomed his visitor. 
 Merion-Smith acknowledged him with a distant nod. 
 
 " I've brought you the local rag," said Scott, planting him- 
 self firmly on a hard upright chair. " It has a full report. 
 I walked over to Ambleside for it." 
 
 Gardiner thanked him amiably, glanced over the sheet, 
 and passed it to Denis, who read solidly through from end 
 to end ; this to keep out of the conversation. " Here's a 
 man I don't know: safe to be a bounder: confound his 
 impudence ! " such was his attitude to the casual stranger. 
 He did not like the middle classes.
 
 WHEN FIRST WE PRACTICE TO DECEIVE 9 
 
 " We're up here because he didn't fancy the parlor," 
 said Gardiner, with a lazy nod towards his friend. " Says 
 the place makes him sick. You'd expect a flying man to 
 have cranks, wouldn't you? He has enough to stock an 
 engine. What do you recommend for nerves, doctor ? " 
 
 " M'm! you don't look up to much yourself. You're the 
 color of brown holland." 
 
 " Me ? I'm as limp as a rag ; never felt so pale in my 
 life. All these agitations are so trying," said Gardiner, 
 filling his pipe and pushing the cigarettes across the table. 
 " Help yourself. I can recommend them; that fellow never 
 buys a cheap smoke. How's Mrs. Trent?" 
 
 " As well as can be expected." 
 
 " Poor little woman," said Gardiner. " I say, doctor, I 
 am beastly sorry about this. Sorrier than I've been about 
 most things in my life." 
 
 The sincere feeling behind his words drew out Scott's 
 impatient reply. 
 
 "Woman! She's a child: not a day over twenty. A 
 girl's too young at that age to marry and face this sort of 
 thing. I'd make it illegal." 
 
 " My dear man, don't shout at me ! 7 don't know how 
 old she is: couldn't tell her from Eve, if I met her. I never 
 saw her without that motor veil thing hanging over her face. 
 She's lost her child, hasn't she ? " 
 
 " She has." 
 
 " Do you know where she comes from, or anything about 
 her people ? " 
 
 " What the maid told me. She has no people. Lived 
 till her marriage with an uncle and aunt who owed her a 
 grudge about some money that was left to her over the 
 uncle's head. They wouldn't let her speak to a man, for 
 fear she should marry and they lose the enjoyment of it. 
 Trent made her elope with him. Naturally she looked on 
 him as a sort of St. George." 
 
 " A good thing he died before she found him out, then." 
 
 " He was a rascal, was he ? " 
 
 " Well, he wasn't precisely a St. George."
 
 30 CONVICT B14 
 
 " H'm ! " said Scott. It was an expression he used often, 
 and with varying meaning. Gardiner smoked in silence. 
 Denis, who had read to the end of the inquest, propped his 
 tall, immaculate person against a chimney-stack and watched 
 them both. When he did not snap, the little doctor ex- 
 pressed himself like an educated man, and his voice was 
 pure in quality. These things were in his favor. 
 
 " Has she still got that idea in her head about me ? " 
 asked Gardiner. 
 
 " How do I know, man ? Do you suppose I talk to my 
 patients about things of that kind? She hasn't mentioned 
 you at all, so far as I know. Lies still, says nothing, asks no 
 questions brooding over that scamp, I suppose. Well, 
 she's getting better, and that's all that concerns me." 
 
 " Yes," said Gardiner. He looked very tired. "If you 
 see a chance, give her my regrets and condolences and all 
 that, will you ? You might pitch it pretty strong. I shan't 
 be here to do it myself." 
 
 " You won't ? Where are you going ? " 
 
 "Oh, I've sold the place, and I'm clearing out. Didn't 
 you know? I was going in any case at the end of the 
 month, and I've put it forward a bit, to give my successor 
 a chance. All this fuss is very bad for trade. It's emptied 
 the house. It'll fill up again quicker if I'm out of it." 
 
 "Where are you going yourself, hey?" 
 
 "To the most beautiful place in the Ardennes, which I 
 design to run as a sanatorium no, not a common open- 
 air shop, but healthful bracing breezes for the jaded, don't 
 you know? Very great it's going to be. I invite you to 
 come out and pay me a visit." 
 
 " H'm ! do you think I have nothing to do but run about 
 the Continent enjoying myself ? " 
 
 " Oh, I thought you might combine business with pleasure 
 see the place, and then recommend it to your patients. I 
 should be charmed to receive them." 
 
 " You would, would you ? Not half so pleased as they'd 
 be to come."
 
 WHEN FIRST WE PRACTICE TO DECEIVE 31 
 
 " Why, who are your patients ? " asked Gardiner, idly 
 answering the significance of his tone. 
 
 " Criminals," said the little man. " I'm doctor at Westby 
 Jail where you'd be at this minute, if Mrs. Trent had 
 had her way." 
 
 Denis would not look at his f rieind. " I can't say I envy 
 you your job," remarked the young man. 
 
 " That just shows you don't know anything about it," 
 was the instant retort. " Criminals have souls as well as 
 you, haven't they? There are better men in prison than 
 scores I've met outside, whom our ungodly laws can't or 
 won't touch. I've known one man get eighteen months for 
 stealing a pair of boots, and another let off with a fine and a 
 caution for roasting a cat on the fire. Christians? Why, 
 we haven't got up to the ten commandments yet ! The Jews 
 did put Thou shalt not kill and Thou shall not commit 
 Adultery before Thou shalt not steal; but impurity's nothing 
 to us, and cruelty not much more. Christians ! We reserve 
 our jails for any one who dares to meddle with our sacred 
 property. Upon my soul, I wonder any man can find the 
 face to refuse the women a share in mending the laws of this 
 land, considering the pretty mess we've made of them our- 
 selves ! " 
 
 He shot out of his chair and marched to the edge of the 
 roof. Gardiner followed, laughing, and sat on the parapet. 
 A rose and silver sunset was darkening the fells above Ease- 
 dale Tarn, and the moon, a globe of pearl, made beautiful the 
 cold gray eastern sky. 
 
 " I don't know what you want to leave your own country 
 for," said Scott, still irascible, but simmering into calm. 
 " Isn't this good enough for you ? " 
 
 " Oh, I'm out for a land where they have more Christian 
 laws," said Gardiner easily. " England's too civilized to be 
 livable," he added. 
 
 Scott did not hear him. He was studying the house under 
 their feet. 
 
 " That's Mrs. Trent's room below, I suppose ? And your
 
 32 CONVICT B14 
 
 parlor below that, on the ground floor? Any one in that 
 south wing opposite could see straight in. Lucky for you 
 there was nobody watching on Thursday evening." 
 
 " Lucky? What the devil do you mean ? " 
 
 Scott turned round and stared in the face. 
 
 "You didn't want any visitors in hysterics, did you? 
 Enough people involved in it already, aren't there? What 
 do you mean yourself?" 
 
 " I thought," said Gardiner, " I thought you were echoing 
 Mrs. Trent's idea, and suggesting I'd done him in." 
 
 It was the best he could do, but it was not good. Scott 
 stared at him with his bright eyes, shifted them to Denis, 
 and brought them back to Gardiner again. Gardiner knew 
 that in the first moment of surprise he had started vio- 
 lently, changed color, showed all the signs of guilt. Nothing 
 could erase that impression. 
 
 " Your nerves must be in a bad way for you to jump like 
 that at an innocent remark," said Scott dryly. 
 
 " They are, I told you so. You can give me something 
 for them, if you like. I don't mind swallowing your beast- 
 linesses." 
 
 " No," said Scott. He pulled out his watch. " I must 
 go to my patient. Good-night to you both." He climbed 
 down through the trap-door, and then poked his head up 
 again to add : " Mind, I never meddle with what isn't my 
 concern. Never." 
 
 He was seen no more, and they heard him descending the 
 ladder. 
 
 " Damn," said Gardiner. 
 
 " He won't make any use of it," said Denis. " That's not 
 a bad little chap, Harry." 
 
 "Not a bad little chap? He's a most confoundedly in- 
 quisitive little chap! He won't rest till he's ferreted out 
 the whole thing. Oh, damn! I wouldn't have had this 
 happen for anything. Why the devil couldn't I keep my 
 countenance? I thought I might have trusted myself for 
 that!" 
 
 He paced up and down in a fury.
 
 WHEN FIRST WE PRACTICE TO DECEIVE 33 
 
 " You've had a tryin' time." 
 
 "Trying? I've had a scarifying time! That inquest, 
 when the foreman began pumping you I'd have mur- 
 dered you as well, Denis, if you hadn't been adroit. But 
 if I'm going to lose my nerve over such trifles as this 
 what an ass ! oh, what an ass ! " 
 
 He threw himself back on the lounge. Denis could not 
 help feeling that he took it rather weakly. He did not allow 
 for the rift in his friend's armor, that demoralizing fear of 
 confinement. In these last few days their positions seemed 
 to have been reversed. 
 
 " Scott can't do anything," he said rather coolly. '* It's 
 no use his suspectin' if there's no one he can pump, and 
 there isn't. I'm not going to give it away, and you aren't 
 either, when you're yourself again. As to Mrs. Trent, she 
 can't prove anything from the chisel you might have left 
 it there from openin' the case. Besides, Scott wouldn't dis- 
 cuss it with her. He's above that." 
 
 " I dare say you're right, but I wish I hadn't been such 
 an ass, and I wish he weren't the doctor at Westby," said 
 Gardiner, with a huge yawn, " it brings it so unpleasantly 
 near. Oh, Lord! I am tired. Do you mind clearing out 
 now ? I expect I shall sleep like a log. Please the pigs, in 
 another couple of weeks' time I'll be out of this over-civ- 
 ilized, over-populated country ! "
 
 CHAPTER V 
 THE FLY ON THE WALL 
 
 I only knew one poet in my life : 
 
 And this, or something like it, was his way. 
 
 How it strikes a Contemporary. 
 
 THREE days after the inquest Denis came up to town to in- 
 terview a timber merchant as to a contract about which 
 there had been a difference of opinion. He looked down 
 on the man through his eyeglass, carried all his points, and 
 departed, leaving exasperation in his wake. After this, 
 finding he had some hours to spare before he need catch 
 his train to Bredon, he went to pay a call on his cousin 
 Lettice. 
 
 Denis was, like his friend Gardiner, the son of a clergy- 
 man; but not of a poor country parson. Denis's father 
 was honorary canon of Rochester and rural dean; he held 
 a family living, and had besides a comfortable income of his 
 own. There was some excuse for the double name. The 
 Merions were a penniless Irish family with a pedigree de- 
 rived from the ancient kings (all Irish pedigrees derive from 
 the ancient kings). The Smith and the money had come 
 to them together, a couple of generations back, from an 
 eccentric old bachelor who had loved and lost one of the 
 daughters of the house. Marrying late, Canon Merion- 
 Smith was over fifty when his only son was born and his 
 wife died. Denis had only a nurse to mother him, but he 
 did not suffer; he was a very happy small boy, who from 
 his babyhood never thought of anything but engines. He 
 was not at all like his father, an easy-going Irishman with 
 a strong sense of humor, but they were inseparable friends, 
 who explored the path of knowledge hand in hand. There 
 was no question of parental authority. Denis did what was 
 34
 
 THE FLY ON THE WALL 35 
 
 required either because he considered it reasonable, or else 
 to please his father, to whom the staid small boy was a per- 
 petual fund of amusement. 
 
 Canon Merion-Smith taught his son at home till he was 
 fourteen, and then, rather doubtfully, sent him to Rochester,- 
 whither his friend Harry Gardiner had preceded him. 
 Doubtfully, because he was beginning to distrust his own 
 training. He did not think Denis would be happy at school ; 
 but he had no desire to be the parent of a prig. Denis was 
 not happy. He hated arbitrary rules ; he could never get 
 into his head that it was not his to reason why. Only Gard- 
 iner made his schooldays endurable. He stayed at Roches- 
 ter till he was nearly seventeen, and then passed unexpectedly 
 without extra coaching straight into Woolwich. He was 
 very clever, and strikingly handsome in a thin, aristocratic 
 way, but he thought no more of his abilities than of his 
 good looks. Denis was proud, but he had not a trace of 
 vanity. He was an example of the not uncommon blend of 
 class arrogance and personal modesty. 
 
 He passed out of Woolwich first in his batch, went to 
 Chatham, to Rangoon, saw active service in a frontier cam- 
 paign the most unhappy years of his life. He had gone 
 into the army to please his father, but he hated discipline, 
 and his heart was set on aeronautics. When Canon Merion- 
 Smith died, Denis resigned his commission and devoted him- 
 self to the problems of flight. The way of inventors is 
 hard. He lost all his own money and some of Gardiner's, 
 who came back into his life in time to do the beloved aero- 
 plane a service which Denis, conservative in gratitude, never 
 forgot. He brought himself to the verge of bankruptcy. 
 At his last sixpence he fell in with Sydney Wandesforde, a 
 well-known motor-racing amateur, who had transferred his 
 interest to the new sport, and was as keen on the practical 
 side of flying as Denis on the theoretical. He had what 
 Denis had not a bottomless purse and family influence 
 to back it. They joined forces, and from that time Denis's 
 future was assured. 
 
 His cousin Lettice Laetitia Jane Smith had been in
 
 36 CONVICT B14 
 
 his life for many years, since she, with her mother and 
 sisters, came to settle in the village of which Canon Merion- 
 Smith was incumbent. Rosabel and Stella were charming, 
 half Irish and half French ; but Lettice, the eldest, had al- 
 ways been Denis's ally. She was deliberate where they were 
 quick, silent while they chattered, methodical instead of 
 happy-go-lucky. They were clever, but she was the born 
 student, patient, accurate, thorough. The household was 
 always short of money, so Lettice, who suffered in that at- 
 mosphere of elegant muddle, left home as soon as she could 
 and set up for herself. She was very fond of her rela- 
 tions, and they of her, but she found them trying to live 
 with. Lettice had a temper ; she said herself it was a dumb 
 devil. Still, since it was very strictly dumb, you had to 
 know her well, and watch her carefully, before you dis- 
 covered its existence. 
 
 She now occupied an attic in Pimlico, and worked all day 
 in the British Museum library. She might have been more 
 comfortable in a boarding-house, but she preferred soli- 
 tude, or rather silence ; she was perennially interested in her 
 fellow-creatures, but she did not want to be talked to by 
 them. She was always the spectator, never the actor, hav- 
 ing eyes, and ears, a synthetic mind, and that delicate sense 
 of humor, pity and irony in one, which is a lamp to the feet 
 of its possessor. 
 
 But what marked Lettice off from other people was her 
 passion for self-obliteration. Most of us in our hearts love 
 to fill the center of the stage. Lettice was miserable there. 
 She liked to be the fly on the wall. Yet she was unselfish as 
 well as selfless, gentle, accommodating, all things to all men. 
 She was like a penny-in-the-slot machine for doing good : 
 you put in your need, out came her response : and she asked 
 no more gratitude than the machine. To thank her was like 
 touching the horns of a snail. A harmless whim in many 
 ways, yet with elements of danger; for tastes of this sort 
 strengthen as they grow, and Lettice's friends were begin- 
 ning to fear she would fade away altogether to an imper- 
 sonal ghost, unless something happened to call her back.
 
 THE FLY ON THE WALL 37 
 
 She should have been Merion-Smith too ; she owed the 
 affix to the same Irish grandmother from whom Denis had 
 inherited his profile, his accent, his superstitions, and his 
 family pride. He had been known to send back a letter ad- 
 dressed to the name of Smith. Lettice, on the other hand, 
 had dropped the hyphen with all celerity. Denis might lec- 
 ture her on her slackness ; she concurred amiably so long 
 as she was with him, and then went on her way exactly as 
 before. Lettice on the surface was all sweet pliability, but 
 underneath lay solid rock. Denis faced the world as an 
 obstinate, pugnacious Irishman, whereas a skilful hand 
 could guide him with a silken thread. Lettice read him like 
 a book and made soft fun of him, but always with a reserve 
 of peculiarly tender affection; she thought a great deal of 
 her cousin. And Denis thought a gread deal a very great 
 deal of her. He was aware that in half her innocent 
 speeches she was, to put it gracefully, having him on ; but 
 what did that matter? Lettice was Lettice. He did not 
 analyze his friends; he idealized them. 
 
 Denis was received at No. 33 Canning Street by the 
 daughter of the house, a smart young person in silk stock- 
 ings who invited him, with never a " Sir " to her sentence, 
 to step up and find Miss Smith in the top back attic. The 
 stairs were dark; Denis, gloomily reflecting on the deca- 
 dence of the lower classes, fell over a pair of boots and trod 
 in a dust-pan which flew up and hit him. He was not in 
 the best of tempers when he knocked at his cousin's door. 
 
 " Come in ! " called out an abstracted voice, wearily raised ; 
 and he obeyed. There stood Lettice in the middle of the 
 floor, holding out with both arms before her nose a news- 
 paper which enwrapped her, mind and body. Lettice had 
 been known, when she came in from the Museum after her 
 day's work, to read through the whole of a novel, standing 
 under the gas, before she moved to take off her hat. It 
 took some time for Denis's presence to penetrate, and then 
 she lowered her arms slowly and looked round. 
 
 " O-oh," she said. " I thought you were the milk. Sit 
 down, sit down."
 
 38 CONVICT BU 
 
 She folded up her paper and poked it under a book, took 
 away his hat and stick, and fetched the milk from the 
 passage, hurrying slowly, as her custom was. Denis sat 
 down, and discovered that he was very glad to be with her 
 again. A cooling fountain in life's dry, dreary sand, that 
 was what Lettice represented. She was not a beauty ; she 
 had none of the attributes of a heroine. Her nose was 
 nondescript, her complexion poor, her mouth large, though 
 there was character in the full under lip ; character also, and 
 brains, in the big forehead which she hid beneath her soft 
 brown hair. For the rest, she had drooping shoulders and 
 a long slim neck; she chose and put on her clothes like a 
 Frenchwoman ; but her best points were the set and shape 
 of her graceful little head, and the somewhat misleading 
 sweetness of her hazel eyes. 
 
 Her room was a long white attic, one end curtained off. 
 There was a window in the gable facing west, and in the 
 window a table overflowing with manuscripts and books; 
 sheets of foolscap covered with her graceful writing, an 
 Old English text, a Latin grammar, a treatise on court hand. 
 She was trying to make up for a haphazard education by 
 teaching herself. As she passed on her way to the cup- 
 board, she drew a sheet of paper out of the muddle and 
 presented it to Denis. 
 
 " Now you can just look through that while I'm making 
 the tea, and see if there are any mistakes," she enjoined 
 him in the minute expressive voice which was one of her 
 charms to those who found her charming. Denis found 
 himself faced by a Latin exercise. When he had learned 
 all his cousin could tell him about the wreaths and the roses 
 that adorned the girls and the queens, he turned the page, 
 and came on something more attractive. In her hours of 
 ease Lettice was a poet. Looking up from her task with the 
 bread knife, she saw what he was doing, turned a deep 
 pink, and silently but swiftly removed the sheet from the 
 fingers. Denis laughed. 
 
 " Haven't you anything to show ? " 
 
 " No, I haven't," said Lettice, acerb and forbidding.
 
 THE FLY ON THE WALL 39 
 
 " ' Sheep on a lonely road, 
 Gray in the gray '" 
 
 Denis quoted maliciously. The poet covered her ears with 
 her hands. 
 
 " Oh, do-o-on't ! " 
 
 " Well, let me see the rest of it ! " 
 
 " Well, it isn't finished ; it's no good looking at a thing 
 till it's finished, is it?" retorted Lettice in a soft flurry of 
 exasperation. Her poetry was dug out of her own soul, and 
 she suffered the pains of vivisection in hearing it discussed. 
 Denis knew this well, and Lettice knew he knew it. Look- 
 ing like an affronted kitten, she retired into a silence that 
 the brutal critic might have called sulky, and seemed dis- 
 posed to stay there. But Denis knew how to make his peace. 
 Just then the kettle boiled over. He was quick to lift it 
 off and to put it down again in a hurry, shaking his fin- 
 gers. Before he could find his handkerchief, down swooped 
 Lettice's arm ; she seized the handle, bore it away, took her 
 time over filling the teapot, ostentatiously stayed to settle the 
 cozy; then, having displayed beyond possibility of oversight 
 the superior hardness of her palm, she replaced the kettle 
 on the hob, and returned to her toasting fork, exuding vain- 
 glory. 
 
 This incident settled, they talked of the aeroplane. This 
 was invariably Lettice's first question, and it brought down 
 a shower of information, all water on a duck's back. Con- 
 sidering what excellent brains she had, it was surprising how 
 dense she could be when she chose. When Denis's fluent 
 Irish tongue ran dry, she was ready with her next question. 
 
 " And did you have a nice time at Grasmere with dear 
 Harry?" 
 
 " No, I didn't," said Denis with unexpected force. " I 
 had a perfectly beastly time ! " 
 
 " Dear, dear ! How was that ? " 
 
 " Oh, things went wrong," said Denis vaguely. He 
 wanted to tell the whole story Lettice seemed to purify 
 and sweeten all she took into her knowledge, and this badly 
 needed sweetening. He hated it; he hated his evasions at
 
 40 CONVICT B14 
 
 the inquest, what Gardiner called his adroitness ; he hated 
 soiling his fingers; he was vaguely dissatisfied with his 
 friend. But since, for Gardiner's sake, he could not tell 
 her all, he told her nothing. Half-truths were no good with 
 Lettice. " By the by, why didn't you come ? " he said. " I 
 was expectin' you all the time. I couldn't think where 
 you'd got to. You as good as promised to turn up ! " 
 
 " Were you very disappointed ? " 
 
 " No. No, I can't say I was not altogether. I want 
 you to meet Harry, but I didn't want you this time. Queer 
 chap he is you may think you know a man, but you never 
 do." 
 
 Lettice's eyebrows moved upwards ever so little. " How 
 do you mean queer?" 
 
 " Oh, I don't know. He has all sorts of cranks. Last 
 time he was at Bredon, that cold spell when all the pipes 
 were burstin', nothing would do but he must sleep out in the 
 garden all the time. And it was just the same at Gras- 
 mere, though it rained cats and dogs. You can't be even 
 with his fads," Denis added with a sigh, extending himself 
 in his chair, his long legs stretched half across the hearth. 
 " He's off almost at once to that place in the Ardennes I 
 was tellin' you about. I've promised to run over there next 
 summer. I wish you'd come too, Lettice, as you didn't 
 bring it off this time." 
 
 "You said you didn't want me," murmured Lettice re- 
 proachfully. 
 
 " I didn't want you when things were all beastly. But I 
 do want you to meet Harry. I want your opinion of him." 
 
 To this Lettice made no reply. She set a few slow, neat 
 stitches in the cloth she was embroidering. 
 
 " Whereabouts is it, this place in the Ardennes ? " 
 
 " Near Bouillon. You can get there for next to nothing, 
 if that's what you're thinkin' of, but I wish you'd let me 
 take you. I did rather well over that deal this morning and 
 I'm rollin'. After all, you're as good as my sister. You 
 might just as well." 
 
 Lettice did not thank him; that was taken for granted.
 
 THE FLY ON THE WALL 41 
 
 They understood each other so well that words were often 
 superfluous. 
 
 "If it's not very expensive I might manage it myself," 
 she said. " My old man in Harley Street says I've got to 
 take a holiday, so I suppose I must go somewhere, just to 
 satisfy him. And I should rather like to see the Ardennes." 
 
 " Have you been to the doctor again ? Why didn't you 
 tell me before, Lettice ? What does he say ? " 
 
 " He says," said Lettice with inimitable unction, " that I 
 am in a state of thorough nervous exhaustion, and ought to 
 take six months' rest. So." 
 
 " Then I hope you're going to do it ! " 
 
 Lettice smiled. She did not look particularly docile. 
 Denis was beguiled into lecturing her about her health, 
 though he knew it was time wasted nay, rather, time mis- 
 spent. For Miss Smith was like a pig, and if you pulled 
 her one way she was apt to go the other. In this case, how- 
 ever, it seemed that she had fairly made up her mind before 
 he came to a holiday abroad, for presently she let slip that 
 she had been studying a guide to the Ardennes, which she 
 had borrowed from a neighbor below. Denis sent her down 
 to borrow it again. 
 
 While she was away he wandered about, looking at her 
 books. Under a fat dictionary he came upon the paper she 
 had been reading when he entered, and he pulled it out 
 to see if she still took what he called the Radical rag. Its 
 name stared him in the face: The Westmorland Gazette. 
 It was doubled back at page four: Fatality at Grasmere. 
 
 He wheeled as she came into the room. " Lettice, how 
 on earth did you get hold of this thing? " 
 
 She stopped dead for a moment, then came on. 
 
 " I ordered it." 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 " Because I'd seen something about the accident, and I 
 wanted to know more. So I went to Finch's at the corner 
 and asked him to get me the local paper, and he did." 
 
 Lettice had a talent for explaining the obvious. 
 
 " Where did you see anything about the accident ? "
 
 43 CONVICT B14 
 
 " There was a paragraph in my halfpenny rag." 
 
 "Confound! " said Denis, black as a thunder-cloud. 
 
 Lettice smiled, recovering her equanimity as he lost his. 
 " Well, you shouldn't go and make interesting things like 
 aeroplanes and become a public character," she murmured 
 pianissimo. 
 
 " Why didn't you tell me that you knew ? " 
 
 She looked at him, allowing her speakingly derisive eyes 
 to retaliate that question. 
 
 " I couldn't tell you about it, it wasn't my affair," said 
 Denis hotly and confusedly. " Gardiner doesn't want the 
 story all over the place. How could I help it, Lettice ? But 
 when I was talkin* about Easedale, I think you might have 
 let me know you knew ! " 
 
 " My dear child, I couldn't begin on it if you didn't, could 
 I ? " said Lettice patiently. " I was simply longing to ask 
 questions. It was nice, proper, lady-like feeling made me 
 hold my tongue, what you always say you like. And now 
 you're cross with me ! Well, well." 
 
 Denis was cross ; he stood crumpling the paper in his 
 hands, visibly fuming. Lettice took it away from him and 
 smoothed it out. 
 
 " I shan't talk about it to Mr. Gardiner when I come to 
 Rochehaut, if that's what you're afraid of." 
 
 " Are you really comin' to Rochehaut ? " 
 
 " Don't you want me now you know I know ? " 
 
 She looked at him with those impish eyes. 
 
 " You know too much, Lettice ! " said her cousin, dis- 
 comfited, half laughing. She turned away with her small 
 foreign shrug. 
 
 " Dear, dear ! there's no pleasing some people ! "
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 SIC TRANSIT 
 
 Are you the new person drawn towards me? 
 
 To begin with take warning, I am surely far different from what you 
 suppose. 
 
 WALT WHITMAN. 
 
 ON a cold morning in July, 1913, Lettice climbed down 
 from a Belgian third-class carriage, dragging her luggage 
 behind her, and found herself at Graide station, province 
 of Luxemburg. Lettice was an expert in the art of travel- 
 ing cheaply. She had left Victoria the previous afternoon, 
 in a slow train, because the boat expresses don't take third- 
 class passengers. After a wait at Dover, she had crossed 
 by night in the fetid atmosphere of the second-class ladies' 
 cabin of the old Rapide, and had been excessively ill. Con- 
 tinuing her journey at 4 A.M., she had traveled to Brussels 
 in a smoking compartment with all the windows shut. 
 Namur, Dinant, Houyet she lost count of her changes 
 after that. Sometimes she faced the engine ; more often she 
 had to ride back ; once a Belgian pere de famille marched 
 across the width of the carriage and ruthlessly pulled up the 
 window, her window, under her very nose. Always some- 
 body was smoking, to the usual accompaniments, under the 
 notice " Niet Rooken " ; and always, at every change, she 
 had to drag her heavy basket down steps and across lines 
 of rail and heave it up to racks far above her aching head. 
 We buy our pleasures dear when we are young. But this 
 was the end. At Graide she was to meet the diligence which 
 should land her at the doors of the Hotel Bellevue. 
 
 Of course there was no porter. In those days there 
 never were any porters at a Belgian country station. If 
 you didn't expedier your baggage (as every self-respecting
 
 44 CONVICT B14 
 
 traveler should), you had to carry it yourself. Lettice's 
 baggage was what is known as a pilgrim basket, gone at 
 the corners, with a double strap which had slipped into a 
 string round its middle, leaving the ends bulging. Bend- 
 ing to it like a patient donkey, she trailed across the loose 
 gray gravel to the exit, and at last was outside in the road. 
 The Cafe de la Gare confronted her, a yellow house with 
 red facings and a blue slate roof. " Bureau de la diligence " 
 appeared on its sign, but the customary shabby, dirty, stuffy, 
 rickety ruin of a two-horse shandrydan was nowhere to be 
 seen. 
 
 " Pour Rochehaut, madame ? " 
 
 A smart commissionaire had seized her basket. Round 
 his cap in gilt lettering ran the words, " Hotel Bellevue." 
 Lettice nodded distrustfully, and in a trice was whisked 
 round the corner, still clinging to her strap. Behold the 
 diligence of the Hotel Bellevue a brand-new motor char-a- 
 banc, glistening in tan-colored varnish ! The commission- 
 aire threw open the door with a flourish worthy of the boule- 
 vards, and Lettice subsided in a corner as if her patient 
 knees had at last given way. 
 
 In the fresh air she presently revived enough to take notice 
 of her fellow-travelers. There were two, both women, the 
 elder obviously a maid. Lettice had seen them before, at 
 Dinant, descending from a venture-salon with a porter in 
 attendance, and had marked them with a malevolent eye, 
 having tried in vain to secure that porter herself. But even 
 without that memory she would have noticed the younger 
 of the two. 
 
 She was a tall slip of a girl, scarcely out of her teens, but 
 not dressed like an ingenue. Her French hat, her furs, her 
 gloves, the exquisite cloth of her suit, all her traveling ap- 
 pointments might have belonged to a married woman of 
 thirty. Yet she was not married, for there was no wedding 
 ring among the diamonds on her finger, and Lettice, whose 
 eyes were as good as opera-glasses, could read the label on 
 the gold-mounted dressing-case in the rack above her head 
 Miss D. M. O'Connor, Hotel Bellevue. She looked fragile,
 
 SIC TRANSIT 45 
 
 as if recovering from an illness, and her figure was still 
 slender and undeveloped; but she had masses of exquisitely 
 glossy dark hair, and great dark eyes, full of fire and gloom. 
 Young though she was, she knew how to get herself obeyed. 
 When she scowled (and she could scowl, with those black 
 brows), even a Belgian porter came to attention. Lettice 
 was wondering what it was that had set her at odds with 
 the world, and written such bitterness on the small, brooding 
 face, when the dark eyes looked up and met hers with a 
 smile, sudden and child-like, which had just the effect of a 
 sunburst over a gloomy landscape. 
 
 But before she could speak the unsociable Lettice hurriedly 
 averted her eyes and blotted herself in her corner. She 
 make talk with a stranger for an hour, and begin an ac- 
 quaintance which would have to be continued, with smiles 
 and remarks about the weather, every time they chanced to 
 meet in the hotel ? No, thank you ! The most interesting 
 character study was not worth that. Lettice would have 
 walked a couple of miles any day to avoid a chance ac- 
 quaintance. 
 
 Miss O'Connor stared, half incredulous; then the clouds 
 came down again with a vengeance, and she turned her back 
 on the ungrateful Lettice and looked out of the window. 
 They were passing down a straight road between long strips 
 of arable land, wheat, potatoes, cabbages, beets, fenceless 
 and flat as a table; and with the road went an avenue of 
 trees, each lopped to a mop-head atop of its naked stem, 
 crawling away like a green caterpillar to the limit of sight. 
 In the distance a tiny white church raised a gray conical spire 
 like an extinguisher ; a group of white and gray dolls'-houses 
 clustered below, drowsily basking, blue haze and brown dust, 
 under the hazy sky. 
 
 " Louisa ! What time do we get to Rochehaut ? " 
 " Half-past twelve the book said, Miss Dot." 
 " Which means half-past one, I suppose," said Dorothea 
 O'Connor in her caustic young voice. They were speaking 
 in undertones, but Lettice, whose ears were as sharp as her 
 eyes, could not help hearing every word. "This is the
 
 46 CONVICT B14 
 
 most hatefully ugly place I've ever seen. Of course one 
 expects advertisements to lie, but there is such a thing as 
 overdoing it." 
 
 When Dorothea was annoyed, she let it be known. 
 Louisa, faithful soul, bowed her head before the storm ; but 
 she paid about as much attention as to the rages of a child. 
 
 " Oh, Miss Dot dear, I wish you'd leave this dreadful 
 heathen country and come back to England ! " 
 
 " I'm coming back to England when I've done what I 
 want, and not before." There was a pleasing vigor and 1 
 directness in Dorothea's statements. " I'm sorry for you, 
 Louisa, but after all you'll be able to get a cup of real Eng- 
 lish tea at the Bellevue all the advertisements said so ! " 
 
 " Tisn't tea I'm thinking of, Miss Dot, but this dreadful 
 wicked idea of yours. Deceiving your dear kind uncle and 
 all " 
 
 " It's no business of Uncle Jack's what I do, and if I 
 don't tell him it's only because I don't want him to be 
 bothered." Louisa sighed and shook her head. *' I won't 
 be moaned at," Dorothea declared, with an inimical flash. 
 " No, and I won't be prayed at either ! I've told you, you 
 can go home if you like; but if you stay, you'll just have 
 to resign yourself, because I am going through with it I 
 should despise myself for ever and ever if I didn't ! There : 
 is that plain ? " 
 
 " Oh, Miss Dot, you have shook your hat so crooked ! " 
 was Louisa's earnest reply. Dorothea laughed, as she sub- 
 mitted to have it set straight. 
 
 " I rather hate you sometimes, Louisa darling, you make 
 me feel such a brute," she said, " but I'm going on, all the 
 same. Dear me, is this place an example of the unsur- 
 passed view, I wonder? It'll add a fresh joy to Rochehaut 
 if there's an outbreak of typhoid! " 
 
 They were passing through the village which in the dis- 
 tance had looked so trim. Set well back from the road on 
 either side was a row of white houses ; before each house, a 
 midden, foursquare ; before the middens, a gutter, running 
 auburn; between the gutters, the main street, down which
 
 SIC TRANSIT 47 
 
 the omnibus had to pass. Dorothea, her face buried in her 
 handkerchief, was rummaging her bag impatiently for a bot- 
 tle of lavender salts, when something made her glance at her 
 fellow-traveler. Lettice was no longer gray, she was green, 
 and trying weakly to unfasten her veil. Suddenly her sur- 
 prised and unyielding waist was clasped by a peremptory 
 arm, and the lavender salts were thrust under her nose. 
 
 " How many hatpins have you ? oh, here's the last. 
 Move my things off the seat, Louisa. Now put your head 
 down on these rugs ; that's better. We shall be out of this 
 hateful village directly." 
 
 The amazed Lettice found herself laid flat on the cushions. 
 Automatically she rose up, reacting like a bent twig; in- 
 stantly she was pressed back again. 
 
 " No, you must lie still. I saw you at Brussels, looking 
 as ill as ill, even then. Are you ill, or is it only the travel- 
 ing that's upset you ? " 
 
 " I had a bad crossing," said Lettice, in a tone that was 
 almost surly. 
 
 " A bad crossing ? You came over last night ? Then I 
 don't wonder at anything. My flask, Louisa no, that's 
 the eau-de-Cologne, how stupid you are ! I'm going to give 
 you a liqueur; brandy's hateful, and no good at all, but a 
 curagao does pull you together. Open your mouth that's 
 right " 
 
 Lettice had opened her mouth to say she did not like 
 liqueurs, but she was given no time ; her zealous nurse im- 
 mediately poured the dose down her throat. This was an 
 outrage it was forcible feeding and on Lettice, of all 
 people ! Lettice, who could not bear so much as to be 
 touched against her will! Coughing in the most lady-like 
 way, pink with choking and with injured dignity, she pre- 
 sented a pathetic sight for any one with eyes to see. Dor- 
 othea had none. 
 
 " You aren't one bit fit to be going about alone and look- 
 ing after yourself," she said, in a mixture of severity and 
 solicitude. " You ought to be in bed ! Are you cold ? 
 why, your hands are like lumps of ice ! My cloak, Louisa.
 
 48 CONVICT B14 
 
 When we get to the hotel you shall have a hot bottle and 111 
 see after you properly. No, don't try to talk." 
 
 Hitherto Lettice had expressed no gratitude, but now, 
 having been told to keep silence, she said " Thank you," 
 in a tone of acid obstinacy. It is trying to be done good 
 to against your will. Nobody had ever before attempted 
 such a liberty with Lettice. Denis might lecture, but he 
 never dreamed of enforcing his advice ; while her own sis- 
 ters would have laughed at the possibility. " Make Lettice 
 do what she doesn't choose ? " cried Rosabel. " You might 
 just as well argue with the leg of that table! " 
 
 Lettice, of course, did not agree with them; she consid- 
 ered herself to be of a yielding disposition, bordering on 
 flabbiness ; but there are things the meekest cannot stand. 
 The moment Dorothea's back was turned she rose up and 
 put on her hat again. After that she felt happier, if less 
 comfortable. Lettice was one of those persons who are 
 never really happy when they are comfortable; instinctive 
 dread of slackness (springing by rebound from innate love 
 of luxury) drove her to deny her body in order to ease her 
 soul. Certainly her body was not at ease. Violent reme- 
 dies did not suit her. It might have been the curagao, or 
 the insult, or both of them together, but her sensations were 
 growing acute. 
 
 She saw nothing when they plunged into a rick dark green 
 valley of woods. She was blind to the silvery splendors of 
 distant hills and river. They turned into a wide courtyard 
 and drew up. Lettice saw only that the Hotel Bellevue had 
 many piazzas and balconies, all full of people, all watching 
 the arrival of the coach. Dorothea descended on one side. 
 Her patient slipped out on the other and made towards the 
 door. 
 
 "Why, Lettice!" 
 
 It was Denis, who had sprung out of his chair and was 
 advancing towards her, smiling, as the phrase goes, all over 
 his face. Lettice, while wishing him at Jericho, produced 
 an answering smile. 
 
 " Well," said she.
 
 SIC TRANSIT 49 
 
 "Why didn't you tell me you were coming? You said 
 you meant to spend the night in Brussels ! You might have 
 sent a wire ! " 
 
 " I forgot," said Lettice, still edging towards the door. 
 She wished he would not stand directly in the way. Denis 
 at last began to perceive that something was wrong. 
 
 " Did you have a bad crossing ? You're all the colors of 
 the rainbow, my dear girl " 
 
 Lettice suddenly swerved past him and almost ran to- 
 wards the house. As she reached the door another dense 
 and solid person came out, and got hopelessly in the way. A 
 delay at such a moment . . . well, if it had been anybody in 
 the world but Lettice . . . and even as it was . . . 
 
 " Good Lord ! " said Denis. 
 
 The new-comer, who was Harry Gardiner, turned with 
 commendable presence of mind and rang for a maid. 
 " Show this lady to her room " 
 
 " And take her a cup of tea at once," finished Dorothea, 
 coming up breathless to resume command. " I'll see to her 
 myself in a moment." 
 
 Lettice's last thought, as she hid her shame within the 
 house, was that she must on no account forget to lock her 
 door.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 AUBADE 
 
 Why should a heart have been there, 
 In the way of a fair woman's foot? 
 
 E. B. BROWNING. 
 
 THE house was asleep. The white corridor was filled with 
 blue reflections of the sky, from the French window open 
 at its north end ; but the blind of the south window opposite 
 glowed golden, and streaks of sunlight slipped in, slanting 
 up the wall. The house was asleep, every one was asleep 
 except the sun, who had just risen to his beneficent work, 
 rejoicing as a giant to run his course. Denis's kitten (he 
 had saved her from some boys who wanted to drown her in 
 the river) poked her small black inquiring nose round the 
 glass door, and scampered in to play with the vine-leaf 
 shadows dancing on the wall. She patted them with velvet 
 paw, crouched with tail lashing for a spring, reared up and 
 fell over sideways and scuffled round and round on her back, 
 clawing and biting her own tail. 
 
 There Gardiner saw her when he too came in from the 
 balcony, walking in his socks and carrying his wading boots. 
 He scooped her up in one hand and bore her down the cor- 
 ridor to Denis's room. No one answering his tap, he 
 walked in. A small white chamber, facing west ; the cur- 
 tain drawn back from the open lattice, and Denis lying 
 asleep beneath. Everything about him was sternly neat. 
 His clothes were folded on a chair, his boots stood side 
 by side, his Bible and Prayer Book lay on the window-ledge 
 at the bed's head. The wind had blown back the cover, and 
 Gardiner stooped to read the inscription. " Denis Arthur 
 Merion-Smith, from his Affectionate Father, March 4, 
 50
 
 AUBADE 51 
 
 1897 " the date of his confirmation. Underneath, the ref- 
 erence I Tim. v. 22. Gardiner with unscrupulous curiosity 
 turned the pages till he found the verse, underscored: 
 " Keep thyself pure." He stood looking at his friend's un- 
 conscious face with something of envy. He was never in 
 doubt as to the relative worth of himself and Denis. 
 
 " Mrrreow ! " said the kitten, suddenly biting and kicking 
 in earnest. Gardiner dropped her on the sleeper, and 
 laughed to see his violent start. 
 
 " Come on fishing, lazy brute ! " 
 
 " What, now ? " asked Denis, rubbing his eyes and sooth- 
 ing the kitten at the same time. 
 
 " Yes, now, pronto, this instant. I've wasted the prime 
 of the morning already, because I knew I shouldn't be 
 able to drag you out of your bed before." 
 
 " All right, I'm on," said Denis with disarming amiability. 
 Gardiner left him feeding the kitten with biscuits, and went 
 down to his larders, which he knew as well as any careful 
 housewife. He secured some of yesterday's croissants, but- 
 ter in a china pot, sliced ham, half-a-dozen shrimp patties, a 
 pocketful of pears ; he boiled up coffee on an electric stove 
 to fill his flask, and was ready to join Denis in the courtyard. 
 
 Just after four : the morning blue and gold and breathless 
 still. They came into the road which runs embanked along 
 the heights of Rochehaut, and paused at the parapet. Deep 
 the cleft of the valley, rich in forests, dropping sheer to the 
 river and what a river! The Semois, on a map, looks 
 like a dislocated corkscrew ; she twists and she turns, tying 
 herself into S's and W's, running impartially north, south, 
 east, and west among her maze of hills. Here at the foot of 
 the cliffs of Rochehaut she sweeps a long loop at the be- 
 holder, inclosing in her slender silver arms a long, long 
 narrow peninsula of hills which swell up to end in a rounded 
 baby mountain immediately below. This is Frahan. The 
 ends of the loop run far away out of sight among the hills, 
 incurving so that you would swear they must meet some- 
 where in the chaos of dim peaks on the horizon. The sun 
 from behind the watchers was faintly gilding the velvety
 
 52 CONVICT B14 
 
 gray-green crest of the peninsula, and the tiny church of 
 Frahan, on its flank, gleamed like an ivory toy ; but the river 
 cleft was still deep in hyacinthine shadows, veiled in the 
 gauzes of the mists, drenched with the gray-silver of the 
 dews. 
 
 The fishermen found a winding path which led them to 
 the river, and turned down-stream, fishing and wading. Of 
 all the lovely daughters of the Meuse the Semois is the love- 
 liest. The Lesse, issuing cold and mysterious from the cav- 
 erns of Han, has been insulted by a railway ; the Ambleve is 
 gloomy with dark bowlders and wild monotonous hills ; the 
 turbulent Ourthe, beautiful among the mountains in the 
 ravine of Sy, is elsewhere spoilt by quarries and by tourists. 
 But the Semois is never gloomy ; she seems to hold the sun- 
 shine in her golden sands. You may follow her wrigglings 
 for a whole morning and see no road, no tilth, no sign of 
 human handiwork save the very primitive cart track which 
 conducts you impartially beside the water and through it. 
 
 A slab of rock, embedded in the turf, served as their 
 breakfast-table. A wall of limestone rose behind, graced 
 with ferns and mosses and the delicate carmine leaflets of the 
 wild geranium. Fallen bowlders shelved half across the 
 stream, which surged round them in a ruff, or slid past like 
 thin crystal. What richness of color everywhere ! They 
 could see the river dancing towards them down the green 
 and smiling valley, bluer than the sky, a-sparkle with dia- 
 monds, beset with flowers forget-me-nots, the tender lilac 
 crocus of the autumn, yellow lilies on a pool where the 
 Semois condescended for a moment to lie still. The woods 
 were green as sycamores in May. A kingfisher swept by, 
 tropically brilliant. On the purple mint at the water's edge 
 a great butterfly sat poised, pivoting round the flower-head, 
 stiffly opening and closing its gorgeous, downy wings of 
 scarlet, black, and white. 
 
 " Talk to me of your beastly England ! " said Gardiner, 
 flat on his back in the grass. " A man can breathe here. 
 Look at those trees none of your spindly copses with the 
 sky showing through on the other side, but good solid cut-
 
 AUBADE 53 
 
 and-come-again forest, for leagues on end ! I could say my 
 prayers to a forest." 
 
 " It's good fishin'," said Denis, more intent on his catch 
 than on the scenery. The Ourthe may brag of its salmon, 
 but the Semois has noble trout. " Better than it was at 
 Grasmere." 
 
 " Oh, Grasmere. . . ." 
 
 Gardiner's face was not expressive, but his voice told 
 Denis that he was back among scenes which by common 
 consent they had not mentioned before, and which Denis 
 had no wish ever to mention again. He saw what he had 
 brought on himself, and blessed his blundering tongue. Sure 
 enough, after some pause the younger man asked : 
 
 " Did you ever hear any more of Mrs. Trent after I left? " 
 
 " A little, from Scott," Denis unwillingly admitted. 
 
 " From Scott? Did he write to you, then? " 
 
 " No, I saw him." 
 
 "Where? In town?" 
 
 " At Westby." 
 
 " You saw Scott at Westby?" 
 
 " I spent a week-end with him there last November," said 
 Denis stiffly. " He asked me when we were at Easedale. 
 He's a nice little chap. I like him." 
 
 " Well, I'm hanged ! " said Gardiner, settling back his 
 head, which he had lifted to stare at his friend. " You talk 
 too much about your own affairs, Denis, that's what's the 
 matter with you. Go on. What did he tell you about Mrs. 
 Trent?" 
 
 " He said she'd not made at all a good recovery ; after 
 leavin' Easedale she'd to go to a nursing home in town, and 
 from there she sent him down a cross and candlesticks for 
 the prison chapel. Scott was quite set up about it, he's a 
 ritualistic little chap; and I suppose they were handsome 
 enough if you like such things, I don't " 
 
 " My good Denis, what have I to do with crosses and 
 candlesticks ? Did he say she said anything about me ? " 
 
 " He did," said Denis, more unwillingly than ever. " He 
 said she asked for your address."
 
 54 CONVICT B14, 
 
 " Oh, confound ! Did he give it? " 
 
 "He had to. He said it was no use refusin', as she'd 
 easily have got it out of any one else." 
 
 " He said that, did he ? Confound him too ! I seem to 
 have left several loose ends over this affair. Was that all 
 he told you ? " 
 
 " Yes. After she wrote with the things he heard no 
 more." 
 
 " I wonder why she wanted my address," said Gardiner, 
 frowning. " Well, I suppose it must be all right after all 
 this time." 
 
 He pulled at his pipe in silence. Happening to glance 
 at Denis, he surprised that look of distaste and repugnance 
 which he had never seen on his friend's face before Easedale. 
 Gardiner was not fond of owning himself in the wrong; 
 few men are, and he less than most. But he spoke out now 
 on impulse. 
 
 " Look here, Denis, I know very well I ought to have 
 owned up. I knew it at the time, but I was too beastly 
 scared ! and that's the plain truth. It was the idea of 
 prison ; for the moment it knocked all the stuffing out of me 
 you needn't think I admire myself. And to drag you 
 into it as well oh, it was a rotten business ! " 
 
 " You didn't drag me, I dragged myself," said Denis 
 quickly. "If anybiddy was to blame, it was I." 
 
 " You ! You'll be telling me you killed him next. No, 
 it's my own funeral and I've been such a concentrated ass 
 over it, that's what gets me ! If I'd told the truth at once, 
 there would have been practically no bother, I'm certain of 
 it. I could have done it then ; afterwards, at the inquest, 
 when I wanted to, it was too late. I couldn't tell the tale 
 without its point; and I couldn't tell that particular point 
 when that unhappy little thing had lost both her husband and 
 her kid. No, I don't consider myself to shine in this affair, 
 either in morals or intelligence." 
 
 " It was I began it," said Denis obstinately. 
 
 Gardiner shrugged his shoulders; what was the use of 
 contradiction? Denis was mending a fly; and by the happy
 
 AUBADE 55 
 
 clearing of his face it was plain that he was also busy mend- 
 ing his ideal and setting it back on its pedestal with an added 
 glory. There is no surer way of earning a man's esteem 
 than by begging his pardon. All Gardiner's faults were 
 hidden under this new coat of gilding. " You're an incur- 
 able idealist, my good Denis," he said to himself, watching 
 the process of rehabilitation. " You idealize me on the one 
 hand, and that inoffensive but very ordinary little cousin 
 of yours on the other. Lord send you never find us out, for 
 you'll break your knees badly when you do ! " The un- 
 deserved good opinion of a friend makes a thorny bed. Yet, 
 though Gardiner did not see it, he was moving towards the 
 fulfillment of his friend's conception of his character. That 
 is the worst of idealists they shame us into acting up to 
 their ideas ! 
 
 Denis was a devout fisherman. As soon as he had fin- 
 ished the fly he started off again, wading round the bend 
 out of sight. Gardiner, who fished only because any sport 
 was better than none, stayed where he was. Minutes passed. 
 He was nearly asleep when some one hailed him. At first 
 he thought it was Denis, and took no notice ; but the voice 
 becoming insistent, he opened one eye, and immediately 
 sprang up. It was Miss O'Connor, on the other side of the 
 river. 
 
 She made a trumpet of her hands and shouted some 
 question, but the Semois drowned her words. Gardiner 
 was wearing the orthodox Ardennes waders, which begin 
 as boots and continue as shiny waterproof breeches right 
 up to the waist, so it was nothing for him to splash across to 
 the farther shore. (It may be mentioned that Denis stuck 
 obstinately to his English boots, which came scarcely higher 
 than his knee ; with the result that he got very wet, for the 
 Semois came considerably higher than his knee.) 
 
 Dorothea was wearing a short tweed skirt with leather 
 buttons; square-toed, solid brown brogues; a white shirt, a 
 tan belt, and a brown tie to match. She was hatless, and 
 her hair, smooth, parted, and rippling over her ears, was 
 glossy as a Frenchwoman's. Her face, which had lost its
 
 56 CONVICT B14 
 
 fragility, was softly, evenly brown; her lips, a veritable 
 cupid's bow, were cherry-red. They were drawn straight as 
 she looked at Gardiner, and her manner was distant. 
 
 " I took you for a woodcutter, or I should not have dis- 
 turbed you," she said. " I wished to ask if there is a way 
 back along the river." 
 
 " Well, there is," said Gardiner, looking down at the ruts 
 under their feet, " and you're on it. If you follow this 
 track, it will bring you straight to Rochehaut." 
 
 " But it goes through the water." 
 
 ' It does." 
 
 " Must I go through the water, then ? " 
 
 " Unless you like to make a bee-line up through the forest 
 to Botassart. It's nearly perpendicular, and miles out of 
 your way." 
 
 " Very inconvenient," said Dorothea displeasedly. " Why 
 isn't there a ferry ? " 
 
 " Well, you see this track isn't much used, except by the 
 timber wagons. It won't be above your knees, if you'll 
 allow me to show you the way ; this is a regular ford. But 
 perhaps you'd rather I retired round the bend ? " 
 
 " That will not be necessary," she said, more frigidly than 
 ever, and without more ado went behind a bush to take off 
 her shoes and stockings. Gardiner thought her very pretty 
 and rather ridiculous, and wondered if he were called on to 
 see her home. He decided that he was not. It occurred 
 to him that by all the laws of romance he ought to carry her 
 across ; but he decided again that nature had not cut him out 
 for the part. No true hero should be half-an-inch shorter 
 than the heroine ; and certainly none has ever been known 
 to drop a lady in the middle of a river. 
 
 Dorothea appeared barefoot, and motioned him im- 
 periously to lead the way. They stepped into the clear, 
 shallow water, scattering a cloud of tiny fishes. As they 
 advanced, Dorothea's skirts bunched up higher and higher. 
 If Gardiner had not kept his eyes delicately averted, he 
 might have had a glimpse, and more than a glimpse, of cer- 
 tain tweed garments that were not a part of her skirt. The
 
 AUBADE 57 
 
 Semois, though shallow, is very swift. Midway across the 
 golden pebbles were succeeded by slabs of gray-green rock, 
 tressed with weed. Gardiner heard a small exclamation, and 
 turned just in time to save his companion from measuring 
 her length in the river. His arm went round the slim figure, 
 so soft and pliant, with no more sentiment than if it had 
 been a boy. But she her color flamed as she was thrown 
 against him ; she dropped her skirts and clutched his arm to 
 push him away. 
 
 " Steady ! " said Gardiner, " or you'll have us both over. 
 These stones are as slippery as glass." 
 
 "I trod on something sharp," said Dorothea in a 
 strangled voice. She stood there with her skirts in the 
 water, still holding him off with both hands. 
 
 " Hurt yourself? " 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " Sure ? Will you take my arm for a bit ? " said Gardiner, 
 puzzled by her unaccountable emotion. 
 
 She shook her head again, and stumbled after him to the 
 shore. There she sat down on the stone which had been 
 their table, to put on her shoes and stockings while he col- 
 lected his possessions. He gave her plenty of time, as he 
 thought, yet when he turned she was still sitting there, with 
 one foot bare on the grass. Across the instep, blanched 
 alabaster white by the water, ran a crimson gash. 
 
 " Hullo ! you have damaged yourself," said Gardiner. 
 " You ought to have something between that and the stock- 
 ing, if you'll allow me to say so. Got a handkerchief?" 
 
 " I've lost it," she said without looking up. 
 
 " Have mine, then." He held it out ; she made no move- 
 ment. " May I do it for you ? " 
 
 After a brief incomprehensible hesitation, she murmured : 
 " Please." More and more puzzled, Gardiner knelt down 
 and took her foot in his hand. It was a bad cut, but not 
 very bad ; some women would have made nothing of it ; he 
 was glad she belonged to the more feminine type. He 
 washed away the gravel and fixed a neat bandage, Dorothea 
 sitting passive. But he could feel that she was conscious
 
 58 CONVICT B14 
 
 of him ; and he became acutely conscious of her. When it 
 was done, she murmured something which might have been 
 supposed to be thanks, slipped half her foot into her shoe 
 and stood up. 
 
 " You'll never get home at that rate. Let me help you," 
 said Gardiner, watching her attempt to shuffle along. 
 "I I think I can manage. Is it far ? " 
 " Twenty minutes' walk, and shocking bad going." 
 " I shall be taking you out of your way." 
 " Not a bit of it. It's time I got back too." 
 " But your friend I saw him fishing up the stream." 
 " Oh, he's old enough to play by himself," said Gardiner 
 easily, his keenness growing in proportion to her reluct- 
 ance. (It may be said that Denis, when he returned, spent 
 half-an-hour hunting for his friend before he decided to 
 follow him home. Thus does Love elbow Friendship out 
 of the way.) " Don't you want me to help you? " he added 
 bluntly. " Do you object to me personally? Shall I cut on 
 home and send your maid ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, no," said Dorothea hurriedly, and thereupon took 
 his arm. Gardiner had what he wanted, and a little more ; 
 heavens ! what was the matter with the girl ? She was shak- 
 ing all over, an electric battery of emotion ; the strong cur- 
 rent of her trouble and indecision thrilled him in every 
 nerve. More than that, he was left in no doubt that he him- 
 self was the cause of her agitation. 
 
 There was nothing of the ascetic in Gardiner; he was 
 warm-blooded and inflammable, as he had already found 
 to his cost. Since he could not get away from his tempera- 
 ment, he got round it, by avoiding women, and by keeping 
 any necessary intercourse free from the first beginnings of 
 sentiment. As his will was stronger than his passions, ex- 
 cept when they got out of hand and were running away, this 
 plan had worked well. But he could not avoid Dorothea; 
 and when she slipped her hand through his arm she undid 
 the work of years, and stirred ashes into flame. Passion, 
 unlike love, is a sudden growth, and it was passion he felt : 
 that inexplicable force which draws men and women to-
 
 AUBADE 59 
 
 gether, often in defiance of every natural taste and senti- 
 ment. The situation was alluring. Dorothea was not 
 merely a pretty girl, she was a personage, as she had very 
 soon made known in the hotel; a star far away in the sky 
 above Gardiner's head. Yet the touch of his hand set her 
 shaking like a reed. Gardiner was not coxcomb enough to 
 imagine that she had fallen in love with his fine eyes ; but 
 he was prepared to stake his soul that for some undiscov- 
 erable reason she was half afraid of him. What man could 
 resist that lure? 
 
 It was not a long journey to the Bellevue, but it was 
 eventful ; for things move fast in the campaigns of the heart. 
 Gardiner did not capitulate without a struggle. " You ass, 
 you don't want an affair of this sort on your hands, par- 
 ticularly not with one of your own boarders," he told him- 
 self. " You preposterous ass, go slow ! " And paid as 
 much heed as men in such circumstances usually do to their 
 own wisdom. " I can resist everything except temptation " 
 the phrase flitted ruefully through his mind. He was 
 trying hard to convince himself that Dorothea's tremors were 
 not necessarily flattering, when they came out of the woods 
 into the road, in view of the hotel. 
 
 Dorothea stood still. 
 
 "I I think I'd rather manage the rest alone, if you 
 don't mind." 
 
 Gardiner started, dropped her arm, stepped back out of 
 sight among the trees. 
 
 " Of course. You naturally would. I ought to have un- 
 derstood before." 
 
 " Oh, I didn't mean that ! " 
 
 " Oh, I think you did. It would hardly do, would it ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, no, no ! " cried Dorothea. She hesitated ; he 
 could see her visibly struggling with herself ; then she raised 
 her head. Whatever quinine of common-sense he might 
 administer to himself, there was no possibility of mistaking 
 the expression in those pansy-brown eyes. She might have 
 wavered before ; she had made up her mind now. 
 
 " I didn't mean that," she said. " I never thought of such
 
 60 CONVICT B14 
 
 a thing. It was only that that people do talk, if they 
 see things and suppose you asked me to go for a walk 
 wi{h you again " 
 
 " Do you mean that if I did, you would? " 
 
 He got no answer. Lettice had just come out to the gates 
 of the hotel to taste the morning sun, with the kitten squirm- 
 ing on her shoulder ; and at sight of her Miss O'Connor ran 
 away.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 AMANDUS, -A, -UM 
 " Mine is a long and a sad tale," said the Mouse, sighing. 
 
 THE Bellevue, when Gardiner first set eyes on it, was a 
 cross between a hostelry and a farm, tumbled round three 
 sides of a quadrangle where black-and-white pigs rooted 
 and grunted, among middens and mangy grass, under the 
 windows of the dining-room. The Ardennes hotel of those 
 days had no drains, no baths, no basins bigger than soup- 
 plates and not many towels, no easy-chairs, no salons ; in 
 fact, none of the comforts of a refined home. There would 
 be middens outside and the odor of the cow-stable within. 
 On the other hand, the rooms would be clean, the beds com- 
 fortable, the food abundant, if peculiar; and the friendly 
 welcome which met the traveler made up for many dis- 
 comforts. 
 
 In all his former ventures Gardiner had been a tenant; 
 the Bellevue was his own. He had bought the freehold with 
 an opportune legacy, and was spending on it his savings of 
 ten years. According to his usual plan, he went to work 
 first to make the outside attractive. The quadrangle where 
 the pigs had fed was now a lawn, laid out with flower-beds. 
 Of the dilapidated out-buildings, some had been pulled 
 down, others built up and turned into additional bedrooms. 
 Round the three sides of the court ran a piazza with easy- 
 chairs, and tables, and ever more flowers, sure attraction to 
 an English eye. Inside, his alterations had been more costly. 
 He had put in baths; he had laid on electric light; he had 
 partially refurnished the house not, however, with con- 
 ventional " suites " from Liege. They would not have 
 suited the heterogeneous old mansion, on whose lintel was 
 61
 
 62 CONVICT B14 
 
 carved the date 1548, and which had been successively con- 
 vent, country house, farm, and inn. For those who had eyes 
 to see, there was in those days a good deal of fine old furni- 
 ture, carved presses, beds, and so forth, to be picked up in the 
 farms and the villages. It had been a labor of love for 
 Gardiner to go round bargaining for these things, and bring- 
 ing them home in triumph to his picturesque old rooms. He 
 made a play of his work, and a pet of -his home ; he grudged 
 no labor spent in beautifying it ; he enjoyed dressing it up, 
 as a child dresses up a doll. In the end, what with pol- 
 ished floors, casement curtains, and Noah's Ark plants in 
 pots, the place looked like a garden-city house, as Lettice un- 
 kindly remarked. There was nothing like it in the Ar- 
 dennes. 
 
 His next step was to advertise, a branch of their business 
 on which hotel-keepers in general do not seem to spend 
 their brains. Gardiner did not want a mixed clientele, he 
 was out to attract the poorer gentry, parsons, doctors, school- 
 masters, retired colonels and commanders, literary men 
 the class which he had found pleasantest to deal with. 
 Therefore he put his discreet little paragraphs into such 
 papers as The Guardian, The Church Times, The Author, 
 The Journal of Education, The Spectator, and various ladies' 
 periodicals. Each advertisement was worded differently, to 
 suit its audience, but all wound up with the formula : " In- 
 clusive terms, 45. 6d. per day. Fifteen-day excursions, 
 Dover Rochehaut, second class, i. 8s. 3d. Exact direc- 
 tions as to journey given." And to meet the demand which 
 arose, he had leaflets printed, giving alternative routes by 
 day or night, plans of stations, prices in detail, travel hints, 
 the minute advice of an old traveler who knows every trick 
 of the journey ; leaflets which enabled the greenest novice to 
 face the douane, and change at the right places, and catch 
 the right trains. This branch of his work alone kept him 
 busy, for he was his own secretary. But it gained him what 
 he wanted, and filled his house. Satan had not much chance 
 of finding Gardiner's hands at his disposal. Nevertheless, 
 in those summer days he found time to get into mischief.
 
 AMANDUS, -A, -UM 63 
 
 Lattice was enjoying herself very much in her own 
 fashion, though to more adventurous souls her daily round 
 might have seemed dull. She came down to breakfast at 
 nine, and then crawled out half-a-mile to a certain brush- 
 wood pile in the forest, commanding the view over Frahan. 
 There she sat down, the faggots providing a comfortable seat 
 with a back. She took a work-bag and a Latin grammar, 
 and spent her morning alternately in setting slow stitches 
 in a green tablecloth and in learning Latin verbs from the 
 volume open on her knee. After lunch she retired to her 
 room in company with a sheaf of foolscap. If she wrung 
 out one whole line in a day, she considered herself to have 
 done brilliantly. After tea came a solemn constitutional 
 with Denis, which, as her chronic tiredness wore off, ex- 
 tended from two miles to six, or even ten. Then followed 
 dinner ; and after dinner, bed at nine o'clock. 
 
 One morning about three weeks after her arrival she was 
 starting on her customary crawl to the wood pile, when 
 Dorothea jumped up from her seat on the tcrrasse. 
 
 " Are you going for a walk ? May I come too ? " 
 
 " I'm not going far," Lettice warned her in a discouraging 
 hurry. 
 
 " I know ; you go into the woods and sit down, don't you ? 
 I'll bring my book." 
 
