THE GOOD SOLDIER

By Ford Madox Ford

PART I

I

THIS is the saddest story I have ever heard. We had known theAshburnhams for nine seasons of the town of Nauheim with an extremeintimacy--or, rather with an acquaintanceship as loose and easy and yetas close as a good glove's with your hand. My wife and I knew Captainand Mrs Ashburnham as well as it was possible to know anybody, and yet, in another sense, we knew nothing at all about them. This is, I believe, a state of things only possible with English people of whom, till today, when I sit down to puzzle out what I know of this sad affair, I knewnothing whatever. Six months ago I had never been to England, and, certainly, I had never sounded the depths of an English heart. I hadknown the shallows. 

I don't mean to say that we were not acquainted with many Englishpeople. Living, as we perforce lived, in Europe, and being, as weperforce were, leisured Americans, which is as much as to say that wewere un-American, we were thrown very much into the society of thenicer English. Paris, you see, was our home. Somewhere between Nice andBordighera provided yearly winter quarters for us, and Nauheim alwaysreceived us from July to September. You will gather from this statementthat one of us had, as the saying is, a "heart", and, from the statementthat my wife is dead, that she was the sufferer. 

Captain Ashburnham also had a heart. But, whereas a yearly month or soat Nauheim tuned him up to exactly the right pitch for the rest of thetwelvemonth, the two months or so were only just enough to keeppoor Florence alive from year to year. The reason for his heart was, approximately, polo, or too much hard sportsmanship in his youth. Thereason for poor Florence's broken years was a storm at sea upon ourfirst crossing to Europe, and the immediate reasons for our imprisonmentin that continent were doctor's orders. They said that even the shortChannel crossing might well kill the poor thing. 

When we all first met, Captain Ashburnham, home on sick leave from anIndia to which he was never to return, was thirty-three; Mrs AshburnhamLeonora--was thirty-one. I was thirty-six and poor Florence thirty. Thus today Florence would have been thirty-nine and Captain Ashburnhamforty-two; whereas I am forty-five and Leonora forty. You will perceive, therefore, that our friendship has been a young-middle-aged affair, since we were all of us of quite quiet dispositions, the Ashburnhamsbeing more particularly what in England it is the custom to call "quitegood people". 

They were descended, as you will probably expect, from the Ashburnhamwho accompanied Charles I to the scaffold, and, as you must also expectwith this class of English people, you would never have noticed it. Mrs Ashburnham was a Powys; Florence was a Hurlbird of Stamford, Connecticut, where, as you know, they are more old-fashioned than eventhe inhabitants of Cranford, England, could have been. I myself am aDowell of Philadelphia, Pa. , where, it is historically true, thereare more old English families than you would find in any six Englishcounties taken together. I carry about with me, indeed--as if itwere the only thing that invisibly anchored me to any spot upon theglobe--the title deeds of my farm, which once covered several blocksbetween Chestnut and Walnut Streets. These title deeds are of wampum, the grant of an Indian chief to the first Dowell, who left Farnham inSurrey in company with William Penn. Florence's people, as is sooften the case with the inhabitants of Connecticut, came from theneighbourhood of Fordingbridge, where the Ashburnhams' place is. Fromthere, at this moment, I am actually writing. 

You may well ask why I write. And yet my reasons are quite many. For itis not unusual in human beings who have witnessed the sack of a city orthe falling to pieces of a people to desire to set down what they havewitnessed for the benefit of unknown heirs or of generations infinitelyremote; or, if you please, just to get the sight out of their heads. 

Some one has said that the death of a mouse from cancer is the wholesack of Rome by the Goths, and I swear to you that the breaking upof our little four-square coterie was such another unthinkable event. Supposing that you should come upon us sitting together at one of thelittle tables in front of the club house, let us say, at Homburg, takingtea of an afternoon and watching the miniature golf, you would have saidthat, as human affairs go, we were an extraordinarily safe castle. Wewere, if you will, one of those tall ships with the white sails upon ablue sea, one of those things that seem the proudest and the safest ofall the beautiful and safe things that God has permitted the mind of mento frame. Where better could one take refuge? Where better?

Permanence? Stability? I can't believe it's gone. I can't believe thatthat long, tranquil life, which was just stepping a minuet, vanished infour crashing days at the end of nine years and six weeks. Upon my word, yes, our intimacy was like a minuet, simply because on every possibleoccasion and in every possible circumstance we knew where to go, whereto sit, which table we unanimously should choose; and we could rise andgo, all four together, without a signal from any one of us, always tothe music of the Kur orchestra, always in the temperate sunshine, or, ifit rained, in discreet shelters. No, indeed, it can't be gone. You can'tkill a minuet de la cour. You may shut up the music-book, close theharpsichord; in the cupboard and presses the rats may destroy the whitesatin favours. The mob may sack Versailles; the Trianon may fall, butsurely the minuet--the minuet itself is dancing itself away into thefurthest stars, even as our minuet of the Hessian bathing places mustbe stepping itself still. Isn't there any heaven where old beautifuldances, old beautiful intimacies prolong themselves? Isn't there anyNirvana pervaded by the faint thrilling of instruments that havefallen into the dust of wormwood but that yet had frail, tremulous, andeverlasting souls?

No, by God, it is false! It wasn't a minuet that we stepped; it was aprison--a prison full of screaming hysterics, tied down so that theymight not outsound the rolling of our carriage wheels as we went alongthe shaded avenues of the Taunus Wald. 

And yet I swear by the sacred name of my creator that it was true. Itwas true sunshine; the true music; the true splash of the fountains fromthe mouth of stone dolphins. For, if for me we were four people with thesame tastes, with the same desires, acting--or, no, not acting--sittinghere and there unanimously, isn't that the truth? If for nine years Ihave possessed a goodly apple that is rotten at the core and discoverits rottenness only in nine years and six months less four days, isn'tit true to say that for nine years I possessed a goodly apple? So it maywell be with Edward Ashburnham, with Leonora his wife and with poor dearFlorence. And, if you come to think of it, isn't it a little odd thatthe physical rottenness of at least two pillars of our four-squarehouse never presented itself to my mind as a menace to its security? Itdoesn't so present itself now though the two of them are actually dead. I don't know. . . . 

I know nothing--nothing in the world--of the hearts of men. I only knowthat I am alone--horribly alone. No hearthstone will ever again witness, for me, friendly intercourse. No smoking-room will ever be other thanpeopled with incalculable simulacra amidst smoke wreaths. Yet, in thename of God, what should I know if I don't know the life of the hearthand of the smoking-room, since my whole life has been passed in thoseplaces? The warm hearthside!--Well, there was Florence: I believethat for the twelve years her life lasted, after the storm that seemedirretrievably to have weakened her heart--I don't believe that for oneminute she was out of my sight, except when she was safely tucked up inbed and I should be downstairs, talking to some good fellow or other insome lounge or smoking-room or taking my final turn with a cigar beforegoing to bed. I don't, you understand, blame Florence. But how can shehave known what she knew? How could she have got to know it? To know itso fully. Heavens! There doesn't seem to have been the actual time. Itmust have been when I was taking my baths, and my Swedish exercises, being manicured. Leading the life I did, of the sedulous, strainednurse, I had to do something to keep myself fit. It must have been then!Yet even that can't have been enough time to get the tremendously longconversations full of worldly wisdom that Leonora has reported tome since their deaths. And is it possible to imagine that during ourprescribed walks in Nauheim and the neighbourhood she found time tocarry on the protracted negotiations which she did carry on betweenEdward Ashburnham and his wife? And isn't it incredible that duringall that time Edward and Leonora never spoke a word to each other inprivate? What is one to think of humanity?

For I swear to you that they were the model couple. He was as devotedas it was possible to be without appearing fatuous. So well set up, with such honest blue eyes, such a touch of stupidity, such a warmgoodheartedness! And she--so tall, so splendid in the saddle, so fair!Yes, Leonora was extraordinarily fair and so extraordinarily the realthing that she seemed too good to be true. You don't, I mean, as a rule, get it all so superlatively together. To be the county family, to lookthe county family, to be so appropriately and perfectly wealthy; to beso perfect in manner--even just to the saving touch of insolence thatseems to be necessary. To have all that and to be all that! No, it wastoo good to be true. And yet, only this afternoon, talking over thewhole matter she said to me: "Once I tried to have a lover but I wasso sick at the heart, so utterly worn out that I had to send him away. "That struck me as the most amazing thing I had ever heard. She said "Iwas actually in a man's arms. Such a nice chap! Such a dear fellow! AndI was saying to myself, fiercely, hissing it between my teeth, as theysay in novels--and really clenching them together: I was saying tomyself: 'Now, I'm in for it and I'll really have a good time for once inmy life--for once in my life!' It was in the dark, in a carriage, comingback from a hunt ball. Eleven miles we had to drive! And then suddenlythe bitterness of the endless poverty, of the endless acting--it fell onme like a blight, it spoilt everything. Yes, I had to realize that I hadbeen spoilt even for the good time when it came. And I burst out cryingand I cried and I cried for the whole eleven miles. Just imagine mecrying! And just imagine me making a fool of the poor dear chap likethat. It certainly wasn't playing the game, was it now?"

I don't know; I don't know; was that last remark of hers the remark ofa harlot, or is it what every decent woman, county family or not countyfamily, thinks at the bottom of her heart? Or thinks all the time forthe matter of that? Who knows?

Yet, if one doesn't know that at this hour and day, at this pitch ofcivilization to which we have attained, after all the preachings ofall the moralists, and all the teachings of all the mothers to all thedaughters in saecula saeculorum. . . But perhaps that is what all mothersteach all daughters, not with lips but with the eyes, or with heartwhispering to heart. And, if one doesn't know as much as that about thefirst thing in the world, what does one know and why is one here?

I asked Mrs Ashburnham whether she had told Florence that and whatFlorence had said and she answered:--"Florence didn't offer any commentat all. What could she say? There wasn't anything to be said. With thegrinding poverty we had to put up with to keep up appearances, and theway the poverty came about--you know what I mean--any woman would havebeen justified in taking a lover and presents too. Florence once saidabout a very similar position--she was a little too well-bred, tooAmerican, to talk about mine--that it was a case of perfectly openriding and the woman could just act on the spur of the moment. She saidit in American of course, but that was the sense of it. I think heractual words were: 'That it was up to her to take it or leave it. . . . '"

I don't want you to think that I am writing Teddy Ashburnham down abrute. I don't believe he was. God knows, perhaps all men are like that. For as I've said what do I know even of the smoking-room? Fellows comein and tell the most extraordinarily gross stories--so gross that theywill positively give you a pain. And yet they'd be offended if yousuggested that they weren't the sort of person you could trust your wifealone with. And very likely they'd be quite properly offended--that isif you can trust anybody alone with anybody. But that sort of fellowobviously takes more delight in listening to or in telling grossstories--more delight than in anything else in the world. They'llhunt languidly and dress languidly and dine languidly and work withoutenthusiasm and find it a bore to carry on three minutes' conversationabout anything whatever and yet, when the other sort of conversationbegins, they'll laugh and wake up and throw themselves about in theirchairs. Then, if they so delight in the narration, how is it possiblethat they can be offended--and properly offended--at the suggestionthat they might make attempts upon your wife's honour? Or again:Edward Ashburnham was the cleanest looking sort of chap;--an excellentmagistrate, a first rate soldier, one of the best landlords, so theysaid, in Hampshire, England. To the poor and to hopeless drunkards, as Imyself have witnessed, he was like a painstaking guardian. And he nevertold a story that couldn't have gone into the columns of the Field morethan once or twice in all the nine years of my knowing him. He didn'teven like hearing them; he would fidget and get up and go out to buy acigar or something of that sort. You would have said that he was justexactly the sort of chap that you could have trusted your wife with. AndI trusted mine and it was madness. And yet again you have me. If poorEdward was dangerous because of the chastity of his expressions--andthey say that is always the hall-mark of a libertine--what about myself?For I solemnly avow that not only have I never so much as hinted at animpropriety in my conversation in the whole of my days; and more thanthat, I will vouch for the cleanness of my thoughts and the absolutechastity of my life. At what, then, does it all work out? Is the wholething a folly and a mockery? Am I no better than a eunuch or is theproper man--the man with the right to existence--a raging stallionforever neighing after his neighbour's womankind?

I don't know. And there is nothing to guide us. And if everything isso nebulous about a matter so elementary as the morals of sex, whatis there to guide us in the more subtle morality of all other personalcontacts, associations, and activities? Or are we meant to act onimpulse alone? It is all a darkness. 

II

I DON'T know how it is best to put this thing down--whether it wouldbe better to try and tell the story from the beginning, as if it were astory; or whether to tell it from this distance of time, as it reachedme from the lips of Leonora or from those of Edward himself. 

So I shall just imagine myself for a fortnight or so at one side of thefireplace of a country cottage, with a sympathetic soul opposite me. And I shall go on talking, in a low voice while the sea sounds in thedistance and overhead the great black flood of wind polishes the brightstars. From time to time we shall get up and go to the door and look outat the great moon and say: "Why, it is nearly as bright as in Provence!"And then we shall come back to the fireside, with just the touch of asigh because we are not in that Provence where even the saddest storiesare gay. Consider the lamentable history of Peire Vidal. Two years agoFlorence and I motored from Biarritz to Las Tours, which is in the BlackMountains. In the middle of a tortuous valley there rises up an immensepinnacle and on the pinnacle are four castles--Las Tours, the Towers. And the immense mistral blew down that valley which was the way fromFrance into Provence so that the silver grey olive leaves appeared likehair flying in the wind, and the tufts of rosemary crept into the ironrocks that they might not be torn up by the roots. 

It was, of course, poor dear Florence who wanted to go to Las Tours. You are to imagine that, however much her bright personality came fromStamford, Connecticut, she was yet a graduate of Poughkeepsie. I nevercould imagine how she did it--the queer, chattery person that she was. With the far-away look in her eyes--which wasn't, however, in the leastromantic--I mean that she didn't look as if she were seeing poeticdreams, or looking through you, for she hardly ever did look atyou!--holding up one hand as if she wished to silence any objection--orany comment for the matter of that--she would talk. She would talk aboutWilliam the Silent, about Gustave the Loquacious, about Paris frocks, about how the poor dressed in 1337, about Fantin-Latour, about theParis-Lyons-Mediterranée train-deluxe, about whether it would beworth while to get off at Tarascon and go across the windsweptsuspension-bridge, over the Rhone to take another look at Beaucaire. 

We never did take another look at Beaucaire, of course--beautifulBeaucaire, with the high, triangular white tower, that looked as thinas a needle and as tall as the Flatiron, between Fifth andBroadway--Beaucaire with the grey walls on the top of the pinnaclesurrounding an acre and a half of blue irises, beneath the tallness ofthe stone pines, What a beautiful thing the stone pine is!. . . 

No, we never did go back anywhere. Not to Heidelberg, not to Hamelin, not to Verona, not to Mont Majour--not so much as to Carcassonne itself. We talked of it, of course, but I guess Florence got all she wanted outof one look at a place. She had the seeing eye. 

I haven't, unfortunately, so that the world is full of places to which Iwant to return--towns with the blinding white sun upon them; stone pinesagainst the blue of the sky; corners of gables, all carved and paintedwith stags and scarlet flowers and crowstepped gables with the littlesaint at the top; and grey and pink palazzi and walled towns a mile orso back from the sea, on the Mediterranean, between Leghorn and Naples. Not one of them did we see more than once, so that the whole world forme is like spots of colour in an immense canvas. Perhaps if it weren'tso I should have something to catch hold of now. 

Is all this digression or isn't it digression? Again I don't know. You, the listener, sit opposite me. But you are so silent. You don't tell meanything. I am, at any rate, trying to get you to see what sort of lifeit was I led with Florence and what Florence was like. Well, she wasbright; and she danced. She seemed to dance over the floors of castlesand over seas and over and over and over the salons of modistes and overthe plages of the Riviera--like a gay tremulous beam, reflected fromwater upon a ceiling. And my function in life was to keep that brightthing in existence. And it was almost as difficult as trying to catchwith your hand that dancing reflection. And the task lasted for years. 

Florence's aunts used to say that I must be the laziest man inPhiladelphia. They had never been to Philadelphia and they had the NewEngland conscience. You see, the first thing they said to me when Icalled in on Florence in the little ancient, colonial, wooden housebeneath the high, thin-leaved elms--the first question they asked me wasnot how I did but what did I do. And I did nothing. I suppose I ought tohave done something, but I didn't see any call to do it. Why does one dothings? I just drifted in and wanted Florence. First I had drifted inon Florence at a Browning tea, or something of the sort in FourteenthStreet, which was then still residential. I don't know why I had goneto New York; I don't know why I had gone to the tea. I don't see whyFlorence should have gone to that sort of spelling bee. It wasn't theplace at which, even then, you expected to find a Poughkeepsie graduate. I guess Florence wanted to raise the culture of the Stuyvesant crowd anddid it as she might have gone in slumming. Intellectual slumming, thatwas what it was. She always wanted to leave the world a little moreelevated than she found it. Poor dear thing, I have heard her lectureTeddy Ashburnham by the hour on the difference between a Franz Hals anda Wouvermans and why the Pre-Mycenaean statues were cubical with knobson the top. I wonder what he made of it? Perhaps he was thankful. 

I know I was. For do you understand my whole attentions, my wholeendeavours were to keep poor dear Florence on to topics like the findsat Cnossos and the mental spirituality of Walter Pater. I had to keepher at it, you understand, or she might die. For I was solemnly informedthat if she became excited over anything or if her emotions were reallystirred her little heart might cease to beat. For twelve years I had towatch every word that any person uttered in any conversation and I hadto head it off what the English call "things"--off love, poverty, crime, religion and the rest of it. Yes, the first doctor that we had when shewas carried off the ship at Havre assured me that this must be done. Good God, are all these fellows monstrous idiots, or is there afreemasonry between all of them from end to end of the earth?. . . That iswhat makes me think of that fellow Peire Vidal. 

Because, of course, his story is culture and I had to head her towardsculture and at the same time it's so funny and she hadn't got to laugh, and it's so full of love and she wasn't to think of love. Do you knowthe story? Las Tours of the Four Castles had for chatelaine BlancheSomebody-or-other who was called as a term of commendation, LaLouve--the She-Wolf. And Peire Vidal the Troubadour paid his court toLa Louve. And she wouldn't have anything to do with him. So, out ofcompliment to her--the things people do when they're in love!--hedressed himself up in wolfskins and went up into the Black Mountains. And the shepherds of the Montagne Noire and their dogs mistook him fora wolf and he was torn with the fangs and beaten with clubs. So theycarried him back to Las Tours and La Louve wasn't at all impressed. Theypolished him up and her husband remonstrated seriously with her. Vidalwas, you see, a great poet and it was not proper to treat a great poetwith indifference. 

So Peire Vidal declared himself Emperor of Jerusalem or somewhereand the husband had to kneel down and kiss his feet though La Louvewouldn't. And Peire set sail in a rowing boat with four companions toredeem the Holy Sepulchre. And they struck on a rock somewhere, and, at great expense, the husband had to fit out an expedition to fetch himback. And Peire Vidal fell all over the Lady's bed while the husband, who was a most ferocious warrior, remonstrated some more about thecourtesy that is due to great poets. But I suppose La Louve was the moreferocious of the two. Anyhow, that is all that came of it. Isn't that astory?

You haven't an idea of the queer old-fashionedness of Florence'saunts--the Misses Hurlbird, nor yet of her uncle. An extraordinarilylovable man, that Uncle John. Thin, gentle, and with a "heart" that madehis life very much what Florence's afterwards became. He didn't resideat Stamford; his home was in Waterbury where the watches come from. Hehad a factory there which, in our queer American way, would changeits functions almost from year to year. For nine months or so it wouldmanufacture buttons out of bone. Then it would suddenly produce brassbuttons for coachmen's liveries. Then it would take a turn at embossedtin lids for candy boxes. The fact is that the poor old gentleman, withhis weak and fluttering heart, didn't want his factory to manufactureanything at all. He wanted to retire. And he did retire when he wasseventy. But he was so worried at having all the street boys in the townpoint after him and exclaim: "There goes the laziest man in Waterbury!"that he tried taking a tour round the world. And Florence and a youngman called Jimmy went with him. It appears from what Florence told methat Jimmy's function with Mr Hurlbird was to avoid exciting topics forhim. He had to keep him, for instance, out of political discussions. Forthe poor old man was a violent Democrat in days when you might travelthe world over without finding anything but a Republican. Anyhow, theywent round the world. 

I think an anecdote is about the best way to give you an idea of whatthe old gentleman was like. For it is perhaps important that you shouldknow what the old gentleman was; he had a great deal of influence informing the character of my poor dear wife. 

Just before they set out from San Francisco for the South Seas old MrHurlbird said he must take something with him to make little presents topeople he met on the voyage. And it struck him that the things totake for that purpose were oranges--because California is the orangecountry--and comfortable folding chairs. So he bought I don't knowhow many cases of oranges--the great cool California oranges, andhalf-a-dozen folding chairs in a special case that he always kept in hiscabin. There must have been half a cargo of fruit. 

For, to every person on board the several steamers that theyemployed--to every person with whom he had so much as a noddingacquaintance, he gave an orange every morning. And they lasted him rightround the girdle of this mighty globe of ours. When they were at NorthCape, even, he saw on the horizon, poor dear thin man that he was, alighthouse. "Hello, " says he to himself, "these fellows must be verylonely. Let's take them some oranges. " So he had a boatload of his fruitout and had himself rowed to the lighthouse on the horizon. The foldingchairs he lent to any lady that he came across and liked or who seemedtired and invalidish on the ship. And so, guarded against his heart and, having his niece with him, he went round the world. . . . 

He wasn't obtrusive about his heart. You wouldn't have known he had one. He only left it to the physical laboratory at Waterbury for the benefitof science, since he considered it to be quite an extraordinary kindof heart. And the joke of the matter was that, when, at the age ofeighty-four, just five days before poor Florence, he died of bronchitisthere was found to be absolutely nothing the matter with that organ. Ithad certainly jumped or squeaked or something just sufficiently to takein the doctors, but it appears that that was because of an odd formationof the lungs. I don't much understand about these matters. 

I inherited his money because Florence died five days after him. I wishI hadn't. It was a great worry. I had to go out to Waterbury just afterFlorence's death because the poor dear old fellow had left a good manycharitable bequests and I had to appoint trustees. I didn't like theidea of their not being properly handled. 

Yes, it was a great worry. And just as I had got things roughly settledI received the extraordinary cable from Ashburnham begging me to comeback and have a talk with him. And immediately afterwards came one fromLeonora saying, "Yes, please do come. You could be so helpful. " It wasas if he had sent the cable without consulting her and had afterwardstold her. Indeed, that was pretty much what had happened, except thathe had told the girl and the girl told the wife. I arrived, however, toolate to be of any good if I could have been of any good. And then I hadmy first taste of English life. It was amazing. It was overwhelming. Inever shall forget the polished cob that Edward, beside me, drove; theanimal's action, its high-stepping, its skin that was like satin. Andthe peace! And the red cheeks! And the beautiful, beautiful old house. 

Just near Branshaw Teleragh it was and we descended on it from the high, clear, windswept waste of the New Forest. I tell you it was amazingto arrive there from Waterbury. And it came into my head--for TeddyAshburnham, you remember, had cabled to me to "come and have a talk"with him--that it was unbelievable that anything essentially calamitouscould happen to that place and those people. I tell you it was the veryspirit of peace. And Leonora, beautiful and smiling, with her coils ofyellow hair, stood on the top doorstep, with a butler and footman and amaid or so behind her. And she just said: "So glad you've come, " as ifI'd run down to lunch from a town ten miles away, instead of having comehalf the world over at the call of two urgent telegrams. 

The girl was out with the hounds, I think. And that poor devil beside mewas in an agony. Absolute, hopeless, dumb agony such as passes the mindof man to imagine. 

III

IT was a very hot summer, in August, 1904; and Florence had already beentaking the baths for a month. I don't know how it feels to be a patientat one of those places. I never was a patient anywhere. I daresay thepatients get a home feeling and some sort of anchorage in the spot. Theyseem to like the bath attendants, with their cheerful faces, their airof authority, their white linen. But, for myself, to be at Nauheimgave me a sense--what shall I say?--a sense almost of nakedness--thenakedness that one feels on the sea-shore or in any great open space. I had no attachments, no accumulations. In one's own home it is as iflittle, innate sympathies draw one to particular chairs that seem toenfold one in an embrace, or take one along particular streets that seemfriendly when others may be hostile. And, believe me, that feeling is avery important part of life. I know it well, that have been for so longa wanderer upon the face of public resorts. And one is too polished up. Heaven knows I was never an untidy man. But the feeling that I hadwhen, whilst poor Florence was taking her morning bath, I stood upon thecarefully swept steps of the Englischer Hof, looking at the carefullyarranged trees in tubs upon the carefully arranged gravel whilstcarefully arranged people walked past in carefully calculated gaiety, at the carefully calculated hour, the tall trees of the public gardens, going up to the right; the reddish stone of the baths--or were theywhite half-timber châlets? Upon my word I have forgotten, I who wasthere so often. That will give you the measure of how much I was inthe landscape. I could find my way blindfolded to the hot rooms, to thedouche rooms, to the fountain in the centre of the quadrangle where therusty water gushes out. Yes, I could find my way blindfolded. I knowthe exact distances. From the Hotel Regina you took one hundred andeighty-seven paces, then, turning sharp, left-handed, four hundred andtwenty took you straight down to the fountain. From the Englischer Hof, starting on the sidewalk, it was ninety-seven paces and the same fourhundred and twenty, but turning lefthanded this time. 

And now you understand that, having nothing in the world to do--butnothing whatever! I fell into the habit of counting my footsteps. Iwould walk with Florence to the baths. And, of course, she entertainedme with her conversation. It was, as I have said, wonderful what shecould make conversation out of. She walked very lightly, and her hairwas very nicely done, and she dressed beautifully and very expensively. Of course she had money of her own, but I shouldn't have minded. And yetyou know I can't remember a single one of her dresses. Or I canremember just one, a very simple one of blue figured silk--a Chinesepattern--very full in the skirts and broadening out over the shoulders. And her hair was copper-coloured, and the heels of her shoes wereexceedingly high, so that she tripped upon the points of her toes. Andwhen she came to the door of the bathing place, and when it opened toreceive her, she would look back at me with a little coquettish smile, so that her cheek appeared to be caressing her shoulder. 

I seem to remember that, with that dress, she wore an immensely broadLeghorn hat--like the Chapeau de Paille of Rubens, only very white. Thehat would be tied with a lightly knotted scarf of the same stuff as herdress. She knew how to give value to her blue eyes. And round her neckwould be some simple pink, coral beads. And her complexion had a perfectclearness, a perfect smoothness. . . 

Yes, that is how I most exactly remember her, in that dress, in thathat, looking over her shoulder at me so that the eyes flashed veryblue--dark pebble blue. . . 

And, what the devil! For whose benefit did she do it? For that of thebath attendant? of the passers-by? I don't know. Anyhow, it can't havebeen for me, for never, in all the years of her life, never on anypossible occasion, or in any other place did she so smile to me, mockingly, invitingly. Ah, she was a riddle; but then, all other womenare riddles. And it occurs to me that some way back I began a sentencethat I have never finished. . . It was about the feeling that I had whenI stood on the steps of my hotel every morning before starting outto fetch Florence back from the bath. Natty, precise, well-brushed, conscious of being rather small amongst the long English, the lankAmericans, the rotund Germans, and the obese Russian Jewesses, I shouldstand there, tapping a cigarette on the outside of my case, surveyingfor a moment the world in the sunlight. But a day was to come when I wasnever to do it again alone. You can imagine, therefore, what the comingof the Ashburnhams meant to me. I have forgotten the aspect of manythings, but I shall never forget the aspect of the dining-room of theHotel Excelsior on that evening--and on so many other evenings. Wholecastles have vanished from my memory, whole cities that I have nevervisited again, but that white room, festooned with papier-maché fruitsand flowers; the tall windows; the many tables; the black screen roundthe door with three golden cranes flying upward on each panel; thepalm-tree in the centre of the room; the swish of the waiter's feet; thecold expensive elegance; the mien of the diners as they came in everyevening--their air of earnestness as if they must go through a mealprescribed by the Kur authorities and their air of sobriety as if theymust seek not by any means to enjoy their meals--those things I shallnot easily forget. And then, one evening, in the twilight, I saw EdwardAshburnham lounge round the screen into the room. The head waiter, a manwith a face all grey--in what subterranean nooks or corners do peoplecultivate those absolutely grey complexions?--went with the timorouspatronage of these creatures towards him and held out a grey ear to bewhispered into. It was generally a disagreeable ordeal for newcomers butEdward Ashburnham bore it like an Englishman and a gentleman. I couldsee his lips form a word of three syllables--remember I had nothing inthe world to do but to notice these niceties--and immediately I knewthat he must be Edward Ashburnham, Captain, Fourteenth Hussars, ofBranshaw House, Branshaw Teleragh. I knew it because every evening justbefore dinner, whilst I waited in the hall, I used, by the courtesy ofMonsieur Schontz, the proprietor, to inspect the little police reportsthat each guest was expected to sign upon taking a room. 