 " That will be very nice," declared Lettice. Any one 
 who knew the A B C of her expressions must have seen 
 that she was, to put it prettily, as cross as two sticks. 
 Dorothea was not blind ; nevertheless, she persisted. They 
 walked in silence, Dorothea now a little ahead, now checking 
 herself back to her companion's unalterable crawl. Arrived 
 at the wood pile, Lettice sat down on the identical bundle 
 of sticks which she had picked out for herself seventeen 
 days before. She was conservative as a cat in all her ways. 
 
 The morning was hazy. Round them the woods had been 
 cleared of forest trees ; there was a carpet of reddish leathery 
 leaves, across which the great silver boles lay forlorn, amid 
 the white chips of their slaughter. Low bushes were green, 
 and there were leaves overhead, a thin tracery; but else-
 
 64 CONVICT B14 
 
 where only russet tones and gray, gray-stemmed saplings and 
 grayish mists. Gray too was Frahan in the valley, softly 
 molded in haze, white the river circling its utterly improbable 
 peninsula, gray the far mountains, pearl-gray and silver, 
 losing themselves in silvery sky. Between her participles 
 and her stitches Lettice would often lift up her eyes to the 
 hills ; she dearly loved a distant view. But to-day she was 
 watching her companion. 
 
 Dorothea had plumped down among the withered leaves 
 and sat there, hugging her knees and staring gloomily into 
 the forest. To the feminine eye it was plain that she wore 
 no stays; she bent about like a willow wand, and her atti- 
 tudes were unstudied as a child's. Youth is often tragic; 
 but there was real bitter experience written on those soft 
 childish contours, and it was the contradiction which inter- 
 ested Lettice. Turning her head suddenly, Dorothea caught 
 her with her needle suspended, staring, and broke into her 
 charming smile. 
 
 " I want to tell you something about myself ; may I? " 
 
 Lettice instantly became all attention. Nature had de- 
 signed her as a casket for confidences, and they were often 
 poured into her patient ear. Dorothea uncurled herself and 
 lay prone, snuggling close, propping her chin in her hands, 
 and looking now on the ground, now up at Lettice with her 
 big soft eyes. 
 
 " It's a long tale, but it's really quite funny," she said. 
 " It all began about money. There was a family place, and 
 my father, when he died, left it to me, with his brother as 
 my guardian; but the brother, my uncle, thought it ought 
 to have been left to him direct, do you see? not to a scrap 
 of a girl. So he was very angry and always bore me a 
 grudge, and I do think he had a sort of grievance, only he 
 needn't have been so horrid about it. He wouldn't have been 
 so bad but for his wife. She was a clever woman, and he 
 was a big soft handsome booby who always believed what 
 she told him; so when she said I was sly and wicked, of 
 course he was sure I was. Well, I lived with them, and 
 they had the use of my money. But they were always most
 
 AMANDUS, -A, -UM 65 
 
 desperately afraid I should get married and take it away. 
 So they wouldn't let me go anywhere. I never went to a 
 dance, I never played tennis, I wasn't even let go out to tea 
 or have any girl friends, not after I was fourteen. Clara 
 (that's what I had to call her) used to go up to town, and 
 shop in Bond Street, and do the round of the theaters, on 
 my money, while I was left at home to dust the drawing- 
 room and wash the stockings. It was funny! Just like 
 Cinderella!" 
 
 " Why didn't you run away ? " 
 
 " I hadn't any money except threepence a week, or any 
 one to run to. Besides " She hesitated. "You don't 
 know how helpless a girl can be in the hands of a grown-up 
 man," she said, with resurgent bitterness. " He used to tell 
 me I was the sort of girl who makes a man want to thrash 
 her. He did hit me once or twice. Oh ! I could have killed 
 him ! " 
 
 She stabbed the dead leaves viciously with Lettice's 
 scissors. 
 
 " But, but but didn't people talk ? " Lettice asked. 
 
 " Yes, they did, and some of them even quarreled with 
 my uncle about me ; but you see he told every one what a 
 bad girl I was, and in a way it wasn't a lie, and he could 
 make people believe it, because he believed it himself. He 
 did really believe that I'd made father leave the money to me, 
 though I was only five when he died. Why, sometimes I 
 even got muddled myself, and used to feel I must be all the 
 dreadful things he said. Oh! I was miserable. You can 
 be very, very miserable when you're seventeen, and it doesn't 
 seem a bit funny then. I remember once I saved up my 
 pennies and retrimmed my summer hat I always hated the 
 things she got for me and made it look quite pretty. I 
 was so pleased with it ; and then when I came down she said 
 it was unsuitable, and she made me take it off, and go to 
 church in the horrid old brown felt I'd worn all the winter, 
 though it was a broiling June day! I cried I cried all 
 the service. So to punish me, when we came out, she asked 
 the vicar, me standing by, to change our pew, because she
 
 66 CONVICT B14- 
 
 said she couldn't trust me so near the choir ! (That was one 
 of the things they always said, that I ran after men.) How- 
 ever, she was done that time, for the vicar played up like a 
 trump. He said he'd speak to the choir, and see they didn't 
 annoy me again ; and then he turned to me and paid the 
 dearest old-fashioned compliment about my sweet face being 
 enough to turn any young man's head and me in that 
 frightful old hat and my nose swelled purple with crying ! " 
 She burst out laughing. 
 
 " But you did get away at last ? " 
 
 " Yes, I did. I found a friend to help me ... but I 
 can't talk about that." Visibly, under Lettice's eyes, her 
 face clouded over and changed. It was a significant change : 
 not a mere shadow falling from without, but a revolution 
 within. The under side of her nature, black with prema- 
 ture grief and premature passions, slowly turned its ugliness 
 into view. 
 
 " Did you ever hate any one ? " she asked, her voice sink- 
 ing and her eyes glowing as she relived the feelings she 
 described. ." Did you ever know what it was to turn sick 
 and cold with loathing, to have the world go black, black, 
 when a certain person comes near? Did you? No, I know 
 you never did, you're far too good a Christian. But I'm not 
 a Christian. I don't believe in any religion of love. There's 
 little enough love here, and what there is goes to the wall. 
 And there's no love over us ; just a cruel, cruel, grinding 
 power, which delights in breaking to bits whatever it sees 
 that's beautiful and happy. Oh, it's an ugly, cruel, hateful 
 world ! " 
 
 " I think it's a very nice world," said Lettice, her words 
 falling like drops of soft water on white-hot steel. They 
 did not very accurately reflect her thoughts, but Lettice's 
 words seldom did that. Dorothea laughed them to scorn. 
 
 " You wouldn't if you were in my shoes," she said de- 
 risively. She sat up. " Listen, and I'll tell you if you like. 
 You've just heard what sort of life I had when I was a girl; 
 I can laugh over it now, but it wasn't very gay at the time. 
 Well, I got away, as I said ; and for a little I was happy
 
 AMANDUS, -A, -UM 67 
 
 oh, I was for just a little, little while. And then, in a 
 moment everything gone. Everything. All I'd cared 
 for, and the hopes I had oh, I had, I had such heavenly 
 hopes all gone, all broken, dead, dead, dead." She beat 
 her palm on the ground. " I dare say if I'd been older I 
 might have taken it better," she said, turning her eyes on 
 Lettice with an appeal which nothing in earth or heaven could 
 satisfy ; for it was an appeal to the Moving Finger to go 
 back, to reverse what had been written. " I might have 
 been gentle and forgiving and resigned then. But I wasn't 
 old enough. I'm only twenty-one now. And I'm tired 
 I'm tired." 
 
 The mournful vibrations of her voice died away. 
 
 " It is very tiring to hate anybody," said Lettice, deftly 
 plucking the core of meaning out of these wild speeches. 
 Dorothea did not seem to hear. Her eyes, transparent win- 
 dows of her soul, were miserably sad. Presently with a 
 quick sigh she roused herself, turned the key on memory 
 and drew down the blind. 
 
 " There, that's enough about me. I didn't mean to tell 
 you all this, but never mind, I'm glad you know. Now let's 
 talk about something cheerful. Tell me about that hand- 
 some cousin of yours. What's he like ? " 
 
 Lettice, who could not bear to see a book mishandled, had 
 picked up Dorothea's, and was smoothing its rumpled pages. 
 She accommodated herself with patience to this violent 
 change of subject. " Denis? " she said. " He is very nice." 
 Convenient word ! In Lettice's vocabulary it covered a mul- 
 titude of meanings. 
 
 " I like his face. He looks as if he were in the army. Is 
 he in the army ? What does he do ? " 
 
 " He he's a sort of engineer." 
 
 " An engineer ? A civil engineer ? That's not bad ; they 
 do do things worth doing they and an explorer here and 
 there, and the flying men I like them best. I like cour- 
 age, physical courage, it's far more interesting than moral. 
 I shouldn't think your cousin would ever know what it was 
 to feel afraid. And wouldn't he never tell a lie ? "
 
 68 CONVICT B14 
 
 "Never," said Lettice, her eyes straying to her Latin 
 grammar. 
 
 " Not even to save a friend ? He'd do anything else, take 
 any risk himself, but just not that ? So that if he was pushed 
 into a corner he'd have to tell the truth ? That's just what 
 I should have expected. Of course there are a few things 
 I have against him," Dorothea ran on, seemingly at random, 
 though her downcast eyes were glowing. " He shouldn't 
 like cats, nasty treacherous things, they're not a man's ani- 
 mal. And he shouldn't sing the hymns on Sunday out of 
 that big book with tunes. Going to church is all right, and 
 suits him, but I can't bear that book. It's like the W.S.P. 
 A." Presumably Miss O'Connor meant the Y.M.C.A. 
 "Mr Gardiner's his very greatest friend, isn't he? Would 
 he tell lies, do you think ? " 
 
 " I don't know," said Lettice, far down the passive voice 
 of amo. 
 
 " What do you think of him ? " 
 
 " I think he's very nice." 
 
 Out shot Dorothea's arm, and Lettice, amazed, aggrieved, 
 found herself being vigorously shaken. 
 
 " Do not talk like that ! I never in my life knew any one 
 so so perfectly systematically untruthful as you are! I 
 don't believe you've once this morning said one single thing 
 you really mean!" (But she was wrong, for Lettice had 
 done so once.) "Tell me what you think of Mr. Gard- 
 iner. Tell me. I want to know." 
 
 Lettice, chafing her arm, mutely reproachful, indicated the 
 creases which Dorothea's grip had left on her pale blue 
 linen sleeve. "You, you, you you are so violent" she 
 complained in her pianissimo drawl, which held always a 
 hint of make-believe. " I don't know what you mean. I do 
 think Mr. Gardiner is very nice." Then for the second time 
 she let out a little piece of truth. " I shouldn't think he'd 
 take failure well." 
 
 " Oh." 
 
 Abrupt silence. Dorothea sprang up and wandered off 
 into the forest, slashing at the brambles with her stick,
 
 AMANDUS, -A, -UM 69 
 
 jumping over logs that came in her way, just as a boy might 
 have done. Indeed she looked like a boy in her rough 
 tweeds and Norfolk coat, with her brown face and well- 
 scratched hands. She had worn neither hat nor gloves since 
 she came. 
 
 Lettice looked at her with shrewd and wideawake cu- 
 riosity. She and Denis, pooling their observations, had been 
 following the hidden course of Gardiner's love affair. So 
 circumspectly had the pair behaved that not a soul in the 
 hotel, except the two allies, had any inkling of the romance 
 in progress. Yet it was serious enough, at any rate for 
 Gardiner. He was in it up to the neck ; no doubt about 
 him. And Dorothea ? Denis was of opinion that she meant 
 business. Hadn't Lettice seen the expression (love-light 
 was the word in his mind, but he didn't like to use it) in her 
 eyes? 
 
 Lettice had always had her doubts as to that love-light, 
 though she kept them to herself. This morning they had 
 become certainty. Dorothea did not love Harry Gardiner 
 it was not love which had looked out of those too-clear eyes 
 of hers when she asked that imperious question. No ! Let- 
 tice had been illuminated by the certainty that he was the 
 man whom, on her own snowing, she had singled out to 
 hate. Dorothea could hate, no doubt of that. The plain 
 black and white of her emotions, love and hate, rapture and 
 agony, they were somewhat startling in a world of neutral 
 grays. 
 
 But at this point Lettice found herself up against a blank 
 wall. What was Gardiner's offense, and how did it happen 
 that he did not know it himself? For he did not know; 
 and Dorothea was planning her attack against a man who 
 had thrown away his armor for love of her. This was not 
 sporting. Lettice always instinctively took sides with the 
 weak against the strong, with the victim against the avenger. 
 Besides, she liked Gardiner. She liked Dorothea too with 
 reservations; but her character was simpler, more homo- 
 geneous, easier to follow. She, in fact, was interesting his- 
 torically, but not analytically. Now the uncertain balance
 
 70 CONVICT B14 
 
 of strength and weakness in Gardiner made him an engross- 
 ing study. He was transparent to Lettice, while she was 
 opaque to him. " That inoffensive but very ordinary little 
 person " so he had called her : what a pity he could not 
 look into her mind ! 
 
 Thus Lettice abandoned the study of the passive of attto 
 for its active voice. In the midst of her cogitations she was 
 surprised to see Denis come in view, striding through the 
 bracken. He sometimes called for her on his way back from 
 the river, but now he was approaching from the direction of 
 the hotel. Moreover, gloom sat upon his brow. 
 
 " I say, Lettice," he called out, the Irish accent unusually 
 strong, "isn't it a nawful nuisance? Wandesforde's had a 
 smash-up in his car, and he wants me back at once ! " 
 
 Lettice gazed at him, slowly and thoughtfully rubbing 
 her nose. 
 
 " I got the wire just as I was startin' for the river. No, 
 he's not bad, only a broken arm. But the nuisance of it is 
 that he's entered for a race on Friday week, and he wants 
 me to take it on instead. I hate racing on a Friday I hate 
 racing at all, for that matter, mixin' oneself up with news- 
 paper men and that sort of raffle ; but I'll have to do it." 
 
 "A race? What fun! What for?" asked Dorothea, 
 coming up in time to hear the last words. She dropped 
 down on a bundle of faggots, and extended under Lettice's 
 nose a brown and purple palm full of blackberries. Lettice 
 shook her head, slowly, twice. Dorothea, with a glint of 
 fun, reached out to offer them to Denis. He screwed his 
 eyeglass into place, gazed at them absently, and said : " No, 
 thank you." Dorothea continued to wave them under his 
 nose, in the manner of the importunate sidesman offering 
 the plate to the stingy parishioner. Denis, yielding, still ab- 
 sently, chose a berry and swallowed it whole like a pill. 
 Dorothea with a broad smile emptied the rest of her hand- 
 ful into her mouth, and hugged her knees again with her 
 crimson hands. The whole had taken but a moment. " I 
 didn't know you went in for racing. What did you say it 
 was for ? " she repeated.
 
 AMANDUS, -A, -UM 71 
 
 " Silver trophy offered by the Birmingham Courier. 
 Cross-country, with compulsory halts at Redditch, Coventry, 
 Polesworth, and Wallsall. He'd scratch, if it weren't that 
 we're both rather keen on testin' our new little bus. She's 
 done one hundred and twenty and over on her trial flights " 
 
 " Flights ? It's an aeroplane race ? You fly ? You told 
 me he was an engineer ! " cried Dorothea, rounding on Let- 
 tice in hot reproach. " Why, I've been longing to meet a 
 flying man for years! Go on, go on, tell me all about it. 
 Do you fly much? How idiotic of me not to recognize your 
 name ! " 
 
 Here was the enthusiastic young lady, Denis's pet aver- 
 sion ; but, strange to say, he did not seem to mind her. 
 
 " Well, I build aeroplanes," he said, smiling. " It's my 
 partner does the ornamental work. You may know his 
 name Wandesforde." 
 
 " Wandesforde? Sydney Wandesforde? Why, I should 
 just think I do ! He was the man who came in first in the 
 London-Berlin race, and was disqualified for passing inside 
 one of the controls in a fog. And then he had that marvel- 
 ous escape, when his machine turned over in the air, and spilt 
 him in a heap on the top plane, and he managed to regain 
 control, and brought her down safely after all ! Why, he's 
 magnificent! I'd give I'd give a thousand pounds to go 
 up with him ! " 
 
 " You can do it for less than that," said Denis, amused. 
 
 " Ah, but I mean in a race. A big flying race it's about 
 the one thrill worth having left in the world! " 
 
 " You should fly your own machine. That's better fun 
 than bein' a passenger. Any one of the big schools would 
 take you on, for a matter of seventy pounds or so. It's 
 quite simple." 
 
 " Would they? Will you build me an aeroplane, if they 
 do?" 
 
 " With pleasure, if you give me the commission." 
 
 " I shall come and see you about it directly I get back 
 to England." 
 
 " Do."
 
 72 CONVICT BU 
 
 Lettice gazed from one to the other. Dorothea was like 
 a rose, her eyes were sparkling; Denis was amused and 
 interested. True that at present he saw only the enthusiast, 
 not the woman, but it was not to be supposed that he lacked 
 the common instincts of human nature. Was this sudden 
 friendship to be encouraged? Lettice answered that ques- 
 tion by uprooting herself from her seat. 
 
 " It is one o'clock," she announced. " I am going home." 
 
 Denis, as her escort, rose too. Dorothea sat still, looking 
 decidedly sulky. 
 
 "Aren't you coming, Miss O'Connor?" 
 
 " No. She doesn't want me to." 
 
 Lettice, who had already started on her homeward journey, 
 obviously was not given to hear. Denis glanced, irresolute, 
 from that expressive back to Dorothea, but ended by raising 
 his cap and hastening after his cousin. 
 
 " I'm sorry we bored you," he said, taking possession of 
 her coat and bag and book. 
 
 "Don't mention it," returned Lettice with polite em- 
 pressement.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 MELODRAMATIC 
 
 Do one thing at least I can 
 Love a man or hate a man 
 Supremely. 
 
 Pippa Passes. 
 
 "LOUISA!" 
 
 "Yes, Miss Dot?" 
 
 "Has either of those two recognized you?" 
 
 " Well, miss, Mr. Smith haven't, that's sure. I might 
 be a sack of potatoes for all the notice he takes. Men he'll 
 look at, and I'd be sorry to be the one as tried to do him; 
 but women no. He's a real gentleman, he is. He've 
 taken his ticket for up above, and he ain't goin' to waste it." 
 
 " And the other one ? " 
 
 " Mr. Gardiner ? I see him stare at me pretty hard times 
 and again, but it's always, ' Now, have I seen you before 
 or haven't I ? ' so I just stares back as bold as a cucumber 
 and puts him off. He can't be sure, see, about a old thing 
 as is just like any other old thing. He've seen a many 
 maids, miss." 
 
 " I never realized you were a danger till I'd got you here, 
 and then it was too late. Never mind, you'll come in useful. 
 Very useful. I didn't see how to begin, but I do now. I'm 
 going to get it out of Gardiner himself if I possibly can, 
 that's only fair; but if I can't, I can always fall back on 
 Merion-Smith. You see, if I can only get either of them to 
 make any sort of admission, it's all I,need, and that murder- 
 er's under my thumb. Because Merion-Smith won't swear 
 to a lie. Not even to save a friend Lettice owned it this 
 morning. At the inquest he escaped because nobody thought 
 of asking him any questions, but once I get him into the 
 73
 
 74 CONVICT B14 
 
 witness-box again oh ! I must make Gardiner speak I 
 will!" 
 
 " Miss, if you 'op about so I can't do your hair, and I 
 shall pull you crool." 
 
 "Do I care?" 
 
 With a jerk and a tug, Dorothea dragged her long tresses 
 out of Louisa's hands, and buried her face on the dressing- 
 table. Gaunt and patient, Louisa waited behind her chair. 
 Her sympathies were divided ; she found it hard to believe 
 harm of a man, a mere bachelor man, who kept his house so 
 scrupulously clean. 
 
 " It's a wicked thing you're after, miss, though I suppose 
 it's no use me saying so," she remarked dispassionately. 
 
 "It is not wicked! It's justice. That's all I want: to 
 make him answer to the law for what he's done. I wouldn't 
 touch him with a pitchfork myself!" 
 
 " But look at the nasty underhanded way of it, miss ! 
 Mascarooning as if you wasn't married, and you the way 
 you been last year and all it ain't hardly decent, to my 
 mind. It makes me sick to see him hangin' on your foot- 
 steps, so to speak, and you leadin' him on. And it's my 
 belief it's a wild mare's nest you got in your head, and him a 
 babe unborn all the time ; and then where'll you be ? " 
 
 " Where I was before, of course. If it's so I shall find 
 it out, and no harm done." 
 
 " No harm, with him trustin' the very ground you tread 
 on, and then coming all of a jolt on the truth " 
 
 " Oh, I can't go into all that," said Dorothea impatiently. 
 " I didn't ask him to admire me, did I ? It was he began 
 it. I never dreamed of such a thing. Besides, I'm right, 
 I know I am, and so would you if you'd been there. He 
 did it. He's accountable for two lives, and one of them so 
 innocent, so innocent You know what Guy did for me, 
 what he saved me from ; how do you think I could ever face 
 him or my baby again if I let them go unavenged? " 
 
 " It's not in heaven you'll be meeting that dear little inno- 
 cent, nor never seeing her no more " 
 
 " Oh, be quiet, Louisa ! " Dorothea stamped, " Put
 
 MELODRAMATIC 75 
 
 Uncle Jack's stars in my hair," she ordered. " And I'll 
 not wear that old black thing to-night. I'll have the silver 
 brocade." 
 
 " The brocade, miss ? It ain't suitable, miss. A deal too 
 dressy." 
 
 Dorothea slewed round in her chair and looked up with 
 an expression which sent Louisa off to fetch the silver 
 brocade without another word. Persuasion was no good 
 with Dorothea. Flat contradiction might sometimes avail; 
 and the flatter it was, the more likely to hit the turning 
 angle of that incalculable young person. But if it did not 
 chance to hit that angle well, there was nothing for it but 
 prompt obedience. 
 
 Dorothea, a world-weary cynic of twenty-one, not infre- 
 quently thought in terms of the penny novelettes which were 
 her favorite reading. She had conceived the idea of array- 
 ing herself for conquest, after the fashion of the Lady 
 Ermyntrude in The Heart of a Countess. Every evening 
 hitherto she had worn what the author of that interesting 
 romance might have described as " a modest little black 
 frock of some soft, clinging material." The brocade was 
 full dress; it had a short-waisted bodice, with strands of 
 silver crossing on the breast and a silver girdle. The petti- 
 coat, heavily embroidered, was short enough to show her 
 silver shoes. Over her shoulders, jasmine-white and dim- 
 pled, fell a scarf of silver gauze ; and there were diamond 
 stars in the darkness of her hair. In fine, when Louisa had 
 done with her, she was herself a star of loveliness bright 
 enough to dazzle anybody. 
 
 Lettice was waiting in the hall to see her cousin start, 
 Denis having as usual got ready half-an-hour too soon, with 
 his rod and his rug and his bag and a basket for Geraldine 
 the kitten. They were exchanging those labored last words 
 which even the best of friends manufacture while the car- 
 riage delayeth its coming, when this vision swept down on 
 them, with her nose in the air. Evidently Dorothea had not 
 forgiven Lettice for cutting short her talk, or Denis for 
 suffering it to be done. She sailed on to the salon, where
 
 76 CONVICT B14 
 
 her entrance was greeted with a comically sudden hush, such 
 as fell on the dinner-table when a new course made its ap- 
 pearance. Lettice relieved her feelings with one of her 
 favorite words ; not " nice " this time, but " Well ! " 
 
 " There, you see you've lost me a commission, Lettice ! " 
 said Denis, laughing. 
 
 " Me ? I didn't do anything ! " 
 
 " What's up ? " asked Gardiner. He had come out of his 
 den, with a pot of flowers in his arms, just in time to wit- 
 ness the transit of Venus, and had been favored, in contra- 
 distinction to the others, with a gracious smile ; his face had 
 changed, ever so little, in response. Denis opened his lips 
 to reply, but Lettice was too quick for him. 
 
 "Why, Miss O'Connor and I were having such a nice 
 cozy talk together, and Denis would come bothering with 
 his old aeroplanes" (the tone of spite was delicious), "and 
 of course she didn't like it, and now he's cross with me 
 because she doesn't want to buy one ! Robs me of my only 
 friend, and they says it's my fault, and abuses me like, like 
 like a pickpocket ! Well, well ! " 
 
 Nobody could play the injured innocent better than Lettice, 
 above all when she was in the wrong. She played with 
 Denis as delicately as a kitten plays with a leaf. " Yes, 
 you're an ill-used person, aren't you? " he said. He put his 
 arm round her shoulders and gently pressed her down into a 
 chair ; he would never let her stand if he could help it. " At 
 any rate, you're not in it, Harry," he said, speaking over her 
 head to Gardiner. " She's not carried over our sins to you, 
 that's one good thing ! " 
 
 "Yes, didn't I get a beamer?" said Gardiner, with his 
 easy laugh. He fell back to observe the flowers he had been 
 arranging. " Not that I should afflict myself if she did. So 
 long as she pays her bill, it's all one to me ! " 
 
 He fancied, as he spoke, that a gleam passed over Miss 
 Smith's countenance ; but at that moment the omnibus ar- 
 rived, and amid good-bys and good wishes Dorothea was 
 forgotten. When the traveler had departed, and when 
 Gardiner had stood on the step waving his hand till the last
 
 MELODRAMATIC 77 
 
 minute, he turned, and came face to face with Lettice. 
 They looked at each other as the two intimate friends of a 
 common friend do look, when the link (or should it be 
 called a barrier?) is removed from between them. It might 
 be said that this was the first time Gardiner had ever seen 
 Lettice, for, remembering that gleam, he looked with curi- 
 osity. He found himself gazing into a pair of perfectly 
 intelligent and faintly derisive hazel eyes. 
 
 When you have summed up a person as ordinary and 
 inoffensive, it is a shock to discover that the said person has 
 turned the tables by reading the inmost secrets of your heart. 
 Gardiner felt as though he had suddenly become transparent. 
 Fairly disconcerted, he wheeled round, and almost fell over 
 the chambermaid, who was at his elbow offering him a note. 
 " Tiens ! " said Rosalie. The note dropped ; the draught 
 from the open door whisked it down the hall to Lettice's feet. 
 Lettice, like her cousin, was a dandy in affairs of honor, and 
 would not willingly have glanced even at the envelope of 
 another person's letter ; but in this case, as she stooped, she 
 could not avoid seeing that the handwriting was Dorothea's. 
 She gave it back, and had the unique satisfaction of seeing 
 Gardiner color as he thanked her. Then she slipped away, 
 and left him to enjoy his letter alone. 
 
 " Could you possibly give me just five minutes this eve- 
 ning, I have something very important I want to ask you. 
 I will be up at the crucifix at half-past nine on the chance. 
 D. M. O'C." 
 
 Above the gardens of the Bellevue, which had a slope 
 of one in six, there was an orchard of white-stockinged 
 fruit trees, which had a slope of one in four. Above that 
 again rose the grassy hill-side, steeper and steeper, till after 
 a veritable scramble you reached the top, which was marked 
 by a cairn of stones and a crucifix. Beyond the crucifix 
 were level uplands dry silvery grass, dark knots of furze 
 or bramble, clayey ruts winding away to a wood of stunted 
 firs which leaned, like the grasses, all along the wind. But
 
 78 CONVICT B14 
 
 on the other side of the cross, what a view ! This hill was 
 scarcely a mile as the crow flies from the cliffs of Rochehaut, 
 yet it faced a wholly different reach of the river, some ten 
 miles distant, by water, from the ford where Dorothea had 
 cut her foot; the river performed a figure of eight in be- 
 tween. This was no scene of theatrical beauty, no famous 
 pointe de vue, like that above Frahan ; yet Gardiner loved 
 it more. It gave him the free wind and the open sky, and 
 it gave them to him alone ; no one ever came up here, except 
 perhaps a laborer trudging inland to Rochehaut, the village 
 of the middens. Odi profanum vulgus. For Gardiner, 
 beautiful Frahan was forever tainted by the thousands of 
 admiring eyes which had rested upon it. 
 
 The hills here sank down in wide-spreading slopes, great 
 shoulders and flanks all silvery and slippery with grass. 
 At their feet the river rippled, shallow and broad; and on 
 the green floor of the valley were clustered the houses of 
 Poupehan, a tiny gray hamlet with a tiny gray bridge which 
 gathered the stream within its span, though above and be- 
 low it spread out its rounded pools. On the farther bank, 
 the hills rose like a wall, a sweep of dark woods. That 
 white streak, could it be a road? Yes, it was the bridle track 
 going up to Corbion on the height ; it hung against the side- 
 hill like a scarf. At the top you might see the gray ex- 
 tinguisher cap of Corbion church, among trees. But the 
 eye came back to rest on those glorious woods ; how rich they 
 were, deep-plumaged, somber, steep as a curtain ! 
 
 By dint of neglecting his letters, and scamping his flowers, 
 Gardiner managed to keep tryst some minutes before the 
 time appointed. He sat down on the stones and leaned 
 against the crucifix, which shot up over his head, lank and 
 black and forlornly crooked, a ten-foot spar supporting a 
 ten-inch figure. The moon was coining liquid silver in a 
 slate-blue sky; the faint gold lamps of Poupehan showed 
 vague in the gray depth of the valley. There by the river 
 the mists were rising, the meadows drenched and cold and 
 silvery with dew ; here on the hill-top the air was velvet-warm 
 and dry, and sweet with honeysuckle. Big grasshoppers
 
 MELODRAMATIC 79 
 
 whirred all round in the grass, and a corncrake in the fir- 
 wood behind let off at intervals his long mechanical rattle. 
 There were owls, too, hoo-hooing, and one whose note was 
 like a silvery bell, calling from the woods across the valley. 
 It was a night of romance a night for love. 
 
 Gardiner's planets were Mercury and Venus ; he incon- 
 gruously combined the money-getting instinct with a sensu- 
 ous temperament. He had intended to spend those minutes 
 calmly in reviewing the pros and cons of marriage with 
 Dorothea for there were a good many cons ; marriage, 
 even with a rich woman, did not come into his scheme of 
 life. But the white enchantment of the moonlight was too 
 much for him ; he became a lover and nothing more. 
 
 Meanwhile Dorothea, climbing the hill, was beginning to 
 wish she had not put on that silver brocade. If she was 
 not careful, he would get out of hand ; and if he got out of 
 hand She had come to Rochehaut, in the first instance, 
 bent on hunting down her enemy, but without any definite 
 plan. True, the Lady Ermyntrude used her attractions for 
 the undoing of the wicked Lord Henry ; but it had never 
 entered Dorothea's head to do the like, probably because 
 the idea was instinctively repugnant. It was very repug- 
 nant ; and when chance, and the accident at the ford, showed 
 her her power, though she used it, it was only after a 
 struggle. Not that she had any scruples of morality : Doro- 
 thea was as unmoral a creature as one could find in a Chris- 
 tian land, she was guided solely by her feelings. But, in 
 spite of eight months of marriage, she was still fiercely 
 virginal; she could not with equanimity suffer herself to be 
 desired, above all by Gardiner. Still, being perfectly per- 
 suaded that she owed this duty to her dead, she was not 
 going to turn back. Dorothea had the merits of her defects ; 
 she was not a coward. 
 
 She arrived breathless, with her skirts tucked over her 
 arm, and one glance told her that her naive plan for dazzling 
 him had succeeded a little too well. His eyes caught sudden 
 fire ; he was on his feet in a moment, bowing to her with a 
 dash of foreign extravagance.
 
 80 CONVICT B14 
 
 " Barbarous behavior ! " he said. " Rank cruelty, no less. 
 Do you know you're three and a half minutes behind time ? " 
 
 Decidedly he was getting out of hand. Dorothea retreated 
 a pace or two, and wound her arm round the stem of the 
 cross as if for support. 
 
 "I I wanted to speak to you for a moment " 
 
 " So you said ; on business, wasn't it ? I'm all attention. 
 You don't look much like business to-night, do you know ? " 
 
 " I can't say anything if you look at me like that ! " cried 
 Dorothea in a rush. Gardiner laughed and cast down his 
 eyes. "No, please, if you'd turn right away I shall 
 never get it out to your face " 
 
 " Senorita, if the moon doesn't desire to be looked at, she 
 shouldn't appear in silver," said Gardiner, complying. 
 "That suit? Now, what's the trouble?" 
 
 " It's a little difficult to explain." It was ; her breath came 
 fluttering and her voice shook. " You must be patient with 
 me if I say it wrong." ("Patient! I'll be something be- 
 sides patient," Gardiner murmured.) " It's well, it's just 
 this. Have you do you remember ever seeing my maid 
 before?" 
 
 There was an instant change in the atmosphere. 
 
 "Your maid? That gaunt female who looks like the 
 Nonconformist conscience? I might have. Why?" 
 
 " She says she's seen you." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " At your hotel at Grasmere." 
 
 " At Grasmere ? At the Easedale ? " 
 
 Dorothea nodded. 
 
 " Go on," he prompted steadily. 
 
 " It was last August," said Dorothea. " She was in the 
 service of a Mrs. Trent " 
 
 She stopped. She could feel the sudden increase of ten- 
 sion. " Ah, I thought from your tone I'd been doing some- 
 thing reprehensible," said Gardiner, with a dry laugh. " Go 
 on. I suppose she's told you a pretty yarn. I'm a mur- 
 derer is that it?" 
 
 " Oh, no, no! it's only that she says the whole truth didn't
 
 MELODRAMATIC 81 
 
 come out at the inquest. She says you you threw some- 
 thing at him a chisel Mrs. Trent picked it up after- 
 wards no, please wait a moment till I've done! Louisa 
 says too I made her tell that he, the man who died, 
 had a temper, that he very likely said the most horrid things. 
 I don't think even she thinks you were much to blame, while 
 of course I But she did think I ought to know ; and I 
 think so too. So I want you to tell me the very truth. Did 
 you do it ? " 
 
 Gardiner met her pleading glance, and a confession rose 
 to his lips. Then whether he caught some shade of ex- 
 pression which was not wholly innocent : whether the truth 
 was that at heart he really trusted no one save Denis and 
 his father he temporized. 
 
 " Why do you want to know ? " 
 
 " I think so much of you ! " 
 
 "How much do you think of me? Enough to warrant 
 my telling you a thing like that? always supposing I'd 
 done it, of course, which I don't admit." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " It would be next door to murder, you know. A man 
 wouldn't be safe to confess a murder except to his wife." 
 
 " Oh ! well, tell me, then." 
 
 "You mean that?" 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "Sure?" 
 
 " Yes, yes. Tell me." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Gardiner, with an exultant laugh, " when 
 you're my wife, I will ! " 
 
 He stepped forward and took her in his arms. Dorothea 
 struggled, and he thought little of it; but she got her arm 
 free, doubled her fist, and hit out with such fury that he 
 let her go, and fell back, his illusions tumbling about his 
 ears. What a face she turned on him all coarsened and 
 distorted with passion ! 
 
 " I hate you," she said. 
 
 " You loved me just now ! " 
 
 " Never, never. I never did. I wish you were in hell.
 
 82 CONVICT B14 
 
 Oh! shall I ever feel clean again?" She was scrubbing 
 away at her face as if she would have scraped off the skin. 
 Gardiner stared, stupefied. Suddenly he gripped her arm. 
 
 " Who are you ? " 
 
 Dorothea shook him off frantically; all her plans went 
 overboard in one surge of fury. 
 
 " The wife of the man you murdered ! "
 
 CHAPTER X 
 A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 This is away in the fields miles! 
 
 Pippa Passes 
 
 ON the day after Denis left the Bellevue, Dorothea also 
 departed, with her mountain of trunks. She did not see 
 Gardiner again. Louisa paid the bill. The feelings of the 
 rejected lover, who had to make up the account and take the 
 money, deserve mention as being probably unique. 
 
 On the second morning after this, Lettice received a letter 
 from her cousin, inclosing a cheque for 20 and an entreaty 
 that she would stay on at the Bellevue. " Send it back, my 
 dear girl, if you don't feel like taking it," Denis wrote, " or 
 call it a loan : I'd much rather you didn't, but I shan't feel 
 hurt if you do. Only remember I don't need the money, and 
 I'd rather spend it this way than any other. I hate to see 
 you looking seedy, and you're not anything like fit yet, you 
 know. Besides, I'd like you and Gardiner to get to know 
 each other. You never would, so long as I was there in the 
 way." A remark which showed that Denis was no fool. 
 Lettice, who had been looking forward to an unpeaceful time 
 in the bosom of her family, accepted the loan with simple 
 gratitude, and stayed. It was easy to take favors from 
 Denis: could higher testimonial be given? 
 
 Bredon was a seaside place without a single villa; just 
 half-a-dozen old cottages and a new church, standing on 
 the verge of the chalk cliffs of Thanet. This church was a 
 building of surprising ugliness, red brick outside, decorated
 
 84 CONVICT B14 
 
 inside with stenciled texts chopped up like pieces of a jigsaw 
 puzzle. The east window had paper transparencies, leaded 
 and colored to imitate glass. The holy table was a table, 
 with obvious legs, having the Ten Commandments above and 
 a Bible upon it none of your papistical altars. The vicar 
 was a robust Evangelical with a mustache. Denis did not 
 like him very much, but he approved of his doctrine, and 
 attended his church. 
 
 Picture him, then, on his first Sunday at home, coming 
 out into the churchyard among that humble congregation 
 (vicar's wife, vicar's man, school children, candidate for 
 coals, village policeman in uniform, one girl 
 
 " And what took her there, do you guess ? 
 
 Her sweet little duck of a bonnet, 
 And her new second-hand silk dress") 
 
 and setting forth on his three-mile tramp across the marshes. 
 Denis would neither cycle, motor, nor fly upon a Sunday. 
 This was the more inconvenient because, if Bredon was out 
 of the world, Dandelion Farm, the present home of the 
 Smith aeroplane, might be said to be howling in the wilder- 
 ness. 
 
 It was still early in September, and after a rainy night 
 the sky was blue again, the air crystal-pure over the flat 
 green land. The road had neither fence nor hedgerow, but 
 on either side a dark blue ribbon of water lay brimming 
 and crumpling in the sea wind. Other such dikes, inter- 
 secting, ruled out the square fields of Thanet, where red 
 cattle, like wooden beasts out of a Noah's Ark, grazed on 
 pastures coarsely green. There was no sign of autumn but 
 in the sedge, withered putty-color, and rustling a dry, pleas- 
 ant song. In spring the yellow iris fringed the waterways ; 
 later, forget-me-not, loosestrife, meadow-sweet; now only 
 the tall mud-clotted stems of the willow-herb, and its pink 
 stars seeding in silvery down. Denis walked on, content. 
 He did not consciously think about his surroundings, but 
 unconsciously he was happier here than among the hills 
 and woods of Arden. Thanet was English, and he was
 
 A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS 85 
 
 English well, he was Irish; but he had all the English- 
 man's conservatism and love for the ways of home, what 
 foreigners call his insularity. 
 
 Straight ahead at the end of the track rose a delicately 
 penciled group of trees, with a gray roof showing beside, 
 and white dots of sheep on the gray-green of their pasture. 
 This was Dandelion, videlicet Dent-de-lion. Till a few 
 months since, the partners had rented a bungalow on the 
 sands near Bredon ; but there Denis had been so pestered 
 with interviewers, autograph hunters, and less estimable 
 gentry who came to pick his brains, that after some debate 
 they had transferred themselves to this lodge in the wilder- 
 ness. Part of the ground that went with the house was to 
 be flooded, for the use of seaplanes ; while there was ample 
 space in addition for an aerodrome and for workshops, 
 hangars, etc., which could be shut off behind a palisading, 
 and defy curiosity. 
 
 These new erections were frankly ugly, but there was a 
 certain dignity about the square gray Georgian farm-house 
 and its outbuildings. Denis passed a barn, its thatched 
 roof cushioned with mosses, then a haystack, exhaling its 
 warm sweet scent, then the stone gate-posts of the entrance. 
 The gate was open, and he paused to latch it; gates left 
 to swing shake off their hinges. He walked round the curve 
 of the drive, his mind agreeably occupied with thoughts of 
 cold beef, came in sight of the pillared portico thrice 
 horrid sight ! there was a car standing at the door ! 
 
 It was not his partner's, for the letter was P, not LD; 
 nor was the car itself much like the battered and beloved 
 old racer which Wandesforde liked to use. This was a 
 Rolls-Royce touring car of the present year's model. No 
 chauffeur was in charge. After prowling round to satisfy 
 the curiosity which any piece of machinery roused in his 
 engineer's brain, Denis went into the house to make inquiries. 
 The porch opened into a passage with rooms on either side. 
 Denis was tiptoeing towards the kitchen, where he hoped to 
 find his man, when the door on the left opened suddenly, 
 revealing the visitor Dorothea O'Connor.
 
 86 CONVICT B14 
 
 " So here you are at last ! " she said. " I ant so glad ! 
 I've been stuck here ever since eleven ! " 
 
 Denis did not echo her joy. " I thought you were at 
 Rochehaut ! " 
 
 " Me ? No, wasn't it funny ? I had to leave, in a hurry, 
 the very day after you did. I came off down here first thing 
 this morning. It's a glorious run through Kent the car 
 did travel ! " 
 
 " Your chauffeur, I suppose, is in with my man ? " 
 
 " Isn't. I didn't bring one," she airily explained. " I 
 didn't bring anybody. I hate being driven, I like to do 
 things for myself. I've come to see the aeroplanes, you 
 know. I told you I should ! " 
 
 She stuck her hands in her pockets and propped her 
 slim shoulders against the wall, looking up with a naughty 
 and audacious tilt of the chin. " Here I am and you can't 
 get rid of me ! " she seemed to say. 
 
 Denis did not want her in the least. It was two o'clock, 
 and humanity constrained him to ask her to lunch ; there was 
 not an inn for miles where she could get a meal, if he didn't, 
 and she must actually have seen his cold beef on the table. 
 But Denis was an Irishman, with strict ideas of propriety. 
 Dorothea, not for the first time, had forgotten her part ; while 
 posing as a young girl, she claimed the freedom of a married 
 woman. Reading her mistake in his face, she was quick to 
 seize the bull by the horns. 
 
 " I suppose I've no business here, and I know you don't 
 want me, but I'm not going back now till I've seen every- 
 thing ! " she announced ; and then, melting into the wheedling, 
 insinuating smile of a child : " You can look on me as a man 
 and a brother, or you can count me as business I am 
 I don't care what you do, only do forgive me, and do, do, do 
 ask me to lunch, for I'm so hungry ! " 
 
 Denis smiled too, though stiffly, making the best of it. 
 " I shall be very pleased to show you the place, Miss O'Con- 
 nor, but it's a pity you've come to-day, for you'll not see any 
 flyin'. The men are all home, you know."
 
 A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS 87 
 
 " Why, I came on purpose because I thought Sunday was 
 the day ! " 
 
 " It isn't with us." 
 
 Dorothea was subdued. She did not ask why, but meekly 
 reentered the room. The partners had divided the house 
 between them, and this was Denis's den, corresponding to 
 Wandesforde's across the passage. Wandesforde, though 
 he lived in town and was only a casual visitor at Dent-de- 
 lion, had made himself extremely comfortable ; Denis had 
 brought his old furniture from Bredon and dumped it in 
 the room, just as it was. There were two sash windows, 
 filled with small panes. Under one stood a table as big as a 
 four-poster, covered with papers. Denis could lay his hand 
 on any packet in the dark; but when papers are in order, 
 unfortunately it does not follow that they are tidy. In the 
 middle of the floor stood a second table, just large enough to 
 take Denis's plate and the cold beef. Beside the fireplace, 
 which had a marbled wooden mantelpiece, stood a pair of 
 leathern arm-chairs, once plum-colored, now seamed with 
 white cracks, and with every spring broken. The walls were 
 covered with drab paper, fading to yellow, there was a 
 square of drab drugget on the floor, and the ceiling was drab 
 also, from ancient lamp smoke. Dorothea thought in passing 
 that it was the ugliest room she had ever been in, but she, like 
 Denis, was highly indifferent to her surroundings. 
 
 But she was by no means indifferent to her host; she 
 thought him the handsomest man she had ever seen, an 
 opinion held by other young ladies before her, though 
 Denis's looks were not at all in the style of the barber's 
 block. He was just under six feet in height, lightly built 
 and light in movement, all bone and sinew. His face was 
 thin too, a little pinched at the temples, a little hollow in 
 the cheeks, with dark brows, dark hair, and a white skin 
 which burnt biscuit-brown, not red. Irish coloring and 
 deep-set, dark blue Irish eyes, " put in with a dirty finger " 
 under their long soft lashes. The lower part of the face, 
 nose and lips and chin, was most delicately modeled, fine,
 
 88 CONVICT BU 
 
 high-bred, rather ascetic in type. In short, he was as hand- 
 some as a paladin, d, fendre le cceur, and so purely indifferent 
 to the fact, one way or the other, that Lettice when she poked 
 her soft fun at him got no more than an absent-minded smile. 
 No rises were to be had in that quarter. But Dorothea was 
 not given to poking fun at people; she planted her elbows 
 on the table and her chin in her hands, adoring his looks, 
 hanging breathless on his words, divided in admiration be- 
 tween his person and his profession and how those great 
 eyes of hers could lighten and glow ! They were not the 
 same eyes, she was not the same girl who had poured out 
 her lightnings on Harry Gardiner. 
 
 In telling her tale to Lettice, Dorothea had said less 
 than the truth. For one thing, she was ashamed to own 
 that she had been physically afraid of her uncle. The 
 anger of a stupid and wrong-headed man may be a very 
 brutal thing. When he threatened to knock her down, 
 Dorothea gave in, in helpless rage and humiliation, bad 
 companions for a high-spirited girl. Also she suffered more 
 than she herself realized from her isolation. Dorothea was 
 the born devotee; she would never have learned to hate if 
 she had had any one to adore. But she was quite alone. 
 The neighborhood was up in arms, no doubt, but nobody 
 was anxious to stand forth as her champion : partly because 
 people are always loath to interfere in a neighbor's business, 
 partly because the unlucky little heiress had been painted by 
 her loving relatives in such very lurid colors that some of 
 the paint had stuck. 
 
 Then came Major Trent to stay at the Anglers' Rest. 
 He met Dorothea one morning when she had been sent 
 out to exercise her aunt's Chow. The amiable Xit tried 
 to bite the stranger, and did bite Dorothea when she hauled 
 him off. Naturally Trent expressed his concern. Naturally 
 Dorothea did not mention the incident at home. They met 
 again next day, of course by chance, in the same place 
 in fine, Dorothea had found her champion. The affair was 
 rushed through in a month. Mrs. O'Connor woke up one 
 morning to miss her early cup of tea. She descended in a
 
 A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS 89 
 
 dressing-gown to scold Dorothea, but no Dorothea was to 
 be found. She had gone, without leaving so much as the 
 traditional note on her pin-cushion. Next day came the 
 announcement of her marriage, by special license, to Major 
 Trent, D.S.O. 
 
 Dorothea when she married was innocent and ignorant 
 as a child. She came to Trent with eager fresh gratitude 
 and affection. She spent eight months with him; eight 
 feverish, hothouse^forcing months of premature emotion. 
 Towards the end of the time, when his passion had cooled, 
 and when she herself was calmed and steadied by the hope 
 of motherhood, she began to look at her battered knight 
 with wondering eyes, which would soon have grown critical. 
 His tragic death, however, made criticism disloyal, and in- 
 vested Trent with all his former glories. It swept away, 
 too, the hope to which the girl had been looking forward 
 with grave, ennobling joy. Only Louisa knew how frantic- 
 ally Dorothea grieved for her baby. Her long illness was 
 really an obstinate refusal to be comforted. Louisa, it may 
 be noted, had not been Dorothea's devoted nurse. She had 
 been Mr. O'Connor's incomparable cook ; and the unkindest 
 blow his niece dealt was that she carried off, when she went, 
 the only perfect maker of souffles he had ever known. 
 
 Here was Dorothea, then, at twenty-one, half a child 
 and half a woman, frantic with grief, and convinced that 
 the murderer of her husband and child was going free un- 
 punished. She vowed herself to vengeance as a sacred duty. 
 She was unpersuadably sure that all she had done to Gar- 
 diner was justifiable. But Denis was different. True, he 
 had screened the murderer, but Dorothea couldn't but own 
 that in his shoes she would have done the same. She was 
 not quite happy in her mind; but she crushed the scruple, 
 telling herself that when justice is done the innocent must 
 suffer with the guilty. She crushed it, and presently she 
 forgot it, yes, and her vengeance into the bargain, when they 
 went out to see the works. Aeroplanes are so exciting! 
 After all, Dorothea was not much more than a baby, and she 
 had long arrears of play to make up.
 
 90 CONVICT B14 
 
 In old days, Denis and his man Simpson had built the ma- 
 chines with their own hands ; later, at Bredon, they employed 
 half-a-dozen men ; now there were twenty, and the number 
 was growing. Behind the tall palisade a nest of sheds was 
 springing up wood and metal working shops, rigging 
 rooms, offices, stores, Simpson's cabin where he slept as night 
 watchman, and finally the hangars. Great ugly erections of 
 brickwork and corrugated iron, with gable ends and sliding 
 doors, they caught the eye at once. The first held an un- 
 finished seaplane, marked for rebuilding after undergoing 
 her trials; a biplane built in 1911, now hopelessly out of 
 date; and a Bleriot monoplane belonging to Wandesforde 
 which Denis hated, and which, he gravely assured his com- 
 panion, would kill him if he gave it the chance. But he 
 hurried Dorothea past these to the smaller shed, which con- 
 tained only one machine : his favorite, his beloved, the 80 h.p. 
 monoplane scout which had been entered for the Birmingham 
 race. 
 
 She was very small, scarcely larger than Santos-Dumont's 
 famous " Demoiselle." There was a slender bird-like body, 
 the fuselage, in which the pilot sat, deep-sunk, with passenger 
 behind, engine and propeller in front, the two long blades 
 standing out like antennae. Pale wings arched and tilted 
 upwards on either side, curving like the wings of a gull in 
 flight. The whole stood on a light framework, the chassis 
 or under-carriage, corresponding to the feet of a bird. 
 Dorothea listened, while Denis explained the perfections of 
 his handiwork. Tangential, lift coefficient, angle of inci- 
 dence, such terms went in at one ear and out at the other ; 
 she was not interested in scientific aeronautics. Denis was 
 expounding the principles of stream-line design, as shown in 
 the curves of his fuselage, when she interrupted. 
 
 " Mr. Merion-Smith, will you teach me to fly ? " 
 
 " Will I teach you to fly ? " 
 
 " Yes. You said I could learn. I want to learn." 
 
 He shook his head, smiling. " You should go to Hendon 
 or Brooklands. We don't run a flying school, you know." 
 
 " I don't want to go to Hendon or Brooklands, I want to
 
 A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS 91 
 
 go to you," retorted Dorothea flatly. " I want you to build 
 me a machine like this one, and I want you to teach me to 
 manage it. Will you ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid that's out of the question." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 If Denis had told the bare truth, he must have answered, 
 Because I don't want to. As that was unsayable, he hedged. 
 
 " Well, for one thing, I've no plane you could learn on. 
 You need a special school machine, with duplicate control 
 for pilot and pupil we've nothing of the sort." 
 
 " If that's all,' I'll buy one." 
 
 " Buy a machine that'll be no earthly use to you six months 
 hence?" 
 
 " Why not ? Why shouldn't I throw my money away if I 
 want to? It's good for trade, and it can't possibly matter 
 to you ! " 
 
 Denis looked as though it mattered a good deal. Geral- 
 dine, who had followed them from the house like a dog, 
 seized this moment to make a scrambling leap on his shoul- 
 der. He steadied her with one hand mechanically as she 
 walked to and fro, pushing now her nose and now her tail 
 into his face, after the inconsiderate manner of a happy cat, 
 but obviously she was too much a matter of course to inter- 
 rupt his thoughts. All he said was : " I should wait till I 
 was older, if I were you." 
 
 " Pooh ! I'm as old as that boy who was killed at East- 
 church last week, and he'd had his ticket for two years." 
 
 " Quite possibly, but then you see he is dead." 
 
 "Ah, you say that because you think I'm reckless, but 
 that's only with money. I shouldn't be reckless flying, I 
 should love my plane far too much." She rubbed her cheek 
 softly against the varnished fabric of the wing. 
 
 " That remains to be seen," said Denis, smiling. 
 
 " No, it doesn't. I am careful. I've driven my car about 
 town for two years now, and never had a summons or an 
 accident." 
 
 Denis looked at her with more respect, but he continued 
 to shake his head. "Go to Hendon and get your ticket,
 
 92 CONVICT B14 
 
 and then come back to me, and I'll build you a machine 
 with pleasure." 
 
 " I won't. I'll learn of you, or not at all." 
 
 " Then I'm afraid it will have to be not at all." 
 
 "Oh, you are hateful," said Dorothea succinctly. She 
 turned her back on him and marched towards the door. 
 Half-way there she thought better of it, and came back to 
 lay her clasped hands on his arm, frankly imploring. " Oh, 
 do teach me ! " she besought. " Do. Do. You don't know 
 how much I want it ! Why won't you ? Is it because I'm 
 not a man ? " 
 
 Denis was driven a step nearer the truth. " I've really 
 not the time. I'm a designer, not an instructor; it would 
 not be fair to my partner to undertake outside work." 
 
 " Ah, but I shouldn't take long to learn. I'm good with 
 machinery. Besides, if you won't teach me I won't buy 
 one of your machines, and that'll be worse for your partner 
 than just the few hours you'd have to give up two, wasn't 
 it, that man learned in the other day? Won't you at least 
 ask Mr. Wandesforde if he'd mind? Please, please say 
 yes ! " 
 
 Denis was wishing her at Jericho. He delighted in a 
 battle, but he had no armor against coaxing. He did not 
 in the least want to teach Miss O'Connor, or any one else, 
 to fly. He had a full winter's work before him on the sea- 
 plane, and he hated (like Lettice) to be dragged out of his 
 rut. Finally, Dorothea was a woman; and women are an 
 endless bother. Seeing a chance of evading her, he jumped 
 at it. 
 
 " Well, I'll ask Wandesforde if you like," he conceded. 
 
 Dorothea took her hands off his arm with a nod of satis- 
 faction. " I thought I'd get you to do it," she said. " I 
 always know what I want and I generally get it. It's only 
 a question of wanting it hard enough. I'll go now, and 
 leave you in peace. You'll write to him at once, won't 
 you ? " 
 
 Oh yes, Denis would write at once. He was already 
 concocting the letter as he locked up the sheds. " I've had
 
 A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS 93 
 
 a nuisance of a woman here pretending she wants to order 
 a machine on condition that one of us teaches her to fly. 
 Quite young, and I should say quite irresponsible. I told 
 her, of course, that we didn't run a school, but I wouldn't 
 absolutely refuse without consulting you." 
 
 He had got as far as this when Dorothea broke in. She 
 was looking rather solemn. 
 
 " I forgot to say one thing. Do you mind, if you're 
 writing to Mr. Gardiner, not telling him anything about me? 
 Or Lettice either," she added. 
 
 " Certainly, if you wish it," said Denis after a moment. 
 
 " I do wish it." 
 
 They walked on in silence. At the steps Dorothea paused 
 for a last word. 
 
 " I've had a quarrel with him. A bad quarrel. I don't 
 want him to know I'm here, because if he does he'll think 
 it his duty to write and warn you against me." 
 
 This was the truth, and, as truth often does, it conveyed 
 a false impression. 
 
 " Gardiner? " said Denis, incredulous. " He would never 
 do that." 
 
 " He would, he would, you don't know. He might not to 
 any one else, but he would to you." 
 
 This was true again, and again misleading. Denis was 
 puzzled. " I thought you and he were friends," he said. 
 
 " Not now. He hates me." 
 
 " Gardiner hates you ? " 
 
 " Yes. Thinks me wicked. Wouldn't willingly be under 
 the same roof. He does, he does. And we can never make 
 it up. I'm angry with Lettice too, at present, but I shall 
 make it up with her, because I love her. But not with Mr. 
 Gardiner never, never." 
 
 " Well, if you say so," said Denis, "but I thought" 
 
 Dorothea looked up with a flash of understanding. No 
 need to put into words what he had thought about her and 
 Gardiner. 
 
 " That ? " she said. " Oh no never, never, never! " 
 
 This time Denis believed her.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 COSAS DE BRUJAS 
 
 I have been here before, 
 
 But when or how I cannot tell. 
 
 Sudden Light. 
 
 " MY dearest dear, will you come for a little walk ? " 
 
 " Muy senora mia, with all the pleasure in life." 
 
 Lettice, who was stooping over a new kitten which she 
 had adopted since the departure of Geraldine, straightened 
 herself and looked at Gardiner with a discouraging expres- 
 sion. They were at the back of the house; she had been 
 about to climb the steep hill orchard to watch the sunset 
 when her minute friend charged out of the kitchen door, 
 on her weak little legs no thicker than matches, with her 
 tiny triangular tail flourishing in the air. Lettice had not, 
 however, expected her host to follow directly on the kitten's 
 heels. 
 
 He stood there laughing. " It's time for your evening 
 constitutional. You haven't been out once since Denis went 
 off. He left you in my charge ; I shan't feel I'm doing my 
 duty if I don't accept your very pressing invitation." 
 
 " I was not speaking to you," said Lettice deliberately. 
 
 He only laughed again. 
 
 " I know that; you never do speak to a Christian if you 
 can possibly get out of it, do you? Give me that atom. 
 No, I won't hurt her ; I've some milk for her here she 
 was just going to drink it when she heard your welcome 
 footstep and affection was too much for her. Come on, 
 vidita mia." 
 
 Dexterously, even tenderly, he detached the clinging claws 
 from Lettice's shoulder, and set down the mite at the saucer. 
 The little head nodded over it, sniffing tentatively, and then 
 94
 
 COSAS DE BRUJAS 95 
 
 out came a minute pink tongue and she began to lap, crouch- 
 ing down and crooning a contented purr. Lettice liked the 
 way Gardiner lifted out a paw which had insinuated itself 
 into the saucer, and stroked one finger down four inches of 
 tabby spine. Then he looked up. 
 
 " As a matter of fact, I've an errand on hand, at the farm 
 where we get our milk. Will you come with me? I wish 
 you would. I'm bored of my own company." 
 
 "Is it far?" asked Lettice defensively. 
 
 " Mile. Don't come if you're fagged, but sacrifice your- 
 self to oblige a fellow-creature if it's only laziness or 
 unsociability." 
 
 "Well," said Lettice, permitting herself the hint of a 
 smile. She liked again the quick way he picked himself up, 
 taking her at her word to the instant. 
 
 " Come on, then. There's only just time ; I've masses 
 of letters to write before the post goes, and I know you aren't 
 going to be hurried." 
 
 For all his quickness (and he was instinctively quick and 
 light in every movement), Lettice found him a more con- 
 siderate companion than Denis, who walked her off her legs. 
 Their way led up through the steep hill orchard to the grassy 
 hill-side above. Once he stopped and turned to help her 
 over the rough ground, but when she silently avoided seeing 
 his extended hand, he did not offer it again. Denis, rooted 
 in his old-fashioned courtesy, had never learned to leave her 
 alone. This was a very different type of mind; less restful, 
 because more perceptive. When they reached the crest of 
 the hill he pulled up. Lettice tried to persuade herself it 
 was not done to let her get her breath, but she was quite 
 sure it was. 
 
 " See that hedge over there ? " he said, pointing across 
 the expanse of level silvery grass. " Well, you'd never think 
 it, but beyond that it's nothing but arable flats, beet and 
 cabbages and potatoes, all the way to Rochehaut. Anything 
 duller you can't imagine. And yet under this very spot 
 where we're standing there's a cave that's never been ex- 
 plored, running Lord knows how deep into the hill. Stalac-
 
 96 CONVICT B14 
 
 tites and stalagmites and an underground river. I went in 
 once with my torch, but I had to come back too unsafe. 
 Some day I'll have that place shored up and made accessible, 
 and charge five francs for admission, like the caves of Han. 
 Leg-up for the Bellevue, what? I like this sort of mixed 
 grill, you know, wild and tame together I like all this 
 country. No, not that way there's some view from the 
 crucifix you see against the sky-line, but we haven't time for 
 it to-night. Along here, through the wood." 
 
 Lettice looked round, before following him into the copse 
 of starveling firs, and gorse, and ragged heather. From 
 where they stood, a little below the crucifix, they could not 
 see the valley ; only the silvery undulating hill-side, and the 
 evening sky, and the grasses leaning sidelong in the wind. 
 It was lonely and bare enough to please her. " Are you 
 going to stop here ? " she asked. 
 
 "I am. D.V. What? Oh yes, I'm pious in my way, 
 especially when I get off alone among these hills. I believe 
 I belong here sort of ancestral feeling ; talking of which, 
 I'll show you something rather queer at the farm when we 
 get there. Yes, I'm going to stay, if I'm let." He walked 
 on, twirling his stick in the air. " Last time I was up here 
 it was with Miss O'Connor," he added irrelevantly. 
 
 Lettice was a good deal surprised ; she thought she under- 
 stood now why he had not wished to come alone. She had 
 not been told, but she knew, as well from his looks as from 
 Dorothea's headlong flight, that the explosion had come. 
 Gardiner might keep up his laugh, that eternal laugh which 
 grated on a sensitive ear like the squeaking of a pen, but he 
 could not hide the change in his features, pinched and sharp- 
 ened by suffering. Suffering yes pain : physical pain, 
 that was what his face betrayed : not grief. His dark eyes 
 they were, the poet decided, like the depths of a pine-wood : 
 dark blackish-brown, with undertones of dark green were 
 like those of a dog that has been run over. No one else 
 seemed to notice anything wrong ; at the pension one woman 
 had remarked casually that Mr. Gardiner was looking seedy, 
 that was all ; but then no one but Lettice held the key.
 
 COSAS DE BRUJAS 97 
 
 If his frankness surprised her, it surprised himself more, 
 for he had by no means intended to mention Dorothea. He 
 sheered off the subject in a hurry. " I've been up here 
 most evenings lately," he said. " Madame Hasquin has a 
 bureau on which I've set my heart ; she means me to have it 
 in the end, but I can't get her to terms. No, it's not the 
 money, it's the fun sheer delight in bargaining. I don't 
 mind. It's rather jolly up here in the evenings, you get the 
 sunset; and it's soul-refreshingly lonely. This wood 
 you'd never guess there was a house within five minutes, 
 would you ? Stand still a moment." 
 
 He laid his hand on her arm to detain her, and the silence 
 fell on them like a pall. Not a leaf stirred ; the firs raised 
 their black spikes rigid against the sky, some erect, some 
 doubled and contorted like ogres. Brambles, crouching low, 
 thrust out long stealthy clutching claws across the track. 
 The sky was golden, and gold were the strips of water lying 
 in the ruts, winding away to the open hill and safety ; but the 
 wood was dark, dark, and already in its depths, here and 
 there, a glow-worm had lit its tiny keen speck of unearthly 
 fire, glass-green, steady, burning but unconsumed. " That's 
 the way to the cave," murmured Gardiner, his voice drop- 
 ping, his grip tightening on her arm. " Cosas de brujas 
 witches, I mean. Never tell me a wood isn't alive ! " 
 
 He meant it. Lettice, who professed to be stolid, found 
 herself responding to his fancy with an involuntary thrill. 
 There was something wrong about the place ; it had its finger 
 on its lip ; it seemed to hold a secret of its own, to threaten 
 them with it, to jeer at their un foreseeing ignorance. 
 
 The silence was broken by a sudden outburst of merry 
 childish laughter and the sharp barks of a dog. Gardiner 
 laughed too, releasing her. " And now come on. Round 
 this corner mind the gate, it'll pinch your fingers, better 
 let me. There : what do you think of that ? " 
 
 They were clear of the wood and out on the open hill- 
 side, looking down into a valley, a green crease among velvet- 
 green hills softly molded, falling away to a line of trees, 
 among which tinkled the crystal cascades of a brook. On
 
 98 CONVICT BU 
 
 the upward slope beyond rose a group of buildings. A 
 round squat tower, a line of loopholed wall ; the low white 
 front of a dwelling-house, rising among golden ricks; the 
 flickering brightness of a bonfire, a tall, slender ribbon of 
 golden incandescence, burning in a golden fume, gilding the 
 dark branches of the orchard, loosing flakes of flame and 
 drifts of lavender-gray smoke into the lavender-blue of the 
 sky. Two children and a dog were dancing round it, feeding 
 it with masses of golden bracken ; it was their laughter which 
 had broken into the enchanted wood. 
 
 " When the Bellevue started life as a convent, that was 
 the convent farm," said Gardiner. " Fortified Lord, yes, 
 they needed forts in those days ; it dates from Spanish 
 times. Didn't you know that? There's not much of the 
 old stuff left in my Bellevue, bar the gateway and the 
 salle, which is substantially the old refectory. But that 
 old tower down there is pretty much as it was in the be- 
 ginning. Ferme de la Croix, they call it ; Convent of the 
 Holy Cross, you'd say, but I don't myself believe that's the 
 origin of the name. Come on down and I'll show you." 
 
 Lettice had not contributed much in words to the con- 
 versation, but she had done her part for all that, in following 
 the quick turns of his mind. They went down, crossed a 
 bridge built of slabs of uncut stone, and were greeted at the 
 door by a woman of fifty who looked seventy. She had not 
 a tooth in her head ; it was hard to believe she was the mother 
 and not the grandmother of the two tow-headed children. 
 " Eh, monsieur, quelles nouvelles ? " But the sweetness of 
 her smile redeemed the plainness of her face. 
 
 Gardiner followed her down a white passage, not one line 
 of which was true, into a low-pitched, pleasant living-room, 
 with scarlet geraniums in the window. There beside the 
 open hearth stood the bureau, black as bog oak and richly 
 carved, with shining brass handles on drawers that slipped 
 in and out at the touch of a finger. Madame chattered in 
 her abominable Walloon French, Gardiner laughed and 
 argued back; it was sadly plain to Lettice, who could dis- 
 tinguish such niceties, that he had picked up the accent of
 
 COSAS DE BRUJAS 99 
 
 the country. There are disadvantages in being imitative. 
 They came to the question of price, and Lettice, feeling her- 
 self de trap, withdrew to the open door. She waited there, 
 between rose and crimson hollyhocks, making love to a lean 
 flanked sandy cat who rushed effusively out of the stable- 
 yard, and reared herself on hind legs to press her hard head 
 against the visitor's hand. The children had disappeared, 
 but their voices were heard in the orchard. In the west, 
 soft bluish clouds were floating on lakes of burning rose. 
 A big star was born above the dark spires of the enchanted 
 wood, keen silver in the faint and fading gold. 
 
 Gardiner came out in high good-humor. " You've brought 
 me luck," he said. " Madame's given in at last. I've had 
 my eye on the bureau ever since the first time I came up 
 here haven't I, madame? And now, when's the four- 
 poster coming? When I've been at you about it for another 
 couple of years is that the idea? " 
 
 " Jamis, ja-mais," said madame, vigorously shaking her 
 head, laughing all over her wrinkles. " Non, monsieur, non. 
 Je tiens a mon lit, savez-vous ! " 
 
 "Et moi aussi, j'y tiens, et je vas 1'avoir, savez-vous?" 
 Gardiner laughed back, cheerfully ungrammatical. He laid 
 his hand again on Lettice's arm a small elegant brown 
 hand : in nothing was he more un-English than in the shape 
 and size of his hands and feet: Lettice looked down on it 
 with an insulted expression which was quite wasted, as he 
 wheeled her round to face the house " Here's what I said 
 I'd show you; it really is rather queer. That stone above 
 the arch do you see ? " 
 
 The farm had a square-shouldered doorway; the head- 
 piece was a single massive block of stone. Deep carved 
 thereon, in the same old-fashioned numerals which appeared 
 on the lintel of the Bellevue, was the same date: 1548. 
 Above the date was lettering, moss-grown and indistinct. 
 
 " Can you read it ? " asked Gardiner. 
 
 Was there anything requiring eyes which Lettice could 
 not read ? " Manuel de la Cruz," she spelt out. 
 
 " Cruz," Gardiner corrected her, giving to the " z " its soft
 
 100 CONVICT B14 
 
 Castilian lisp. " Now I do not in the least believe the con- 
 vent, and consequently this farm, was dedicated to the Holy 
 Cross. I believe it was named for its founder. But the odd 
 part of the story is that it's my name as well. My mother 
 was half Spanish born Florentina de la Cruz; and I'm 
 called after her : Henry de la Cruz Gardiner." 
 
 " Well, that is queer," said Lettice, for once with con- 
 viction. 
 
 "Isn't it? There aren't so many traces left of the 
 Spanish occupation ; I call it something of a coincidence that 
 that should have survived, and that I should come on it 
 should actually take over and settle down in the house built 
 by my namesake. Of course it's a not uncommon name in 
 Spain, but it does set one thinking. And see here, too." 
 He dragged her across to the tower. The gateway was half 
 ruinous; one of the jambs had fallen, bringing some of the 
 stones along with it, and others seemed ready to follow. 
 " No, this isn't war's alarms, though as a matter of fact I 
 have found a cannon ball embedded in the barn. Jules 
 backed the engine into it the other day. This lintel's all 
 cock-eye, but you can still see the cross and initials can 
 you? carved on the end here." He was tracing out the 
 mark. 
 
 " Take care ! " said Lettice suddenly. 
 
 She was too late. The stone above perhaps he had 
 brushed against it ; at any rate, it settled down, quietly and 
 inexorably, grinding his hand between itself and the block 
 below. Lettice's arm sprang out ; she could be quick on oc- 
 casion, but he was quicker still. " No ! keep off ! " he cried 
 out, instantly fending her off, shouldering her out of the 
 way ; and in the same breath he inserted the point of his stick 
 into the crevice. A very slight leverage, and the upper stone 
 tipped and fell to the ground, in a shower of dust and rubble. 
 He drew away his hand and stepped back. " They ought to 
 have that seen to, I'll warn madame," he said. " It's jolly 
 dangerous, with those kids about." 
 
 "You've hurt yourself," said Lettice. 
 
 " Yes, I've done myself proud this time," he said, and
 
 COSAS DE BRUJAS 101 
 
 coolly put his hand behind his back. " Don't look at it, it 
 isn't pretty. I'll cut in and get some warm water out of 
 madame, and do it up." 
 
 He turned and walked off to the house. Unfortunately, in 
 turning he forgot that his hand was behind him, and Lettice 
 saw it. It was dripping blood ; he left his trail across the 
 golden straw to the door. Lettice stayed where she was. 
 She was not going where she was not wanted. She felt a 
 little sick; not for the sight of blood, but in sympathy with 
 him. She had seen him change color. Yet he was cool 
 enough ; she could hear his voice inside, answering madame's 
 exclamation as lightly as ever. Presently he came out again, 
 with a white-bandaged paw, and a face not much less pallid 
 than the linen. 
 
 " Thanks so much for not fussing," he said. " I had a 
 gay ten minutes with madame ; I thought she was going to 
 embrace me. Let's get on home now, do you mind? All 
 this bobbery has taken the dickens of a time, and I've masses 
 of things still to do before dinner." 
 
 Lettice fell in beside him without a word. For once in 
 her life, she walked fast. Gardiner was silent too, twirling 
 his stick in his left hand instead of the right. They had 
 reached the hill of the crucifix, and were descending the 
 orchard, before Lettice opened her lips. 
 
 " You won't be able to write your letters. How will you 
 manage ? " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. "Make shift with my left 
 hand, I suppose." 
 
 " You'd better let me do them for you." 
 
 " It's nearly eight o'clock. Time for you to have your 
 supper and go to by-by." 
 
 " I don't always go to bed at nine," said Lettice. 
 ." "Wpuld you really be so good as to do it, for once? " 
 
 " C L course." 
 
 " Servidor dedtusted, senorita," said Gardiner, " que sus 
 pies besa yojrtu^rvant, madam, who kisses your feet: I 
 don't know wl that rant to talk Spanish to you, but I un- 
 doubtedly do -way of \ be inexpressibly grateful."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 ALL IN THE AIR 
 
 Hark ! I am called ; my little spirit, see, 
 Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me. 
 
 Macbeth. 
 
 SYDNEY WANDESFORDE, Denis's partner, was a big, heavy- 
 featured, heavily built man, whose appearance nobody could 
 have called aristocratic. Plutocratic was more like it. 
 There had been patent pills on the distaff side of his an- 
 cestry, and unfortunately he had taken after them, instead 
 of after the belted earls of the paternal line. He had, how- 
 ever, the easy manners, the clean movements, the soft voice 
 of his class, and if he was plain he looked able. 
 
 He had never got beyond surnames with Denis ; which 
 meant that he had never met the soft side of that pugnacious 
 Irish tongue. Denis was Haus-engel, Strassteufel, a lamb 
 to his friends, a lion abroad. There were moments when 
 Wandesforde thought him the most irritating man on the 
 face of the globe ; but he bore with it, never coming to a 
 quarrel, because he liked and valued his partner too much 
 to let him go. At the time of their first meeting, Denis had 
 spent every penny he possessed, and had nothing to put into 
 the partnership except his brains, and an aeroplane which at 
 that date (1907) couldn't be induced to quit the ground. 
 Yet the agreement was drawn as between equals, and 
 Wandesforde claimed not more but less control than in an 
 ordinary partnership. Why? Because he was sb r rwd 
 enough to see that Denis would never work as a subordinate ; 
 and because, as aforesaid, he valued his pa. *:ner too much to 
 give him any excuse for throwing up ' vork and going 
 off in a huff of outraged independen- he would have 
 
 done on the least provocation soime," he: is an Ulster- 
 102
 
 ALL IN THE AIR 103 
 
 man's pride ! " Give him his head ? Of course I do ! " he 
 said with half a laugh to his brother, who had expressed some 
 mild surprise. "Eccentricities of genius, what? Oh yes, 
 he is a genius, head and shoulders above the rest of the 
 crowd ; and a nice chap too, and abso-lutely straight. Can't 
 help liking him. I admit he's a bit trying at times, but it's 
 worth it. I'd rather work with him than with any man 
 I know ! " 
 
 Now Denis saw the position as clearly as his partner; 
 he knew that he could do pretty much as he liked, that 
 Wandesforde, though he paid the piper, would carefully 
 refrain from calling the tune. Therefore, having a con- 
 science, he felt bound to do of his own accord most of the 
 things his partner wanted, but wouldn't ask. All which 
 preamble leads us to the fact that Wandesforde, not gather- 
 ing from his letter that Denis abhorred the idea of teaching 
 Dorothea, wrote back warmly approving of the plan. He 
 had taken up flying in the first instance to amuse himself; 
 but times were hard, Dent-de-lion had been expensive, and 
 why shouldn't he recoup himself, as others had done, by 
 laying out an aerodrome and starting a flying school ? The 
 idea had been simmering in his head for some time, and he 
 poured it all out as soon as Denis gave him an opening. 
 Afterwards, when he saw how the land lay, he retracted; 
 but he had shown his wishes so plainly that Denis, ready to 
 gnash his teeth for rage, felt bound to sink his own feelings 
 and accept Dorothea as a pupil. In the net he had laid 
 privily was his own foot taken. 
 
 The lessons were deferred, however, until after the Bir- 
 mingham race ; in which Denis met the luck he had expected. 
 Over the first part of the course he made better time than any 
 of the other competitors. Between Polesworth and Walsall 
 he had to come down, with valve trouble. He set it right, 
 and went to restart the engine by "swinging the prop," 
 while half-a-dozen laborers held on to the tail of the ma- 
 chine. Unfortunately they were so much surprised by the 
 sudden pull that they let go ; Denis had barely time to get 
 out of the way of the murderous whizzing blades. Then
 
 104 CONVICT BU 
 
 followed a wildly funny scene, the monoplane charging about 
 the field with devilish energy, while Denis and his six peni- 
 tent assistants pelted after it. In the end it butted its nose 
 into the bank, broke the propeller, and put itself out of the 
 race. 
 
 " I told you what would come of flyin' on a Friday," said 
 Denis in self-righteous gloom to his partner, over one of 
 those strange meals which pilots learn to eat in village 
 pubs. No one should fly who isn't physically fit, so pre- 
 sumably their digestions are equal to the strain. This meal 
 had begun with beer and bacon, and gone on to buns three- 
 days-old currant buns. 
 
 Wandesforde, with his wife, had been following the race 
 in a car. His arm was still in a sling, and his looks had not 
 been improved by a blow which had knocked his front teeth 
 crooked. He was patiently mincing up his bun with knife 
 and fork ; bite into it he could not. 
 
 " Well, dash it all, if a race is run on a Friday you have 
 to fly it on a Friday, don't you ? " he said, annoyed. " I 
 wouldn't have let you in if I could possibly have held the 
 joy-stick. I'm not superstitious about the days of the week 
 myself." 
 
 " No, you've had smashes on every one of the seven, 
 haven't you ? " 
 
 Bearing this with an effort, Wandesforde gave up his bun 
 as a bad job and consoled himself with a cigar. " I suppose 
 now you'll go back to Dent-de-lion and take on Miss O'Con- 
 nor?" he asked, by way of changing the subject. 
 
 " Teach her to commit suicide expensively," said the 
 morose Denis. " She'll never make a pilot ; anybiddy can 
 see that. Women haven't it in them. Any old thing that's 
 idiotic they'll do start without fillin' up the tank, as soon 
 as not ! " 
 
 The sting of this speech was that Wandesforde, not being 
 always as careful as his partner deemed desirable, had 
 recently made this very omission himself, and paid for it by 
 crashing a friend's favorite bus. The silence was broken by 
 a small subdued sound of amusement from Mrs. Wandes-
 
 ALL IN THE AIR 105 
 
 forde, which consoled her husband in proportion as it an- 
 noyed Denis. He scowled at her through his eyeglass, and 
 then, muttering something about the monoplane, stalked out 
 of the room. 
 
 " Lord ! " said Wandesforde, getting up and squaring his 
 broad shoulders against the mantelpiece with an audible sigh 
 of relief, "he's in a pretty rank temper, what? I hoped he 
 hadn't heard about Wyatt's Avro. Never knew him so cut 
 up about a smash before ! " 
 
 His wife, a piece of silvery transparent loveliness, shook 
 her fair head. " Not the smash," she pronounced, oracular. 
 " Miss O'Connor ! " 
 
 Meanwhile Dorothea had established herself in a furnished 
 cottage at Bredon, with an old governess as companion- 
 chaperon. Miss Byrd had been living in an alms-house on 
 ten shillings a week, when her half-forgotten pupil sought 
 her out. It should be noted in passing that if Dorothea pur- 
 sued her enemies with vengeance, she also pursued her 
 friends with gratitude. More than this ; she could be gener- 
 ous even to her enemies. Against her lawyer's advice, she 
 had insisted on making her uncle an allowance. " I'm not 
 going to be a pig, because he was ! " she said. Vengeance 
 and revenge are, in fact, very different, as different as the 
 lion and the hyena. But this is by the way; and indeed at 
 this time Dorothea's vengeance had dropped out of sight. 
 Just as she flung herself on Gardiner, so she had now at- 
 tacked Denis, without definite plan, on the opportunist theory 
 that something would turn up ; and something had, but not 
 what she expected. Her own youth lifted its head. She 
 had come to exploit the aeroplanes for her vengeance ; and 
 lo and behold ! she forgot her vengeance in the aeroplanes. 
 
 Denis had adapted the 1911 model for use as a school 
 machine, and Dorothea began in the usual way by " rolling " 
 i.e., taxi-ing on the ground. Most pupils " break wood " 
 during this process, for an aeroplane will run any way but 
 straight, preferring to curl round like a puppy after its own 
 tail. But Dorothea had by nature that automatic sixth sense
 
 106 CONVICT B14 
 
 of machinery which most people acquire only by practice. 
 She would have learned to fly in a week, representing some 
 three or four hours actually in the air, if Denis had given 
 her full time ; but he would not. Three days out of the six 
 he kept sacred to his work. On the remaining three Dor- 
 othea and her car appeared at Dent-de-lion whenever the 
 weather was favorable, and often when it wasn't. There 
 were many rough days that September. 
 
 At first Denis found her an unmitigated nuisance. It 
 was bad enough to put up with her when it was calm ; but 
 on a day of storm and tempest, with a fifty-mile gale then 
 to be interrupted by rosy-hopeful youth clamoring for a 
 lesson it was intolerable ! Nature had never designed 
 Denis for a teacher. He would have crushed a stupid pu- 
 pil. He was hard even on Dorothea, when she failed to 
 know what he hadn't told her. But she was so eager, 
 pliant, uncrushable, so ardently in earnest, so reverent in 
 attention, so insinuating in meekness : in a word, she flattered 
 him so sweetly that he began, unconsciously at first, yet 
 surely, he began to enjoy teaching her. 
 
 Even if there had been no question of Trent, Dorothea 
 and Harry Gardiner would never have made friends. They 
 had nothing in common. She, a little materialist, living in 
 her feelings, caring not a rap for the pleasures of the mind 
 or fancy ; he, a restless thinker, imaginative, uneven in grain, 
 too close in sympathy with nature to be wholly civilized. 
 That strain of wildness would keep him always solitary ; but 
 Dorothea, though she had never yet had a chance to find her- 
 self, was essentially a home woman. She wanted to adore, 
 to be ruled by, to mother her man in the good old-fashioned 
 way. All that would simply have bored Gardiner. To 
 Denis, on the other hand, it was the ideal of married life. 
 
 They sat side by side, his hands over hers, guiding the 
 aeroplane, and he forgot she was a woman. Not till then 
 did her womanhood begin to make its impression. She 
 had attracted Gardiner, the man of reason, through his 
 senses, she attracted Denis, the man of instinct, through his 
 reason. He liked the quick answer of her mind to his own.
 
 ALL IN THE AIR 107 
 
 Then one day she met with an accident ; her hand was grazed 
 by the propeller. Had it struck her full it would have shorn 
 off her fingers in a moment, and even as it was she was 
 badly bruised. Denis ordered her to see a doctor. Dor- 
 othea, pale but valiant, wanted to go on with her lesson. 
 
 " It's the first fine day we've had this week," she pleaded. 
 " I shall never, never fly if I stop for every miserable little 
 trifle ! " 
 
 " I shouldn't think of lettin' you," said Denis, grim and 
 peremptory. " You've broken one of the small bones, as 
 likely as not." 
 
 " That I haven't ! " retorted Dorothea, giving the hand a 
 vigorous shake to emphasize her words. Denis seized her 
 arm. 
 
 " Do not do that ! Don't you feel pain ? " 
 
 " Yes, of course I do, but I can't be bothered to think 
 about it when I'm enjoying myself, can I? " 
 
 She stamped her foot, so absurdly enraged that Denis 
 could not help laughing. Her unceremonious fortitude ap- 
 pealed to him, just as her pretended sensibility, when she 
 cut her foot, had appealed to Gardiner. Odd that in each 
 case the quality that drew them was the precise opposite of 
 what each really asked for in a woman ! 
 
 Dorothea had to give way; she went to a doctor, and 
 was forbidden to use the hand. This cut her off from her 
 car as well as from flying, for if she couldn't drive herself 
 she wouldn't be driven. " Sit by and see a hateful hired 
 chauffeur doing my work ? No, thank you ! " said she. 
 So she sulked at Bredon, and Denis went back to his desk. 
 He had " scrapped " the old seaplane, lock, stock and 
 barrel, and was working on a new design, " a boat that would 
 fly rather than an aeroplane that would float," of his fa- 
 vorite monoplane type. Denis had long wanted to build a 
 monoplane which should be for the English air service what 
 Bleriots and Moranes were for the French, or Taubes for 
 the German; and as he wished to show his new model at 
 the Aero Exhibition in the spring, he had his work cut out. 
 The fever of invention was upon him. Yet he missed his
 
 108 CONVICT B14 
 
 tiresome, charming pupil. In the brief lucid intervals when 
 he came to the surface, he was conscious of a vague dis- 
 comfort which neither beef nor bed availed to soothe. Her 
 accident and the delay were giving time for his feelings to 
 mature. Gardiner, who was interested in his own mental 
 processes, would soon have found himself out; Denis, a 
 stranger to self -consciousness, was blind as any well-brought- 
 up young lady of the fifties. 
 
 Dorothea came back at last unexpectedly. After leaving 
 his lunch to get cold, and then bolting it in five minutes, 
 Denis had rushed back to his desk to finish a calculation. 
 He was writing the last figures when a car turned in at the 
 gates, and he lifted his head with a frown, which changed 
 suddenly into a smile of pleasure. Well he knew that gay 
 little tune on the horn, the sound of that fresh young voice 
 in the porch ! Down went his pen, and out he hurried to 
 greet her, with an eagerness which surprised himself. 
 
 *' Here's your bad penny again, you see ! " she cried, com- 
 ing in with the scent of the wind on her suit and the rose 
 of it in her cheeks. " Aren't you sick to see me ? Old 
 Turner said this morning I might use my hand, so I came 
 straight off. But what have you been doing to yourself? 
 You look half starved doesn't he, Birdie? Have you had 
 any lunch? If you haven't it's very wrong of you, and I 
 shall just stand over you till it's gone do you hear? " 
 
 Denis, laughing, lingered to shake hands with Miss Byrd, 
 who always satisfied the proprieties by escorting her young 
 friend, before following his impetuous pupil into the par- 
 lor. Dorothea was scornfully inspecting the remains of the 
 meal. 
 
 " H'm ! One sausage I know it can't be more, for 
 Rogers never gives you more than seven, at the outside, to 
 the pound it's not half enough for you. This room's 
 hatefully uncomfortable, too," she added, frowning round 
 with eyes which saw it all anew. Dorothea was blind to 
 beauty, but wide awake to comfort, especially somebody 
 else's comfort. " I should like to talk to that Simpson 
 woman. I'd soon make her sit up! I think she neglects
 
 ALL IN THE AIR 109 
 
 you shamefully. You're looking quite pale isn't he, 
 Birdie? and I know it's all her fault. I've no use at all 
 for a woman who can't keep her own people comfy ! " 
 
 It was a novel experience for Denis to be scolded for 
 neglecting himself. " I assure you Miss Simpson's guilt- 
 less," he said, smiling. " I've had a bit of a rush lately, 
 that's all. I've not been able to get out these last few days." 
 
 " Well, you're coming out with me this afternoon, or I'll 
 know the reason why. I can't have you looking like this," 
 retorted Dorothea, nodding her decision; and then, with a 
 sudden beguiling change, clasping both hands over his arm : 
 " You're going to let me do straights on my own to-day, 
 aren't you ? You almost promised you would, last time ! " 
 
 Denis looked down on her hands, as though he found 
 them a very pleasing adornment to his sleeve. "We'll 
 see," he said, and from that he would not budge, for all her 
 coaxing. He was inordinately cautious in his tuition. They 
 left Miss Byrd tucked up by the fire with a book, and Denis 
 went down to the hangars, while Dorothea got into her flying 
 kit. He was never tired of dinning into his pupil's ears 
 the duty of prudence, and certainly he set the example him- 
 self. When Dorothea appeared at the sheds, in her tan 
 leather coat and leggings and safety helmet, she found her 
 instructor tuning up the machine, and had to wait as pa- 
 tiently as she might till he had done. 
 
 The morning until ten o'clock had been white and chill 
 with one of those luminous, snowy September fogs, which 
 clear off into noons of sapphire. The sky was astoundingly 
 blue, the meadow insolently green, the sheds all hard-edged, 
 vivid, with keen black shadows. In the full blaze of sun- 
 shine stood the monoplane, tall in front where the long brown 
 blades of the propeller cleared the ground, sloping down to- 
 wards the fin-like tail planes, and spreading its pale wings 
 in curves not unlike those of the gulls which sailed by, call- 
 ing and fishing over the marshes. 
 
 Dorothea climbed into her seat, Denis took his place be- 
 side her, the men behind let go, and off they went, skimming 
 fast and faster over the grass, gaining speed and power for
 
 110 CONVICT B14 
 
 soaring. The elevator tilted, and they parted from the earth, 
 the moment imperceptible ; only the country, which had lain 
 ahead, spread out suddenly below them like a carpet. There 
 were the green marshes, ruled out like a chess-board with 
 glistening waterways, and bordered with the dark blue sea : 
 the farm, and the sheds, and the outbuildings, all like toys 
 made of cardboard and glittering tin. 
 
 After circling over the aerodrome to get his height, Denis 
 turned his back on the coast and flew inland. As they 
 passed, the great farm horses plunged and fidgeted, the la- 
 borers stood still in the fields, peering up from under their 
 hands, the cottagers ran out into the road to watch them 
 overhead. Some said : " Well, I wouldn't be up in one 
 of them things for a thousand pounds ! " and others : 
 "Silly fools! serve 'em right if they break their necks!" 
 The Englishman, in fact, received the novelty as he receives 
 any strange thing or person, in the spirit summed once and 
 for all by Punch. Not that Denis had any right to grumble. 
 Except with regard to his work, he was just as conservative, 
 just as ready to heave his half-brick as any Bill among them. 
 
 They flew to Canterbury, and turned, banking in a steep 
 curve, to shoot back over the way they had come. They 
 were five thousand feet up, and the wind was ferocious; 
 it seemed to press the breath back down their throats, 
 to wrench at the flesh on their faces. Much Dorothea 
 cared! On that homeward flight she was allowed, for 
 the first time, to guide the aeroplane herself. Denis kept 
 his hands ready to resume control, in case of a slip, but 
 he was not needed; she held the pillar till the time came 
 to switch off the engine and glide in a long, long slant 
 towards the landing ground. B-rr, the motor purred again, 
 as the monoplane cocked up her tail, like a bird, to " flatten 
 out " before alighting. The landing wheels took off the 
 shock, and they ran smoothly over the grass till the momen- 
 tum was exhausted. 
 
 Denis stayed at the hangars to see the machine housed. 
 When he came back to the house he found his pupil waiting 
 for him on the steps of the porch. She had taken off her
 
 ALL IN THE AIR 111 
 
 helmet and her leather coat, and wore the same rough 
 tweeds in which she had wandered about the woods of the 
 Semois. Her skirt was short enough to show a pair of 
 neat brown ankles, as well as the brown shoes below them, 
 and her hair hung down her back in a yard and a quarter of 
 pigtail. She said she couldn't coil it under the helmet. Her 
 eyes were sparkling, and her cheeks were pink, and she 
 propped herself against the white pillar, first on one foot, 
 then on the other, with the long-legged, supple awkwardness 
 of a schoolgirl. Strange how the years had fallen away, 
 how little mark had been left by her marriage, even by 
 motherhood ! 
 
 " I did it all right, didn't I ? " she demanded, naively 
 eager. " I didn't make any bad breaks ? " 
 
 " Not a break ! " Denis assured her. 
 
 " Really ? Truly ? Will you let me do a figure of eight 
 next time ? I know I could ! " 
 
 " We'll see when next time comes." 
 
 Dorothea looked exceedingly naughty, like Geraldine 
 caught stealing the cream the simile was Denis's own. 
 " It's coming again to-morrow ! " she announced daringly. 
 
 Denis shook his head, smiling at her. " No, it's not." 
 
 " Ah, do let me ! I've wasted so much time with the 
 weather, and then this hateful hand, and I do so want to 
 learn I can't wait till Saturday ! " 
 
 " I'm sorry to disappoint such ardor, but I'm afraid you 
 must." 
 
 " Why ? You know it may change any day now into 
 the equinoctial gales. I think you might leave your old 
 seaplane for once. I've never asked you before. Do! " 
 
 Denis, standing below her on the path, continued to smile 
 provokingly and to shake his head. It amused him to 
 see her stamp her foot, which she did punctually, with a 
 thunderous frown. 
 
 " I think you're most unkind. It's not your duty, it's your 
 pleasure you're thinking of. You like those miserable calcu- 
 lations, and that's why you won't come. I hate the sea- 
 plane ! "
 
 US CONVICT BU 
 
 " There might be some point in your strictures," said 
 Denis, teasing her, "if I happened to be workin' at the 
 seaplane to-morrow." 
 
 " What are you going to do, then, if not that? " 
 
 " I'm dinin' Wandesforde' in town." 
 
 " O-oh," said Dorothea, undecided between storm and 
 sunshine. "Then I hate Mr. Wandesforde!" she con- 
 cluded viciously. 
 
 " You hate so many things, don't you ? " 
 
 Again she was almost ready to sulk like an offended 
 baby ; but no out shone the sun, and the clouds fled 
 away. " Well, I do," she owned, laughing back at him, 
 " of course I do ! So would anybody who wasn't a perfect 
 frog. It's only cold-blooded people like you and Lettice 
 who are tolerant. Besides, I love heaps of things to make 
 up. I hate the seaplane and I hate Mr. Wandesforde, but 
 I love the monoplane and I love you " 
 
 It would have been nothing, nothing, if she had not pointed 
 her words by stopping dead and turning scarlet. Denis, 
 puzzled, gazed at her with his honest eyes; and then, like 
 the falling of a curtain, saw what her confusion meant, 
 both to her and to himself. He stepped forward impul- 
 sively, putting out his hands. Dorothea pressed back against 
 the pillar, glancing desperately from side to side ; then, 
 striking them away, she turned and darted in at the open 
 door, like a rabbit into its burrow.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 ONE NAIL DRIVES OUT ANOTHER 
 
 I looked and saw your heart 
 
 In the shadow of your eyes, 
 As the seeker sees the gold 
 
 In the shadow of the stream. 
 
 Three Shadows. 
 
 THERE is a legend which says that September is the month 
 of the fading leaf. Townsmen may fancy so, looking at 
 their own starved avenues, which begin to shrivel and strip 
 themselves as early as July ; but in the country the massive 
 woods (except that an elm here and there hangs out a single 
 crocus-yellow spray) keep the somber green of late summer 
 to the very end of the month. Then, as the days pass, first 
 the lime " strips to the cold and standeth naked above her 
 yellow attire." The horse-chestnuts on some night of frost 
 let drop all their fans in a rustling heap. The woodland 
 paths are crisp with fawn-colored oak leaves. Last of all, 
 in mid-November, the elms loosen to the wind and the rain 
 those faint clouds of green and greenish-gold which have 
 rounded the shape of their limbs, till all the wet meadows 
 are strewn with them ; and it is winter. 
 
 At Rochehaut it was September still, late September. 
 Gardiner, at leisure after the summer rush, had been to his 
 bank at Bouillon, and, instead of returning by the vicinal, 
 had chosen to walk back over the hills through Botassart. 
 This route brought him past the crucifix. He had not been 
 there since the grand explosion, and it cost him an effort to 
 go back ; but he refused to be sentimental, or allow a 
 beautiful thing to be spoiled for him by fancies. There he 
 lay then on the grass, smoking and dreaming. 
 
 It seemed long, long since that summer night; so long 
 113
 
 114 CONVICT B14 
 
 that he could look back now, on it and on Dorothea, as 
 part of the past. Heavens ! how she had hurt him ! There 
 was that time as a boy, when he tumbled waist-deep into a 
 vat of scalding liquid at some chemical works; he could 
 compare his feelings only to that violent assault of pain. 
 Yes, she had hurt him abominably; the pain of his crushed 
 hand had been by contrast a relief and a distraction. But the 
 wound was on the surface ; and, though he scarcely knew 
 it himself, already it was beginning to heal. There was no 
 poison in it. His passion for Dorothea had been effectually 
 cauterized ; he thought of her now without either resent- 
 ment or desire. He was profoundly sorry ; sorrier for Dor- 
 othea O'Connor than even for Mrs. Trent. This pity, oddly 
 enough, confirmed him in impenitence. " I did her a good 
 turn when I cleared that fellow out of her road," he said to 
 himself with inverted satisfaction. " If he'd lived long 
 enough for her to find him out, there'd have been la de Dios 
 esCristo!" 
 
 Three days of pale still sunshine had closed in threatening 
 gloom. The grassy hill of the crucifix was burnt putty- 
 color; the hill of forests opposite was olive-somber; the 
 valley fumed with tawny vapors, breathing down from the 
 gloom of the sky, and up from the dark current of the river. 
 All was still, grave, overcast, till the sun found his sunset 
 crevice in the clouds and split them, overflowing in long lines 
 of liquid gold between iron-heavy bars. Splendid trans- 
 parent fan-rays of light and dark alternate streamed up the 
 sky; they rimmed vague forms of mist with burning wire, 
 they filled the empty blue with bronze and golden vapors ; 
 the whole vault of heaven was on fire, the wet brown hills 
 flamed back responsive glory. 
 
 Gardiner, susceptible to every earth influence, found his 
 senses flooded with that golden exhilaration. Vague mists 
 of thought took shape in its light; he knew now that that 
 name on the lintel of the farm was not a mere coincidence. 
 When he first saw the Bellevue, " Why, I've been here be- 
 fore," he had said to himself, with a thrill of startled rec- 
 ognition. And now, " I belong here," he added, half aloud,
 
 ONE NAIL DRIVES OUT ANOTHER 115 
 
 with a touch of solemnity, as though the spoken word must 
 be irrevocable. Old ties were dear; but he knew in his 
 heart, his body knew, that the wild Semois down there in 
 the valley was more to him than the Darenth of his boyhood. 
 This was his home. 
 
 Bringing his dazzled eyes to earth, he saw that a figure 
 had detached itself from the orchards of the Bellevue, and 
 was slowly mounting the hill. One person only would climb 
 like that, with so many divagations to avoid steep places, 
 and so many halts to admire the view or could it be to 
 get her breath? It was Lettice. 
 
 Since his accident, now five weeks ago, Gardiner had 
 seen a good deal of Miss Smith. His hand had been un- 
 expectedly troublesome ; indeed he was only now beginning 
 to use it. Meantime he had made use of Lettice as his 
 amanuensis, repaying her services by refusing to allow her 
 to settle her bill. " No, I am not going to take that money," 
 he said, energetically nodding towards the pile of notes she 
 had deposited on his table. " I'll pitch it into the fire if you 
 leave it there. Also I shall wire to town for a regular sec- 
 retary. Pick it up and take it away." Lettice did not like 
 it in the very least ; but very slowly and very stubbornly she 
 did pick the money up and return it to her purse. Nor 
 was her temper soothed when Gardiner looked at her direct, 
 with a glint in his eye, and added, " I know you wind Denis 
 round your little finger, but I am not Denis. Two can play 
 at being obstinate, savez-vous ? " Still, she continued to act 
 as his secretary ; until by the end of the month she knew 
 his methods and his business almost as well as he did him- 
 self. 
 
 It was after this episode that she began to play with him, 
 admitting him to rank as an intimate; and that he began 
 to discover what it was that Denis loved in those velvet 
 touches. But he was more uncertain than Denis he was 
 not to be run by formula ; he would turn unexpectedly, and 
 parry, and strike back. Once or twice, too, especially at 
 first, when he was acting the urbane and cheerful host, he 
 found her eyes fixed upon him. They were instantly with-
 
 116 CONVICT B14 
 
 drawn ; but he knew she knew he was suffering, and oddly 
 enough he did not resent it. Oddly, be it understood, be- 
 cause Gardiner was by no means fond of sympathy. His 
 instinct when hard hit was to cover up the wound and keep 
 it hidden from the world, and especially from his friends. 
 Yet it seemed he did not mind Lettice. And now, though 
 he saw she was making for the crucifix, to disturb his regal 
 solitude, he did not stir. 
 
 She had not seen him. She plodded on without looking 
 up, and presently was hidden in a fold of the hill. When 
 she emerged again, it was within ten yards of the crucifix 
 and that lazy, smiling figure. She stopped short ; one could 
 almost hear her spirit say " Oh ! " though her lips were 
 silent. Her first impulse obviously was to beat a retreat 
 (Gardiner chuckled, he had known it would be!), but she 
 thought better of it, and came on. After surveying the 
 heap of stones, she chose the one comfortable place, set- 
 tled herself, and got out the inevitable green tablecloth. Let- 
 tice made great play with that tablecloth. 
 
 Since she would not speak, Gardiner did. 
 
 " I didn't know you'd found your way up here." 
 
 " Why, you told me about it yourself." 
 
 " Do you like it better than your wood pile in the forest? " 
 
 Lettice paused in the act of threading her needle to look 
 round on the brown and gold of hills and woods and sky. 
 " Yes," said she ; and if she had raved for an hour she 
 could have expressed no more. Comfortable silence fell 
 between them. Lettice stitched, and Gardiner smoked, and 
 in the west the sunset flared in citron, amber, saffron, bronze, 
 and a thousand shades of glory. In the east a scroll of cloud 
 reared dazzling sunny heights of snow against dazzling blue. 
 Lettice's needle slackened ; it came to a standstill. 
 
 " Penny for your thoughts," said Gardiner. 
 
 " I haven't any." 
 
 " I thought you were composing a poem." 
 
 Insults of insults! Lettice looked volumes of reproach. 
 " I was not," said she. 
 
 " But you do write poetry."
 
 ONE NAIL DRIVES OUT ANOTHER 117 
 
 " Who told you so ? " 
 
 " Who do you suppose ? Denis has told me quite a lot 
 about you. Hasn't he told you a lot about me ? " 
 
 " Yes ; but it wasn't all of it true." 
 
 Gardiner burst out laughing. " Well, that is good ! How 
 do you know ? " 
 
 " Oh, it's, it's it's obvious," said Lettice, with an ex- 
 asperated wave of the hand to help out her meaning. She 
 began to sew very fast. Gardiner contemplated her with a 
 broad smile ; but presently it faded, and he turned over and 
 lay plucking at the grass. 
 
 " Did Miss O'Connor leave her address with you?" 
 
 Lettice shook her head. 
 
 " She went off in such a hurry ! " 
 
 Gardiner opened his mouth to speak, and checked him- 
 self for a garrulous fool. He did not know why he had 
 mentioned Dorothea at all. A moment later the impulse 
 came again, and he found himself, to his surprise, telling 
 Lettice the very thing he had decided not to mention. 
 " Rather a queer thing about that young lady," he remarked 
 lightly. " I found out to be exact, she hurled the fact 
 in my teeth that she wasn't a Miss, and that O'Connor 
 wasn't her name. She was a widow a Mrs. Trent." 
 
 " Mrs. Trent? What, the, the" 
 
 " Oh, you know about her, do you? Yes, the Mrs. Trent 
 of Easedale. She's firmly persuaded that I killed her hus- 
 band. I believe she came over here simply and solely in 
 order to worm some sort of confession out of me." 
 
 He stopped, amazed at himself. Then he looked at Let- 
 tice. If deep unaffected interest can pull confidences out of 
 a man, here was his excuse. WTiy, she was all eyes and 
 ears! 
 
 " So that was it ! " she said. " That was who she was ! " 
 
 " You don't mean to tell me you knew about this before ? " 
 
 " No, no, not her name. But I knew she didn't much 
 like you." 
 
 " The dickens you did ! Did she say so? " 
 
 " No, I, I I sort of gathered it."
 
 118 CONVICT B14. 
 
 " I begin to think what Denis said about you was true," 
 Gardiner remarked after a pause. 
 
 " What did Denis say about me ? " 
 
 " That you could see through a flight of stairs and a deal 
 door." 
 
 " I don't know what you mean." 
 
 " You wouldn't, it's out of Dickens," said Gardiner, with 
 a laugh which hid considerable perturbation. So she had 
 guessed that, had she, before he knew it himself? What 
 was there she did not guess? He began to feel helplessly 
 transparent. Yet again he was surprised to find he did not 
 hate her for intruding. Lettice could pick her way among 
 sensibilities like a cat among china, and she neither misun- 
 derstood nor misjudged. There were episodes in his life 
 which he would have been ashamed to show to Denis. He 
 could have shown them every one to Lettice, unmarried 
 girl though she was, and with no experience of the rough 
 and tumble of life. Somehow one never thought of Lettice 
 as a girl. He looked up at her. She had dropped her work 
 and sat motionless, her eyes fixed on the sunset. In nature 
 as in. human nature, Lettice looked to the limit of sight, and 
 beyond, to the city of God. It was that distant view which 
 gave her the perspective for things near. While Gardiner 
 was making these reflections, she turned her head suddenly 
 and surprised him with a question : 
 
 "Does Denis know about Mrs. Trent?" 
 
 " I should say not. I haven't told him." 
 
 " I think you'd better." 
 
 It was so unlike Lettice to offer advice that he stared in 
 surprise. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " He ought to know." 
 
 " I don't want to go into that business again," said 
 Gardiner. " He did hate it all so desperately no, I don't 
 want to rake it up again. Nor do I see any necessity. 
 What does it matter?" 
 
 " Would you mind if I told him? " 
 
 " Why the dickens are you so keen? "
 
 ONE NAIL DRIVES OUT ANOTHER 119 
 
 She hesitated. She found it chronically hard to put her 
 thoughts into speech, and in this case there were reserva- 
 tions to be made. Gardiner took the words out of her 
 mouth. 
 
 " You don't mean you think she'd go for him too? " 
 
 Lettice nodded. " She meant to get a confession out of 
 one or the other of you." 
 
 " Oh, my Lord ! " said Gardiner, and caught himself up. 
 "But if there's nothing to confess?" 
 
 A flash went over Lettice's face. Was it conceivable 
 that she had guessed even that last thing? No, it wasn't, 
 Gardiner decided hastily, that was beyond her, she couldn't 
 possibly know. For an instant he thought of telling her him- 
 self, but caution, habit, above all self-derision held him back. 
 He blurt out that damaging truth to a chance acquaintance? 
 He wasn't such a fool ! All this passed through his mind 
 in the instant between his question and her reply. 
 
 " Well, she didn't give you much of a time while she was 
 trying to find out, did she ? " 
 
 " No ; but oh, she couldn't try that game on again, it 
 would be too beastly low down, with a man like Denis ! Be- 
 sides, he isn't taking any, he simply hates women. . . . Look 
 here, tell me exactly what you know, do you mind ? What 
 makes you so certain she meant to go for him ? " 
 
 Lettice drew a long breath. Her explanation, when it 
 came, ran clear and straight. Indeed, her thought was al- 
 ways lucid ; it was the words that failed. 
 
 " It was that last day before she went. She began by 
 telling me about herself and how unhappy she had been; 
 and then she let out that there was some man she hated; 
 and then she began asking questions about you and Denis, 
 coupling you together, do you see ? but so that you couldn't 
 help guessing it was you she'd been talking about. One 
 thing she asked was whether Denis would tell a lie to save 
 a friend. And then Denis himself came up, and they talked 
 flying ; and she said she should go to Bredon some day and 
 see the aeroplanes." 
 
 " You think she really meant business ? "
 
 120 CONVICT BU 
 
 " Yes, I do." 
 
 " Pleasant," said Gardiner, tugging at his mustache, with 
 a sort of hard restraint. "If she exploits Denis as she did 
 me, he'll enjoy himself. Yes, I shall be very much obliged 
 if you'll write to him. He'll take it better from you than 
 from me." 
 
 " I wish I'd known before," said Lettice, folding up her 
 work. 
 
 " Oh, it's all right so far, she hasn't turned up at Bredon 
 yet. I heard from Denis this morning." 
 
 " Yes, but don't you see if she did go she'd be sure to 
 tell him not to tell you ? " 
 
 He did see, and felt sick. It cost him an effort to lie 
 still. But he pulled himself together; that last secret, at 
 least, she should not read. What to say, then? He would 
 not confess, but equally he would not lie to her. He found 
 something which was neither lie, confession, nor equivoca- 
 tion, but a piece of plain fact. 
 
 "If she ever does get hold of the truth about Trent, she'll 
 be uncommonly sorry she tried to find out." 
 
 Then he discovered that Lettice was neither looking at 
 nor thinking of him. 
 
 " I hope she won't get it out of Denis," she said. " I hope 
 you'll be in time to prevent that." 
 
 The words were mild ; the spirit, not so. Gardiner was 
 shamed out of his self-absorption. He saw Lettice's love 
 for her cousin, roused in his defense ; and he saw, too, with 
 her, Denis tricked into betraying his friend. Why, he would 
 never forgive himself ! 
 
 " My Lord, yes ! " he said with unexpected gravity. 
 " That would be a worse business than anything she's done 
 or could do to me."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 A TWO-EDGED SWORD 
 
 He looked at her, as a lover can; 
 
 She looked at him, as one who awakes. 
 
 The Statue and the Bust. 
 
 There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof 
 are the ways of death. PROVERBS. 
 
 IN his salad days, a long time ago, Denis had fallen in love 
 with the daughter of a respectable suburban fishmonger, 
 after tumbling out of the sky on the roof of her house. The 
 young lady's parents were rich but honest; the young lady 
 herself well, she had an extremely pretty face, which oc- 
 cupied Denis to the exclusion of a blue and yellow sports 
 coat and a large string of pearls. His love dream lasted 
 six weeks ; then he fell out of his aeroplane again and broke 
 his handsome nose, or was supposed to have done so, and 
 Miss Tyrrell broke the engagement. " I c-couldn't bear 
 you with a broken nose ! " she wept. Whatever Denis broke, 
 it was not his heart. When he looked back on the episode, 
 it was with devout and wondering thankfulness ; but he pre- 
 ferred not to look back on it at all. 
 
 This was his sole experience of the tender passion. In 
 his single-minded and laborious life there had been no room 
 for more ; even Nina Tyrrell had been sandwiched between 
 two flying accidents. Denis was at bottom a simple soul. 
 He had three main interests his religion, his aeroplanes, his 
 friends ; and they were all bound up together by a child-like 
 faith. He believed in others because his own heart was 
 pure. It was this bloom of innocence which Gardiner loved 
 in his friend, and which both he and Lettice were tender to 
 protect ; and it was this which made his feeling for Dorothea 
 at once so beautiful, and so vulnerable. 
 121
 
 m CONVICT B14 
 
 He took the revelation very simply, very seriously, with 
 reverence and awe; among other primitive virtues, Denis 
 had a fine stock of awe. Love was to him a sacrament, a 
 gift direct from heaven; he carried it in his heart like a 
 jewel almost too precious for human hands to touch, and 
 gave humble thanks to God. A good old-fashioned church- 
 man, Denis had been accustomed to " say his prayers " night 
 and morning, walking in a decent English soul-silence the 
 rest of the day ; but this new gratitude transcended all rules 
 and overflowed in ceaseless praise. Nobody, he was certain, 
 had ever felt like this before. He was happy happier than 
 it had ever entered his head to imagine, in sunshine which 
 turned all the gray of life to gold. 
 
 All that day he could settle to nothing, but mooned about 
 the house, getting in the way of Miss Simpson, who had 
 planned to turn out his room. Next day, in town, he looked 
 at Wandesforde the married man with new curiosity. He 
 did not in the least want to unbosom himself ; but he would 
 have liked to extract confidences from somebody who had 
 been through it all before. Wandesforde, however, was not 
 given to making confidences, and if ever he had been driven 
 into speech his partner was the last man he would have 
 chosen to receive his outpourings. He put down Denis's 
 unusual silence to his liver, and genially advised him to take 
 more exercise that venerable joke, which always seems so 
 good to the maker and so poor to the recipient ! 
 
 That night Denis lay awake, building castles in the air. 
 Dorothea had told him all her sad little story as far as her 
 marriage, one squally day when they were sheltering in the 
 hangar ; he set up in his heart a shrine of protective love and 
 reverence and worshiped her there, his little lady of the 
 sorrows Dorothea, with a heart full of black hate ! Yet 
 Denis was not blind. He saw one side of her clearly enough, 
 and was ready to own with tender indulgence that she had 
 plenty of endearing imperfections, of small gray faults ; but 
 of the other side, the dark half of the moon, she had shown 
 him nothing, and how was he to divine it? With him, in- 
 deed, she was what he believed her : true to her true self,
 
 A TWO-EDGED SWORD 123 
 
 since but for her starved girlhood Dorothea would never 
 have learned to hate. He scarcely dared hope she loved him 
 yet, though he had a shy confidence that he would win her 
 in the end ; but he meant to ask her at once, that very day 
 when she came for her lesson. He was up and out at six 
 o'clock, among pearly mists, and saw the sun rise in rose and 
 gold over meadows spread with the thin silver of the 
 frost. Then he came in to breakfast, took up his letters, and 
 met his first check. There was a note from Miss Byrd to 
 say they could not come. 
 
 She wrote for Dorothea, whose hand was troubling her 
 again ; perhaps she had strained it yesterday ; at any rate, 
 she thought best not to use it at present. But would Mr. 
 Merion-Smith come to tea with them to-morrow after church 
 instead ? She hoped this would be convenient and that they 
 might have the pleasure of his company, and she was his 
 very sincerely, Mary Anne Byrd. Denis's face, which had 
 darkened, cleared again; after all, it was not such a bad 
 thing. Better say what he had to say in a drawing-room 
 than shout it through the hum of a propeller. 
 
 He went to afternoon church, and listened to the Evan- 
 gelical vicar's sermon on Christian evidences, which he 
 seemed to rest mainly on the fact that there have been mar- 
 tyrs for the faith (a proposition over which Denis knit his 
 brows, though he could not imagine that the congregation 
 then present was liable to have its faith upset by faulty 
 logic) ; and when the choir of little girls recited the General 
 Thanksgiving, he recited it with them, in great seriousness 
 and devotion. Coming out into the sunny white road, with 
 the ink-blue sea on one hand, the grayish cliff grass on the 
 other, he walked down to Dorothea's bungalow the one 
 bungalow of Bredon, which he already knew sufficiently well, 
 having lived there for several years himself. The car was at 
 the door; he paused to look over it before he rang the bell. 
 
 Miss Byrd received him in the drawing-room, and for 
 the first half-hour entertained him alone; a tall, slim woman 
 with a complexion of wrinkled ivory, gentle and dignified 
 and intelligent. As a teacher she had been subject to storms
 
 124. CONVICT B14 
 
 of nervous anger, for which she was not too proud to apolo- 
 gize, even to a pupil ; it was an incident of this sort which 
 had stamped her indelibly in Dorothea's affections. Always 
 a little shy of Denis, to-day she seemed in a state of nervous 
 tremor; her hands were shaking as she arranged and rear- 
 ranged the cozy, and wondered for the tenth time what could 
 be keeping Dot. Denis, who had one manner for the mighty 
 and another for the humble and meek, set himself to soothe 
 her alarms. He was just succeeding when the door un- 
 closed and the truant swept in. 
 
 " Am I very frightfully late? " she inquired unconcernedly. 
 " So sorry ; having only one hand makes you awkward, you 
 know. Do you mind doing this for me, Birdie? " 
 
 She stood bending her graceful head while Miss Byrd 
 settled the rose point of her collar. She was wearing a 
 velvet dress, very rich, very sumptuous, cut open at the throat 
 and bordered with sable fur. Round her neck went a gold 
 chain, rough links nearly an inch across, hanging to her 
 knees and looking barbarously heavy. She sank into a 
 chair, and there was the gleam of a golden shoe, a Cinderella 
 slipper with jeweled straps crossing on the arch of a silken 
 instep. What a transformation! But the greater change 
 was in her manner. 
 
 " Have you been to church? " she asked. " How pious of 
 you ! I haven't ; but then I'm not pious, you know. I went 
 for a joy-ride instead. My hand? Oh yes, thanks, I man- 
 aged all right. I generally do manage to do what I want 
 to," she added, spreading out a slender hand with the dia- 
 monds upon it which Lettice had admired long ago. She 
 looked up at Denis through her lashes. " No, I didn't want 
 to come yesterday ; not particularly ; wasn't that sad ? But 
 I did want you to come here this afternoon " 
 
 " That's all right, since here I am," Denis interrupted, 
 laughing at her. He put her off for an instant, but only for 
 an instant; she recovered herself, and swept on: 
 
 " And I'll tell you why: because I wanted a real heart-to- 
 heart talk, without any aeroplanes or things to interrupt. 
 I've a bone to pick with you."
 
 A TWO-EDGED SWORD 125 
 
 " A bone to pick, have you ? " 
 
 " A big, big bone. Another lump of sugar, please, Birdie 
 yes, that little fella will do; I shan't let you make tea if 
 you don't give me enough sugar. Why didn't you ever tell 
 us that exciting story about Mr. Gardiner?" 
 
 She leaned back among her cushions, stirring her cup, 
 watching Denis with those dark eyes full of overt insolence 
 and covert eagerness. But Denis was not noticing subtle- 
 ties of expression ; this time she had got home. 
 
 "What excitin' story about Mr. Gardiner?" 
 
 It was her turn to laugh. " Oh, you know ! About that 
 man he killed, or didn't kill, up in the Lakes somewhere. I 
 really think it was your duty to have told anybody 
 mightn't have cared to stop at his hotel after a thing like 
 that ! " 
 
 " Who told you anything about it ? " 
 
 " Louisa, of course. Louisa's always my newsmonger. 
 She had it from the maid of the man's wife Mrs. Tyne, 
 wasn't her name? No, Trent. I knew it was some river 
 or other. Maids tell each other everything. It only came 
 out yesterday, else I'd have been at you about it before. 
 Louisa swears Mr. Gardiner really did it, and you screened 
 him. Did he ? and did you ? Do tell ! It isn't every day 
 one comes across a thrilling tale like this ! " 
 
 " There was an inquest," said Denis stiffly. " You can 
 read all about it in the papers, if you choose. It was brought 
 in accidental death." 
 
 " Well, I know that, or Mr. Gardiner would have gone 
 to prison, wouldn't he? But what Louisa says is that the 
 whole truth didn't come out at the inquest. He knocked 
 the man down, or something, instead of his tumbling of 
 himself. I can quite believe he would knock a man down, 
 if he lost his temper. Did he really do it, and make you 
 hush it up ? I do so want to know ! " 
 
 " My dear," said Miss Byrd gently, " don't you see you're 
 worrying Mr. Merion-Smith ! " 
 
 "Am I?" said Dorothea. She shot a cool, leisurely, 
 searching glance at Denis's troubled face. " Well, I'm sure
 
 126 CONVICT B14, 
 
 I don't see what there is to worry anybody in what I've been 
 saying unless, of course, it's true! " 
 
 Denis had to say something. He felt for and found his 
 voice, hoping it sounded more natural to her than it did to 
 himself. " It was rather a bad business," he got out. 
 "I don't much care for talkin' about it. I don't think 
 Miss O'Connor quite realizes what it meant for us we saw 
 it, you know ; and Mrs. Trent too " He stuck fast. Was 
 that the best he could do for his friend? The old ex- 
 cuse rose to his lips. " But I can assure you it was an 
 accident ! " 
 
 " Oh, well, of course I'm sorry if I said what I oughtn't. 
 I only meant it for a joke ! " said Dorothea conventionally. 
 
 Denis turned away to the window. What evil fiend had 
 prompted her to dig up that story ? It was none the sweeter 
 for its long burial. On Dorothea's lips it made him feel 
 sick. He had a passing pain and wonder at her tone, so 
 discordant, so unlike herself. But that was due to shyness, 
 he told himself, the struggles of a wild thing to escape cap- 
 ture, and putting the thought by he went on steadily to his 
 purpose. It was not easy to turn Denis when his mind was 
 made up. He spoke the sentence he had prepared before 
 entering the house. 
 
 " Have you seen your back tire? " 
 
 " My tire ? No ! Is it down ? " 
 
 Out she ran as he had guessed she would ; but it was 
 at any cost to get away from him, not for the car's sake 
 and that he did not guess. He followed her. Dorothea, 
 pretending to examine her tires, looked up and knew herself 
 caught. 
 
 " Why, they're all right," she said, rising from the last 
 of the wheels. " Did you think I had a puncture ? " 
 
 " No, and I never said I did. I wanted to speak to you," 
 said Denis coolly. 
 
 She faced him across the car, as cool as he. " Better 
 not." 
 
 " I want to ask you something. I want to know if you 
 will do me the very great honor of becoming my wife."
 
 A TWO-EDGED SWORD 127 
 
 How quietly he said it, looking at her with his steady eyes ! 
 Dorothea shook her head. " Never." 
 
 " Ah, but I'm not askin' for an answer at once." 
 
 " Never. Never. Never," she repeated with rising em- 
 phasis. " I never will and you wouldn't ask it if you 
 knew ! " 
 
 " You're not engaged already? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! " she cried, with a laugh that set his teeth on 
 edge. She turned towards the door. Denis instinctively 
 put out a hand to detain her. She flashed round, quick and 
 dangerous as a cat. 
 
 " Don't touch me, don't stop me you'll be sorry for it if 
 you do ! " 
 
 Denis was in far too great pain and confusion to obey, 
 or even to take in what she said. " You weren't like this 
 yesterday ! " he said, pleading. 
 
 " I always was. Always. I had my reasons for pretend- 
 ing to tolerate you for a time, but I always felt the same," 
 
 " You said you loved me ! " 
 
 " It wasn't true, it wasn't true. I hate you." 
 
 "But why? What have I done?" 
 
 " Told lies, and screened a murderer." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " It's your own fault, you would have it," said Dorothea, 
 trembling with passion. " I told you not to stop me, and 
 you would. Saying it was an accident that old story ! I 
 was sure enough before, I know for certain now." 
 
 Denis's hand went up to his head. " What are you talking 
 about ? " 
 
 " About Major Trent, whom Mr. Gardiner killed. He did 
 kill him. He knocked him down with a chisel, and he died. 
 Didn't he? Didn't he? You know you can't deny it ! " 
 
 He could not, nor could he meet her eyes, so he missed 
 their expression. Certain things are so cruelly hard that 
 they must be carried through at a rush, or not at all. Dor- 
 othea's vengeance had turned into a two-edged sword in 
 her hands, and she hewed with it recklessly because it was 
 cut'.ing her to the bone.
 
 128 CONVICT BU 
 
 " Why, it's not a year yet since he died, and do you 
 think I'd let myself love a man who who almost helped to 
 kill him? " she cried with anguish. " Oh, I hate, hate, hate 
 you, and I always will. Oh, Guy, Guy, do they think I'd 
 forget so soon, and be friends with your murderers? I'd 
 kill myself sooner!" 
 
 Sobbing vehemently, she fled into the house. 
 
 When Denis got home, he found a belated letter from 
 Lettice, which should have been delivered that morning, but 
 had been carried on by mistake to the next farm. It had 
 come, said Miss Simpson, just after he started ; the boy 
 must actually have passed him in the drive.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 WANTED 
 
 We took no tearful leaving, 
 Twas time and time to go; 
 Behind lay dock and Dartmoor, 
 Ahead lay Callao ! 
 
 The Broken Men. 
 
 THE hamlet of Woodlands is near Wrotham, in the county 
 of Kent. To reach it you must take the old Chatham and 
 Dover at Victoria and get out at Otford, a sweet-scented 
 village sitting at ease in the wide vale of the Darenth. Leav- 
 ing that behind, you will turn eastwards by the Pilgrims' 
 Way, which winds along the lower spurs of the Downs, above 
 Kemsing, Ightham, St. Clere, on its way to Canterbury. 
 That too you leave in half-a-mile, and strike into the hills 
 on your left, up a perpendicular lane where the contour lines 
 on the ordnance map jostle each other, four, five, six, seven 
 hundred feet in the width of as many yards, the woods climb- 
 ing with you, arching your road in a green tunnel. They 
 thin, they dispart, and you are on the summit of the Downs ; 
 great rolling fluted hills covered with thymy turf, knots of 
 gorse, noble trees standing singly with a scattering of bracken 
 in their shade, innumerable rabbits tossing up their little 
 white scuts as they bolt into their burrows. Very steep and 
 graceful in their lines, these Kentish hills; very beautiful the 
 green floor of the valley outspread below, the wooded height 
 of River Hill, the hare-bell blue of distant chains, rising half 
 transparent against the sky. 
 
 On you go, turning your back on all this, over the ridge, 
 
 into the heart of the Downs. Your lane twists, dropping 
 
 into nameless green dells, rising over nameless green knolls, 
 
 between woods that slope a dozen ways at once, and hedge- 
 
 129
 
 130 CONVICT B14 
 
 rows which " the primroses run down to, carrying gold " 
 even in October. Next you pass a farm, with its warm- 
 scented yellow ricks, its black barns, mossy-thatched, its gar- 
 den full of milk-white phlox, magenta chrysanthemums, 
 black and yellow sun-flowers, tan and purple snapdragons. 
 You wheel round a corner, you descend another break-neck 
 lane all grass and flints, and here in a green nest among the 
 hills, which rise steep all round, here you will find your 
 journey's end the hamlet of Woodlands. Half-a-dozen 
 old cottages, a minute school-house, a minute church, and the 
 vicarage. 
 
 Gardiner's birthplace was a square white house with a 
 red roof, green jalousies, and bay windows on either side 
 of a pillared porch. In front, a square of lawn was guarded 
 from the road by a laurel hedge, and bisected by a gravel 
 walk leading to the door. Picture the place in October. 
 Those white walls are hidden, partly by Gloire de Dijon 
 roses, still thick with yellow buds and creamy blossoms, 
 for it is warm in this nest among the hills ; and partly by 
 creepers, cardinal, carmine, red-rose, fringing out in trails 
 of daffodil green. The borders are full of flowers, roses 
 and chrysanthemums blooming together, yellow and brown 
 nasturtiums among their thin round emerald leaves, Mi- 
 chaelmas daisies, a bank of lilac against the laurels. The 
 woods are full-leaved still and autumn-glorious; there is 
 russet of oaks, orange of hawthorns, lemon-yellow of ma- 
 ples, and here and there, like black-cowled monks at a 
 pageant, the scattered yews which always haunt the line of 
 the Pilgrims' Way. Woods, woods, and woods all round, 
 rising like a golden cup, save only to the north. Here a 
 valley opens, and the unfenced, unmetalled road winds away, 
 between hills of thin grayish-green turf, white-scarred with 
 chalk and dotted with sheep, towards Maplescombe, Farn- 
 ingham, and civilization, represented by the unpleasant town 
 of Dartford. 
 
 Two young men were pacing the vicarage lawn. One was 
 slight, short, dark, un-English : Harry Gardiner. The other 
 was tall, broad-shouldered, serious, ultra-correct : his brother
 
 WANTED 131 
 
 Tom, of the Royal Engineers. Tom, though three years the 
 younger, was in the case of the elder brother of the parable, 
 who really had his grievance. He had always been an ex- 
 emplary son, steady, dutiful, even clever; yet Mr. Gardiner 
 freely proclaimed his preference for the vagabond and run- 
 away. Moreover, though he had worked hard all his life, 
 Tom made barely enough by his profession to keep himself. 
 Harry, the rolling stone, had but to open his hand for the 
 gifts of Fortune to tumble into it, and was able to make his 
 father a comfortable allowance. He was lucky ; Tom was 
 not. Tom felt sometimes a little sore ; but he acknowledged 
 ruefully that it was nobody's fault, and couldn't be helped. 
 There was a child-like vigor and directness about Mr. Gard- 
 iner's feelings which made them wholly insuppressible, and 
 though he was often egregiously unfair, neither of his sons 
 dreamed of resenting it. 
 
 " Well, I'm glad you wired for me, false alarm or no. I'd 
 ten times rather you sometimes brought me over when it's 
 not necessary than think you mightn't do it when it was. A 
 wonderful old boy, he really is but I wish he wouldn't 
 play the divvle with his constitution quite so freely ! " 
 
 This was Harry, light, quick, decisive. Tom's voice was 
 slower and deeper. 
 
 " He let out to-day that the attack came on after he'd 
 been rolling the lawn all the morning." 
 
 " No, did he ? What a cunning old sinner it is ! I must 
 say it's a comfort to me to know that you're so close at hand 
 at Chatham, Tom. By the way, when do you expect to get 
 your step ? " 
 
 " Not for a couple of years yet," said Tom, with a sigh. 
 " Promotion in the Sappers is so beastly slow ! " 
 
 Gardiner shot a keen glance at him. 
 
 " And you won't marry till you do get it ? " 
 
 " Can't afford to, unless I'm sent to India," Tom ruefully 
 acknowledged. 
 
 " Borrow off me, and settle things up at once." 
 