The head waiter piloted him immediately to a vacant table, three awayfrom my own--the table that the Grenfalls of Falls River, N. J. , hadjust vacated. It struck me that that was not a very nice table for thenewcomers, since the sunlight, low though it was, shone straight downupon it, and the same idea seemed to come at the same moment intoCaptain Ashburnham's head. His face hitherto had, in the wonderfulEnglish fashion, expressed nothing whatever. Nothing. There was in itneither joy nor despair; neither hope nor fear; neither boredom norsatisfaction. He seemed to perceive no soul in that crowded room; hemight have been walking in a jungle. I never came across such a perfectexpression before and I never shall again. It was insolence andnot insolence; it was modesty and not modesty. His hair was fair, extraordinarily ordered in a wave, running from the left temple to theright; his face was a light brick-red, perfectly uniform in tint up tothe roots of the hair itself; his yellow moustache was as stiff as atoothbrush and I verily believe that he had his black smoking jacketthickened a little over the shoulder-blades so as to give himself theair of the slightest possible stoop. It would be like him to do that;that was the sort of thing he thought about. Martingales, Chiffney bits, boots; where you got the best soap, the best brandy, the name of thechap who rode a plater down the Khyber cliffs; the spreading power ofnumber three shot before a charge of number four powder. . . By heavens, Ihardly ever heard him talk of anything else. Not in all the years thatI knew him did I hear him talk of anything but these subjects. Oh, yes, once he told me that I could buy my special shade of blue ties cheaperfrom a firm in Burlington Arcade than from my own people in New York. And I have bought my ties from that firm ever since. Otherwise I shouldnot remember the name of the Burlington Arcade. I wonder what it lookslike. I have never seen it. I imagine it to be two immense rows ofpillars, like those of the Forum at Rome, with Edward Ashburnhamstriding down between them. But it probably isn't--the least like that. Once also he advised me to buy Caledonian Deferred, since they were dueto rise. And I did buy them and they did rise. But of how he got theknowledge I haven't the faintest idea. It seemed to drop out of the bluesky. 

And that was absolutely all that I knew of him until a month ago--thatand the profusion of his cases, all of pigskin and stamped with hisinitials, E. F. A. There were gun cases, and collar cases, and shirtcases, and letter cases and cases each containing four bottles ofmedicine; and hat cases and helmet cases. It must have needed a wholeherd of the Gadarene swine to make up his outfit. And, if I everpenetrated into his private room it would be to see him standing, withhis coat and waistcoat off and the immensely long line of his perfectlyelegant trousers from waist to boot heel. And he would have a slightlyreflective air and he would be just opening one kind of case and justclosing another. 

Good God, what did they all see in him? for I swear there was all therewas of him, inside and out; though they said he was a good soldier. Yet, Leonora adored him with a passion that was like an agony, and hatedhim with an agony that was as bitter as the sea. How could he arouseanything like a sentiment, in anybody?

What did he even talk to them about--when they were under foureyes?--Ah, well, suddenly, as if by a flash of inspiration, I know. Forall good soldiers are sentimentalists--all good soldiers of that type. Their profession, for one thing, is full of the big words, courage, loyalty, honour, constancy. And I have given a wrong impression ofEdward Ashburnham if I have made you think that literally never in thecourse of our nine years of intimacy did he discuss what he would havecalled "the graver things. " Even before his final outburst to me, attimes, very late at night, say, he has blurted out something that gavean insight into the sentimental view of the cosmos that was his. He would say how much the society of a good woman could do towardsredeeming you, and he would say that constancy was the finest ofthe virtues. He said it very stiffly, of course, but still as if thestatement admitted of no doubt. 

Constancy! Isn't that the queer thought? And yet, I must add that poordear Edward was a great reader--he would pass hours lost in novels of asentimental type--novels in which typewriter girls married Marquises andgovernesses Earls. And in his books, as a rule, the course of true loveran as smooth as buttered honey. And he was fond of poetry, of a certaintype--and he could even read a perfectly sad love story. I have seen hiseyes filled with tears at reading of a hopeless parting. And he loved, with a sentimental yearning, all children, puppies, and the feeblegenerally. . . . 

So, you see, he would have plenty to gurgle about to a woman--withthat and his sound common sense about martingales and his--stillsentimental--experiences as a county magistrate; and with his intense, optimistic belief that the woman he was making love to at the moment wasthe one he was destined, at last, to be eternally constant to. . . . Well, I fancy he could put up a pretty good deal of talk when there was noman around to make him feel shy. And I was quite astonished, during hisfinal burst out to me--at the very end of things, when the poor girl wason her way to that fatal Brindisi and he was trying to persuade himselfand me that he had never really cared for her--I was quite astonished toobserve how literary and how just his expressions were. He talked likequite a good book--a book not in the least cheaply sentimental. You see, I suppose he regarded me not so much as a man. I had to be regarded asa woman or a solicitor. Anyhow, it burst out of him on that horriblenight. And then, next morning, he took me over to the Assizes and I sawhow, in a perfectly calm and business-like way, he set to work to securea verdict of not guilty for a poor girl, the daughter of one of histenants, who had been accused of murdering her baby. He spent twohundred pounds on her defence. . . Well, that was Edward Ashburnham. 

I had forgotten about his eyes. They were as blue as the sides of acertain type of box of matches. When you looked at them carefullyyou saw that they were perfectly honest, perfectly straightforward, perfectly, perfectly stupid. But the brick pink of his complexion, running perfectly level to the brick pink of his inner eyelids, gavethem a curious, sinister expression--like a mosaic of blue porcelain setin pink china. And that chap, coming into a room, snapped up the gaze ofevery woman in it, as dexterously as a conjurer pockets billiard balls. It was most amazing. You know the man on the stage who throws up sixteenballs at once and they all drop into pockets all over his person, on hisshoulders, on his heels, on the inner side of his sleeves; and he standsperfectly still and does nothing. Well, it was like that. He had rathera rough, hoarse voice. 

And, there he was, standing by the table. I was looking at him, with myback to the screen. And suddenly, I saw two distinct expressionsflicker across his immobile eyes. How the deuce did they do it, thoseunflinching blue eyes with the direct gaze? For the eyes themselvesnever moved, gazing over my shoulder towards the screen. And the gazewas perfectly level and perfectly direct and perfectly unchanging. Isuppose that the lids really must have rounded themselves a little andperhaps the lips moved a little too, as if he should be saying: "Thereyou are, my dear. " At any rate, the expression was that of pride, ofsatisfaction, of the possessor. I saw him once afterwards, for a moment, gaze upon the sunny fields of Branshaw and say: "All this is my land!"

And then again, the gaze was perhaps more direct, harder ifpossible--hardy too. It was a measuring look; a challenging look. Oncewhen we were at Wiesbaden watching him play in a polo match against theBonner Hussaren I saw the same look come into his eyes, balancing thepossibilities, looking over the ground. The German Captain, Count BaronIdigon von Lelöffel, was right up by their goal posts, coming with theball in an easy canter in that tricky German fashion. The rest ofthe field were just anywhere. It was only a scratch sort of affair. Ashburnham was quite close to the rails not five yards from us andI heard him saying to himself: "Might just be done!" And he did it. Goodness! he swung that pony round with all its four legs spread out, like a cat dropping off a roof. . . . 

Well, it was just that look that I noticed in his eyes: "It might, " Iseem even now to hear him muttering to himself, "just be done. "

I looked round over my shoulder and saw, tall, smiling brilliantly andbuoyant--Leonora. And, little and fair, and as radiant as the track ofsunlight along the sea--my wife. 

That poor wretch! to think that he was at that moment in a perfect devilof a fix, and there he was, saying at the back of his mind: "It mightjust be done. " It was like a chap in the middle of the eruption of avolcano, saying that he might just manage to bolt into the tumult andset fire to a haystack. Madness? Predestination? Who the devil knows?

Mrs Ashburnham exhibited at that moment more gaiety than I haveever since known her to show. There are certain classes of Englishpeople--the nicer ones when they have been to many spas, who seem tomake a point of becoming much more than usually animated when they areintroduced to my compatriots. I have noticed this often. Of course, theymust first have accepted the Americans. But that once done, they seem tosay to themselves: "Hallo, these women are so bright. We aren't going tobe outdone in brightness. " And for the time being they certainly aren't. But it wears off. So it was with Leonora--at least until she noticed me. She began, Leonora did--and perhaps it was that that gave me the idea ofa touch of insolence in her character, for she never afterwards did anyone single thing like it--she began by saying in quite a loud voice andfrom quite a distance:

"Don't stop over by that stuffy old table, Teddy. Come and sit by thesenice people!"

And that was an extraordinary thing to say. Quite extraordinary. Icouldn't for the life of me refer to total strangers as nice people. But, of course, she was taking a line of her own in which I at anyrate--and no one else in the room, for she too had taken the trouble toread through the list of guests--counted any more than so many clean, bull terriers. And she sat down rather brilliantly at a vacant table, beside ours--one that was reserved for the Guggenheimers. And she justsat absolutely deaf to the remonstrances of the head waiter with hisface like a grey ram's. That poor chap was doing his steadfast duty too. He knew that the Guggenheimers of Chicago, after they had stayed therea month and had worried the poor life out of him, would give him twodollars fifty and grumble at the tipping system. And he knew that TeddyAshburnham and his wife would give him no trouble whatever except whatthe smiles of Leonora might cause in his apparently unimpressionablebosom--though you never can tell what may go on behind even a not quitespotless plastron!--And every week Edward Ashburnham would give him asolid, sound, golden English sovereign. Yet this stout fellow was intenton saving that table for the Guggenheimers of Chicago. It ended inFlorence saying:

"Why shouldn't we all eat out of the same trough?--that's a nasty NewYork saying. But I'm sure we're all nice quiet people and there can befour seats at our table. It's round. "

Then came, as it were, an appreciative gurgle from the Captain and Iwas perfectly aware of a slight hesitation--a quick sharp motion in MrsAshburnham, as if her horse had checked. But she put it at the fence allright, rising from the seat she had taken and sitting down opposite me, as it were, all in one motion. I never thought that Leonora looked herbest in evening dress. She seemed to get it too clearly cut, therewas no ruffling. She always affected black and her shoulders were tooclassical. She seemed to stand out of her corsage as a white marble bustmight out of a black Wedgwood vase. I don't know. 

I loved Leonora always and, today, I would very cheerfully lay down mylife, what is left of it, in her service. But I am sure I never had thebeginnings of a trace of what is called the sex instinct towards her. And I suppose--no I am certain that she never had it towards me. As faras I am concerned I think it was those white shoulders that did it. Iseemed to feel when I looked at them that, if ever I should press mylips upon them that they would be slightly cold--not icily, not withouta touch of human heat, but, as they say of baths, with the chill off. Iseemed to feel chilled at the end of my lips when I looked at her. . . 

No, Leonora always appeared to me at her best in a blue tailor-made. Then her glorious hair wasn't deadened by her white shoulders. Certainwomen's lines guide your eyes to their necks, their eyelashes, theirlips, their breasts. But Leonora's seemed to conduct your gaze always toher wrist. And the wrist was at its best in a black or a dog-skin gloveand there was always a gold circlet with a little chain supporting avery small golden key to a dispatch box. Perhaps it was that in whichshe locked up her heart and her feelings. 

Anyhow, she sat down opposite me and then, for the first time, she paidany attention to my existence. She gave me, suddenly, yet deliberately, one long stare. Her eyes too were blue and dark and the eyelids were soarched that they gave you the whole round of the irises. And it was amost remarkable, a most moving glance, as if for a moment a lighthousehad looked at me. I seemed to perceive the swift questions chasing eachother through the brain that was behind them. I seemed to hear the brainask and the eyes answer with all the simpleness of a woman who was agood hand at taking in qualities of a horse--as indeed she was. "Standswell; has plenty of room for his oats behind the girth. Not so much inthe way of shoulders, " and so on. And so her eyes asked: "Is this mantrustworthy in money matters; is he likely to try to play the lover; ishe likely to let his women be troublesome? Is he, above all, likely tobabble about my affairs?"

And, suddenly, into those cold, slightly defiant, almost defensive chinablue orbs, there came a warmth, a tenderness, a friendly recognition. . . Oh, it was very charming and very touching--and quite mortifying. It wasthe look of a mother to her son, of a sister to her brother. It impliedtrust; it implied the want of any necessity for barriers. By God, shelooked at me as if I were an invalid--as any kind woman may look at apoor chap in a bath chair. And, yes, from that day forward she alwaystreated me and not Florence as if I were the invalid. Why, she wouldrun after me with a rug upon chilly days. I suppose, therefore, that hereyes had made a favourable answer. Or, perhaps, it wasn't a favourableanswer. And then Florence said: "And so the whole round table is begun. "Again Edward Ashburnham gurgled slightly in his throat; but Leonorashivered a little, as if a goose had walked over her grave. And I waspassing her the nickel-silver basket of rolls. Avanti!. . . 

IV

So began those nine years of uninterrupted tranquillity. They werecharacterized by an extraordinary want of any communicativeness on thepart of the Ashburnhams to which we, on our part, replied by leaving outquite as extraordinarily, and nearly as completely, the personal note. Indeed, you may take it that what characterized our relationship was anatmosphere of taking everything for granted. The given proposition was, that we were all "good people. " We took for granted that we all likedbeef underdone but not too underdone; that both men preferred a goodliqueur brandy after lunch; that both women drank a very light Rhinewine qualified with Fachingen water--that sort of thing. It was alsotaken for granted that we were both sufficiently well off to affordanything that we could reasonably want in the way of amusements fittingto our station--that we could take motor cars and carriages by the day;that we could give each other dinners and dine our friends and we couldindulge if we liked in economy. Thus, Florence was in the habit ofhaving the Daily Telegraph sent to her every day from London. She wasalways an Anglo-maniac, was Florence; the Paris edition of the New YorkHerald was always good enough for me. But when we discovered thatthe Ashburnhams' copy of the London paper followed them from England, Leonora and Florence decided between them to suppress one subscriptionone year and the other the next. Similarly it was the habit of the GrandDuke of Nassau Schwerin, who came yearly to the baths, to dine once withabout eighteen families of regular Kur guests. In return he would give adinner of all the eighteen at once. And, since these dinners were ratherexpensive (you had to take the Grand Duke and a good many of his suiteand any members of the diplomatic bodies that might be there)--Florenceand Leonora, putting their heads together, didn't see why we shouldn'tgive the Grand Duke his dinner together. And so we did. I don't supposethe Serenity minded that economy, or even noticed it. At any rate, ourjoint dinner to the Royal Personage gradually assumed the aspect of ayearly function. Indeed, it grew larger and larger, until it became asort of closing function for the season, at any rate as far as we wereconcerned. I don't in the least mean to say that we were the sort ofpersons who aspired to mix "with royalty. " We didn't; we hadn't anyclaims; we were just "good people. " But the Grand Duke was a pleasant, affable sort of royalty, like the late King Edward VII, and it waspleasant to hear him talk about the races and, very occasionally, as abonne bouche, about his nephew, the Emperor; or to have him pause fora moment in his walk to ask after the progress of our cures or to bebenignantly interested in the amount of money we had put on Lelöffel'shunter for the Frankfurt Welter Stakes. 

But upon my word, I don't know how we put in our time. How does one putin one's time? How is it possible to have achieved nine years and tohave nothing whatever to show for it? Nothing whatever, you understand. Not so much as a bone penholder, carved to resemble a chessman and witha hole in the top through which you could see four views of Nauheim. And, as for experience, as for knowledge of one's fellow beings--nothingeither. Upon my word, I couldn't tell you offhand whether the lady whosold the so expensive violets at the bottom of the road that leads tothe station, was cheating me or no; I can't say whether the porter whocarried our traps across the station at Leghorn was a thief or no whenhe said that the regular tariff was a lira a parcel. The instances ofhonesty that one comes across in this world are just as amazing as theinstances of dishonesty. After forty-five years of mixing with one'skind, one ought to have acquired the habit of being able to knowsomething about one's fellow beings. But one doesn't. 

I think the modern civilized habit--the modern English habit of takingevery one for granted--is a good deal to blame for this. I have observedthis matter long enough to know the queer, subtle thing that it is; toknow how the faculty, for what it is worth, never lets you down. 

Mind, I am not saying that this is not the most desirable type of lifein the world; that it is not an almost unreasonably high standard. Forit is really nauseating, when you detest it, to have to eat every dayseveral slices of thin, tepid, pink india rubber, and it is disagreeableto have to drink brandy when you would prefer to be cheered up by warm, sweet Kümmel. And it is nasty to have to take a cold bath in the morningwhen what you want is really a hot one at night. And it stirs a littleof the faith of your fathers that is deep down within you to have tohave it taken for granted that you are an Episcopalian when really youare an old-fashioned Philadelphia Quaker. 

But these things have to be done; it is the cock that the whole of thissociety owes to Æsculapius. 

And the odd, queer thing is that the whole collection of rules appliesto anybody--to the anybodies that you meet in hotels, in railway trains, to a less degree, perhaps, in steamers, but even, in the end, uponsteamers. You meet a man or a woman and, from tiny and intimate sounds, from the slightest of movements, you know at once whether you areconcerned with good people or with those who won't do. You know, thisis to say, whether they will go rigidly through with the whole programmefrom the underdone beef to the Anglicanism. It won't matter whether theybe short or tall; whether the voice squeak like a marionette or rumblelike a town bull's; it won't matter whether they are Germans, Austrians, French, Spanish, or even Brazilians--they will be the Germans orBrazilians who take a cold bath every morning and who move, roughlyspeaking, in diplomatic circles. 

But the inconvenient--well, hang it all, I will say it--the damnablenuisance of the whole thing is, that with all the taking for granted, you never really get an inch deeper than the things I have catalogued. 

I can give you a rather extraordinary instance of this. I can't rememberwhether it was in our first year--the first year of us four at Nauheim, because, of course, it would have been the fourth year of Florence andmyself--but it must have been in the first or second year. And thatgives the measure at once of the extraordinariness of our discussion andof the swiftness with which intimacy had grown up between us. On the onehand we seemed to start out on the expedition so naturally and withso little preparation, that it was as if we must have made many suchexcursions before; and our intimacy seemed so deep. . . . 

Yet the place to which we went was obviously one to which Florence atleast would have wanted to take us quite early, so that you wouldalmost think we should have gone there together at the beginning of ourintimacy. Florence was singularly expert as a guide to archaeologicalexpeditions and there was nothing she liked so much as taking peopleround ruins and showing you the window from which some one looked downupon the murder of some one else. She only did it once; but she didit quite magnificently. She could find her way, with the sole helpof Baedeker, as easily about any old monument as she could about anyAmerican city where the blocks are all square and the streets allnumbered, so that you can go perfectly easily from Twenty-fourth toThirtieth. 

Now it happens that fifty minutes away from Nauheim, by a good train, isthe ancient city of M----, upon a great pinnacle of basalt, girt witha triple road running sideways up its shoulder like a scarf. And at thetop there is a castle--not a square castle like Windsor, but a castleall slate gables and high peaks with gilt weathercocks flashingbravely--the castle of St Elizabeth of Hungary. It has the disadvantageof being in Prussia; and it is always disagreeable to go into thatcountry; but it is very old and there are many double-spired churchesand it stands up like a pyramid out of the green valley of the Lahn. Idon't suppose the Ashburnhams wanted especially to go there and I didn'tespecially want to go there myself. But, you understand, there was noobjection. It was part of the cure to make an excursion three or fourtimes a week. So that we were all quite unanimous in being gratefulto Florence for providing the motive power. Florence, of course, hada motive of her own. She was at that time engaged in educating CaptainAshburnham--oh, of course, quite pour le bon motif! She used to say toLeonora: "I simply can't understand how you can let him live by yourside and be so ignorant!" Leonora herself always struck me as beingremarkably well educated. At any rate, she knew beforehand all thatFlorence had to tell her. Perhaps she got it up out of Baedeker beforeFlorence was up in the morning. I don't mean to say that you would everhave known that Leonora knew anything, but if Florence started to tellus how Ludwig the Courageous wanted to have three wives at once--inwhich he differed from Henry VIII, who wanted them one after the other, and this caused a good deal of trouble--if Florence started to tell usthis, Leonora would just nod her head in a way that quite pleasantlyrattled my poor wife. 

She used to exclaim: "Well, if you knew it, why haven't you told it allalready to Captain Ashburnham? I'm sure he finds it interesting!" AndLeonora would look reflectively at her husband and say: "I have an ideathat it might injure his hand--the hand, you know, used in connectionwith horses' mouths. . . . " And poor Ashburnham would blush and mutter andwould say: "That's all right. Don't you bother about me. "

I fancy his wife's irony did quite alarm poor Teddy; because one eveninghe asked me seriously in the smoking-room if I thought that having toomuch in one's head would really interfere with one's quickness in polo. It struck him, he said, that brainy Johnnies generally were rather muffswhen they got on to four legs. I reassured him as best I could. I toldhim that he wasn't likely to take in enough to upset his balance. Atthat time the Captain was quite evidently enjoying being educated byFlorence. She used to do it about three or four times a week underthe approving eyes of Leonora and myself. It wasn't, you understand, systematic. It came in bursts. It was Florence clearing up one of thedark places of the earth, leaving the world a little lighter than shehad found it. She would tell him the story of Hamlet; explain the formof a symphony, humming the first and second subjects to him, and so on;she would explain to him the difference between Arminians and Erastians;or she would give him a short lecture on the early history of the UnitedStates. And it was done in a way well calculated to arrest a youngattention. Did you ever read Mrs Markham? Well, it was like that. . . . 

But our excursion to M---- was a much larger, a much more full dressaffair. You see, in the archives of the Schloss in that city there wasa document which Florence thought would finally give her the chance toeducate the whole lot of us together. It really worried poor Florencethat she couldn't, in matters of culture, ever get the better ofLeonora. I don't know what Leonora knew or what she didn't know, but certainly she was always there whenever Florence brought out anyinformation. And she gave, somehow, the impression of really knowingwhat poor Florence gave the impression of having only picked up. I can'texactly define it. It was almost something physical. Have you ever seena retriever dashing in play after a greyhound? You see the two runningover a green field, almost side by side, and suddenly the retrievermakes a friendly snap at the other. And the greyhound simply isn'tthere. You haven't observed it quicken its speed or strain a limb; butthere it is, just two yards in front of the retriever's outstretchedmuzzle. So it was with Florence and Leonora in matters of culture. 

But on this occasion I knew that something was up. I found Florence somedays before, reading books like Ranke's History of the Popes, Symonds'Renaissance, Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic and Luther's TableTalk. 

I must say that, until the astonishment came, I got nothing but pleasureout of the little expedition. I like catching the two-forty; I like theslow, smooth roll of the great big trains--and they are the best trainsin the world! I like being drawn through the green country and lookingat it through the clear glass of the great windows. Though, of course, the country isn't really green. The sun shines, the earth is blood redand purple and red and green and red. And the oxen in the ploughlandsare bright varnished brown and black and blackish purple; and thepeasants are dressed in the black and white of magpies; and there aregreat Rocks of magpies too. Or the peasants' dresses in another fieldwhere there are little mounds of hay that will be grey-green onthe sunny side and purple in the shadows--the peasants' dresses arevermilion with emerald green ribbons and purple skirts and white shirtsand black velvet stomachers. Still, the impression is that you are drawnthrough brilliant green meadows that run away on each side to the darkpurple fir-woods; the basalt pinnacles; the immense forests. And thereis meadowsweet at the edge of the streams, and cattle. Why, I rememberon that afternoon I saw a brown cow hitch its horns under the stomachof a black and white animal and the black and white one was thrown rightinto the middle of a narrow stream. I burst out laughing. But Florencewas imparting information so hard and Leonora was listening so intentlythat no one noticed me. As for me, I was pleased to be off duty; I waspleased to think that Florence for the moment was indubitably out ofmischief--because she was talking about Ludwig the Courageous (I thinkit was Ludwig the Courageous but I am not an historian) about Ludwigthe Courageous of Hessen who wanted to have three wives at once andpatronized Luther--something like that!--I was so relieved to be offduty, because she couldn't possibly be doing anything to excite herselfor set her poor heart a-fluttering--that the incident of the cow was areal joy to me. I chuckled over it from time to time for the whole restof the day. Because it does look very funny, you know, to see a blackand white cow land on its back in the middle of a stream. It is so justexactly what one doesn't expect of a cow. 

I suppose I ought to have pitied the poor animal; but I just didn't. Iwas out for enjoyment. And I just enjoyed myself. It is so pleasant tobe drawn along in front of the spectacular towns with the peakedcastles and the many double spires. In the sunlight gleams come fromthe city--gleams from the glass of windows; from the gilt signs ofapothecaries; from the ensigns of the student corps high up in themountains; from the helmets of the funny little soldiers moving theirstiff little legs in white linen trousers. And it was pleasant to getout in the great big spectacular Prussian station with the hammeredbronze ornaments and the paintings of peasants and flowers and cows;and to hear Florence bargain energetically with the driver of an ancientdroschka drawn by two lean horses. Of course, I spoke German much morecorrectly than Florence, though I never could rid myself quite of theaccent of the Pennsylvania Duitsch of my childhood. Anyhow, we weredrawn in a sort of triumph, for five marks without any trinkgeld, rightup to the castle. And we were taken through the museum and saw thefire-backs, the old glass, the old swords and the antique contraptions. And we went up winding corkscrew staircases and through the Rittersaal, the great painted hall where the Reformer and his friends met for thefirst time under the protection of the gentleman that had three wives atonce and formed an alliance with the gentleman that had six wives, oneafter the other (I'm not really interested in these facts but they havea bearing on my story). And we went through chapels, and music rooms, right up immensely high in the air to a large old chamber, full ofpresses, with heavily-shuttered windows all round. And Florence becamepositively electric. She told the tired, bored custodian what shuttersto open; so that the bright sunlight streamed in palpable shafts intothe dim old chamber. She explained that this was Luther's bedroom andthat just where the sunlight fell had stood his bed. As a matter offact, I believe that she was wrong and that Luther only stopped, as itwere, for lunch, in order to evade pursuit. But, no doubt, it would havebeen his bedroom if he could have been persuaded to stop the night. Andthen, in spite of the protest of the custodian, she threw open anothershutter and came tripping back to a large glass case. 

"And there, " she exclaimed with an accent of gaiety, of triumph, and ofaudacity. She was pointing at a piece of paper, like the half-sheet of aletter with some faint pencil scrawls that might have been a jotting ofthe amounts we were spending during the day. And I was extremely happyat her gaiety, in her triumph, in her audacity. Captain Ashburnham hadhis hands upon the glass case. "There it is--the Protest. " And then, aswe all properly stage-managed our bewilderment, she continued: "Don'tyou know that is why we were all called Protestants? That is the pencildraft of the Protest they drew up. You can see the signatures of MartinLuther, and Martin Bucer, and Zwingli, and Ludwig the Courageous. . . . "

I may have got some of the names wrong, but I know that Luther and Bucerwere there. And her animation continued and I was glad. She was betterand she was out of mischief. She continued, looking up into CaptainAshburnham's eyes: "It's because of that piece of paper that you'rehonest, sober, industrious, provident, and clean-lived. If it weren'tfor that piece of paper you'd be like the Irish or the Italians or thePoles, but particularly the Irish. . . . "

And she laid one finger upon Captain Ashburnham's wrist. 

I was aware of something treacherous, something frightful, somethingevil in the day. I can't define it and can't find a simile for it. Itwasn't as if a snake had looked out of a hole. No, it was as if my hearthad missed a beat. It was as if we were going to run and cry out; allfour of us in separate directions, averting our heads. In Ashburnham'sface I know that there was absolute panic. I was horribly frightened andthen I discovered that the pain in my left wrist was caused by Leonora'sclutching it:

"I can't stand this, " she said with a most extraordinary passion; "Imust get out of this. " I was horribly frightened. It came to me fora moment, though I hadn't time to think it, that she must be a madlyjealous woman--jealous of Florence and Captain Ashburnham, of all peoplein the world! And it was a panic in which we fled! We went right downthe winding stairs, across the immense Rittersaal to a little terracethat overlooks the Lahn, the broad valley and the immense plain intowhich it opens out. 

"Don't you see?" she said, "don't you see what's going on?" The panicagain stopped my heart. I muttered, I stuttered--I don't know how I gotthe words out:

"No! What's the matter? Whatever's the matter?"