 " Many thanks, but I should never be able to pay you 
 back."
 
 132 CONVICT B14 
 
 " Don't, then. I'm laying up treasure on earth, which 
 the Prayer Book says I mustn't. There's a couple of hun- 
 dred lying idle at my bank which you're entirely welcome to, 
 and which would just tide you over the next two years. You 
 ought to be a family man, Thomas, you were cut out for it. 
 Besides, Miss Woodward will get sick of waiting." 
 
 Tom continued to shake his obstinate head. " It's very 
 good of you, but I'd rather not do that," he said with some 
 constraint. " You'll want to marry yourself some day." 
 
 Gardiner looked at him again, with a faint, faint light of 
 amusement.. He could never bring himself to take Tom 
 quite seriously. How annoying that was, to Tom ! and how 
 little Gardiner meant to annoy ! 
 
 " When I find myself in danger of matrimony, maybe I'll 
 start saving," he said lightly. " I suppose it's no use press- 
 ing you ? No? Well, of course I'd take it myself, if I were 
 in your shoes, but then I haven't your fine sturdy independ- 
 ence, Thomas also I'm older than you are, and a little 
 less positive about the lines of right and wrong. There are 
 times when you remind me of Denis Merion-Smith, do you 
 know ? By the by, I must run down and see him before I 
 go back. Yes, and if I pass through town I can also see " 
 
 His voice trailed off into a meditative whistle, and a spark 
 lighted in his eye. 
 
 " Who ? " asked Tom with curiosity. 
 
 " A young lady friend of mine, who's invited me to call 
 on her. There's a plum for you, Thomas ; make the most 
 of it. Hullo, here's daddy." 
 
 Mr. Gardiner appeared in the porch, a small wiry figure 
 with a spud in his hand and a Scotch plaid trailing from 
 one shoulder. The top of his head was bald as ivory, but 
 he carefully trained across it certain gray locks which, when 
 he went out without a hat (as he did more often than not), 
 ruffled up on end like a crest. He was making towards the 
 flower-bed when his son came and took the tool away. 
 
 " No, daddy, that I really can't allow," he declared, fold- 
 ing the plaid round the little figure. It was rather like try- 
 ing to wrap up a flea, for Mr. Gardiner made a dive in the
 
 WANTED 133 
 
 middle to uproot a daisy. " You must remember you're an 
 invalid. You sit on the seat and superintend. Vamos, 
 hombre that's better. Now, what do you want done ? " 
 
 " The whole place is in a disgraceful state," said the in- 
 valid rebelliously. " Disgraceful. It wants digging over 
 from end to end. Look at the lawn ! That's a dandelion I 
 declare!" 
 
 He made another dart, again frustrated by his laughing 
 son. " Here, you come and sit on him, Tom, while I mow 
 the lawn ! " Tom rather reluctantly sat down and kept his 
 father anchored by the arm, while Gardiner plied the spud 
 with more energy than skill, earning nothing but abuse from 
 the ungrateful invalid. 
 
 " You young folk think you can do everything ! " he said 
 irately. " I know you ! You'll be getting up into my pulpit 
 next. I'll preach next Sunday, no matter what you say, on 
 the dangers of conceit. Nice incapable pair of sons I 
 have ! " 
 
 The sun shone, the doves purred in the lime-trees, and 
 Mr. Gardiner scolded his sons with all his energetic soul 
 because they wouldn't let him dig over the asparagus beds. 
 He had prolonged his life to this his sixty-ninth year on 
 cod-liver oil, and was now recovering from an attack of 
 hemorrhage. He had had three in the past four years, but 
 he could never be persuaded to take any precautions. He 
 kept his sons in perpetual anxiety, tempered, at least for 
 Gardiner, by faith in his luck. He had deserved to die a 
 dozen times, but he never had; and Gardiner found it hard 
 to believe he ever would. 
 
 You cannot know a man thoroughly till you have seen him 
 in his home. He may be more truly himself away from it; 
 but his relations with his family always contribute some- 
 thing to the sum of his character. Woodlands was Harry 
 Gardiner's home ; those woods had been the background 
 and the vicarage the foreground of his childhood. The in- 
 come of the living was one hundred and seventy pounds, and 
 Mrs. Gardiner had besides sixty pounds a year of her own. 
 After deducting life assurance, expense of collection and
 
 134 CONVICT B14 
 
 rates (which the unhappy parson whose stipend comes from 
 tithe pays on the whole of his income, as well as on the 
 ratable value of his house), there was left about one hun- 
 dred and forty pounds to live on. That, for four persons, 
 is poverty : not want, but wholesome, bracing poverty. Many 
 a time had Gardiner blessed his early training to endure 
 hardness. He blessed also the memory of his big, breezy, 
 soft-hearted, hot-tempered, quick-witted mother. Two pic- 
 tures rose in his mind whenever Gardiner thought of her. 
 In one she was chopping suet with La Hermana San Sulpicio 
 propped on the kitchen scales before her nose ; in the other 
 she was boxing the ears of a choir-boy who sang flat. She 
 was half Spanish, and had been brought up as a Roman 
 Catholic; but she 'verted so completely that she was able 
 to remain a High Churchwoman, and to enjoy hearing Mass 
 from time to time. She died during Harry's first voyage, 
 of measles, caught in Sunday school. 
 
 Gardiner lounged on the seat, his labors ended, with 
 an affectionate arm thrown round his father's shoulders. 
 Presently the postman came in sight, and Tom went to take 
 the letters, which were delivered at Woodlands only once a 
 day. There was a moneylender's circular for the vicar, a 
 love letter for himself and a whole sheaf for Harry, sent 
 on from Rochehaut, which he had left at a moment's notice, 
 in answer to Tom's telegram. Tom, absorbed in his charm- 
 ing May, Mr. Gardiner, inveighing against the slackness of 
 the Government, failed to notice, either of them, the start- 
 ling change in Harry's face as he examined his share of the 
 post. 
 
 " Daddy, I'm sorry to say I've got to go." 
 
 He was already on his feet, crushing the letter in his hand. 
 Mr. Gardiner looked up. 
 
 " Go? You can't go, it's just dinner-time. I never knew 
 anybody so restless as you two boys ; you can't be still a mo- 
 ment ! " This was indeed Satan rebuking sin. " Where 
 do you want to go to ? " 
 
 " Can't say. Callao, for choice."
 
 WANTED 135 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Callao ? " echoed Tom, at the same moment. " Why, I 
 thought you were due back at Rochehaut on Saturday ! " 
 
 " So I am, but I shall have to cut it. Look here, daddy, 
 I'm really most frightfully sorry." He dropped down again 
 beside his father and threw an arm round his neck. " You 
 mustn't worry your dear old head about it, because it's not 
 worth that; but the truth is I've got myself into rather a 
 scrape. I'm wanted by the police, if you please! Silly 
 business, isn't it? Of course it'll all blow over, but in the 
 meantime I have to clear out. I don't want to be had up. 
 There's a train to town at two-thirty, which I shall just 
 catch if I put a sprint on. What, Tom? Oh, it's Merion- 
 Smith who writes me. His letter's been out to Rochehaut, 
 and they kept it there till they heard from me telling them 
 to forward things. That's why I'm in such a divvle of a 
 hurry." 
 
 " But, Harry, Harry," cried the old man, clinging to him 
 with the tenacity of age and love, " what is it about? And 
 is it true? Have you done anything? Are you to blame? " 
 
 " No, daddy, I'm not." The answer came unhesitatingly. 
 He stooped and kissed his father. " Don't you worry about 
 that. I've done nothing to be ashamed of, I give you my 
 word. I'll write and tell you all about it, and the reason 
 why I can't stay, but I haven't time now. See after him, 
 Tom!" 
 
 The son who wasn't wanted tried vainly to console the 
 old man for the loss of the son who was. Mr. Gardiner 
 would have pursued Harry to his room with questions if 
 the nurse had not come out to take him in charge ; failing 
 that, he sent Tom to knock at the door. A preoccupied voice 
 told him to come in, and there was Gardiner on his knees, 
 cramming clothes into a suit-case a contrast, this, to his 
 usual methodical habits. - 
 
 " I've written a check payable to you for the amount of 
 my balance at the bank," he said without looking up ; " it's 
 there on the table. Better cash it at once, and then you can
 
 136 CONVICT B14, 
 
 let father have his money as usual. I may want some myself 
 later on, when I can let you have an address. By the way, 
 have you any ready money on you ? " 
 
 " Only loose silver." 
 
 " Oh, dash ! I'm run short too, and I know daddy hasn't 
 any in the house. Well, I must raise the wind in town 
 somehow. It's an infernal nuisance about the delay of that 
 letter. Nearly ten days since Denis wrote ! " 
 
 " But look here," said Tom, getting out the question that 
 was burning his tongue, "what's it all about? What are 
 you accused of ? " 
 
 " Murder ; so now you know." 
 
 "Good God!" 
 
 Gardiner only laughed, and went on with his packing. 
 Tom, after a moment's appalled silence, found words. 
 
 " Then in heaven's name, Harry, if you're innocent, why 
 do you bolt? You're giving your case away. You'll never 
 be able to show your face in England again why, good 
 heavens ! it means that father will never see you again ! It'll 
 break his heart. Why on earth don't you stay and face it 
 out?" 
 
 " Because I did it, my good chap." Gardiner faced his 
 brother for the first time, sitting back on his heels. " Mind 
 you, what I said to father was strictly true. I've done 
 nothing to be ashamed of ; nothing I wouldn't do again to- 
 morrow or you either, you pillar of respectability! If I 
 were at liberty to explain all the circumstances I certainly 
 wouldn't bolt. But I'm not ; and there's the rub. Why? 
 oh, it's a complicated business; there are other people in- 
 volved. That's why I'm departing in such a hurry. Cheer 
 up, Thomas ; it's less scandalous to have a brother in Callao 
 than one dangling at the end of a string in Westby Jail. 
 Better for father too. I can at least write to him." 
 
 Tom did not answer. Homicide is homicide, no matter 
 what specious excuses Harry might manufacture ; and after 
 hearing his gloss on his downright denial to his father, Tom 
 was not disposed to trust his assertions of innocence. 
 
 The room was in the front of the house, giving on the
 
 WANTED 137 
 
 garden and the road. Tom's eyes became riveted to some 
 object outside. 
 
 " There's the Wrotham bobby at the gate, with another 
 man." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 Gardiner sprang to the window, and then fell back out of 
 sight behind the curtain. " Yes ; they're after me. Wired 
 out to Rochehaut, I suppose, and wired back. Keep them 
 off daddy, and stick out to him that I'm innocent. Keep 
 them off me too, if you can, and give me a start. Say 
 I've gone to town. I'll write when I can." 
 
 Tom clattered down the stairs behind his lighter- footed 
 brother. At the bottom the passage ran right and left, to 
 front and back. Gardiner turned to the left, but was stopped 
 by a grip on his shoulder. The ties of brotherhood held in 
 the face of danger. Tom was holding out his hand. 
 
 " Good-by, Harry God bless you." 
 
 " Good-by, old Tom." 
 
 They parted : Tom to the front, to tackle the police ; Gard- 
 iner to the back, en route for South America.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 COUNSEL OF PERFECTION 
 
 Lead such temptations by the head and hair, 
 Reluctant dragons, up to who dares fight, 
 That so he may do battle and have praise. 
 
 The Ring and the Book. 
 
 GARDINER was just one second too late. As he reached the 
 back door the police arrived at the front ; and they saw him. 
 The Wrotham man, who had known him as a wicked small 
 boy, raised a sort of view-hallo and dashed into the hall in 
 pursuit. But Tom's broad figure was in the way (not ob- 
 structing the police, oh dear, no, nothing further from his 
 mind, just solidly, immovably stupid!) ; and while Cotterill 
 dodged round him, Gardiner had time to slip through the 
 back door, slam it and turn the key in his pursuer's face. 
 
 He was not one of those unready mortals who are flus- 
 tered by a sudden strain. On the contrary, it braced him. 
 He dragged Tom's bicycle out of the shed, and ran it up 
 the kitchen garden to the gate which led into the glebe ; then 
 across the meadow, the mild cows shying and backing with 
 lowered heads as he rushed by to a second gate, giving on 
 the road. Nobody in sight yet, the coast still clear. He 
 heaved his machine over the bars, vaulted them himself and 
 rode for his life. 
 
 Woodlands stands at the end of a trident of lanes, whose 
 left arm points towards Otford, its right towards Kings- 
 down, while the shank leads northwards through Farning- 
 ham to Dartford. Any one would naturally conclude that 
 a fugitive would choose this last road, which for its first 
 four miles is utterly lonely. Gardiner turned to the right, 
 by the lane which climbs through woods, with many a twist, 
 to join the London road at Kingsdown. How he pedalled up 
 138
 
 COUNSEL OF PERFECTION 139 
 
 that hill ! But after all, as he told himself, breathless, the 
 gradients were the same for them as for him ; and if he was 
 hampered by a strange bicycle, Cotterill was portly. 
 
 Level ground at last, and the Portobello inn at the cross- 
 roads where the lane cuts the highway. Here the fugitive 
 fell in with the great stream of motorists and cyclists who 
 frequent this road for the pleasure of spinning down 
 Wrotham Hill in one direction, Farningham Hill in the other. 
 On the Dartford road he would have been conspicuous to 
 every one he met; here he was a unit in the crowd. He 
 turned towards London. Down into Farningham, over the 
 bridge, with its magnificent horse chestnut leaning to the 
 Darenth, a tower of gold on a field of emerald ; up the op- 
 posite slope to Swanley Junction ; on through the Grays to 
 Sidcup, where the suburbs begin, shades of the prison-house ; 
 and finally, London itself. 
 
 On Vauxhall Bridge he halted, to consider his course. 
 It was unlucky, most unlucky that Cotterill had seen him; 
 his description would be all over the country to-morrow. 
 The first thing was to get money. He must borrow; but 
 from whom? Denis was at Bredon, his other male friends 
 were in the ends of the earth. Yet he knew without hesita- 
 tion where to go. It occurred to him to wonder, as he asked 
 his way of the policeman outside Vauxhall station, what Tom 
 would have said to the idea of borrowing from a girl. 
 
 Strange how much of an alien he felt here in London! 
 His imagination, roving always among woods and moun- 
 tains, a green thought in a green shade, fell choked among 
 bricks and mortar; his sense of smell, keen like that of a 
 wild creature, was offended by the fumes of motor buses, 
 by hot whiffs from restaurants and cook-shops, by the odor 
 of the horses and of asphak in the sun. Above all, he hated 
 the crowds. City-lovers, city-dwellers all of them, the seedy 
 loafer spkting into the Thames, and the girl in magenta and 
 blanc de perle, who threw him coquettish glances from under 
 her lace veil. " I can do with these people for a few hours, 
 or even for a day or two, but to live here!" he thought. 
 And then came the inevitable corollary : " If I feel like this
 
 140 CONVICT B14 
 
 now, what would it be to be boxed up with twelve or fif- 
 teen hundred of them, day and night, for years?" He 
 turned his back on that thought. He had to keep a steady 
 hand to ward off panic, which lurked at his heels like a wolf. 
 
 He carried himself and his alien feelings across town, and 
 presently arrived at 22 Canning Street. Miss Smith was 
 out. That he had expected, and he came in to wait. The 
 little maid preceded him up seventy-five steps to Lettice's 
 attic. "Oh, them stairs!" she sighed, with a hand at her 
 waist. Gardiner wondered how Lettice liked the climb. 
 She was not so very fond of hills. But when he was left 
 alone, and had looked out of her window far across the 
 roofs, and seen her glimpse of the river and of the Surrey 
 hills, he understood. It was worth it. Here, above the 
 world, Lettice found the breathing-space which she loved as 
 well as he. There was a pot of violets on the table ; he put 
 the blossoms aside with one finger, and buried his nose in 
 the moss surrounding them. That was good! That was 
 the breath of the woods ; Gardiner would have given all the 
 flower scents in the world for that wet woody fragrance. 
 
 Sitting down, he discovered that he was tired, very tired. 
 It is deadly demoralizing to be hunted. Here for the mo- 
 ment he was safe; and in the blessed relief from strain he 
 fell asleep. 
 
 Lettice came in from the Museum at six ; she had her own 
 key, and as it chanced did not meet the little maid Beatrice. 
 Up the stairs she toiled, with her neat case of papers, came 
 into her room, meticulously noiseless as her pleasure was, 
 and paused by her table, pulling off her gloves, ever so 
 slowly, before she found energy to look round. Then she 
 saw Gardiner asleep in her chair. 
 
 It was one of Lettice's principles never to interfere with 
 anybody if She could possibly help it. She saw no reason 
 for waking him ; she did not wake him. She set about mak- 
 ing tea instead. A spirit stove burns noiseless; crockery 
 deftly handled need not chink. The soft sounds of Let- 
 tice's business would not have startled a mouse. She cut 
 bread and butter. She carried a bunch of water-cress to
 
 COUNSEL OF PERFECTION 141 
 
 the tap on the landing and washed it there. She fetched 
 from her cupboard a shape of tongue, a glass of shrimp paste, 
 fresh butter, strawberry jam, bananas the usual menu of 
 the dweller in rooms. It was not in the bond that she should 
 lay her own meals, but she often did it to save Beatrice's 
 tired legs. Lastly, she made the tea. As she replaced the 
 kettle on the stove, the lid fell off ; and Gardiner awoke. 
 
 He sat up and stared. 
 
 " Tea's ready," Lettice announced, with a benignant smile. 
 
 " I never heard you come in ! " 
 
 " I know," s-aid his hostess, " you were fast asleep. Come 
 along, before the toast gets cold." 
 
 She asked no questions, she seemed to want no explana- 
 tions. Blessed are the people who take things for granted ! 
 Gardiner drew up his chair, discovering suddenly that he 
 was hungry. Leltice poured out: soft-toned, placid, sooth- 
 ing Lettice, supplying the needs of his body with maternal 
 care, and sitting there opposite, delicately fresh and neat, 
 with those misleadingly soft, derisive hazel eyes! He liked 
 to watch the slow, accurate movements of her hands, and 
 their funny little flutter of make-believe agitation, when she 
 hastened to supply his request for a piece of sugar. 
 
 " I don't believe you've had any lunch," she admonished 
 him, pouring out his third cup. 
 
 " Haven't. I came off in a hurry. I don't know that I 
 ever tasted anything quite so good as this tongue of yours. 
 You are a Good Samaritan, you know." 
 
 Lettice did not tell him he was eating up her Sunday 
 dinner. She dismissed the subject with her little French 
 shrug. 
 
 "And how's Mr. Gardiner?" 
 
 " Going strong. I say, would you very much mind if I 
 had a pipe ? " Lettice, who loathed tobacco, shook her head. 
 " Sure ? You really have all the virtues. By the way, can 
 you lend me some money ? " 
 
 If that did not startle her, nothing would! It did not 
 startle her. She looked pensive for a moment, then asked : 
 " How much do you want?"
 
 142 CONVICT BU 
 
 " How much have you ? " 
 
 " Nine sovereigns, and the change out of another." 
 
 " Could you possibly let me have the nine sovereigns ? " 
 
 Lettice nodded. Getting up without more ado, she un- 
 locked her desk, strung out the sovereigns in a row upon the 
 white cloth beside him, and returned to her seat. 
 
 " Well, I'm hanged ! " said Gardiner. " Don't you even 
 want to know what I want it for ? " 
 
 She shook her head as usual, then added a polite but per- 
 functory " Yes, of course I'm very much interested." 
 
 " I want it because the police are after me." 
 
 At that she looked up. 
 
 " Yes, the old affair at Grasmere. You weren't in time 
 with that letter to Denis. Mrs. Trent's been at Dent-de- 
 lion for the last six weeks ever since she left Rochehaut ; 
 and she's managed to worm the truth out of Denis. What? 
 Oh yes, the truth ; I forgot you didn't know. I did knock 
 Trent down. Of course he was simply asking for it; but 
 the fact remains that technically I'm guilty of manslaughter 
 murder, Mrs. Trent calls it. Does that give you the 
 horrors ? " 
 
 " No," said Lettice. 
 
 Gardiner's eye lit up. " Ah ! it did to Tom. It does to 
 Denis, though he'd rather die than own it. But I had a 
 sort of feeling that you wouldn't take it like that. . . . You 
 know, it gave me the deuce of a twinge when Tom turned 
 chilly ! " 
 
 Lettice nodded, accepting that unlikely confidence as a 
 matter of course. She reverted to his former speech. 
 
 " Did you say she got it out of Denis? " 
 
 " She did. How, I don't know. He doesn't say : doesn't 
 say much, in fact. But she knows that if he's put into the 
 witness-box he can't deny it. You know, she played well, 
 you might fairly call it a shabby trick on me; and I never 
 blamed her. I'm fair game. But Denis is quite another 
 pair of shoes. I don't know how I'm going to forgive her 
 for meddling with him. You see his letter." 
 
 Lettice read the few stiff phrases in which Denis owned
 
 COUNSEL OF PERFECTION 143 
 
 that he had let his friend's secret escape. He said little 
 about Dorothea, not a word about himself. 
 
 "I call that one of the most pathetic things I've ever 
 read," said Gardiner, with far more feeling than he had 
 shown for his own misfortune. " I'd have owned up vol- 
 untarily, I swear I would, sooner than have this happen. 
 It doesn't do to play tricks of this sort on a fellow like 
 Denis. They cut too deep. It's like ill-treating a child. 
 Oh, it was a beastly thing to do ! " 
 
 " It was a damnable thing to do." 
 
 Strong words, to suit strong feelings. Lettice's soft lips 
 were grim. Gardiner was disposed to feel sorry for Dor- 
 othea. But there was nothing to be done, nothing; Lettice 
 laid by her wrath in silence and brought back her mind to 
 Gardiner's case. 
 
 " What are you going to do, then ? " 
 
 " I ? Oh, I'm off. Didn't I tell you the police are after 
 me?" 
 
 " The police ? " 
 
 " Chasing me out of Woodlands on bikes. You see this 
 letter of Denis's, which was evidently written post-haste 
 after Mrs. Trent got the truth out of him, is dated Tuesday, 
 the eighth ; which was the very day I got Tom's wire calling 
 me home. It must have gone out to Rochehaut and lain 
 there nearly a week, till I wrote for my mail to be for- 
 warded. In the meantime I presume Mrs. Trent took her 
 tale to the police. She can be quite temperate and con- 
 vincing when she likes ; besides, she has an uncle in the 
 Home Office, Sir Thomas Felton, who's no end of a swell 
 I heard that quite by accident the other day and he no 
 doubt pulled some wires. The magistrates would grant a 
 warrant ; then I imagine a detective started for Rochehaut, 
 found me gone, got my address in England and came straight 
 back. At any rate, this morning, not ten minutes after I'd 
 got Denis's bomb-shell, a couple of bobbies turned up at the 
 vicarage to arrest me. I evaded out of the back door as they 
 came in at the front, and got away on Tom's bike. They 
 don't know I'm riding, so I hope they'll waste time looking
 
 144 CONVICT B14 
 
 for a pedestrian. I'll stay here till it's dark if you'll put up 
 with me, bike on to Southampton to-night and work my way 
 out to South America. I'm no amateur, you see I've 
 done it before." 
 
 Lettice's face did not usually express her feelings, but as 
 Gardiner proceeded with his tale, it woke up. She said : 
 
 " Then do you mean to say you're running away ? " 
 
 " Claro. What else would you have me do? " 
 
 " You might stay and face it." 
 
 He shook his head. " Not good enough. I did knock 
 him down, and he did die. I should pretty certainly be con- 
 victed of manslaughter, and might get quite a stiff sentence." 
 
 " Not if you explained the provocation." 
 
 " I think so, even then." Gardiner could not tell her, as 
 he had told Tom, that on the vital point his tongue was 
 sealed. She knew too much. He temporized. " You see, 
 it was the wrong sort of provocation. All I could say would 
 be that he was telling stories that weren't very pretty, and 
 you'd never get a British jury to sympathize with a fancy 
 scruple of that sort. Besides, I've damaged my own case by 
 not owning up at once. That would tell against me very 
 heavily very heavily indeed. No, I'm afraid there's noth- 
 ing for it but to clear out." 
 
 Lettice said nothing, but her face continued to express 
 complete and solid disagreement. She rose to clear the table. 
 Gardiner, who had his chair tilted back and his fork balanc- 
 ing on one finger, after one glance at her, proceeded to de- 
 velop his argument. 
 
 " It would, as I say, mean prison ; and prison is precisely 
 the one thing I'm not prepared to stand. It's not the hard- 
 ships they're luxury compared to what I've put up with 
 in my time it's the confinement, the restraint, the the 
 utter beastliness of never being able to get away from some- 
 body's eyes ! I assure you it gives me the blue divvies even 
 to think of. I am convinced it would drive me off my head. 
 I should go must, and brain a warder no, I think it would 
 be the doctor for choice: I met him once, he was a sympa-
 
 COUNSEL OF PERFECTION 145 
 
 thetic little brute as ever stepped. I'd far rather be hanged 
 out of hand." 
 
 Lettice, still mute, took away his fork. Gardiner per- 
 severingly glanced up into her small pale face for a change 
 of opinion. The more she disapproved, the more he wanted 
 to win her over to his own way of thinking. He was grow- 
 ing quite absurdly anxious to propitiate this exacting critic. 
 
 " Don't you think, in view of all the circumstances the 
 feelings of my family, the unpleasant scandal, and my own 
 state of blue funk don't you think the best thing I can do 
 is to clear out ? " 
 
 Lettice had to speak now, and she spoke. 
 
 " If you're afraid of a thing, I should think you'd want 
 to face it and prove to yourself that you aren't." 
 
 " Prove to myself that I'm not afraid of prison? But I 
 am! " 
 
 " Then that's all the more reason for not running away." 
 
 Uncompromising! Lettice, who could bend her supple 
 mind to look through the eyes of tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor 
 or any one else even down to the thief, and could sympathize 
 with all, could not sympathize with Gardiner : could not be- 
 lieve, or even pretend to believe, that cowardice might ever 
 be more expedient for him than courage. It was not so 
 much the immorality of running away, it was the stupidity of 
 it : the fact that he was destroying his own future happiness, 
 making it impossible for himself ever again to live at peace 
 with his own soul. All very well for weaklings to be weak ; 
 but Gardiner she couldn't understand how he could think 
 twice about it ! Her dissent was so acute that it made itself 
 felt through all her reticences and evasions. Gardiner 
 stared, his own eyes opening to see his future as she saw 
 it ; but he shut them again at once, and willfully turned 
 away. 
 
 " Qh, that's idealism," he said, with a short laugh, " and 
 this is a world of compromise. I can't get so high as you. 
 If I'm afraid of a thing, I want quite simply to run away. 
 Talking of which, I'd better be off ; it's dark enough now."
 
 146 CONVICT B14 
 
 He went to the window, and came back. Lcttice was 
 sweeping up the crumbs ; she moved the nine sovereigns out 
 of her way. Gardiner picked them up and let them slip 
 one by one into his pocket. 
 
 " You aren't going to reclaim your loan, then, and force 
 me to face my bogy ? " 
 
 She shook her head, twice, slowly. Gardiner had singed 
 himself once already at the fire, yet he returned again, flut- 
 tering round the dangerous subject. He would have given 
 anything to drag some sort of approval, or even condona- 
 tion, out of Lettice. It seemed to him that she must be per- 
 suaded, if he could only put his case convincingly enough. 
 
 " Of course it's just on the cards that I might be hanged 
 for murder, you know," he pointed out not believing it, 
 but for the sake of argument. " Come now ; won't you at 
 least admit for my father's sake it's better not to take that 
 risk?" 
 
 Lettice lifted herself, straightening her shoulders. Tray in 
 hand, brush in the other, a domesticated sibyl, she faced him 
 and delivered her final judgment. 
 
 " I should think Mr. Gardiner would rather have you 
 hanged than running away ! "
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 A GREEN THOUGHT IN A GREEN SHADE 
 
 Enter these enchanted woods, 
 You who dare! 
 
 The Woods of Westermain. 
 
 GARDINER bought himself an outfit at a second-hand dealer's 
 in one of the back streets off the Vauxhall Bridge Road. 
 His plan was to ride as far as the next station before South- 
 ampton, leave his machine at the cloak-room there, and 
 change his clothes in some wood before going on into the 
 town. Once among the docks, he would slip on board some 
 outward-bound ship, if he could find one about to sail and if 
 he could evade the night watchman, and stow away till she 
 was at sea. Such things are still done by gentlemen whose 
 reasons for not signing on in public are urgent. Of course 
 the captain might hand him over to the British consul at the 
 end of the voyage but he preferred not to think of that. 
 From the Portobello inn to London is exactly twenty-one 
 miles, from London to Southampton is something under 
 eighty: a longish journey for an out-of-practice rider on a 
 strange machine. Gardiner left town by the Portsmouth 
 road. The first green he passed (by such things did he 
 count off the stages of his journey, where another man 
 would have reckoned by inns), was Clapham Common, a 
 dismal vision of lamps, railings, wet asphalt, unhappy grass, 
 and avenues of suicidal trees. Next came Wandsworth 
 Common ; then, beyond Roehampton, Wimbledon and Rich- 
 mond Park. They gave him a breath of true night sweet- 
 ness, but he was in Surbiton directly, with its blazing lamps 
 and self-complacent villas. Gardiner hated suburbs. Bet- 
 ter the frank vulgar life of the Vauxhall Bridge Road than 
 their soul-destroying, smug respectability. He raced on 
 147
 
 148 CONVICT BU 
 
 through Esher, sedate and pleasant old town ; and with the 
 end of Esher came the beginning of the real country. 
 
 " My soul 
 
 Smoothed itself out, a long-cramped scroll, 
 Freshening and fluttering in the wind. . . ." 
 
 Beyond the palings of Claremont Park, at the entrance 
 of the Oxshott woods, he was brought up by a puncture. He 
 mended it, crouching under a lamp beside the road. Un- 
 fenced, alluring, dangerous, the woods pressed up behind. 
 They sent forward their scouts, silver birches up to their 
 knees in bracken which crept out to the very edge of the 
 road, black pines stalking forward, stealthy as red-skins, to 
 peer down at the stranger. Scents and sounds of the forest 
 floated out, filaments of enticement. Gardiner glanced ir- 
 resolutely down the road, while under the solemn-burning, 
 stately procession of lamps, which marched away through 
 the night over valley and hill. A car rushed by, steaming 
 golden vapors: it glared at him for an instant with big 
 golden eyes, and was gone, with dying roar. He looked 
 down the road of mankind ; and then over his shoulder at 
 the silent tempting ranks of the pines and the soft savage 
 darkness that pressed close on every side. If he rested 
 here for ten minutes or so? He was tired ; and there was no 
 hurry. He dragged his bicycle out of the ditch and wheeled 
 it into the woods. 
 
 Moss underfoot; on either side the pines, scattered at 
 first among fine-leaved undergrowth, then closing up in or- 
 dered ranks. His .lamp tiger-striped their dark even col- 
 umns till he left the machine propped against one of them. 
 Even by day the heart of these woods is lonely. The trip- 
 pers who sit by companies along every green ride, with their 
 buns and oranges, never wander far from the path. Pre- 
 sumably they are afraid of bears. Now, by night, the whole 
 forest was triumphantly savage, solitary, and dark, so dark 
 that Gardiner, though he had cat's eyes, sometimes greeted 
 his friends the trees by running into them. He soon strayed 
 from the track. Underfoot the ground became swampy.
 
 A GREEN THOUGHT IN A GREEN SHADE 149 
 
 Pools of red-brown rain-water splashed him to the knee; 
 long brambles trailed their thorns across his face. 
 
 The ground rose beneath his feet, and he found himself 
 stumbling up a hill, his feet sinking deep in soft masses of 
 pine-needles. Here was the summit of a ridge, so steep 
 and narrow that on either side he could see the pallor of 
 the sky between the dark columns of the trees. As he fol- 
 lowed the line of the ridge downwards the woods closed 
 again, but there grew before him, low among the stems, a 
 sort of pool of whiteness: not the sky this time, but the 
 light of some clearing. The ridge came to its end in an 
 abrupt round knoll, the ground fell away at his feet, and 
 there O miracle of sudden loveliness ! before him shone 
 a lake. Ebony and silver, polished like a mirror, misted 
 with faint gauze, it lay in a cup of soft black woods. A 
 rustling throng of rushes, pale and ghostly, stepped forward 
 into the water among their slim reflections. Silver-gray 
 and even-tinted, the sky arched above, cut by the small in- 
 cisive crescent of the moon. 
 
 Gardiner threw himself down among the pine-needles. 
 He gave himself to the woods, and tet them work on him 
 with their melancholy and voluptuous charm. The night 
 took his spirit in her cool hands and smoothed it out, as 
 the sun smoothes and strengthens the crumpled wings of a 
 new-hatched butterfly. It was not enough that he should 
 steep himself in loveliness; a thousand light touches were 
 stilling and charming every nerve of sensation, smell and 
 touch and hearing as well as sight. There was the surging 
 murmur of the wind among the pines; night perfumes of 
 water and forest ; warm elastic softness of the fir-needles 
 under his tired body. The old pagan earth was whispering 
 her seductions into his ear. 
 
 "Love and joy be thine, O spirit, for ever; 
 Serve thy sweet de?ire; despise endeavor." 
 
 " // you're afraid of a thing, I should think you'd want to 
 face it and prove to yourself that you aren't." 
 
 The words floated into his head out o-f nowhere. He
 
 150 CONVICT B14 
 
 could hear the very intonation of Lettice's voice. " What 
 folly! " he said to himself, and laughed the memory away. 
 Nevertheless, a sharp little dart of discomfort stuck fast in 
 his self-complacency, and, smarting, forced him to think. 
 How much better it was to lie here free in the woods than 
 ina police court cell ! to listen to the wind in the pines rather 
 than to a casual " drunk and dis " banging on his door ! 
 Yes, said a voice, rising unexpectedly within him to take 
 sides with Lettice, but does one live only for what is com- 
 fortable ? " That's all the more reason for staying." There 
 was Lettice's answer, net and uncompromising. She would 
 not have run away. Denis, then : how would he have taken 
 it? Denis, more single-minded, would not even have felt 
 the temptation it would never have occurred to him that 
 to run away was possible. No, the fact was not to be 
 blinked; what he was doing would surprise and disappoint 
 both these friends of his. Be it so, then, he told himself, 
 defiant ; he would still do it, even in the face of these dis- 
 approving witnesses. 
 
 In .the face of another Witness, moreover. Men who live 
 close to nature cannot escape from the presence of God. 
 Only for a very few years of his very early youth had 
 Gardiner been able to be a materialist. As soon as the soul 
 was born in him (about the age of eighteen; for boys 
 haven't souls, only the rudiments) he 'had begun to be con- 
 scious of the august and gracious Power which held him 
 as in the hollcfw of a hand. The feeling was intermittent, 
 the grip at times relaxed, -but it never let him free. Now, to 
 his anger and terror, he felt again the pressure of that con- 
 trol. The Hand that held him forced on him no action ; 
 but gently, steadily, inexorably, it turned him to face the 
 truth, bidding him see what he was doing. He struggled 
 against it with passion, trying to avert his eyes, trying to 
 get back to the spirit of the woods, but in vain. And then 
 suddenly his resistance collapsed, and he looked. Yes ! he 
 was running away. He was letting 'his weakness rule. He 
 was destroying the love of his friends, failing them, failing 
 too the Power which had created him to be a fighter, not a
 
 A GREEN THOUGHT IN A GREEN SHADE 151 
 
 shirker. He blinded his eyes no longer, he did not tell 
 himself that he was taking the only sensible course ; he owned 
 that his flight was contemptible. But what else could he do? 
 " I can't go back now ! " he said, panic knocking at his heart. 
 " If I'd owned up in the first instance it would have been all 
 right, and I wish to God I had ; but now now I've made 
 it impossible for them to do anything but convict. Oh, what 
 on earth shall I do ? " 
 
 " Face it," said the inner voice. " Look your fear in the 
 eyes, and look it down. Never mind the cost." And after 
 a pause of struggling terror it spoke again : " If you fail 
 now, it will not be the end ; it will be the beginning. You 
 will fail again, and worse. You will go down among the 
 cowards and weaklings. You will lose Denis; you will 
 lose Lettice. Do you know what that means? Look, my 
 child, look well before you do this thing. Weigh what it 
 will cost you." 
 
 He weighed it, desperate now under that soft inexor- 
 able pressure. He saw, rebelling against the vision, all his 
 future loss. Turning from that, he saw, on the other 
 side, prison, and the tide of panic rushing towards him. 
 Already it was cold about his feet. He could not bear it; 
 he fled for refuge to his old purpose. He must get away. 
 To that thought he clung, lifting his agonized face. " What 
 else can I do ? What else can I do ? " 
 
 And then down came the thunder of the Presence all 
 around him, sweeping him from his poor little foothold. 
 " Do, poor weak human child ? Trust Me. I will be your 
 strength. Lay your hand in mine and have no fear." 
 
 He went down, down, drowned in gulfs of agony, blinded 
 by the light of God. Did he decide for himself, of free 
 will, or was the choice taken out of his hands? It seemed 
 so to him; but in reality k was his own past self which 
 decided, the sum of the courage and the discipline which 
 he had learned in common practice day by day. For God 
 does not save us against our will; and the measure of the 
 triumphant strength which he pours into us in moments 
 of stress is the measure of our own past efforts.
 
 152 CONVICT B14 
 
 Gardiner lifted his head. The moon was gone now, 
 behind the trees, which threw black shadows across the 
 argent of the lake. He was cold and stiff and desperately 
 tired, but he stood up and began to retrace his steps towards 
 the road. Soon the topaz-gleaming lamps shone through the 
 trees, and he came out not a hundred yards from the point 
 where he had left his bicycle. There was Mars, the star 
 of battles, shining over the glow of London. In the oppo- 
 site direction lay Southampton and the sea. He turned his 
 back on these, and rode towards that star.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 WHEN THE HEART SUFFERS A BLOW 
 
 What says the body when they spring 
 Some monster torture-engine's whole 
 Strength on it? No more says the soul. 
 
 Count Gismond. 
 
 FLYING is no sport for the sluggard. The calmest hours 
 of the twenty-four are often those before the dawn, and 
 the earnest aviator must be ready to turn out of his warm 
 bed at six, five, four, even three o'clock in the morning, 
 whether in the pleasant summer, or in the correspondingly 
 unpleasant winter. He may then have to spend long hours 
 at the 'drome waiting for the fog to lift, or the rain to clear, 
 or the wind to drop ; and in the end, as like as not, he may 
 have to go home, wet, chilly, and sleepy, without having flown 
 a yard. Decidedly not the sport for a sluggard. 
 
 Six A.M. in mid-October, and bitterly cold. There was 
 a gray sky, ripple on ripple of quilted cloud with never a 
 gleam, and a small icy wind that blew persistently from the 
 north. The coarse bice-green of the marshes was all dis- 
 colored ; the sedge, biscuit-pale, was clotted with mud from 
 the September floods ; the brimming dikes were ruled by the 
 wind into long ripples, hard and black against the dawn. 
 The dawn itself, how wan and threatening! Denis, survey- 
 ing the signs of the sky as he unlocked the hangar, exerted 
 himself to remark to Simpson that it looked like rain. Simp- 
 son, expert mechanic and latter-day Grimaud, assented with 
 his civil grunt. His uncivil grunt he did not use on Denis, 
 who had once been his officer. 
 
 Like every worker who spins his stuff out of his own 
 brain, Denis at times " went stale." For the past ten days 
 the flying boat had been laid aside, and he had been tinkering 
 153
 
 154 CONVICT B14 
 
 at the monoplane by way of relaxation. Never losing sight 
 of the function for which she had been built, that of a small 
 fast scout in the war which he expected, he was always add- 
 ing small improvements. Thus, after his experience in the 
 Birmingham race, he had fitted her with self-starting gear, 
 which enabled the pilot to get away at will, independent of 
 outside help. Now he was working at a brake. Landing 
 is still one of the chief dangers in cross-country flying, espe- 
 cially in England, where fields are small, and there is often 
 a web of overhead wires. At that time (1913) there were 
 not a dozen aerodromes in the kingdom, and not one aero- 
 plane in ten had a brake of any sort. 
 
 Theoretically, Denis's new design was all it should be ; 
 practically, of course, it might upset the machine and kill 
 the pilot. Not that Denis ever believed he would be killed. 
 " The airman hath said in his heart, Tush, I shall never be 
 cast down, there shall no harm happen unto me." He be- 
 lieved other people might be killed, however, and for this 
 reason had severely snubbed Simpson when he offered to 
 take on the trials. Simpson, faithful dog, bore no resent- 
 ment. He had been watching the events of the past few 
 weeks, and had come to the conclusion that 'e (in Simpson's 
 mind Denis was always 'e) wasn't to say accountable just 
 now. " You'd 'a' thought 'e might 'a' took warning by 
 Muster Wandesforde," he reflected. " 'E's a nice gent 
 spoiled by the women, if ever there was one. But no. 
 Jane! JANE! 'Ave you got that stooed steak on yet? 
 You ain't? Then it'll be .as tough as your shoe again. 'E 
 ain't complained ? 'E lef ' the lot at the side of 'is plate last 
 time, and if that ain't complainin' I dono what is. Now 
 you get it on at once and let's hear no more chat. Seems to 
 me you ain't good for anything, 'cep that bein' so deaf you 
 can't gossip. Women," added Simpson, knocking out his 
 pipe against his boot, " they're the devil ! " 
 
 After some preliminary " taxi-ing " on the ground, Denis 
 rose, circling over the marshes. The country was asleep; 
 pillars of smoke rose from cottage chimneys, but not a soul 
 was abroad except the milkman, with his rattling silver cans,
 
 WHEN THE HEART SUFFERS A BLOW 155 
 
 and a solitary cyclist, spinning down the road towards Dent- 
 de-lion. The cyclist waved a greeting; the blase milkman 
 did not so much as glance up. Denis sailed over them, over 
 the roof of his house, turned into the wind, " flattened out " 
 (i.e. brought level the nose of his machine, which had been 
 gliding down a slant) and grounded on the turf without a 
 jar. The brake acted perfectly. Simpson ran up, almost 
 enthusiastic. He and Denis stood together talking shop 
 (which was the sum of Simpson's talk) with zeal (Simpson 
 supplying the zeal). 
 
 " Hi ! " 
 
 Denis turned, screwing up his short-sighted eyes. At 
 sight of the approaching figure his jaw dropped; he spoke 
 one curt imperious sentence over his shoulder to Simpson, 
 seized the new-comer's arm, dragged him back to the house, 
 thrust him into the parlor and locked the door upon him, all 
 without a word. Gardiner was left gasping. Here was a 
 reception ! But in a minute Denis was back, pushing open 
 the door with a tray of breakfast crockery and the inevitable 
 sausages. He deposited his burden on the table, which was 
 already laid, and turned to lock the door again. 
 
 " What on earth possessed you to come here ? I've shut 
 up Simpson, and he'll hold his tongue, but I'd not answer 
 for Miss Simpson, if she saw you. You must be mad ! " 
 
 " Mad ? to come here ? I'm not running from the police, 
 my good Denis ; did you think I was? " 
 
 " I understood your brother to say " 
 
 " Oh, you've heard from Tom, have you ? " Gardiner's 
 tone was a shade less confident. " Yes, I admit I did do a 
 bunk from Woodlands; they took me by surprise, and I 
 wasn't ready for 'em ; I had two-three things to finish off 
 among others, I wanted a word with you. Which is why 
 I'm here. But as soon as I've swallowed the sausage which 
 I trust you're going to offer me I'm off to Margate to sur- 
 render to the minions of the law." 
 
 " I thought you couldn't stand prison," said Denis. " I 
 thought it was the one risk you weren't prepared to face. 
 However, it's no business of mine. If you can face it, I
 
 156 CONVICT B14 
 
 certainly think you're wise to. Mustard? Oh, I forgot, you 
 don't take it, do you?" 
 
 He poured out a cup of Miss Simpson's rich, muddy 
 coffee for Gardiner and another for himself, but he did not 
 drink; he went to the window and stood looking down the 
 road. Gardiner, who was famished, drew up his chair; but 
 his eyes kept straying to that silent figure. There was some- 
 thing in the wind that he did not like. Denis was utterly 
 unlike himself, unlike any self his friend had ever had a 
 glimpse of. He was so unapproachable that Gardiner knew 
 not how to broach the errand that had brought him there. 
 Presently, however, he turned to attend to Geraldine, who 
 was winding round his boots and opening her little pink 
 mouth in soundless mews of ecstasy. As he rose from put- 
 ting down the saucer, he caught Gardiner's eye, and smiled 
 faintly. 
 
 " Sorry, Harry. 'Fraid I've rather let you down over this 
 business. Anybiddy else would have made a better hand at 
 it. But I'm not much good at dissembling, and tell a lie 
 I cann't any babe could see through it. Else I'd have 
 done my best." 
 
 " My dear chap, I don't want you to tell lies for me ! " 
 said Gardiner hastily. He was more than surprised ; he was 
 appalled. " In point of fact, I'm not sorry it has come out. 
 I've had no peace of my life these last two months, with Mrs. 
 Trent going about like an unexploded bomb. I knew she'd 
 never rest till she harried me into the dock." He perceived, 
 as he spoke, a certain change in the atmosphere. Denis had 
 been sufficiently far away before; now he seemed to recede 
 to the North Pole. There was a snapshot of Dorothea in 
 her flying kit on the mantelpiece. Was this the explanation ? 
 Surely not ! Surely she was the last woman in the world to 
 attract a man like Denis ! Gardiner, be it remembered, had 
 never met that eager child who had learned to fly. " It's 
 about her I want to speak to you," he broke the ice deter- 
 minedly. " Here's the point. Do you, or do you not, re- 
 member what Trent said in that last speech of his, just before 
 I let fly at him?"
 
 WHEN THE HEART SUFFERS A BLOW 157 
 
 " I'm hardly likely to forget it." 
 
 " No, no, not the sense, the words ; the actual phrasing he 
 used. Do you remember that ? " 
 
 He took a moment to think. " Perhaps not. No, not to 
 swear to." 
 
 " Good ! Then it's all plain sailing. Tell everything that 
 happened up till then ; be as discursive as you please about 
 my share in the business ; but say, and swear, and stick to it 
 that you can't remember that last speech, and at any price 
 don't let it be dragged out of you." 
 
 " Very well." 
 
 " At any price, you understand ? " 
 
 " At any price ? " 
 
 " Yes ; absolutely without reserve, at any price." 
 
 " I understand." 
 
 " That's off my mind, then," said Gardiner with a breath 
 of relief. " I had to see you, to make sure we should both 
 be in the same tale. Now I'll be off to Margate while the 
 iron's hot." 
 
 " Wait a moment," said Denis, detaining him. " Before 
 you go into this quixotic business I think you ought to see 
 what it means. Of course I know you've been making light 
 of it to spare my feelings, but I don't believe you yourself 
 realize what it is you're up against. It's serious. I'm afraid 
 they're going to make it a perjury charge. I had the police 
 up here for hours yesterday they wanted to run me in 
 too " 
 
 " You ? Oh, my God, Denis ! They're not going to do 
 that?" 
 
 " No, I don't think so. What's the matter with you ? " 
 
 " I never dreamed of that," said Gardiner, holding his head 
 in his hands. " I swear I never dreamed there was the 
 remotest possibility of that ! To drag you, of all men, into 
 this filthy mess " He dropped his hands and looked up, 
 speaking fast and free : " Of course you're right. I have 
 been humbugging. I know I'm in for a stiff sentence. I'd 
 ever thought of perjury as a possible charge. But I give 
 you my word, Denis, if I'd ever had the faintest idea there
 
 158 CONVICT B14. 
 
 was the faintest risk of involving you, I'd have I'd have 
 blown my brains out first. Oh, Lettice was right ; it is a 
 fatal thing to be a coward." 
 
 " Lettice ? " 
 
 " I went to her on my way. Yes, I did mean to bolt in 
 the first instance ; I've got my rig-out strapped on my bike 
 at this instant. It was she stopped me. She does know 
 how to sting up your conscience ! But they can't really drag 
 you in, Denis, can they? You never did actually say one 
 syllable beyond the truth. Did you make them see that ? " 
 
 " I think so," said Denis. " I don't think they'll take it 
 any further. And if they did, they couldn't convict. It's 
 all right. I don't know what you're putting yourself about 
 for." 
 
 "Perjury, Denis? It's not a pretty charge." 
 
 " No," said Denis. " Still, I don't know that it much 
 matters." 
 
 How quietly he spoke ! At Grasmere he had shrunk 
 from the slightest innocent contact with the story; but here 
 was the stain black on his own honor, and it moved him no 
 more than did his friend's remorse. Gardiner had once said 
 it would go hard with Denis if his idols tumbled off their 
 pedestals. This indifference was worse than his worst fears. 
 Would he ever find his way back ? Or was there some hid- 
 den mischief, some deadly internal injury at which Gardiner 
 could only guess ? What had Dorothea done what had 
 she killed when she struck her blow? There grew on the 
 young man, watching, a sense of disaster. . . . 
 
 Denis had drifted back to the window and stood there, 
 absently whistling his one tune : 
 
 " C'est difficile de voir voler Orville ; 
 
 C'est bien plus dur de voir voler Wilbur " 
 
 Suddenly he broke off and bent forward in quick attention. 
 
 " Anything up ? " said Gardiner. 
 
 Denis wheeled and swiftly pushed him back from the 
 window. 
 
 " The police."
 
 WHEN THE HEART SUFFERS A BLOW 159 
 
 " What, have they come to pump you again ? " 
 
 " No, it's you they're after." 
 
 " Nonsense, man ! How can they know I'm here ? " 
 
 " Evans has told them." 
 
 "Who's Evans?" 
 
 " The man who brings the milk. He was at the door when 
 you arrived. He's coming up the road with them now." 
 
 " But how the deuce should Evans " 
 
 " Your description's out, and a reward. Five hundred 
 pounds. He must have gone straight off to the police 
 station." 
 
 " Five hundred pounds ! " Gardiner was as white as his 
 shirt. " Who offered it ? " 
 
 Denis would not answer or look at him. There was no 
 need ; Gardiner knew well enough who had offered it, and 
 the shock made him sick. Did she indeed hate him so much 
 as all that? 
 
 " Well, they'll save me the trouble of going to Margate," 
 he said as lightly as he could, and moved towards the door. 
 Denis stopped him. 
 
 "Wait. Think. If you're taken now, like this, you'll 
 not be allowed bail. You'll be in prison till the February 
 Assizes." 
 
 " Break me in by degrees ! " said Gardiner in a sort of 
 gasp, still pressing towards the door. Denis still held him 
 back. 
 
 "Will you cut it?" 
 
 " How can I ? " 
 
 " Quite simple. The monoplane's out at the back I told 
 Simpson to have her ready. He'll swear anything I like to 
 tell him, and Miss Simpson never saw you at all. You've 
 only to say the word, and I'll set you down in France within 
 the hour." 
 
 " You, Denis? You advise me to run? " 
 
 "Why not?" said Denis. "I think the point-of-honor 
 stunt is overdone. It doesn't pay." 
 
 Gardiner's ideas of right and wrong were all tumbling 
 about his ears. That Denis should advise such a thing! It
 
 160 CONVICT B14 
 
 went more than half-way towards making it seem right. It 
 showed, too, that he dreaded the ordeal of the witness-box, 
 and lent a specious color of unselfishness to the plan. And 
 in those last moments of liberty Gardiner, like the prisoner 
 of the Inquisition, seemed to feel the flaming walls sliding 
 together, contracting, closing in upon his life to drive him 
 into the pit. ..."// you're afraid of a thing " That 
 voice again ! There was the touchstone. 
 
 " No," said Gardiner. *' No, I'm damned if I will! " 
 He walked out and threw open the door to the police.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 DU PARTI DU GRAND AIR 
 
 The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which 
 I was afraid of is come unto me. BOOK OF JOB. 
 
 TEN days later, after his examination before the Borough 
 Bench at Westby, Gardiner was committed to the February 
 Assizes on a charge of manslaughter. Bail not being al- 
 lowed, he spent the intervening months in Westby Jail. 
 
 Lettice, in common with the rest of the world who haven't 
 been to prison, knew nothing of the rules and regulations 
 applying to a prisoner on remand. She did know, however, 
 that in English law a man is held to be innocent until he has 
 been found guilty ; and she took for granted that any one 
 so detained would be treated in- a liberal way, and allowed 
 every possible privilege of the free man except freedom. 
 Accordingly, she wrote to Gardiner at Westby, and, getting 
 no reply, wrote again. This time an answer came through : 
 
 MY DEAR Miss SMITH, Your letters to me and mine to 
 you are all read by the governor of this home of joy. In the 
 circumstances I would rather do without. Yours very truly, 
 
 H. C. GARDINER. 
 
 Lettice did not love injustice. It made her blood boil. 
 She was angrier than Gardiner himself. She understood 
 the feeling which made him refuse her letters. It was not 
 a mere cutting off his nose to spite his face ; it was a real 
 idiosyncrasy of taste, akin to that which spoiled for him the 
 " set piece " loveliness of Frahan. What he disliked there 
 was not the bodily presence of the tourists he would have 
 felt just the same under the midwinter moon but the taint 
 161
 
 162 CONVICT B14 
 
 left by their eyes, which spread a film of defilement over the 
 whole lovely scene. Even so the Governor's eyes deflowered 
 and defiled her letters. Absurd and fanciful, no doubt; but 
 it was just those streaks of the fantastic that made him at- 
 tractive to Lettice. 
 
 She could not get him out of her head. What must it be 
 for him, with his anchorite ways, to be under supervision, 
 day and night, through the accursed little spy-hole in the 
 door of his cell? Lettice knew all about that spy-hole now. 
 Since receiving his letter she had read every book about 
 prisons that the Museum could supply. Turning over, sift- 
 ing, arranging her deductions, she had reached a fairly cor- 
 rect estimate of his state of mind. 
 
 Denis she had not seen since they parted at Rochehaut. 
 Using a sort of defensive frankness, he had told her by 
 letter about Dorothea's sojourn at Bredon, which he could 
 do quite naturally without touching on their personal rela- 
 tions. Lettice tried to read between the lines, but Denis in 
 those months had traveled too far for her to follow, at least 
 on paper. He had of course attended to give evidence 
 before the Borough Bench; he had seen Gardiner then, and 
 once since. " I wish the confounded place weren't at the 
 other end of the earth," he wrote. " I can't possibly get up 
 there again at present, it's not fair on Wandesforde ; he 
 wants the seaplane finished for the Olympia show, and it'll 
 take me every minute of my time. Mr. Gardiner was up in 
 November, but now I hear he's sick ; and Tom, the brother, 
 is stationed at Queenstown, so he's no good. Which means 
 that Harry's seen no one for a month. I don't like it. It's 
 too long. I'm rather badly worried about him." And, as 
 an afterthought, written across the top : " Why don't you 
 run down there yourself? I wish you would." 
 
 That letter came to Lettice on a day of December fog, 
 which had found its way into the Museum. Overhead in a 
 smelly haze the arc lamps waxed and dwindled, milky 
 moons, each with its pin-point core of white incandescence ; 
 and on all sides tremendous sneezes went resounding like 
 minute guns round the dome. Any regular attendant of the
 
 DU PARTI DU GRAND AIR 163 
 
 reading-room may become a connoisseur in sneezes. Lettice 
 herself sneezed at times, a minute one-syllable explosion like 
 a kitten's. She was always a slow worker, slow but ac- 
 curate ; to-day her pen moved more deliberately than ever. 
 Then it stopped and she sat immobile, staring at noth- 
 ing. . . . Explicit: she got up: within five minutes she had 
 returned her books, retrieved her umbrella from the cloak- 
 room, and was out in the street. She caught the midnight 
 express from Euston, and reached Westby at eight the next 
 morning. 
 
 Visitors were not admitted to the prison until ten. 
 Lettice spent her time of waiting in a church near by. When 
 the hour struck she was at the gates, which were set, huge 
 and gloomy, under an arch in the outer wall. No one else 
 was waiting. Lettice tugged at the bell chain. A slip door 
 in the carriage gate was opened by a porter, to whom she 
 stated her errand. She was handed over to a warder, who 
 led her across a court laid out in grass and flower-beds to the 
 second gate, in a wall thirty feet high. Beyond this was a 
 vestibule closed by an iron grille the third gate; beyond, 
 again, the central hall of the prison. 
 
 Wards radiated from it in all directions like the spokes 
 of a wheel ; each a long rectangle lined with cells, tier above 
 tier, regular as a honeycomb, all the way up to the roof. 
 Across the central well a light iron staircase zigzagged 
 from story to story. The walls were gray, the woodwork 
 tan-brown, the floor of concrete : all was clean, commonplace, 
 tragic. At each landing a stout wire-netting inclosed the 
 staircase. Lettice's guide pointed it out. " See that, miss ? 
 That's to prevent 'em throwing themselves over. They zvill 
 do it, if you give 'em the chance. We'd a man here last year 
 as threw himself down from that top landing up there. 
 Cracked his skull he did, and cracked the paving-stone too, 
 that's more ! He was in hospital for a bit, but he got over 
 it, and took his discharge ; and if you'll believe me, miss, six 
 months after we'd got him back for something else." 
 
 The remand cells were not in this part of the prison. 
 Lettice was taken to a waiting-room to get the necessary
 
 164 CONVICT B14 
 
 permit, and then led on through many corridors. She caught 
 glimpses of cells as she passed, and saw prisoners, in their 
 ugly drab uniforms, sweeping and scrubbing the floors. 
 They stared at her with avid, furtive curiosity which made 
 her feel half ashamed of her freedom. She saw Gardiner 
 in those debased figures, cringing out of the way at the 
 officer's curt word of command. " Here you are, miss ! " 
 said he at last, briskly unlocking one of those innumerable 
 doors : and Lettice passed in. 
 
 She saw a cell like any of the others and a figure sitting 
 under the window reading. The book went down on the 
 floor, anyhow and anywhere, as he started to his feet. 
 
 "Lettice!" 
 
 Till that moment Lettice had been doubtful of her mis- 
 sion ; after it she doubted no more. She stood, letting him 
 hold her hands ; she did not speak ; she could not have found 
 words, if she had tried, for the contraction of her throat. 
 Gardiner was clutching her like a drowning man. Dim 
 shades of feeling passed across his face, like wind over a 
 corn-field. He was yellow as a lemon and bony as a casta- 
 way, but the worst was to see him so near to losing control. 
 For a moment Lettice was afraid he would break down alto- 
 gether. But with a mighty effort he pulled round, released 
 her hands and began to talk almost in a natural way. 
 
 " Well, this is most fearfully noble of you ! How in the 
 world did you find your way here ? You surely didn't come 
 up on purpose ? " 
 
 " I thought I would like to see what a prison is like," 
 explained Lettice in her delicate, deliberate way. She sat 
 down on the chair he offered and looked round his domain. 
 Gardiner rented a " private room " about eight feet square, 
 lighted by a strip of ground glass, which was set immediately 
 under the ceiling, well out of reach. An iron spring bedstead 
 was reared against the wall. The mattress and striped 
 blanket, neatly buttoned into a roll, were stowed under a 
 bracket in the corner. This bracket held books ; a second, 
 in the corresponding corner opposite, had a tin mug and 
 plate. The jug and basin, also of tin, stood on the floor.
 
 DU PARTI DU GRAND AIR 165 
 
 Lcttice had the only chair, and Gardiner might sit on his 
 thumbs. There was no other furniture. 
 
 " I haven't seen a soul for months," he said, contemplating 
 her with admiring gratitude. " Denis has been inseparably 
 wedded to that darned aeroplane of his, and my daddy's 
 in bed, bless his heart. You don't know how one gets to 
 pine after somebody from outside. It's a piece of luck, too, 
 having it to ourselves like this. I had to interview Denis 
 in the visitors' room, under the eye of a warder. But when 
 my daddy came to see me he raked up such an appalling 
 amount of dust that ever since, as a special concession, I've 
 been allowed to see visitors here. My daddy is rather 
 talented at raking up a dust. I can do it, too, but not so 
 tactfully as he does. The Governor simply loves daddy, but 
 with me he's at daggers drawn. Are you looking at my 
 choice of literature? Tom keeps me supplied, but it's no 
 good sending anything but sixpennies, because I have to 
 leave 'em all behind when I go, for the benefit of the prison 
 library. Vingt Ans Apres jolly tale, isn't it? I always 
 have agreed with Rochefort je ne suis que d'un parti, 
 c'est du parti du grand air ! " 
 
 Lettice put down the book quite quickly. " And what 
 do you do all day ? " she asked. 
 
 " What do I do ? Would you like a time-table ? I get 
 up about five, have breakfast, then tidy my room. Chapel's 
 at seven ; visitors between ten and twelve ; exercise between 
 eleven and twelve, if it's fine if it's wet I don't get any. 
 That's about the worst part of this place. I told the Gov- 
 ernor one day it would do me less harm to get soaked out- 
 side than to dry-rot in here, but he wouldn't see it. A rule 
 is a rule. Silly business, what?" 
 
 " But what do you do? Don't you go out to work? " 
 
 He shook his head, laughing. "I'm still innocent. '. 
 don't mix with the convicted prisoners. I should be allowed 
 to work at my own trade in my cell, if they had the neces- 
 sary tools; but I'm afraid they're not likely to import a 
 hotel to be run. I've sewn mail-bags from time to time, 
 when I got very bored."
 
 166 CONVICT B14 
 
 " Then do you mean to say you're in this, this, this 
 this horrid little hole of a place the whole day long when 
 it's raining, and all except one hour when it isn't ? " 
 
 He laughed again. " Lettice, what a first-class rebel you'd 
 make ! I never knew any one sit down more uncomfortably 
 under what you think injustice than you do ! " 
 
 To that Lettice said nothing ; she never would talk about 
 herself. " And does nobody come to see you ? " she asked. 
 
 " To be sure they do. The chaplain's perseveringly 
 chatty ; he's another who fell a victim to my daddy. The 
 doctor's been once and that was really rather funny. 
 You know, by a most odd coincidence, he was actually at 
 the Easedale at the time of the row was called to view 
 the body and gave evidence at the inquest. Of course it's not 
 etiquette for him to remember that now, and you may bet 
 he doesn't! Only we look at each other with what you 
 might call an eye. I'm not his regular patient yet, but I 
 shall be when I'm convicted." 
 
 " You think you will be convicted ? " 
 
 " Sure of it. So is my lawyer ; I made him practically 
 own it last time he was here. He wouldn't say how long 
 I shall get, though I suppose it's impossible to forecast. 
 Three days, or three months, or three years, cither's on 
 the cards. It's a thoroughly sentimental case, and I've no 
 doubt Mrs. Trent will appeal strongly to the sensibilities of 
 the jury. But the law isn't sentimental, praise the pigs ! " 
 
 " I wish you would tell me exactly what happened at 
 Grasmere." 
 
 " Why, I did, didn't I ? Trent came down spoiling for a 
 fight, and I set out to tame his savage breast. I soon had 
 him drinking out of my hand, and then he began to be confi- 
 dential. I stood it as long as I could, Denis simmering 
 like a kettle in the background, and then I up and shied the 
 first thing that came to. hand at his head. You read the 
 report of the inquest, didn't you? It was all there, bar that 
 last exchange of courtesies. I believe I called him a filthy 
 swine." 
 
 -Why?"
 
 DU PARTI DU GRAND AIR 167 
 
 " Because he was one, to be sure." 
 
 " What had he been saying? " 
 
 " Really, do you think that's a nice question for a voune 
 lady?" 
 
 " I was only thinking it might have been something inex- 
 cusably bad." 
 
 " How do you mean ? " 
 
 " If he had been talking about Mrs. Trent." 
 
 She took Gardiner's breath away. " Well, you certainly 
 have an imagination ! " he said. " Don't go making sugges- 
 tions of that kind to any one else, I beg ! " 
 
 " It would have meant your getting off." 
 
 " It would have been the deuce and all for Mrs. Trent." 
 
 To that again Lettice answered nothing, but her under 
 lip hardened slightly. She glanced at her watch. Five 
 minutes more. Looking up, she met Gardiner's eyes fixed 
 on her in urgent and unmistakable appeal. For a moment 
 Lettice quailed. She saw something very big, very grave 
 approaching, and she wanted ignominiously to run away. 
 In all her generous giving there was always a reserve, a 
 barrier of privacy, the fenced garden and the fountain sealed 
 where she walked alone. But if he wanted to come in there 
 for sanctuary well, he must, it was no good, she could not 
 deny him : this was not the time to think of herself. 
 
 " Lettice," he began and for the first time she noticed 
 his use of her name " Lettice, there's one thing I want to 
 tell you. You think I was caught red-handed in the act of 
 bolting. It wasn't so. I had made up my mind to go back 
 and give myself up. I was just off to do it when they 
 arrested me. And I want you to know that it was all you 
 what you had said in town. I couldn't go on with it after 
 that." 
 
 " I'm glad," said Lettice. 
 
 " I'm glad too," said Gardiner, his voice shaking, " partly, 
 at any rate. I should be altogether glad if I were sure 
 about the future." 
 
 "The future?" 
 
 " If I'm convicted. If I get a long sentence. If I have
 
 168 CONVICT B14 
 
 to stand much more of this Lattice ! I can't humbug you. 
 I've told Denis a stack of lies as high as a house, of which 
 he may or may not believe one-third. I can't let him see the 
 truth, because it's his evidence that's going to convict me. 
 He has enough on his shoulders without that, poor old chap. 
 But you I don't care how much you know. And I want 
 your help. I'm afraid." 
 
 She looked at him, questioning. 
 
 " I'm afraid," he repeated under his breath, lower than a 
 whisper. The perspiration started on his forehead. " I'm 
 not like Denis, you know. He's Ai quality, sound all 
 through if he wanted to go wrong I believe he wouldn't 
 know the way! But I'm different. I'm second-rate. I 
 ought not to be, being the son of my daddy, but I haven't 
 kept up to his standard. He doesn't see it, bless his heart ; 
 but you do, and Denis does, though he tries to blind his eyes, 
 and even Tom in his heart of hearts he can't help feeling 
 that his brother is a bit of a bounder. Oh yes, I always 
 know when I grate on people. I see my own shortcomings 
 plainer than any of you. I'm second-rate in manners, and 
 in morals, and in essential stuff." He looked straight at 
 her, and though Lettice could have contradicted him, she did 
 not ; for she saw what he meant, and was not afraid to admit 
 to herself that there was a measure of truth in his self-con- 
 demnation. " Thanks," said Gardiner, with a fleeting smile, 
 bending his head in acknowledgment of her honesty. 
 " That's me, and I never forget it. I wanted to put you wise 
 before I went on to what I have to say. I can just stand 
 this now because it's not final. I still hope to get out in 
 February, though I may swear I don't. I daren't leave off 
 hoping it. I'm holding on to that. But if if it isn't 
 If I get a long sentence years, perhaps I'm afraid, 
 Lettice. I I I'm afraid of myself. ... So may I hold 
 on to you ? May I tell myself that I can come to you when 
 it's over ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Lettice. 
 
 Against the drag of his urgent need she stood like a rock 
 in flood-time. It was not merely love that drew them to-
 
 DU PARTI DU GRAND AIR 169 
 
 gether; for lovers, even devoted lovers, may part without 
 injury to their characters; sometimes, indeed, to their own 
 ultimate gain. But these two could not have parted without 
 grave loss and damage, especially to Gardiner. Yes, and to 
 Lettice also ; for he called out faculties which but for him 
 would have slept for ever in comfortable laziness. Instinct 
 drove them together, as two drops of water are driven to 
 coalesce. He had her hands again in a desperate clutch ; for 
 a moment he rested his forehead on them. 
 
 " Time's up, miss," said the warder at the door. 
 
 Lettice freed herself without haste or embarrassment. 
 
 " Till February, then," said she. 
 
 " You're surely not coming up to the trial ? " 
 
 " Of course I am," said Lettice.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 ROUGH JUSTICE 
 
 A true witness delivereth souls. PROVERBS. 
 
 LATE in February a blizzard swept over the north ; it was 
 followed by still, intense, stringent cold. By night the 
 fogs were dense ; by day the white world glittered in sun- 
 shine. Trees of snow-blossom and iron filigree raised their 
 heads, as white as plumes, against a china-blue sky. Posts, 
 hedges, buildings, snow-hooded and sparkling, rising out of 
 pearly frost-haze, threw azure shadows on the softly rippled 
 velvet of the drift. Country lanes were buried many feet 
 deep, but a passage had been carved down the Westby road ; 
 the slow carts, lumbering in to market, crunched their way 
 between tall, strange, silvery and chalky-white cliffs, like the 
 sugar icing on a bridecake, along tracks made golden with 
 the scattered sand. The sun found rainbows in the icicles 
 and diamonds in the snow, but it did not melt them ; and at 
 night, under the sweet influences of the Pleiades and the 
 jeweled bands of Orion, the frost struck deeper and deeper 
 into the earth, the ice grew thicker and thicker on the steely 
 lakes. 
 
 In spite of the weather, Westby was full. Not only was 
 it market-day, but the Assizes were on, with a sensational 
 case. .Everybody knew that the late owner of the Easedale 
 Hotel was to be tried for killing one of his own guests. The 
 celebrated Hancock, K.C., had been retained for the Crown ; 
 and Bullard, for the defense, was only less popular. More- 
 over, the case was to be tried before Mr. Justice Beckwith, 
 who was said to be dead nuts on crimes of violence. Blue 
 look-out for the prisoner, every one agreed. The court was 
 crowded, stuffy, and bitterly cold. Mr. Gardiner, a valorous 
 170
 
 ROUGH JUSTICE 171 
 
 and pathetic little figure, shivered and coughed under his 
 rusty Inverness. Tom was doing his best to keep him 
 covered up ; but as often as he tucked the capes round his 
 father's shoulders, that perverse and petulant invalid tossed 
 them back. " I can't listen stuffed up like that ! " he com- 
 plained. 
 
 Tom was gloomy. This was the second day of the trial ; 
 he had heard Hancock open for the Crown, he had listened 
 to the evidence of the police, Dr. Scott, Miss Marvin, 
 Louisa; and he felt it was all up with his brother. What 
 was more, he knew that Kellett the lawyer thought so too. 
 " It's unlucky, most unlucky, that Mr. Gardiner can't re- 
 member Major Trent's actual words," was all he would say 
 when they discussed it ; and he pulled a very long face on 
 hearing the name of the judge. "Beckwith? Well, he 
 hasn't a reputation for leniency, certainly ! " Tom was fully 
 expecting penal servitude. He saw no ray of hope. Unless, 
 by any wild chance there were those unexpected and 
 seemingly aimless questions which Bullard had put to Miss 
 Marvin, questions about the rooms and the other guests 
 was it possible that they had a hidden meaning? Had some- 
 thing fresh turned up at the last minute ? Had Kellett a sur- 
 prise up his sleeve? No, Tom decided, it was not possible, 
 it was absurd to imagine it. He returned to his gloom. 
 
 As to the prisoner, he had summoned just enough surface 
 gayety to take in the reporters and his father, whose eyes 
 were dim ; but beneath it he looked sick, and sorry, and des- 
 perately tired. Heavy lines were drawn to the corners of his 
 mouth, and his jaw-bone stuck out, gaunt and ugly, from 
 hollows under the ear where his neck was corded like an old 
 man's. Tom could see his throat swelling with suppressed 
 yawns ; but he woke up at any stir among the spectators. 
 Again and again his eyes went questing eagerly round the 
 benches. What was he looking for? Tom had no idea. 
 He had never heard of Lettice Smith. 
 
 " Who's that ? Who is it going into the box now, Tom? " 
 
 " That's Mrs. Trent, sir." 
 
 General thrill in court. Dorothea had resumed her
 
 172 CONVICT B14 
 
 widow's weeds together with her married name ; and very 
 young she looked, and fair, and pathetic, under the flowing 
 veil. From Hancock's point of view, this was as it should 
 be. It would take a deal of sentiment to make her past pro- 
 ceedings go down with the jury. Perhaps Dorothea knew 
 this. Perhaps she was playing to the gallery. Perhaps, on 
 the other hand, she was only playing to herself acting 
 what she knew she ought to feel, in order to persuade her- 
 self that she did feel it. Dorothea was a great hand at be- 
 lieving what she wanted to. However that might be, she 
 was undoubtedly pathetic ; and with her romantic story fresh 
 in their minds from Hancock's opening speech, the jury were 
 duly impressed. 
 
 She struck the right note at once. " My husband was not 
 intoxicated ! " she said indignantly. " He was only very, 
 very anxious for my comfort ! " Half-a-dozen credible wit- 
 nesses had sworn that Trent was intoxicated, but no matter ; 
 the point was that, after nearly a year of marriage, he 
 appeared as still a hero to his wife. Next came Dorothea's 
 own part in the drama. She described the scene : the lamp 
 on the floor, the confusion of both men, Denis's attempt to 
 keep her out, Gardiner's unconcealed terror. " I told him 
 he had murdered my husband, and he didn't deny it. He 
 cowered back against the wall with his arm across his eyes, 
 so, but he never attempted to deny it ! " She told how, 
 kneeling on the floor beside her dead husband, she had come 
 upon the chisel. " I slipped it under my cloak. No, I didn't 
 mean to hide it. It was only that I I I couldn't speak 
 just then. I was thinking of my husband." Was it art that 
 made her voice fail, or nature ? "I don't know what hap- 
 pened next. I don't remember speaking to my maid. I 
 don't remember anything. I think I fainted. I was ill after- 
 wards. No, I didn't accuse the prisoner later on because I 
 knew it wouldn't be any good. I was sure in my own mind 
 that he had killed my husband, but I had no proof. I knew 
 people would say it was just my fancy. So then I set my- 
 self to get proofs " 
 
 Because he knew it was bound to come out, Hancock took
 
 ROUGH JUSTICE 173 
 
 her through the story of her attempt on Gardiner. That gun 
 must be surrendered to the enemy, but he would see that it 
 was spiked first. Dorothea's behavior must be palliated by 
 showing her fanatical devotion to her husband. No need to 
 dwell on the scene at the crucifix, what Gardiner himself 
 called the shilling-shocker part of the affair. Both sides 
 were equally anxious to leave that in a decent obscurity. 
 " Yes, I did pretend to be friends with him, and I did ask 
 him, as a friend, to tell me the truth," Dorothea defiantly 
 avowed. " Yes, I did know I was being hateful, and mean, 
 and contemptible. But what did that matter? I had to see 
 justice done ! " Jael, and Judith, and Charlotte Corday 
 and Dorothea Trent? Her story ended in a storm of tears, 
 which broke, strange to say, after she had done with Gardiner 
 and was telling of her sojourn at Dent-de-lion. But no one 
 in court dreamed of connecting her emotion with that part 
 of her tale. 
 
 " I'd be sorry to be a Broad Churchman and not believe in 
 hell," Mr. Gardiner commented with gusto. " Who's this 
 now, Tom ? " 
 
 " That ? Oh, that's Merion-Smith poor beggar ! " 
 
 Another general stir. This was due partly to Denis's 
 profession (for airmen weren't so common in the Lakes then 
 as they have since become), and partly to his dramatic share 
 in the story. A whisper went round, which was the well- 
 informed telling the ignorant about the inquest. Denis's 
 chin went up a shade higher. He had set his back against 
 his family tree, and looked down arrogantly through his eye- 
 glass on the court and all therein. It was plain he meant to 
 give trouble. 
 
 The beginning ran smoothly. He told of Trent's intru- 
 sion, bending aside the questions to show how Gardiner had 
 gone out of his way to avoid a quarrel. This was familiar 
 ground ; not so the conversation that had followed. Counsel 
 would fain have passed over the details of Trent's discourse, 
 but Denis intended the court to hear as much as he could 
 possibly get in. Out came the story of the little girl at 
 Chatham, sounding twice as bad by contrast on Denis's lips.
 
 174 CONVICT B14 
 
 The prisoner grinned. While ostensibly giving his evidence 
 with distaste and reluctance (and indeed both sentiments 
 were genuine enough), Denis was supplying the best, the 
 only excuse for his friend. Vainly did his questioner try 
 to show him as the straight-laced Puritan, to whom the mild- 
 est of jokes is an offense. Denis would not fit into the 
 part. 
 
 "At last, when we had stood as much as we could, the 
 prisoner suggested it was gettin' late. Trent made a joking 
 answer. What he said was grossly offensive, worse than 
 anything before. The prisoner caught up a chisel and flung 
 it at his head. No, it was not premeditated. No, there had 
 been no quarrel. Simply, the man was saying indecencies 
 that had to be stopped, and the prisoner took the first way 
 of stoppin' them and if he hadn't, I'd've done it myself," 
 Denis put in, unasked. " No, I cann't remember what it 
 was he said " 
 
 Instantly Hancock pricked up his ears. " You don't re- 
 member what Major Trent said ? " 
 
 " I do not. Not the exact words." 
 
 " Not any of them ? " 
 
 " Not to swear to." 
 
 "Indeed! Yet you could tell us in detail all about his 
 other speeches ? " 
 
 " Not so," Denis corrected, rather stiff. " I did not tell 
 you in detail, I told you in substance. That is quite another 
 thing." 
 
 " With considerable fullness and fluency, however," said 
 his questioner dryly. " Well, then : you remember all these 
 other stories, so far as you do remember them, but you have 
 forgotten every single word of this which you say was 
 the worst of all? Can't you give us the substance of that 
 too?" 
 
 " It was not a story," said Denis, now very stiff indeed, 
 " it was a few broken sentences. I cann't remember them 
 accurately, and I won't make guesses. I dismissed them 
 from memory as soon as I could. I dou't burden my mind 
 with pornographic details."
 
 ROUGH JUSTICE 175 
 
 " Quite so ; but surely without infringing either truth or 
 decency you can give us some rough idea as to what this 
 mysterious speech was about? Was it about a woman, for 
 example ? " 
 
 Denis remained obstinately silent. 
 
 "Can't remember even that? Only you are sure it was 
 offensive ? " 
 
 " It was insufferable." 
 
 The barrister leaned forward persuasively. " How about 
 this for a suggestion? I put it to you: was it not to the 
 prisoner personally that the deceased was offensive? And 
 did not the prisoner lose his temper, and retaliate by throw- 
 ing the chisel ? " 
 
 " Nothing of the sort. I have told you before : there was 
 no quarrel of any kind. The deceased was laughing up to 
 the last moment, and what the prisoner did was done in the 
 interests of decency. It was impossible to sit still and 
 listen to the things that were comin' out of that man's 
 mouth." 
 
 " Come, come, Mr. Smith ! As a man of the world, are 
 you going to ask us to believe that the prisoner who, I 
 gather, has knocked about all over the world, in countries 
 which aren't precisely like a Sunday school do you seri- 
 ously expect us to understand that he was so much upset 
 by an ordinary after-dinner story as to lose all self-control, 
 and endanger his liberty, if not his life?" 
 
 " I do not expect you to understand anything," said Denis, 
 serenely insolent. " I was addressin' the gentlemen of the 
 jury." 
 
 "Why can't he speak out? What's he hiding?" Mr. 
 Gardiner whispered feverishly to Tom. Tom could only 
 shake his head and pull his mustache. Certain memories 
 were stirring uncomfortably. What was it Harry had said 
 about having his hands tied, not being free to explain ? He 
 had never given it another thought until this minute. 
 
 Meanwhile Denis, already convicted of tampering with 
 the truth on behalf of his friend (for every one believed he 
 had suppressed a speech that told against the prisoner), was
 
 176 CONVICT B14 
 
 being taken through the rest of his evidence. Hancock was 
 trying to show his bias : that he would twist the truth in 
 Gardiner's favor, and tell only the minimum against him. 
 In this topsy-turvy business Denis was virtually on the side 
 of the defense. He had to suffer for his sympathies. His 
 self-respect was stripped bare. Yet it was only by guess- 
 work that Gardiner could divine his feelings ; the harder 
 Fate hit him, the stiffer grew his back. How Gardiner 
 envied that effortless and natural control ! 
 
 Hancock finished, and counsel for the defense rose to 
 cross-examine. Bullard, K.C., was a long, lank, untidy 
 figure, and had a hesitating, negligent way of speech. He 
 began with some unimportant minor points slurred over in 
 the examination-in-chief. Then came a pause, during which 
 he gazed at his brief, the people whispered, and the prisoner 
 yawned. Then a bombshell. 
 
 " I have only one more question to trouble you with, Mr. 
 Merion-Smith," he said, looking up. " Did the deceased, in 
 that last speech which you cannot remember, make any men- 
 tion of Mrs. Trent?" 
 
 Denis's head went up with a jerk. A thrill went round 
 the court, but was instantly stilled. Bullard was repeating 
 his question in another form. 
 
 " Did not the prisoner suggest that Mrs. Trent would be 
 tired ; and did not the deceased answer by a coarse allusion 
 to her state of health ? " 
 
 The witness was seen to struggle for words in vain. 
 
 " Thank you, that will do." 
 
 Upon this followed the luncheon interval. Through the 
 excited crowd Tom carried off his father to a quiet inn near 
 by, where he had ordered lunch. The old man sat over the 
 fire with his basin of soup (he would take nothing else, and 
 did not drink that), shrunken, and silent, and aged. Once 
 he looked up piteously. " What does it mean, Tom ? What 
 does it all mean?" Tom could only answer: "I've no 
 idea, sir. Shall I go and see if I can get hold of Kellett? " 
 But Mr. Gardiner shook his head and crouched closer to the 
 fire, muttering : " No, no. Time enough, time enough.
 
 ROUGH JUSTICE 177 
 
 We shall hear it all presently." Tom, though he was long- 
 ing to find the lawyer, durst not leave him. 
 
 The court was crowded to its last seat when they reas- 
 sembled, and Bullard opened for the defense. He was a 
 clever advocate ; perhaps a little too clever. He was apt to 
 hint his points instead of making them, to cut and refine his 
 phrases like some fastidious literary artist. This is not the 
 way to get a verdict from plain men accustomed to plain 
 language, clear outlines, the black and white of fact. They 
 do not understand half-tones and intellectual subtleties. On 
 the other hand, Bullard had a reputation for incorruptible 
 honesty ; and he rose at times to eloquence. 
 
 He began, in his negligent way, to recapitulate the facts, 
 a touch here and there serving to rearrange them to the 
 prisoner's advantage. He did not, he said, propose to deny 
 that his client had thrown the tool; but he submitted that 
 the evidence proved, first, that the death of the deceased was 
 due to the fall and not to the blow ; second, that if he had 
 been perfectly sober he would not have fallen. Very lucid 
 was he, very persuasive. But his audience was waiting 
 for what was to come. 
 
 " Finally, gentlemen, I hope to show that in throwing that 
 chisel the prisoner was guilty of no crime ; rather that he 
 was the necessary unofficial policeman of the moral law. 
 There are still," he went on, dwelling on the words like an 
 epicure, "there are still offenses which are not amenable 
 to ordinary justice, which can be dealt with only by ... 
 punching the offender's head, cramming his words back 
 down his own throat. This was such a case. Look first 
 at the dead man." He broke off to give a summary of 
 Trent's glorious-inglorious career: the ribbon on the one 
 hand, disgrace on the other. " Brilliant promise, you see, 
 marred by a single fault. ' It was never wine with me ' 
 we have that on his own authority ; it was a fouler vice. The 
 man was rotten : still showing a fair outside, still preserving 
 some traits of kindliness, but black-rotten within. When a 
 decent man gets a glimpse of that sort of thing, he doesn't 
 stay to argue ; he hits out.
 
 178 CONVICT B14 
 
 " Now in defending the prisoner I was met at first by a 
 singular difficulty. Neither he nor the only known witness 
 of the scene could remember the words which provoked the 
 outbreak. Strange, you will say ; most strange ; suspicious, 
 even. Surely they could make some sort of rough guess? 
 But no, both persisted ; they could not. What pointed the 
 moral was the fact that these two were conferring together 
 at the moment of the prisoner's arrest. It looked like a con- 
 spiracy of silence. Now why should they conspire to keep 
 silence? In order to hide some fact damaging to the 
 prisoner. That is the obvious deduction, which of course 
 you have already drawn. And, gentlemen, the prisoner 
 would have left it at that: he would have let your judgment 
 go by default against him, and taken the consequences: you 
 would never have heard the facts, never, but for a totally 
 unexpected circumstance, which came to my knowledge not 
 forty-eight hours ago. 
 
 "There was another witness to that scene in the hotel. 
 Unknown to my client or to his friend, another of the guests 
 saw and overheard everything that happened. I shall not 
 attempt to summarize this testimony. I shall leave it in the 
 witness's own words, and I shall leave you to draw your 
 own conclusions ; asking you to bear in mind, as you do so, 
 the story of her dealings with the prisoner which you have 
 heard from Mrs. Trent. 
 
 " This only I will say : We men of the law, seeing nothing 
 but meanness and crime, day after day, year after year, grow 
 sometimes to despair of the world, to see nothing before it 
 but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery 
 indignation. Acts such as the prisoner's redress the balance. 
 They show us once again the sense of tears in mortal things, 
 the indestructible nobility of the human heart, the God in 
 human nature. ' Through such souls alone God stooping 
 shows sufficient of his light for us i' the dark to rise by.' 
 Gentlemen, I should like to thank the prisoner. 
 
 " Call Laetitia Jane Smith." 
 
 Lettice stepped into the witness-box. She did not look at
 
 ROUGH JUSTICE 179 
 
 Gardiner, gazing at her with his haggard eyes as at a dream 
 come true ; nor at Dorothea, shrinking away like a child from 
 the lash. Self -withdrawn and expressionless, she looked 
 straight at the examining counsel, and to him alone she gave 
 her evidence. 
 
 Yes, she had been staying at the prisoner's hotel on the 
 night in question. She had gone there to meet her cousin, 
 Mr. Merion-Smith. She had not told him that she meant 
 to do so ; she wanted to take him by surprise. She engaged 
 a room on the ground floor of the west wing. She did not 
 go in to dinner, nor did she try to see her cousin that eve- 
 ning, because she had a bad headache. She stayed in her 
 room writing. About ten o'clock she went out for a breath 
 of air. She came back at twenty-two minutes past ten. 
 How did she know the time? Because she stopped to set 
 her watch by the clock in the hall. Afterwards she went 
 straight to her room. It was in darkness, but the room 
 opposite, the prisoner's room, was lighted up. Her window 
 and his were both open. She could see in clearly. The dis- 
 tance was not great. She had very good sight. "I can 
 read the papers in your hand," said Lettice concisely. 
 There were three persons in the room : her cousin, sitting by 
 the window; the prisoner, at the table: and a third man, 
 whom from a photograph she had since identified as Major 
 Trent, leaning back against the mantelpiece. Major Trent 
 was speaking. He seemed to be finishing some story. He 
 was laughing. The prisoner did not laugh, nor did Mr. 
 Merion-Smith. The latter leaned forward and spoke to the 
 prisoner, and the prisoner answered. She could not hear 
 what was said because they spoke in whispers. Her cousin 
 seemed angry. " He was bristling all over," said Lettice. 
 The prisoner then turned and addressed the deceased. Yes, 
 she could hear that. What he said? He suggested it was 
 getting late, and that Mrs. Trent would be tired. Was she 
 sure he mentioned Mrs. Trent? Quite. Major Trent said, 
 " Oh, my wife! " and burst out laughing. He came up to 
 the table, leaned across to the prisoner, and added another
 
 180 CONVICT B14 
 
 sentence. Yes, she had heard every word. Yes, she re- 
 membered every word. Would she tell the court exactly 
 what it was ? 
 
 Lettice looked back at her questioner and answered him 
 alone, isolating him and herself, as though judge, jury, 
 prisoner, and spectators did not exist. She spoke with 
 colorless precision : 
 
 " He said, ' Ever hear of what they call an interesting 
 situation? Damn uninteresting I find it especially to 
 look at ! '" 
 
 The truth was out. Useless for Hancock to cross- 
 examine; not a soul in court but knew they had the facts 
 at last. The jury made up their minds upon their verdict. 
 As juries often do, they had set up among themselves a 
 standard of rough justice, and neither the prisoner's own 
 statement nor the judge's summing up could avail to change 
 them. If Lettice had not spoken, they would have found 
 the prisoner guilty; if he himself had not tried to evade 
 justice, they would have found him innocent. As it was, 
 their verdict was a compromise. Guilty of manslaughter, 
 but very strongly recommended to mercy. 
 
 Mr. Justice Beckwith may have thought he was carrying 
 out their recommendation in sentencing Gardiner to nine 
 months' imprisonment in the second division.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 HEU QUAM MUTATUS 
 
 When the righteous man turneth away from his righteousness and 
 eth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth 
 shall he live ? EZEKIEL. 
 
 THE prison gates shut. Silence fell. The troubled waters 
 settled into calm. Tom went back to Queenstown ; Mr. 
 Gardiner to Woodlands and to bed, with a couple of 
 nurses in attendance. Denis was presumably at Dent-de- 
 lion, working for the Aero Show. Mrs. Trent had gone 
 no one knew whither. And Lettice, her duty done, had 
 escaped unmolested to her attic in Pimlico, where she settled 
 back into her groove, with that sort of capillary attraction 
 towards the inconspicuous and the ordinary, which marked 
 her conduct always except when she was making one of her 
 gravely calculated excursions into the extraordinary. 
 
 Why had she held her tongue? Her friends did not 
 need to be told. "It's Lettice all over!" said Gardiner 
 himself, half fond, half laughing. She had had two main 
 motives (or rather springs of action ; for " motive " implies 
 conscious volition, whereas Lettice did simply without think- 
 ing what came natural) the one a principle, the other a 
 prejudice. First, she would never, if she could possibly 
 avoid it, interfere in other people's affairs that was the 
 principle ; and second, with every taste and instinct she hated 
 to be made conspicuous that was the prejudice, and a 
 tough one. 
 
 With these reasons against speaking, moreover, she saw 
 
 none for. It never entered her head that some people might 
 
 say she had treated Gardiner unfairly, in letting him tell his 
 
 tale while keeping her own knowledge in reserve. What 
 
 181
 
 182 CONVICT B14 
 
 difference could it possibly make? Why should she have 
 spoken ? It would only have made him very uncomfortable, 
 and Denis would simply have hated it. All this, of course, 
 rested on the assumption of her own detachment, insulation, 
 negligibility : in which Lettice was so rooted and grounded 
 that she was quite surprised to find other people surprised 
 by what to her came natural as breathing. 
 
 Her explanation, given in court, ran something as fol- 
 lows : " I didn't speak before the inquest because I know 
 there were two other witnesses, and I didn't see I was 
 wanted ; and after it, by the time I heard what had hap- 
 pened, it was too late. There would have been no sense in 
 disturbing things again. It would have been bad for every- 
 body all round, and worst for Mrs. Trent. But now now 
 things were different. I had to speak now. It was time 
 for the truth to come out." 
 
 Full time. Best for Dorothea, as well as for her victim. 
 She had been screened, and in the darkness evil things 
 had grown up. Down with all screens now. In the light 
 of truth, the whole jumble resolved itself into order. Honor 
 to whom honor was due; judgment to whom judgment. 
 Even Gardiner's sentence fell into place. It might be too 
 heavy for the particular offense ; but no one knew better than 
 himself that it was the just penalty for his months of 
 cowardice. 
 
 February passed into March, a sweet, mild March: blue 
 skies, brown buds, thrushes singing, daisies on every lawn, 
 violets round every bush, white and golden daffodils ruffling 
 under the trees, flood-water glistening like frosted silver 
 among tender blades of grass. Towards the end of the 
 month the prisoner saw his first visitor. Mr. Gardiner, being 
 still too weak to go himself, sent Tom. Tom's impressions 
 were recorded in a duty letter to Miss Smith : " I saw my 
 brother for a few minutes yesterday in the presence of a 
 warder. He seems very fairly cheerful and fit. His work 
 is in the printing room. He asked me to let you know he is 
 going strong." Dry crumbs ! Lettice's consolation was that 
 Mr. Gardiner would be no better satisfied than herself, and
 
 HEU QUAM MUTATUS 183 
 
 that next month he would send Denis. Denis had at least a 
 tongue in his head. That is to say, he used to have 
 unless 
 
 A few days later she received another letter, this time 
 from her cousin. He inclosed tickets for the Aero Show. 
 " I know these things aren't much in your line, but you 
 can give them away to somebody or other. As a matter of 
 fact, we've not much worth seeing on our stand this year. 
 The seaplane didn't get done after all. Yes, I may be in 
 town for the week-end, but I'm afraid I shan't be able to 
 look you up. Better luck next time, perhaps." And over- 
 leaf, a hastily scribbled postscript: "I suppose you've 
 heard nothing from Westby? I've just had a line from 
 Mr. Gardiner: he says Harry's been in a row insub- 
 ordination and assaulting a warder and all letters and 
 visits are stopped off for the next two months. No par- 
 ticulars, only that. I was to have gone down there next 
 month, you know, but of course that's off now. Bad job, 
 isn't it ? " 
 
 Lettice laid down the letter with an unaccustomed sinking 
 of the heart. Of the postscript she utterly refused to let 
 herself think; it was bad enough without that. It was not 
 the first time she had felt uneasy about her cousin. How 
 often had she seen him since Westby? Not once; yet 
 formerly they had met, as a matter of course, whenever he 
 came to town. Formerly, too, he had written to her regu- 
 larly every week by an unexpected trait, Denis was a 
 graphic writer, just as with his friends he was a garrulous 
 talker; in that came out his Irish blood. Now she might 
 think herself lucky if she heard once a month; and what 
 things his letters were, when they came ! The last had been 
 an essay on the uses of the deck or cable plane. This present 
 one well, this was the climax. Over and over again, 
 whenever he mentioned the Show (and it had been his staple 
 conversation for months), she had been given to understand 
 that she was to be taken to Olympia, and dragged round the 
 exhibits, and stuffed with information whether she liked it or 
 not ; and that her guide was to be no other than himself.
 
 184 CONVICT B14 
 
 Lattice faced the conclusion that there was something 
 wrong. 
 
 By this and by that, by what she had seen herself and 
 by what Gardiner had said at Westby, she had gathered 
 how things stood between Denis and Dorothea. What 
 would be the effect of such a shock? Lettice found herself 
 unable to guess. Up to a certain point, Denis was trans- 
 parent ; for years she had read him like a book, and had been 
 able to predict not merely what he would do or say, but the 
 very gesture and accent with which he would do or say it. 
 Dear Denis, tried friend, good as good bread, in Gardiner's 
 expressive idiom, pig-headed Ulsterman with those dark blue 
 Southern Irish eyes, truculent fighter answering to the light- 
 est touch of her silken rein ! Lettice was a good lover, and 
 she had given him of her best. But now now, like 
 Gardiner, she found herself up against a door that had no 
 key. What was going on inside? What was Denis doing 
 there, to heal him of his deadly wound? She did not know 
 she could not guess. But one thing was certain : he would 
 accept no help. Gardiner in his weakness had cried out to 
 her and rested on her strength ; but Denis was neither weak 
 nor dependent. Whatever went on behind the closed door 
 was between him and his God. 
 
 Lettice picked up the tickets again. " He's sent me these 
 things because he felt he must, but he doesn't mean me to 
 use them," ran her slow thoughts. " I expect that means 
 he's going to be there himself. Up for the week-end ; then 
 he'll probably go on the Saturday " 
 
 Lettice rarely framed a definite resolution, but after long 
 brooding her thoughts would settle into a sediment of 
 purpose. The outcome of that hiatus was that on Saturday 
 she put on her best things and went to Olympia to see for 
 herself. 
 
 The whole floor space of the exhibition hall was cut up 
 into a chess-board of stands, each one carpeted with red 
 felt and inclosed in a white railing. Within these crimson 
 plots might be seen every variety of aeroplane. Pusher, 
 tractor, hydroplane, bat-boat, super-marine, the names
 
 HEU QUAM MUTATUS 185 
 
 sounded very imposing, but to the uninstructed (videlicet 
 to Lettice) they all looked as much alike as a crowd of 
 Chinamen. Visitors might wander about at will, stooping 
 under huge pale arching wings, or mounting steps to inspect 
 the fittings of the pilot's cockpit. Lettice had expected to be 
 bored, but she was not. At that time, before it became 
 mechanically perfect and virtually fool-proof, while its im- 
 perfections had still to be pieced out with human skill and 
 daring, the aeroplane was no machine but an individual. 
 Denis and his fellows talked of particular planes as a man 
 talks of particular hunters in his stable. 
 
 After wandering round the stands, and duly gazing at 
 the Smith monoplane, Lettice retired to the tea-room 
 where she established herself in a corner behind a group of 
 palms. Be it understood that she had come strictly to see, 
 not to speak to her cousin; she knew she could dodge his 
 short-sighted eyes. This being the last day of the show, the 
 hall was full. All the flying world seemed to be there. 
 Celebrities were thick as blackberries in the woods above 
 Frahan ; here a young mechanic who had become famous in 
 a day, there a hereditary legislator who had ended his last 
 race (luckily the incident hadn't got into the papers) head 
 downwards in a ditch. Many of the men belonged to a cer- 
 tain well-defined physical type, lean, wiry, and small-made. 
 Other things being equal, the light-weight pilot has an ad- 
 vantage. The women, on the other hand, rarae nantes in 
 gurgite vasto, were mostly hothouse flowers. Lettice, of 
 course, knew no one; she would have been quite at a loss 
 but for her neighbor at the next table, a big man rather like 
 a mastiff, with an incongruous soft voice, who was obligingly 
 giving the carte du pays to his companion. 
 
 "See that old cock with the iron-gray hair? That's 
 Arthur Sturt, the ironmaster ; he's running the Derby Flying 
 School, and making pots of money. Able chap ; there aren't 
 many men of sixty who have receptivity enough to believe 
 in the aeroplane. What ? Oh, certainly, sir, the compliment 
 applies to you." He laughed, pausing to light a cigar. 
 " The youngster eating strawberries with the flapper in a pig-
 
 186 CONVICT B14 
 
 tail got him ? That's Tommy Wyatt. Riviera cup, you 
 know. A perfect young devil. You ought to have been at 
 Hendon last Saturday; he was putting up some wonderful 
 stunts simply playing cup-and-ball with his bus. Oh, I'm 
 quite a back number these days. Soon be sixty myself, 
 what?" 
 
 " I dare say you'll find you're good for a year or so yet," 
 said his companion dryly. He was a lean, elderly clergyman 
 with an adventurous eye. " By the by, is your partner 
 here?" 
 
 The younger man shook his head. " Not he ! Hasn't 
 been near the place. I don't know what's taken him 
 that's to say I do, and wish I didn't. He's not done a stroke 
 of work this year. Let me down rather badly over the sea- 
 plane ; I particularly wanted to show it. I told you about 
 that nasty affair he was mixed up in, didn't I? For a 
 straight-laced, fastidious fellow like him it must have been 
 the deuce of a jolt, and of course one makes every allow- 
 ance ; but it's a nuisance, all the same. I'm personally sorry, 
 too," he added. " It's a bad job when a chap of that type 
 runs off the rails. What? Oh, no, no mistake about it, 
 I'm afraid; she's making a perfect fool of herself. Byrne 
 will get his divorce this time, as sure as eggs. Hullo ! by 
 George " 
 
 "That's not he?" 
 
 " Yes, it is, though," said Wandesforde, craning forward. 
 " Good Lord ! fancy Evey Byrne letting herself be dragged 
 to the Aero Show ! She must have got it badly ! " 
 
 Mrs. Byrne was a very pretty woman, and even more 
 charming than she was pretty. She had a husband who 
 was impossible to live with and whom she could not divorce 
 because she was a Catholic. He had no such scruples, how- 
 ever; he had dragged her through the court on trumped-up 
 evidence, and she had emerged, like Susannah, without a 
 stain on her character. It was felt that she had been hardly 
 used. In the circumstances, and as she knew how to give 
 a good dinner and was popular with women as well as men, 
 she was allowed a good deal of license. She needed it all.
 
 HEU QUAM MUTATUS 187 
 
 She was very sweet, and very innocent, and hopelessly indis- 
 creet, with an Irish aptitude for tumbling into scrapes. She 
 could no more help using her lovely eyes than a violet can 
 help smelling ; and men buzzed round her always like wasps 
 round a peach. The latest of her captives, having led her 
 to a seat, now stood beside her with bent head to receive her 
 instructions, while she drew the gloves off her lovely hands 
 and arms. What Denis felt it was impossible to say ; his at- 
 titude bespoke admiration, but nothing more. 
 
 She finished her directions, he nodded assent, and threaded 
 his way through the crowd towards the buffet. Turning to 
 retrace his steps with a nicely balanced load of tea and 
 strawberries, he came face to face with another pair who 
 had just come in. The encounter might have been fore- 
 seen, and indeed Lettice had given the chance a thought ; for 
 Dorothea's eyes were not, like Denis's, easy to dodge. Here 
 she was, then, she too with a cavalier in attendance, to judge 
 from his expression a devoted cavalier. And no wonder; 
 Dorothea, in a long cloak of violet velvet, and a big velvet 
 hat with sweeping plume, made an enchanting figure. Her 
 face, which had lost its childish softness, was less pretty, 
 but far more alluring. April was unfolding to the bloom of 
 May. 
 
 Seeing Denis, she stopped dead ; then her face broke into 
 sunshine, she colored like a damask rose, and moved for- 
 ward impulsively with outstretched hands. Denis continued 
 on his way. The violet velvet was actually brushing his 
 sleeve. " I beg your pardon ! " he said with unmoved 
 politeness, drawing back from contact. He rejoined his 
 companion and sat down at her table. 
 
 For the first time in her life Lettice found herself en- 
 joying the sight of pain.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 BREAD AND SALT 
 
 Were you thinking how we, sitting side by side, 
 Might be dreaming miles and miles apart ? 
 
 Two out of the Crowd. 
 
 LETTICE had had no tea, but she did not stay for it; she 
 uprooted herself, setting back her chair without a sound, and 
 flitted inconspicuously out of the exhibition. On her slow 
 way home, in Tube and omnibus, she did some concen- 
 trated thinking. She was not surprised when Beatrice 
 rushed up from the basement to inform her that a lady was 
 waiting in her room, a dazzling lady who had arrived in a 
 taxi-cab; she needed not Beatrice's ecstatic description to 
 tell her who that lady was. She had caught Dorothea's eye 
 across the hall. Well, what must be, must ; screwing herself 
 up to face a scene, she climbed the stairs. 
 
 Her visitor had not sat down ; a slight sumptuous figure, 
 she stood posed against the mantelpiece, looking down into 
 the fire. She started at the opening door, and raised her 
 beautiful gazelle-brown eyes filled with tears. 
 
 "Oh, Lettice!" 
 
 Lettice made no reply. A wave of obstinacy rose to 
 meet that appeal; she came to the table and stood slowly 
 taking off and smoothing out her gloves. Lettice was some- 
 times possessed of a dumb devil. Dorothea's eyes opened 
 piteously; her lip quivered, the tears tumbled down her 
 cheeks, but in a flash she was across the room, had seized 
 Lettice and turned her round by force. 
 
 " I don't care, you can be as angry with me as you like, 
 but you shall listen, you shall answer, if I stay here all night. 
 That woman what was she doing with Denis ? " Lettice 
 was dumb. " Oh, don't you begin about being justly angry
 
 BREAD AND SALT 189 
 
 and taking righteous vengeance see what that sort of rub- 
 bish has done for me ! " Dorothea cried with passion. " I 
 must know about Denis. What has she done to him ? " 
 
 "I should think you could see that for yourself," said 
 Lettice, opening her lips with extreme and ungracious re- 
 luctance. 
 
 " Yes ; but is she has she " 
 
 " Ask some of your friends ; they'll know all the London 
 gossip." 
 
 " I did ask Maurice, but he either couldn't or wouldn't 
 tell ; he said he'd been out of town. Lettice, oh, Lettice, you 
 can't surely think he hasn't really " 
 
 "If you mean, do I think he's living with her, I don't 
 know; I should think it very likely. But what does it 
 matter to you? You've done all you wanted you've had 
 your revenge, and sent Mr. Gardiner to prison." 
 
 She freed her hands resolutely and turned away. Dor- 
 othea flung herself into the nearest chair. Beautiful grace- 
 ful figure, with the long lines of velvet sweeping to her feet, 
 the plumed hat, the rich hair, the ivory whiteness of cheek 
 and throat above her dark luxurious furs ! Lettice hardened 
 her heart. Let her go back to her Maurices and her other 
 friends she would soon get over it. She turned away, 
 turned her back on her visitor, and began to prepare her 
 solitary meal as though Dorothea did not exist. There was 
 ill will in the very curve of her shoulders. 
 
 Dorothea looked up. 
 
 " But I do love him so, Lettice ! " 
 
 " You love him? " exclaimed Lettice, pausing with her egg 
 on its way to the saucepan. 
 
 " Why, of course how could any one help it ? " 
 
 " You seem to have consoled yourself pretty easily," said 
 Lettice, with a doubtful glance at the violet velvet. Dor- 
 othea's eyes followed hers. 
 
 "Consoled myself? Do you mean this? This?" She 
 crushed up the velvet in her hand with scorn. " Oh, you 
 are stupid. I didn't expect you to be stupid, Lettice, I 
 thought you would understand. What would you have had
 
 190 CONVICT B14 
 
 me do, after that that frightful day at Westby? One 
 can't die to order. One has to kill time somehow. I loved 
 Denis oh, I did, I did love him right from the very first. 
 You may say I led him on, but I didn't, I didn't, I never 
 thought of such a thing, I never so much as dreamed of its 
 being possible, till one day I woke up and just found it had 
 happened, to us both. So then what could I do but tear it 
 out, and deny it, and make myself be loyal to my husband? 
 I knew yes, I suppose I did know that Guy wasn't 
 I'd seen things but never anything really bad ; and he was 
 always good to me, truth he was, always. Because of my 
 money, I suppose. But I didn't know that then. I had to 
 believe in him, because he was all I had in the world. Oh ! 
 I can't talk of it; it sears me to think of those months. 
 Lettice, Lettice, you haven't been married, you don't know 
 how close that brings you. To find you have been mingled, 
 made one with a nature like that thinking, too, those hide- 
 ous thoughts my husband had about me Yes, look at that 
 idea, take it home to you, if you can ; and then tell yourself 
 that, however you may try, you have not been married, and 
 you don't and can't know what that awful intimacy means. 
 Oh ! I've been thankful, since, that my baby died. I was glad 
 to know the truth ; but it tore me in two, Lettice, indeed, in- 
 deed it did. Console myself? Why, I've been at Hendon, 
 learning to fly. That man you saw me with, I met him 
 there. I believe he fancies I'm going to marry him. I don't 
 care. I don't know what I've said to him. It's all a blank. 
 I never woke till I saw Denis. Why, that alone might have 
 told you ; should I have gone to him as I did, as though I 
 were sure of my welcome, there in the face of everybody, 
 if I'd known what I was doing? I didn't know. I didn't 
 know anything, except that to see him again was like coming 
 home ; and I went to him without another thought." 
 
 Lettice, who all this while had been standing stock-still, 
 with her egg in her spoon, began slowly to get under way. 
 She slid the egg into the water, noted the time, straightened 
 her shoulders, and then said, in a definitely milder tone: 
 " Well, I don't see what you expect me to do."
 
 BREAD AND SALT 191 
 
 " Can't we save him ? " 
 
 She shook her head. "Denis goes his own way It's 
 no use interfering." 
 
 " If you were to say something" 
 
 Another slow shake. "He wouldn't listen. I've seen 
 him like this once before, with a man he'd been good to, who 
 cheated him. He was like a stone." She paused, and added, 
 slowly, slowly, drop by drop distilling for Dorothea's com- 
 fort the essence of her meditations in the train : " I don't 
 suppose it will go far. Denis isn't made that way. He will 
 soon get tired of it." "If he wanted to go wrong, he 
 wouldn't know the way!" She seemed to hear Gardiner's 
 very accents. The acuteness of the pain took her by sur- 
 prise took away her breath and stopped her words. Dor- 
 othea gave a miserable little sob. 
 
 ' ' Soon get tired of it ! ' Oh, Lettice, Lettice, but when 
 you think of what he was ! " 
 
 To that Lettice made no reply ; her face was grim. After 
 a moment she exerted herself to finish her former speech, 
 still half unwilling, for it took her heart long to forgive, 
 though her head now acquitted Dorothea of the worst of 
 her guilt, of a deliberate betrayal : " As a matter of fact, I 
 don't believe there is anything wrong yet. I believe so far 
 he is only playing with the idea. It may go no further. He 
 has thirty years of habit to fight against." She did not say, 
 " To-day will probably settle it, one way or the other," but 
 the thought was in her mind. 
 
 Dorothea had sunk down on the rug in a miserable little 
 heap, and was propping herself against the mantelpiece. 
 " Oh, I have been bad, I have been bad," she said on a long 
 quivering breath, twisting her hands together, while the tears 
 came tumbling down her cheeks and into her lap. " Oh, it 
 doesn't seem fair that a miserable little nobody like me 
 should be allowed to do so much harm. Oh, if there is a 
 God, why didn't he kill me when my baby died, and have 
 done with it ? To let me, me hurt a man like Denis oh, I 
 ought to have been squashed like a blackbeetle! And Mr. 
 Gardiner too. Wherever I go I seem to bring nothing but
 
 192 CONVICT B14 
 
 trouble! Do lend me a hanky, Lettice, mine's all soppy." 
 
 " It's hardly worth while to think of Mr. Gardiner, is it? " 
 suggested Lettice with faint irony. Dorothea raised her wet 
 eyes. 
 
 " Why, of course I think of him, only I think of Denis 
 more. It's everything with Denis, it was just because he 
 wasn't like other men you couldn't help loving him. And 
 now now, even if he gets over it, as you say, it will never, 
 never be the same." She stopped to swallow a sob. " But 
 Mr. Gardiner I know prison is horrid, and I'm sorry, oh ! 
 dreadfully sorry and ashamed whenever I think of him, but 
 he'll come out at the end none the worse. Why, it isn't even 
 as if it were a disgrace! You feel the same, Lettice, you 
 know you do." 
 
 Lettice said nothing; her face might have betrayed her, 
 had Dorothea been on the alert ; but she was already back 
 with Denis. She did not like Gardiner, and she would never 
 understand him. But Lettice by that naive assumption of 
 her prime concern for her cousin Dorothea had shown her, 
 rather more plainly than she liked, where she stood. Her 
 center of interest had shifted. She was scarcely sorry for 
 Denis ; she was almost angry with him. " He shouldn't 
 have done it," she said with a touch of sternness. " I am 
 disappointed in him." Lettice expected a good deal from 
 her friends. Her feelings had changed, adjusting them- 
 selves unconsciously to the change in Denis. The protec- 
 tive instinct was dead. " When I was a child, I spake as a 
 child. . . ." Denis had put away childish things, and as a 
 man she judged him. 
 
 Gardiner had disappointed her too, yet with him she was 
 not angry. His failure had been involuntary; and he had 
 redeemed it, coming back of his own free will to put his 
 manhood to the test. He was under the question now, this 
 minute, every minute of the day. For the first time she let 
 herself think of Denis's postscript : tacitly acknowledging that 
 if she had not done so before, it was because she dared not. 
 She could reason about Denis, she could not reason about 
 this, though it lay in her heart like a stone all the time.
 
 BREAD AND SALT 193 
 
 For Denis the issue was decided ; whether he went to Mrs. 
 Byrne or not, his eyes had been opened, he had tasted the 
 fruit of the tree, he could never regain that child-like quality 
 of which Dorothea had robbed him. If he took the one step 
 further well yes, it did matter, it mattered horribly, 
 the constriction at her heart was only less than she felt in 
 thinking of the other sufferer. Still, it was less, for Denis 
 would retrieve himself; Gardiner would not. If he failed 
 now, he would be a broken man ; he would go under. " In- 
 subordination, assaulting a warder " the words seemed 
 ominous as thunder on a sultry night. 
 
 And meanwhile here was the fount and origin of all this 
 trouble, sitting on the rug, leaning her small head, stuffed 
 with tears, against the wall, a dolorous little heap: poor 
 child, she had punished herself worse than her victims. 
 What to do with her? Lettice had never responded with 
 enthusiasm to Dorothea's advances. Dorothea was intense ; 
 Lettice preferred the humdrum. Nor, as has been said, 
 could she easily forgive. Still, if Dorothea really needed 
 her, she supposed she would have to produce some sort of 
 response. She moved about, laying the table, cutting the 
 bread ; presently she came to the fire to make toast. Dor- 
 othea roused herself. " Let me do that," she said, her voice 
 still thick and languid with tears. " You go and sit down." 
 
 " You'll spoil your frock," said Lettice, with a last faintly 
 disparaging glance at the violet velvet. Dorothea's eyes 
 glinted; she set her teeth, stooped down, seized the hem 
 of her skirt between her strong little hands, and tore it, 
 r-r-rip, half-way up to the waist. 
 
 " That for my frock ! " 
 
 What a baby it was, after all ! " Now I shall have to 
 mend that before you can go home," Lettice admonished her, 
 in a tone which, for Dorothea, she had never used before. 
 
 " Don't care," retorted Dorothea, defiant chin in air. And 
 then, with a swift little snuggling movement, she nestled 
 against Lettice. " Oh, Lettice, Lettice, I've been bad, and 
 hateful, and I don't deserve to have any one like me, but 
 may I come and see you sometimes ? I do seem to get into
 
 194 CONVICT B14 
 
 such muddles when I'm all by myself and I haven't any 
 one in all the world to go to now but you ! " 
 
 Lettice did not answer, because she was engaged in res- 
 cuing the toasting fork from her guest's heedless hand, 
 and blowing out the flaming bread. She scraped off the 
 cinders, and with a firmness that admitted no question put 
 that piece on her own plate, and the other, which she had 
 made herself, on Dorothea's. 
 
 " Now come and have your tea," was her sole reply. 
 
 Bread and salt they ate it together.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 DIEU DISPOSE 
 
 I thought to promote thee unto great honor, but, lo, the Lord hath 
 kept thee back from honor. NUMBERS. 
 
 AT the moment when Lettice and Dorothea were sitting 
 down to bread and salt in Canning Street, Denis was leaning 
 over a rustic bridge in the garden of Mrs. Byrne's week- 
 end cottage. 
 
 By what difficult, obscure, and tortuous paths he had been 
 wandering in those days he could not have told, nor could 
 any one have followed. Dorothea had done him the worst 
 injury; she had broken his faith. His love and his religion 
 were so closely intertwined that they fell together, with a 
 crash that numbed sensation. The world turned gray and 
 all the lamps went out. If he could not believe in God, Denis 
 could believe in nothing and love nothing. He did not know 
 what was wrong with him ; he was not actively and con- 
 sciously unhappy, but he was bored sick of himself, sick 
 of his work, sick of all he had been and done in all his life 
 before. 
 
 He stayed on at Bredon from force of habit, because it 
 was too much trouble to make up his mind to go else- 
 where. The trial at Westby broke this routine; and the 
 heavy sentence on his friend, outraging his sense of justice, 
 snapped another of the links that held him to his former life. 
 What was the good of virtue, he asked himself (seriously, 
 as a novel idea), if this was to be its reward? What had 
 he ever got by it himself? Why shouldn't he try pleasure 
 for a change? Why not, indeed? Conscience made no 
 protest; that was one of the lamps which had gone out. 
 When he left Westby he did not go back to Bredon; he 
 195
 
 196 CONVICT B14 
 
 stayed in town, with the deliberate intention of " seeing 
 life." 
 
 In pursuit of this ambition he visited music halls, which 
 he regarded as temples of gay vice, and tried to cultivate 
 the more frivolous of his male acquaintance, and even went 
 so far as to put in an appearance at a night club and was 
 more profoundly bored than ever. One evening he laid him- 
 self out conscientiously to get drunk. This was not a suc- 
 cess ; it ended in a bilious attack and a long distaste for 
 whisky. Another time he sat down to play " chimmy " with 
 the most inveterate gamblers he knew. Beginner's luck 
 helped him at first to win five pounds, which didn't excite 
 him ; then he lost twenty, and was disproportionately an- 
 noyed. Nature had not cut out Denis for a rone. He did 
 not amuse himself or any one else. Even Bredon and the 
 seaplane were better than this. He would have given up and 
 gone back to them in despair, if he had not happened to fall 
 in with Mrs. Byrne. 
 
 She was sitting in her car in a lonely lane at ten o'clock 
 at night when he saw her first, weeping tears of rage because 
 her chauffeur had sunk down, snoring drunk, and she could 
 not stir him. Such things did happen to Mrs. Byrne. Denis 
 came to the rescue ; he ejected the chauffeur by the wayside, 
 and took the lady home himself. She was very grateful, 
 and invited him to dinner. It was a pleasant house, and one 
 met amusing people literary, artistic, a little out of the 
 usual set which had bored Denis so desperately. He liked 
 his pretty, feather-wilted hostess, too, and she liked him ; in- 
 deed, before long it was plain that she more than liked him. 
 It was not plain to Denis, who remained virtuously stiff as 
 a ramrod long after the clubs were betting on Byrne's chance 
 of bringing off his divorce this time. Mrs. Byrne had fallen 
 headlong in love, and she was incapable of discretion. 
 
 When at last the truth dawned on Denis, his first impulse 
 was to bolt. But he did not allow himself to do so. He 
 stayed on, deliberately exposing himself to temptation in 
 the hope that it would tempt him. He found it a hard 
 struggle to be wicked. So far, then, Lettice was right; he
 
 DIEU DISPOSE 197 
 
 had not yet committed himself. She was right, too, in think- 
 ing that the scene at Olympia would decide things one way 
 or another. Denis believed himself to be quite indifferent to 
 Dorothea; yet her face (he could not have said how) had 
 given him the slight deciding push, and he returned to Mrs. 
 Byrne with his mind made up. 
 
 The brook by which he stood, patched with silver by the 
 young March moon, found its way between bronze-stemmed 
 alders, past willows cloudy in pollen-yellow, under banks 
 where the kingcups spread their nosegays of burnished green 
 and gold. Violets, invisible but sweet, clustered at the root 
 of every rose. The scene was set for lovers, and Denis had 
 been making love. Did he do it well? It might have been 
 worse. There had been opposition to overcome, unexpected, 
 stimulating: Evey Byrne with a conscience, forsooth! 
 Denis had tasted the first-fruits of pleasure in crushing down 
 her scruples and making her own she loved him. He had 
 wrung out the confession without mercy. She tried to hold 
 him off with her weak little hands against his breast. 
 
 " Ah, but ye don't truly love me, Denis ! " 
 
 " Don't I ? " said Denis, kissing her fawn-soft eyes and 
 sweet, half-reluctant lips. 
 
 " Ah, but 'tis so wicked ! God'll never forgive us ! " 
 
 " There is no God that counts," Denis answered. He 
 kissed her again. He had no idea that in his heart he was 
 kissing Dorothea. 
 
 That was ten minutes ago. Was it time yet? Hardly, he 
 decided; he might allow himself to finish his cigar. Alas! 
 out of her presence the blaze had all too quickly died down. 
 Mrs. Byrne was sweet, but she bored him like everything 
 else. Still, he would go to her ; yes, he would certainly go in 
 a minute. It was his duty to see the thing through. 
 (Naturam e.vpellas f 'urea it seemed that Denis could not 
 get away from that word !) 
 
 What a fool he was! Who would believe that he had 
 reached his present age in his present state of innocence? 
 He hoped Mrs. Byrne hadn't found it out, but he was rather 
 afraid she had. If Denis had been honest with himself he
 
 198 CONVICT B14 
 
 would have had to admit that one reason why he lingered 
 here by the river, instead of seeking the welcome that awaited 
 him, was that he was shy. Too ignominious, that; he shuf- 
 fled away from the thought. He was dissatisfied with him- 
 self all round. Why couldn't he behave like other men ? In 
 the old days at Bredon how gloriously happy he had been, 
 with the delicate engine of his brain working at full pres- 
 sure, solving problems faster than his pencil could write them 
 down! Now, it seemed, he could neither play nor work. 
 What was it he had been sticking over, that last evening be- 
 fore he went to Westby? The everlasting difficulty, speed 
 versus safety. There had been one or two rather clever 
 things in the show to-day. The Sturt bus, that used I-struts, 
 as he had meant to do ; but the chord of the wings was too 
 large, the stresses would be impossibly high. Why on earth 
 couldn't Sturt see 
 
 Who can tell whence ideas come? Inter-stellar drift? 
 Some beam from the eternal verities shone suddenly in 
 Denis's brain. He pulled out an old envelope and began 
 covering it with rapid calculations. Ten minutes later, when 
 he next looked up, there was scarcely room for another fig- 
 ure. He had come to a halt ; he could go no further with- 
 out referring to his old work. What time was it? He 
 peered at his watch in the moonlight. Half-past ten: if 
 he got up to town to-night, and slept at the Grosvenor, he 
 could catch the five-forty down and be at Bredon in time for 
 breakfast. He thrust the sheet of calculations into his 
 pocket, and, with about one-twentieth of his mind upon the 
 scene, started for the house. Coming in sight of its lighted 
 windows, however, he slackened and stopped. Mrs. Byrne. 
 There was not much sense left in his head, but it had oc- 
 curred to him that his errand might be awkward to explain 
 in person. 
 
 Denis never had been, or would be, afflicted with self- 
 consciousness. He turned back from the lawn, skulked like 
 a burglar through shrubberies and behind trees, and climbed 
 in at the window of the room where they had dined. Still 
 without a thought of false shame, he sat down at Mrs.
 
 DIEU DISPOSE 199 
 
 Byrne's own writing-table, and wrote with Mrs. Byrne's own 
 pen, on her own paper. Another man might have found 
 some difficulty in putting into words what he had to say ; to 
 Denis it seemed quite simple. 
 
 " MY DEAREST EVEY, I was standing on your bridge just 
 now, thinking of nothing else likely, when suddenly an idea 
 flashed into my head which settles a problem that has wor- 
 ried me for years. If it works out as it should, it will make 
 a revolution in aircraft design. There's been nothing like it 
 since the Wrights. So I shall have to get straight back into 
 harness. You'll forgive me, I know." Here he paused, and 
 debated whether to quote, " I could not love thee, dear, so 
 much," but decided against it. Mrs. Byrne was not literary. 
 " One has to put the big things first, hasn't one? And after 
 all, this hits me even harder than it hits you." Denis was 
 pleased with this phrase. '* If all goes well, I will come back 
 and make my apologies in person. I am not waiting now, 
 because I am afraid if I saw you I might not go." He was 
 even better pleased with this. A satisfied smile overspread 
 his face as he signed himself, " Devotedly yours," a form 
 which he had never used before, and which took him some 
 time to excogitate. Then he rang the bell, gave the note to 
 a servant, and took himself off again by the window. 
 
 " Make my apologies in person." Denis, it will be seen, 
 was not repentant. He returned, as he had promised, a 
 week later, prepared to pick up the thread of his adventure 
 and do his duty to its boring end. He was surprised sur- 
 prised and aggrieved to learn that Mrs. Byrne was not at 
 home. " But she was expectin' me ! " he said, quite indig- 
 nant, to the model of decorum who stood guardian at the 
 gate. 
 
 " Yes, sir. She asked me to give you this note," said the 
 model without moving an eyelid. But he scanned Denis's 
 face very inquisitively as he tore open the paper and read: 
 
 " Denis darling, this is God. I tried to steal you away 
 from Him, but He won't let me have you. I knew all the
 
 200 CONVICT B14 
 
 time how wrong it was. It has all been my fault. I am 
 going where I can pray for you and pray to be forgiven. 
 Oh ! don't be angry with me, and don't let her be angry with 
 me. I have been very wicked, but I did love you so. 
 
 " EVEY." 
 
 The decorous Morris, who read this note (for of course 
 Mrs. Byrne had omitted to seal it), got little by his scrutiny. 
 The visitor did not stamp, nor swear, nor turn red, nor pale ; 
 he read through his dismissal with a very singular expression 
 of gravity, turned away, came back absently to slip a tip 
 into the man's hand, and finally strode off down the drive, 
 carrying his handsome head, as poor Camille said of his 
 enemy, like the saint sacrament, his dark blue Irish eyes 
 fixed on far distant horizons.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 THE FIRST ROUND 
 
 Better is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. 
 PROVERBS. 
 
 SEVEN years of prison doctoring had not blunted the first 
 fine temper of Leonard Scott's sympathy. Doctors in gen- 
 eral, even in ordinary practice, have to harden themselves 
 or .break down ; Scott stuck to his work year after year, and 
 yet contrived to remain as tender-hearted as a novice at his 
 first death-bed. He was steeped in that fount of love and 
 strength, romance and poetry, known as the Catholic faith. 
 Not the Roman Catholic faith, be it observed. Nothing an- 
 noyed him more than to be called a papist except to be 
 called a Protestant. 
 
 He was a dreamer, a saint, a mystic, this dapper little man 
 with the snappy manner and the aggressively white linen ; a 
 citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem, whose ports of pearl and 
 streets of shining gold were more real to him than the walls 
 of Westby Jail. Saints and martyrs crowded heaven to 
 applaud his progress ; warrior angels fought at his right 
 hand; Christ himself stooped to him in the mystery of the 
 Eucharist. In this faith he was able to go on working hope- 
 fully at his hopeless task for what, after all, was the use 
 of patching up these wretched bodies which in a few weeks 
 must go back to the dirt and the vices that had bred their 
 disease ? Leonard Scott thought it was a great deal of use ; 
 he loved his criminals. The sociologist would have seen 
 Westby Jail as a garbage heap meet for the furnace; the 
 Christian idealist went about joyfully picking up pearls. 
 
 But a faith which removes mountains may fail to console 
 the man who has to appear in knickerbockers at a dinner- 
 party ; and this child of heaven was made very uncomfortable 
 201
 
 202 CONVICT BU 
 
 by the addition of Gardiner to his happy family of jail- 
 birds. He hated attending as prison doctor on the man 
 whom his evidence had helped to convict, and he did not 
 like Gardiner himself. He thought him flippant, a quality 
 which arises punctually to answer expectation. Since he did 
 not like him, he felt he ought to cultivate him ; your man of 
 conscience always feels his duty to be the thing he doesn't 
 want to do. In this case, however, Scott fell short of his 
 duty. He carefully avoided Gardiner, and was rather an- 
 noyed to find that Gardiner seemed equally anxious to avoid 
 him. Never did he bother his doctor for pills and potions. 
 Yet Scott, who kept an uneasy eye upon his embarrassing 
 patient, could see that prison life was not agreeing with his 
 health. 
 
 One day he overheard two warders comparing notes about 
 614. He had been getting into hot water; he had smashed 
 everything in his cell, and finished up by smashing a warder. 
 " My word ! he did give us ginger. You never see anything 
 like it! " said Warder Barnes, with a touch of surprised ad- 
 miration. " It's what I always 'ave said them quiet, ed- 
 dicated ones gives twice as much trouble as the others when 
 they do give trouble," assented Warder Mason. 614 was 
 now in the punishment cells on a chastening diet of bread 
 and water. Scott felt more than ever that he ought to find 
 some pretext for seeing him, but he didn't do so. 
 
 Going back to prison after his trial seemed to Gardiner 
 like entering the black mouth of a tunnel. There were 
 the unescapable walls on either side, and the weight of a 
 mountain overhead, the horror of panic pressing up behind, 
 and the interminable stretch of black blank darkness through 
 which he must grope before he could hope to see, far off, the 
 first faint whiteness of deliverance. Yet the first days were 
 not so bad as he had expected. Some of the outer light 
 lingered on for a time ; Lettice's face she had not looked 
 at him while giving her evidence, but at the end, just 
 as she was leaving the box, she had turned deliberately and 
 smiled at him across the court. That look went with him 
 far into the darkness. It was the nights that were the worst.
 