She looked me straight in the eyes; and for a moment I had the feelingthat those two blue discs were immense, were overwhelming, were likea wall of blue that shut me off from the rest of the world. I know itsounds absurd; but that is what it did feel like. 

"Don't you see, " she said, with a really horrible bitterness, with areally horrible lamentation in her voice, "Don't you see that that's thecause of the whole miserable affair; of the whole sorrow of the world?And of the eternal damnation of you and me and them. . . . "

I don't remember how she went on; I was too frightened; I was tooamazed. I think I was thinking of running to fetch assistance--a doctor, perhaps, or Captain Ashburnham. Or possibly she needed Florence's tendercare, though, of course, it would have been very bad for Florence'sheart. But I know that when I came out of it she was saying: "Oh, where are all the bright, happy, innocent beings in the world? Where'shappiness? One reads of it in books!"

She ran her hand with a singular clawing motion upwards over herforehead. Her eyes were enormously distended; her face was exactly thatof a person looking into the pit of hell and seeing horrors there. Andthen suddenly she stopped. She was, most amazingly, just Mrs Ashburnhamagain. Her face was perfectly clear, sharp and defined; her hair wasglorious in its golden coils. Her nostrils twitched with a sort ofcontempt. She appeared to look with interest at a gypsy caravan that wascoming over a little bridge far below us. 

"Don't you know, " she said, in her clear hard voice, "don't you knowthat I'm an Irish Catholic?"

V THOSE words gave me the greatest relief that I have ever had in mylife. They told me, I think, almost more than I have ever gathered atany one moment--about myself. I don't think that before that day I hadever wanted anything very much except Florence. I have, of course, hadappetites, impatiences. . . Why, sometimes at a table d'hôte, when therewould be, say, caviare handed round, I have been absolutely full ofimpatience for fear that when the dish came to me there should not bea satisfying portion left over by the other guests. I have beenexceedingly impatient at missing trains. The Belgian State Railway hasa trick of letting the French trains miss their connections at Brussels. That has always infuriated me. I have written about it letters to TheTimes that The Times never printed; those that I wrote to the Parisedition of the New York Herald were always printed, but they neverseemed to satisfy me when I saw them. Well, that was a sort of frenzywith me. 

It was a frenzy that now I can hardly realize. I can understand itintellectually. You see, in those days I was interested in people with"hearts. " There was Florence, there was Edward Ashburnham--or, perhaps, it was Leonora that I was more interested in. I don't mean in the way oflove. But, you see, we were both of the same profession--at any rate asI saw it. And the profession was that of keeping heart patients alive. 

You have no idea how engrossing such a profession may become. Just asthe blacksmith says: "By hammer and hand all Art doth stand, " just asthe baker thinks that all the solar system revolves around his morningdelivery of rolls, as the postmaster-general believes that he aloneis the preserver of society--and surely, surely, these delusions arenecessary to keep us going--so did I and, as I believed, Leonora, imagine that the whole world ought to be arranged so as to ensure thekeeping alive of heart patients. You have no idea how engrossing such aprofession may become--how imbecile, in view of that engrossment, appearthe ways of princes, of republics, of municipalities. A rough bit ofroad beneath the motor tyres, a couple of succeeding "thank'ee-marms"with their quick jolts would be enough to set me grumbling to Leonoraagainst the Prince or the Grand Duke or the Free City through whoseterritory we might be passing. I would grumble like a stockbroker whoseconversations over the telephone are incommoded by the ringing of bellsfrom a city church. I would talk about medieval survivals, about thetaxes being surely high enough. The point, by the way, about the missingof the connections of the Calais boat trains at Brussels was that theshortest possible sea journey is frequently of great importance tosufferers from the heart. Now, on the Continent, there are two specialheart cure places, Nauheim and Spa, and to reach both of these bathsfrom England if in order to ensure a short sea passage, you come byCalais--you have to make the connection at Brussels. And the Belgiantrain never waits by so much the shade of a second for the one comingfrom Calais or from Paris. And even if the French train, are just ontime, you have to run--imagine a heart patient running!--along theunfamiliar ways of the Brussels station and to scramble up the highsteps of the moving train. Or, if you miss connection, you have to waitfive or six hours. . . . I used to keep awake whole nights cursing thatabuse. My wife used to run--she never, in whatever else she may havemisled me, tried to give me the impression that she was not a gallantsoul. But, once in the German Express, she would lean back, with onehand to her side and her eyes closed. Well, she was a good actress. AndI would be in hell. In hell, I tell you. For in Florence I had at oncea wife and an unattained mistress--that is what it comes to--and inthe retaining of her in this world I had my occupation, my career, myambition. It is not often that these things are united in one body. Leonora was a good actress too. By Jove she was good! I tell you, shewould listen to me by the hour, evolving my plans for a shock-proofworld. It is true that, at times, I used to notice about her an airof inattention as if she were listening, a mother, to the child at herknee, or as if, precisely, I were myself the patient. 

You understand that there was nothing the matter with EdwardAshburnham's heart--that he had thrown up his commission and had leftIndia and come half the world over in order to follow a woman who hadreally had a "heart" to Nauheim. That was the sort of sentimental ass hewas. For, you understand, too, that they really needed to live in India, to economize, to let the house at Branshaw Teleragh. 

Of course, at that date, I had never heard of the Kilsyte case. Ashburnham had, you know, kissed a servant girl in a railway train, and it was only the grace of God, the prompt functioning of thecommunication cord and the ready sympathy of what I believe you callthe Hampshire Bench, that kept the poor devil out of Winchester Gaol foryears and years. I never heard of that case until the final stages ofLeonora's revelations. . . . 

But just think of that poor wretch. . . . I, who have surely the right, begyou to think of that poor wretch. Is it possible that such a lucklessdevil should be so tormented by blind and inscrutable destiny? For thereis no other way to think of it. None. I have the right to say it, sincefor years he was my wife's lover, since he killed her, since he brokeup all the pleasantnesses that there were in my life. There is no priestthat has the right to tell me that I must not ask pity for him, fromyou, silent listener beyond the hearth-stone, from the world, or fromthe God who created in him those desires, those madnesses. . . . 

Of course, I should not hear of the Kilsyte case. I knew none of theirfriends; they were for me just good people--fortunate people with broadand sunny acres in a southern county. Just good people! By heavens, Isometimes think that it would have been better for him, poor dear, ifthe case had been such a one that I must needs have heard of it--such aone as maids and couriers and other Kur guests whisper about for yearsafter, until gradually it dies away in the pity that there is knockingabout here and there in the world. Supposing he had spent his sevenyears in Winchester Gaol or whatever it is that inscrutable andblind justice allots to you for following your natural but ill-timedinclinations--there would have arrived a stage when nodding gossipson the Kursaal terrace would have said, "Poor fellow, " thinking of hisruined career. He would have been the fine soldier with his back nowbent. . . . Better for him, poor devil, if his back had been prematurelybent. 

Why, it would have been a thousand times better. . . . For, of course, theKilsyte case, which came at the very beginning of his finding Leonoracold and unsympathetic, gave him a nasty jar. He left servants aloneafter that. 

It turned him, naturally, all the more loose amongst women of his ownclass. Why, Leonora told me that Mrs Maidan--the woman he followed fromBurma to Nauheim--assured her he awakened her attention by swearing thatwhen he kissed the servant in the train he was driven to it. I daresayhe was driven to it, by the mad passion to find an ultimately satisfyingwoman. I daresay he was sincere enough. Heaven help me, I daresay he wassincere enough in his love for Mrs Maidan. She was a nice little thing, a dear little dark woman with long lashes, of whom Florence grew quitefond. She had a lisp and a happy smile. We saw plenty of her for thefirst month of our acquaintance, then she died, quite quietly--of hearttrouble. 

But you know, poor little Mrs Maidan--she was so gentle, so young. Shecannot have been more than twenty-three and she had a boy husband out inChitral not more than twenty-four, I believe. Such young things ought tohave been left alone. Of course Ashburnham could not leave her alone. Ido not believe that he could. Why, even I, at this distance of time amaware that I am a little in love with her memory. I can't help smilingwhen I think suddenly of her--as you might at the thought of somethingwrapped carefully away in lavender, in some drawer, in some old housethat you have long left. She was so--so submissive. Why, even to me shehad the air of being submissive--to me that not the youngest child willever pay heed to. Yes, this is the saddest story. . . 

No, I cannot help wishing that Florence had left her alone--with herplaying with adultery. I suppose it was; though she was such a childthat one has the impression that she would hardly have known how tospell such a word. No, it was just submissiveness--to the importunities, to the tempestuous forces that pushed that miserable fellow on to ruin. And I do not suppose that Florence really made much difference. If ithad not been for her that Ashburnham left his allegiance for Mrs Maidan, then it would have been some other woman. But still, I do not know. Perhaps the poor young thing would have died--she was bound to die, anyhow, quite soon--but she would have died without having to soak hernoonday pillow with tears whilst Florence, below the window, talked toCaptain Ashburnham about the Constitution of the United States. . . . Yes, it would have left a better taste in the mouth if Florence had let herdie in peace. . . . 

Leonora behaved better in a sense. She just boxed Mrs Maidan'sears--yes, she hit her, in an uncontrollable access of rage, a hard blowon the side of the cheek, in the corridor of the hotel, outside Edward'srooms. It was that, you know, that accounted for the sudden, oddintimacy that sprang up between Florence and Mrs Ashburnham. Becauseit was, of course, an odd intimacy. If you look at it from the outsidenothing could have been more unlikely than that Leonora, who isthe proudest creature on God's earth, would have struck up anacquaintanceship with two casual Yankees whom she could not really haveregarded as being much more than a carpet beneath her feet. You mayask what she had to be proud of. Well, she was a Powys married toan Ashburnham--I suppose that gave her the right to despise casualAmericans as long as she did it unostentatiously. I don't know whatanyone has to be proud of. She might have taken pride in her patience, in her keeping her husband out of the bankruptcy court. Perhaps she did. 

At any rate that was how Florence got to know her. She came round ascreen at the corner of the hotel corridor and found Leonora with thegold key that hung from her wrist caught in Mrs Maidan's hair justbefore dinner. There was not a single word spoken. Little Mrs Maidan wasvery pale, with a red mark down her left cheek, and the key would notcome out of her black hair. It was Florence who had to disentangle it, for Leonora was in such a state that she could not have brought herselfto touch Mrs Maidan without growing sick. 

And there was not a word spoken. You see, under those four eyes--her ownand Mrs Maidan's--Leonora could just let herself go as far as to box MrsMaidan's ears. But the moment a stranger came along she pulled herselfwonderfully up. She was at first silent and then, the moment the key wasdisengaged by Florence she was in a state to say: "So awkward of me. . . Iwas just trying to put the comb straight in Mrs Maidan's hair. . . . "

Mrs Maidan, however, was not a Powys married to an Ashburnham; she wasa poor little O'Flaherty whose husband was a boy of country parsonageorigin. So there was no mistaking the sob she let go as she wentdesolately away along the corridor. But Leonora was still going to playup. She opened the door of Ashburnham's room quite ostentatiously, sothat Florence should hear her address Edward in terms of intimacy andliking. "Edward, " she called. But there was no Edward there. 

You understand that there was no Edward there. It was then, for theonly time of her career, that Leonora really compromised herself--Sheexclaimed. . . . "How frightful!. . . Poor little Maisie!. . . "

She caught herself up at that, but of course it was too late. It was aqueer sort of affair. . . . 

I want to do Leonora every justice. I love her very dearly for one thingand in this matter, which was certainly the ruin of my small householdcockle-shell, she certainly tripped up. I do not believe--and Leonoraherself does not believe--that poor little Maisie Maidan was everEdward's mistress. Her heart was really so bad that she would havesuccumbed to anything like an impassioned embrace. That is the plainEnglish of it, and I suppose plain English is best. She was really whatthe other two, for reasons of their own, just pretended to be. Queer, isn't it? Like one of those sinister jokes that Providence plays uponone. Add to this that I do not suppose that Leonora would much haveminded, at any other moment, if Mrs Maidan had been her husband'smistress. It might have been a relief from Edward's sentimentalgurglings over the lady and from the lady's submissive acceptance ofthose sounds. No, she would not have minded. 

But, in boxing Mrs Maidan's ears, Leonora was just striking the face ofan intolerable universe. For, that afternoon she had had a frightfullypainful scene with Edward. 

As far as his letters went, she claimed the right to open them when shechose. She arrogated to herself the right because Edward's affairs werein such a frightful state and he lied so about them that she claimed theprivilege of having his secrets at her disposal. There was not, indeed, any other way, for the poor fool was too ashamed of his lapses ever tomake a clean breast of anything. She had to drag these things out ofhim. 

It must have been a pretty elevating job for her. But that afternoon, Edward being on his bed for the hour and a half prescribed by theKur authorities, she had opened a letter that she took to come from aColonel Hervey. They were going to stay with him in Linlithgowshire forthe month of September and she did not know whether the date fixed wouldbe the eleventh or the eighteenth. The address on this letter was, in handwriting, as like Colonel Hervey's as one blade of corn is likeanother. So she had at the moment no idea of spying on him. 

But she certainly was. For she discovered that Edward Ashburnham waspaying a blackmailer of whom she had never heard something like threehundred pounds a year. . . It was a devil of a blow; it was like death;for she imagined that by that time she had really got to the bottom ofher husband's liabilities. You see, they were pretty heavy. What hadreally smashed them up had been a perfectly common-place affair at MonteCarlo--an affair with a cosmopolitan harpy who passed for the mistressof a Russian Grand Duke. She exacted a twenty thousand pound pearl tiarafrom him as the price of her favours for a week or so. It would havepipped him a good deal to have found so much, and he was not in theordinary way a gambler. He might, indeed, just have found the twentythousand and the not slight charges of a week at an hotel with the faircreature. He must have been worth at that date five hundred thousanddollars and a little over. Well, he must needs go to the tables and loseforty thousand pounds. . . . Forty thousand solid pounds, borrowed fromsharks! And even after that he must--it was an imperative passion--enjoythe favours of the lady. He got them, of course, when it was a matterof solid bargaining, for far less than twenty thousand, as he might, nodoubt, have done from the first. I daresay ten thousand dollars coveredthe bill. Anyhow, there was a pretty solid hole in a fortune of ahundred thousand pounds or so. And Leonora had to fix things up; hewould have run from money-lender to money-lender. And that was quite inthe early days of her discovery of his infidelities--if you like to callthem infidelities. And she discovered that one from public sources. Godknows what would have happened if she had not discovered it from publicsources. I suppose he would have concealed it from her until they werepenniless. But she was able, by the grace of God, to get hold of theactual lenders of the money, to learn the exact sums that were needed. And she went off to England. 

Yes, she went right off to England to her attorney and his while hewas still in the arms of his Circe--at Antibes, to which place they hadretired. He got sick of the lady quite quickly, but not before Leonorahad had such lessons in the art of business from her attorney that shehad her plan as clearly drawn up as was ever that of General Trochu forkeeping the Prussians out of Paris in 1870. It was about as effectual atfirst, or it seemed so. 

That would have been, you know, in 1895, about nine years before thedate of which I am talking--the date of Florence's getting her hold overLeonora; for that was what it amounted to. . . . Well, Mrs Ashburnham hadsimply forced Edward to settle all his property upon her. She couldforce him to do anything; in his clumsy, good-natured, inarticulateway he was as frightened of her as of the devil. And he admired herenormously, and he was as fond of her as any man could be of any woman. She took advantage of it to treat him as if he had been a person whoseestates are being managed by the Court of Bankruptcy. I suppose it wasthe best thing for him. 

Anyhow, she had no end of a job for the first three years or so. Unexpected liabilities kept on cropping up--and that afflicted fool didnot make it any easier. You see, along with the passion of the chasewent a frame of mind that made him be extraordinarily ashamed ofhimself. You may not believe it, but he really had such a sort ofrespect for the chastity of Leonora's imagination that he hated--he waspositively revolted at the thought that she should know that the sortof thing that he did existed in the world. So he would stick out in anagitated way against the accusation of ever having done anything. Hewanted to preserve the virginity of his wife's thoughts. He told me thathimself during the long walks we had at the last--while the girl was onthe way to Brindisi. 

So, of course, for those three years or so, Leonora had many agitations. And it was then that they really quarrelled. 

Yes, they quarrelled bitterly. That seems rather extravagant. Youmight have thought that Leonora would be just calmly loathing and helachrymosely contrite. But that was not it a bit. . . Along with Edward'spassions and his shame for them went the violent conviction of theduties of his station--a conviction that was quite unreasonablyexpensive. I trust I have not, in talking of his liabilities, given theimpression that poor Edward was a promiscuous libertine. He was not;he was a sentimentalist. The servant girl in the Kilsyte case had beenpretty, but mournful of appearance. I think that, when he had kissedher, he had desired rather to comfort her. And, if she had succumbed tohis blandishments I daresay he would have set her up in a little housein Portsmouth or Winchester and would have been faithful to her for fouror five years. He was quite capable of that. 

No, the only two of his affairs of the heart that cost him money werethat of the Grand Duke's mistress and that which was the subject ofthe blackmailing letter that Leonora opened. That had been a quitepassionate affair with quite a nice woman. It had succeeded the one withthe Grand Ducal lady. The lady was the wife of a brother officer andLeonora had known all about the passion, which had been quite a realpassion and had lasted for several years. You see, poor Edward'spassions were quite logical in their progression upwards. They beganwith a servant, went on to a courtesan and then to a quite nice woman, very unsuitably mated. For she had a quite nasty husband who, by meansof letters and things, went on blackmailing poor Edward to the tune ofthree or four hundred a year--with threats of the Divorce Court. Andafter this lady came Maisie Maidan, and after poor Maisie only one moreaffair and then--the real passion of his life. His marriage with Leonorahad been arranged by his parents and, though he always admired herimmensely, he had hardly ever pretended to be much more than tender toher, though he desperately needed her moral support, too. . . . 

But his really trying liabilities were mostly in the nature ofgenerosities proper to his station. He was, according to Leonora, alwaysremitting his tenants' rents and giving the tenants to understand thatthe reduction would be permanent; he was always redeeming drunkardswho came before his magisterial bench; he was always trying to putprostitutes into respectable places--and he was a perfect maniac aboutchildren. I don't know how many ill-used people he did not pick up andprovide with careers--Leonora has told me, but I daresay she exaggeratedand the figure seems so preposterous that I will not put it down. All these things, and the continuance of them seemed to him to be hisduty--along with impossible subscriptions to hospitals and Boy Scoutsand to provide prizes at cattle shows and antivivisection societies. . . . 

Well, Leonora saw to it that most of these things were not continued. They could not possibly keep up Branshaw Manor at that rate after themoney had gone to the Grand Duke's mistress. She put the rents back attheir old figures; discharged the drunkards from their homes, and sentall the societies notice that they were to expect no more subscriptions. To the children, she was more tender; nearly all of them she supportedtill the age of apprenticeship or domestic service. You see, she waschildless herself. 

She was childless herself, and she considered herself to be to blame. She had come of a penniless branch of the Powys family, and they hadforced upon her poor dear Edward without making the stipulation thatthe children should be brought up as Catholics. And that, of course, was spiritual death to Leonora. I have given you a wrong impression ifI have not made you see that Leonora was a woman of a strong, coldconscience, like all English Catholics. (I cannot, myself, helpdisliking this religion; there is always, at the bottom of my mind, inspite of Leonora, the feeling of shuddering at the Scarlet Woman, that filtered in upon me in the tranquility of the little old Friends'Meeting House in Arch Street, Philadelphia. ) So I do set down a gooddeal of Leonora's mismanagement of poor dear Edward's case to thepeculiarly English form of her religion. Because, of course, the onlything to have done for Edward would have been to let him sink down untilhe became a tramp of gentlemanly address, having, maybe, chance loveaffairs upon the highways. He would have done so much less harm; hewould have been much less agonized too. At any rate, he would havehad fewer chances of ruining and of remorse. For Edward was greatat remorse. But Leonora's English Catholic conscience, her rigidprinciples, her coldness, even her very patience, were, I cannot helpthinking, all wrong in this special case. She quite seriously andnaïvely imagined that the Church of Rome disapproves of divorce; shequite seriously and naïvely believed that her church could be sucha monstrous and imbecile institution as to expect her to take on theimpossible job of making Edward Ashburnham a faithful husband. She had, as the English would say, the Nonconformist temperament. In the UnitedStates of North America we call it the New England conscience. For, ofcourse, that frame of mind has been driven in on the English Catholics. The centuries that they have gone through--centuries of blind andmalignant oppression, of ostracism from public employment, of being, asit were, a small beleagured garrison in a hostile country, and thereforehaving to act with great formality--all these things have combined toperform that conjuring trick. And I suppose that Papists in England areeven technically Nonconformists. 

Continental Papists are a dirty, jovial and unscrupulous crew. But that, at least, lets them be opportunists. They would have fixed poor dearEdward up all right. (Forgive my writing of these monstrous things inthis frivolous manner. If I did not I should break down and cry. ) InMilan, say, or in Paris, Leonora would have had her marriage dissolvedin six months for two hundred dollars paid in the right quarter. AndEdward would have drifted about until he became a tramp of the kind Ihave suggested. Or he would have married a barmaid who would have madehim such frightful scenes in public places and would so have torn outhis moustache and left visible signs upon his face that he would havebeen faithful to her for the rest of his days. That was what he wantedto redeem him. . . . 

For, along with his passions and his shames there went the dread ofscenes in public places, of outcry, of excited physical violence; ofpublicity, in short. Yes, the barmaid would have cured him. And it wouldhave been all the better if she drank; he would have been kept busylooking after her. 

I know that I am right in this. I know it because of the Kilsyte case. You see, the servant girl that he then kissed was nurse in the family ofthe Nonconformist head of the county--whatever that post may be called. And that gentleman was so determined to ruin Edward, who was thechairman of the Tory caucus, or whatever it is--that the poor dearsufferer had the very devil of a time. They asked questions about itin the House of Commons; they tried to get the Hampshire magistratesdegraded; they suggested to the War Ministry that Edward was not theproper person to hold the King's commission. Yes, he got it hot andstrong. 

The result you have heard. He was completely cured of philanderingamongst the lower classes. And that seemed a real blessing to Leonora. It did not revolt her so much to be connected--it is a sort ofconnection--with people like Mrs Maidan, instead of with a littlekitchenmaid. 

In a dim sort of way, Leonora was almost contented when she arrived atNauheim, that evening. . . . 

She had got things nearly straight by the long years of scraping inlittle stations in Chitral and Burma--stations where living is cheapin comparison with the life of a county magnate, and where, moreover, liaisons of one sort or another are normal and inexpensive too. So that, when Mrs Maidan came along--and the Maidan affair might have causedtrouble out there because of the youth of the husband--Leonora had justresigned herself to coming home. With pushing and scraping and withletting Branshaw Teleragh, and with selling a picture and a relic ofCharles I or so, had got--and, poor dear, she had never had a reallydecent dress to her back in all those years and years--she had got, asshe imagined, her poor dear husband back into much the same financialposition as had been his before the mistress of the Grand Duke hadhappened along. And, of course, Edward himself had helped her a littleon the financial side. He was a fellow that many men liked. He was sopresentable and quite ready to lend you his cigar puncher--that sortof thing. So, every now and then some financier whom he met about wouldgive him a good, sound, profitable tip. And Leonora was never afraid ofa bit of a gamble--English Papists seldom are, I do not know why. 

So nearly all her investment turned up trumps, and Edward was really infit case to reopen Branshaw Manor and once more to assume his positionin the county. Thus Leonora had accepted Maisie Maidan almost withresignation--almost with a sigh of relief. She really liked the poorchild--she had to like somebody. And, at any rate, she felt she couldtrust Maisie--she could trust her not to rook Edward for severalthousands a week, for Maisie had refused to accept so much as a trinketring from him. It is true that Edward gurgled and raved about the girlin a way that she had never yet experienced. But that, too, was almost arelief. I think she would really have welcomed it if he could have comeacross the love of his life. It would have given her a rest. 

And there could not have been anyone better than poor little Mrs Maidan;she was so ill she could not want to be taken on expensive jaunts. . . . It was Leonora herself who paid Maisie's expenses to Nauheim. She handedover the money to the boy husband, for Maisie would never have allowedit; but the husband was in agonies of fear. Poor devil!

I fancy that, on the voyage from India, Leonora was as happy as ever shehad been in her life. Edward was wrapped up, completely, in his girl--hewas almost like a father with a child, trotting about with rugs andphysic and things, from deck to deck. He behaved, however, with greatcircumspection, so that nothing leaked through to the other passengers. And Leonora had almost attained to the attitude of a mother towards MrsMaidan. So it had looked very well--the benevolent, wealthy couple ofgood people, acting as saviours to the poor, dark-eyed, dying youngthing. And that attitude of Leonora's towards Mrs Maidan no doubt partlyaccounted for the smack in the face. She was hitting a naughty child whohad been stealing chocolates at an inopportune moment. It was certainlyan inopportune moment. For, with the opening of that blackmailing letterfrom that injured brother officer, all the old terrors had redescendedupon Leonora. Her road had again seemed to stretch out endless; sheimagined that there might be hundreds and hundreds of such thingsthat Edward was concealing from her--that they might necessitate moremortgagings, more pawnings of bracelets, more and always more horrors. She had spent an excruciating afternoon. The matter was one of a divorcecase, of course, and she wanted to avoid publicity as much as Edwarddid, so that she saw the necessity of continuing the payments. And shedid not so much mind that. They could find three hundred a year. But itwas the horror of there being more such obligations. 

She had had no conversation with Edward for many years--none that wentbeyond the mere arrangements for taking trains or engaging servants. Butthat afternoon she had to let him have it. And he had been just the sameas ever. It was like opening a book after a decade to find the words thesame. He had the same motives. He had not wished to tell her about thecase because he had not wished her to sully her mind with the ideathat there was such a thing as a brother officer who could be ablackmailer--and he had wanted to protect the credit of his old lightof love. That lady was certainly not concerned with her husband. And heswore, and swore, and swore, that there was nothing else in the worldagainst him. She did not believe him. 

He had done it once too often--and she was wrong for the first time, sothat he acted a rather creditable part in the matter. For he went rightstraight out to the post-office and spent several hours in coding atelegram to his solicitor, bidding that hard-headed man to threaten totake out at once a warrant against the fellow who was on his track. Hesaid afterwards that it was a bit too thick on poor old Leonora tobe ballyragged any more. That was really the last of his outstandingaccounts, and he was ready to take his personal chance of the DivorceCourt if the blackmailer turned nasty. He would face it out--thepublicity, the papers, the whole bally show. Those were his simplewords. . . . 

He had made, however, the mistake of not telling Leonora where he wasgoing, so that, having seen him go to his room to fetch the code forthe telegram, and seeing, two hours later, Maisie Maidan come out of hisroom, Leonora imagined that the two hours she had spent in silent agonyEdward had spent with Maisie Maidan in his arms. That seemed to her tobe too much. As a matter of fact, Maisie's being in Edward's room hadbeen the result, partly of poverty, partly of pride, partly of sheerinnocence. She could not, in the first place, afford a maid; sherefrained as much as possible from sending the hotel servants onerrands, since every penny was of importance to her, and she feared tohave to pay high tips at the end of her stay. Edward had lent her oneof his fascinating cases containing fifteen different sizes of scissors, and, having seen from her window, his departure for the post-office, shehad taken the opportunity of returning the case. She could not see whyshe should not, though she felt a certain remorse at the thought thatshe had kissed the pillows of his bed. That was the way it took her. 

But Leonora could see that, without the shadow of a doubt, the incidentgave Florence a hold over her. It let Florence into things and Florencewas the only created being who had any idea that the Ashburnhams werenot just good people with nothing to their tails. She determined atonce, not so much to give Florence the privilege of her intimacy--whichwould have been the payment of a kind of blackmail--as to keep Florenceunder observation until she could have demonstrated to Florence thatshe was not in the least jealous of poor Maisie. So that was why shehad entered the dining-room arm in arm with my wife, and why she had somarkedly planted herself at our table. She never left us, indeed, for aminute that night, except just to run up to Mrs Maidan's room to beg herpardon and to beg her also to let Edward take her very markedly out intothe gardens that night. She said herself, when Mrs Maidan came ratherwistfully down into the lounge where we were all sitting: "Now, Edward, get up and take Maisie to the Casino. I want Mrs Dowell to tell me allabout the families in Connecticut who came from Fordingbridge. " For ithad been discovered that Florence came of a line that had actually ownedBranshaw Teleragh for two centuries before the Ashburnhams came there. And there she sat with me in that hall, long after Florence had gone tobed, so that I might witness her gay reception of that pair. She couldplay up. 

And that enables me to fix exactly the day of our going to the town ofM----. For it was the very day poor Mrs Maidan died. We found her deadwhen we got back--pretty awful, that, when you come to figure out whatit all means. . . . 

At any rate the measure of my relief when Leonora said that she was anIrish Catholic gives you the measure of my affection for that couple. It was an affection so intense that even to this day I cannot think ofEdward without sighing. I do not believe that I could have gone on anymore with them. I was getting too tired. And I verily believe, too, ifmy suspicion that Leonora was jealous of Florence had been the reasonshe gave for her outburst I should have turned upon Florence with themaddest kind of rage. Jealousy would have been incurable. But Florence'smere silly jibes at the Irish and at the Catholics could be apologizedout of existence. And that I appeared to fix up in two minutes or so. 

She looked at me for a long time rather fixedly and queerly while I wasdoing it. And at last I worked myself up to saying:

"Do accept the situation. I confess that I do not like your religion. But I like you so intensely. I don't mind saying that I have never hadanyone to be really fond of, and I do not believe that anyone has everbeen fond of me, as I believe you really to be. "

"Oh, I'm fond enough of you, " she said. "Fond enough to say that I wishevery man was like you. But there are others to be considered. " She wasthinking, as a matter of fact, of poor Maisie. She picked a little pieceof pellitory out of the breast-high wall in front of us. She chafed itfor a long minute between her finger and thumb, then she threw it overthe coping. 

"Oh, I accept the situation, " she said at last, "if you can. "

VI I REMEMBER laughing at the phrase, "accept the situation", which sheseemed to repeat with a gravity too intense. I said to her somethinglike:

"It's hardly as much as that. I mean, that I must claim the liberty of afree American citizen to think what I please about your co-religionists. And I suppose that Florence must have liberty to think what she pleasesand to say what politeness allows her to say. "

"She had better, " Leonora answered, "not say one single word againstmy people or my faith. " It struck me at the time, that there was anunusual, an almost threatening, hardness in her voice. It was almostas if she were trying to convey to Florence, through me, that shewould seriously harm my wife if Florence went to something that was anextreme. Yes, I remember thinking at the time that it was almost as ifLeonora were saying, through me to Florence:

"You may outrage me as you will; you may take all that I personallypossess, but do not you care to say one single thing in view of thesituation that that will set up--against the faith that makes me becomethe doormat for your feet. "

But obviously, as I saw it, that could not be her meaning. Good people, be they ever so diverse in creed, do not threaten each other. So that Iread Leonora's words to mean just no more than: "It would be better ifFlorence said nothing at all against my co-religionists, because it is apoint that I am touchy about. "

That was the hint that, accordingly, I conveyed to Florence when, shortly afterwards, she and Edward came down from the tower. And I wantyou to understand that, from that moment until after Edward and the girland Florence were all dead together, I had never the remotest glimpse, not the shadow of a suspicion, that there was anything wrong, as thesaying is. For five minutes, then, I entertained the possibility thatLeonora might be jealous; but there was never another flicker in thatflame-like personality. How in the world should I get it?

For, all that time, I was just a male sick nurse. And what chance had Iagainst those three hardened gamblers, who were all in league to concealtheir hands from me? What earthly chance? They were three to one--andthey made me happy. Oh God, they made me so happy that I doubt if evenparadise, that shall smooth out all temporal wrongs, shall ever give methe like. And what could they have done better, or what could they havedone that could have been worse? I don't know. . . . 

I suppose that, during all that time I was a deceived husband and thatLeonora was pimping for Edward. That was the cross that she had to takeup during her long Calvary of a life. . . . 

You ask how it feels to be a deceived husband. Just Heavens, I do notknow. It feels just nothing at all. It is not Hell, certainly it is notnecessarily Heaven. So I suppose it is the intermediate stage. Whatdo they call it? Limbo. No, I feel nothing at all about that. They aredead; they have gone before their Judge who, I hope, will open to themthe springs of His compassion. It is not my business to think aboutit. It is simply my business to say, as Leonora's people say: "Requiemaeternam dona eis, Do mine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. In memoriaaeterna erit. . . . " But what were they? The just? The unjust? God knows! Ithink that the pair of them were only poor wretches, creeping over thisearth in the shadow of an eternal wrath. It is very terrible. . . . 

It is almost too terrible, the picture of that judgement, as it appearsto me sometimes, at nights. It is probably the suggestion of somepicture that I have seen somewhere. But upon an immense plain, suspendedin mid-air, I seem to see three figures, two of them clasped close in anintense embrace, and one intolerably solitary. It is in black and white, my picture of that judgement, an etching, perhaps; only I cannot tell anetching from a photographic reproduction. And the immense plain is thehand of God, stretching out for miles and miles, with great spaces aboveit and below it. And they are in the sight of God, and it is Florencethat is alone. . . . And, do you know, at the thought of that intensesolitude I feel an overwhelming desire to rush forward and comfort her. You cannot, you see, have acted as nurse to a person for twelve yearswithout wishing to go on nursing them, even though you hate them withthe hatred of the adder, and even in the palm of God. But, in thenights, with that vision of judgement before me, I know that I holdmyself back. For I hate Florence. I hate Florence with such a hatredthat I would not spare her an eternity of loneliness. She need not havedone what she did. She was an American, a New Englander. She had not thehot passions of these Europeans. She cut out that poor imbecile of anEdward--and I pray God that he is really at peace, clasped close in thearms of that poor, poor girl! And, no doubt, Maisie Maidan will find heryoung husband again, and Leonora will burn, clear and serene, a northernlight and one of the archangels of God. And me. . . . Well, perhaps, theywill find me an elevator to run. . . . But Florence. . . . 

She should not have done it. She should not have done it. It was playingit too low down. She cut out poor dear Edward from sheer vanity;she meddled between him and Leonora from a sheer, imbecile spirit ofdistrict visiting. Do you understand that, whilst she was Edward'smistress, she was perpetually trying to reunite him to his wife? Shewould gabble on to Leonora about forgiveness--treating the subject fromthe bright, American point of view. And Leonora would treat her like thewhore she was. Once she said to Florence in the early morning:

"You come to me straight out of his bed to tell me that that is myproper place. I know it, thank you. "

But even that could not stop Florence. She went on saying that it washer ambition to leave this world a little brighter by the passage of herbrief life, and how thankfully she would leave Edward, whom she thoughtshe had brought to a right frame of mind, if Leonora would only give hima chance. He needed, she said, tenderness beyond anything. 

And Leonora would answer--for she put up with this outrage foryears--Leonora, as I understand, would answer something like:

"Yes, you would give him up. And you would go on writing to each otherin secret, and committing adultery in hired rooms. I know the pairof you, you know. No. I prefer the situation as it is. " Half the timeFlorence would ignore Leonora's remarks. She would think they were notquite ladylike. The other half of the time she would try to persuadeLeonora that her love for Edward was quite spiritual--on account of herheart. Once she said:

"If you can believe that of Maisie Maidan, as you say you do, why cannotyou believe it of me?" Leonora was, I understand, doing her hair atthat time in front of the mirror in her bedroom. And she looked roundat Florence, to whom she did not usually vouchsafe a glance, --she lookedround coolly and calmly, and said:

"Never do you dare to mention Mrs Maidan's name again. You murdered her. You and I murdered her between us. I am as much a scoundrel as you. Idon't like to be reminded of it. "

Florence went off at once into a babble of how could she have hurt aperson whom she hardly knew, a person whom with the best intentions, inpursuance of her efforts to leave the world a little brighter, she hadtried to save from Edward. That was how she figured it out to herself. She really thought that. . . . So Leonora said patiently:

"Very well, just put it that I killed her and that it's a painfulsubject. One does not like to think that one had killed someone. Naturally not. I ought never to have brought her from India. " And that, indeed, is exactly how Leonora looked at it. It is stated a littlebaldly, but Leonora was always a great one for bald statements. 

What had happened on the day of our jaunt to the ancient city of M----had been this:

Leonora, who had been even then filled with pity and contrition for thepoor child, on returning to our hotel had gone straight to Mrs Maidan'sroom. She had wanted just to pet her. And she had perceived at firstonly, on the clear, round table covered with red velvet, a letteraddressed to her. It ran something like:

"Oh, Mrs Ashburnham, how could you have done it? I trusted you so. Younever talked to me about me and Edward, but I trusted you. How could youbuy me from my husband? I have just heard how you have--in the hall theywere talking about it, Edward and the American lady. You paid themoney for me to come here. Oh, how could you? How could you? I am goingstraight back to Bunny. . . . " Bunny was Mrs Maidan's husband. 

And Leonora said that, as she went on reading the letter, she had, without looking round her, a sense that that hotel room was cleared, that there were no papers on the table, that there were no clothes onthe hooks, and that there was a strained silence--a silence, she said, as if there were something in the room that drank up such sounds asthere were. She had to fight against that feeling, whilst she read thepostscript of the letter. 

"I did not know you wanted me for an adulteress, " the postscript began. The poor child was hardly literate. "It was surely not right of you andI never wanted to be one. And I heard Edward call me a poor little ratto the American lady. He always called me a little rat in private, andI did not mind. But, if he called me it to her, I think he does not loveme any more. Oh, Mrs Ashburnham, you knew the world and I knew nothing. I thought it would be all right if you thought it could, and I thoughtyou would not have brought me if you did not, too. You should not havedone it, and we out of the same convent. . . . "

Leonora said that she screamed when she read that. 

And then she saw that Maisie's boxes were all packed, and she began asearch for Mrs Maidan herself--all over the hotel. The manager said thatMrs Maidan had paid her bill, and had gone up to the station to ask theReiseverkehrsbureau to make her out a plan for her immediate returnto Chitral. He imagined that he had seen her come back, but he was notquite certain. No one in the large hotel had bothered his head about thechild. And she, wandering solitarily in the hall, had no doubt sat downbeside a screen that had Edward and Florence on the other side. I neverheard then or after what had passed between that precious couple. Ifancy Florence was just about beginning her cutting out of poor dearEdward by addressing to him some words of friendly warning as to theravages he might be making in the girl's heart. That would be the sortof way she would begin. And Edward would have sentimentally assured herthat there was nothing in it; that Maisie was just a poor little ratwhose passage to Nauheim his wife had paid out of her own pocket. Thatwould have been enough to do the trick. 

For the trick was pretty efficiently done. Leonora, with panic growingand with contrition very large in her heart, visited every one ofthe public rooms of the hotel--the dining-room, the lounge, theschreibzimmer, the winter garden. God knows what they wanted with awinter garden in an hotel that is only open from May till October. Butthere it was. And then Leonora ran--yes, she ran up the stairs--to seeif Maisie had not returned to her rooms. She had determined to take thatchild right away from that hideous place. It seemed to her to be allunspeakable. I do not mean to say that she was not quite cool about it. Leonora was always Leonora. But the cold justice of the thing demandedthat she should play the part of mother to this child who had come fromthe same convent. She figured it out to amount to that. She would leaveEdward to Florence and to me--and she would devote all her time toproviding that child with an atmosphere of love until she could bereturned to her poor young husband. It was naturally too late. 

She had not cared to look round Maisie's rooms at first. Now, as soon asshe came in, she perceived, sticking out beyond the bed, a small pair offeet in high-heeled shoes. Maisie had died in the effort to strap up agreat portmanteau. She had died so grotesquely that her little body hadfallen forward into the trunk, and it had closed upon her, like the jawsof a gigantic alligator. The key was in her hand. Her dark hair, likethe hair of a Japanese, had come down and covered her body and her face. 

Leonora lifted her up--she was the merest featherweight--and laid heron the bed with her hair about her. She was smiling, as if she had justscored a goal in a hockey match. You understand she had not committedsuicide. Her heart had just stopped. I saw her, with the long lashes onthe cheeks, with the smile about the lips, with the flowers all abouther. The stem of a white lily rested in her hand so that the spike offlowers was upon her shoulder. She looked like a bride in the sunlightof the mortuary candles that were all about her, and the white coifs ofthe two nuns that knelt at her feet with their faces hidden might havebeen two swans that were to bear her away to kissing-kindness land, orwherever it is. Leonora showed her to me. She would not let either ofthe others see her. She wanted, you know, to spare poor dear Edward'sfeelings. He never could bear the sight of a corpse. And, since shenever gave him an idea that Maisie had written to her, he imagined thatthe death had been the most natural thing in the world. He soon got overit. Indeed, it was the one affair of his about which he never felt muchremorse. 

PART II

I

THE death of Mrs Maidan occurred on the 4th of August, 1904. And thennothing happened until the 4th of August, 1913. There is the curiouscoincidence of dates, but I do not know whether that is one of thosesinister, as if half jocular and altogether merciless proceedings on thepart of a cruel Providence that we call a coincidence. Because it mayjust as well have been the superstitious mind of Florence that forcedher to certain acts, as if she had been hypnotized. It is, however, certain that the 4th of August always proved a significant date for her. To begin with, she was born on the 4th of August. Then, on that date, inthe year 1899, she set out with her uncle for the tour round the worldin company with a young man called Jimmy. But that was not merely acoincidence. Her kindly old uncle, with the supposedly damaged heart, was in his delicate way, offering her, in this trip, a birthday presentto celebrate her coming of age. Then, on the 4th of August, 1900, sheyielded to an action that certainly coloured her whole life--as wellas mine. She had no luck. She was probably offering herself a birthdaypresent that morning. . . . On the 4th of August, 1901, she married me, andset sail for Europe in a great gale of wind--the gale that affected herheart. And no doubt there, again, she was offering herself a birthdaygift--the birthday gift of my miserable life. It occurs to me that Ihave never told you anything about my marriage. That was like this:I have told you, as I think, that I first met Florence at theStuyvesants', in Fourteenth Street. And, from that moment, I determinedwith all the obstinacy of a possibly weak nature, if not to make hermine, at least to marry her. I had no occupation--I had no businessaffairs. I simply camped down there in Stamford, in a vile hotel, andjust passed my days in the house, or on the verandah of the MissesHurlbird. The Misses Hurlbird, in an odd, obstinate way, did not likemy presence. But they were hampered by the national manners of theseoccasions. Florence had her own sitting-room. She could ask to it whomshe liked, and I simply walked into that apartment. I was as timid asyou will, but in that matter I was like a chicken that is determinedto get across the road in front of an automobile. I would walk intoFlorence's pretty, little, old-fashioned room, take off my hat, and sitdown. 

Florence had, of course, several other fellows, too--strapping youngNew Englanders, who worked during the day in New York and spent only theevenings in the village of their birth. And, in the evenings, theywould march in on Florence with almost as much determination as I myselfshowed. And I am bound to say that they were received with as muchdisfavour as was my portion--from the Misses Hurlbird. . . . 

They were curious old creatures, those two. It was almost as if theywere members of an ancient family under some curse--they were sogentlewomanly, so proper, and they sighed so. Sometimes I would seetears in their eyes. I do not know that my courtship of Florence mademuch progress at first. Perhaps that was because it took place almostentirely during the daytime, on hot afternoons, when the clouds of dusthung like fog, right up as high as the tops of the thin-leaved elms. Thenight, I believe, is the proper season for the gentle feats of love, nota Connecticut July afternoon, when any sort of proximity is an almostappalling thought. But, if I never so much as kissed Florence, she letme discover very easily, in the course of a fortnight, her simple wants. And I could supply those wants. . . . 

She wanted to marry a gentleman of leisure; she wanted a Europeanestablishment. She wanted her husband to have an English accent, an income of fifty thousand dollars a year from real estate and noambitions to increase that income. And--she faintly hinted--she didnot want much physical passion in the affair. Americans, you know, canenvisage such unions without blinking. 

She gave cut this information in floods of bright talk--she would pop alittle bit of it into comments over a view of the Rialto, Venice, and, whilst she was brightly describing Balmoral Castle, she would say thather ideal husband would he one who could get her received at the BritishCourt. She had spent, it seemed, two months in Great Britain--sevenweeks in touring from Stratford to Strathpeffer, and one as payingguest in an old English family near Ledbury, an impoverished, but stillstately family, called Bagshawe. They were to have spent two monthsmore in that tranquil bosom, but inopportune events, apparently in heruncle's business, had caused their rather hurried return to Stamford. The young man called Jimmy had remained in Europe to perfect hisknowledge of that continent. He certainly did: he was most useful to usafterwards. 

But the point that came out--that there was no mistaking--was thatFlorence was coldly and calmly determined to take no look at any man whocould not give her a European settlement. Her glimpse of English homelife had effected this. She meant, on her marriage, to have a yearin Paris, and then to have her husband buy some real estate in theneighbourhood of Fordingbridge, from which place the Hurlbirds had comein the year 1688. On the strength of that she was going to take herplace in the ranks of English county society. That was fixed. 

I used to feel mightily elevated when I considered these details, forI could not figure out that amongst her acquaintances in Stamford therewas any fellow that would fill the bill. The most of them were notas wealthy as I, and those that were were not the type to give up thefascinations of Wall Street even for the protracted companionship ofFlorence. But nothing really happened during the month of July. On the1st of August Florence apparently told her aunts that she intended tomarry me. 

She had not told me so, but there was no doubt about the aunts, for, onthat afternoon, Miss Florence Hurlbird, Senior, stopped me on my way toFlorence's sitting-room and took me, agitatedly, into the parlour. Itwas a singular interview, in that old-fashioned colonial room, with thespindle-legged furniture, the silhouettes, the miniatures, the portraitof General Braddock, and the smell of lavender. You see, the two poormaiden ladies were in agonies--and they could not say one single thingdirect. They would almost wring their hands and ask if I had consideredsuch a thing as different temperaments. I assure you they were almostaffectionate, concerned for me even, as if Florence were too bright formy solid and serious virtues. 

For they had discovered in me solid and serious virtues. That mighthave been because I had once dropped the remark that I preferred GeneralBraddock to General Washington. For the Hurlbirds had backed the losingside in the War of Independence, and had been seriously impoverished andquite efficiently oppressed for that reason. The Misses Hurlbird couldnever forget it. 

Nevertheless they shuddered at the thought of a European career formyself and Florence. Each of them really wailed when they heard thatthat was what I hoped to give their niece. That may have been partlybecause they regarded Europe as a sink of iniquity, where strangelaxities prevailed. They thought the Mother Country as Erastian as anyother. And they carried their protests to extraordinary lengths, forthem. . . . 

They even, almost, said that marriage was a sacrament; but neither MissFlorence nor Miss Emily could quite bring herself to utter the word. And they almost brought themselves to say that Florence's early life hadbeen characterized by flirtations--something of that sort. 

I know I ended the interview by saying:

"I don't care. If Florence has robbed a bank I am going to marry her andtake her to Europe. " And at that Miss Emily wailed and fainted. But MissFlorence, in spite of the state of her sister, threw herself on my neckand cried out: "Don't do it, John. Don't do it. You're a good youngman, " and she added, whilst I was getting out of the room to sendFlorence to her aunt's rescue:

"We ought to tell you more. But she's our dear sister's child. "

Florence, I remember, received me with a chalk-pale face and theexclamation:

"Have those old cats been saying anything against me?" But I assuredher that they had not and hurried her into the room of her strangelyafflicted relatives. I had really forgotten all about that exclamationof Florence's until this moment. She treated me so very well--with suchtact--that, if I ever thought of it afterwards I put it down to her deepaffection for me. 

And that evening, when I went to fetch her for a buggy-ride, she haddisappeared. I did not lose any time. I went into New York and engagedberths on the "Pocahontas", that was to sail on the evening of thefourth of the month, and then, returning to Stamford, I tracked out, inthe course of the day, that Florence had been driven to Rye Station. And there I found that she had taken the cars to Waterbury. She had, ofcourse, gone to her uncle's. The old man received me with a stony, huskyface. I was not to see Florence; she was ill; she was keeping her room. And, from something that he let drop--an odd Biblical phrase that I haveforgotten--I gathered that all that family simply did not intend her tomarry ever in her life. 

I procured at once the name of the nearest minister and a ropeladder--you have no idea how primitively these matters were arranged inthose days in the United States. I daresay that may be so still. Andat one o'clock in the morning of the 4th of August I was standing inFlorence's bedroom. I was so one-minded in my purpose that it neverstruck me there was anything improper in being, at one o'clock in themorning, in Florence's bedroom. I just wanted to wake her up. She wasnot, however, asleep. She expected me, and her relatives had only justleft her. She received me with an embrace of a warmth. . . . Well, it wasthe first time I had ever been embraced by a woman--and it was the lastwhen a woman's embrace has had in it any warmth for me. . . . I suppose itwas my own fault, what followed. At any rate, I was in such a hurryto get the wedding over, and was so afraid of her relatives finding methere, that I must have received her advances with a certain amount ofabsence of mind. I was out of that room and down the ladder in underhalf a minute. She kept me waiting at the foot an unconscionabletime--it was certainly three in the morning before we knocked up thatminister. And I think that that wait was the only sign Florence evershowed of having a conscience as far as I was concerned, unless herlying for some moments in my arms was also a sign of conscience. I fancythat, if I had shown warmth then, she would have acted the proper wifeto me, or would have put me back again. But, because I acted like aPhiladelphia gentleman, she made me, I suppose, go through with the partof a male nurse. Perhaps she thought that I should not mind. 

After that, as I gather, she had not any more remorse. She was onlyanxious to carry out her plans. For, just before she came down theladder, she called me to the top of that grotesque implement that I wentup and down like a tranquil jumping-jack. I was perfectly collected. Shesaid to me with a certain fierceness:

"It is determined that we sail at four this afternoon? You are not lyingabout having taken berths?"

I understood that she would naturally be anxious to get away from theneighbourhood of her apparently insane relatives, so that I readilyexcused her for thinking that I should be capable of lying about sucha thing. I made it, therefore, plain to her that it was my fixeddetermination to sail by the "Pocahontas". She said then--it was amoonlit morning, and she was whispering in my ear whilst I stood onthe ladder. The hills that surround Waterbury showed, extraordinarilytranquil, around the villa. She said, almost coldly:

"I wanted to know, so as to pack my trunks. " And she added: "I may beill, you know. I guess my heart is a little like Uncle Hurlbird's. Itruns in families. "

I whispered that the "Pocahontas" was an extraordinarily steady boat. . . . 

Now I wonder what had passed through Florence's mind during the twohours that she had kept me waiting at the foot of the ladder. I wouldgive not a little to know. Till then, I fancy she had had no settledplan in her mind. She certainly never mentioned her heart till thattime. Perhaps the renewed sight of her Uncle Hurlbird had given her theidea. Certainly her Aunt Emily, who had come over with her to Waterbury, would have rubbed into her, for hours and hours, the idea that anyaccentuated discussions would kill the old gentleman. That would recallto her mind all the safeguards against excitement with which the poorsilly old gentleman had been hedged in during their trip round theworld. That, perhaps, put it into her head. Still, I believe there wassome remorse on my account, too. Leonora told me that Florence saidthere was--for Leonora knew all about it, and once went so far as toask her how she could do a thing so infamous. She excused herself onthe score of an overmastering passion. Well, I always say that anovermastering passion is a good excuse for feelings. You cannot helpthem. And it is a good excuse for straight actions--she might havebolted with the fellow, before or after she married me. And, if they hadnot enough money to get along with, they might have cut their throats, or sponged on her family, though, of course, Florence wanted such a lotthat it would have suited her very badly to have for a husband a clerkin a dry-goods store, which was what old Hurlbird would have made ofthat fellow. He hated him. No, I do not think that there is much excusefor Florence. 

God knows. She was a frightened fool, and she was fantastic, and Isuppose that, at that time, she really cared for that imbecile. Hecertainly didn't care for her. Poor thing. . . . At any rate, after I hadassured her that the "Pocahontas" was a steady ship, she just said:"You'll have to look after me in certain ways--like Uncle Hurlbird islooked after. I will tell you how to do it. " And then she stepped overthe sill, as if she were stepping on board a boat. I suppose she hadburnt hers!

I had, no doubt, eye-openers enough. When we re-entered the Hurlbirdmansion at eight o'clock the Hurlbirds were just exhausted. Florence hada hard, triumphant air. We had got married about four in the morningand had sat about in the woods above the town till then, listening to amocking-bird imitate an old tom-cat. So I guess Florence had not foundgetting married to me a very stimulating process. I had not foundanything much more inspiring to say than how glad I was, withvariations. I think I was too dazed. Well, the Hurlbirds were too dazedto say much. We had breakfast together, and then Florence went to packher grips and things. Old Hurlbird took the opportunity to read me afull-blooded lecture, in the style of an American oration, as to theperils for young American girlhood lurking in the European jungle. Hesaid that Paris was full of snakes in the grass, of which he had hadbitter experience. He concluded, as they always do, poor, dear oldthings, with the aspiration that all American women should one day besexless--though that is not the way they put it. . . . 

Well, we made the ship all right by one-thirty--an there was a tempestblowing. That helped Florence a good deal. For we were not ten minutesout from Sandy Hook before Florence went down into her cabin and herheart took her. An agitated stewardess came running up to me, and I wentrunning down. I got my directions how to behave to my wife. Most of themcame from her, though it was the ship doctor who discreetly suggestedto me that I had better refrain from manifestations of affection. I wasready enough. I was, of course, full of remorse. It occurred to me thather heart was the reason for the Hurlbirds' mysterious desire to keeptheir youngest and dearest unmarried. Of course, they would betoo refined to put the motive into words. They were old stock NewEnglanders. They would not want to have to suggest that a husband mustnot kiss the back of his wife's neck. They would not like to suggestthat he might, for the matter of that. I wonder, though, how Florencegot the doctor to enter the conspiracy--the several doctors. 

Of course her heart squeaked a bit--she had the same configuration ofthe lungs as her Uncle Hurlbird. And, in his company, she must haveheard a great deal of heart talk from specialists. Anyhow, she and theytied me pretty well down--and Jimmy, of course, that dreary boy--what inthe world did she see in him? He was lugubrious, silent, morose. He hadno talent as a painter. He was very sallow and dark, and he never shavedsufficiently. He met us at Havre, and he proceeded to make himselfuseful for the next two years, during which he lived in our flat inParis, whether we were there or not. He studied painting at Julien's, orsome such place. . . . 

That fellow had his hands always in the pockets of his odious, square-shouldered, broad-hipped, American coats, and his dark eyes werealways full of ominous appearances. He was, besides, too fat. Why, I wasmuch the better man. . . . 

And I daresay Florence would have given me the better. She showed signsof it. I think, perhaps, the enigmatic smile with which she used to lookback at me over her shoulder when she went into the bathing place was asort of invitation. I have mentioned that. It was as if she were saying:"I am going in here. I am going to stand so stripped and white andstraight--and you are a man. . . . " Perhaps it was that. . . . 

No, she cannot have liked that fellow long. He looked like sallow putty. I understand that he had been slim and dark and very graceful atthe time of her first disgrace. But, loafing about in Paris, on herpocket-money and on the allowance that old Hurlbird made him to keep outof the United States, had given him a stomach like a man of forty, anddyspeptic irritation on top of it. God, how they worked me! It wasthose two between them who really elaborated the rules. I have told yousomething about them--how I had to head conversations, for all thoseeleven years, off such topics as love, poverty, crime, and so on. But, looking over what I have written, I see that I have unintentionallymisled you when I said that Florence was never out of my sight. Yetthat was the impression that I really had until just now. When I come tothink of it she was out of my sight most of the time. 

You see, that fellow impressed upon me that what Florence needed mostof all were sleep and privacy. I must never enter her room withoutknocking, or her poor little heart might flutter away to its doom. Hesaid these things with his lugubrious croak, and his black eyes likea crow's, so that I seemed to see poor Florence die ten times a day--alittle, pale, frail corpse. Why, I would as soon have thought ofentering her room without her permission as of burgling a church. Iwould sooner have committed that crime. I would certainly have done itif I had thought the state of her heart demanded the sacrilege. So atten o'clock at night the door closed upon Florence, who had gently, and, as if reluctantly, backed up that fellow's recommendations; andshe would wish me good night as if she were a cinquecento Italian ladysaying good-bye to her lover. And at ten o'clock of the next morningthere she would come out the door of her room as fresh as Venus risingfrom any of the couches that are mentioned in Greek legends. 

Her room door was locked because she was nervous about thieves; butan electric contrivance on a cord was understood to be attached to herlittle wrist. She had only to press a bulb to raise the house. And I wasprovided with an axe--an axe!--great gods, with which to break down herdoor in case she ever failed to answer my knock, after I knocked reallyloud several times. It was pretty well thought out, you see. 

What wasn't so well thought out were the ultimate consequences--ourbeing tied to Europe. For that young man rubbed it so well into me thatFlorence would die if she crossed the Channel--he impressed it so fullyon my mind that, when later Florence wanted to go to Fordingbridge, Icut the proposal short--absolutely short, with a curt no. It fixed herand it frightened her. I was even backed up by all the doctors. I seemedto have had endless interviews with doctor after doctor, cool, quietmen, who would ask, in reasonable tones, whether there was any reasonfor our going to England--any special reason. And since I could not seeany special reason, they would give the verdict: "Better not, then. " Idaresay they were honest enough, as things go. They probably imaginedthat the mere associations of the steamer might have effects onFlorence's nerves. That would be enough, that and a conscientious desireto keep our money on the Continent. 