 THE FIRST ROUND 203 
 
 There were moments, then, when he had to hold off panic by 
 the throat. But he was carefully prudent ; he worked with 
 all his might during the eight hours he was at work, and 
 studied with all his might during the sixteen he spent in his 
 cell. That was his last charge to his brother : " You send 
 along some books to the prison library. Grammars and 
 texts I want to learn Flemish and Dutch, and I could do 
 with some Portugoosh as well. I'm getting a bit rusty, and 
 they all come in handy." On these terms he found himself 
 actually better off as a convicted criminal than he had been 
 as a prisoner on remand. Regular work and exercise were 
 by no means a bad exchange, even for the high privileges 
 of wearing his own clothes and paying for his own dinner. 
 
 March came in with balmy days of relaxing sweetness. 
 The sun at dawn stole into his cell through the ground glass 
 of his window ; and by standing on his stool, with his nose 
 pressed as close to the ventilator as it would go, he could 
 even at times smell violets. Persistent little friendly flowers, 
 they had found their way into the prison yard and niched 
 themselves between the stones of the wall; and in March 
 every tiny seedling was a knot of blue. 
 
 "When the moon their hollows lights, 
 And they are filled with balms of spring, 
 And in the glens, on starry nights, 
 The nightingales divinely sing 
 Ah ! then a longing like despair 
 Is to their inmost caverns sent." 
 
 Gardiner had lived all his life too close to nature to escape 
 the call of the spring. If his work had been out of doors, 
 in the garden or the farm, he might have come through 
 better; but he was in the printing room; always hot and 
 stuffy with glue, and his exercise was limited to the five 
 minutes' walk to and fro. He lost his sleep, and in the long 
 vigils he was tormented by visions of Rochehaut. He saw 
 the great solemn autumnal hills, sallow in the moonlight, 
 the leafless woods, the white crags matted with ivy and with 
 the rusty growth of ferns, the Semois in flood, chrome- 
 yellow, surging from side to side of her naked valley. He
 
 204 CONVICT B14 
 
 remembered the large cool rooms of his home, the green 
 light filtering through the jalousies, the white cloth blowing 
 round the legs of the little table under the pines where he 
 took his meals, the sound and smell of the coffee machine, 
 the summer apples which he gathered in the orchard, " faintly 
 red even beneath the crimson skin." Like many southern- 
 ers, Gardiner lived very largely on fruit ; and one of the 
 minor trials of his prison life was the prison diet, where 
 fruit and vegetables are not. Most prisoners suffer from 
 this ; he suffered more than most, and could less afford the 
 steady lowering of his health. 
 
 It happened one day, owing to some alterations, that 
 Gardiner had to change his cell, and was put into the older 
 part of the prison. His new quarters were so dark that 
 the occupant was regularly allowed a light in the daytime. 
 The warder in charge was too busy to see to it at the mo- 
 ment ; next day he promised to do so, but forgot, the prisoner 
 meanwhile being left to twiddle his thumbs during the six- 
 teen empty hours he spent each day in his cell. When, for 
 the third time, he put forward his submissive request, Warder 
 Thomson, a surly fellow, happened to be out of temper, and 
 told him curtly not to bother. To his amazement the well- 
 conducted Bi4 flew at him like a fury. He slipped out just 
 in time, and blew his whistle for help. 614 meanwhile 
 amused himself by smashing everything smashable in his 
 cell ; he kicked his tins into cocked hats, he rent his bed- 
 clothes to ribbons, he tore his books out of their bindings and 
 strewed them about the floor. It was a glorious smash, and 
 it was followed by an even more glorious fight; for directly 
 the door opened he flew again upon the offending Warder 
 Thomson with the leg of his dismembered stool, and suc- 
 ceeded in breaking his head and knocking out two of his 
 teeth, before he in his turn was " coshed " by an assistant, 
 and finally brought to earth. For the space of ten exciting 
 minutes Gardiner enjoyed himself. 
 
 But afterwards, when he came to himself in the dismal 
 " solitary " cell, and still more when he heard his punish- 
 ment, and knew that he had cut himself off for two endless
 
 THE FIRST ROUND 205 
 
 months from his friends then the cold reaction set in, and 
 he went down into the depths. The first night was terrible. 
 Panic was again at his throat ; it did not succeed in pulling 
 him down, but when the dawn came, and at the cheerful 
 sounds of human life the furies shrank back into their shades, 
 he knew that he had been very near something. What he 
 feared he did not know, but he did know that if his fear 
 got the mastery, if he lost his self-command, he would not 
 be fit to go to Lettice at the end of his term. 
 
 He lay thinking very earnestly, open-eyed. It was per- 
 fectly plain what he ought to do : he ought to put down his 
 name to see the doctor, who would give him bromide or 
 something to settle his nerves. And there was more in it 
 than that ; he ought to see Scott about another small trouble 
 which had nothing to do with nerves, and which, if he had 
 chosen to put it forward, would have been a mitigating cir- 
 cumstance in the mind of the Governor when he pronounced 
 sentence. Oh, he was a fool he really was a fool ! Why, 
 if he had even chosen to state his grievance about the light he 
 might have got off with quarter penalty, perhaps with none 
 at all. Captain Harding wasn't half a bad old chap, he made 
 allowances for human nature, even in a criminal. But would 
 Gardiner do that? Not he! He had stood sullenly dumb, 
 refusing to defend himself, refusing to answer a single ques- 
 tion. It went against the grain with him to explain, to make 
 excuses, even to admit that he was ill. Yet could he stand 
 another night like the last? He would have preferred to; 
 he would have butted his obstinate head into death or even 
 madness, sooner than bend his pride. But there was Lettice 
 to be considered, and all her little fads about standing up to 
 things and not running away. 
 
 When Warder Barnes came in the evening to bring his 
 supper of bread and water and collect the mail-bags which 
 he should have sewn (prisoners in the punishment cells do 
 not go out to work), he found the pile untouched. Gardiner 
 had not done one. Barnes pursed up his lips to a whistle. 
 
 " Hullo, hullo ! now this ain't sense, Bi4- Why ain't you 
 done your work to-day ? ; '
 
 206 CONVICT B14 
 
 ' Because I haven't," said the prisoner. He was sitting 
 on his stool with his elbows on his knees and his head in 
 his hands ; he reached out for the water Barnes had brought 
 and drank it at a draught, but otherwise he did not stir. 
 
 " That's silly talk," said the warder reprovingly. It was 
 the same little Cockney who had admired what he called 
 Bi4's ginger; a kindly little soul, as many of the prison at- 
 tendants are. " You're only makin' trouble for yourself. 
 Ain't you had enough already?" The prisoner made no 
 sign. " Come now ! You give me your word as you'll do 
 your job to-morrow, and I'll pass you light this time. Don't 
 want another week of it in 'ere, do you? " Still no answer. 
 " Oh, well, I can't wait all night, if you choose to be re- 
 fractory you must," said Barnes, rather short, because his 
 kindness had met with no response. He gathered up the 
 untouched bags. " I shall 'ave to report you, that's all." 
 
 He was just going out of the door when the prisoner 
 moved. 
 
 " I say." 
 
 *' Well ? " 
 
 " I couldn't do those bags," said Gardiner. " My hand's 
 bad." 
 
 " Your hand bad ! What's the matter with it ? " 
 
 Barnes snatched roughly at the half -extended fingers. 
 They were torn out of his grasp. " Damn you," said 
 Gardiner very quietly. Even in the darkness Barnes could 
 see his face, scarlet with sudden pain. 
 
 " I didn't mean to 'urt you," he said gruffly. " I thought 
 you was malingering. What have you done to your 'and ? " 
 
 " I don't malinger, and I haven't done anything to my 
 hand," the prisoner retorted. His tone was short ; he was 
 still nursing his wrist and biting his lip. " But the fact 
 remains, I can't sew. If you wouldn't mind putting me 
 down to see the doctor, I should be much obliged. There's 
 my ticket." 
 
 " Let's 'ave a look." Gardiner would rather have put his 
 fist, pain and all, into the man's face ; he silently extended 
 his palm. " My word ! that gives you pen and ink, I lay,"
 
 THE FIRST ROUND 207 
 
 said Barnes with critical interest. " I say, I'm sorry I hurt 
 you, 614; I might 'a' known you wasn't one of the 'umbug- 
 gin' sort. I'll put you down to see the doctor, never fear." 
 
 The door banged with the complacent decision of prison 
 doors, and Gardiner was alone. He paid for his suscepti- 
 bility to pleasure by a corresponding susceptibility to pain; 
 Barnes had actually made him feel faint. He tumbled off his 
 stool on to the floor and leaned against the wall, closing his 
 eyes. Well ! he was in for it now. Would he be able to keep 
 up the same virtuous docility in his interview with Scott? 
 Lord only knew ! And, thinking of Lettice, he smiled. It 
 was she who had dictated every word. 
 
 Barnes, good little soul, was pricked with compunction 
 for his roughness. Partly on this account, and partly be- 
 cause, even to his unprofessional eye, Bi4's hand appeared 
 to be in a bad way, he made it his business to go to Dr. Scott 
 as soon as he could; and Scott was equally prompt in re- 
 sponding. The rule for the casual sick is that they are col- 
 lected in a batch from the gangs after the " cease work " 
 bell in the morning, and shepherded to the doctor's office, 
 where he disposes of them in turn: summary jurisdiction, a 
 " tot " of No. Dash medicine, to be swallowed on the spot. 
 Bi4, however, being in punishment, could not go to Mahomet, 
 so Mahomet had to go to him. Half-an-hour after it had 
 closed, Gardiner's door reopened to admit the doctor, with 
 Barnes in attendance. A doctor never, in any circumstances, 
 sees a prisoner alone. 
 
 Gardiner, nodding off into an uneasy doze, scrambled to 
 his feet in a hurry. 
 
 " You wanted to see me ? " said Scott in his curtest tone, 
 because he was mortally sorry for his patient. " Got a bad 
 hand, have you? Let's have a look." 
 
 " There wasn't any hurry, sir. I didn't want to bother 
 you " 
 
 " It's my business to come when I'm called, isn't it? I'm 
 here to doctor the lot of you, aren't I ? You do as you're 
 told." 
 
 With that Scott plumped down on the stool, and took
 
 08 CONVICT B14 
 
 the hand in his own. His touch was exquisitely gentle. 
 Gardiner rather wished he had grabbed at him like Warder 
 Barnes ; but he stood submissive, and submissively answered 
 questions. " Yes, sir, I got it rather badly crushed last 
 summer. Yes, it did take a time to heal. No, I don't know 
 that I felt anything particular until this began that was 
 about ten days ago." 
 
 " Hurt, eh ? " asked Scott, with a swift glance up from 
 his dressing. 
 
 " A little," Gardiner admitted. 
 
 " Suppuration of the palm is the very " said Scott. 
 " Don't you try to humbug me. I know. Damaged the 
 bone, that's what you've done, and you aren't by any means 
 out of the wood yet. That'll do for to-night. Now let's 
 have a look at you. Your general health can't be up to much, 
 or you wouldn't have a mess-up like this. Any special symp- 
 toms to complain of ? " 
 
 " I've been rather off my sleep lately." 
 
 " You'd need cast-iron nerves to be on it, with your hand 
 in that state. How long has it been going on the in- 
 somnia, I mean ? " 
 
 " Oh, three weeks or so. Since the warm weather set in." 
 
 " Before your hand was bad, eh? " 
 
 " I suppose so." 
 
 " And the hand itself went wrong before you indulged 
 in the pretty little scrap that's landed you in this pestilential 
 hole?" said Scott. It was not a speech he ought to have 
 made to a prisoner; but Scott was far from always saying 
 what he ought. Besides, he had had a long battle with the 
 authorities about the condition of the old part of the prison 
 in general and of the punishment cells in particular, a battle 
 in which he had been worsted, and which had left a rankling 
 grudge. The Governor had called him a meddlesome senti- 
 mentalist, which was true ; and he had called the Governor 
 a pig-headed martinet, which was about equally true. 
 
 Gardiner assented with a nod. It was all against the grain, 
 every word that he said, and every drop of the suppressed 
 sympathy which he detected lurking under the little doctor's
 
 THE FIRST ROUND 209 
 
 extra aggressive manner. Nevertheless with another heroic 
 effort, backed by another thought of Lettice, he constrained 
 himself to add : " I think perhaps it's the indoor life, sir. 
 I've been used to be out all day and all night. Here I'm in 
 the printing shop ; it's an interesting job, and I like it, but 
 I think perhaps I might get on better on the farm." 
 
 " You do, do you ? What do you suppose you know about 
 it?" 
 
 " Nothing," said Gardiner, " only you asked me." 
 
 " H'm ! " said the little doctor. " Well, I can't do anything 
 more now. I'll see to you properly to-morrow." He picked 
 himself up with his usual fierce alacrity. Going out of the 
 door, he turned to add : " I'll send you round a dose in half- 
 an-hour. Warder, you see he takes it. Young fool, going 
 on for a month till he gets into this state he'll throw it 
 into the slops, if you give him half a chance! " 
 
 With that, exit Dr. Scott, still grumbling. 
 
 Gardiner threw himself down on his bare plank bed. 
 " O Lord ! " he said with half a chuckle and half a groan. 
 " Oh, Lettice, it's a pity you weren't the fly on the wall, I 
 think you'd have enjoyed the scene. Lord, how I do hate 
 that little chap ! and yet I don't, you know, I rather like him. 
 I wish he'd prescribe me a cigarette, I bet that would put me 
 to by-by better than all his boluses. I'm glad I said what I 
 did about the farm. If he can only work that, I think, with 
 luck, I may pull through. He's gone away breathing out 
 mercies and indulgences. What an ass I am to dislike saying 
 these things, but I certainly do. Oh, Lettice, mi prcnda, alma, 
 de mi vida, his de mis ojos won't I make love to you in 
 Spanish when my time comes, and won't you be not ductile ! 
 if I do stick it out you ought to feel uncommonly proud 
 of yourself, but you won't. Never, never in my life shall I 
 succeed in persuading you that it's all your doing, but it is."
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 I SENT A LETTER TO MY LOVE 
 
 Savage I was sitting in my house, late, lone : 
 
 Dreary, weary with the long day's work : 
 Head of me, heart of me, stupid as a stone: 
 
 Tongue-tied now, now blaspheming like a Turk; 
 When, in a moment, just a knock, call, cry, 
 
 Half a pang and all a rapture, there again were we! 
 "What, and is it really you again? " quoth I. 
 
 "I again, what else did you expect?" quoth She. 
 
 The Householder. 
 
 THE gas was not carried up to the attics of No. 22 Canning 
 Street. Late-comers had to stumble in the dark up the 
 last flight of stairs, and bark their shins over the brooms 
 and pails which Beatrice invariably left standing about on the 
 landing. One evening in April Lettice was sitting at work, 
 brow buried in her hands, tensely courting the Muse, when 
 she was startled by a sudden tremendous clatter. The door 
 burst open and Denis fell into the room, in company with a 
 mop and a banister brush. 
 
 " Dear, dear ! " said Lettice with her usual inadequacy. 
 
 " I wish you'd not keep an ironmonger's shop on your 
 landing," said Denis, annoyed, and rubbing his knee. 
 
 " You, you you are so violent ! " Lettice protested in 
 her pianissimo drawl. She went outside for a moment. 
 " There, I've put them all away in the cupboard, so you 
 won't have to break your poor nose when you go home," she 
 consoled him. " Now, how nice it is to see you again ! And 
 what have you been doing with yourself all this long time? " 
 
 " Selling four monoplanes to the War Office," said Denis, 
 with the simple satisfaction of bygone days. " What do you 
 think of that?" 
 
 " No ! have you really ? " 
 
 "A man I used to know in the Sappers came over to 
 210
 
 I SENT A LETTER TO MY LOVE 211 
 
 Dent-de-lion and fixed up the order last Saturday. It's 
 been in the air for some time, but of course I couldn't say 
 anything till it was settled. Wandesforde's awful pleased. 
 It's no end of a leg-up for us." 
 
 " Four all at once ! " cooed his sympathetic hostess. 
 
 "Yes, the Government's rather keen on the Air Service 
 these days. There's a lot goin' on we don't hear anything 
 about a lot ; and they don't mean to be caught napping." 
 
 " Did your friend tell you that ? " asked Lettice, interested, 
 as always, in politics. 
 
 Denis nodded. "He did. And more. He was askin' 
 me, among other things, what percentage of our civilian 
 flyers would volunteer in case of a war." 
 
 "Oh! What did you say?" 
 
 " I said all, of course every man jack of 'em who wasn't 
 needed as an instructor at home." 
 
 " You'd go yourself?" 
 
 "Rather so! What do you take me for? I should join 
 up with the R.F.C. at once. Oh, it's coming, and they know 
 it's coming; that's been obvious ever since Agadir. The 
 only question is, when. I hope I shan't smash myself first. 
 I'd be sorry to be out of the fun." 
 
 He lapsed into silence, leaning back in the big chair which 
 Lettice kept on purpose for him, his long legs extended half 
 across the hearth. How many months was it since he had 
 last filled that place? Lettice had not so much as seen 
 him since the Olympia day; but neither by word nor look 
 did she remind him of the gap. She was an adept at taking 
 things for granted. It was enough to see him sitting there, 
 the same old Denis, talking in the same old way. And yet, 
 not quite the same. Even in his silence there was a new 
 quality. He had matured; he had lived through the wreck 
 of an ideal, and built up his faith again, steady and sure, 
 upon a rock. 
 
 Lettice put away her papers with delicate neatness, and 
 sat down in a low chair with her needlework not a green 
 dragon this time, but a pair of combinations, which she 
 darned serenely under the masculine eye. Denis had a nice
 
 212 CONVICT B14 
 
 mind, he would never see. Now if it had been a certain 
 other person Lettice made a graceful figure, soft brown 
 hair and hazel eyes, long throat and little head, slight droop- 
 ing shoulders and slim waist, set off by the soft gray-blue 
 silk of her dress. She was fond of that peculiarly soft and 
 feminine fabric known to dressmakers as crepe de Chine. 
 She could not spend much on her clothes, but she chose and 
 wore them with that French fineness and perfection of detail 
 which she, in common with her sisters, had learned from 
 their foreign upbringing. 
 
 " Well, I didn't come here to talk about German inva- 
 sions," said Denis, rousing himself. " The fact is, I'm 
 rather badly worried about Gardiner, Lettice. I didn't like 
 that last piece of news at all. Did you ? " 
 
 " You've not heard anything fresh ? " asked Lettice quickly, 
 her work dropping in her lap. 
 
 " Not a syllable ; and can't till June. That's the worst 
 of it; it's such a deadly long time. I'd half thought of 
 running down there and lookin' up little Scott he's quite a 
 decent little chap, and he'd know. But I suppose it wouldn't 
 do." 
 
 " I suppose not," agreed Lettice, who was, as has been 
 said, a dandy in affairs of honor. She made her funny 
 little pause to collect words before she got rid of her next 
 speech. " I suppose if it had gone any further we should 
 have heard by now." 
 
 "Heard?" 
 
 " The prison people would have let us know." 
 
 " Let us know what ? " 
 
 " Why, if he'd been ill, or gone off his head, or anything 
 of that sort." 
 
 *' You think there's a danger of his going off his head ? " 
 
 " Well, that's what you're talking about, isn't it ? " 
 
 " No," said Denis, " I'd not got so far as that." He re- 
 garded her thoughtfully. " I wish you'd tell me how it 
 strikes you, Lettice. I can't see my way at all." 
 
 " There's nothing to tell," said Lettice, a trifle restless 
 at being asked to explain the obvious. " He must have
 
 I SENT A LETTER TO MY LOVE 213 
 
 been off his balance to hit a warder, mustn't he? And 
 when that begins, with anybody like him, you never know 
 where it will stop. He isn't any too steady." 
 
 (Certainly there was no one like Lettice for pulling things 
 off pedestals. Hitting a warder it didn't sound nearly 
 so bad as assaulting an officer!) 
 
 " Well, I've known Gardiner five and twenty years, and 
 I'd never have called him unsteady. Hard as nails, more 
 like." 
 
 " So he is that too." 
 
 4< Now what on earth do you mean ? " 
 
 " Well, of course he'd be hard so long as he hadn't any- 
 thing to face he really minded, wouldn't he? And till this 
 he didn't, did he ? It's what you said yourself he's always 
 been lucky. But if you get him off his guard he's rather 
 unusually sensitive. Look at the way he feels pain ! " 
 
 " I never saw him feel pain. In my company he's always 
 been brutally robust." 
 
 " Well, but can't you tell he would, by the set of his 
 lips?" 
 
 " No," said Denis, " I can't. I've not your imagination." 
 
 To this Lettice made no reply, unless one might count 
 the slight derisive lift of her chin. She never would take 
 up the personal question. She would never, if she could 
 help it, say : " I thought." She was sometimes driven to 
 say, " I did," but even then she kept to the bald facts, un- 
 colored by her personality. Denis, shifting in his chair to 
 a more convenient angle, continued to regard her with at- 
 tention, in which now mingled some amusement. 
 
 " Oh ah," he said, " you were there when he damaged 
 his hand, weren't you? I'd forgotten. How long was it 
 you stayed on at Rochehaut after I left ? " 
 
 " About six weeks." 
 
 " And you were actin' as his secretary all that time ? " 
 
 " Part of it." 
 
 " Of course that accounts." 
 
 " Accounts what for? " asked Lettice unwisely, with her 
 little air of distraction.
 
 214 CONVICT B14 
 
 " For the sympathetic insight you display," said Denis, 
 now openly smiling. Lettice had chaffed him all her life ; 
 it was a new thing for him to turn the tables. " He swears 
 it was you sent him back, and I believe him now. You've 
 eased my mind quite a lot. He won't go under. He may 
 knock out a warder or so, but he'll come through all right in 
 the end with such backin' ! " 
 
 " Rubbish," said Lettice with acerb decision. She folded 
 her work, got up, lighted a small paraffin lamp and carried 
 it outside. Denis watched her hang it on the wall above the 
 stairs. 
 
 " Is that a gentle hint to me to be off ? " he asked, still 
 smiling, as she reentered. " Because if so I'm not takin 1 
 any. I'll go when my time comes, but there's ten minutes 
 yet." 
 
 " It's not for you at all, it's for Dot O'Connor." 
 
 " For Dot O'Connor ! " 
 
 " She always tumbles over the brooms worse than you 
 did," Lettice explained, " so I give her a light on the stairs 
 when I'm expecting her to supper. I'd have given you one, 
 too, if I'd known you were coming." 
 
 She had banished Denis's smile. He shifted in his chair 
 once more, but this time away from her. " Dot O'Connor ! " 
 he repeated for the third time, in that altered voice. " Do 
 you mean Mrs. Trent ? " 
 
 " She doesn't like being called that now." 
 
 " Do you see much of her? " 
 
 " So so," said Lettice. She had mentioned Dorothea, not 
 to get away from Denis's chaff that would have been too 
 cruel but of set purpose, because there was something she 
 had to say before he went. " Will you stay and have sup- 
 per with us? I think there'll be enough to go round, if you 
 aren't too hungry." 
 
 " No, Lettice." 
 
 " I don't see why you shouldn't." 
 
 "Don't you?" 
 
 His tone was not encouraging, but it made not a pin's dif- 
 ference to Lettice ; her difficulties came always from within,
 
 I SENT A LETTER TO MY LOVE 215 
 
 not from without, and once she had made up her mind to 
 speak all the king's horses and all the king's men would not 
 have stopped her. She did not imagine that she could move 
 Denis, but there were certain things he ought to know, and 
 which, in justice to Dorothea, she meant to set before him. 
 They would not move him now, but he would not forget 
 them ; and in time to come they might sink in and soften 
 his judgment. 
 
 " I don't see why you shouldn't forgive her," she pro- 
 nounced. 
 
 " I'd rather not discuss it." 
 
 " Very well, don't you say anything, but will you listen ? " 
 Denis moved restlessly in his chair. " You're too hard on 
 her," said Lettice, hitting straight and hard. " You will 
 treat her as a woman, when she's only a child. And you 
 don't realize what marrying a a beast like that does to a 
 girl. It bruises her innocence. It's like tearing open the 
 eyes of a blind kitten. You can't expect her to see right and 
 wrong like other people." So far beyond herself had Let- 
 tice been carried by that potent loosener of tongues, a sense 
 of injustice! She went on with the same resolute candor: 
 " Besides, there's another thing. She loves you. And she 
 can love ; you won't meet what she has to give twice in a life- 
 time. I know " Lettice spoke with an effort ; it was as 
 near to an avowal as she could go, and the fact that she 
 thought her cause worth such a sacrifice added tenfold to 
 the weight of her words "I know she's often made me 
 ashamed of my stockishness. Are you prepared to throw 
 all that away ? " 
 
 She had finished, and she stopped. Denis sat silent, star- 
 ing into the fire and pulling absently at his forelock, a trick 
 he had when deep in thought. The soft sounds of Lattice's 
 business did not break the stillness of the room. The alarm 
 clock which Denis had given her to get up by in the morning 
 (Lettice had long been mortally afraid of the alarm, and she 
 still handled it as gingerly as if she expected it to explode) 
 ticked on through the stillness. It struck seven; Denis 
 glanced at his watch, and got up.
 
 216 CONVICT B14 
 
 " I must go," he said confusedly. "I I'd no idea it was 
 so late." 
 
 He took his hat and stick, and Lettice thought he was 
 really going then and there, without another word; but he 
 thought better of it, and from the landing came back and 
 stood in the doorway, visibly struggling with himself. *' You 
 you mustn't think I mind what you said, Lettice," he got 
 out. " I'd always listen to you. But I can't do this I 
 can't " 
 
 Lettice looked him in the face. " She would have some- 
 thing to forgive you now," she said deliberately. 
 
 " No, she would not," said Denis with equal deliberation ; 
 and he met her eyes, fair and square. " But that's not 
 anything to do with it. It's not a question of forgiveness. 
 It's I oh, I can't do it, Lettice I can't explain " 
 
 " Well " said Lettice, summing up with that sad, vague 
 word which looks back, unsatisfied, over the past, and for- 
 ward, unhopeful, towards the future. And that was all she 
 learned, then or for many months to come, of Denis's feelings 
 for Dorothea, of his wanderings in the wilderness, of the 
 manner of his deliverance. Not till many months later, in 
 alien scenes, in unimaginable circumstances, in a different 
 world, did he reopen that subject. 
 
 He straightened himself, glancing again at his watch. " I 
 really must go. I'm dinin' with the Wandesfordes, to cele- 
 brate, and I'll never hear the last of it if I'm late. Wandes- 
 forde always thinks he can do the funny dog about Irish 
 people silly ass. Wish you were coming too." 
 
 " Me?" asked Lettice, opening her eyes. 
 
 " You. It's not much fun sittin' here alone and thinkin* 
 about things is it ? " said Denis ; and to her wide amaze- 
 ment he put a brotherly arm round her and kissed her cheek. 
 Lettice turned slowly and deeply pink; not on account of 
 the kiss, however. She took her lamp and stood torch- 
 bearer to light him down the stairs. When the quick mili- 
 tary tread had reached the lower landing she was turning 
 back to her room, but a quick scuffle in the cupboard and a 
 breathless voice stopped her.
 
 I SENT A LETTER TO MY LOVE 217 
 
 " Lettice wait ! " 
 
 And Dorothea scrambled out from among the brooms 
 and brushes, bringing a shower of them with her. "Oh, 
 bother ! " said she, turning to stuff them back unceremon- 
 iously, and precipitating a fresh avalanche. Lettice found 
 her voice again. 
 
 " You you've got a black on your nose," she remarked 
 originally. 
 
 " So would any one have, in this horrid little hole ! I'd 
 just reached the landing when your door opened, and I 
 bundled straight in here, and all the things fell every which 
 way, and I had to clutch them up in both hands all the time. 
 I made sure you'd hear." 
 
 " I did," said Lettice, " but I thought it was Black Maria." 
 
 " Well, I'd be Black Maria if I could, I know you'd like 
 me better," retorted Dorothea, expending the last of her 
 temper in a spiteful kick at a pail, and slamming the door 
 before more disasters could happen. " But oh, Lettice, 
 oh, Lettice, isn't it glorious news?" 
 
 " You heard what we were saying? " 
 
 " Well, of course. How could I help it ? You can't put 
 your fingers in your ears when you're holding up six brooms 
 and a mop. I heard every word. And I don't care! I 
 don't care a scrap ! Oh, I am so glad ! " 
 
 "Glad?" Lettice repeated. She had not known quite 
 what to expect; certainly not this. How the child's eyes 
 were sparkling! 
 
 "Well, of course!" she cried. "Didn't you hear? 
 Didn't you see what he was like ? Oh ! now I know that's all 
 right I don't care about anything else I don't care what 
 happens, so long as that doesn't ! " 
 
 She flung herself down on the rug with a tempestuous 
 sigh, and tried to dry her eyes on a wisp of lace. That 
 proving inadequate, she rummaged through half a dozen 
 pockets and dragged out a dingy red square which had evi- 
 dently been used as an oil rag. She held it out by the cor- 
 ners. "Oh dear, I must have stolen Turner's oh dear, 
 I wish I could manage to hit something between a doily
 
 218 CONVICT B14 
 
 and a duster never mind, a hanky's a hanky," said she, 
 and blew her nose and dried her tears forthwith. Then, 
 looking up sharply, " Lettice ! why don't you say something ? 
 Aren't you pleased too ? 
 
 " O-oh, oh yes," said Lettice hastily ; " only you see I'd 
 had time to get over it before you came." 
 
 " I shan't get over it I shan't ever get over it," mur- 
 mured Dorothea, nestling round to gaze into the fire. " You 
 don't know how awful it's been to feel that on me. I'd rather 
 I killed him than see that woman Do you know, Lettice, I 
 do think there must be a God after all. I didn't ever use to, 
 but ever since that Olympia day I've been praying, oh! so 
 hard, that He'd save Denis I didn't see how even God 
 could stop him then, but there wasn't anything else I could 
 do, and I just had to do something. And now you see he 
 has. He didn't tell you anything about how it happened?" 
 Lettice shook her head. " Oh, well, that doesn't really mat- 
 ter, it's his being saved that counts," said Dorothea, relapsing 
 again into one of her boneless attitudes, and smiling rosily 
 over clasped hands into the fire. 
 
 " Did you hear " began Lettice. 
 
 " What he said about me ? Oh yes. Well, of course I'd 
 love to have him forgive me, but I know he couldn't possibly, 
 and anyway I don't matter about," said Dorothea, her voice 
 softened into dreams. " It's him it's him. It does mean 
 such a lot, Lettice! It isn't only that he is what he used 
 to be, what I thought he never could be again ; it's ever so 
 much more than that. Denis wasn't made to think of women 
 as he thought of of me and Mrs. Byrne. He was made 
 to marry, Lettice. Can't you see how perfectly sweet he'd 
 be to his wife ? yes, and to his boys and girls too ; how he'd 
 love them (I expect he'd have a pet little girl, and call her 
 Letty), and how they'd all adore him? He's one of those 
 men who who only truly mellow in their own homes. If 
 he could only find some nice girl who'll love him no, not 
 better than me, nobody ever could do that, but well enough 
 to make up to him for the horrid little wretch I've been
 
 I SENT A LETTER TO MY LOVE 219 
 
 I wish you would, Lattice, but I'm afraid that's past praying 
 for." 
 
 " Me ? " said Lettice. " I don't think that would do." 
 
 " Why not ? " demanded Dorothea. Lettice failing to re- 
 ply at once, she whisked round suddenly, with an eel-like 
 twist. "Why do you say it like that? Why aren't you 
 gladder? Is there anything wrong? There is, there is! 
 Oh, Lettice, what is it ? " 
 
 She was kneeling up now, and had seized Lettice's hands. 
 " You're making me spill the milk, and I can't get any 
 more," Lettice warned her ; but she was not to be diverted. 
 " You've been worried for ages, only I've been such a blind 
 donkey thinking of Denis I haven't noticed," she cried. 
 " Why did he say you oughtn't to be let sit alone and think ? 
 What did he mean? Lettice oh, Lettice! is it about Mr. 
 Gardiner? Have you any bad news? Oh, don't, don't tell 
 me I've done that too! " 
 
 Lettice freed herself summarily. Dorothea had room in 
 her little head for but one idea at a time, and therefore was 
 apt to overlook what lay under her little nose ; but, her at- 
 tention once aroused, she was keen on a scent, and her in- 
 tuition, the prerogative of semi-civilized minds, had a way 
 of landing her dead on the truth. Now there were certain 
 things which Denis might be permitted to see, but which 
 Dorothea might not no ! not on any account. 
 
 " There isn't any news at all, if you want to know," she 
 said. " He hit a warder, so all his letters and things have 
 been stopped off." 
 
 " But isn't Denis going to visit him quite soon? " 
 
 " That's stopped too." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Dorothea blankly, " oh dear ! I see." 
 
 She did see, only too plainly. Oh, what a little donkey she 
 had been ! But who would ever have imagined that Lettice 
 
 and with Mr. Gardiner, of all people! oh, how could she? 
 She did, though, no doubt about that, and with Lettice that 
 would mean a dreadfully big thing, the whole of her life, and 
 
 oh, good gracious ! how she would simply hate to have
 
 220 CONVICT B14. 
 
 any one know ! Oh, she mustn't, she mustn't be allowed to 
 guess ! All this passed through Dorothea's mind in the 
 space of half-a-second, and under the stimulus of that last 
 thought she pulled herself round, with a mighty effort, to 
 ask as innocently as she could : " Did did Denis know 
 about this the day of the show ? " 
 
 " He'd just heard." 
 
 " Oh," said Dorothea, " oh, I wonder he didn't strike me 
 to the ground ! Oh, how wicked, how wicked I've been ! " 
 
 There was nothing visible but the red handkerchief. Let- 
 tice looked at her sharply ; but the pose was so natural, and 
 any pose seemed so foreign to Dorothea, and Lettice so much 
 wanted to be taken in, that she was. Not wholly; but she 
 stuck her head in the sand and refused to see her own doubts. 
 And behind the red handkerchief Dorothea, too much over- 
 whelmed to cry, sat among the ruins which she had pulled 
 down on her own head and wondered helplessly when she 
 would see the end of all the harm she had done. " I was 
 so happy about Denis, and now there's this ! " Her love for 
 Denis had been a sort of sublimated selfishness, but now she 
 was thinking about other people about Lettice, yes, and 
 about Gardiner, though there she was all at sea. " I don't 
 know what I've done to him, but it must be something very 
 bad for Lettice to be like this ! " she reflected. " But, oh 
 dear ! after all, what should I feel like if it were Denis in 
 prison? And what would he feel like himself? And Mr. 
 Gardiner's led such a free sort of out-of-doors life " 
 
 In the depths below a bell rang; Beatrice's feet pounded 
 up from the basement. They came on from flight to flight, 
 up the bare boards to the attics, and ended with a single bang 
 on the door. " Miss Lettus, 's a letter for you ! " Lettice 
 went with her soft, unhurried step to take it in. She car- 
 ried it to the lamp, and stood arrested, staring at the en- 
 velope. 
 
 Dorothea was sitting up, her dark hair tumbling about her 
 eyes. " Oh, Lettice, what is it? " 
 
 " From the prison," said Lettice, opening the envelope and 
 drawing out the enclosure with a steady hand. From across
 
 I SENT A LETTER TO MY LOVE 221 
 
 the room Dorothea could see that it was not in Gardiner's 
 handwriting; and then she saw Lettice's face change, and 
 her heart turned over in her breast. 
 
 " Lettice I" 
 
 "What?" said Lettice, absorbed. " O-oh no, it's all 
 right ; it's only that he he's hurt his hand " 
 
 Dorothea turned her face to the wall and said her prayers. 
 
 This was the letter which Lettice received : 
 
 DEAR Miss SMITH, I have permission to write you a 
 short note on business. 
 
 I am anxious about my hotel. It has been in the hands 
 of a caretaker all winter; but for the summer season I had 
 arranged for my housekeeper to come back, and most of the 
 servants. The housekeeper is a trustworthy person, and 
 quite competent to run the place herself; but I can't very 
 well give her carte blanche with my banking account, and 
 I'm sure she wouldn't accept it if 1 did. What I want is 
 somebody to sign checks, manage the correspondence, and act 
 as figurehead. Practically what you did last year. Will 
 you take it on again ? I should have every confidence in you, 
 and of course it is your proper place. As far as I know at 
 present, I propose, if it suits you, to be married as soon as I 
 leave here in October, and go out to Rochehaut for the win- 
 ter. Please let me know if this fits in with your views. 
 
 I must apologize for my writing, but I have been laid 
 up in hospital with a touch of the old trouble in my hand. 
 When I come out, I believe I am to go on the farm. The 
 governor has most kindly remitted the rest of my punish- 
 ment, and I shall be allowed to see a visitor next month as 
 usual. Will you let Merion-Smith know, if you are writing 
 to him ? Sincerely, 
 
 H. C. GARDINER. 
 
 Dorothea at first had turned her eyes scrupulously away ; 
 but they were back now, and searching Lettice's face for 
 news. That face wore a decidedly queer and pensive look. 
 She refolded the letter with careful exactness.
 
 222 CONVICT B14 
 
 " Well ? What does he say ? " 
 
 " O-oh, he wants me to go out to Rochehaut and look after 
 his old hotel." 
 
 "Then he's all right? He isn't ill or anything? Denis 
 won't have to be anxious any more? " 
 
 " He's in hospital, but it's nothing much." Lettice read 
 out what Gardiner said about his hand, and the description 
 of her duties as well. But she did not read those sentences 
 of barefaced impudence which transformed an apparently 
 decorous business communication into a proposal of mar- 
 riage. Dorothea drew a long breath. 
 
 " And you'll do it, Lettice ? You'll go ? Oh ! may I come 
 too ? I won't be intense, truly I won't, and perhaps I might 
 even help you a little I would love to do something for 
 Mr. Gardiner, to try and make up for all the harm I've done 
 him! You are going yourself, anyhow, aren't you?" 
 
 "Oh, I suppose so/' said Lettice, with a long-suffering 
 air. 
 
 This was in the month of April, 1914.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 E 
 
 Raise a chapel with forms in rows 
 
 Under the competent warders' eyes, 
 
 That day and night search out men's privacies. 
 
 God is too soft, but a warder knows 
 
 How to deal with the prisoners who kneel in rows. 
 
 Here shall you starve and shame and break, 
 Warming the cells and weighing the food, 
 And drawing up rules for the inmates' good; 
 Build in their souls with the rules you make; 
 Heap up the stones on the lives you break. 
 
 The Prison. 
 
 AUGUST, 1914, on the Semois. 
 
 How hot it was ! The white walls of the farm, its squat 
 white tower, its steep roofs of ink-blue slate, all stood out, 
 crude as the painted scenery of a diorama, against the solid 
 azure of the sky. It had been a fort, this farm, in the days 
 when Belgium was the cockpit of Europe ; but now golden 
 straws protruded from the loopholes, and sparrows were fly- 
 ing out and in. The garden had its roses, the lattices their 
 geraniums, and on the sill a sandy cat was curled up in a 
 ball with her head tucked under, exposing a white furry 
 throat to the sun. The tower had its fringe of chicory and 
 trailing pink convolvulus. From it the meadow fell away, 
 spongy and mossy-green, to a brook which tinkled in silver 
 cascades down a crease between the hills. Beyond the 
 stream the ground rose steeply, a stubble field flaxen in the 
 sunshine, with its line of boundary elms and its peaceful 
 scattered sheaves; on the sky-line a ragged little fir wood 
 raised its head, dark spires against the blue. To the right 
 the brook sank away, twisting round a corner out of sight, 
 and the hills closed in, steep and wooded, upon this little nest 
 of peace. 
 
 223
 
 224 CONVICT B14 
 
 And yet was it so peaceful ? Look to the left. As else- 
 where it fell away, so here the harvest field swelled up in a 
 lint-white line, firm and pure, the edge of the visible world. 
 In the pale turquoise above that line hung a cloud, a dis- 
 coloration, spreading like an ink-drop in clear water. Where 
 that cloud now hung, yesterday the village of Rochehaut had 
 stood. Contented, squalid little place with its steaming mid- 
 dens, its perambulating pigs, its church squatting like a little 
 white-and-gray cat beside its miry place! Or look across at 
 the opposite hill. Above the firs another drift of smoke was 
 diffusing in the radiant air. That was the direction of the 
 Bellevue, the big new hotel which Madame Hasquin of the 
 farm supplied with milk and eggs. Or look at the farm it- 
 self. The fowls were clucking and scratching in the yard, 
 the cows were lowing at the gate, but Monsieur Hasquin did 
 not come to drive them in to the milking, nor did little Denise 
 bring her sieve full of golden peas for her pet f antails. The 
 place was still and peaceful ; but it was the stillness and the 
 peace of death. 
 
 There are no daily papers in a prison, and no news from 
 the outside world is supposed to reach the inmates. It fil- 
 ters in, nevertheless. Gardiner first heard of the falling of 
 the great shadow from a laborer who had got six weeks at 
 the Summer Assizes for beating his wife to a jelly. Out of 
 his cups he was an amiable soul, ready to make friends with 
 anybody; and Gardiner, who put on no airs, was ready to 
 respond. 
 
 On leaving hospital, 614 had been put to work in the gar- 
 den. His hand had still to be dressed every day, but by the 
 doctor's orders he was sent into the open air to do such jobs 
 as he could. One summer afternoon he was weeding the 
 paths, and West, the wife-beater, was digging potatoes in 
 the adjoining plot. Gardiner divined by his important looks 
 that he had something to say, and contrived to linger long 
 enough for West to catch him up. 
 
 " I say, matey," the wife-beater began, in that lip-whisper
 
 225 
 
 by which prisoners communicate under the very noses of 
 their guards, " 'ave you heard there's a war on ? " 
 
 " No ! you don't say so ! Who with ? Mrs. Pankhurst ? " 
 " It's Gawd's truth I'm telling " 
 " Gammon ! Somebody's been kiddin' you." 
 " Swelp me, they ain't then. I 'card Old Ikey talkin' about 
 it to Billy Blood." 
 
 Billy Blood was Warder Thomson, so named since Gard- 
 iner had knocked out his teeth ; Old Ikey was Warder Barnes. 
 His name happened to be Ian, but the initial was enough for 
 the wit of the prison. 
 
 " Well, who are we fighting, anyway ? Did you hear 
 that?" 
 
 At this moment West discovered that Warder Thomson's 
 eye was upon him, and he sheered off to the end of his row. 
 It was some time before, cautiously regulating their prog- 
 ress, they managed to come together again. West dis- 
 charged his whisper without preface. 
 " It's Rooshia," he announced. " Rooshia and France." 
 " Not so bad for a beginning. Who else ? " 
 " Well, they did say somethin' about Injer " 
 " Great uprising of the native races. End of the British 
 Raj," said Gardiner with levity. "Let 'em all come! 
 We're in for a giddy time, I don't think. What price the 
 British army now ? " 
 
 " Oh, of course if you ain't goin' to believe me " 
 West had incautiously raised his voice, and authority was 
 down on him in a moment or rather on his companion. 
 "Now then, 614, none o' that! Idlin' and mutterin'! I 
 suppose you think this is a rest cure. You get on with your 
 job, and put some beef into it, or I'll report you." And for 
 the next ten minutes, till the " cease work " bell, while West 
 dug potatoes diligently under the apple-trees, Billy Blood 
 stood over 614 and counted every weed that dropped into 
 his basket. Gardiner could have laughed in his face. For 
 such petty pin-pricks as Warder Thomson's he cared not 
 a pin-prick. As Lettice had said, where he was not ab- 
 normally sensitive he was wholesomely callous.
 
 2S6 CONVICT B14 
 
 He got no further chance of speaking to the amiable wife- 
 beater, but that did not trouble him. Some cock-and-bull 
 story the fellow had got hold of he was crassly ignorant, 
 and stupid as a hog. That evening, however, he had a visit 
 from the chaplain. The elderly gentleman who had fallen 
 a victim to Mr. Gardiner, and whom Mr. Gardiner's son 
 commonly alluded to as " the old foozle," had resigned, and 
 been succeeded by a new man of very different kidney. The 
 Rev. and Hon. Noel Dalrymple-Roche was not more than 
 thirty, very big, very massive, with ashen-fair hair, a regular 
 profile, and a cold blue eye. He had been a Cambridge row- 
 ing Blue and sixth Wrangler ; and to these mixed accomplish- 
 ments he added a third he possessed enough driving force 
 to command an army corps. A misfit in his profession, 
 thought Gardiner, summing him up with an amused eye the 
 first time he read the service;; and a double misfit as prison 
 chaplain. 
 
 It was his first visit to Gardiner. He came in alone 
 the chaplain has that privilege. The prisoner was standing 
 under the window, slanting his book to catch the feeble light. 
 
 " Reading ? " asked Roche, stretching out his hand for the 
 volume. 
 
 " Yes, sir. I'm very fond of a good book." Gardiner, 
 ever imitative, had adapted his language to his surround- 
 ings. He could not, however, thus adapt his book, a small 
 blue volume of the Coleccion Espanola Nelson. Roche 
 raised his eyebrows. 
 
 " Can you read this ? " 
 
 " Pretty well. One gets to pick up something of a good 
 many languages, knocking about the world." 
 
 "You come from Chatham, don't you? A sailor, I 
 suppose ? " 
 
 " Ship's cook." 
 
 " What a pity it is you sailors can't keep off the drink," 
 said the chaplain, closing the book and laying it down. 
 " Why don't you sign the pledge ? An intelligent young 
 fellow like you you ought not to be here." 
 
 Gardiner stared ; then he laughed. " I think you've got
 
 "E" 227 
 
 hold of the wrong pig this time, sir. I'm not a drunk and 
 dis." 
 
 "You're in for beating your wife, aren't you? I hope 
 you're not going to tell me you did that when you were 
 sober." 
 
 '"Have you left off beating your wife?'" murmured 
 Gardiner with irrepressible levity. " Neither drunk nor 
 sober, sir. Couldn't, not possessing one. That's my next- 
 door neighbor West, 615. I'm 614 Gardiner." 
 
 Mr. Roche was not at all disconcerted. " Gardiner? " he 
 repeated, consulting his notebook. " Oh ah ; I must have 
 mistaken the number. Gardiner. Yes, I remember about 
 you." He looked him over with his cool eye. There was 
 a shade of difference in his manner. 614 did not stand on 
 a par with 615. Mr. Roche was very decidedly not a demo- 
 crat. " And how much longer have you to serve ? " 
 
 " Four months." 
 
 Roche's eyes continued to dwell on him with an expres- 
 sion that the prisoner could not read ; it was speculative and 
 appraising, and seemed to refer back to private thoughts 
 which had nothing to do with the present. " You've never 
 been a Territorial ? " he asked unexpectedly. 
 
 " No," said Gardiner, a little surprised. 
 
 " Ah ! Well, I'll see you again some other day, Gardiner. 
 At present I must go and pay my call next door." 
 
 " Thank you, sir," said Gardiner dutifully. He be- 
 thought himself to add, as Roche got up : " It's not true, sir, 
 is it, that there's a war scare on? " 
 
 " Who told you anything about it? " 
 
 " I heard something of course, sir, we do talk among 
 ourselves to a certain extent, can't help it. I know you're 
 not supposed to tell us news, but I thought in a case like 
 this perhaps you might stretch a point. Is there a row in 
 Ireland or what? " 
 
 " There is no scare, and no row in Ireland," said Roche. 
 His manner had often a touch of rhetoric. " There is Ar- 
 mageddon. Germany and Austria are attacking Russia, 
 France, and ourselves."
 
 228 CONVICT B14) 
 
 " My hat ! " said Gardiner. He straightened up ; his face 
 lighted, his eye sparkled. "Oh, my hat! What wouldn't 
 I give to be in the army ! " 
 
 " You won't be the first to say that to-day," said Roche ; 
 " but if you were in the army you might not be alive to 
 congratulate yourself on the fact to-morrow. The Germans 
 have occupied Luxemburg, they are sweeping across Bel- 
 gium ; soon, I expect, they will be in Paris, and then it will 
 be our turn. And God knows Steady, man ! What are 
 you doing ? " 
 
 Gardiner was clutching his arm. " Belgium ? " he gasped. 
 " But they're neutral ! " 
 
 " Germany announces that she is not to be bound by scraps 
 of paper." 
 
 Gardiner sat down on his stool and took his head in his 
 hands. Roche had heard a part of his story; not enough 
 to explain his emotion. He laid his hand on the prisoner's 
 shoulder. " You wish you were free to go and help ? " he 
 said, his deep musical voice vibrating. " Poor fellow, so 
 do I so do I." 
 
 One queer by-product of the war was the general eager- 
 ness to bear one another's burdens, the Christmas Carol 
 atmosphere of good temper and good-will. In prison this 
 feeling worked a miracle ; it drew together prisoners and 
 warders. The day's news was whispered without rebuke 
 under the very noses of the guardians of silence ; some- 
 times they even whispered it themselves. Roche went boldly 
 to the governor (he did not lack courage, that young man; 
 he had already half-a-dozen quarrels on his hands, in- 
 cluding one with Leonard Scott about vestments), and by 
 special permission started his Sunday service each week with 
 a summary of news. There was not much to tell in that 
 first month. On the 6th The Times gravely stated that 
 mobilization could not be completed till the i6th ; on the i8th 
 came the announcement that the whole Expeditionary Force 
 was already across the water. Liege was making its gal-
 
 - 229 
 
 lant defense ; the Russians were pouring into East Prussia ; 
 there was a battle near Dinant in which the French were 
 victorious. Next, the evening papers of the 24th baldly 
 announced the fall of Namur. Heart-shaking news. It 
 shook England ; it was then that the recruits began to pour 
 in, thirty thousand a day, so that the height limit had to be 
 raised to check the flow. All these things Roche reported 
 to a congregation which hung upon his lips. 
 
 He did not at first report, because he did not believe, the 
 rumors of atrocities at Vise and elsewhere which were cur- 
 rent in those early days. Few responsible men did take ac- 
 count of such fantastic nightmares. They were whispered 
 in the prison nevertheless. But there came a Sunday in 
 September when Roche, making a little pause after his sum- 
 mary, began again, gravely : " It is stated, and I believe 
 it to be true, that the German army in Belgium is commit- 
 ting, by order and in cold blood, the foulest abominations. 
 The old university town of Louvain and its splendid library 
 have been burned to the ground and the inhabitants mas- 
 sacred. The same sort of thing is reported from other towns 
 and villages. The men peaceable working men are 
 driven out in batches and shot. The women are given to 
 the soldiery and then bayoneted. Children have been shot, 
 stabbed, mutilated, crucified. In the little town of 
 Dinant " 
 
 There was a slight disturbance. A prisoner in one of 
 the back rows struggled to his feet and called out some- 
 thing; a couple of warders popped instantly out of their 
 sentry-boxes and hustled him away. The chapel door closed 
 upon.them ; Mr. Roche continued his address. The only per- 
 son who recognized the brawler, and saw the significance of 
 the incident, was Dr. Scott ; and even he, though he had heard 
 of the Bellevue, had never heard of Lettice Smith. 
 
 " Is the doctor within, mistress ? " 
 " What d'ye want him for? " 
 " I would like a word with him."
 
 230 CONVICT B14 
 
 "Well, you'll have to go without it, then. Think I'm 
 goin' to rout him out from his breakfast for the likes of 
 you ? No fear ! " 
 
 " I'm thinkin', mistress, he'll maybe no' be pleased if ye 
 refuse. The thing is pressing " 
 
 " And so's his breakfast pressing, ain't it ? I've no pa- 
 tience with the lot of you comin' trapesin' round here at 
 all hours, never letting him get a bite in peace " 
 
 "What's the matter, Katie?" asked Dr. Scott himself, 
 coming out into the passage with his napkin in his hand. 
 "Who wants me? Oh, it's you, Mackenzie, is it? What's 
 brought you round here at this time of day? " 
 
 Chief Warder Mackenzie, a large and fatherly Scot, smiled 
 his acknowledgments; he was one of those who liked the 
 little doctor. " Well, sir, I'd no' have disturrbed ye at yrr 
 breakfast, but I thought ye should know. There is one of 
 the men took sick. Warder Barnes tellt me when I came 
 on duty this mornin', and I'm no' sure what to think o' 
 the matter maself. He'll make no reply to any words o' 
 mine ; I doubt he didna hear what I said. I thought maybe 
 if ye'd take a look at him " 
 
 " Take a look at him ? Of course I'll take a look at him ! 
 Who is it?" 
 
 "Bi4, sir." 
 
 "614!" 
 
 Casting down his napkin on the nearest chair, Scott came 
 as he was, bare-headed, across the prison grounds in the 
 early sunshine. Gardiner was still in the old wing of the 
 prison ; as his visitors came into the gloomy corridor, after 
 the brightness outside, they had to look to their feet to avoid 
 tumbling over the orderly's broom. When the cell was 
 opened, Scott at first could see nothing. He made a step 
 forward at random. " Take care, sir, Barnes tellt me he 
 was violent the morn ! " said Mackenzie, brushing hastily 
 past ; and then, in gruff but not unkindly tones : " Now 
 then, 614, wake up ! Here's the doctor for ye ! " 
 
 There was no answer; but Scott could see now. 614 
 lay on the ground, pressed, flattened, wedged into the angle
 
 E" 231 
 
 between the floor and the wall, his head burrowing blindly 
 into the corner; and there he continued to lie, a mere line 
 against the wall of his cell. He was in shift and breeches, 
 but his bed, which should have been folded up and put away 
 hours ago, was still standing with the blankets tossed about 
 it. Mackenzie stooped to shake him up, but he was put 
 aside. " Leave this to me, officer," said the doctor with 
 authority, and knelt down himself beside the prisoner. 
 
 " Gardiner, my poor fellow ! " he said with exquisite 
 gentleness. "Come, come! What are you doing here on 
 the ground ? " He laid a hand on his shoulder. " Gardiner ! 
 don't you hear me ? " 
 
 With a shudder which seemed literally to tear him away 
 from the wall, Gardiner rolled over and clutched that 
 friendly hand in both his own. 
 
 " Scott, Scott! for God's sake get me out of this I " 
 
 His forehead sank down till it rested, burning, on Scott's 
 wrist. Moved beyond all knowledge of himself, the doctor 
 laid his free hand on the cropped head. It was streaming 
 with sweat ; a continuous tremor shook the whole frame. 
 
 " Gardiner, my poor, poor fellow ! what is it ? what's 
 wrong? " 
 
 " I can't stand it, I can't stand it." The words came in a 
 rushing murmur, barely intelligible in their ebb and flow. 
 " Get me out, Scott ! oh, get me out ! Say it's killing me. 
 Say it's driving me mad it is. Say anything, only get 
 me out. You will, won't you? Oh, God bless you! I 
 knew you would." He raised for a moment his haggard 
 and exhausted face, and crawled a little closer. " Not to 
 be let off altogether. I don't ask that. Just long enough 
 to get across and back again I'd give my parole, and 
 serve double time afterwards, to make up. A month would 
 do it. It's as easy as winking. I pass anywhere as a 
 Spaniard, and with a forged passport Ribeira would lend 
 me his, I know why, I could do it in a fortnight, less! 
 Oh, get me out, Scott; you can't keep me here, you can't, 
 you can't ! For the love of Christ, get me out somehow ! ' 
 
 He lay panting in heavy gasps, like a dying animal.
 
 232 CONVICT B14 
 
 Scott's heart sank down, down; how could he tell this 
 frantic creature that what he asked was impossible? Get 
 him out! he had already strained his influence to the 
 uttermost for Bi4; he could hear Captain Harding's sar- 
 castic little laugh : " Your pet patient again, doctor ? " 
 Laws are not to be bent because prisoners suffer. He 
 could not quite make out what it was all about, or why 
 Gardiner should be so desperately anxious to get over to 
 Belgium ; something to do with his property, he supposed ; 
 yet this did not seem like a question of property. Mean- 
 while the prisoner was off again on a fresh stream of 
 supplications, this time in a murmur so low, so wild and 
 incoherent, that Scott had to bend right down to his lips. 
 What in heaven's name was he raving about now ? 
 
 "If it had been anything but this, anything else on earth 
 but this; you can't keep a man here looking on at this ; eyes 
 weren't given you for this. Because it's not nightmare, you 
 know, it's fact ; they do do it ; there were those stories Denis 
 used to tell of 1870 . . . and you heard Roche yourself . . . 
 all night long, all night long . . . given to the soldiery and 
 bayoneted . . . perhaps its happening now, this instant, and 
 I here, oh, my God, my God, my God, my God! and if 
 you'd only let me free, I know I could have saved her ! " 
 
 He broke down suddenly into the most frightful sobbing. 
 " Gardiner ! Stop it ! " the doctor's voice rang out. The 
 prisoner quivered and cowered under the word of command ; 
 his voice went up in a sort of hysterical crow, and stopped, 
 dead. He lay like a log. Scott tried to speak again, and 
 found his throat dry. So that was it ! There were things 
 in this war which had tried even his faith. Neither wounds, 
 nor death secure of eternity, he could afford to disregard 
 the sufferings of this span-long life but the fate of the 
 women. It did not seem right, he could not reconcile it with 
 his idea of the divine justice, that evil men should be allowed 
 to stain the soul. What was he to say now to Gardiner? 
 Platitudes ? He had nothing else to offer. He was helpless 
 and at that word faith sprang up to claim the aid of om- 
 nipotence. He had known the love of God all those years ;
 
 "E 233 
 
 could he not trust Him to do what He would with His own ? 
 
 He turned to the prisoner. 
 
 " I can't let you out, Gardiner," he said sadly, giving 
 him the truth because he had no choice. " I'll do what I 
 can, but I know it won't be any good. Here you are and 
 here you'll have to stay for the next four months, and if what 
 you are afraid of happens it will have to happen, and you 
 will have to bear it. God is the judge. Only it's up to you 
 to choose how you'll bear it : whether you'll give in, as you're 
 doing now, or whether you'll stand up like a man and fight 
 it out. If you can't save your friends, you may be able to 
 avenge them " 
 
 As he spoke his eye fell on Gardiner's hand, and the words 
 died on his lips. Those contracted fingers would never hold 
 a rifle. Scott felt sick. He got up from his knees. 
 
 " Will I light the gas, sir ? " asked Mackenzie's business- 
 like tones. 
 
 Scott assented mechanically, feeling for his clinical ; but 
 when the light sprang out he had to take himself in hand and 
 fairly force himself to work, against the most intense re- 
 luctance he had ever felt in his life. Gardiner stirred not; 
 he had to prize open his teeth before he could insert the 
 thermometer. A gleam of white showed under the eyelids. 
 When Scott felt his pulse, the hand fell back inert. 
 
 " Puir fellow, he looks bad," said Mackenzie dispassion- 
 ately. 
 
 " Yes, it's a case for the hospital. You did quite right 
 to fetch me, Mackenzie. I'll send a couple of orderlies with 
 a stretcher. When's your best time ? I should like you to 
 be here to superintend." 
 
 " I'll no' be on duty the morn, but I'll be back again after 
 dinner, sir." 
 
 " Very well, I'll have them here at one o'clock. Leave 
 the bed as it is, and tell Barnes to keep an eye on him in 
 the meanwhile." 
 
 " Verra good, sir." 
 
 Scott was going out, without another glance at the 
 prisoner, when Mackenzie touched his arm. " He's lookin'
 
 234 CONVICT B14 
 
 at you, sir," he whispered. Scott turned. The line of white 
 under the eyelids had widened slightly; the gleam of the 
 pupil was visible. While he watched, the lips unclosed, and 
 the dead (indeed it had that effect) spoke: 
 
 "I won't go to hospital." 
 
 "You'll be better off there, Gardiner," said Scott very 
 gently. " I'll give you something to send you to sleep." 
 
 The eyes opened a little further. After a moment the 
 prone figure heaved itself up and struggled into a sitting 
 position against the wall. 
 
 " I won't go to hospital, and I won't take your bloody stuff, 
 
 Impossible to convey the low ferocity, the bestial drawling 
 insolence of voice and manner. Scott flushed like a school- 
 girl and involuntarily recoiled a step. " Hold your mouth, 
 ye foul-tongued, ungratefu' devil ; the doctor's the best friend 
 ye have, and better than ye deserve ! " cried Mackenzie 
 angrily. 
 
 " Hold your own mouth, Sandy Mackenzie, or I'll knock 
 every bloody one of those gold-stopped teeth you're so proud 
 of down your bloody throat by God, I will ! " 
 
 Mackenzie turned purple; but before he could get into 
 action Scott intervened. 
 
 " Let be, officer," he commanded with authority. " This 
 has gone beyond you and me. The man's not responsible ; 
 he doesn't know what he is saying." 
 
 " I won't go to your bloody hospital I won't I won't," 
 cried Gardiner, his voice rising to a shriek. Scott turned 
 in the doorway: Mackenzie, staunch U.P., was less shocked 
 than he would have believed possible to watch him make the 
 sign of the cross and to catch the muttered Latin of his 
 commendation. If ever he had seen a man possessed with a 
 devil and in need of exorcism, he saw him then. 
 
 When they had gone out, Gardiner lay for some moments 
 passive; then with infinite toil, steadying himself with his 
 shaking hand against the wall, he got to his feet. What was 
 he going to do next ? He knew that perfectly. He was not
 
 "E 235 
 
 going to hospital ; not he ! He was going to escape. For in 
 the terminology of the jail suicide is only a form of prison- 
 breaking, and the letter " E " is inscribed impartially over the 
 door of the convict who makes a dash for liberty through the 
 fogs of Dartmoor, and of the wretched youth who tries to 
 hang himself by his neckerchief from the ventilator of his 
 cell. 
 
 Why should he go on living? Lettice was dead, or would 
 be by the time they let him free to save her; and he abso- 
 lutely declined to lie here and watch her die. One night of 
 that was enough. Not that at this moment Gardiner cared a 
 straw for Lettice or any one else; he was lower than the 
 lowest criminal in the jail; he was in the mood to join the 
 Germans in their hellish work. Broken with that night of 
 agony, he had clutched like a drowning man at Scott's hand, 
 he had crawled in abject abasement to his feet, imploring 
 mercy, and had been refused. " Hissing hot with burning 
 tears," he had been plunged into the waters of despair. The 
 shock was too great. A flaw started out, running right 
 across his nature, separating him from his former self. 
 Gardiner had gone over to the devil. 
 
 Well, if he meant to do it he must do it at once, before 
 he was transferred to hospital, where his bed would be one 
 among a dozen in a ward. The best time would be between 
 dinner at twelve and the resumption of work at one, the 
 interval when the warders went off by relays to their own 
 meal. He had heard through his torpor enough to know 
 that he was safe until then. This settled, he lay down on 
 his bed and took up his book, presenting a disarming picture 
 of tranquillity when the orderlies came round with the tins 
 of food. The flap of his spy-hole was raised just as he 
 finished his meal, and he was glad to see it ; now, in all prob- 
 ability, he would have a good twenty minutes to himself be- 
 fore he was disturbed again. . 
 
 Suicide is common in prisons, and prisoners have their 
 own ways of compassing it. You may hang yourself a 
 disagreeably slow death where no drop is available. You 
 may, if you are strong and active, throw yourself over the
 
 236 CONVICT BU 
 
 wire-netting that guards the staircase, and be dashed to 
 pieces on the flags below. You may even, if you are very 
 resolute, hack your throat open with the blunt piece of corru- 
 gated tin which serves as a dinner knife. Gardiner had his 
 own plan. Some time since his gas globe had got broken, 
 and he had managed to secrete a splinter of glass. Difficult 
 to hide it, since every prisoner is searched twice a day ; but, 
 again, they have their own ways of hiding things. It is on 
 record that a sovereign has been found on a man who had 
 been in jail for a year. Gardiner hid his bit of glass under 
 his tongue. It was small enough for that, but it was large 
 enough to sever the artery in his thigh. 
 