It must have rattled poor Florence pretty considerably, for you see, themain idea--the only main idea of her heart, that was otherwise cold--wasto get to Fordingbridge and be a county lady in the home of herancestors. But Jimmy got her, there: he shut on her the door of theChannel; even on the fairest day of blue sky, with the cliffs of Englandshining like mother of pearl in full view of Calais, I would not havelet her cross the steamer gangway to save her life. I tell you it fixedher. 

It fixed her beautifully, because she could not announce herselfas cured, since that would have put an end to the locked bedroomarrangements. And, by the time she was sick of Jimmy--which happened inthe year 1903--she had taken on Edward Ashburnham. Yes, it was a badfix for her, because Edward could have taken her to Fordingbridge, and, though he could not give her Branshaw Manor, that home of her ancestorsbeing settled on his wife, she could at least have pretty considerablyqueened it there or thereabouts, what with our money and the support ofthe Ashburnhams. Her uncle, as soon as he considered that she had reallysettled down with me--and I sent him only the most glowing accounts ofher virtue and constancy--made over to her a very considerable part ofhis fortune for which he had no use. I suppose that we had, between us, fifteen thousand a year in English money, though I never quite knewhow much of hers went to Jimmy. At any rate, we could have shone inFordingbridge. I never quite knew, either, how she and Edward got ridof Jimmy. I fancy that fat and disreputable raven must have had his sixgolden front teeth knocked down his throat by Edward one morning whilstI had gone out to buy some flowers in the Rue de la Paix, leavingFlorence and the flat in charge of those two. And serve him very right, is all that I can say. He was a bad sort of blackmailer; I hope Florencedoes not have his company in the next world. 

As God is my Judge, I do not believe that I would have separated thosetwo if I had known that they really and passionately loved each other. I do not know where the public morality of the case comes in, and, ofcourse, no man really knows what he would have done in any given case. But I truly believe that I would have united them, observing ways andmeans as decent as I could. I believe that I should have given themmoney to live upon and that I should have consoled myself somehow. Atthat date I might have found some young thing, like Maisie Maidan, orthe poor girl, and I might have had some peace. For peace I never hadwith Florence, and hardly believe that I cared for her in the way oflove after a year or two of it. She became for me a rare and fragileobject, something burdensome, but very frail. Why it was as if Ihad been given a thin-shelled pullet's egg to carry on my palm fromEquatorial Africa to Hoboken. Yes, she became for me, as it were, thesubject of a bet--the trophy of an athlete's achievement, a parsleycrown that is the symbol of his chastity, his soberness, hisabstentions, and of his inflexible will. Of intrinsic value as a wife, I think she had none at all for me. I fancy I was not even proud of theway she dressed. 

But her passion for Jimmy was not even a passion, and, mad as thesuggestion may appear, she was frightened for her life. Yes, she wasafraid of me. I will tell you how that happened. I had, in the old days, a darky servant, called Julius, who valeted me, and waited on me, andloved me, like the crown of his head. Now, when we left Waterbury to goto the "Pocahontas", Florence entrusted to me one very special and veryprecious leather grip. She told me that her life might depend on thatgrip, which contained her drugs against heart attacks. And, since I wasnever much of a hand at carrying things, I entrusted this, in turn, toJulius, who was a grey-haired chap of sixty or so, and very picturesqueat that. He made so much impression on Florence that she regarded him asa sort of father, and absolutely refused to let me take him to Paris. Hewould have inconvenienced her. 

Well, Julius was so overcome with grief at being left behind that hemust needs go and drop the precious grip. I saw red, I saw purple. Iflew at Julius. On the ferry, it was, I filled up one of his eyes; Ithreatened to strangle him. And, since an unresisting negro can makea deplorable noise and a deplorable spectacle, and, since that wasFlorence's first adventure in the married state, she got a pretty ideaof my character. It affirmed in her the desperate resolve to concealfrom me the fact that she was not what she would have called "a purewoman". For that was really the mainspring of her fantastic actions. Shewas afraid that I should murder her. . . . 

So she got up the heart attack, at the earliest possible opportunity, onboard the liner. Perhaps she was not so very much to be blamed. You mustremember that she was a New Englander, and that New England had not yetcome to loathe darkies as it does now. Whereas, if she had come fromeven so little south as Philadelphia, and had been an oldish family, shewould have seen that for me to kick Julius was not so outrageous an actas for her cousin, Reggie Hurlbird, to say--as I have heard him say tohis English butler--that for two cents he would bat him on the pants. Besides, the medicine-grip did not bulk as largely in her eyes as it didin mine, where it was the symbol of the existence of an adored wife of aday. To her it was just a useful lie. . . . 

Well, there you have the position, as clear as I can make it--thehusband an ignorant fool, the wife a cold sensualist with imbecilefears--for I was such a fool that I should never have known what she wasor was not--and the blackmailing lover. And then the other lover camealong. . . . 

Well, Edward Ashburnham was worth having. Have I conveyed to you thesplendid fellow that he was--the fine soldier, the excellent landlord, the extraordinarily kind, careful and industrious magistrate, theupright, honest, fair-dealing, fair-thinking, public character? Isuppose I have not conveyed it to you. The truth is, that I neverknew it until the poor girl came along--the poor girl who was just asstraight, as splendid and as upright as he. I swear she was. I supposeI ought to have known. I suppose that was, really, why I liked him somuch--so infinitely much. Come to think of it, I can remember a thousandlittle acts of kindliness, of thoughtfulness for his inferiors, evenon the Continent. Look here, I know of two families of dirty, unpicturesque, Hessian paupers that that fellow, with an infinitepatience, rooted up, got their police reports, set on their feet, orexported to my patient land. And he would do it quite inarticulately, set in motion by seeing a child crying in the street. He would wrestlewith dictionaries, in that unfamiliar tongue. . . . Well, he could not bearto see a child cry. Perhaps he could not bear to see a woman and notgive her the comfort of his physical attractions. But, although I likedhim so intensely, I was rather apt to take these things for granted. They made me feel comfortable with him, good towards him; they made metrust him. But I guess I thought it was part of the character of anyEnglish gentleman. Why, one day he got it into his head that the headwaiter at the Excelsior had been crying--the fellow with the greyface and grey whiskers. And then he spent the best part of a week, incorrespondence and up at the British consul's, in getting the fellow'swife to come back from London and bring back his girl baby. She hadbolted with a Swiss scullion. If she had not come inside the week hewould have gone to London himself to fetch her. He was like that. EdwardAshburnham was like that, and I thought it was only the duty of his rankand station. Perhaps that was all that it was--but I pray God to makeme discharge mine as well. And, but for the poor girl, I daresay that Ishould never have seen it, however much the feeling might have been overme. She had for him such enthusiasm that, although even now I do notunderstand the technicalities of English life, I can gather enough. Shewas with them during the whole of our last stay at Nauheim. 

Nancy Rufford was her name; she was Leonora's only friend's only child, and Leonora was her guardian, if that is the correct term. She had livedwith the Ashburnhams ever since she had been of the age of thirteen, when her mother was said to have committed suicide owing to thebrutalities of her father. Yes, it is a cheerful story. . . . Edward alwayscalled her "the girl", and it was very pretty, the evident affectionhe had for her and she for him. And Leonora's feet she would havekissed--those two were for her the best man and the best woman onearth--and in heaven. I think that she had not a thought of evil in herhead--the poor girl. . . . 

Well, anyhow, she chanted Edward's praises to me for the hour together, but, as I have said, I could not make much of it. It appeared that hehad the D. S. O. , and that his troop loved him beyond the love of men. You never saw such a troop as his. And he had the Royal Humane Society'smedal with a clasp. That meant, apparently, that he had twice jumped offthe deck of a troopship to rescue what the girl called "Tommies", whohad fallen overboard in the Red Sea and such places. He had been twicerecommended for the V. C. , whatever that might mean, and, although owingto some technicalities he had never received that apparently covetedorder, he had some special place about his sovereign at the coronation. Or perhaps it was some post in the Beefeaters'. She made him out like across between Lohengrin and the Chevalier Bayard. Perhaps he was. . . . Buthe was too silent a fellow to make that side of him really decorative. Iremember going to him at about that time and asking him what the D. S. O. Was, and he grunted out:

"It's a sort of a thing they give grocers who've honourably supplied thetroops with adulterated coffee in war-time"--something of that sort. Hedid not quite carry conviction to me, so, in the end, I put it directlyto Leonora. I asked her fully and squarely--prefacing the question withsome remarks, such as those that I have already given you, as to thedifficulty one has in really getting to know people when one's intimacyis conducted as an English acquaintanceship--I asked her whether herhusband was not really a splendid fellow--along at least the linesof his public functions. She looked at me with a slightly awakenedair--with an air that would have been almost startled if Leonora couldever have been startled. 

"Didn't you know?" she asked. "If I come to think of it there is nota more splendid fellow in any three counties, pick them where youwill--along those lines. " And she added, after she had looked at mereflectively for what seemed a long time:

"To do my husband justice there could not be a better man on the earth. There would not be room for it--along those lines. "

"Well, " I said, "then he must really be Lohengrin and the Cid in onebody. For there are not any other lines that count. "

Again she looked at me for a long time. 

"It's your opinion that there are no other lines that count?" she askedslowly. 

"Well, " I answered gaily, "you're not going to accuse him of not being agood husband, or of not being a good guardian to your ward?"

She spoke then, slowly, like a person who is listening to the soundsin a sea-shell held to her ear--and, would you believe it?--she told meafterwards that, at that speech of mine, for the first time she had avague inkling of the tragedy that was to follow so soon--although thegirl had lived with them for eight years or so:

"Oh, I'm not thinking of saying that he is not the best of husbands, orthat he is not very fond of the girl. "

And then I said something like:

"Well, Leonora, a man sees more of these things than even a wife. And, let me tell you, that in all the years I've known Edward he has never, in your absence, paid a moment's attention to any other woman--not bythe quivering of an eyelash. I should have noticed. And he talks of youas if you were one of the angels of God. "

"Oh, " she came up to the scratch, as you could be sure Leonora wouldalways come up to the scratch, "I am perfectly sure that he alwaysspeaks nicely of me. "

I daresay she had practice in that sort of scene--people must have beenalways complimenting her on her husband's fidelity and adoration. Forhalf the world--the whole of the world that knew Edward and Leonorabelieved that his conviction in the Kilsyte affair had been amiscarriage of justice--a conspiracy of false evidence, got together byNonconformist adversaries. But think of the fool that I was. . . . 

II

LET me think where we were. Oh, yes. . . That conversation took place onthe 4th of August, 1913. I remember saying to her that, on that day, exactly nine years before, I had made their acquaintance, so that it hadseemed quite appropriate and like a birthday speech to utter my littletestimonial to my friend Edward. I could quite confidently say that, though we four had been about together in all sorts of places, for allthat length of time, I had not, for my part, one single complaint tomake of either of them. And I added, that that was an unusual record forpeople who had been so much together. You are not to imagine that it wasonly at Nauheim that we met. That would not have suited Florence. 

I find, on looking at my diaries, that on the 4th of September, 1904, Edward accompanied Florence and myself to Paris, where we put him uptill the twenty-first of that month. He made another short visit to usin December of that year--the first year of our acquaintance. It musthave been during this visit that he knocked Mr Jimmy's teeth down histhroat. I daresay Florence had asked him to come over for that purpose. In 1905 he was in Paris three times--once with Leonora, who wanted somefrocks. In 1906 we spent the best part of six weeks together at Mentone, and Edward stayed with us in Paris on his way back to London. That washow it went. 

The fact was that in Florence the poor wretch had got hold of a Tartar, compared with whom Leonora was a sucking kid. He must have had a hell ofa time. Leonora wanted to keep him for--what shall I say--for the goodof her church, as it were, to show that Catholic women do not lose theirmen. Let it go at that, for the moment. I will write more about hermotives later, perhaps. But Florence was sticking on to the proprietorof the home of her ancestors. No doubt he was also a very passionatelover. But I am convinced that he was sick of Florence within threeyears of even interrupted companionship and the life that she ledhim. . . . 

If ever Leonora so much as mentioned in a letter that they had had awoman staying with them--or, if she so much as mentioned a woman's namein a letter to me--off would go a desperate cable in cipher to that poorwretch at Branshaw, commanding him on pain of an instant and horribledisclosure to come over and assure her of his fidelity. I daresay hewould have faced it out; I daresay he would have thrown over Florenceand taken the risk of exposure. But there he had Leonora to deal with. And Leonora assured him that, if the minutest fragment of the realsituation ever got through to my senses, she would wreak upon him themost terrible vengeance that she could think of. And he did not have avery easy job. Florence called for more and more attentions from him asthe time went on. She would make him kiss her at any moment of the day;and it was only by his making it plain that a divorced lady could neverassume a position in the county of Hampshire that he could preventher from making a bolt of it with him in her train. Oh, yes, it was adifficult job for him. 

For Florence, if you please, gaining in time a more composed view ofnature, and overcome by her habits of garrulity, arrived at a frameof mind in which she found it almost necessary to tell me all aboutit--nothing less than that. She said that her situation was toounbearable with regard to me. 

She proposed to tell me all, secure a divorce from me, and go withEdward and settle in California. . . . I do not suppose that she was reallyserious in this. It would have meant the extinction of all hopes ofBranshaw Manor for her. Besides she had got it into her head thatLeonora, who was as sound as a roach, was consumptive. She was alwaysbegging Leonora, before me, to go and see a doctor. But, none the less, poor Edward seems to have believed in her determination to carry himoff. He would not have gone; he cared for his wife too much. But, ifFlorence had put him at it, that would have meant my getting to know ofit, and his incurring Leonora's vengeance. And she could have made itpretty hot for him in ten or a dozen different ways. And she assured methat she would have used every one of them. She was determined to sparemy feelings. And she was quite aware that, at that date, the hottest shecould have made it for him would have been to refuse, herself, ever tosee him again. . . . 

Well, I think I have made it pretty clear. Let me come to the 4th ofAugust, 1913, the last day of my absolute ignorance--and, I assure you, of my perfect happiness. For the coming of that dear girl only added toit all. 

On that 4th of August I was sitting in the lounge with a rather odiousEnglishman called Bagshawe, who had arrived that night, too late fordinner. Leonora had just gone to bed and I was waiting for Florence andEdward and the girl to come back from a concert at the Casino. They hadnot gone there all together. Florence, I remember, had said at firstthat she would remain with Leonora, and me, and Edward and the girlhad gone off alone. And then Leonora had said to Florence with perfectcalmness:

"I wish you would go with those two. I think the girl ought to have theappearance of being chaperoned with Edward in these places. I think thetime has come. " So Florence, with her light step, had slipped out afterthem. She was all in black for some cousin or other. Americans areparticular in those matters. 

We had gone on sitting in the lounge till towards ten, when Leonora hadgone up to bed. It had been a very hot day, but there it was cool. Theman called Bagshawe had been reading The Times on the other side ofthe room, but then he moved over to me with some trifling question asa prelude to suggesting an acquaintance. I fancy he asked me somethingAbout the poll-tax on Kur-guests, and whether it could not be sneakedout of. He was that sort of person. 

Well, he was an unmistakable man, with a military figure, ratherexaggerated, with bulbous eyes that avoided your own, and a pallidcomplexion that suggested vices practised in secret along with an uneasydesire for making acquaintance at whatever cost. . . . The filthy toad. . . . 

He began by telling me that he came from Ludlow Manor, near Ledbury. The name had a slightly familiar sound, though I could not fix it inmy mind. Then he began to talk about a duty on hops, about Californianhops, about Los Angeles, where he had been. He fencing for a topic withwhich he might gain my affection. 

And then, quite suddenly, in the bright light of the street, I sawFlorence running. It was like that--I saw Florence running with a facewhiter than paper and her hand on the black stuff over her heart. I tellyou, my own heart stood still; I tell you I could not move. She rushedin at the swing doors. She looked round that place of rush chairs, canetables and newspapers. She saw me and opened her lips. She saw theman who was talking to me. She stuck her hands over her face as if shewished to push her eyes out. And she was not there any more. 

I could not move; I could not stir a finger. And then that man said:

"By Jove: Florry Hurlbird. " He turned upon me with an oily and uneasysound meant for a laugh. He was really going to ingratiate himself withme. "Do you know who that is?" he asked. "The last time I saw that girlshe was coming out of the bedroom of a young man called Jimmy at fiveo'clock in the morning. In my house at Ledbury. You saw her recognizeme. " He was standing on his feet, looking down at me. I don't know whatI looked like. At any rate, he gave a sort of gurgle and then stuttered:

"Oh, I say. . . . " Those were the last words I ever heard of Mr Bagshawe's. A long time afterwards I pulled myself out of the lounge and went up toFlorence's room. She had not locked the door--for the first time ofour married life. She was lying, quite respectably arranged, unlikeMrs Maidan, on her bed. She had a little phial that rightly should havecontained nitrate of amyl, in her right hand. That was on the 4th ofAugust, 1913. 

PART III

I

THE odd thing is that what sticks out in my recollection of the rest ofthat evening was Leonora's saying:

"Of course you might marry her, " and, when I asked whom, she answered:

"The girl. "

Now that is to me a very amazing thing--amazing for the light ofpossibilities that it casts into the human heart. For I had never hadthe slightest conscious idea of marrying the girl; I never had theslightest idea even of caring for her. I must have talked in an odd way, as people do who are recovering from an anaesthetic. It is as if one hada dual personality, the one I being entirely unconscious of the other. I had thought nothing; I had said such an extraordinary thing. I don'tknow that analysis of my own psychology matters at all to this story. I should say that it didn't or, at any rate, that I had given enough ofit. But that odd remark of mine had a strong influence upon what cameafter. I mean, that Leonora would probably never have spoken to me atall about Florence's relations with Edward if I hadn't said, two hoursafter my wife's death:

"Now I can marry the girl. "

She had, then, taken it for granted that I had been suffering all thatshe had been suffering, or, at least, that I had permitted all that shehad permitted. So that, a month ago, about a week after the funeral ofpoor Edward, she could say to me in the most natural way in the world--Ihad been talking about the duration of my stay at Branshaw--she saidwith her clear, reflective intonation:

"Oh, stop here for ever and ever if you can. " And then she added, "Youcouldn't be more of a brother to me, or more of a counsellor, or more ofa support. You are all the consolation I have in the world. And isn'tit odd to think that if your wife hadn't been my husband's mistress, youwould probably never have been here at all?"

That was how I got the news--full in the face, like that. I didn't sayanything and I don't suppose I felt anything, unless maybe it was withthat mysterious and unconscious self that underlies most people. Perhapsone day when I am unconscious or walking in my sleep I may go and spitupon poor Edward's grave. It seems about the most unlikely thing I coulddo; but there it is. No, I remember no emotion of any sort, but just theclear feeling that one has from time to time when one hears that someMrs So-and-So is au mieux with a certain gentleman. It made thingsplainer, suddenly, to my curiosity. It was as if I thought, at thatmoment, of a windy November evening, that, when I came to think it overafterwards, a dozen unexplained things would fit themselves into place. But I wasn't thinking things over then. I remember that distinctly. Iwas just sitting back, rather stiffly, in a deep arm-chair. That is whatI remember. It was twilight. 

Branshaw Manor lies in a little hollow with lawns across it andpine-woods on the fringe of the dip. The immense wind, coming fromacross the forest, roared overhead. But the view from the window wasperfectly quiet and grey. Not a thing stirred, except a couple ofrabbits on the extreme edge of the lawn. It was Leonora's own littlestudy that we were in and we were waiting for the tea to be brought. I, as I said, was sitting in the deep chair, Leonora was standing in thewindow twirling the wooden acorn at the end of the window-blind corddesultorily round and round. She looked across the lawn and said, as faras I can remember:

"Edward has been dead only ten days and yet there are rabbits on thelawn. "

I understand that rabbits do a great deal of harm to the short grass inEngland. And then she turned round to me and said without any adornmentat all, for I remember her exact words:

"I think it was stupid of Florence to commit suicide. "

I cannot tell you the extraordinary sense of leisure that we two seemedto have at that moment. It wasn't as if we were waiting for a train, it wasn't as if we were waiting for a meal--it was just that there wasnothing to wait for. Nothing. There was an extreme stillness with theremote and intermittent sound of the wind. There was the grey light inthat brown, small room. And there appeared to be nothing else in theworld. I knew then that Leonora was about to let me into her fullconfidence. It was as if--or no, it was the actual fact that--Leonorawith an odd English sense of decency had determined to wait until Edwardhad been in his grave for a full week before she spoke. And with somevague motive of giving her an idea of the extent to which she mustpermit herself to make confidences, I said slowly--and these words too Iremember with exactitude--"Did Florence commit suicide? I didn't know. "

I was just, you understand, trying to let her know that, if she weregoing to speak she would have to talk about a much wider range of thingsthan she had before thought necessary. 

So that that was the first knowledge I had that Florence had committedsuicide. It had never entered my head. You may think that I had beensingularly lacking in suspiciousness; you may consider me even to havebeen an imbecile. But consider the position. 

In such circumstances of clamour, of outcry, of the crash of manypeople running together, of the professional reticence of such peopleas hotel-keepers, the traditional reticence of such "good people" as theAshburnhams--in such circumstances it is some little material object, always, that catches the eye and that appeals to the imagination. I hadno possible guide to the idea of suicide and the sight of the littleflask of nitrate of amyl in Florence's hand suggested instantly tomy mind the idea of the failure of her heart. Nitrate of amyl, youunderstand, is the drug that is given to relieve sufferers from anginapectoris. 

Seeing Florence, as I had seen her, running with a white face andwith one hand held over her heart, and seeing her, as I immediatelyafterwards saw her, lying upon her bed with the so familiar little brownflask clenched in her fingers, it was natural enough for my mind toframe the idea. As happened now and again, I thought, she had gone outwithout her remedy and, having felt an attack coming on whilst she wasin the gardens, she had run in to get the nitrate in order, as quicklyas possible, to obtain relief. And it was equally inevitable my mindshould frame the thought that her heart, unable to stand the strainof the running, should have broken in her side. How could I have knownthat, during all the years of our married life, that little brownflask had contained, not nitrate of amyl, but prussic acid? It wasinconceivable. 

Why, not even Edward Ashburnham, who was, after all more intimate withher than I was, had an inkling of the truth. He just thought that shehad dropped dead of heart disease. Indeed, I fancy that the only peoplewho ever knew that Florence had committed suicide were Leonora, theGrand Duke, the head of the police and the hotel-keeper. I mention theselast three because my recollection of that night is only the sort ofpinkish effulgence from the electric-lamps in the hotel lounge. Thereseemed to bob into my consciousness, like floating globes, the faces ofthose three. Now it would be the bearded, monarchical, benevolent headof the Grand Duke; then the sharp-featured, brown, cavalry-moustachedfeature of the chief of police; then the globular, polished andhigh-collared vacuousness that represented Monsieur Schontz, theproprietor of the hotel. At times one head would be there alone, atanother the spiked helmet of the official would be close to the healthybaldness of the prince; then M. Schontz's oiled locks would push inbetween the two. The sovereign's soft, exquisitely trained voice wouldsay, "Ja, ja, ja!" each word dropping out like so many soft pelletsof suet; the subdued rasp of the official would come: "Zum BefehlDurchlaucht, " like five revolver-shots; the voice of M. Schontz would goon and on under its breath like that of an unclean priest recitingfrom his breviary in the corner of a railway-carriage. That was how itpresented itself to me. 

They seemed to take no notice of me; I don't suppose that I was evenaddressed by one of them. But, as long as one or the other, or all threeof them were there, they stood between me as if, I being the titularpossessor of the corpse, had a right to be present at their conferences. Then they all went away and I was left alone for a long time. 

And I thought nothing; absolutely nothing. I had no ideas; I had nostrength. I felt no sorrow, no desire for action, no inclination togo upstairs and fall upon the body of my wife. I just saw the pinkeffulgence, the cane tables, the palms, the globular match-holders, theindented ash-trays. And then Leonora came to me and it appears that Iaddressed to her that singular remark:

"Now I can marry the girl. "

But I have given you absolutely the whole of my recollection of thatevening, as it is the whole of my recollection of the succeeding threeor four days. I was in a state just simply cataleptic. They put me tobed and I stayed there; they brought me my clothes and I dressed; theyled me to an open grave and I stood beside it. If they had taken me tothe edge of a river, or if they had flung me beneath a railway train, I should have been drowned or mangled in the same spirit. I was thewalking dead. 

Well, those are my impressions. 

What had actually happened had been this. I pieced it togetherafterwards. You will remember I said that Edward Ashburnham and the girlhad gone off, that night, to a concert at the Casino and that Leonorahad asked Florence, almost immediately after their departure, to followthem and to perform the office of chaperone. Florence, you may alsoremember, was all in black, being the mourning that she wore for adeceased cousin, Jean Hurlbird. It was a very black night and the girlwas dressed in cream-coloured muslin, that must have glimmered under thetall trees of the dark park like a phosphorescent fish in a cupboard. You couldn't have had a better beacon. 

And it appears that Edward Ashburnham led the girl not up the straightallée that leads to the Casino, but in under the dark trees of the park. Edward Ashburnham told me all this in his final outburst. I have toldyou that, upon that occasion, he became deucedly vocal. I didn't pumphim. I hadn't any motive. At that time I didn't in the least connect himwith my wife. But the fellow talked like a cheap novelist. --Or like avery good novelist for the matter of that, if it's the business of anovelist to make you see things clearly. And I tell you I see that thingas clearly as if it were a dream that never left me. It appears that, not very far from the Casino, he and the girl sat down in the darknessupon a public bench. The lights from that place of entertainment musthave reached them through the tree-trunks, since, Edward said, he couldquite plainly see the girl's face--that beloved face with the highforehead, the queer mouth, the tortured eyebrows, and the direct eyes. And to Florence, creeping up behind them, they must have presented theappearance of silhouettes. For I take it that Florence came creeping upbehind them over the short grass to a tree that, I quite well remember, was immediately behind that public seat. It was not a very difficultfeat for a woman instinct with jealousy. The Casino orchestra was, asEdward remembered to tell me, playing the Rakocsy march, and althoughit was not loud enough, at that distance, to drown the voice of EdwardAshburnham it was certainly sufficiently audible to efface, amongst thenoises of the night, the slight brushings and rustlings that might havebeen made by the feet of Florence or by her gown in coming over theshort grass. And that miserable woman must have got it in the face, good and strong. It must have been horrible for her. Horrible! Well, Isuppose she deserved all that she got. 

Anyhow, there you have the picture, the immensely tall trees, elms mostof them, towering and feathering away up into the black mistiness thattrees seem to gather about them at night; the silhouettes of those twoupon the seat; the beams of light coming from the Casino, the woman allin black peeping with fear behind the tree-trunk. It is melodrama; but Ican't help it. 

And then, it appears, something happened to Edward Ashburnham. Heassured me--and I see no reason for disbelieving him--that until thatmoment he had had no idea whatever of caring for the girl. He said thathe had regarded her exactly as he would have regarded a daughter. Hecertainly loved her, but with a very deep, very tender and very tranquillove. He had missed her when she went away to her convent-school; hehad been glad when she had returned. But of more than that he had beentotally unconscious. Had he been conscious of it, he assured me, hewould have fled from it as from a thing accursed. He realized that itwas the last outrage upon Leonora. But the real point was his entireunconsciousness. He had gone with her into that dark park with noquickening of the pulse, with no desire for the intimacy of solitude. He had gone, intending to talk about polo-ponies, and tennis-racquets;about the temperament of the reverend Mother at the convent she had leftand about whether her frock for a party when they got home should bewhite or blue. It hadn't come into his head that they would talk about asingle thing that they hadn't always talked about; it had not evencome into his head that the tabu which extended around her was notinviolable. And then, suddenly, that--He was very careful to assure methat at that time there was no physical motive about his declaration. Itdid not appear to him to be a matter of a dark night and a propinquityand so on. No, it was simply of her effect on the moral side of his lifethat he appears to have talked. He said that he never had the slightestnotion to enfold her in his arms or so much as to touch her hand. Heswore that he did not touch her hand. He said that they sat, she at oneend of the bench, he at the other; he leaning slightly towards herand she looking straight towards the light of the Casino, her faceilluminated by the lamps. The expression upon her face he could onlydescribe as "queer". At another time, indeed, he made it appear that hethought she was glad. It is easy to imagine that she was glad, sinceat that time she could have had no idea of what was really happening. Frankly, she adored Edward Ashburnham. He was for her, in everythingthat she said at that time, the model of humanity, the hero, theathlete, the father of his country, the law-giver. So that for her, to be suddenly, intimately and overwhelmingly praised must have beena matter for mere gladness, however overwhelming it were. It must havebeen as if a god had approved her handiwork or a king her loyalty. Shejust sat still and listened, smiling. And it seemed to her that all thebitterness of her childhood, the terrors of her tempestuous father, thebewailings of her cruel-tongued mother were suddenly atoned for. Shehad her recompense at last. Because, of course, if you come to figureit out, a sudden pouring forth of passion by a man whom you regard as across between a pastor and a father might, to a woman, have the aspectof mere praise for good conduct. It wouldn't, I mean, appear at all inthe light of an attempt to gain possession. The girl, at least, regardedhim as firmly anchored to his Leonora. She had not the slightest inklingof any infidelities. He had always spoken to her of his wife in terms ofreverence and deep affection. He had given her the idea that he regardedLeonora as absolutely impeccable and as absolutely satisfying. Theirunion had appeared to her to be one of those blessed things that arespoken of and contemplated with reverence by her church. 

So that, when he spoke of her as being the person he cared most for inthe world, she naturally thought that he meant to except Leonora andshe was just glad. It was like a father saying that he approved of amarriageable daughter. . . And Edward, when he realized what he was doing, curbed his tongue at once. She was just glad and she went on being justglad. 

I suppose that that was the most monstrously wicked thing that EdwardAshburnham ever did in his life. And yet I am so near to all thesepeople that I cannot think any of them wicked. It is impossible of meto think of Edward Ashburnham as anything but straight, upright andhonourable. That, I mean, is, in spite of everything, my permanent viewof him. I try at times by dwelling on some of the things that he didto push that image of him away, as you might try to push aside a largependulum. But it always comes back--the memory of his innumerable actsof kindness, of his efficiency, of his unspiteful tongue. He was such afine fellow. 

So I feel myself forced to attempt to excuse him in this as in so manyother things. It is, I have no doubt, a most monstrous thing to attemptto corrupt a young girl just out of a convent. But I think Edward hadno idea at all of corrupting her. I believe that he simply loved her. He said that that was the way of it and I, at least, believe him and Ibelieve too that she was the only woman he ever really loved. He saidthat that was so; and he did enough to prove it. And Leonora said thatit was so and Leonora knew him to the bottom of his heart. 

I have come to be very much of a cynic in these matters; I mean that itis impossible to believe in the permanence of man's or woman's love. Or, at any rate, it is impossible to believe in the permanence of any earlypassion. As I see it, at least, with regard to man, a love affair, alove for any definite woman--is something in the nature of a wideningof the experience. With each new woman that a man is attracted tothere appears to come a broadening of the outlook, or, if you like, anacquiring of new territory. A turn of the eyebrow, a tone of the voice, a queer characteristic gesture--all these things, and it is these thingsthat cause to arise the passion of love--all these things are like somany objects on the horizon of the landscape that tempt a man to walkbeyond the horizon, to explore. He wants to get, as it were, behindthose eyebrows with the peculiar turn, as if he desired to see the worldwith the eyes that they overshadow. He wants to hear that voice applyingitself to every possible proposition, to every possible topic; he wantsto see those characteristic gestures against every possible background. Of the question of the sex-instinct I know very little and I do notthink that it counts for very much in a really great passion. It can bearoused by such nothings--by an untied shoelace, by a glance of theeye in passing--that I think it might be left out of the calculation. Idon't mean to say that any great passion can exist without a desire forconsummation. That seems to me to be a commonplace and to be therefore amatter needing no comment at all. It is a thing, with all its accidents, that must be taken for granted, as, in a novel, or a biography, youtake it for granted that the characters have their meals with someregularity. But the real fierceness of desire, the real heat of apassion long continued and withering up the soul of a man is the cravingfor identity with the woman that he loves. He desires to see with thesame eyes, to touch with the same sense of touch, to hear with thesame ears, to lose his identity, to be enveloped, to be supported. For, whatever may be said of the relation of the sexes, there is no man wholoves a woman that does not desire to come to her for the renewal of hiscourage, for the cutting asunder of his difficulties. And that will bethe mainspring of his desire for her. We are all so afraid, we areall so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our ownworthiness to exist. So, for a time, if such a passion come to fruition, the man will get what he wants. He will get the moral support, theencouragement, the relief from the sense of loneliness, the assurance ofhis own worth. But these things pass away; inevitably they pass away asthe shadows pass across sundials. It is sad, but it is so. The pagesof the book will become familiar; the beautiful corner of the road willhave been turned too many times. Well, this is the saddest story. Andyet I do believe that for every man there comes at last a woman--or no, that is the wrong way of formulating it. For every man there comesat last a time of life when the woman who then sets her seal upon hisimagination has set her seal for good. He will travel over no morehorizons; he will never again set the knapsack over his shoulders; hewill retire from those scenes. He will have gone out of the business. That at any rate was the case with Edward and the poor girl. It wasquite literally the case. It was quite literally the case that hispassions--for the mistress of the Grand Duke, for Mrs Basil, for littleMrs Maidan, for Florence, for whom you will--these passions were merelypreliminary canters compared to his final race with death for her. Iam certain of that. I am not going to be so American as to say that alltrue love demands some sacrifice. It doesn't. But I think that love willbe truer and more permanent in which self-sacrifice has been exacted. And, in the case of the other women, Edward just cut in and cut themout as he did with the polo-ball from under the nose of Count Baron vonLelöffel. I don't mean to say that he didn't wear himself as thin as alath in the endeavour to capture the other women; but over her he worehimself to rags and tatters and death--in the effort to leave her alone. 

And, in speaking to her on that night, he wasn't, I am convinced, committing a baseness. It was as if his passion for her hadn't existed;as if the very words that he spoke, without knowing that he spoke them, created the passion as they went along. Before he spoke, there wasnothing; afterwards, it was the integral fact of his life. Well, I mustget back to my story. 

And my story was concerning itself with Florence--with Florence, who heard those words from behind the tree. That of course is onlyconjecture, but I think the conjecture is pretty well justified. Youhave the fact that those two went out, that she followed them almostimmediately afterwards through the darkness and, a little later, shecame running back to the hotel with that pallid face and the handclutching her dress over her heart. It can't have been only Bagshawe. Her face was contorted with agony before ever her eyes fell upon meor upon him beside me. But I dare say Bagshawe may have been thedetermining influence in her suicide. Leonora says that she had thatflask, apparently of nitrate of amyl, but actually of prussic acid, formany years and that she was determined to use it if ever I discoveredthe nature of her relationship with that fellow Jimmy. You see, themainspring of her nature must have been vanity. There is no reason whyit shouldn't have been; I guess it is vanity that makes most of us keepstraight, if we do keep straight, in this world. 

If it had been merely a matter of Edward's relations with the girl Idare say Florence would have faced it out. She would no doubt have madehim scenes, have threatened him, have appealed to his sense of humour, to his promises. But Mr Bagshawe and the fact that the date was the 4thof August must have been too much for her superstitious mind. You see, she had two things that she wanted. She wanted to be a great lady, installed in Branshaw Teleragh. She wanted also to retain my respect. 

She wanted, that is to say, to retain my respect for as long as shelived with me. I suppose, if she had persuaded Edward Ashburnham to boltwith her she would have let the whole thing go with a run. Or perhapsshe would have tried to exact from me a new respect for the greatness ofher passion on the lines of all for love and the world well lost. Thatwould be just like Florence. 

In all matrimonial associations there is, I believe, one constantfactor--a desire to deceive the person with whom one lives as to someweak spot in one's character or in one's career. For it is intolerableto live constantly with one human being who perceives one's smallmeannesses. It is really death to do so--that is why so many marriagesturn out unhappily. 

I, for instance, am a rather greedy man; I have a taste for goodcookery and a watering tooth at the mere sound of the names of certaincomestibles. If Florence had discovered this secret of mine I shouldhave found her knowledge of it so unbearable that I never could havesupported all the other privations of the régime that she extracted fromme. I am bound to say that Florence never discovered this secret. 

Certainly she never alluded to it; I dare say she never took sufficientinterest in me. 

And the secret weakness of Florence--the weakness that she could notbear to have me discover, was just that early escapade with the fellowcalled Jimmy. Let me, as this is in all probability the last time Ishall mention Florence's name, dwell a little upon the change that hadtaken place in her psychology. She would not, I mean, have minded if Ihad discovered that she was the mistress of Edward Ashburnham. She wouldrather have liked it. Indeed, the chief trouble of poor Leonora in thosedays was to keep Florence from making, before me, theatrical displays, on one line or another, of that very fact. She wanted, in one mood, to come rushing to me, to cast herself on her knees at my feet and todeclaim a carefully arranged, frightfully emotional, outpouring as toher passion. That was to show that she was like one of the great eroticwomen of whom history tells us. In another mood she would desire to cometo me disdainfully and to tell me that I was considerably less than aman and that what had happened was what must happen when a real malecame along. She wanted to say that in cool, balanced and sarcasticsentences. That was when she wished to appear like the heroine of aFrench comedy. Because of course she was always play acting. 

But what she didn't want me to know was the fact of her first escapadewith the fellow called Jimmy. She had arrived at figuring out the sortof low-down Bowery tough that that fellow was. Do you know what it is toshudder, in later life, for some small, stupid action--usually for somesmall, quite genuine piece of emotionalism--of your early life? Well, itwas that sort of shuddering that came over Florence at the thought thatshe had surrendered to such a low fellow. I don't know that she needhave shuddered. It was her footling old uncle's work; he ought never tohave taken those two round the world together and shut himself up in hiscabin for the greater part of the time. Anyhow, I am convinced that thesight of Mr Bagshawe and the thought that Mr Bagshawe--for she knew thatunpleasant and toadlike personality--the thought that Mr Bagshawe wouldalmost certainly reveal to me that he had caught her coming out ofJimmy's bedroom at five o'clock in the morning on the 4th of August, 1900--that was the determining influence in her suicide. And no doubtthe effect of the date was too much for her superstitious personality. She had been born on the 4th of August; she had started to go round theworld on the 4th of August; she had become a low fellow's mistress onthe 4th of August. On the same day of the year she had married me; onthat 4th she had lost Edward's love, and Bagshawe had appeared like asinister omen--like a grin on the face of Fate. It was the last straw. She ran upstairs, arranged herself decoratively upon her bed--she was asweetly pretty woman with smooth pink and white cheeks, long hair, the eyelashes falling like a tiny curtain on her cheeks. She drank thelittle phial of prussic acid and there she lay. --Oh, extremely charmingand clear-cut--looking with a puzzled expression at the electric-lightbulb that hung from the ceiling, or perhaps through it, to the starsabove. Who knows? Anyhow, there was an end of Florence. 

You have no idea how quite extraordinarily for me that was the end ofFlorence. From that day to this I have never given her another thought;I have not bestowed upon her so much as a sigh. Of course, when it hasbeen necessary to talk about her to Leonora, or when for the purpose ofthese writings I have tried to figure her out, I have thought about heras I might do about a problem in algebra. But it has always been as amatter for study, not for remembrance. She just went completely out ofexistence, like yesterday's paper. 

I was so deadly tired. And I dare say that my week or ten days ofaffaissement--of what was practically catalepsy--was just the reposethat my exhausted nature claimed after twelve years of the repression ofmy instincts, after twelve years of playing the trained poodle. Forthat was all that I had been. I suppose that it was the shock that didit--the several shocks. But I am unwilling to attribute my feelingsat that time to anything so concrete as a shock. It was a feeling sotranquil. It was as if an immensely heavy--an unbearably heavy knapsack, supported upon my shoulders by straps, had fallen off and left myshoulders themselves that the straps had cut into, numb and withoutsensation of life. I tell you, I had no regret. What had I to regret?I suppose that my inner soul--my dual personality--had realized longbefore that Florence was a personality of paper--that she represented areal human being with a heart, with feelings, with sympathies and withemotions only as a bank-note represents a certain quantity of gold. Iknow that sort of feeling came to the surface in me the moment theman Bagshawe told me that he had seen her coming out of that fellow'sbedroom. I thought suddenly that she wasn't real; she was just a massof talk out of guidebooks, of drawings out of fashion-plates. It is evenpossible that, if that feeling had not possessed me, I should have runup sooner to her room and might have prevented her drinking the prussicacid. But I just couldn't do it; it would have been like chasing a scrapof paper--an occupation ignoble for a grown man. 

And, as it began, so that matter has remained. I didn't care whethershe had come out of that bedroom or whether she hadn't. It simply didn'tinterest me. Florence didn't matter. 

I suppose you will retort that I was in love with Nancy Rufford and thatmy indifference was therefore discreditable. Well, I am not seeking toavoid discredit. I was in love with Nancy Rufford as I am in love withthe poor child's memory, quietly and quite tenderly in my American sortof way. I had never thought about it until I heard Leonora state that Imight now marry her. But, from that moment until her worse than death, Ido not suppose that I much thought about anything else. I don't mean tosay that I sighed about her or groaned; I just wanted to marry her assome people want to go to Carcassonne. 

Do you understand the feeling--the sort of feeling that you must getcertain matters out of the way, smooth out certain fairly negligiblecomplications before you can go to a place that has, during all yourlife, been a sort of dream city? I didn't attach much importance to mysuperior years. I was forty-five, and she, poor thing, was only justrising twenty-two. But she was older than her years and quieter. Sheseemed to have an odd quality of sainthood, as if she must inevitablyend in a convent with a white coif framing her face. But she hadfrequently told me that she had no vocation; it just simply wasn'tthere--the desire to become a nun. Well, I guess that I was a sort ofconvent myself; it seemed fairly proper that she should make her vows tome. No, I didn't see any impediment on the score of age. I dare say noman does and I was pretty confident that with a little preparation, Icould make a young girl happy. I could spoil her as few young girls haveever been spoiled; and I couldn't regard myself as personally repulsive. No man can, or if he ever comes to do so, that is the end of him. But, as soon as I came out of my catalepsy, I seemed to perceive that myproblem--that what I had to do to prepare myself for getting intocontact with her, was just to get back into contact with life. I hadbeen kept for twelve years in a rarefied atmosphere; what I then hadto do was a little fighting with real life, some wrestling with menof business, some travelling amongst larger cities, something harsh, something masculine. I didn't want to present myself to Nancy Rufford asa sort of an old maid. That was why, just a fortnight after Florence'ssuicide, I set off for the United States. 

II

IMMEDIATELY after Florence's death Leonora began to put the leash uponNancy Rufford and Edward. She had guessed what had happened under thetrees near the Casino. They stayed at Nauheim some weeks after I went, and Leonora has told me that that was the most deadly time of herexistence. It seemed like a long, silent duel with invisible weapons, so she said. And it was rendered all the more difficult by the girl'sentire innocence. For Nancy was always trying to go off alone withEdward--as she had been doing all her life, whenever she was home forholidays. She just wanted him to say nice things to her again. 

You see, the position was extremely complicated. It was as complicatedas it well could be, along delicate lines. There was the complicationcaused by the fact that Edward and Leonora never spoke to each otherexcept when other people were present. Then, as I have said, theirdemeanours were quite perfect. There was the complication caused by thegirl's entire innocence; there was the further complication that bothEdward and Leonora really regarded the girl as their daughter. Or itmight be more precise to say that they regarded her as being Leonora'sdaughter. And Nancy was a queer girl; it is very difficult to describeher to you. 

She was tall and strikingly thin; she had a tortured mouth, agonizedeyes, and a quite extraordinary sense of fun. You, might put it thatat times she was exceedingly grotesque and at times extraordinarilybeautiful. Why, she had the heaviest head of black hair that I have evercome across; I used to wonder how she could bear the weight of it. Shewas just over twenty-one and at times she seemed as old as the hills, attimes not much more than sixteen. At one moment she would be talking ofthe lives of the saints and at the next she would be tumbling all overthe lawn with the St Bernard puppy. She could ride to hounds likea Maenad and she could sit for hours perfectly still, steepinghandkerchief after handkerchief in vinegar when Leonora had one of herheadaches. She was, in short, a miracle of patience who could be almostmiraculously impatient. It was, no doubt, the convent training thateffected that. I remember that one of her letters to me, when she wasabout sixteen, ran something like:

"On Corpus Christi"--or it may have been some other saint's day, Icannot keep these things in my head--"our school played Roehampton atHockey. And, seeing that our side was losing, being three goals toone against us at halftime, we retired into the chapel and prayed forvictory. We won by five goals to three. " And I remember that she seemedto describe afterwards a sort of saturnalia. Apparently, when thevictorious fifteen or eleven came into the refectory for supper, thewhole school jumped upon the tables and cheered and broke the chairs onthe floor and smashed the crockery--for a given time, until theReverend Mother rang a hand-bell. That is of course the Catholictradition--saturnalia that can end in a moment, like the crack of awhip. I don't, of course, like the tradition, but I am bound to say thatit gave Nancy--or at any rate Nancy had--a sense of rectitude that Ihave never seen surpassed. It was a thing like a knife that lookedout of her eyes and that spoke with her voice, just now and then. Itpositively frightened me. I suppose that I was almost afraid to be in aworld where there could be so fine a standard. I remember when she wasabout fifteen or sixteen on going back to the convent I once gave hera couple of English sovereigns as a tip. She thanked me in a peculiarlyheartfelt way, saying that it would come in extremely handy. I asked herwhy and she explained. There was a rule at the school that the pupilswere not to speak when they walked through the garden from the chapelto the refectory. And, since this rule appeared to be idiotic andarbitrary, she broke it on purpose day after day. In the evening thechildren were all asked if they had committed any faults during the day, and every evening Nancy confessed that she had broken this particularrule. It cost her sixpence a time, that being the fine attached to theoffence. Just for the information I asked her why she always confessed, and she answered in these exact words:

"Oh, well, the girls of the Holy Child have always been noted for theirtruthfulness. It's a beastly bore, but I've got to do it. "

I dare say that the miserable nature of her childhood, coming before themixture of saturnalia and discipline that was her convent life, addedsomething to her queernesses. Her father was a violent madman ofa fellow, a major of one of what I believe are called the Highlandregiments. He didn't drink, but he had an ungovernable temper, and thefirst thing that Nancy could remember was seeing her father strike hermother with his clenched fist so that her mother fell over sidewaysfrom the breakfast-table and lay motionless. The mother was no doubt anirritating woman and the privates of that regiment appeared to have beenirritating, too, so that the house was a place of outcries and perpetualdisturbances. Mrs Rufford was Leonora's dearest friend and Leonoracould be cutting enough at times. But I fancy she was as nothing to MrsRufford. The Major would come in to lunch harassed and already spittingout oaths after an unsatisfactory morning's drilling of his stubborn menbeneath a hot sun. And then Mrs Rufford would make some cutting remarkand pandemonium would break loose. Once, when she had been about twelve, Nancy had tried to intervene between the pair of them. Her father hadstruck her full upon the forehead a blow so terrible that she had lainunconscious for three days. Nevertheless, Nancy seemed to prefer herfather to her mother. She remembered rough kindnesses from him. Onceor twice when she had been quite small he had dressed her in a clumsy, impatient, but very tender way. It was nearly always impossible to geta servant to stay in the family and, for days at a time, apparently, MrsRufford would be incapable. I fancy she drank. At any rate, she had socutting a tongue that even Nancy was afraid of her--she so made fun ofany tenderness, she so sneered at all emotional displays. Nancy musthave been a very emotional child. 

Then one day, quite suddenly, on her return from a ride at Fort William, Nancy had been sent, with her governess, who had a white face, rightdown South to that convent school. She had been expecting to go there intwo months' time. Her mother disappeared from her life at that time. Afortnight later Leonora came to the convent and told her that her motherwas dead. Perhaps she was. At any rate, I never heard until the very endwhat became of Mrs Rufford. Leonora never spoke of her. 

And then Major Rufford went to India, from which he returned very seldomand only for very short visits; and Nancy lived herself gradually intothe life at Branshaw Teleragh. I think that, from that time onwards, sheled a very happy life, till the end. There were dogs and horses and oldservants and the Forest. And there were Edward and Leonora, who lovedher. 

I had known her all the time--I mean, that she always came to theAshburnhams' at Nauheim for the last fortnight of their stay--and Iwatched her gradually growing. She was very cheerful with me. She alwayseven kissed me, night and morning, until she was about eighteen. And shewould skip about and fetch me things and laugh at my tales of life inPhiladelphia. But, beneath her gaiety, I fancy that there lurked someterrors. I remember one day, when she was just eighteen, during one ofher father's rare visits to Europe, we were sitting in the gardens, nearthe iron-stained fountain. Leonora had one of her headaches and we werewaiting for Florence and Edward to come from their baths. You have noidea how beautiful Nancy looked that morning. 

We were talking about the desirability of taking tickets inlotteries--of the moral side of it, I mean. She was all in white, andso tall and fragile; and she had only just put her hair up, so thatthe carriage of her neck had that charming touch of youth and ofunfamiliarity. Over her throat there played the reflection from a littlepool of water, left by a thunderstorm of the night before, and all therest of her features were in the diffused and luminous shade of herwhite parasol. Her dark hair just showed beneath her broad, white hatof pierced, chip straw; her throat was very long and leaned forward, andher eyebrows, arching a little as she laughed at some old-fashionednessin my phraseology, had abandoned their tense line. And there was alittle colour in her cheeks and light in her deep blue eyes. And tothink that that vivid white thing, that saintly and swanlike being--tothink that. . . Why, she was like the sail of a ship, so white and sodefinite in her movements. And to think that she will never. . . Why, shewill never do anything again. I can't believe it. . . 

Anyhow, we were chattering away about the morality of lotteries. Andthen, suddenly, there came from the arcades behind us the overtones ofher father's unmistakable voice; it was as if a modified foghorn hadboomed with a reed inside it. I looked round to catch sight of him. Atall, fair, stiffly upright man of fifty, he was walking away with anItalian baron who had had much to do with the Belgian Congo. They musthave been talking about the proper treatment of natives, for I heard himsay:

"Oh, hang humanity!"

When I looked again at Nancy her eyes were closed and her face was morepallid than her dress, which had at least some pinkish reflections fromthe gravel. It was dreadful to see her with her eyes closed like that. 

"Oh!" she exclaimed, and her hand that had appeared to be groping, settled for a moment on my arm. "Never speak of it. Promise never totell my father of it. It brings back those dreadful dreams. . . " And, whenshe opened her eyes she looked straight into mine. "The blessed saints, "she said, "you would think they would spare you such things. I don'tbelieve all the sinning in the world could make one deserve them. "

They say the poor thing was always allowed a light at night, even in herbedroom. . . . And yet, no young girl could more archly and lovingly haveplayed with an adored father. She was always holding him by both coatlapels; cross-questioning him as to how he spent his time; kissing thetop of his head. Ah, she was well-bred, if ever anyone was. 

The poor, wretched man cringed before her--but she could not have donemore to put him at his ease. Perhaps she had had lessons in it at herconvent. It was only that peculiar note of his voice, used when he wasoverbearing or dogmatic, that could unman her--and that was only visiblewhen it came unexpectedly. That was because the bad dreams that theblessed saints allowed her to have for her sins always seemed to herto herald themselves by the booming sound of her father's voice. Itwas that sound that had always preceded his entrance for the terriblelunches of her childhood. . . . 

I have reported, earlier in this chapter, that Leonora said, during thatremainder of their stay at Nauheim, after I had left, it had seemed toher that she was fighting a long duel with unseen weapons against silentadversaries. Nancy, as I have also said, was always trying to go offwith Edward alone. That had been her habit for years. And Leonora foundit to be her duty to stop that. It was very difficult. Nancy was usedto having her own way, and for years she had been used to going offwith Edward, ratting, rabbiting, catching salmon down at Fordingbridge, district-visiting of the sort that Edward indulged in, or calling on thetenants. And at Nauheim she and Edward had always gone up to the Casinoalone in the evenings--at any rate, whenever Florence did not call forhis attendance. It shows the obviously innocent nature of the regard ofthose two that even Florence had never had any idea of jealousy. Leonorahad cultivated the habit of going to bed at ten o'clock. 

I don't know how she managed it, but, for all the time they were atNauheim, she contrived never to let those two be alone together, exceptin broad daylight, in very crowded places. If a Protestant had done thatit would no doubt have awakened a self-consciousness in the girl. ButCatholics, who have always reservations and queer spots of secrecy, canmanage these things better. And I dare say that two things made thiseasier--the death of Florence and the fact that Edward was obviouslysickening. He appeared, indeed, to be very ill; his shoulders beganto be bowed; there were pockets under his eyes; he had extraordinarymoments of inattention. 

And Leonora describes herself as watching him as a fierce cat watches anunconscious pigeon in a roadway. In that silent watching, again, I thinkshe was a Catholic--of a people that can think thoughts alien to oursand keep them to themselves. And the thoughts passed through her mind;some of them even got through to Edward with never a word spoken. Atfirst she thought that it might be remorse, or grief, for the deathof Florence that was oppressing him. But she watched and watched, anduttered apparently random sentences about Florence before the girl, andshe perceived that he had no grief and no remorse. He had not any ideathat Florence could have committed suicide without writing at least atirade to him. The absence of that made him certain that it had beenheart disease. For Florence had never undeceived him on that point. Shethought it made her seem more romantic. 

No, Edward had no remorse. He was able to say to himself that he hadtreated Florence with gallant attentiveness of the kind that she desireduntil two hours before her death. Leonora gathered that from the look inhis eyes, and from the way he straightened his shoulders over her asshe lay in her coffin--from that and a thousand other little things. Shewould speak suddenly about Florence to the girl and he would not startin the least; he would not even pay attention, but would sit withbloodshot eyes gazing at the tablecloth. He drank a good deal, at thattime--a steady soaking of drink every evening till long after they hadgone to bed. 

For Leonora made the girl go to bed at ten, unreasonable though thatseemed to Nancy. She would understand that, whilst they were in asort of half mourning for Florence, she ought not to be seen at publicplaces, like the Casino; but she could not see why she should notaccompany her uncle upon his evening strolls though the park. I don'tknow what Leonora put up as an excuse--something, I fancy, in the natureof a nightly orison that she made the girl and herself perform for thesoul of Florence. And then, one evening, about a fortnight later, whenthe girl, growing restive at even devotional exercises, clamoured oncemore to be allowed to go for a walk with Edward, and when Leonora wasreally at her wits' end, Edward gave himself into her hands. He was juststanding up from dinner and had his face averted. 

But he turned his heavy head and his bloodshot eyes upon his wife andlooked full at her. 

"Doctor von Hauptmann, " he said, "has ordered me to go to bedimmediately after dinner. My heart's much worse. "

He continued to look at Leonora for a long minute--with a sort of heavycontempt. And Leonora understood that, with his speech, he was givingher the excuse that she needed for separating him from the girl, andwith his eyes he was reproaching her for thinking that he would try tocorrupt Nancy. 

He went silently up to his room and sat there for a long time--untilthe girl was well in bed--reading in the Anglican prayer-book. And abouthalf-past ten she heard his footsteps pass her door, going outwards. Twoand a half hours later they came back, stumbling heavily. 

She remained, reflecting upon this position until the last night oftheir stay at Nauheim. Then she suddenly acted. For, just in the sameway, suddenly after dinner, she looked at him and said:

"Teddy, don't you think you could take a night off from your doctor'sorders and go with Nancy to the Casino. The poor child has had her visitso spoiled. "

He looked at her in turn for a long, balancing minute. 

"Why, yes, " he said at last. 

Nancy jumped out of her chair and kissed him. Those two words, Leonorasaid, gave her the greatest relief of any two syllables she had everheard in her life. For she realized that Edward was breaking up, notunder the desire for possession, but from the dogged determination tohold his hand. She could relax some of her vigilance. 

Nevertheless, she sat in the darkness behind her half-closed jalousies, looking over the street and the night and the trees until, very late, she could hear Nancy's clear voice coming closer and saying:

"You did look an old guy with that false nose. " There had been some sortof celebration of a local holiday up in the Kursaal. And Edward repliedwith his sort of sulky good nature:

"As for you, you looked like old Mother Sideacher. "

The girl came swinging along, a silhouette beneath a gas-lamp; Edward, another, slouched at her side. They were talking just as they had talkedany time since the girl had been seventeen; with the same tones, thesame joke about an old beggar woman who always amused them at Branshaw. The girl, a little later, opened Leonora's door whilst she was stillkissing Edward on the forehead as she had done every night. 

"We've had a most glorious time, " she said. "He's ever so much better. He raced me for twenty yards home. Why are you all in the dark?"