 He turned his back to the door and drew the bed-clothes 
 round him to hide the flow of blood. Then he leant out 
 to find the splinter in the crack where it lay hid. At that 
 moment he heard the tread of a warder outside. They 
 wear list slippers, and to a free man would be inaudible ; but 
 prisoners have cat's ears. Gardiner drew in his hand to let 
 the man go by. Lucky he did so. With the usual tre- 
 mendous rattle and crash his door was unlocked and flung 
 wide. 
 
 " Ye're to dress yourseT, 614, and come along with me."
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 SHE BEING DEAD YET SPEAKETH 
 
 The dead abide with us ! Though stark and cold 
 Earth seems to grip them, they are with us still. 
 They have forged our chains of being for good or ill ; 
 
 And their invisible hands these hands yet hold. 
 
 The Dead. 
 
 " YES, Mackenzie ? What now ? " 
 
 " I've brought ye 614, sir." 
 
 "Why don't you show him in, then?" 
 
 " Well, sir, I'm thinking he's no' altogether to be trustit. 
 I thought maybe if ye'd permit me to be in the room " 
 
 "Trusted? Nonsense, man! I'm not made of glass. 
 Bring him in at once." And as Mackenzie turned reluct- 
 antly to obey, the Governor added : " You can stand in a 
 corner and see fair play, if you like. But I don't think a 
 little whippersnapper like our friend would make much of 
 it if he tried to tackle me, eh, Mackenzie ? " 
 
 " Well, sir, maybe no," said Mackenzie, with his slow 
 smile. 
 
 Captain Harding, a lean Anglo-Indian, all bone and sinew, 
 got up and posted himself with his hands under his coat- 
 tails, back to the fire. He felt the cold, and there was a 
 blaze in his grate on many a chilly summer evening. His 
 room was comfortably furnished with a Turkey carpet and 
 deep leathern arm-chairs. To many a prisoner it had seemed 
 a glimpse of paradise. Bi4, however, took no notice; his 
 apathetic face did not change, only he edged surreptitiously 
 towards the hearth. " You can come near the fire if you 
 like," said Harding, eyeing him sharply; and as Gardiner 
 stumbled forward he put a hand on his shoulder. " What's 
 the matter with you ? Are you sick ? " 
 237
 
 238 CONVICT B14 
 
 Gardiner raised his eyes ; in their darkness shone a metallic 
 feral glare. " I'm perfectly well," he said, on the sullen 
 verge of insolence. 
 
 " He's for the hospital, sir," said Mackenzie from the 
 background, with an apologetic cough. 
 
 " Sit down," said the Governor shortly. He sat down 
 himself, at his table, and turned over some papers. " Your 
 name is Henry de la Cruz Gardiner ? " 
 
 " De la Cruz," Gardiner interrupted, correcting him as he 
 had corrected Lettice how long ago ? only in those days 
 he had not spoken in that tone. Again he edged nearer to 
 the fire. He was cold to the marrow of his bones, colder 
 than he had ever been in his life. 
 
 " Ah ! Well, Gardiner, I'm sorry to say I have some bad 
 news for you. I've received a letter from your father. It 
 is against the rules for me to give it to you ; but I can either 
 read it or give you a summary. Shall I read it ? " Gardiner 
 made no sign ; he was staring sullenly into the flames. Cap- 
 tain Harding, after another sharp glance at him over the 
 top of the sheet, cleared his throat and began. 
 
 " ' My own darling boy ' " 
 
 The prisoner stirred; that address touched some chord 
 in his mind. 
 
 " ' My own darling boy, I have two pieces of very bad 
 news for you. I have been making inquiries at Headquarters 
 in Town from all refugees, but for a long time could hear 
 nothing of your part of the country. Last Friday, however, 
 they wrote me that a man had come in from Bouillon. I 
 went up at once, and heard the whole story from his lips. 
 Alas ! my dear boy, I am grieved to tell you that your friends 
 have suffered most cruelly from Those Brutes. The village 
 of Rochehaut was burned on 28th August, and a large num- 
 ber of the men were massacred. Your friend the Cure was 
 cut down with the Sacred Vessels in his hands. I could learn 
 nothing of the fate of the Women of the village, but it seems 
 that in the outlying farms and cottages every kind of abomi- 
 nation was committed by Those Devils. I asked particularly 
 about your hotel, and oh my dear dear boy, he tells me that
 
 SHE BEING DEAD YET SPEAKETH 239 
 
 it has been burned to the ground. Those Devils Incarnate 
 (God punish them) first stole everything they had a mind to, 
 and then set fire to the building. He saw it burning with 
 his own eyes, as he escaped through the woods. He says 
 that all the servants had left on the outbreak of war, and 
 that no one was left in it but a caretaker. I do not know 
 whether this was your little friend Miss Merion-Smith, but 
 I should be afraid so, as she has not returned to England. 
 What makes it particularly sad is that we hear (and this is 
 my second piece of bad news) that poor Denis Merion-Smith 
 is among the missing. He was sent on a bombing raid to 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, and failed to return. One of his com- 
 panions fancies that he was hit by Anti -Aircraft fire ; when 
 last seen he was " flying rather wild," but his machine seemed 
 to be still under control. Oh my dear dear boy, my heart 
 bleeds for you. I wish I could see you. These senseless 
 rules and regulations make my blood boil, in times like these. 
 I have written to the Home Secretary, but he is no good at 
 all; he seems incapable of understanding the simplest thing. 
 I wonder what we pay him for. It is too, too dreadful to 
 think of the fate of that poor girl, and of poor Denis. This 
 awful war is breaking all our hearts. May God never for- 
 give the wicked Author of it. Tom writes that he is " going 
 strong " whatever that may mean ; I wish he would not use 
 this American slang. Of course he does not tell me where 
 he is, but I believe it is somewhere on the River Aisne. God 
 keep and comfort you, my own dear boy. From your lov- 
 ing Father.' 
 
 " That is all," said Captain Harding, folding the sheet. 
 
 Gardiner's lips moved; he muttered something inaudible. 
 " What's that ? " asked the Governor sharply. The murmur 
 was repeated ; it sounded like, " I killed " him or her, un- 
 certain which. Captain Harding could make nothing of it. 
 He looked dubiously at the hunched-up figure, crouching into 
 itself, staring vacantly at the carpet. Scott's pet patient 
 yes ; but it was a hard case, no doubt of it. " You must keep 
 up a good heart," he said kindly. " Many of the missing 
 turn up again safe and sound, you know ; and I've heard that
 
 240 CONVICT B14 
 
 flying officers are particularly well treated by the Germans 
 when they fall into their hands. No use going to meet 
 trouble half-way and believing the worst before you know 
 it's happened." 
 
 " I killed her," muttered the prisoner again. 
 " You what ? " 
 
 " I killed her. I sent her out there to her death. I killed 
 her" 
 
 Harding laid hands on the chair and wheeled it round to 
 
 the light. " What 's that ? What are you talking about ? " 
 
 " Nothing," said Gardiner. His eyes blinked stupidly in 
 
 the sunshine. " May I may I have my letter ? " he asked, 
 
 half stretching out his hand. 
 
 " I'm afraid that's against the rules, but I can read it to 
 you again, if you like." 
 
 The hand dropped. 
 
 " Is there any question you want to ask ? " 
 
 " No," said Gardiner ; adding, as an afterthought : " No, 
 thank you, sir." It was the first time he had used the title 
 of respect. Certainly a hard case, and the Governor was 
 very sorry for him, and not quite satisfied ; but there was 
 nothing to be done. He looked at Mackenzie, and Mackenzie 
 touched Bi4's arm. Stumbling to his feet, he got out of the 
 room and down the passages somehow to his cell, where he 
 dropped face downwards on the bed. 
 
 " I'll be round in twa-three minutes to take you to hos- 
 pital," said Mackenzie, preparing to withdraw. 
 
 " Mackenzie." 
 
 " Well ? What ails ye now ? " 
 
 The prisoner had struggled up on his elbow. " Tell Dr. 
 Scott I want to see him." 
 
 " Ye'll be seein' him in half-an-hour." 
 
 " I want to see him in half-a-minute." 
 
 " He's awa' at his lunch," said the warder. " I've dis- 
 turrbed him at his breakfast for ye already the morn ; can't 
 you let him get a bite in peace? I wouldna be hard on ye, 
 but ye must be reasonable." 
 
 "Mackenzie!"
 
 SHE BEING DEAD YET SPEAKETH 241 
 
 Again the prisoner called him back. He had swung his 
 feet to the ground; he looked wild and dangerous enough 
 for anything. "You bring Scott along. You'll be sorry 
 for it if you don't." 
 " I tell you he's awa at his " 
 
 " Man, man ! What's that to do with it ? You fetch him 
 here double-quick time, or I tell you you'll be sorry for it 
 you'll be sorry all the days of your life! Will you go?" 
 
 Mackenzie caught that green glitter, and he did not like 
 it; he did not like it at all. It sent him off, shaking his 
 head, hotfoot to the doctor's quarters, to face again the re- 
 doubtable Katie. Meanwhile the prisoner sprang up and 
 paced his cell, up and down, with the strength of fever. 
 When the doctor came in, he was standing in the middle of 
 the floor, his stool held by the leg in one hand, in the other 
 a small object which he thrust violently forward. 
 
 " Here, Scott, catch hold of this ! You've been long 
 enough coming you're only just in time ! " 
 
 Scott looked down at the splinter of glass. " So that was 
 "how you meant to do it, hey ? " 
 
 " Yes, that was how I meant to do it. And don't you let 
 me get hold of it again, and don't you send me to that damned 
 hospital of yours, unless you want murder done. I've had 
 about as much as I can stick. I won't be herded with a mob 
 of filthy jail-birds. Keep off if you lay a finger on me 
 I'll bash your brains out against that wall ! " 
 
 Scott with absolute fearlessness stepped forward and 
 caught his wrist. 
 
 " Drop that stool drop it ! That's better. Now, listen 
 to me. I'm not going to leave you here wait ! I've not 
 done and I'm not going to send you to hospital either. 
 You'll go to the padded cell." 
 
 " The padded cell ? " echoed Gardiner, " the padded cell ? 
 I never thought of that. You have some sense in your 
 head, Scott. See here " his face had changed, relaxed into 
 something like humanity; he seized the doctor's hand and 
 spoke rapidly, earnestly " I'm sane for the moment ; for 
 heaven's sake listen to what I say ! Five minutes ago I was
 
 242 CONVICT B14 
 
 crazy to kill myself. Five minutes hence I shall want to 
 again, and, if by any hook or crook I can, I shall. So you 
 put me in that padded cell, and you keep me there ! Don't 
 you let me out don't you let me out on any pretext what- 
 ever! I shall beg and pray you, I shall howl like all the 
 devils in hell, I shall invent excuses I haven't the ingenuity 
 to imagine now, but whatever I say or do, don't you listen ! 
 It's these next twelve hours I'm afraid of. If you'll keep 
 me in there, hermetically sealed, till to-morrow morning, I 
 shall be all right. Will you do it ? " Scott did not answer ; 
 he had drawn him towards the window, and was looking and 
 looking into his eyes as if he would have probed his inmost 
 soul. " It's a risk ? Yes, but it's that either way. Let me 
 go down fighting, Scott ! " Still no reply. " You a Chris- 
 tian and afraid ! " Gardiner scoffed. 
 
 " No, I'm not afraid," said the little man curtly. He re- 
 leased him. " I'll do it." 
 
 " You will ? You swear you won't let me go ? " 
 
 " My word's my bond." 
 
 He went out. The prisoner fell back on his pallet and 
 threw his arm across his eyes. " Now I've done it ! " he 
 murmured with a long breath. " Now I've burned my boats ! 
 Are you satisfied, Lettice? My life for yours: is it a fair 
 exchange ? You always wanted this well, fair or not, it's 
 the best I can do. . . ." 
 
 The padded cell, for weak-minded criminals, resembles on 
 a large scale one of those lined work-boxes which young 
 ladies used in the seventies, except that stout yellow canvas 
 takes the place of quilted satin. Padding a yard thick covers 
 walls and floor. There is a small window under the ceiling ; 
 a squint, as usual, in the door; and another, high up, com- 
 manding every corner of the cell. No furniture, not so 
 much as a bed. 
 
 Prisoners have been known to get their nails under the 
 canvas and rip it from the walls, at a cost to the British tax- 
 payer of some sixty pounds. Bi4 did not do that ; but within 
 half-an-hour he was raving, as he had foretold. Warders 
 passing outside could hear the thump of his body flinging
 
 SHE BEING DEAD YET SPEAKETH 248 
 
 itself against the padded door, and his shrieks filled the ward. 
 There was nothing out of the way: prisoners were often 
 brought in raving in delirium tremens, whose yells were quite 
 as loud, and their language a shade worse. The man on duty 
 contented himself with periodic peeps to make sure that 614 
 was not damaging the canvas. 
 
 Scott was unable to listen with the same equanimity. 
 Yet he could not keep away ; again and again, on one pre- 
 text or another, back he came to Ward B. Once he peeped 
 through the spy-hole, just before he went off for the night. 
 The prisoner was crouching under the door ; his cries had for 
 the moment sunk into whimpers : " Scott, let me out let 
 me out, Scott ! " Scott fled from the place as though the 
 devil were at his heels. 
 
 Returning at daybreak, he entered the prison just as 
 breakfast was going round. Chief Warder Mackenzie 
 greeted him with a cheerful good-day. 
 
 " Ye're early abroad, sir." 
 
 " Yes," said Scott ; " I was restless. What sort of a 
 night have you had with 614, eh? " 
 
 " Well, sir, they do tell me he was terrible noisy at first, 
 but he's quieted down a bittie now. Maybe ye'll like to take 
 a look at him ? " 
 
 " I should," said Scott, falling in beside the big man. 
 Mackenzie walked along, discoursing amiably about the war 
 and his nephew in the Black Watch, without seeming to 
 notice his companion's silence. All was quiet in Ward B ; 
 nobody shrieked or moaned any more. 
 
 " He won't have much appetite for his breakfast, I'm 
 thinkin'," remarked the warder, leisurely unlocking the door. 
 "Ye'll go in, sir?" 
 
 Scott stepped lightly across the spongy canvas. 614 was 
 lying in a heap under the window, his arm across his face ; 
 he did not stir. Scott's heart gave one great throb and 
 seemed to stop ; he drew away the arm. 
 
 Gardiner's dark eyes were looking up at him with a faint 
 gleam ; his voice came, the mere ghost of a whisper. 
 
 " Sucks for Satan this time doctor! "
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 DEUTSCHLAND UBER ALLES 
 
 Oh! la foule joyeuse, 
 
 Le soir, 
 
 Autour des tables, sur les trottoirs, 
 
 Et la biere mousseuse 
 
 Debordant des yerres, 
 
 Et les longues pipes de terre 
 
 Dont on suit des yeux la fumee, 
 
 Le coeur rejoui, Tame apaisee ! 
 
 Combien de temps, combien de temps, 
 
 O ma Patrie, 
 
 Tendras-tu patiemment 
 
 Dans la nuit 
 
 Tes mains meurtries? 
 
 EMILE CAMMAERTS. 
 
 LETTICE and Dorothea arrived at the Bellevue in May. By 
 the end of July their guests were scattering like autumn 
 leaves, and on the day of the ultimatum Lettice took matters 
 into her own hands, sent off the servants and shut the hotel. 
 She did not in the least want to follow them Lettice was 
 not fond of running away ; but for Dorothea's sake she was 
 making up her mind to that sacrifice, when she discovered 
 that Dorothea herself had other views. She go and hide? 
 Rather not! She was going to stay and see the fun. (At 
 that time it was still possible for the Dorotheas of this world 
 to talk of seeing the fun.) 
 
 " I can nurse, you know," she said, sitting on the dresser 
 in the big deserted kitchen, her hands in her tweed pockets, 
 her brown legs swinging, her eyes sparkling with agreeable 
 excitement. " I've got every old certificate and medal the 
 Red Cross people give. It was the one thing I was let do as 
 a kid go to nursing lectures; uncle was always fancying 
 himself ill, you see, and I had to look after him. Oh yes, I 
 244
 
 DEUTSCHLAND UBER ALLES 245 
 
 can nurse like billy-o ! Go back to England and knit socks ? 
 Not for this child ! " 
 
 But, but but it's not safe," objected Lettice, pensively 
 rubbing her nose. 
 
 "Safe? Nonsense! What do you suppose is going to 
 happen to us? The Germans will never get within miles of 
 this, and even suppose they did we're non-combatants we 
 should be all right. This isn't the Dark Ages. Besides, if 
 we run away, who's to look after the hotel ? " 
 
 Lettice said nothing. 
 
 " Suppose they quartered soldiers here ? It's just the 
 place they might. The poilu's a darling, and I love him 
 madly, but what do you think Mr. Gardiner's furniture would 
 be like after a week of him? There simply must be some- 
 body to clear the rooms and see to things. You sent over 
 specially to be in charge, and then want to go and run away ! 
 I'm surprised at you, Lettice. But whoever else shows pu- 
 pusilianinimity " (there were some words Dorothea really 
 could not get!), "/ shall always be found ready to die at 
 my post." 
 
 " But " said Lettice. Dorothea jumped down in a whirl- 
 wind and shook her by the shoulders. 
 
 " Oh, pooh ! I won't go home I won't I won't so 
 now ! Do you understand that ? And you know perfectly 
 well you don't want to either. As if I couldn't see ! You're 
 saying this simply for my sake; and now you know I'm 
 not going in any case you may as well give in without any 
 more fuss. I'm tired of arguing with four buts and a 
 grunt ! " 
 
 "Well" said Lettice, varying her formula with an 
 eighth of an inch of smile, and allowing herself to pretend 
 to be over-persuaded. 
 
 So they stayed. 
 
 In common with many other people, Dorothea was not 
 happy in her predictions. On Friday, 2ist August, a French 
 army passed through Bouillon. On Saturday a battle was 
 fought near Maissin, in which twelve thousand Germans 
 were put out of action. On Sunday began the retreat of the
 
 846 CONVICT B14 
 
 French towards Sedan. And on Monday, 24th August, the 
 French commander warned M. Hunin, burgomaster and pro- 
 prietor of the Hotel de la Poste, that it would be prudent to 
 evacuate the town. All the bells in Bouillon rang the tocsin, 
 and many people fled, abandoning their houses as they stood. 
 A few hours later the Germans entered the city. 
 
 The abandoned houses were at once broken open and 
 systematically plundered. Wine, beer, bedding were com- 
 mandeered ; pictures and valuables of all sorts were packed 
 up and sent to Germany. More careful than their comrades 
 at Louvain, the victors here secured and stole the famous 
 library of the Trappist monks of Cordemois. Next morn- 
 ing a notice defining the duties of the inhabitants was posted 
 up in the market-place, on the walls of the hotel where the 
 last French Emperor had slept on the night before Sedan. 
 
 PROCLAMATION ! 
 
 1. The town of Bouillon will pay a WAR LEVY of 500,000 
 francs. 
 
 2. Belgian or French soldiers must be handed over as 
 PRISONERS OF WAR before 4 P.M. Citizens failing to obey 
 this order will be sentenced to PENAL SERVITUDE FOR LIFE 
 in Germany. Every soldier found after that hour will be 
 SHOT. 
 
 3. Arms, powder, dynamite must be handed over before 
 4 P.M. Penalty, to be SHOT. 
 
 4. INTERDICTION to be out in the streets DURING THE 
 HOURS OF DARKNESS. All houses must be completely OPEN 
 and LIGHTED. Groups of more than FIVE persons are 
 STRICTLY FORBIDDEN. 
 
 5. Citizens must salute every German officer with respect. 
 Failing this, the officer is entitled to extort it BY ANY MEANS 
 IN HIS POWER. 
 
 6. If any HOSTILE ACTION is attempted the town will be 
 BURNT DOWN and a THIRD OF THE MALE POPULATION WILL 
 BE SHOT; without distinction of persons, the innocent will 
 suffer with the guilty. The people of Bouillon must under-
 
 DEUTSCHLAND UBER ALLES <M7 
 
 stand that there is no crime greater or more terrible than to 
 endanger the existence of the town and its inhabitants by 
 hostile action against the German army. 
 
 The under-mentioned have been taken as HOSTAGES for 
 the good behavior of the town. 
 
 THE COMMANDER OF DIVISION. 
 
 Followed a list of forty names, including both the priests. 
 Fined, pillaged, terrorized, Bouillon yet thought itself lucky 
 when the news came in from the country. 
 
 From Rochehaut no one had escaped ; the warning did not 
 come in time. Uhlans rode into the village on Monday aft- 
 ernoon and calmly took possession. Rochehaut was cring- 
 ingly terrified, slavishly obedient. Not a dog could lift his 
 tongue against the invaders without being zealously throttled ; 
 and when Madame Mercier's fat sow got in the way of the 
 colonel, madame bundled out after her right under the horse's 
 hoofs, to save, not her pig, but the dignity of a German offi- 
 cer. Alas ! in spite of all, the colonel took a billet de parterre 
 on the nearest dung-hill. He got up swearing, and for one 
 awful moment Rochehaut trembled ; but he went into the 
 Petit Caporal to change, and Rochehaut breathed again, and 
 went to pick up madame. That peril was averted. 
 
 For two days nothing happened, and the villagers crept 
 out of their shuttered houses, and began timidly to go about 
 their work of getting in the harvest. On the third morning, 
 Thursday, 28th August, a poacher in the woods near the 
 river let off his gun at a rabbit. He did not hit, and he was 
 a Botassart man ; but Rochehaut was the nearest village, and 
 Rochehaut was held responsible. Moreover, that morning a 
 patrol of Uhlans had gone out, to come back with ten empty 
 saddles. French cavalry had laid an ambush for them in the 
 woods near Vresse. Somebody must have given informa- 
 tion to those French cavalry. It was necessary to make an 
 example. 
 
 As a preliminary, a cordon was drawn round the village, 
 and the people were collected in the square. Of the men, 
 some thirty of the youngest were marked off for deportation
 
 248 CONVICT B14 
 
 to Germany, where they might be made use of for gathering 
 in the harvest of the Fatherland ; the remaining twenty found 
 an end to their troubles in a trench under the churchyard 
 wall. The women and children, who had been confined in 
 the church during the fusillade, were let out to dig the gen- 
 eral grave, and then suffered to go not to their homes, 
 however, for these were condemned. " They wandered in 
 deserts and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the rocks, 
 being destitute, afflicted, tormented." Poor old Madame 
 Mercier, whose leg had got broken in her struggles with 
 the colonel's horse, had been overlooked in the general con- 
 fusion and left behind in her cottage. She could not get 
 downstairs, but she dragged herself to the window and 
 shrieked for help to the soldiers who were setting fire to 
 her kitchen. The colonel, riding down the street, was an- 
 noyed by her cries ; he looked up, and recognized the fright- 
 ened old face. " One of you stop that old woman's noise ! " 
 he shouted. After all, why not? It was her own fault; 
 why had she not obeyed orders, and gone to the church with 
 the rest ? " Es ist unsere Pflicht," said the Uhlans. 
 
 It was Lettice's turn that afternoon to fetch the daily loaf 
 from the Boulangerie Lapouse, opposite the church. Her 
 path led over the hill past the crucifix, across the fields and 
 through a corner of Gardiner's enchanted wood, which here 
 ran down quite close to the village. She toiled along, as 
 usual with her head in the clouds, but her dreams were 
 broken and her steps stayed by a sudden burst of firing. She 
 paused in the fringes of the wood. 
 
 All down the street men in gray were systematically spray- 
 ing the houses with petrol ; others were taking their choice 
 of the furniture. The shops and cafes of the square were 
 already in flames. The colonel sat his horse looking on. 
 Suddenly a boy of fifteen bolted like a rabbit out of one of 
 the blazing doorways and down the blazing street. He too 
 had disobeyed orders. A laugh, a leveled rifle, and the poor 
 little rabbit bounced into the air with a squeak like a me- 
 chanical doll, legs and arms jerking, and then went flat on 
 the ground, its defeatured face in the midden. The flaxen
 
 DEUTSCHLAND UBER ALLES 249 
 
 poll became a crimson blob. Lettice saw that. Her first 
 impulse was to rush forward and attack the murderers with 
 her bare hands; the next sent her running blindly back 
 through the woods by the way she had come. She was not 
 frightened it was far too vast a thing for personal fear ; 
 but she was sick with loathing, as at the sight of some mon- 
 strosity which ought never to have been allowed to see the 
 sun. 
 
 The world never looked quite the same to Lettice after 
 that day. Blind and deaf, her mind blasted bare of thought, 
 she crossed the fields and scrambled down the orchard, and 
 came round the corner of the house into the courtyard. 
 There she was brought up with a cold hand at her heart. 
 Several wagons were drawn up at the door; men in gray, 
 that accursed field-gray which has been hated as no uniform 
 before, were loading them under the direction of an officer. 
 And Dorothea? Faint with foreboding, seeing crimson 
 blobs in patches on the flags, Lettice groped towards the side 
 door and was met by Dorothea herself coming out, her 
 face all pink and white with tears. 
 
 " Oh, Lettice, Lettice ! " she said, " they're going to burn 
 the house they give us a quarter of an hour to turn 
 out!" 
 
 Lettice put a hand on her arm, partly for support, partly 
 to make sure of her reality ; and by common consent they 
 turned, as they stood in the doorway, to watch the lading of 
 the carts. All went by clockwork. To one, the soldiers 
 were bringing out the contents of Lettice's linen chest, her 
 blankets, sheets, etc.; to another the furniture and plate. 
 They packed like professional movers. There were tarpau- 
 lins ready to cover the carts when full. 
 
 " There's my chest of drawers," said Dorothea under her 
 breath. " Oh, Lettice, oh, Lettice ! what is that man doing 
 with my best crepe de Chine nighties? Oh, look, he's pack- 
 ing them all up he can't be going to wear them himself, he 
 must be taking them for his best girl in Germany, and 
 they're every single one embroidered with my name in full 
 oh, good gracious, how can he ? " She broke into a hysterical
 
 250 CONVICT B14 
 
 giggle. " Oh, really, I do think Germans have funny sort 
 of minds! Oh, look, look, there's your bureau out of the 
 den " 
 
 Lettice's bureau it was Gardiner's bureau, the one he 
 always used, the very one he had bought from Madame 
 Hasquin in Lettice's presence; he loved it too much to 
 let it out of his own room. The officer, staying his men with 
 a word, began to look through the drawers, presumably for 
 valuables. The file of Lettice's household bills he tossed 
 aside; letters and other papers he skimmed, before rejecting 
 them. 
 
 Lettice's hand fell from Dorothea's arm. She walked 
 straight across the courtyard to his side. " What are you 
 doing with that bureau ? " she asked. 
 
 " Requisitioned for the army," was the curt reply. 
 
 " You mean, you want it yourself," said Lettice. " It's 
 stealing; and you and your men are just thieves and mur- 
 derers." 
 
 He turned, then, and looked at her, while Dorothea plucked 
 at her sleeve, whispering frantic entreaties. But only a firing 
 party could have silenced Lettice at that moment. 
 
 " No, madam, it is not stealing, it is war," said the German 
 in an altered voice. " You are conquered ; you have no 
 longer any property or any rights but what we choose to 
 allow you. You would do well to remember that. And let 
 me advise you in future to be more careful of what you say. 
 Not all my compatriots have an English education to look 
 back upon." 
 
 Then Dorothea pulled her away, still reluctant ; and it 
 was Dorothea, in the nightmare minutes that followed, who 
 sorted and packed in wild haste all she thought they could 
 carry. There was not much left to take. She stuffed some 
 clothes into a couple of pillow-cases, and dragged the silent 
 Lettice out at the back, past some soldiers who with the same 
 deadly method were smashing the windows in turn and spray- 
 ing the interior. These men wore broad belts to which were 
 attached a hatchet, a syringe, a small shovel, and a revolver. 
 On the belts were the words, " Company of Incendiaries,"
 
 DEUTSCHLAND USER ALLES 251 
 
 also, " God with us." As Dorothea had said, Germans have 
 funny sort of minds. 
 
 Crouching at the top of the orchard behind the house, 
 the two girls watched the last of the Bellevue. First the 
 petrol caught, an amethystine aura flickering insubstantial. 
 Then the woodwork kindled, and yellow flames began to 
 twine among that ghostly harebell blue. Orange pennons 
 slid softly through the empty window frames ; tiny golden 
 curls started out along the eaves, small and even as a row 
 of gas jets. The flames lengthened, they united, they rippled 
 and flapped up the sky like a banner. They grew many- 
 tinted, according to their fuel gold, silver, ruby, emerald, 
 amethyst, topaz, metallic blue. Lastly the roof fell in, and 
 a great foursquare of fire puffed up to heaven, with streams 
 of starry sparks, and clouds of glare, and floating flakes of 
 gold. Dorothea was crying ; but Lettice, her lips set grimly, 
 watched to the end the destruction of Gardiner's hotel, the 
 home he loved, which he had confided to her care. 
 
 Night came, but not darkness. Rochehaut was burning, 
 Poupehan in the valley flared with half-a-dozen haystacks 
 and a house or two, Corbion church was a beacon of tall 
 flames on the hill, Alle's martyrdom showed as a pulsing glow 
 of dusky rose in the overhanging cloud. On the far side of 
 the valley, marching home with their booty down the road 
 from Corbion to Bouillon, the soldiers of the Fatherland 
 were singing, Deutschland iiber Alles.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 THE GOOD HOURS 
 
 ". . . All villages, chateaux, and houses are burnt down during 
 this night. It was a beautiful sight to see the fires all round us in 
 the distance. In every village one finds only heaps of ruins and 
 many dead. Now come the good hours. . . ." Diary of German 
 private, 4th Comp. Jager Btln., No. n. f Aug. 23-27, 1914. 
 What's death ? You'll love me yet ! 
 
 Pippa Passes. 
 
 WHEN the dawn came, crystal-bright and pure, the two girls 
 left the ruins of the Bellevue and wandered off among the 
 hills. They had no food. They did not know where they 
 were going. They did not know where they wanted to go. 
 Soon rain came on, and fell in floods all day. They lost 
 themselves in dim green valleys ; they pushed through drip- 
 ping copses of hazel ; they sank ankle-deep in spongy mosses, 
 and waded through unnamed torrents. Once they crouched 
 among the bracken while a gray patrol rode by, shouting 
 and singing, uproariously drunk. A little later they came 
 on a lonely cottage with a dead girl lying across the thresh- 
 old. She had been bayoneted, and worse. A baby of two 
 years was strung up by the neck to the door handle ; an- 
 other, of only a few weeks, wailed feebly in a pool of blood 
 and water beside the mother. Dorothea darted upon it with 
 a cry; cradling it in her soft arms, against her breast, she 
 stepped over the girl's body into the hut, forgetful of the 
 horror of death in the claims of this minute piece of life. 
 The man of the house was inside. He had been surprised 
 at his dinner, and had defended himself with the carving- 
 knife. He had taken a good deal of killing, as the floor 
 and walls bore witness ; nevertheless, the murderers had 
 kicked his body into a corner, sat down at his table, and 
 finished his meal. 
 
 Dorothea was searching the shelves for milk or any other 
 
 252
 
 THE GOOD HOURS 253 
 
 food, when she heard a shout outside, followed by a cry 
 the oddest little cry she had ever heard. She caught up the 
 knife with which the man had defended himself, and ran 
 out. It was Lettice who had made that odd little sound; 
 she was struggling with an Uhlan, very drunk in the legs 
 but very strong in the arms, who was trying to force her 
 down. Dorothea stuck the knife into his neck from behind, 
 dragged it out and stuck it in again. The man dropped 
 Lettice and wheeled round, firing his revolver ; but his hand 
 wavered away, and the shot went into the ground. He sank 
 down with a grunt and lay there between them, the bright 
 blood pumping out scarlet. Dorothea looked at Lettice ; her 
 eyes flamed ; she held the baby still clasped to her breast. 
 
 " I've killed him," she said. " I'm glad." 
 
 Lettice did not speak; her hands were at her throat, me- 
 chanically settling her tie; she turned and reentered the 
 forest without a word. " Wait half-a-minute ! " Dorothea 
 called after her ; and Lettice waited, in the brake, back turned 
 to the house. She had to wait a good many minutes; 
 whether one or sixty, it was all the same to her. Then 
 Dorothea came running up, breathless. " I've found just 
 a drop of milk, and this, see," she said, displaying one of the 
 long Belgian loaves. Lettice was to suppose she had spent 
 her time in ransacking the larder. In point of fact, she had 
 been rolling, hauling, pushing the dead German into the well ; 
 she did not wish his body to be the excuse and the signal for a 
 fresh campaign of vengeance. 
 
 They spent that night in one of the limestone caves of 
 the Semois. In spite of the milk, in spite of Dorothea's 
 sheltering arms, the baby died of exhaustion in the cold hour 
 before the dawn. Dorothea wept bitter tears, and left it 
 lying covered with ferns, on a bed of moss ; she could not 
 bear to pile stones on the tender little limbs and ivory face. 
 A turnip-field gave them a breakfast more sustaining than 
 hazel nuts and blackberries, but for the most part they kept 
 to the woods; they were afraid of the open country. By 
 this time they had lost all sense of direction. The rain still 
 fell hopelessly. There was no sun to guide them ; the hills
 
 254 CONVICT BU 
 
 were all hidden in mist ; and the Semois, when they came on 
 it in its wild and twisting valley, seemed never to flow twice 
 in the same direction. Yet they wandered on, because they 
 had begun wandering and had not spirit to stop. 
 
 Towards sunset they came suddenly to the edge of a hill, 
 and saw below them, deep buried in a cup-like hollow, a farm. 
 From where they stood an orchard sloped steeply to the 
 group of white buildings, beyond them the green meadow fell 
 away to a brook; the opposite slope was a stubble field, 
 crowned with a line of firs. 
 
 "Why," said Dorothea, "why" 
 
 They had wandered in a circle and come back to their 
 starting-point. It was the Ferme de la Croix. 
 
 Lettice, who had not spoken for hours, found her tongue. 
 " Don't go down," she said, " we shall only find somebody 
 else dead." 
 
 " We might find something to eat," said Dorothea, more 
 hopeful. " The house does look all right, and I'm sure 
 Madame Hasquin would give us the supper off her own plate, 
 if she hadn't anything else. But oh, my good gracious! 
 how we must have wandered ! I'd hoped we were half-way 
 to Mezieres by now. And yet, you know, I did think the 
 country seemed to be looking familiar somehow this last half- 
 hour. Don't you come down, Lettice; you stay here with 
 the things while I go and explore." 
 
 Lettice, who was possessed of a dumb devil that day, 
 shifted her bundle from her left hand to her right and said 
 nothing. Slipping from tree to tree down the orchard, 
 Dorothea peeped at the house from under cover. All was 
 still, except the joy-song of a hen which had just laid an egg. 
 Live fowls and live Germans being incompatible, Dorothea 
 came out of hiding and walked boldly up the pebbled path 
 to the door. On either side bloomed roses, dahlias, lavender 
 where the bees were humming. The evening sun came out, 
 and shone peacefully on the white walls. Dorothea rapped. 
 No answer; only a sandy cat ran out of the bushes and 
 twined round her skirts. She knocked again, then pushed 
 open the door and entered.
 
 THE GOOD HOURS 255 
 
 A spotless white passage with a dark, uneven, shiny floor 
 and doors on either side, old and irregular. Dorothea 
 opened the first. She saw a pleasant parlor, low-pitched, 
 with lattices facing the sunset ; a carved oak press ; an eight- 
 day clock, still ticking; a table laid for dinner with beef- 
 steak, gray in its gray greasy gravy, stewed pears, pommes 
 sautees, salad in a china bowl, golden country beer in a large 
 decanter. Glasses stood half empty, knives and forks were 
 crossed on half-eaten plates of meat, chairs had been pushed 
 back anyhow. There was no living creature but the cat, who 
 sprang up on the window ledge, with a low crooning purr, 
 among the red geraniums in the sun. 
 
 A hand fell softly on Dorothea's shoulder, and she turned 
 with a great start ; but it was only Lettice, who had toiled 
 after her with both bundles, and had come up noiseless be- 
 hind, as her custom was. 
 
 "That's panic," she said, nodding towards the deserted 
 table. 
 
 Room by room they explored the house ; the kitchen with 
 its vast open fireplace, the queer uneven stairs, the tiny bed- 
 rooms, so tempting with their carved bedsteads and spotless 
 linen and scarlet wadded quilts (" je tiens a mes lits " poor 
 Madame!), their white-washed walls and deep-set lattices 
 framed in jasmine; the round tower, dark save for the 
 swords of sunshine that pierced its western loopholes, and 
 rustling with fowls ; the well-filled storeroom. Everything 
 was there but the owners. They had heard a bruit and a 
 rumor, and they had fled ; had stampeded in abject terror be- 
 fore the advance of Germany. And so lonely was the farm, 
 hidden in woods and served only by a cart track, that neither 
 ravager nor refugee had found it. The wanderers sank into 
 its deep peace and slept. 
 
 It could not hope to escape permanently, however, foi 
 Germans work by the map; so on Dorothea's advice the first 
 thing they did next morning was to make a cache of pro- 
 visions in the orchard. Well for them they thought of it, for 
 that every afternoon they were visited by a wandering party 
 of Uhlans. Dorothea, washing her skirt in the yard, heard
 
 256 CONVICT BU 
 
 them coming, and had just time to escape with Lettice to the 
 woods. There being nobody to kill, the visitors had to con- 
 tent themselves with sacking the house, which they did with 
 zest. It was odd to see chairs and mirrors come hurtling out 
 of the bedroom windows, odder still to see a drunken Uhlan 
 parading about in Madame's voluminous best chemise. 
 They wrung the necks of the fowls ; they drove off the two 
 mild cows ; they set fire to the ricks, and tried to burn the 
 house as well, but luckily they had no petrol, this being a 
 private venture not a military operation, and its massy walls 
 defied them. It was not the first time they had stood fire. 
 Finally, they killed the sandy cat, who was misguided enough 
 to greet them as she greeted Dorothea. She had been a lean, 
 hard-flanked, and indiscriminatingly amiable creature, with 
 a vulgar loud purr ; still, it was distressing to see her tied to 
 a tree and shot to death with table-knives. 
 
 After this they rode off, singing the inevitable Deutschland 
 uber Alles with more noise than melody, and the girls came 
 out of hiding to take stock of the damage. It was extensive. 
 The German soldier had by that time learned to loot effectu- 
 ally, and what they had not stolen they had smashed. The 
 poor pretty garden was trampled into mire. The kitchen was 
 ankle-deep in broken crockery. A half -killed pig was squeal- 
 ing its life out in the passage. The mattresses had been slit 
 open and spread with filth from the stable. They had wiped 
 their boots on the tablecloth; they had used the coffee-pot 
 as a spittoon ; they had covered the white-washed walls with 
 what the expressive French idiom calls des saletes; they had 
 done other things which need not be described. In fine, they 
 had contrived, within the space of a summer afternoon, to be 
 so ingeniously filthy and destructive that not a corner of 
 the house was habitable. 
 
 Lettice and Dorothea camped that night in the barn. 
 Next day, while trying to cleanse their pigsty, they were 
 surprised by a fresh party of visitors ; but these were sober, 
 and the officer in command was the same comparatively 
 humane person who had burned the Bellevue. His mission 
 now was not to strike terror, but to make an inventory of
 
 THE GOOD HOURS 257 
 
 all domestic animals ; and he did not look pleased when he 
 fell over the dead porker in the passage. Hastily suppress- 
 ing Lettice, who remained impracticably hostile, Dorothea 
 made her appeal to the honor of the German army. She used 
 her tongue and her beautiful eyes so well that, after listening 
 to her tale, the officer gave her what she wanted a sort of 
 permis de sejour, exempting the farm from further requi- 
 sitions. Indeed there was little left to take. 
 
 After this they had peace, and settled down to a strange, 
 precarious, isolated life. For some weeks they hardly set 
 foot outside the farm. This extreme seclusion was not really 
 necessary ; for times had changed and the policy of the con- 
 querors now was not to scare the country folk away, but to 
 coax them back to their homes and their ordinary work. 
 The German reign of terror in Belgium seems to have been 
 based on the theory that one German soldier is worth x 
 Belgian civilians. Therefore when sniping took place (or 
 when they fancied it had taken place, or feared it might take 
 place, or thought a locality needed a lesson to teach them 
 what to expect if it did take place) the order went out to kill. 
 " Without distinction of persons, the innocent will suffer with 
 the guilty." Much of the ravaging was done deliberately, 
 by order: as at the sack of Rochehaut. Much was done by 
 an equally deliberate relaxation of orders : as at the cottage 
 in the woods. In part the German plan succeeded, for it 
 certainly stamped out sniping. In part it recoiled upon itself. 
 To strike terror is a very fine thing, but the results may be 
 embarrassing to an army of occupation. Besides, it really 
 looked so very bad to neutrals! 
 
 Lettice and Dorothea, however, did not concern them- 
 selves with this change of policy. The cottage in the woods 
 had cured them of any wish to wander. Even Dorothea 
 had had her fill of adventures. It was long before she ven- 
 tured as far as Poupehan, to ask for news ; and when she 
 did, she wished she had stayed at home. The fall of Namur, 
 the fall of Brussels, the coming fall of Paris how long 
 before they heard of the capitulation of London?
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 CONFESSIO AMANTIS 
 
 Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow . . . 
 Cleanse the stuffed bosom of the perilous stuff 
 That weighs upon the heart. 
 
 Macbeth. 
 
 NOT so very many miles from Rochehaut, in an empty loft, 
 Denis was studying a map spread out on a packing-case. 
 On the other side of their table Wandesforde sat writing a 
 letter on his knee. Partly by good luck, and partly because 
 Wandesforde was an expert in the art later known as wan- 
 gling things, they had contrived to keep together almost from 
 the first; at present they were in the same squadron, and 
 sharing the same billet, much to Denis's advantage. For 
 Wandesforde, wherever he was, on the principle of the con- 
 servation of energy, drove at making himself comfortable. 
 He used to say that Denis would have put up in a pigsty with- 
 out troubling to turn out the pig. Two months of war had 
 made them more intimate than five years at Bredon. 
 
 " And that's that," said Wandesforde, licking the flap of 
 his envelope. He got up and stretched himself. " Ho ! 
 I'm tired. I think I shall turn in. Four-thirty to-morrow, 
 isn't it? Ungodly hour to rout you out on a chilly morn- 
 ing!" 
 
 " Been writin' home ? " asked Denis without looking up. 
 
 " Yes. Haven't you ? " 
 
 " Haven't any one to write to." 
 
 " Well, I rather wish I hadn't either," said Wandesforde. 
 He looked over Denis's shoulder. " What are you studying 
 that for?" 
 
 " Reasons." 
 
 " Want to make sure whereabouts Aix is ? " 
 258
 
 CONFESSIO AMANTIS 259 
 
 " No," said Denis. " Ever flown over this bit of coun- 
 try?" 
 
 Wandesforde bent lower to follow his finger on the map. 
 "What's the name of this bloomin' corkscrew? The 
 Semois ? No, I can't say I have. Not much doing that way 
 is there?" 
 
 "Not as a rule. But we shall be pretty near it to- 
 morrow." 
 
 Wandesforde, in the act of lighting one of his big cigars, 
 looked inquiringly at his partner. He knew next to noth- 
 ing of Denis's private affairs, and on principle he never asked, 
 but he was always open to hear. Denis lay back with his 
 long legs outstretched. 
 
 " I may as well tell you," he said with deliberation, " if my 
 bus comes to grief to-morrow, as I rather expect it may, 
 that's the place I'm goin' to make for." 
 
 " You expect your bus to come to grief ? Been drilling 
 holes in the tank, what?" Denis made no reply. "Oh, 
 Lord! is it one of your rotten presentiments? " 
 
 " I was dreamin' of muddy water last night," said Denis 
 with a slightly defiant air. 
 
 " Well, turn that stinking lamp down, then. Lord only 
 knows when I shall get the bath fixed, and I've worn these 
 pyjamas a fortnight already, I can't afford to get 'em any 
 blacker," said Wandesforde irrelevantly. " Have some cake. 
 Home-made, best dripping and a bit sad in the middle. Spe- 
 cially recommended against presentiments. You won't? 
 You don't know what's good. So you think you're going 
 to glory to-morrow, do you ? Bet you a fiver you don't." 
 
 " Done with that. If I lose, I'll not be called on to pay," 
 said Denis, with a wintry smile. Wandesforde lay back in 
 his comfortable bunk he had swung himself a hammock 
 made of curtains, and stuffed it with straw and folded his 
 arms under his head. 
 
 " Well, all I can suggest is you dream of a filter and 
 square things up that way. I wouldn't like to go out yet. I 
 want to bring down a Hun or two first. We shall be doing 
 them in by dozens before we're through. Did I tell you I
 
 260 CONVICT B14 
 
 ran into Tommy Wyatt yesterday? He was very full of a 
 new French dodge for firing a machine gun through the 
 propeller. Silly business to get killed when there's so much 
 fun on hand, what? Think better of it, old thing." 
 
 " I never said I was goin' to get killed. I said my bus 
 would come to grief, which is quite a different thing. It's 
 not likely we shall both of us get back, is it? Bombing 
 Zeppelin sheds isn't a healthy job. We're safe to get 
 Archied ; and from Aix it's an uncommonly long run home." 
 
 " You're in a cheerful mood to-night." 
 
 " Sorry. What I'm tryin' to drive into your thick head 
 is that if I do have to come down, I shall make for Roche- 
 haut." 
 
 " Of course if you've made up your mind to come 
 down" 
 
 "I've not made up my mind to come down. But I feel 
 like it," said Denis obstinately. 
 
 " All right, all right. But I can't see how you think you'll 
 ever get the chance of making for Rochehaut or whatever 
 you call the place. An internment camp in the Fatherland 
 is the common fate." Denis again preserved silence. " Oh, 
 you and the bus are going to alight in some conveniently un- 
 inhabited spot ? That the idea ? " 
 
 "It's possible, isn't it?" 
 
 " You feel like it ? " suggested Wandesforde, with a broad 
 grin. 
 
 " Yes, I do feel like it. And it'll probably happen. I may 
 be wrong but I never am," retorted Denis. 
 
 " Oh, quite. Well, I shouldn't dream of offering advice, 
 because I know you never take it, but I wish to point out 
 that in the hypothetical circumstances I should make for 
 the Dutch frontier myself. You'll never get through the 
 lines." 
 
 " I don't propose to get through the lines. If instead of 
 scintillatin' with wit you'd ever by any chance allow me to 
 finish what I'm saying, I should have told you before that 
 I want to go to Rochehaut because I know the place, and 
 because my cousin Lettice is there if she's still alive."
 
 CONFESSIO AMANTIS 261 
 
 " Oh ah. Yes. I remember." 
 
 Wandesforde had heard as much as that. He did not 
 dare offer sympathy, because Denis's glacial eye was upon 
 him, forbidding it. Denis went on with his most intransi- 
 gent air : " And I may add that if I get the ghost of a 
 chance to go I'm goin', and if I get into a row for it after- 
 wards I do not care. I want you to know this now because, 
 if things fall out as I expect, I shall be very much obliged 
 if you'll see my pal Gardiner next time you're home on leave, 
 and tell him." 
 
 " The chap that's in prison ? " 
 
 " Yes. Sorry to put you to so much inconvenience, but 
 I can't write it, because his letters are read." 
 
 " Quite. What do you want me to say ? " 
 
 " Tell him I'm goin' to Rochehaut to look up Lettice. It's 
 more his affair than mine." Wandesforde scribbled down 
 the message in his pocket-book. " And tell him " Denis's 
 voice unexpectedly failed. 
 
 Wandesforde held his pencil ready. 
 
 " Say I've changed my mind, and I'm goin' to settle up 
 my own affair too, if I'm let. He'll understand." 
 
 Wandesforde did not, never having heard of Dorothea 
 in this connection. He had never known Denis make a 
 confidence before. There was a pause ; but he still waited. 
 If he knew anything of the signs of the times, more was 
 coming. He was right. The never-ceasing thunder of the 
 guns accompanied and illustrated Denis's next speech. 
 
 " Wandesforde, do you believe in a future life? " 
 
 Three months earlier, Wandesforde would have answered 
 with a shrug. His point of view had changed. " More or 
 less got to out here, haven't you ? " he said soberly. 
 
 " I didn't for the best part of this year." 
 
 " What, that time you were playing about with the fair 
 Evey?" 
 
 Denis lifted his head. "You knew? Well, I suppose 
 you would. It never struck me " 
 
 " Everybody knew, old thing," said Wandesforde, with an 
 irrepressible grin. He was more touched than he would have
 
 262 CONVICT B14. 
 
 cared to admit by Denis's rather truculent confidences, but 
 he could not for his life help finding him deuced funny! 
 "And nobody could think what on earth you were after! 
 It was so very much out of your line, and, if you'll forgive 
 my saying so, you made such a shocking poor hand at it ! " 
 
 " I don't lay claim to your experience," said Denis forbid- 
 dingly. He attacked his confessions once more. " I had 
 rather a rough time of it last autumn, one way and another. 
 I_it_I_" 
 
 " You lost your faith," suggested Wandesforde, still grin- 
 ning. " Lord bless you, my dear chap, I know ! You left 
 off going to Bredon and listening to the little blighter with 
 the mustachios. He came to me about it funked you, I 
 suppose and I had to send him off with a flea in his ear. 
 Oh, Denis, when you go off the rails all the world stands to 
 admire. Nobody would make a song about it if I stopped 
 going to church. And then Evey Byrne appeared on the 
 scenes, and there was a hectic interlude which ended in your 
 both vanishing. You went back to Bredon, I know that ; 
 but what on earth did you do with her ? " 
 
 " She went into a convent." 
 
 "No! did she really? Rum ending to an affair of that 
 kind." 
 
 " It was not an affair of that kind." 
 
 What an expressive face his was, when he was not on 
 guard ! and how it changed at mention of Mrs. Byrne ! 
 Wandesforde could not imagine himself taking Evey Byrne 
 very seriously, but he felt like a bull in a china shop among 
 the reserves and scruples and delicacies of his partner's 
 mind. He was, quite simply, very fond of Denis. He 
 disliked serious scenes ; in candid truth, he dreaded them ; 
 they did not do, when to-morrow you were flying to Aix 
 and to-night you had been writing cheerful non-committal 
 letters like that now lying on the table. But it was evident 
 that Denis was quite beyond ragging and being ragged. The 
 moment had come, his tongue was loosed, and he must speak. 
 Wandesforde touched him gently on the shoulder. 
 
 " Go ahead, old Denis. I'm off rotting."
 
 CONFESSIO AMANTIS 263 
 
 Denis looked up, and Wandesforde to his consternation 
 saw that his eyes were full of tears. 
 
 " Wandesforde, did you ever hurt a woman badly ? " 
 " No," said Wandesforde. " No, thank the Lord ! that I 
 never did." 
 
 " I have. Twice." 
 " You, Denis ? " 
 
 " Oh, not that way. Worse, I think. I did the beastliest 
 thing it was an insult " 
 
 " Evey Byrne you're talking of ? " 
 
 " Yes. And for all return she she came and kissed my 
 hand. She said I was too good for her. After what I'd 
 done! She she loved me, Wandesforde. You can't 
 think what it was like. It made me feel so sick " 
 He made a long break. 
 
 " I saw after that I'd been on the wrong tack. There is 
 a God, and He does direct things." 
 " Yes," assented Wandesforde. 
 
 " And of course that set me thinkin' of the other again. 
 Lettice said I'd been hard on her. I didn't want to be hard 
 I'd no right to be hard on anybiddy. Especially not on 
 another woman. But I didn't see how things could ever 
 be as they were before. I thought about it a lot, but I 
 couldn't get it straight. I am a duffer when it comes to 
 people, you know. All that time, too, I was feeling pretty 
 queer a bit under the weather ; I dare say I'd not got 
 over the shock. It wasn't till the war came, till I realized 
 she was out here in all this awful danger, that I might 
 never see her again " 
 Another long break. 
 
 " So now I'm goin' to her, if I'm let ; and I think I shall 
 be," Denis wound up simply. 
 
 Wandesforde was aware that he had been no more than 
 a communicating channel between Denis and his friend 
 in prison. He did riot guess, Denis himself did not guess, 
 that but for his interposition this chronicle of the heart, 
 such as it was, would never have been told. Denis had tried 
 to put it down on paper, and had not succeeded; still less
 
 S64 CONVICT B14 
 
 would he have succeeded by word of mouth. Gardiner knew 
 too much, saw too much. Wandesforde was a neutral 
 medium. It is often easier to confess to a stranger than to 
 the friend of your bosom. 
 
 So Wandesforde, feeling shy, and a good deal more un- 
 comfortable than Denis himself, put up his pencil and pre- 
 pared to take counsel with his pillow. 
 
 " You're a rum chap, Denis," was his conclusion.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 THE LUCKIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD 
 
 What's death? You'll love me yet! 
 
 Pippa Passes. 
 
 " LETTICE, I've been down to Poupehan ! " 
 
 Lettice was darning her stockings in the shade of the 
 tower. Lettice would have darned her stockings on the 
 Judgment Day. She suspended her work to look up, slowly, 
 at Dorothea. Rose-brown, panting from the steep hill, lips 
 laughing, eyes sparkling with excitement, she flung herself 
 down among the stubble and the pink convolvuluses and 
 fanned her face with her handkerchief. 
 
 " Oh, I'm so hot ! I ran nearly the whole way. I went 
 to try for a paper, and I fell over M. Lapouse, and oh, Let- 
 tice, what do you think he told me ? There's been a French 
 plane brought down near Florenville, and the pilot's es- 
 caped, and they're hunting him all over the place! Oh! 
 don't you hope he'll get away?" 
 
 Lettice remained looking at her for a minute, then lowered 
 her eyes and slowly resumed her work. Dorothea flounced 
 away with an energy that upset Madame Hasquin's work- 
 basket. 
 
 " Well, you are a fish ! I did think you'd be interested in 
 this. Don't you want to hear about it ? Don't you care ?" 
 
 " Was was the man hurt? " asked Lettice. 
 
 " No, they don't think so, or not much he managed to 
 burn his machine, anyway. Ohl don't I wish I'd been 
 there! We might have patched her up between us, and 
 flown her to the French lines. Oh! it would have been 
 sport ! " 
 
 "It's, it's it's twenty miles to Florenville, isn't it?" 
 
 265
 
 266 CONVICT B14 
 
 Lettice pursued her train of thought in her own undeviat- 
 ing way. 
 
 "Yes, about. Why?" 
 
 " And when did it happen ? " 
 
 " When did she come down, do you mean ? Yesterday 
 morning. Oh, were you thinking he might have come up 
 here? He never would, Lettice. No such luck ! He would 
 make for the Dutch frontier, they always do, M. Lapouse 
 was saying so. They're hardly even searching west of 
 Bouillon." 
 
 ' O-oh." 
 
 Lettice went on darning. Lettice in those days was hardly 
 a personality. Withdrawn into herself, ensimismada, as 
 Gardiner would have said, for hours on end she did not 
 speak, she scarcely thought ; she brooded. Her mind had 
 been bruised and it was numb. She was like an automaton ; 
 the one definite feeling that emerged was an unwavering 
 hostility to the destroyers of the Bellevue. Dorothea was 
 compassionate to a fair young hussar who limped to the door 
 one day after a fall from his horse; she gave him break- 
 fast, put his sprained arm in a sling, and sent him on his 
 way with good wishes in valiant German. Lettice made 
 his coffee and broiled his ham if thine enemy hunger, 
 feed him ; but he remained her enemy still. There were no 
 good wishes from her. 
 
 Dorothea with an enormous sigh pulled over a bunch of 
 stockings for a pillow, and lay back, still panting, hands 
 clasped behind her head. She did not find Lettice a very 
 satisfactory companion in those days. She was not an auto- 
 maton, far from it! They had been at the farm for several 
 weeks now, and she was wondering how much longer she 
 could stand it. The same view, day after day the steep 
 down-slope of the meadow, the green velvet crease where 
 the brook ran, the steep up-slope of the harvest field, sil- 
 very, with its slowly discoloring sheaves, the spires of the 
 wood against the uneventful azure of the sky oh dear! 
 She wanted to fight, to defend her country, to stick bayonets 
 into Germans, as they had stuck them into that dead girl
 
 THE LUCKIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD 267 
 
 in the woods as she had already stuck a knife into the 
 Uhlan. She held up her little brown hand ; it didn't seem 
 possible, yet it was true, that that hand had accounted for 
 one of the enemy, and she wasn't sorry, no, she couldn't feel 
 one little bit ashamed, though she knew in her heart that at 
 the moment when she pushed the body over the lip of the 
 well she hadn't been quite sure that it wasn't still breath- 
 ing. . . . 
 
 She tucked the hand back with a little shudder. That 
 didn't bear thinking about. " Well, why didn't I stick a 
 knife into Lieutenant Miiller, then?" she reflected. Miiller 
 was the hussar. " There's no sense in me ! " Hot and cold 
 was Dorothea, Charlotte Corday one hour, Florence Night- 
 ingale the next. Inaction, presumably the woman's nat- 
 ural lot, was not natural to her. But for Lettice she would 
 long ago have dressed up in one of Achille's suits and made 
 a dash for the French lines 
 
 " Tis but the coat of a page to borrow 
 And tie my hair in a horse-boy's trim " 
 
 She didn't love skirts at the best of times 
 
 "And I sit by his side, and laugh at sorrow" 
 
 Denis. All her thoughts always came back to him. 
 
 Denis was fighting, and she wanted news; oh! she did 
 want news so badly! Tears came hot in her eyes; she 
 turned over and buried her face in the grass, struggling with 
 the sudden pain. Denis was fighting ; any one of these blue 
 days he might be dying ; he might be already dead. And he 
 hadn't forgiven her. Oh! she, with this vulture at her 
 heart, how could she sit quiet, brood on still anger, like 
 Lettice ? She must be white-washing the kitchen, or helping 
 wounded Germans, or exciting herself over stranded French 
 aeroplanes twenty miles away anything, anything to get 
 away from her thoughts ! 
 
 " There's a man in the wood," observed Lettice. 
 
 She had dropped her work and sat immobile, her intent
 
 268 CONVICT B14 
 
 gaze probing the shadows of the distant trees. Dorothea 
 with an impatient sigh rolled over and sat up too. 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " There, under that fir-tree don't you see him ? Now 
 he, he, he's stooping down behind the bush." 
 
 " What eyes you have, Lettice ! " said Dorothea, screwing 
 up her own. " I can't see any old thing ! " 
 
 " I've been watching him for some time. I think he's 
 hiding." 
 
 "Hiding?" 
 
 " He was there before you came back, and then he got 
 down out of sight. I don't think he can get away. I think 
 he's hurt." 
 
 " Hurt ? " Dorothea repeated wonderingly. 
 
 " There's been a lot of firing this morning down by the 
 river." 
 
 " But, Lettice, you don't think " 
 
 Lettice did not say she thought anything. She stuck 
 her needle in her stocking and prepared to get up. She 
 stood a moment shading her eyes, piercing the depths of the 
 pine wood with her far-searching look, and then got under 
 way to descend the hill. Dorothea seized her hand. 
 
 " Oh, don't, Lettice it's sure to be some deserter, you 
 know there are heaps, and you haven't even got your big 
 scissors ! " 
 
 " I am going to see if there are any mushrooms on the 
 hill by the crucifix," said Lettice in the softly distinct tones 
 which admitted no discussion. 
 
 " Well, wait half-a-minute for me, then ! " 
 
 Lettice did not wait ; when Dorothea came running out 
 of the house with the carving-knife tucked inside her blouse, 
 she was already at the white bridge over the brook. Dor- 
 othea overtook her half-way across the stubble field. She 
 was making better time up the hill than ever she had before. 
 
 " Oh, darling Lettice, don't, don't go ! Let me it doesn't 
 matter about me, I can take care of myself, and I don't mind 
 things, but you know what it was to you last time 1 Lettice 
 darling please!"
 
 THE LUCKIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD 269 
 
 Lettice shook off her hand. " I saw him again just now," 
 she said. " He was wearing those leather overall things." 
 
 "Lettice!" 
 
 Next moment Dorothea loosed her hold on Lettice and ran 
 on alone. She had seen him too. 
 
 He came out of the woods towards them, lurching like 
 a drunkard. And Dorothea knew him, spite of disfiguring 
 dust and blood, and his face that face! His cheek had 
 been sliced open ; a flap of raw red flesh hung down over his 
 jaw ; his teeth showed white in the gap, like a skeleton's. 
 He tried to wave back the girls, he tried to speak, a thick 
 jumble of words; his feet dragged heavily together, and 
 down he went, full length in the grass. 
 
 Dorothea was beside him. She nursed him against her 
 breast, mourning over him with dove-like sounds, kissing 
 away the blood, murmuring exquisite love, warding off 
 friends and foes alike with jealous protecting arms. 
 
 Lettice knelt at a little distance, sobbing helplessly. 
 
 " Lettice ! " 
 
 What radiant eager purpose! Here was the true Dor- 
 othea, come to her own at last, risen to her full stature. 
 
 " Help me to lift. They'll be up here directly, sure to, 
 and we must hide him." 
 
 "The wood?" 
 
 " No, they'll search that first. Into the house. Take his 
 feet ; I can manage the head." 
 
 They could not have carried Denis a six-foot man, in 
 his heavy accouterments they could not have raised him 
 from the ground, in ordinary circumstances. But extraordi- 
 nary need calls out extraordinary powers. One-half a man's 
 strength is his conviction of strength. Dorothea lifted the 
 man she loved with her love in addition to her muscles, and 
 Lettice had the strength of endurance, if not that of pas- 
 sion. So they carried him across the bridge and laid him 
 in the round tower among the hay. Dorothea spoke again. 
 
 " Get my first-aid things out of the dresser drawer, Let- 
 tice, while I see what's wrong. Quick as you can; we 
 haven't a second to lose."
 
 270 CONVICT B14 
 
 Lettice obeyed orders. When she came back Dorothea's 
 uplifted face was sunshine unclouded. 
 
 " He's not going to die ! " she cried, and her voice sang. 
 " He isn't even dangerously hurt, it's only pain and loss of 
 blood. And, Lettice, he's been telling me darling, no ; 
 don't, don't try to talk, it does hurt you so he's been telling 
 me he's been bombing the Zeppelins at Aix ! They got them, 
 too, they set one on fire, and the other man got off safe ; 
 but Denis had a bullet through his tank. So he made for 
 Rochehaut, but he couldn't get farther than Florenville, so 
 he burnt his machine and came on on foot. And this morn- 
 ing he saw the Bellevue, and while he was asking about it 
 he was seen, and they hunted him, all among the woods by 
 the river, and he was hit, this " she touched the cheek she 
 was bandaging with thistle-down finger " I wish I were a 
 doctor, then I'd put some stitches in ; it'll spoil your looks, 
 my darling. Just think, Lettice, he was hiding in the wood, 
 he could actually see us, but he never meant to come out for 
 fear of getting us into a scrape. He meant to lie there till 
 dusk and then get away if they hadn't caught him first, 
 which they would have. Watch how this bandage goes, 
 you'll have to do it when I'm gone." She was working as 
 she talked, with perfect swiftness and dexterity. " I wish, 
 oh ! I wish I could stay and see to you myself. Never mind, 
 it can't be helped. Cover him up with the hay, Lettice 
 careful ! don't crush it, or it'll give the show away. They 
 may possibly look in here, for form's sake." 
 
 She stood up, struggling into the bloodstained coat she 
 had taken from Denis. Lettice stared, bewildered. 
 
 " What what are you going to do ? " 
 
 " Lead them off on a false scent, of course," said Dor- 
 othea " the Huns, I mean. Goodness, I shall never get 
 my hair under this cap where are your scissors? " 
 
 " But " 
 
 Dorothea stamped, sawing at her thick plaits. 
 