Leonora could hear Edward going about in his room, but, owing to thegirl's chatter, she could not tell whether he went out again or not. And then, very much later, because she thought that if he were drinkingagain something must be done to stop it, she opened for the first time, and very softly, the never-opened door between their rooms. She wantedto see if he had gone out again. Edward was kneeling beside his bed withhis head hidden in the counterpane. His arms, outstretched, held outbefore him a little image of the Blessed Virgin--a tawdry, scarlet andPrussian blue affair that the girl had given him on her first returnfrom the convent. His shoulders heaved convulsively three times, andheavy sobs came from him before she could close the door. He was not aCatholic; but that was the way it took him. 

Leonora slept for the first time that night with a sleep from which shenever once started. 

III

AND then Leonora completely broke down--on the day that they returnedto Branshaw Teleragh. It is the infliction of our miserable minds--it isthe scourge of atrocious but probably just destiny that no grief comesby itself. No, any great grief, though the grief itself may have gone, leaves in its place a train of horrors, of misery, and despair. ForLeonora was, in herself, relieved. She felt that she could trust Edwardwith the girl and she knew that Nancy could be absolutely trusted. Andthen, with the slackening of her vigilance, came the slackening ofher entire mind. This is perhaps the most miserable part of the entirestory. For it is miserable to see a clean intelligence waver; andLeonora wavered. 

You are to understand that Leonora loved Edward with a passion that wasyet like an agony of hatred. And she had lived with him for years andyears without addressing to him one word of tenderness. I don't know howshe could do it. At the beginning of that relationship she had beenjust married off to him. She had been one of seven daughters in a bare, untidy Irish manor-house to which she had returned from the convent Ihave so often spoken of. She had left it just a year and she was justnineteen. It is impossible to imagine such inexperience as was hers. You might almost say that she had never spoken to a man except a priest. Coming straight from the convent, she had gone in behind the high wallsof the manor-house that was almost more cloistral than any convent couldhave been. There were the seven girls, there was the strained mother, there was the worried father at whom, three times in the course of thatyear, the tenants took pot-shots from behind a hedge. The women-folk, upon the whole, the tenants respected. Once a week each of the girls, since there were seven of them, took a drive with the mother in the oldbasketwork chaise drawn by a very fat, very lumbering pony. They paidoccasionally a call, but even these were so rare that, Leonora hasassured me, only three times in the year that succeeded her coming homefrom the convent did she enter another person's house. For the rest ofthe time the seven sisters ran about in the neglected gardens betweenthe unpruned espaliers. Or they played lawn-tennis or fives in an angleof a great wall that surrounded the garden--an angle from which thefruit trees had long died away. They painted in water-colour; theyembroidered; they copied verses into albums. Once a week they went toMass; once a week to the confessional, accompanied by an old nurse. Theywere happy since they had known no other life. 

It appeared to them a singular extravagance when, one day, aphotographer was brought over from the county town and photographed themstanding, all seven, in the shadow of an old apple tree with the greylichen on the raddled trunk. But it wasn't an extravagance. 

Three weeks before Colonel Powys had written to Colonel Ashburnham:

"I say, Harry, couldn't your Edward marry one of my girls? It would bea god-send to me, for I'm at the end of my tether and, once one girlbegins to go off, the rest of them will follow. " He went on to say thatall his daughters were tall, upstanding, clean-limbed and absolutelypure, and he reminded Colonel Ashburnham that, they having been marriedon the same day, though in different churches, since the one was aCatholic and the other an Anglican--they had said to each other, thenight before, that, when the time came, one of their sons should marryone of their daughters. Mrs Ashburnham had been a Powys and remainedMrs Powys' dearest friend. They had drifted about the world as Englishsoldiers do, seldom meeting, but their women always in correspondenceone with another. They wrote about minute things such as the teething ofEdward and of the earlier daughters or the best way to repair a Jacob'sladder in a stocking. And, if they met seldom, yet it was often enoughto keep each other's personalities fresh in their minds, graduallygrowing a little stiff in the joints, but always with enough to talkabout and with a store of reminiscences. Then, as his girls beganto come of age when they must leave the convent in which they wereregularly interned during his years of active service, Colonel Powysretired from the army with the necessity of making a home for them. Ithappened that the Ashburnhams had never seen any of the Powys girls, though, whenever the four parents met in London, Edward Ashburnham wasalways of the party. He was at that time twenty-two and, I believe, almost as pure in mind as Leonora herself. It is odd how a boy can havehis virgin intelligence untouched in this world. 

That was partly due to the careful handling of his mother, partly to thefact that the house to which he went at Winchester had a particularlypure tone and partly to Edward's own peculiar aversion from anythinglike coarse language or gross stories. At Sandhurst he had just keptout of the way of that sort of thing. He was keen on soldiering, keen onmathematics, on land-surveying, on politics and, by a queer warp of hismind, on literature. Even when he was twenty-two he would pass hoursreading one of Scott's novels or the Chronicles of Froissart. MrsAshburnham considered that she was to be congratulated, and almost everyweek she wrote to Mrs Powys, dilating upon her satisfaction. 

Then, one day, taking a walk down Bond Street with her son, after havingbeen at Lord's, she noticed Edward suddenly turn his head round to takea second look at a well-dressed girl who had passed them. She wroteabout that, too, to Mrs Powys, and expressed some alarm. It had been, on Edward's part, the merest reflex action. He was so very abstracted atthat time owing to the pressure his crammer was putting upon him that hecertainly hadn't known what he was doing. 

It was this letter of Mrs Ashburnham's to Mrs Powys that had causedthe letter from Colonel Powys to Colonel Ashburnham--a letter that washalf-humorous, half longing. Mrs Ashburnham caused her husband toreply, with a letter a little more jocular--something to the effectthat Colonel Powys ought to give them some idea of the goods that hewas marketing. That was the cause of the photograph. I have seen it, theseven girls, all in white dresses, all very much alike in feature--all, except Leonora, a little heavy about the chins and a little stupid aboutthe eyes. I dare say it would have made Leonora, too, look a littleheavy and a little stupid, for it was not a good photograph. But theblack shadow from one of the branches of the apple tree cut rightacross her face, which is all but invisible. There followed an extremelyharassing time for Colonel and Mrs Powys. Mrs Ashburnham had writtento say that, quite sincerely, nothing would give greater ease toher maternal anxieties than to have her son marry one of Mrs Powys'daughters if only he showed some inclination to do so. For, she added, nothing but a love-match was to be thought of in her Edward's case. But the poor Powys couple had to run things so very fine that even thebringing together of the young people was a desperate hazard. 

The mere expenditure upon sending one of the girls over from Ireland toBranshaw was terrifying to them; and whichever girl they selected mightnot be the one to ring Edward's bell. On the other hand, the expenditureupon mere food and extra sheets for a visit from the Ashburnhams to themwas terrifying, too. It would mean, mathematically, going short in somany meals themselves, afterwards. Nevertheless, they chanced it, andall the three Ashburnhams came on a visit to the lonely manor-house. They could give Edward some rough shooting, some rough fishing anda whirl of femininity; but I should say the girls made really moreimpression upon Mrs Ashburnham than upon Edward himself. They appearedto her to be so clean run and so safe. They were indeed so clean runthat, in a faint sort of way, Edward seems to have regarded them ratheras boys than as girls. And then, one evening, Mrs Ashburnham had withher boy one of those conversations that English mothers have withEnglish sons. It seems to have been a criminal sort of proceeding, though I don't know what took place at it. Anyhow, next morning ColonelAshburnham asked on behalf of his son for the hand of Leonora. Thiscaused some consternation to the Powys couple, since Leonora was thethird daughter and Edward ought to have married the eldest. Mrs Powys, with her rigid sense of the proprieties, almost wished to reject theproposal. But the Colonel, her husband, pointed out that the visit wouldhave cost them sixty pounds, what with the hire of an extra servant, of a horse and car, and with the purchase of beds and bedding and extratablecloths. There was nothing else for it but the marriage. In that wayEdward and Leonora became man and wife. 

I don't know that a very minute study of their progress towards completedisunion is necessary. Perhaps it is. But there are many things thatI cannot well make out, about which I cannot well question Leonora, orabout which Edward did not tell me. I do not know that there was everany question of love from Edward to her. He regarded her, certainly, asdesirable amongst her sisters. He was obstinate to the extent of sayingthat if he could not have her he would not have any of them. And, nodoubt, before the marriage, he made her pretty speeches out of booksthat he had read. But, as far as he could describe his feelings at all, later, it seems that, calmly and without any quickening of the pulse, hejust carried the girl off, there being no opposition. It had, however, been all so long ago that it seemed to him, at the end of his poor life, a dim and misty affair. He had the greatest admiration for Leonora. 

He had the very greatest admiration. He admired her for hertruthfulness, for her cleanness of mind, and the clean-run-ness of herlimbs, for her efficiency, for the fairness of her skin, for the gold ofher hair, for her religion, for her sense of duty. It was a satisfactionto take her about with him. 

But she had not for him a touch of magnetism. I suppose, really, he didnot love her because she was never mournful; what really made himfeel good in life was to comfort somebody who would be darkly andmysteriously mournful. That he had never had to do for Leonora. Perhaps, also, she was at first too obedient. I do not mean to say that she wassubmissive--that she deferred, in her judgements, to his. She did not. But she had been handed over to him, like some patient medieval virgin;she had been taught all her life that the first duty of a woman is toobey. And there she was. 

In her, at least, admiration for his qualities very soon became love ofthe deepest description. If his pulses never quickened she, so I havebeen told, became what is called an altered being when he approached herfrom the other side of a dancing-floor. Her eyes followed him about fullof trustfulness, of admiration, of gratitude, and of love. He was also, in a great sense, her pastor and guide--and he guided her into what, for a girl straight out of a convent, was almost heaven. I have not theleast idea of what an English officer's wife's existence may be like. Atany rate, there were feasts, and chatterings, and nice men who gave herthe right sort of admiration, and nice women who treated her as if shehad been a baby. And her confessor approved of her life, and Edward lether give little treats to the girls of the convent she had left, andthe Reverend Mother approved of him. There could not have been a happiergirl for five or six years. For it was only at the end of that timethat clouds began, as the saying is, to arise. She was then abouttwenty-three, and her purposeful efficiency made her perhaps have adesire for mastery. She began to perceive that Edward was extravagant inhis largesses. His parents died just about that time, and Edward, thoughthey both decided that he should continue his soldiering, gave a greatdeal of attention to the management of Branshaw through a steward. Aldershot was not very far away, and they spent all his leaves there. 

And, suddenly, she seemed to begin to perceive that his generositieswere almost fantastic. He subscribed much too much to things connectedwith his mess, he pensioned off his father's servants, old or new, muchtoo generously. They had a large income, but every now and then theywould find themselves hard up. He began to talk of mortgaging a farm ortwo, though it never actually came to that. 

She made tentative efforts at remonstrating with him. Her father, whomshe saw now and then, said that Edward was much too generous to histenants; the wives of his brother officers remonstrated with her inprivate; his large subscriptions made it difficult for their husbandsto keep up with them. Ironically enough, the first real trouble betweenthem came from his desire to build a Roman Catholic chapel at Branshaw. He wanted to do it to honour Leonora, and he proposed to do it veryexpensively. Leonora did not want it; she could perfectly well drivefrom Branshaw to the nearest Catholic Church as often as she liked. There were no Roman Catholic tenants and no Roman Catholic servantsexcept her old nurse who could always drive with her. She had as manypriests to stay with her as could be needed--and even the priests didnot want a gorgeous chapel in that place where it would have merelyseemed an invidious instance of ostentation. They were perfectlyready to celebrate Mass for Leonora and her nurse, when they stayed atBranshaw, in a cleaned-up outhouse. But Edward was as obstinate as a hogabout it. He was truly grieved at his wife's want of sentiment--at herrefusal to receive that amount of public homage from him. She appearedto him to be wanting in imagination--to be cold and hard. I don'texactly know what part her priests played in the tragedy that it allbecame; I dare say they behaved quite creditably but mistakenly. Butthen, who would not have been mistaken with Edward? I believe he waseven hurt that Leonora's confessor did not make strenuous efforts toconvert him. There was a period when he was quite ready to become anemotional Catholic. 

I don't know why they did not take him on the hop; but they have queersorts of wisdoms, those people, and queer sorts of tact. Perhaps theythought that Edward's too early conversion would frighten off otherProtestant desirables from marrying Catholic girls. Perhaps they sawdeeper into Edward than he saw himself and thought that he would makea not very creditable convert. At any rate they--and Leonora--left himvery much alone. It mortified him very considerably. He has told me thatif Leonora had then taken his aspirations seriously everything wouldhave been different. But I dare say that was nonsense. At any rate, itwas over the question of the chapel that they had their first andreally disastrous quarrel. Edward at that time was not well; he supposedhimself to be overworked with his regimental affairs--he was managingthe mess at the time. And Leonora was not well--she was beginning tofear that their union might be sterile. And then her father came overfrom Glasmoyle to stay with them. 

Those were troublesome times in Ireland, I understand. At any rate, Colonel Powys had tenants on the brain--his own tenants having shot athim with shot-guns. And, in conversation with Edward's land-steward, he got it into his head that Edward managed his estates with amad generosity towards his tenants. I understand, also, that thoseyears--the 'nineties--were very bad for farming. Wheat was fetching onlya few shillings the hundred; the price of meat was so low that cattlehardly paid for raising; whole English counties were ruined. And Edwardallowed his tenants very high rebates. 

To do both justice Leonora has since acknowledged that she was in thewrong at that time and that Edward was following out a more far-seeingpolicy in nursing his really very good tenants over a bad period. It wasnot as if the whole of his money came from the land; a good deal of itwas in rails. But old Colonel Powys had that bee in his bonnet and, ifhe never directly approached Edward himself on the subject, he preachedunceasingly, whenever he had the opportunity, to Leonora. His pet ideawas that Edward ought to sack all his own tenants and import a set offarmers from Scotland. That was what they were doing in Essex. He was ofopinion that Edward was riding hotfoot to ruin. 

That worried Leonora very much--it worried her dreadfully; she layawake nights; she had an anxious line round her mouth. And that, again, worried Edward. I do not mean to say that Leonora actually spoke toEdward about his tenants--but he got to know that some one, probablyher father, had been talking to her about the matter. He got to know itbecause it was the habit of his steward to look in on them every morningabout breakfast-time to report any little happenings. And there was afarmer called Mumford who had only paid half his rent for the lastthree years. One morning the land-steward reported that Mumford would beunable to pay his rent at all that year. Edward reflected for a momentand then he said something like:

"Oh well, he's an old fellow and his family have been our tenants forover two hundred years. Let him off altogether. "

And then Leonora--you must remember that she had reason for being verynervous and unhappy at that time--let out a sound that was very like agroan. It startled Edward, who more than suspected what was passing inher mind--it startled him into a state of anger. He said sharply:

"You wouldn't have me turn out people who've been earning money for usfor centuries--people to whom we have responsibilities--and let in apack of Scotch farmers?"

He looked at her, Leonora said, with what was practically a glance ofhatred and then, precipitately, he left the breakfast-table. Leonoraknew that it probably made it all the worse that he had been betrayedinto a manifestation of anger before a third party. It was the first andlast time that he ever was betrayed into such a manifestation of anger. The land-steward, a moderate and well-balanced man whose family also hadbeen with the Ashburnhams for over a century, took it upon himself toexplain that he considered Edward was pursuing a perfectly proper coursewith his tenants. He erred perhaps a little on the side of generosity, but hard times were hard times, and every one had to feel the pinch, landlord as well as tenants. The great thing was not to let the landget into a poor state of cultivation. Scotch farmers just skinned yourfields and let them go down and down. But Edward had a very good set oftenants who did their best for him and for themselves. These argumentsat that time carried very little conviction to Leonora. She was, nevertheless, much concerned by Edward's outburst of anger. The fact isthat Leonora had been practising economies in her department. Two of theunder-housemaids had gone and she had not replaced them; she had spentmuch less that year upon dress. The fare she had provided at the dinnersthey gave had been much less bountiful and not nearly so costly ashad been the case in preceding years, and Edward began to perceive ahardness and determination in his wife's character. He seemed to see anet closing round him--a net in which they would be forced to live likeone of the comparatively poor county families of the neighbourhood. And, in the mysterious way in which two people, living together, get to knoweach other's thoughts without a word spoken, he had known, even beforehis outbreak, that Leonora was worrying about his managing of theestates. This appeared to him to be intolerable. He had, too, a greatfeeling of self-contempt because he had been betrayed into speakingharshly to Leonora before that land-steward. She imagined that his nervemust be deserting him, and there can have been few men more miserablethan Edward was at that period. You see, he was really a very simplesoul--very simple. He imagined that no man can satisfactorily accomplishhis life's work without loyal and whole-hearted cooperation of the womanhe lives with. And he was beginning to perceive dimly that, whereashis own traditions were entirely collective, his wife was a sheerindividualist. His own theory--the feudal theory of an over-lord doinghis best by his dependents, the dependents meanwhile doing their bestfor the over-lord--this theory was entirely foreign to Leonora's nature. She came of a family of small Irish landlords--that hostile garrison ina plundered country. And she was thinking unceasingly of the childrenshe wished to have. I don't know why they never had any children--notthat I really believe that children would have made any difference. Thedissimilarity of Edward and Leonora was too profound. It will give yousome idea of the extraordinary naïveté of Edward Ashburnham that, at thetime of his marriage and for perhaps a couple of years after, he did notreally know how children are produced. Neither did Leonora. I don't meanto say that this state of things continued, but there it was. I dare sayit had a good deal of influence on their mentalities. At any rate, theynever had a child. It was the Will of God. 

It certainly presented itself to Leonora as being the Will of God--asbeing a mysterious and awful chastisement of the Almighty. For she haddiscovered shortly before this period that her parents had not exactedfrom Edward's family the promise that any children she should bearshould be brought up as Catholics. She herself had never talked of thematter with either her father, her mother, or her husband. When at lasther father had let drop some words leading her to believe that that wasthe fact, she tried desperately to extort the promise from Edward. Sheencountered an unexpected obstinacy. Edward was perfectly willingthat the girls should be Catholic; the boys must be Anglican. I don'tunderstand the bearing of these things in English society. Indeed, Englishmen seem to me to be a little mad in matters of politics or ofreligion. In Edward it was particularly queer because he himself wasperfectly ready to become a Romanist. He seemed, however, to contemplategoing over to Rome himself and yet letting his boys be educated in thereligion of their immediate ancestors. This may appear illogical, butI dare say it is not so illogical as it looks. Edward, that is to say, regarded himself as having his own body and soul at his own disposal. But his loyalty to the traditions of his family would not permit him tobind any future inheritors of his name or beneficiaries by the deathof his ancestors. About the girls it did not so much matter. They wouldknow other homes and other circumstances. Besides, it was the usualthing. But the boys must be given the opportunity of choosing--andthey must have first of all the Anglican teaching. He was perfectlyunshakable about this. 

Leonora was in an agony during all this time. You will have to remembershe seriously believed that children who might be born to her went indanger, if not absolutely of damnation, at any rate of receiving falsedoctrine. It was an agony more terrible than she could describe. Shedidn't indeed attempt to describe it, but I could tell from her voicewhen she said, almost negligently, "I used to lie awake whole nights. Itwas no good my spiritual advisers trying to console me. " I knew from hervoice how terrible and how long those nights must have seemed and ofhow little avail were the consolations of her spiritual advisers. Herspiritual advisers seemed to have taken the matter a little more calmly. They certainly told her that she must not consider herself in any wayto have sinned. Nay, they seem even to have extorted, to have threatenedher, with a view to getting her out of what they considered to be amorbid frame of mind. She would just have to make the best of things, to influence the children when they came, not by propaganda, but bypersonality. And they warned her that she would be committing a sin ifshe continued to think that she had sinned. Nevertheless, she continuedto think that she had sinned. 

Leonora could not be aware that the man whom she loved passionatelyand whom, nevertheless, she was beginning to try to rule with a rod ofiron--that this man was becoming more and more estranged from her. Heseemed to regard her as being not only physically and mentally cold, buteven as being actually wicked and mean. There were times when he wouldalmost shudder if she spoke to him. And she could not understand howhe could consider her wicked or mean. It only seemed to her a sort ofmadness in him that he should try to take upon his own shoulders theburden of his troop, of his regiment, of his estate and of half of hiscountry. She could not see that in trying to curb what she regarded asmegalomania she was doing anything wicked. She was just trying to keepthings together for the sake of the children who did not come. And, little by little, the whole of their intercourse became simply one ofagonized discussion as to whether Edward should subscribe to this orthat institution or should try to reclaim this or that drunkard. Shesimply could not see it. 

Into this really terrible position of strain, from which there appearedto be no issue, the Kilsyte case came almost as a relief. It is partof the peculiar irony of things that Edward would certainly never havekissed that nurse-maid if he had not been trying to please Leonora. Nurse-maids do not travel first-class, and, that day, Edward travelledin a third-class carriage in order to prove to Leonora that he wascapable of economies. I have said that the Kilsyte case came almost as arelief to the strained situation that then existed between them. Itgave Leonora an opportunity of backing him up in a whole-hearted andabsolutely loyal manner. It gave her the opportunity of behaving to himas he considered a wife should behave to her husband. 

You see, Edward found himself in a railway carriage with a quite prettygirl of about nineteen. And the quite pretty girl of about nineteen, with dark hair and red cheeks and blue eyes, was quietly weeping. Edwardhad been sitting in his corner thinking about nothing at all. He hadchanced to look at the nurse-maid; two large, pretty tears came out ofher eyes and dropped into her lap. He immediately felt that he hadgot to do something to comfort her. That was his job in life. He wasdesperately unhappy himself and it seemed to him the most naturalthing in the world that they should pool their sorrows. He was quitedemocratic; the idea of the difference in their station never seems tohave occurred to him. He began to talk to her. He discovered that heryoung man had been seen walking out with Annie of Number 54. He movedover to her side of the carriage. He told her that the report probablywasn't true; that, after all, a young man might take a walk with Anniefrom Number 54 without its denoting anything very serious. And heassured me that he felt at least quite half-fatherly when he put his armaround her waist and kissed her. The girl, however, had not forgottenthe difference of her station. 

All her life, by her mother, by other girls, by schoolteachers, by thewhole tradition of her class she had been warned against gentlemen. Shewas being kissed by a gentleman. She screamed, tore herself away; sprangup and pulled a communication cord. 

Edward came fairly well out of the affair in the public estimation; butit did him, mentally, a good deal of harm. 

IV

IT is very difficult to give an all-round impression of an man. I wonderhow far I have succeeded with Edward Ashburnham. I dare say I haven'tsucceeded at all. It is ever very difficult to see how such thingsmatter. Was it the important point about poor Edward that he was verywell built, carried himself well, was moderate at the table and led aregular life--that he had, in fact, all the virtues that are usuallyaccounted English? Or have I in the least succeeded in conveying thathe was all those things and had all those virtues? He certainly was themand had them up to the last months of his life. They were the thingsthat one would set upon his tombstone. They will, indeed, be set uponhis tombstone by his widow. 

And have I, I wonder, given the due impression of how his life wasportioned and his time laid out? Because, until the very last, theamount of time taken up by his various passions was relatively small. Ihave been forced to write very much about his passions, but you have toconsider--I should like to be able to make you consider--that he roseevery morning at seven, took a cold bath, breakfasted at eight, wasoccupied with his regiment from nine until one; played polo or cricketwith the men when it was the season for cricket, till tea-time. Afterwards he would occupy himself with the letters from hisland-steward or with the affairs of his mess, till dinner-time. Hewould dine and pass the evening playing cards, or playing billiards withLeonora or at social functions of one kind or another. And the greaterpart of his life was taken up by that--by far the greater part of hislife. His love-affairs, until the very end, were sandwiched in atodd moments or took place during the social evenings, the dances anddinners. But I guess I have made it hard for you, O silent listener, toget that impression. Anyhow, I hope I have not given you the idea thatEdward Ashburnham was a pathological case. He wasn't. He was just anormal man and very much of a sentimentalist. I dare say the qualityof his youth, the nature of his mother's influence, his ignorances, thecrammings that he received at the hands of army coaches--I dare say thatall these excellent influences upon his adolescence were very bad forhim. But we all have to put up with that sort of thing and no doubt itis very bad for all of us. Nevertheless, the outline of Edward'slife was an outline perfectly normal of the life of a hard-working, sentimental and efficient professional man. 

That question of first impressions has always bothered me a gooddeal--but quite academically. I mean that, from time to time I havewondered whether it were or were not best to trust to one's firstimpressions in dealing with people. But I never had anybody to deal withexcept waiters and chambermaids and the Ashburnhams, with whom Ididn't know that I was having any dealings. And, as far as waitersand chambermaids were concerned, I have generally found that my firstimpressions were correct enough. If my first idea of a man was that hewas civil, obliging, and attentive, he generally seemed to go on beingall those things. Once, however, at our Paris flat we had a maidwho appeared to be charming and transparently honest. She stole, nevertheless, one of Florence's diamond rings. She did it, however, to save her young man from going to prison. So here, as somebody sayssomewhere, was a special case. 

And, even in my short incursion into American business life--anincursion that lasted during part of August and nearly the whole ofSeptember--I found that to rely upon first impressions was the bestthing I could do. I found myself automatically docketing and labellingeach man as he was introduced to me, by the run of his features and bythe first words that he spoke. I can't, however, be regarded as reallydoing business during the time that I spent in the United States. I wasjust winding things up. If it hadn't been for my idea of marrying thegirl I might possibly hav looked for something to do in my own country. For my experiences there were vivid and amusing. It was exactly as if Ihad come out of a museum into a riotous fancy-dress ball. During my lifewith Florence I had almost come to forget that there were such things asfashions or occupations or the greed of gain. I had, in fact, forgottenthat there was such a thing as a dollar and that a dollar can beextremely desirable if you don't happen to possess one. And I hadforgotten, too, that there was such a thing as gossip that mattered. In that particular, Philadelphia was the most amazing place I have everbeen in in my life. I was not in that city for more than a week or tendays and I didn't there transact anything much in the way of business;nevertheless, the number of times that I was warned by everybody againsteverybody else was simply amazing. A man I didn't know would come upbehind my lounge chair in the hotel, and, whispering cautiously besidemy ear, would warn me against some other man that I equally didn't knowbut who would be standing by the bar. I don't know what they thought Iwas there to do--perhaps to buy out the city's debt or get a controllinghold of some railway interest. Or, perhaps, they imagined that I wantedto buy a newspaper, for they were either politicians or reporters, which, of course, comes to the same thing. As a matter of fact, myproperty in Philadelphia was mostly real estate in the old-fashionedpart of the city and all I wanted to do there was just to satisfy myselfthat the houses were in good repair and the doors kept properly painted. I wanted also to see my relations, of whom I had a few. These weremostly professional people and they were mostly rather hard up becauseof the big bank failure in 1907 or thereabouts. Still, they were verynice. They would have been nicer still if they hadn't, all of them, hadwhat appeared to me to be the mania that what they called influenceswere working against them. At any rate, the impression of that city wasone of old-fashioned rooms, rather English than American in type, in which handsome but careworn ladies, cousins of my own, talkedprincipally about mysterious movements that were going on against them. I never got to know what it was all about; perhaps they thought I knewor perhaps there weren't any movements at all. It was all very secretand subtle and subterranean. But there was a nice young fellow calledCarter who was a sort of second-nephew of mine, twice removed. He washandsome and dark and gentie and tall and modest. I understand also thathe was a good cricketer. He was employed by the real-estate agentswho collected my rents. It was he, therefore, who took me over my ownproperty and I saw a good deal of him and of a nice girl called Mary, towhom he was engaged. At that time I did, what I certainly shouldn't donow--I made some careful inquiries as to his character. I discoveredfrom his employers that he was just all that he appeared, honest, industrious, high-spirited, friendly and ready to do anyone a good turn. His relatives, however, as they were mine, too--seemed to have somethingdarkly mysterious against him. I imagined that he must have been mixedup in some case of graft or that he had at least betrayed severalinnocent and trusting maidens. I pushed, however, that particularmystery home and discovered it was only that he was a Democrat. My ownpeople were mostly Republicans. It seemed to make it worse and moredarkly mysterious to them that young Carter was what they called a sortof a Vermont Democrat which was the whole ticket and no mistake. But Idon't know what it means. Anyhow, I suppose that my money will go tohim when I die--I like the recollection of his friendly image and of thenice girl he was engaged to. May Fate deal very kindly with them. 

I have said just now that, in my present frame of mind, nothing wouldever make me make inquiries as to the character of any man that I likedat first sight. (The little digression as to my Philadelphia experienceswas really meant to lead around to this. ) For who in this world cangive anyone a character? Who in this world knows anything of any otherheart--or of his own? I don't mean to say that one cannot form anaverage estimate of the way a person will behave. But one cannot becertain of the way any man will behave in every case--and until one cando that a "character" is of no use to anyone. That, for instance, wasthe way with Florence's maid in Paris. We used to trust that girl withblank cheques for the payment of the tradesmen. For quite a time she wasso trusted by us. Then, suddenly, she stole a ring. We should not havebelieved her capable of it; she would not have believed herself capableof it. It was nothing in her character. So, perhaps, it was with EdwardAshburnham. 