 "They'll take me for him, don't you see? I'll lead them 
 a lovely goose chase I bet I know this country better 
 than they do! There's the Grotte des Fees, if the worst
 
 THE LUCKIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD 271 
 
 comes to the worst. They'll think he's gone off quite in 
 the other direction else, do you imagine we'd ever possibly 
 be able to hide him, with the hue and cry there'd be? 
 Good-by, darling, darling " She flung herself down be- 
 side Denis, lavishing her whole heart on him, baring her 
 soul, unveiling the holy of holies, the white fire of very love. 
 Then, standing up, she held out both hands to Lettice ; and 
 in her face, unearthly bright yet grave, Lettice did visibly be- 
 hold this mortal putting on immortality. 
 
 " It's it's a frightful risk," she said. 
 
 Dorothea's gravity broke up into a laugh of pure glee. 
 
 "Yes, that's the very cream of it!" she cried. "Oh! 
 I have wanted to do something like a soldier, and now I've 
 got the chance. Oh ! and Denis has forgiven me, he's taken 
 me back again oh! I do think I'm the very luckiest girl 
 in all the world ! " 
 
 She caught Lettice close and kissed her vehemently, and 
 then fled down the hill, buckling her cap as she ran.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 PER ARDUA AD ASTRA 
 
 Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us ; and to 
 the hills, Cover us. ST. LUKE. 
 
 IN the days of her not far distant childhood Dorothea had 
 never loved any game like hide-and-seek ; she flung herself 
 into her present escapade with much the same zest and little 
 more discretion. Her plan, so far as she had one, was to 
 lie up in the fir wood till a search-party appeared, then show 
 herself and give them a lead away from the farm. The rest 
 she left to chance, naively confident that the luck which had 
 sent Denis to her would let her save him. She had had 
 enough hard knocks, one might have thought, to convince her 
 that Fate does not necessarily favor the young and hopeful ; 
 but that was a lesson Dorothea never had learned, and never 
 would. 
 
 Ten minutes after she had settled herself among the 
 bracken a mounted patrol rode over the brow of the opposite 
 hill and began slowly to descend towards the farm. Dor- 
 othea scrambled to her feet and came to the edge of the 
 wood ; she began to crawl along under the hedge, stooping, 
 furtive, a fugitive in every line. She expected every min- 
 ute to hear the shout of discovery. None came, and pres- 
 ently she erected herself and peeped over the bracken to see 
 if they were stealing upon her unawares. The officer in com- 
 mand was just riding through the orchard gate, on his way to 
 the farm. 
 
 This was a contingency she had not foreseen that they 
 
 wouldn't notice her. Dorothea stamped. " Oh, you 
 
 idiots ! " she apostrophized the soldiers of the Fatherland. 
 
 She ventured herself clear of the wood. Still her pursuers 
 
 272
 
 PER ARDUA AD ASTRA 273 
 
 went tranquilly the wrong way; they were half down the 
 orchard in another minute they would be knocking at the 
 back door of the farm. Dorothea, in a fright now, ran 
 right out into the middle of the field. Ah, at last! Some 
 one shouted ; the troop gathered itself together, swept past 
 the farm, galloped down the hill. 
 
 Dorothea turned and ran like a hare. She felt like one, 
 too. They were firing at her. They wanted to bring her 
 down before she could take cover. It wasn't believable. 
 She couldn't be hit ! But she was ; it fell like a lash on her 
 shoulder, rolling her over with the sudden shock. She was 
 up in a minute and ran on again, crying as she went, poor 
 little Dorothea, with the unexpected sharp pain, mortally 
 terrified of the bullets flying past her and of the thundering 
 hoofs behind, beginning to feel she had undertaken more 
 than she could carry through. This wasn't a bit what she 
 had expected it wasn't any fun at all ! 
 
 But the wood received her, and she knew its alleys bet- 
 ter than they did ; and presently she was tumbling head first 
 into a tiny dell, under a low cliff veiled in ivy and drooping 
 ferns. You might search the wood from end to end with- 
 out finding the way into the dell ; and if you found the dell, 
 you would never guess that under the creepers there was a 
 hole, the entrance of the Grotte des Fees. Dorothea had 
 once tried to explore it ; she got as far as a first chamber of 
 exquisite white veils and icicles of stalactite, and then 
 dropped her candle. She never tried again, because Madame 
 Hasquin assured her the roof was unsafe. She was rather 
 glad of the excuse ; underground adventures were not to her 
 taste. She crept inside now, but not far, not beyond the 
 green light of the entrance. 
 
 For some time she lay panting like a dog, thought foun- 
 dered in panic ; but she gradually calmed down. She had a 
 drink from the stream trickling down the cave, and by and 
 by, feeling a good deal ashamed of herself, she made an 
 effort, opened her coat and examined her wound. It was 
 neither wide nor deep ; the bullet had gone clean through her 
 arm without touching the bone. But it had bled a good deal,
 
 374 CONVICT B14 
 
 and it hurt, it hurt dreadfully. She made shift to tie it up, 
 feeling more ashamed than ever because she couldn't help 
 whimpering with the pain. Oh, she was a horrid little 
 coward ! She had come down with a bump from her vain- 
 glory. But when it was done she took heart. She looked 
 down on her stained sleeve ; how splendid to see her blood 
 mingling with Denis's ! After all, she was a real casualty 
 now; she had been really properly wounded, like a real 
 proper soldier. That was a sustaining thought. 
 
 It was while she lay there, listening to the cool drip of 
 the water, breathing in the cool mossy scent, that her active 
 little brain got to work on the position. She had gone 
 into it headlong, without thinking ; she now saw many things 
 she had ignored. First and foremost and at any cost, she 
 must not allow herself to be caught. She was tall for a 
 woman, and Denis slight for a man, and she had put on his 
 leather coat and leggings over all her own things, but even 
 so there was a good deal more of them, both lengthways and 
 breadthways, than she could fill out. " Gracious ! why, my 
 wig alone would give the show away ! " reflected Dorothea, 
 with a dismaying vision of hidden dangers passed. " Be- 
 sides, they would recognize me Major von Marwitz would, 
 I think, and Lieutenant Miiller would, I know. And then, 
 of course, they'd go straight and search the farm, and Denis 
 without his kit, they'd shoot him as a spy, and Lettice too 
 for hiding him oh ! " She had a moment of panic. " But 
 I'm not going to be caught," she wound up firmly. 
 
 A plan suggested itself. She would stay here till dusk, 
 then get away through the woods towards Vresse, say, show 
 herself there, double back to the cave, leave Denis's things 
 under the rocks, and emerge as her proper self once more. 
 She had everything but her skirt, and it wouldn't be the first 
 time Dot O'Connor had run about in knickerbockers. This 
 was a beautiful scheme, and it would let her go back to the 
 farm she did want to go back to the farm. A dimple came 
 in her brown cheek ; her color rose ; at that moment Dor- 
 othea did not look much like an escaped airman. . . . 
 Dreaming such nonsense! She lifted the creepers reso-
 
 PER ARDUA AD ASTRA 275 
 
 lutely and peeped out. Yes, it was already pretty dark she 
 might start now - and suddenly she discovered that' she 
 didn t, no, she didn't want to leave the safe shelter of the 
 cave and adventure herself in a world where bullets were 
 flying and men hunting for her life "Oh, Dot O'Connor 
 you miserable little worm! " said Dorothea. " It's just what 
 people always say women are no good when it comes to 
 the point. But I will be some good!" She marched out 
 of the cave. 
 
 They were still beating the wood; there were soldiers 
 everywhere. But Dorothea had been a Red Indian many 
 times in the shrubbery at home. She lay in the brake not 
 ten yards from Lieutenant Miiller (yes, it was he in per- 
 son), and laughed to hear him issuing his curt, disappointed 
 orders. It was dark, and the men were bored, and not very 
 numerous; she slipped between the cordon like a weasel, 
 and had reached the next hill when by accidental good luck 
 she showed herself against the sky-line. A sentry gave the 
 alarm, and again she had the whole patrol streaming in pur- 
 suit. This suited her to a T, for she was drawing them 
 away from the farm, and she was not in the least afraid oi 
 being caught. It was black as a wolf's mouth, and she knew 
 the woods between here and Vresse like the palm of her hand. 
 She had her second wind of courage now. 
 
 Somewhere about two in the morning she found herself 
 not at Vresse, but at Mogimont, in a totally different di- 
 rection. It didn't matter, for it was miles away from Roche- 
 haut, which was all she cared about; but in her ignorance 
 of her whereabouts she nearly blundered into the tiny sta- 
 tion, where a melancholy middle-aged German was brewing 
 himself coffee. Beating a hasty retreat, she found a hay- 
 stack in a corner of a meadow, and climbed into its warm 
 depths to wait for the dawn. Imprimis, she had not yet 
 showed herself at Mogimont, and she must ; secundis, after 
 her recent performance she wouldn't trust herself in the 
 dark to find the way back to the farm. She was extremely 
 tired (Dorothea liked a good eleven hours in her bed), and 
 she fell fast asleep. The sun was high when she was aroused
 
 276 CONVICT B14 
 
 by the shaking of her couch. She opened drowsy eyes, to 
 see the top of a ladder pushing itself up against the sky ; a 
 moment later she was gazing into the round astonished eyes 
 and open mouth of the Landsturm sentry, who had come to 
 fetch a truss of hay. 
 
 Dorothea had meant to show herself, but not at such close 
 quarters. She hurled herself upon him and tipped his lad- 
 der over. He fell off, she slipped down the other side of 
 the stack and made for the woods. Luckily she had only a 
 few yards to cover. She was plunging through the hedge 
 as her adversary turned the corner of the stack. He fired, 
 and missed ; out of the station rushed his comrades at the 
 shot; down the hill through the woods fled Dorothea, 
 laughing yes laughing ; his expression had been so 
 funny ! 
 
 It was a close shave, nevertheless. She was up an oak- 
 tree, flattened against the trunk, when the pursuit went past, 
 and there she stayed until the alarm died away in another 
 direction. She would have stayed longer; but when the 
 world turned to black mist and began to spin round her she 
 slid down as fast as she could, and ended by rolling out of 
 the lower branches. When she came to herself she was lying 
 at the foot of the tree in a pool of blood, ten feet from a 
 path, at the mercy of any chance wayfarer. Her arm had 
 broken out bleeding again ; she was parched with thirst and 
 felt like death. It was thirst which at last spurred her to 
 her feet, in the hope of finding water. And in that land of 
 brooks and springs she did find it a tiny runnel, tasting 
 of the brown leaves through which it oozed, but water of life 
 to Dorothea with the wound-thirst on her. She drank and 
 drank, and laved her head and face and arms, and drank 
 again, till the sky stood still, and the trees left off dancing 
 jigs before her eyes. 
 
 But she had lost a good deal of blood ; she was weak, and 
 feverish, and muddle-headed ; and in consequence she made 
 a blunder. She ought now to have stripped off Denis's 
 things, which had served their turn, and left them hidden. 
 But she had got into her head that she was to take them
 
 PER ARDUA AD ASTRA 277 
 
 back to the cave, and she had not wits enough to mend her 
 plan ; she could only carry out what was fixed before. 
 
 All that day, then, she toiled along, still in the character 
 of the escaped avion. But the forests of the Semois are 
 lonely ; she met no one but a couple of children picking 
 whortleberries, who dropped their cans and their dinner and 
 fled, taking her for a German. Dorothea shuddered at the 
 bread ; she tried a few berries, but they made her sick. She 
 could not eat that day, but she drank of every brook she came 
 across. It was very hot, and Denis's coat and cap and leg- 
 gings were made of leather and lined with fleece, and their 
 dark color attracted an Egyptian plague of flies. Dorothea 
 was far spent by the time she struck the familiar track 
 through the pine wood. 
 
 She was so far spent that for some time she walked along 
 the track itself, forgetting it was no place for her. It 
 seemed too much trouble, too much, to stoop and crawl and 
 hide among the bracken. When a bramble caught her 
 sleeve she burst out crying. She missed her way and stum- 
 bled into the hidden dell from the wrong side, brushing waist- 
 high through flowering willow-herb which streamed down the 
 hill-side, rose-pink, almost lilac in intensity of color. 
 
 Oh ! the coolness, the green twilight of the cave ! Dor- 
 othea with a great sigh buried her face in icy crystal water. 
 Oh! it was good! She lay for some time before she dis- 
 covered that one reason why she had been feeling so queer 
 was that her arm was bleeding again. She gave a twist to 
 her bandage, but she was too tired to see to it properly 
 too tired even to get rid of her flying kit ; a deadly lassitude 
 weighed on every limb. By and by, when it was cooler, 
 and darker, and the flies were less troublesome, she would 
 slip off down to the farm. 
 
 " This is where he went," said an eager voice. " See how 
 he has broken these pink weeds! And here is the blood 
 again." 
 
 " Himmel ! I have passed this tree ten times, and never 
 have I seen this path! But what is^ become of him? 
 cannot have flown out of the place ! "
 
 278 CONVICT B14 
 
 Dorothea sat up ; she was cold enough now. Oh ! why 
 had she not thought of the wood being still patrolled ? 
 
 Steps came swishing through the long grass. Suddenly 
 the cave grew lighter, and there was a startled exclama- 
 tion. They had lifted the curtain of ivy. Both began to 
 chatter at once, rapidly, excitedly. " I tell you, it is not 
 safe, these caves are dangerous!" " Aber, if we fetch the 
 Herr Lieutenant he will not give us the reward, we shall have 
 to share with the rest ! " Private Blum had a young lady in 
 Germany, and he wanted all he could get. Dorothea could 
 not follow all their talk, but she gathered to her joy that one 
 was going off to fetch help while the other stayed on guard. 
 Yes, he was certainly alone ; she could hear him walking up 
 and down and singing to himself " Ich weiss nicht was soil 
 es bedeuten " Now, with any luck 
 
 The song ceased. The ivy was lifted again. 
 
 "Englishman!" Pause. "Englishman, are you there? 
 Do you hear me? If you will come out you shall have your 
 life I will not harm you ! " 
 
 Private Blum had a mind to steal a march on his comrade. 
 Getting no reply, he went head first into the hole on hands 
 and knees, his rifle tucked under his arm. It was very dark 
 and very wet, and disagreeable stories about underground 
 rivers and bottomless abysses were running in his head. He 
 paused. " Englishman ! " he called again less confidently. 
 
 This time there was a reply ; a shot came out of the dark. 
 He seized his rifle and returned the compliment ; then, 
 feeling what seemed like the entire grotto tumbling about 
 his ears, he backed out hurriedly. " Du lieber Gott ! " he 
 muttered, standing up in the sunshine and feeling himself 
 all over to make sure he was not hurt, " but that is a dan- 
 gerous one! I will leave him to the Herr Lieutenant he 
 will know how to settle him ! " 
 
 The luck was all with the enemy. Dorothea lay weeping 
 tears of rage over Denis's useless revolver. She had dropped 
 it into the stream ; she had never let one off before, she had 
 no idea they kicked like that! And now what was she to 
 do? If she could have disposed of Private Blum, as she had
 
 PER ARDUA AD ASTRA <*79 
 
 hoped, she might have got away; but she had not disposed 
 of Private Blum. He was out there, very much alive, and 
 in another minute Lieutenant Miiller would join him; and 
 if Lieutenant Miiller saw her 
 
 Till this minute Dorothea had never doubted of success. 
 But now ? Dead or alive, if she fell into German hands, it 
 would be equally fatal ; Denis would be worse off than if 
 she had never interfered. He might even owe his death to 
 her. "Oh, darling, darling!" Dorothea murmured, crush- 
 ing her hands together, an agonizing stricture at her heart. 
 " Oh, it isn't fair. Oh, God, let me save him ! Oh, I must 
 save him, I can't bear it if he dies through me, I can't, I 
 can't, I can't. Oh, isn't there any, any way ? " 
 
 Pieces of rock, loosened by the explosion, were still pat- 
 tering down ; one fell on her hand. She glanced round im- 
 patiently, and saw to her dismay that half the cave seemed 
 ready to fall in; very little more would bring down an 
 avalanche. She sprang to her feet and stood still. She 
 had seen how to save Denis. 
 
 So simple, after all ! Why, of course it was what always 
 happened, in the ordinary course of operations. So much 
 neater, too, than if she had escaped. The search would come 
 to an end, the roads would no longer be guarded, Denis 
 would have a far better chance of getting off. And there 
 would certainly be nothing left to identify. Oh, it was a top- 
 ping idea! Perhaps if Denis crossed the frontier into Hol- 
 land she might follow no, she couldn't, though, she was 
 forgetting ; how queer ! She would be dead. 
 
 Death. She was going to die, all alone here in the dark. 
 She would never see the sunshine any more. She would 
 never see Denis any more, never be his wife, never taste 
 the happiness which niggard Fate, at long last, was offering 
 her. It was the end. And while she was trying to subdue 
 her aching, unsatisfied rebellion, to remind herself that she 
 had only petitioned to be allowed to save him and should be 
 thankful, in a flash of sunset light which illumined and in- 
 terpreted the past, Dorothea saw that it was the only perfect 
 end. She would have been his wife? Ah, but it would
 
 280 CONVICT B14 
 
 never have been the same, he would never have given her 
 what he once gave ; she had spoiled that. It would have 
 been pity, amends, the second best. He would never, never 
 love her living ; no, but he would love her dead. For her 
 sake he would go softly all his days; she was sure, now, of 
 an unfading shrine in his memory. Yes, and even apart 
 from Denis, little Dorothea was shyly proud. She was not 
 giving her life for him alone ; she was dying as a soldier for 
 her country, and could claim the soldier's due of amnesty 
 and an honored grave. 
 
 How far away the world had gone! and how dim and 
 queer she felt ! Was it her arm again ? Those moments of 
 waiting might have been very cruel, but, more lucky in her 
 death than in her life, Dorothea was spared them. She did 
 not hear Lieutenant Miiller outside, nor his orders to the 
 men. She had drifted far away, to happy hours at Bredon 
 and her beloved aeroplane. It was evening; the solemn 
 splendors of the sunset were all about her in the sky. She 
 was flying through a sea of gold of pure gold, like unto 
 clear glass or was it the glory of God?
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 THE ONE SHALL BE TAKEN 
 
 If only the dead could find out when 
 To come back and be forgiven ! 
 
 OWEN MEREDITH. 
 
 " ARE your minds set upon righteousness, O ye congrega- 
 tion?" inquired Mr. Roche in skeptical tones. 
 
 It was Sunday morning, and all prisoners having the white 
 Church of England ticket on their doors had been rounded 
 up for the chapel. Not that that was any hardship, for they 
 liked the service ; it was commendably short, there were 
 plenty of hymns, and even the lessons, as read by Dr. Scott 
 in his voice of gold, were really quite amusing, especially the 
 chroniques scandaleuses of the Old Testament. By con- 
 trast with the bareness of their cells they liked, too, the 
 satins and the embroideries, the lights and the flowers and 
 the incense on which the little doctor squandered most of his 
 pocket-money. He was a believer in the beauty of holiness ; 
 he had transformed the bare little barn of a place into a 
 gem. Only the jeweled cross and candlesticks, source of 
 covetous desires in such members of the congregation as 
 did not happen to be set upon righteousness, had been a 
 thank-offering from another donor. 
 
 " Psalm 126, the first verse. ' When the Lord turned 
 again the captivity of Zion ' " 
 
 By way of prelude to this boldly hopeful text, Mr. Roche 
 had just announced the fall of Antwerp. Scott did not love 
 the new chaplain, but he could not deny that he preached 
 well, or that he got hold of the men. The atmosphere of 
 the chapel was not as a rule what one might call devotional, 
 but this morning there was a fullness in the responses and a 
 281
 
 282 CONVICT B14 
 
 clean-cut hush during the sermon which rather touchingly 
 reflected the general state of feeling. It was hard in 1914 
 to be a prisoner, since even criminals may love their country. 
 Several of Scott's patients had proclaimed their intention of 
 enlisting the moment they were free. As months, or even 
 years, had to elapse before that happy time, these protesta- 
 tions were cheap and safe. Others, who said less, perhaps 
 felt more. Scott had been sorry for many, leashed in by 
 their punishment; for none more than 614. 
 
 " Con found their pol itics, 
 
 Frus trate their knav ish tricks " 
 
 The National Anthem having been roared out from throats 
 kept artificially silent during the week, chapel was dis- 
 missed, and it was the immediate duty of the medical officer 
 to take the casual sick. Scott made a rush to his house for 
 a glance at The Observer, which did not reach Westby till 
 midday, and was back in the casualty room by a quarter 
 to twelve. He stood at a desk, with Mackenzie, as chief 
 warder, beside him, and a table covered with pills, potions, 
 and ointments ready to hand. One by one, as their names 
 were called, the patients came up for treatment. 
 
 " Mason A2g, sir." 
 
 Mason advanced, a doleful wisp of a man. " Well, Mason, 
 what's the matter with you ? " 
 
 " Oh, if you please, sir, I've got such a dreadful cold in 
 my head ! " A fruity and exhaustive sniff lent point to the 
 complaint. 
 
 " A cold in the head, have you ? Give me your hand. 
 Now let's see your tongue. H'm ! Dose of No. 7." 
 
 No. 7 was poured out, Mason choked over it, and was 
 passed out by the opposite door. " Next," said Scott. 
 
 "Gardiner 614, sir." 
 
 This was unexpected. Gardiner 614 stood cheerfully 
 submissive, nursing his hand, which was wrapped in his 
 clean Sunday handkerchief. 
 
 " Hullo, you in the wars again ? What's the matter now, 
 hey?"
 
 THE ONE SHALL BE TAKEN 283 
 
 " Bad thumb, sir," said Gardiner, gingerly unrolling it. 
 Yes, his hand had broken out again. " I shall have to lance 
 this," snapped Scott, and did so, with inward ruth. After 
 twenty years of practice, he still hated inflicting pain. 
 " What have you been doing to yourself? Why didn't you 
 come to me before ? " 
 
 " Well, sir, I never thought twice about it till this morning. 
 I knocked it on a nail ; I thought it would get all right." 
 
 " Get all right ? Get all wrong ! Your blood must be in 
 a shocking state. Ever have anything of this sort before 
 you came here ? " 
 
 " N-no, I don't know that I have. I expect perhaps it's 
 the confinement ; I'm not used to it, you know." 
 
 " H'm ! well, your time's up next month, isn't it? and 
 then you'll be free to get some war work, which is what 
 you're fidgeting after, aren't you? Take care of that hand, 
 and don't go jabbing nails into it, unless you want to lose 
 it altogether. Two thousand men of the Naval Division 
 have crossed the Dutch frontier and will have to be in- 
 terned. Next." 
 
 Bi4, with the faint suggestion of a smile, went the way of 
 A29, and Scott looked after him with a sigh and the faint 
 suggestion of a frown. Ever since his night in the padded 
 cell it had been the same; Gardiner was polite, and even 
 friendly, but he kept his distance. With no one is a re- 
 served man more reserved than with the person before whom 
 he has once been helplessly open. " I've lost him for good," 
 Scott said to himself ; and another sigh came, for he had not 
 many friends. But he was right, it was irrevocable; Gard- 
 iner had definitively snapped the thread. 
 
 Sunday is a day of rest. Prisoners attend chapel twice, 
 they have two separate hours of exercise, morning and 
 afternoon ; at half-past four they go to their cells for supper, 
 and are then locked up for the night. In winter, all Bgfatl 
 are put out. In summer, many read in bed. But on the 
 brightest of June mornings Gardiner's cell was barely light 
 enough for that; and by five o'clock in October it was as 
 black as a cave. He had finished his supper, and was screw-
 
 284 CONVICT B14 
 
 ing up his patience to endure the interminable night, when 
 his door opened to admit that very welcome sight, a visitor 
 Mr. Roche the chaplain. 
 
 " I meant to get round before, but I haven't had a mo- 
 ment; I've been up to my eyes in business the whole day. 
 But I thought I might just catch you before bed-time. 
 How are you, eh ? " 
 
 "Very well, thank you, sir. Very glad to see you." 
 Gardiner's manner was an odd blend of orthodox respect and 
 unorthodox friendliness. It had its counterpart in Roche's 
 own: he could not quite shake off the condescension of the 
 chaplain, yet he did not take possession of the prisoner's 
 stool and leave him to stand. The consequence was that 
 both kept their feet. 
 
 " To tell the truth, Gardi-ner, I've come to say good-by. 
 I shan't have another chance ; I'm off first thing to-morrow." 
 
 " Off on leave, sir ? " 
 
 " Off for good. I'm leaving the prison. It's been in the 
 air for some time, but it was only finally arranged last night. 
 I've said nothing about it, because I didn't want a fuss ; but 
 I could not leave without seeing you." 
 
 " Thanks," said Gardiner, smiling. " You'll be missed. 
 I'm glad my time's nearly up. Are you going to another 
 prison, or is it an ordinary parish job? " 
 
 " Neither. I am joining up." 
 
 " Chaplain to the forces ? " 
 
 " Better than that. I enlist." Gardiner's face, in the first 
 moment of surprise, was more expressive than he could 
 have wished. Roche, with his odd touch of the theatrical, 
 laid a hand on his shoulder. " You envy me ? " he asked, 
 his voice thrilling and deepening. " Never mind, my poor 
 fellow, your turn will come. Another month and you too 
 will be free to do your bit with the best of us. In the service 
 of your country there is no respect of persons " 
 
 The hand was vigorously shaken off, and Gardiner stepped 
 back. "I'll be shot if I'm going to let you patronize me! 
 If you think that because you happen to be the Honorable 
 and Reverend Dalrymple-Roche, and I'm 614 Why, I
 
 THE ONE SHALL BE TAKEN 285 
 
 was round the world and back again before you were out of 
 your schoolroom ! " He burst out laughing. 
 
 " Gardiner " 
 
 " No, no, wait a bit ; let me finish what I've got to say, 
 now I've begun. I've had it on my mind for some time ; I 
 meant to save it up for when I got out, but as it seems I 
 shan't have the chance then I'll do it now. You've been very 
 decent to me, and you've kept me going through a rather 
 beastly time, and I don't forget that, and I don't want to let 
 it all lapse, and I rather think you don't either ; but I won't be 
 patronized. I may be in prison, but I've done nothing I'm 
 ashamed of, and I do not consjder myself disgraced. Got 
 that ? " The words were not bluff, they were plain truth ; 
 very telling was his vigorous independence. " Well, then, if 
 I pay you deference here it's because discipline has to be 
 maintained, and incidentally because I should get it hot if 
 I didn't. For that reason, and for no other; certainly not 
 because I feel deferential. Deferential! You wait till 
 you've cut your wisdom teeth, my son, before you start 
 preaching to me. There; I've done. You can report me if 
 you like sir." 
 
 Roche had colored up ; he looked very haughty and very 
 angry. " I think you forget yourself," he began, and then 
 his mobile face changed. " I beg your pardon, Gardiner ; 
 you are perfectly right. I have no business to patronize 
 you. I don't mean to do it ; but it's the more or less official 
 manner, and one slips into it to tell the truth, that's one 
 reason why I want to get away." 
 
 " Oh, that's all right, lots of parsons have a turn for 
 magniloquence," said Gardiner, with a laugh, " and if you 
 do it again I shall tell you again, that's all. You inevitably 
 will. And so you mean to enlist? Ho ho!" His smile 
 broadened as he ran his eye over Roche's handsome figure. 
 He did not say, " You won't like that, my friend," but he 
 thought it. 
 
 " The French priests take their places in the ranks, said 
 Roche, "why not we? I put that to my bishop. He re- 
 fused to release me. One must act on one's own conscience
 
 286 CONVICT B14 
 
 in these matters. I am a priest, it is my duty to lead men ; 
 when peace comes, how can I expect them to follow me, if 
 during the war I have been skulking behind my cloth here 
 in England? / would not follow such a man. If the clergy 
 shirk now, they will be digging the Church's grave." 
 
 " Very sound sentiments. I have an old daddy, and if 
 he were thirty years younger thank goodness he isn't, for 
 he'd certainly get shot. Well, I congratulate you. Mind 
 my finger, I'm still rather frail." Roche had wrung his 
 hand with more fervor than discretion. " Funny beggar 
 you are ! " Gardiner added, with the laugh in his eyes that 
 was often there when he talked to Roche. " You won't get 
 shot. Bet you what you like you come out with the V.C. ! " 
 
 " Priests don't bet." 
 
 " Privates do, though. Not that you'll stay a private. 
 You'll be offered a commission " 
 
 " I shan't accept it," Roche declared. 
 
 " More fool you, then, for you're just the sort they want. 
 You lucky beggar oh, you lucky beggar ! " 
 
 The hunger of envy peeped out. Roche, at times self-ab- 
 sorbed and blind, had at other times an Irish quickness of 
 perception. 
 
 " Gardiner I'm sorry ! Perhaps after all, if a competent 
 surgeon sees your hand, instead of that wretched little saw- 
 bones " 
 
 " Oh, that's all right, I shall get my whack by and by, even 
 if I can't go into the trenches. Which reminds me: you 
 won't forget to put through that little bit of business I asked 
 you about, will you? (There's old Busy Bee locking up for 
 the night, you'll have to clear out in two twos.) Just a word 
 of introduction to Lord Ronayne, that's all I want. You 
 see a criminal just out of jail does need some sort of spon- 
 sor." Gardiner's grin was quite free from bitterness. 
 
 " I won't forget," said Roche hurriedly, " I hadn't for- 
 gotten. I can answer for my father. Good-by, Gardiner 
 God bless you ! " 
 
 Again he wrung the prisoner's hand, and again left him
 
 THE ONE SHALL BE TAKEN 287 
 
 laughing and swearing and shaking his fingers a character- 
 istic farewell. 
 
 Chim-chime. Chim-chime. Chim-chime. A quarter to 
 five. St. Agnes' clock was striking as Roche came out into 
 the lilac and gold of the October sunset, which lightened 
 and broadened down the clean deserted streets, and glittered 
 like tongues of fire in all the western windows. The trees 
 in the square were brilliant, gold lace over iron filigree. Be- 
 yond them three tall chimneys stood, slender, black, and 
 tapering against the cornflower-blue of distant hills. A train, 
 just arrived in the station, was veiling itself in snowy mist, 
 sun-smitten ; and as Roche turned into the High Street St. 
 Agnes' bells began to play The King of Love, merry and 
 clear, a sweet little rocking tune in triplets. How bright the 
 town was, and how peaceful in its Sunday rest! Not a 
 soul was about, except the half-dozen travelers from the 
 train; one of these, a tall man in the then unfamiliar uni- 
 form of the Royal Flying Corps, stopped to ask Roche the 
 way to the prison. 
 
 In Bi4's cell it was already night. There was no sunshine 
 here, not even light enough for him to throw his shoe at the 
 blackbeetle which had crawled up the hot-water pipes, and 
 was running about on the concrete floor. Gardiner lay on 
 his back, hands clasped behind his head, staring at the gray 
 oblong of his window, and wondering how he was going to 
 get through the thirteen hours of darkness. He was not 
 laughing now. He would have given twenty pounds for a 
 candle and a book to read, fifty for a cigarette he might 
 as well have offered to buy the moon. 
 
 In the padded cell he had touched bottom ; nothing could 
 ever be so bad again as the days before that night, in their 
 agony of impotence, or the night itself, in its agony of des- 
 pair. Prison it was a tedious business, no doubt, but 
 what of that ? He could only wonder why he had ever made 
 a fuss about such a trifle. He had grappled with his bogy, 
 and behold it turned out to be only a turnip-lantern ghost 
 after all. Difficulties, once surmounted, have a way of
 
 288 CONVICT B14 
 
 sinking back and effacing themselves in the past ; absorbed in 
 a greater trouble, Gardiner did not realize that he had at 
 last fought and won the battle, long impending, which made 
 him master of himself. 
 
 He did believe, from the first he had never doubted, that 
 Lettice was dead. Wandesforde's message, which he faith- 
 fully delivered in person, had not shaken that conviction. It 
 had only made him feel that Denis was dead too. Yes, they 
 were both gone ; but Gardiner no longer held himself respon- 
 sible. That dreadful crazy feeling of guilt, which his sanity, 
 half insane, had used to save him from himself, had passed 
 with the crisis it provoked. He had not killed her ; yet she 
 was dead, and he missed her more instead of less every day ; 
 every day he came upon fresh tracts of his mind marked 
 broad with her mark, and saw with dismay the widening 
 scope of his loss. But no one knew of it, and no one was go- 
 ing to know, through him. " Not that anybody would be par- 
 ticularly interested," he reflected. " My dear daddy he 
 would, bless his heart, but he'll never see, and I shall never 
 tell him; he'd get the shock of his life to think I was old 
 enough to want to get married. Married ! Oh, my Lord, I 
 wish I had married her ; I could have stood it better now if 
 I'd ever had one ounce of satisfaction. . . . And besides 
 daddy, who else ? Tom ? Roche ? I don't think ! " He 
 laughed. " Little Scott, then he'd be all agog, but he 
 isn't going to have the chance, confound him! I wish old 
 Denis were here. I could have talked to him. He would 
 have understood. He knew me pretty well, did Denis, after 
 all these years. I wonder how I'm going to get on without 
 him. ' Their soul was much discouraged because of the 
 way.' Hard going : that's what I'm to expect, I suppose, for 
 the rest of my wanderings in this wilderness. . . . There was 
 a lot of likeness between them at bottom. I expect that's 
 why I feel as though I'd known her all my life and before I 
 was born I did know her, in him. But he would always 
 try to hide his dear old head in a bag whenever I did any- 
 thing to upset his little feelings, and she never did. Not she ! 
 She'd go picking her way with her little lamp round all your
 
 THE ONE SHALL BE TAKEN 289 
 
 dark corners, inexorably showing you every cobweb and 
 every speck of dust that her highness didn't approve, and 
 all without a word spoken, just by the poise of that darling 
 little head of hers and those inimitable hazel eyes hazel ? 
 No, b' Jove ! What was it she used to say? ' Weak Bovril, 
 with little bits of carrot floating about ' oh, Lettice, Let- 
 tice ! oh, why the devil did I let myself begin on this? " 
 
 He flung his arm across his eyes, as if he would have hid- 
 den his trouble even from himself. Blind instinct had first 
 dragged him to Lettice, a straw in the current ; he felt he 
 needed her long before he knew he loved her. But love, and 
 even passion, had come since, flooding in by back ways, fill- 
 ing him to the brim. He was tormented by his lost oppor- 
 tunities. " When I had her to myself there in Rochehaut, 
 why didn't I make her marry me? She'd have done it if I'd 
 put the screw on; you can get pretty well anything out of 
 Lettice if she's only sorry enough for you. Or here in 
 prison, why couldn't I have put my arm round that little 
 waist of hers and taken a kiss ? What would she have done 
 if I had? Would she have had the impertinence to ruffle 
 up all her pretty feathers and make believe to be affronted? 
 Or could I ha\e got right down through all her defenses to 
 the very heart of her, and made her drop her lashes, and 
 color, and acknowledge me ? I'd give my eyes to know, 
 and I never shall, never. She had more reticences and re- 
 serves and evasions than any human being I have ever met. 
 She was as delicate as the bloom on a butterfly. Angelita 
 de mi corazon, I would have respected your little fads ; you 
 should have kept your fenced garden and your fountain 
 sealed. I could have held your life in my hand and never 
 closed my fingers on it yes, I could ; even that. ^ I was 
 your very true lover. I wonder, was it a bayonet 
 
 To this precipice Gardiner always came, sooner or later. 
 We talk of unimaginable horrors ; there were none he had 
 not imagined. How do men live, w.ith thoughts like these? 
 God knows. ft 
 
 " 614, are ye waukin ? Ye're to dress and come wi me. 
 
 " Hullo ! is that Mr. Mackenzie? What's up? "
 
 290 CONVICT B14 
 
 " It's a veesitor for ye." 
 
 " A visitor at this time of night ? Here's an exciting go ! 
 Who is it an officer ? Big man in the R.F.C. ? " 
 
 Mackenzie shook his head. " I canna tell ye, for I havena 
 seen him." 
 
 " Now I wonder what good you think you are ? " said 
 Gardiner, sitting up, laughing, blinking at the light. " Rous- 
 ing me out of my beauty sleep! Yes, I beg your pardon, 
 sir, and all that, but I'm coming out quite soon, you know. 
 Hold the light, do you mind, and let me find my socks ? " 
 
 He laughed in self-defense, and he asked questions for 
 form's sake ; but he knew all the time that this was his doom. 
 Only an urgent messenger would have been admitted at this 
 hour. It was Wandesforde, come to tell him how she had 
 died. That thought went with him down the twilit passages, 
 it stood sentinel before the yellow-glimmering door of the 
 visitors' room. " Ye've half-an-hour," said Mackenzie in 
 business-like tones as he turned the handle. Gardiner drew 
 a long breath and walked through the specter into the 
 room. 
 
 A long-legged officer stood up. Wandesforde? No. 
 Oh, good God! 
 
 " She's safe," said Denis instantly. " Here, hold on, old 
 man ; it's all right ! " 
 
 Gardiner was not all right ; he was nearly fainting. By 
 and by he found himself sitting in a chair, still gripping 
 Denis with both hands, while Denis patted him gently on 
 the back. 
 
 " She's all right," he kept repeating wise Denis, to harp 
 on the one thing that mattered. " Quite all right ; quite safe. 
 Gently does it. Better now, are you ? " 
 
 Yes, Gardiner was better and he said so with decision. 
 Denis withdrew to the other side of the table and sat smil- 
 ing at him. 
 
 "We got back last night. We've been together all the 
 time. Didn't Wandesforde tell you? I went first to the 
 W.O. to report myself, and then straight on to get leave 
 to see you. Even a Government department has bowels
 
 THE ONE SHALL BE TAKEN 291 
 
 these days. I wanted Lettice to come too, but she said she 
 thought you'd rather not, so she's gone down to her own 
 people in Kent. Rather rough luck on them all this time, 
 what? She sent her love." 
 
 " Go on," said Gardiner, leaning back and composing him- 
 self to listen. " Begin at the beginning and go on to the end, 
 then stop. Lord! I wish you'd asked the bowelful Home 
 Office to let me have a smoke while you were about it. 
 Anda, caballerito ! Let's have the 'ole of the 'orrible de- 
 tails." 
 
 Denis launched into his tale. He began, as directed, with 
 the raid on Aix, and his soft Irish tongue ran on fluently till 
 he came to the Bellevue. " I can't tell you what it was like 
 to see it, Harry. It's one thing to read about these things, 
 safe here in England; but to see it a place you've 
 known " 
 
 " A place you own," said Gardiner grimly. " Yes, that's 
 what these beastly pacifists never seem to grasp. On a 
 toujours assez de force they'd sing a different song if it 
 was their own mau-x instead of those of autrui. Poor old 
 Bellevue. Well, I'll build it up again. Go ahead. What 
 happened next ? " 
 
 " Oh, well, of course I had to ask about it them I was 
 a bit reckless, I suppose. I went down and hailed a man in 
 the road. He told me they were safe at the Hasquins' farm. 
 And so while we were talkin' of course a lot of beastly 
 Boches came round the corner. I skipped like a young uni- 
 corn, I can tell you, but they potted me, and then they 
 chased me all over the place. But I dodged 'em and got up 
 into the fir wood. I wanted pretty badly to see for my- 
 self " 
 
 Gardiner raised his eyebrows. " Bit risky, what ? 
 
 " Ah, but I never meant to show up. I was goin' to lie 
 doggo and get off again after dark. It was Lettice spied 
 me out you know what her eyes are." Gardiner nodded. 
 " I do blarne myself," said Denis earnestly. " I'll never get 
 over it ; but I was bleedin' like a pig and a bit muzzy-headei 
 Well, there it was, anyway. I fainted, and they did what
 
 292 CONVICT B14 
 
 they liked with me. They got me over and hid me in the 
 tower. Remember the tower ? " 
 
 Did Gardiner remember the tower? He remembered it 
 so well, and saw Lettice beside it so vividly, that he fell 
 silent, and let Denis tell the rest of his tale almost without 
 question. They had stayed at the farm till Denis was fit 
 to travel. Then, one wet evening, they set out to tramp 
 across Belgium, he in Monsieur Hasquin's blouse and loose 
 trousers, she in Madame's Sunday skirt. " She didn't like 
 it one bit," said Denis, with a reminiscent smile. " Wanted 
 to take her hair curlers in the bundle. Very annoyed with 
 me because I wouldn't let her. It rankled for days." Denis 
 in addition had his scarred face tied up to represent tooth- 
 ache. " We did look rather scalawags," he admitted. They 
 lay up by day and walked by night, keeping mostly to the 
 fields, and guiding themselves by Denis's pocket compass. 
 Once the cafe where they were at supper was invaded by 
 soldiers, who luckily took no notice of their ragged com- 
 panions. Another time when they were sheltering in a barn 
 some Brandenburgers came in to search for fodder. They 
 did not search behind the patent reaper in the corner. Yet 
 again they went to sleep in a copse, and woke to find they 
 had chosen the exercising ground of a squadron of cavalry. 
 That was near the Dutch frontier. Next night they crossed 
 under cover of darkness, and were safe. 
 
 " Well, I consider it all most compromising for Lettice, 
 and if you'd a spark of proper feeling you'd offer to marry 
 her," said Gardiner, yawning with his arms above his head, 
 " but of course you never think of that, selfish brute. Lord ! 
 I shall sleep like a pig to-night. Spoiled your beauty, Denis," 
 he added, looking at the scar, red and puckered. Denis put 
 up his hand to the place. 
 
 " That was our friend Fritz. He does sometimes score a 
 bull's-eye." 
 
 " Well, it seriously detracts from your market value as a 
 husband. On second thought, I'm not sure but Lettice had 
 better put up with me after all." He hesitated. A point 
 that had not escaped him was Denis's significant change of
 
 THE ONE SHALL BE TAKEN 293 
 
 pronoun in the latter part of his narrative from " they " to 
 " she." What in the world had they done with Dorothea? 
 Left her behind at the farm? Anything was possible with 
 that dear lunatic! He had no thought of tragedy. There 
 seemed no room for it in Denis's straightforward tale, and 
 no hint of it in his quiet, smiling manner. " I say, Denis, 
 I've no wish to be indiscreet, and I'm not asking if I ought 
 to hold my tongue but Wandesforde said " 
 
 " Yes," said Denis, " I was comin' to that. She died." 
 
 " Died ! " 
 
 " Instead of me. I'd never have got off but for her. She 
 put on my flying kit and led them away from the farm. She 
 was always keen on dressin' up as a boy. Of course I'd 
 have stopped it if I'd known, but I didn't ; I was off my head. 
 I can't tell you exactly what happened, but they shot her, 
 and they hunted her, and finally they rounded her up in the 
 fir wood. The officer in command was quite a decent boy, 
 Lettice said; she'd have been all right if she'd given herself 
 up. But that would have meant givin' me up, do you see, 
 so she wouldn't do it. She crawled into one of those caves 
 up there and refused to come out." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " They bombed her," said Denis simply. " Like clearin' a 
 dug-out. So the whole place fell in. She must have counted 
 on that. She knew it wasn't safe." 
 
 " That was pretty fine," said Gardiner under his breath. 
 He could find nothing more. The contrast was too poignant. 
 " The one shall be taken " but Lettice was left. 
 
 " Yes," said Denis. " I've wondered, Harry : do you think 
 there's anything in that Carth'lic idea of prayers for the 
 dead?" 
 
 Gardiner, with those expectant dark blue eyes fixed on 
 him in their inveterate simplicity, found himself answering : 
 " Oh, I expect " 
 
 " Because, you see, we didn't have much time to say 
 things," Denis explained. " I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bore 
 you with this, but it's been rather a facer for me. You 
 know, if she'd lived, she'd have been my wife." 
 
 " Oh, my dear old Denis ! " said Gardiner.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 SHE ALONE CHARMETH MY SADNESS 
 
 Oh, believe me, Nell, it is an awful thing 1 to be a wife. CHARLOTTE 
 BRONTE. 
 
 LETTICE, dragging up the steps of No. 33 Canning Street, 
 paused to unfasten her waterproof and shake her wet um- 
 brella. It was raining, it seemed to have been raining ever 
 since she got back to town, chill November rain, a yellow 
 haze down every street ; and the weather matched her mood. 
 Ever since April she had been trying to shut her eyes to the 
 future, but as time drew on it refused to be ignored. It lay 
 in wait outside the Museum, it came home with her in the 
 Tube, it took possession of her attic, it was translating it- 
 self with appalling rapidity into the present, and she was no 
 more ready for it than she had been months ago. 
 
 Well! she had still a week's grace, and anything might 
 happen in a week. Lettice detached her mind with an effort, 
 picked up a letter from the hall table, and came upstairs 
 at a snail's pace, reading it. Her own room she expected to 
 be dark, so with her usual deaf and blind absorption in 
 anything to read she lingered outside on the landing. She 
 became aware, as she stood, of another scent mingling with 
 that of the lamp, of another clearer light than its brownish 
 obscurity, but her eyes remained glued to her letter; not 
 till she had reached the end did she slowly raise them from 
 the sheet, and then she saw her door open, her room full of 
 firelight, a white cloth gleaming, a dark figure standing in 
 the entrance watching her with a smile. 
 
 " Buenas noches, senorita," said Gardiner, politely remov- 
 ing his cigarette. 
 
 294
 
 SHE ALONE CHARMETH MY SADNESS 295 
 
 " O-o-oh it's you," said Lettice with striking originality. 
 
 " The curse is come upon me ! " suggested Gardiner. 
 His smile widened. " Exactly. You look so pleased ! " 
 
 Lettice, after that first involuntary pause of dismay, had 
 come into the room ; she stood by the table, slowly, slowly 
 drawing off her gloves. 
 
 " Well, of course I'm pleased ; but why, why, why didn't 
 you let me know? You said you weren't coming out till 
 next week ! " 
 
 " So sorry, but I didn't know myself. It was little Scott 
 worked the oracle said I was in a bad way or something." 
 Lettice said nothing, but her chin had a mutinous cock. 
 " Shall I go back again ? " 
 
 "If you'd let me know in time" said Lettice, " I'd have 
 got you something nice for tea. Now you'll have to put up 
 with what there is." 
 
 That minute offended voice, that reproachful pianissimo 
 drawl ! Gardiner laughed out. 
 
 " Lettice, you're inimitable ! I swear you haven't turned 
 a hair ! Do you know do you know you've got the same 
 button off the same coat ? " 
 
 " Well, you wouldn't expect me to have the same button 
 off another coat, would you ? " 
 
 " I would not have you in any single particular in any de- 
 gree different from what you are now," Gardiner declared. 
 He dropped into a chair. " As a matter of fact, they shot 
 me out yesterday; and if it comes to letting people know 
 I went straight off to Starbridge under the impression I 
 should find you in the bosom of your family. I was shown 
 in right on top of a Belgian work party. Awful 
 out again with my tail between my legs. That upset 
 couldn't even face you. I spent the night m the fi 
 
 " It was raining." , 
 
 "Quite; it was. I was under a tarpaulin on top of 
 stack Oh yes, thanks, I slept like a hog. I ve been drop- 
 ping off at intervals ever since, in the tram or any old P la< 
 Making up for lost time, I suppose.
 
 296 CONVICT B14 
 
 His speech ended in a yawn. Lettice stole a glance at him 
 out of the tail of her eye. " Were you sleeping badly right 
 up to the end ? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes ; it's been rather rotten. Never mind, all over now. 
 It's good to be out. Brrr! You leave that toasting fork 
 alone. Drop it ! My job. You're tired ; you've been fag- 
 ging all day in the B.M. Sientese listed, sefiorita." 
 
 " You'll burn it," cried Lettice, defensively holding on. 
 He looked up lazily ; his black eyes were melting soft, his 
 voice a seductive murmur. 
 
 " Ah ! prendita mia, don't you know I'm going to make 
 your toast for you every evening of your life? " 
 
 Lettice was extinguished. She sat down, unwilling but 
 unresisting. He could make toast, and he could do what was 
 far more difficult and unusual make her obey him. He 
 spoke lightly, but he was watching her all the time ; he beset 
 her with his eyes. They said bold things, but he did not 
 press them ; he made her color, and he laughed, yet he did 
 not touch her. Why he did it? That was quite plain; he 
 was hoarding up his happiness, playing cat and mouse, hold- 
 ing her life in his hand, as he had sworn he could, without 
 closing his fingers on it. Lettice knew not whether to be 
 glad or sorry at the respite. 
 
 " Have you seen Mr. Gardiner yet? " she asked. She pre- 
 ferred talking to being watched. 
 
 " Not yet. I'm booked for Woodlands to-night, but I 
 thought I'd see you first and present him with our plans 
 ready made; he flurries himself over anything like a dis- 
 cussion, dear old boy. Bet you sixpence you don't guess 
 what I mean to do? " Lettice looked inquiring. " No ; not 
 enlist. This hand does me out of that. But I've a job in 
 my mind's eye that will do me quite as well or even better. 
 What do you say to the Secret Service? Don't you dare 
 screw your nose up at me ! " ^ He was laughing at her again. 
 " Seriously, you know, I'm cut out for it. I pass anywhere 
 as a Spaniard, and though I say it, I have quite a pretty turn 
 for finesse. The padre at the prison, Roche his name was, 
 has a father who's a big brass hat in that line, and he's giv-
 
 SHE ALONE CHARMETH MY SADNESS 297 
 
 ing me a leg up. I shall go directly I'm fit. I'm still pretty 
 frail; I wouldn't trust myself not to leg it out of a tight 
 place, which at best would be ignominious, and might lead to 
 a handy wall and a firing squad oh, wouldn't suit my book 
 at all. No. I give myself a fat month. I've certain plans 
 for that month which I propose presently to lay before you. 
 You go raspberry-pink when you blush, Laetitia Jane; did 
 you know it ? " 
 
 " Will you have some more tea ? " asked Lettice repres- 
 sively. 
 
 " No, I will not have some more tea. No, and I won't 
 have a cigarette either. You are a little liar, you hate smoke. 
 I got that out of that pretty sister of yours by the way, I 
 think I can get round your people without much trouble ; 
 I'm rather a dog, you know, when I give my mind to it. 
 Always well to be on good terms with your in-laws but 
 that's not the point at present. I've certain plans for this 
 next month, as I said ; but before we discuss them this house 
 will go into committee on ways and means. The sad fact 
 is that, bar a few pounds in the bank, I'm a blooming pauper. 
 Every cent I possess went with the Bellevue. I suppose a 
 grateful country will support me while I'm lying in the 
 bosom of the Hun What are you looking at me like that 
 for?" 
 
 " Don't you know ? " 
 
 " Know what ? " 
 
 " About your, your your what do you call it." 
 
 "My ?" 
 
 " It was in Denis's letter. I've just heard from him. 
 About Dot O'Connor." 
 
 " Lucid, very," said Gardiner. " Get a move on, darling. 
 Steady over the stones. What about Dot O'Connor? " 
 
 " Well, I'm telling you as fast as I can. You, you, you 
 do hurry me so," Lettice complained. She took breath and 
 tried again. " She, she it was her will. You heard she 
 left him a lot of money for his old aeroplanes? " 
 
 Gardiner nodded. " Yes, that was in The Mail. ' Be- 
 quest to an Airman.' Roche told me. I was very glad
 
 298 CONVICT B14 
 
 about it; poor dear old chap, it'll be something to take his 
 mind off. But I don't see " 
 
 " Well, she's left you some too. To show her gratitude 
 for your consideration." 
 
 " How much? Five thousand? Good Lord ! I say, Let- 
 tice, I can't possibly take it ! " Lettice was silent. " Don't 
 you agree with me ? " 
 
 " No. I think you should." 
 
 " After all that's happened ? " 
 
 " Well, you never did hate her, did you ? " said Lettice. 
 " And she didn't hate you, at any rate not at the last. She'd 
 be sorry if you refused." 
 
 " No, I never hated her," said Gardiner. He lay back, 
 thinking. " I say, Lettice." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I say, I was cut up over that business. Weren't you ? " 
 Lettice nodded. He leaned forward, fingering the fringe 
 of her tea-cloth. " Not for Denis's sake, I don't mean, but 
 for her own. I I liked her, you know. You couldn't 
 help feeling she ought to have been such a jolly kid ! " 
 
 " I owe her a good deal," said Lettice on a rare impulse. 
 
 "You do?" 
 
 " She stuck a knife into a German for me." 
 
 Gardiner looked up quickly. " In time ? " 
 
 "If it hadn't been I shouldn't be here," said Lettice very 
 concisely. 
 
 " H'm," said Gardiner. His face was expressionless. 
 Lettice wondered what he was thinking. She was apt to 
 go astray in other people's thoughts where they concerned 
 herself, because she habitually underrated her own signifi- 
 cance. She wished she had not told him. She had never 
 told Denis. She scourged herself for giving confidences 
 unasked. 
 
 There came a pause. Gardiner seemed deep in thought. 
 Lettice with a darkened face was noiselessly putting cups 
 and saucers together. She hoped to get out of the room 
 without attracting his attention, but he shot out of his chair 
 in time to open the door.
 
 SHE ALONE CHARMETH MY SADNESS 299 
 
 " Where are you off to with those things ? " 
 
 " It's Beatrice's afternoon out, and I'm going to carry 
 them down into the basement," said Lettice in an uninviting 
 hurry. She was afraid he would offer to come too, but he 
 did not, nor did her tone provoke a smile. 
 
 " Hurry up back, then, I want to talk to you," was all he 
 said. 
 
 Lettice did not hurry back ; she stayed to wash up, a work 
 of supererogation, found half-a-dozen other unnecessary 
 things to do, loitered on the stairs, delayed on the landing. 
 She had at last to force herself to the door against a reluc- 
 tance like a pain ; and then she halted on the threshold. He 
 had fallen asleep. 
 
 Lettice crossed the floor with her soft, slow step and stood 
 looking down on him. Awake, except for being thinner, he 
 was not so much changed from his old self; asleep, he 
 showed the ravages of the past twelvemonth helplessly, 
 openly. Lettice knew without being told that he hated to be 
 watched in his sleep for that very reason, because he could 
 not guard his secrets ; yet he trusted himself unreservedly 
 to her. He and his secrets were quite at her mercy. It was 
 too much ; he gave too much and he asked too much. So 
 unlike Denis, who asked nothing, took things for granted, 
 never criticized either himself or her! But this alert, rest- 
 less, observant mind, for ever analyzing and appraising 
 how was she to cope with it ? She felt like a mole dragged 
 into the sunshine. 
 
 There was some affinity between them, and she had power 
 over him yes ; but she did not want it. She only longed 
 to creep back underground. She could give him friendship, 
 she could even give him love of the quality she gave to 
 Denis, provided he asked no more; if he did ask more, all 
 her instincts bent away from him towards something very 
 like hostility. What was she going to do, then ? Keep her 
 word, that of course; but how? Could she deceive him? 
 She could not; that was just what she found intolerable. 
 But if she did not, would he be satisfied? Or would he 
 actually enjoy holding her against her will? Lettice was
 
 300 CONVICT B14 
 
 not sure. He was not cruel, but he was passionate, and pas- 
 sion is cruel. He made her conscious, always, that he was 
 a man. Entangled in the personal relation, her judgment 
 was all astray. 
 
 Well ! she supposed she must set her teeth and do the best 
 she could. After all, the fault was hers, not his, the unnat- 
 ural lack was in her. Remembering little Dorothea's free- 
 hearted giving, Lettice despised her own sterility. 
 
 But there was a deeper affinity between them than she 
 knew ; and he showed it now by answering the call of her 
 presence and waking under her eyes. He woke in terror, 
 with her name on his lips, a cry of agony, which changed, 
 when he saw her, to relief instantaneous. He turned and 
 hid his face against her, in the gesture of a frightened child. 
 Lettice never forgot that moment. It was a sword through 
 her heart. She drew a deep breath; without impulse, de- 
 liberately rather, she put her arm round his shoulders and 
 held him there, strong to comfort. Her face was stern. 
 . . . Moments passed; little by little the tremors and the 
 quick uneven breathing subsided. He sat up. 
 
 "Apologies," he said with a half-laugh, unconcealably 
 shaken, but unashamed. 
 
 " Do you often wake like that? " asked Lettice unsmiling. 
 
 " Do I ? Occasionally. When I get the jim-jams. Yes, 
 I have pretty often lately. It's all your fault, you know." 
 
 "My fault?" 
 
 "That story of yours, that particular danger well, it 
 happened to be my particular nightmare. I don't think there 
 were many minutes when it was out of my head. I kept 
 it under mostly during the day, but at night it used to wear 
 through and wake me up. I used to visualize it in all sorts 
 of variations. You, Lettice, who hate to have a hand laid 
 on you " 
 
 " Who told you I disliked that? " 
 
 " You have yourself, a dozen times." 
 
 She let that pass. " I am thankful you are out of that 
 place," she said in a low voice, half to herself. He smiled. 
 
 " I'm all right, darling. Or I soon shall be, when "
 
 SHE ALONE CHARMETH MY SADNESS 301 
 
 "When what?" 
 
 " Nothing," said Gardiner. "I shall be all right soon." 
 He captured the hand which hung by her side and kissed it 
 softly, inside and out. " It's been rather sport pulling your 
 tail when you've always tried to pull mine, but I can't keep 
 it up any longer. Are you going to give me what I want, 
 Lettice of my heart?" 
 
 " What do you want ? " 
 
 " You. All of you. Mind as well as body. Mind prin- 
 cipally. I told you before, I tell you again, it was you 
 brought me through. You have me all of me. And if 
 I'm better worth having than I was a year ago, it's your 
 doing. I claim no credit. I put myself into your hands 
 to do what you like with. Will you take on the job ? " 
 Lettice did not answer could not answer ; she was in 
 travail, and hers was no easy delivery. Gardiner looked up. 
 " My God, you don't want to ! " 
 
 She put out her hand quickly. *' I will marry you." 
 
 " No, you won't. I decline." 
 
 " You you don't understand. I will marry you." 
 
 " Oh, damn," said Gardiner. " Oh, I can't stand this. 
 It's quite all right. I can get on without you." He stood 
 by the table, striking match after match in vain efforts to 
 light his cigarette; when he had it burning, he threw it 
 away. Then he began on the matches again ; the floor was 
 strewn with broken ends. " My darling, it really is all 
 right. I should have seen it before if I hadn't been an ass. 
 What you can't give is the least part of what I want. Put 
 me on the same ration as Denis, and I shall do famously." 
 
 " You don't understand," said Lettice, " and I am such a 
 dolt " 
 
 " Lettice, I will not take what you don't want to give. 
 I saw what you were feeling. Think you could take me in 
 after we were married? Think I should enjoy the position? 
 I tell you one reason why your instincts are rebelling now, 
 and that's the the what that poor child killed. Isn't it 
 so ? " Lettice was mute. " Well, do you think I want to 
 even myself with that?"
 
 302 CONVICT B14 
 
 " I don't care what you think," said Lattice with staccato 
 distinctness, " and I am going to marry you." 
 
 He turned and seized her shoulders. " Lettice, you don't 
 love me?" She was dumb again. "Do you? Do you? 
 Lettice alma de mi vida, nina de mi corazon saladisima, 
 preciosisima, hermosisima " 
 
 If he had never known it before, he saw now that he had 
 power over her ; she could not resist that tone. " Well, I 
 can't have you waking up like that, can I ? " 
 
 " How would you have me wake ? " asked Gardiner 
 under his breath. He did not know what he expected, cer- 
 tainly not what he got: a swift turn, Lettice's face grim 
 with feeling, her hands strongly drawing him down against 
 her heart. She said not a syllable, but she held him there ; 
 and by and by she bent her graceful little neck and kissed 
 him, the oddest little salute, it might have been called a peck, 
 quite definite and not at all shy. Gardiner sprang up, 
 flushed, impassioned, freeing himself from her arms to seize 
 her in his own ; then holding her off, with one lingering 
 scruple " Sure it's all right, Lettice ? Sure you don't 
 mind? I swear I'll take nothing you don't freely give 
 now or as your husband, nothing ! " 
 
 " You are not all there is of most intelligent, are you ? " 
 said Lettice. 
 
 But if her tongue was perverse, her eyes were very soft 
 soft as only Lettice's eyes could be, always with a sparkle 
 in their sweetness ; and Gardiner was not critical. He was 
 far too much occupied in making love, which he did very 
 prettily, with a wealth of soft Spanish superlatives. He 
 was drunk with happiness; his most enterprising dreams 
 had never pictured such a surrender. 
 
 And Lettice was happy too. She knew now, she had 
 learned in the moment when he woke with her name on 
 his lips, that she was not afraid of passion; and if she had 
 surprised him, he had surprised her too. She had thought 
 she understood him pretty well; but she knew the worst 
 better than the best, and the unselfishness, the delicacy, 
 the almost fantastic chivalry of his love left her wondering
 
 SHE ALONE CHARMETH MY SADNESS 303 
 
 and self -reproachful. So it happened that she finally sur- 
 rendered the keys of her heart (with reserves: there were 
 certain chambers which she really couldn't and wouldn't 
 unlock, though she spoiled her Harry in every other conceiv- 
 able way) with fewer regrets than she had thought possible, 
 and with no misgivings at all. Her mind was at rest ; she 
 had built her house upon a rock. 
 
 We traveled in the print of olden wars, 
 
 Yet all the land was green, 
 And love we found, and peace, 
 
 Where fire and war had been. 
 
 MARCH, 1920, on the Semois. 
 
 Strong sunshine and silver rain-storms; the winds of the 
 equinox marshaling great swan-white droves of cloud across 
 the blue, the wet earth sparkling like a jewel. The hill of the 
 crucifix was green, pea-green with the growth of young 
 wheat ; the hill of woods opposite, still leafless, had a million 
 delicate buds, cloud on cloud of russet, and bronze, and lilac, 
 and faint yellow, and fainter green, softly rounding the shape 
 of every bush. Great oaks detached themselves, gnarled 
 lichen-gray skeletons, distinct in branch and twig, from 
 purple hollows of the woodland. The valley was a streak 
 of emerald ; the river glistened like thin silver in the sun. 
 
 So peaceful, and so little changed! Across the stream 
 the bridge lay broken-backed, but sounds of hammering came 
 up through the thin air, and midget figures moved about 
 with wheelbarrows, repairing it. Among the crushed roofs 
 of Poupehan white scaffolding took the eye. Farther down 
 the valley, where the woods had been stripped, and the Roche 
 des Corneilles showed bare and gray on a bare purple hill- 
 side, the young plantations were rising among the brushwood 
 in dotted lines of green. The orchards of the Bellevue, 
 brutally hacked down, had been doctored and replanted, and 
 were whitening with early blossom; and through their 
 branches a quick eye could discern other signs of growth and 
 restoration. Of the original Bellevue not one stone was 
 left upon another, but a new one was rising in its room.
 
 304 CONVICT B14 
 
 Soon, very soon, the scars would heal, and all would be as it 
 had been. 
 
 And O, how deep the corn 
 
 Along the battlefield! 
 
 One change there was, not due to the tide of war. The 
 forlorn wooden cross on the hill-top had gone : had given 
 place to another, a lovely thing in marble, the inspiration 
 of a French artist, standing forty feet high on its pedestal 
 of steps. It had been put up by an English avion, pre- 
 sumably to commemorate his miraculous escape from death 
 on that very spot, though the inscription on the plinth did not 
 quite tally with that theory. Strange that a heretic and an 
 Englishman should choose to erect a crucifix, stranger still 
 to those who had known this Englishman before ; but times 
 change, and men with them. At any rate there stood the 
 cross; and Rochehaut, if it could not understand, was in- 
 ordinately proud of it. " Eh, madame, vous allez au Christ, 
 n'est-ce pas? " said Madame Hasquin of the farm to the wife 
 of her temporary lodger. " Ah ! c'est beau c.a, savex-vous ! 
 Mettez une petite priere pour moi, je vous prie ! " 
 
 So Lettice, sitting on the steps with a pair of masculine 
 socks, as she had once sat on the stones with the green 
 tablecloth, added a prayer for little murdered Denise (which 
 was what Madame meant by her moi) to the petition re- 
 quested by the cross : 
 
 PER ARDUA AD ASTRA 
 PRIEZ POUR ELLE 
 
 THE END
 
 . 
 
 3? 
 
 A 000036258 2