Or, perhaps, it wasn't. No, I rather think it wasn't. It is difficultto figure out. I have said that the Kilsyte case eased the immediatetension for him and Leonora. It let him see that she was capable ofloyalty to him; it gave her her chance to show that she believed in him. She accepted without question his statement that, in kissing the girl, he wasn't trying to do more than administer fatherly comfort toa weeping child. And, indeed, his own world--including themagistrates--took that view of the case. Whatever people say, one'sworld can be perfectly charitable at times. . . But, again, as I havesaid, it did Edward a great deal of harm. 

That, at least, was his view of it. He assured me that, before thatcase came on and was wrangled about by counsel with all sorts ofdirty-mindedness that counsel in that sort of case can impute, hehad not had the least idea that he was capable of being unfaithful toLeonora. But, in the midst of that tumult--he says that it came suddenlyinto his head whilst he was in the witness-box--in the midst of thoseaugust ceremonies of the law there came suddenly into his mind therecollection of the softness of the girl's body as he had pressed herto him. And, from that moment, that girl appeared desirable to him--andLeonora completely unattractive. 

He began to indulge in day-dreams in which he approached the nurse-maidmore tactfully and carried the matter much further. Occasionally hethought of other women in terms of wary courtship--or, perhaps, itwould be more exact to say that he thought of them in terms of tactfulcomforting, ending in absorption. That was his own view of the case. Hesaw himself as the victim of the law. I don't mean to say that he sawhimself as a kind of Dreyfus. The law, practically, was quite kind tohim. It stated that in its view Captain Ashburnham had been misled by anill-placed desire to comfort a member of the opposite sex, and it finedhim five shilling for his want of tact, or of knowledge of the world. But Edward maintained that it had put ideas into his head. 

I don't believe it, though he certainly did. He was twenty-seven then, and his wife was out of sympathy with him--some crash was inevitable. There was between them a momentary rapprochement; but it could not last. It made it, probably, all the worse that, in that particular matter, Leonara had come so very well up to the scratch. For, whilst Edwardrespected her more and was grateful to her, it made her seem by somuch the more cold in other matters that were near his heart--hisresponsibilities, his career, his tradition. It brought his despair ofher up to a point of exasperation--and it riveted on him the idea thathe might find some other woman who would give him the moral support thathe needed. He wanted to be looked upon as a sort of Lohengrin. 

At that time, he says, he went about deliberately looking for some womanwho could help him. He found several--for there were quite a number ofladies in his set who were capable of agreeing with this handsome andfine fellow that the duties of a feudal gentleman were feudal. He wouldhave liked to pass his days talking to one or other of these ladies. Butthere was always an obstacle--if the lady were married there would be ahusband who claimed the greater part of her time and attention. If, onthe other hand, it were an unmarried girl, he could not see very much ofher for fear of compromising her. At that date, you understand, he hadnot the least idea of seducing any one of these ladies. He wantedonly moral support at the hands of some female, because he found mendifficult to talk to about ideals. Indeed, I do not believe that he had, at any time, any idea of making any one his mistress. That sounds queer;but I believe it is quite true as a statement of character. 

It was, I believe, one of Leonora's priests--a man of the world--whosuggested that she should take him to Monte Carlo. He had the idea thatwhat Edward needed, in order to fit him for the society of Leonora, was a touch of irresponsibility. For Edward, at that date, had much theaspect of a prig. I mean that, if he played polo and was an excellentdancer he did the one for the sake of keeping himself fit and the otherbecause it was a social duty to show himself at dances, and, when there, to dance well. He did nothing for fun except what he considered to behis work in life. As the priest saw it, this must for ever estrange himfrom Leonora--not because Leonora set much store by the joy of life, butbecause she was out of sympathy with Edward's work. On the other hand, Leonora did like to have a good time, now and then, and, as the priestsaw it, if Edward could be got to like having a good time now and then, too, there would be a bond of sympathy between them. It was a good idea, but it worked out wrongly. 

It worked out, in fact, in the mistress of the Grand Duke. In anyoneless sentimental than Edward that would not have mattered. With Edwardit was fatal. For, such was his honourable nature, that for him to enjoya woman's favours made him feel that she had a bond on him for life. That was the way it worked out in practice. Psychologically it meantthat he could not have a mistress without falling violently in love withher. He was a serious person--and in this particular case it wasvery expensive. The mistress of the Grand Duke--a Spanish dancer ofpassionate appearance--singled out Edward for her glances at a ball thatwas held in their common hotel. Edward was tall, handsome, blond andvery wealthy as she understood--and Leonora went up to bed early. Shedid not care for public dances, but she was relieved to see that Edwardappeared to be having a good time with several amiable girls. And thatwas the end of Edward--for the Spanish dancer of passionate appearancewanted one night of him for his beaux yeux. He took her into the darkgardens and, remembering suddenly the girl of the Kilsyte case, hekissed her. He kissed her passionately, violently, with a suddenexplosion of the passion that had been bridled all his life--forLeonora was cold, or at any rate, well behaved. La Dolciquita liked thisreversion, and he passed the night in her bed. 

When the palpitating creature was at last asleep in his arms hediscovered that he was madly, was passionately, was overwhelmingly inlove with her. It was a passion that had arisen like fire in dry corn. He could think of nothing else; he could live for nothing else. But LaDolciquita was a reasonable creature without an ounce of passion inher. She wanted a certain satisfaction of her appetites and Edward hadappealed to her the night before. Now that was done with, and, quitecoldly, she said that she wanted money if he was to have any more ofher. It was a perfectly reasonable commercial transaction. She did notcare two buttons for Edward or for any man and he was asking her torisk a very good situation with the Grand Duke. If Edward could put upsufficient money to serve as a kind of insurance against accident shewas ready to like Edward for a time that would be covered, as it were, by the policy. She was getting fifty thousand dollars a year from herGrand Duke; Edward would have to pay a premium of two years' hire for amonth of her society. There would not be much risk of the Grand Duke'sfinding it out and it was not certain that he would give her the keys ofthe street if he did find out. But there was the risk--a twenty per centrisk, as she figured it out. She talked to Edward as if she had been asolicitor with an estate to sell--perfectly quietly and perfectly coldlywithout any inflections in her voice. She did not want to be unkindto him; but she could see no reason for being kind to him. She was avirtuous business woman with a mother and two sisters and her own oldage to be provided comfortably for. She did not expect more than a fiveyears' further run. She was twenty-four and, as she said: "We Spanishwomen are horrors at thirty. " Edward swore that he would provide for herfor life if she would come to him and leave off talking so horribly; butshe only shrugged one shoulder slowly and contemptuously. He triedto convince this woman, who, as he saw it, had surrendered to him hervirtue, that he regarded it as in any case his duty to provide for her, and to cherish her and even to love her--for life. In return for hersacrifice he would do that. In return, again, for his honourable loveshe would listen for ever to the accounts of his estate. That was how hefigured it out. 

She shrugged the same shoulder with the same gesture and held out herleft hand with the elbow at her side:

"Enfin, mon ami, " she said, "put in this hand the price of that tiara atForli's or. . . " And she turned her back on him. 

Edward went mad; his world stood on its head; the palms in front of theblue sea danced grotesque dances. You see, he believed in the virtue, tenderness and moral support of women. He wanted more than anything toargue with La Dolciquita; to retire with her to an island and point outto her the damnation of her point of view and how salvation can onlybe found in true love and the feudal system. She had once been hismistress, he reflected, and by all the moral laws she ought to have goneon being his mistress or at the very least his sympathetic confidante. But her rooms were closed to him; she did not appear in the hotel. Nothing: blank silence. To break that down he had to have twentythousand pounds. You have heard what happened. He spent a week ofmadness; he hungered; his eyes sank in; he shuddered at Leonora's touch. I dare say that nine-tenths of what he took to be his passion forLa Dolciquita was really discomfort at the thought that he had beenunfaithful to Leonora. He felt uncommonly bad, that is to say--oh, unbearably bad, and he took it all to be love. Poor devil, he wasincredibly naïve. He drank like a fish after Leonora was in bed and hespread himself over the tables, and this went on for about a fortnight. Heaven knows what would have happened; he would have thrown away everypenny that he possessed. 

On the night after he had lost about forty thousand pounds and whilstthe whole hotel was whispering about it, La Dolciquita walked composedlyinto his bedroom. He was too drunk to recognize her, and she sat in hisarm-chair, knitting and holding smelling salts to her nose--for he waspretty far gone with alcoholic poisoning--and, as soon as he was able tounderstand her, she said:

"Look here, mon ami, do not go to the tables again. Take a good sleepnow and come and see me this afternoon. "

He slept till the lunch-hour. By that time Leonora had heard the news. A Mrs Colonel Whelan had told her. Mrs Colonel Whelan seems to have beenthe only sensible person who was ever connected with the Ashburnhams. She had argued it out that there must be a woman of the harpy varietyconnected with Edward's incredible behaviour and mien; and she advisedLeonora to go straight off to Town--which might have the effect ofbringing Edward to his senses--and to consult her solicitor and herspiritual adviser. She had better go that very morning; it was no goodarguing with a man in Edward's condition. 

Edward, indeed, did not know that she had gone. As soon as he awoke hewent straight to La Dolciquita's room and she stood him his lunch in herown apartments. He fell on her neck and wept, and she put up with it fora time. She was quite a good-natured woman. And, when she had calmedhim down with Eau de Mélisse, she said: "Look here, my friend, how muchmoney have you left? Five thousand dollars? Ten?" For the rumour wentthat Edward had lost two kings' ransoms a night for fourteen nights andshe imagined that he must be near the end of his resources. 

The Eau de Mélisse had calmed Edward to such an extent that, for themoment, he really had a head on his shoulders. He did nothing more thangrunt:

"And then?"

"Why, " she answered, "I may just as well have the ten thousand dollarsas the tables. I will go with you to Antibes for a week for that sum. "

Edward grunted: "Five. " She tried to get seven thousand five hundred;but he stuck to his five thousand and the hotel expenses at Antibes. Thesedative carried him just as far as that and then he collapsed again. Hehad to leave for Antibes at three; he could not do without it. He left anote for Leonora saying that he had gone off for a week with the ClintonMorleys, yachting. 

He did not enjoy himself very much at Antibes. La Dolciquita couldtalk of nothing with any enthusiasm except money, and she tiredhim unceasingly, during every waking hour, for presents of the mostexpensive description. And, at the end of a week, she just quietlykicked him out. He hung about in Antibes for three days. He was curedof the idea that he had any duties towards La Dolciquita--feudal orotherwise. But his sentimentalism required of him an attitude of Byronicgloom--as if his court had gone into half-mourning. Then his appetitesuddenly returned, and he remembered Leonora. He found at his hotel atMonte Carlo a telegram from Leonora, dispatched from London, saying;"Please return as soon as convenient. " He could not understand whyLeonora should have abandoned him so precipitately when she only thoughtthat he had gone yachting with the Clinton Morleys. Then he discoveredthat she had left the hotel before he had written the note. He hada pretty rocky journey back to town; he was frightened out of hislife--and Leonora had never seemed so desirable to him. 

V I CALL this the Saddest Story, rather than "The Ashburnham Tragedy", just because it is so sad, just because there was no current to drawthings along to a swift and inevitable end. There is about it none ofthe elevation that accompanies tragedy; there is about it no nemesis, nodestiny. Here were two noble people--for I am convinced that both Edwardand Leonora had noble natures--here, then, were two noble natures, drifting down life, like fireships afloat on a lagoon and causingmiseries, heart-aches, agony of the mind and death. And they themselvessteadily deteriorated. And why? For what purpose? To point what lesson?It is all a darkness. 

There is not even any villain in the story--for even Major Basil, thehusband of the lady who next, and really, comforted the unfortunateEdward--even Major Basil was not a villain in this piece. He was aslack, loose, shiftless sort of fellow--but he did not do anything toEdward. Whilst they were in the same station in Burma he borrowed agood deal of money--though, really, since Major Basil had noparticular vices, it was difficult to know why he wanted it. Hecollected--different types of horses' bits from the earliest times tothe present day--but, since he did not prosecute even this occupationwith any vigour, he cannot have needed much money for the acquirement, say, of the bit of Genghis Khan's charger--if Genghis Khan had acharger. And when I say that he borrowed a good deal of money fromEdward I do not mean to say that he had more than a thousand pounds fromhim during the five years that the connection lasted. Edward, of course, did not have a great deal of money; Leonora was seeing to that. Still, he may have had five hundred pounds a year English, for his menusplaisirs--for his regimental subscriptions and for keeping his mensmart. Leonora hated that; she would have preferred to buy dresses forherself or to have devoted the money to paying off a mortgage. Still, with her sense of justice, she saw that, since she was managinga property bringing in three thousand a year with a view tore-establishing it as a property of five thousand a year and since theproperty really, if not legally, belonged to Edward, it was reasonableand just that Edward should get a slice of his own. Of course she hadthe devil of a job. 

I don't know that I have got the financial details exactly right. I ama pretty good head at figures, but my mind, still, sometimes mixes uppounds with dollars and I get a figure wrong. Anyhow, the propositionwas something like this: Properly worked and without rebates to thetenants and keeping up schools and things, the Branshaw estate shouldhave brought in about five thousand a year when Edward had it. Itbrought in actually about four. (I am talking in pounds, not dollars. )Edward's excesses with the Spanish Lady had reduced its value to aboutthree--as the maximum figure, without reductions. Leonora wanted to getit back to five. 

She was, of course, very young to be faced with such aproposition--twenty-four is not a very advanced age. So she did thingswith a youthful vigour that she would, very likely, have made moremerciful, if she had known more about life. She got Edward remarkably onthe hop. He had to face her in a London hotel, when he crept back fromMonte Carlo with his poor tail between his poor legs. As far as I canmake out she cut short his first mumblings and his first attempts ataffectionate speech with words something like: "We're on the vergeof ruin. Do you intend to let me pull things together? If not I shallretire to Hendon on my jointure. " (Hendon represented a convent towhich she occasionally went for what is called a "retreat" in Catholiccircles. ) And poor dear Edward knew nothing--absolutely nothing. He didnot know how much money he had, as he put it, "blued" at the tables. Itmight have been a quarter of a million for all he remembered. He did notknow whether she knew about La Dolciquita or whether she imagined thathe had gone off yachting or had stayed at Monte Carlo. He was just dumband he just wanted to get into a hole and not have to talk. Leonora didnot make him talk and she said nothing herself. 

I do not know much about English legal procedure--I cannot, I mean, givetechnical details of how they tied him up. But I know that, two dayslater, without her having said more than I have reported to you, Leonoraand her attorney had become the trustees, as I believe it is called, of all Edward's property, and there was an end of Edward as the goodlandlord and father of his people. He went out. Leonora then had threethousand a year at her disposal. She occupied Edward with gettinghimself transferred to a part of his regiment that was in Burma--if thatis the right way to put it. She herself had an interview, lasting aweek or so--with Edward's land-steward. She made him understand that theestate would have to yield up to its last penny. Before they left forIndia she had let Branshaw for seven years at a thousand a year. Shesold two Vandykes and a little silver for eleven thousand pounds andshe raised, on mortgage, twenty-nine thousand. That went to Edward'smoney-lending friends in Monte Carlo. So she had to get the twenty-ninethousand back, for she did not regard the Vandykes and the silveras things she would have to replace. They were just frills to theAshburnham vanity. Edward cried for two days over the disappearance ofhis ancestors and then she wished she had not done it; but it did notteach her anything and it lessened such esteem as she had for him. Shedid not also understand that to let Branshaw affected him with a feelingof physical soiling--that it was almost as bad for him as if a womanbelonging to him had become a prostitute. That was how it did affecthim; but I dare say she felt just as bad about the Spanish dancer. 

So she went at it. They were eight years in India, and during the wholeof that time she insisted that they must be self-supporting--they hadto live on his Captain's pay, plus the extra allowance for being at thefront. She gave him the five hundred a year for Ashburnham frills, asshe called it to herself--and she considered she was doing him verywell. 

Indeed, in a way, she did him very well--but it was not his way. She wasalways buying him expensive things which, as it were, she took off herown back. I have, for instance, spoken of Edward's leather cases. Well, they were not Edward's at all; they were Leonora's manifestations. Heliked to be clean, but he preferred, as it were, to be threadbare. Shenever understood that, and all that pigskin was her idea of a reward tohim for putting her up to a little speculation by which she made elevenhundred pounds. She did, herself, the threadbare business. When theywent up to a place called Simla, where, as I understand, it is cool inthe summer and very social--when they went up to Simla for their healthsit was she who had him prancing around, as we should say in the UnitedStates, on a thousand-dollar horse with the gladdest of glad rags allover him. She herself used to go into "retreat". I believe that was verygood for her health and it was also very inexpensive. 

It was probably also very good for Edward's health, because he prancedabout mostly with Mrs Basil, who was a nice woman and very, very kind tohim. I suppose she was his mistress, but I never heard it from Edward, of course. I seem to gather that they carried it on in a high romanticfashion, very proper to both of them--or, at any rate, for Edward; sheseems to have been a tender and gentle soul who did what he wanted. I donot mean to say that she was without character; that was her job, todo what Edward wanted. So I figured it out, that for those five years, Edward wanted long passages of deep affection kept up in long, longtalks and that every now and then they "fell, " which would give Edwardan opportunity for remorse and an excuse to lend the Major anotherfifty. I don't think that Mrs Basil considered it to be "falling"; shejust pitied him and loved him. 

You see, Leonora and Edward had to talk about something during all theseyears. You cannot be absolutely dumb when you live with a person unlessyou are an inhabitant of the North of England or the State of Maine. SoLeonora imagined the cheerful device of letting him see the accounts ofhis estate and discussing them with him. He did not discuss them much;he was trying to behave prettily. But it was old Mr Mumford--the farmerwho did not pay his rent--that threw Edward into Mrs Basil's arms. MrsBasil came upon Edward in the dusk, in the Burmese garden, with allsorts of flowers and things. And he was cutting up that crop--with hissword, not a walking-stick. He was also carrying on and cursing in a wayyou would not believe. 

She ascertained that an old gentleman called Mumford had been ejectedfrom his farm and had been given a little cottage rent-free, wherehe lived on ten shillings a week from a farmers' benevolent society, supplemented by seven that was being allowed him by the Ashburnhamtrustees. Edward had just discovered that fact from the estate accounts. Leonora had left them in his dressing-room and he had begun to readthem before taking off his marching-kit. That was how he came to have asword. Leonora considered that she had been unusually generous to old MrMumford in allowing him to inhabit a cottage, rent-free, and in givinghim seven shillings a week. Anyhow, Mrs Basil had never seen a man insuch a state as Edward was. She had been passionately in love withhim for quite a time, and he had been longing for her sympathy andadmiration with a passion as deep. That was how they came to speak aboutit, in the Burmese garden, under the pale sky, with sheaves of severedvegetation, misty and odorous, in the night around their feet. I thinkthey behaved themselves with decorum for quite a time after that, thoughMrs Basil spent so many hours over the accounts of the Ashburnham estatethat she got the name of every field by heart. Edward had a huge map ofhis lands in his harness-room and Major Basil did not seem to mind. Ibelieve that people do not mind much in lonely stations. It mighthave lasted for ever if the Major had not been made what is called abrevet-colonel during the shuffling of troops that went on just beforethe South African War. He was sent off somewhere else and, of course, Mrs Basil could not stay with Edward. Edward ought, I suppose, to havegone to the Transvaal. It would have done him a great deal of good toget killed. But Leonora would not let him; she had heard awful storiesof the extravagance of the hussar regiment in war-time--how they lefthundred-bottle cases of champagne, at five guineas a bottle, on theveldt and so on. Besides, she preferred to see how Edward was spendinghis five hundred a year. I don't mean to say that Edward had anygrievance in that. He was never a man of the deeds of heroism sort andit was just as good for him to be sniped at up in the hills of the NorthWestern frontier, as to be shot at by an old gentleman in a tophat atthe bottom of some spruit. Those are more or less his words about it. Ibelieve he quite distinguished himself over there. At any rate, he hadhad his D. S. O. And was made a brevet-major. Leonora, however, was not inthe least keen on his soldiering. She hated also his deeds of heroism. One of their bitterest quarrels came after he had, for the secondtime, in the Red Sea, jumped overboard from the troopship and rescued aprivate soldier. She stood it the first time and even complimented him. But the Red Sea was awful, that trip, and the private soldiers seemedto develop a suicidal craze. It got on Leonora's nerves; she figuredEdward, for the rest of that trip, jumping overboard every ten minutes. And the mere cry of "Man overboard" is a disagreeable, alarming anddisturbing thing. The ship gets stopped and there are all sorts ofshouts. And Edward would not promise not to do it again, though, fortunately, they struck a streak of cooler weather when they werein the Persian Gulf. Leonora had got it into her head that Edward wastrying to commit suicide, so I guess it was pretty awful for her whenhe would not give the promise. Leonora ought never to have been on thattroopship; but she got there somehow, as an economy. 

Major Basil discovered his wife's relation with Edward just beforehe was sent to his other station. I don't know whether that was ablackmailer's adroitness or just a trick of destiny. He may have knownof it all the time or he may not. At any rate, he got hold of, justabout then, some letters and things. It cost Edward three hundred poundsimmediately. I do not know how it was arranged; I cannot imagine howeven a blackmailer can make his demands. I suppose there is some sort ofway of saving your face. I figure the Major as disclosing the lettersto Edward with furious oaths, then accepting his explanations that theletters were perfectly innocent if the wrong construction were not putupon them. Then the Major would say: "I say, old chap, I'm deuced hardup. Couldn't you lend me three hundred or so?" I fancy that was how itwas. And, year by year, after that there would come a letter from theMajor, saying that he was deuced hard up and couldn't Edward lend himthree hundred or so? Edward was pretty hard hit when Mrs Basil had to goaway. He really had been very fond of her, and he remained faithful toher memory for quite a long time. And Mrs Basi had loved him very muchand continued to cherish a hope of reunion with him. Three days agothere came a quite proper but very lamentable letter from her toLeonora, asking to be given particulars as to Edward's death. She hadread the advertisement of it in an Indian paper. I think she must havebeen a very nice woman. . . . 

And then the Ashburnhams were moved somewhere up towards a place or adistrict called Chitral. I am no good at geography of the Indian Empire. By that time they had settled down into a model couple and they neverspoke in private to each other. Leonora had given up even showing theaccounts of the Ashburnham estate to Edward. He thought that that wasbecause she had piled up such a lot of money that she did not want himto know how she was getting on any more. But, as a matter of fact, afterfive or six years it had penetrated to her mind that it was painful toEdward to have to look on at the accounts of his estate and have no handin the management of it. She was trying to do him a kindness. And, up inChitral, poor dear little Maisie Maidan came along. . . . 

That was the most unsettling to Edward of all his affairs. It made himsuspect that he was inconstant. The affair with the Dolciquita he hadsized up as a short attack of madness like hydrophobia. His relationswith Mrs Basil had not seemed to him to imply moral turpitude of agross kind. The husband had been complaisant; they had really loved eachother; his wife was very cruel to him and had long ceased to be a wifeto him. He thought that Mrs Basil had been his soul-mate, separated fromhim by an unkind fate--something sentimental of that sort. 

But he discovered that, whilst he was still writing long weekly lettersto Mrs Basil, he was beginning to be furiously impatient if he missedseeing Maisie Maidan during the course of the day. He discovered himselfwatching the doorways with impatience; he discovered that he dislikedher boy husband very much for hours at a time. He discovered that hewas getting up at unearthly hours in order to have time, later in themorning, to go for a walk with Maisie Maidan. He discovered himselfusing little slang words that she used and attaching a sentimental valueto those words. These, you understand, were discoveries that came solate that he could do nothing but drift. He was losing weight; his eyeswere beginning to fall in; he had touches of bad fever. He was, as hedescribed it, pipped. 

And, one ghastly hot day, he suddenly heard himself say to Leonora:

"I say, couldn't we take Mrs Maidan with us to Europe and drop her atNauheim?"

He hadn't had the least idea of saying that to Leonora. He had merelybeen standing, looking at an illustrated paper, waiting for dinner. Dinner was twenty minutes late or the Ashburnhams would not have beenalone together. No, he hadn't had the least idea of framing that speech. He had just been standing in a silent agony of fear, of longing, ofheat, of fever. He was thinking that they were going back to Branshaw ina month and that Maisie Maidan was going to remain behind and die. Andthen, that had come out. 

The punkah swished in the darkened room; Leonora lay exhausted andmotionless in her cane lounge; neither of them stirred. They were bothat that time very ill in indefinite ways. 

And then Leonora said:

"Yes. I promised it to Charlie Maidan this afternoon. I have offered topay her ex's myself. "

Edward just saved himself from saying: "Good God!" You see, he had notthe least idea of what Leonora knew--about Maisie, about Mrs Basil, evenabout La Dolciquita. It was a pretty enigmatic situation for him. Itstruck him that Leonora must be intending to manage his loves as shemanaged his money affairs and it made her more hateful to him--and moreworthy of respect. 

Leonora, at any rate, had managed his money to some purpose. She hadspoken to him, a week before, for the first time in several years--aboutmoney. She had made twenty-two thousand pounds out of the Branshawland and seven by the letting of Branshaw furnished. By fortunateinvestments--in which Edward had helped her--she had made another six orseven thousand that might well become more. The mortgages were allpaid off, so that, except for the departure of the two Vandykes and thesilver, they were as well off as they had been before the Dolciquitahad acted the locust. It was Leonora's great achievement. She laid thefigures before Edward, who maintained an unbroken silence. 

"I propose, " she said, "that you should resign from the Army and thatwe should go back to Branshaw. We are both too ill to stay here anylonger. "

Edward said nothing at all. 

"This, " Leonora continued passionlessly, "is the great day of my life. "

Edward said:

"You have managed the job amazingly. You are a wonderful woman. " Hewas thinking that if they went back to Branshaw they would leaveMaisie Maidan behind. That thought occupied him exclusively. They must, undoubtedly, return to Branshaw; there could be no doubt that Leonorawas too ill to stay in that place. She said:

"You understand that the management of the whole of the expenditure ofthe income will be in your hands. There will be five thousand a year. "She thought that he cared very much about the expenditure of an incomeof five thousand a year and that the fact that she had done so muchfor him would rouse in him some affection for her. But he was thinkingexclusively of Maisie Maidan--of Maisie, thousands of miles away fromhim. He was seeing the mountains between them--blue mountains and thesea and sunlit plains. He said:

"That is very generous of you. " And she did not know whether that werepraise or a sneer. That had been a week before. And all that week he hadpassed in an increasing agony at the thought that those mountains, thatsea, and those sunlit plains would be between him and Maisie Maidan. That thought shook him in the burning nights: the sweat poured from himand he trembled with cold, in the burning noons--at that thought. Hehad no minute's rest; his bowels turned round and round within him: histongue was perpetually dry and it seemed to him that the breath betweenhis teeth was like air from a pest-house. 

He gave no thought to Leonora at all; he had sent in his papers. Theywere to leave in a month. It seemed to him to be his duty to leave thatplace and to go away, to support Leonora. He did his duty. 

It was horrible, in their relationship at that time, that whatever shedid caused him to hate her. He hated her when he found that she proposedto set him up as the Lord of Branshaw again--as a sort of dummy lord, in swaddling clothes. He imagined that she had done this in order toseparate him from Maisie Maidan. Hatred hung in all the heavy nights andfilled the shadowy corners of the room. So when he heard that shehad offered to the Maidan boy to take his wife to Europe with him, automatically he hated her since he hated all that she did. It seemed tohim, at that time, that she could never be other than cruel even if, byaccident, an act of hers were kind. . . . Yes, it was a horrible situation. 

But the cool breezes of the ocean seemed to clear up that hatred as ifit had been a curtain. They seemed to give him back admiration for her, and respect. The agreeableness of having money lavishly at command, the fact that it had bought for him the companionship of MaisieMaidan--these things began to make him see that his wife might have beenright in the starving and scraping upon which she had insisted. He wasat ease; he was even radiantly happy when he carried cups of bouillonfor Maisie Maidan along the deck. One night, when he was leaning besideLeonora, over the ship's side, he said suddenly:

"By jove, you're the finest woman in the world. I wish we could bebetter friends. "

She just turned away without a word and went to her cabin. Still, shewas very much better in health. 

And now, I suppose, I must give you Leonora's side of the case. . . . 

That is very difficult. For Leonora, if she preserved an unchangedfront, changed very frequently her point of view. She had beendrilled--in her tradition, in her upbringing--to keep her mouth shut. But there were times, she said, when she was so near yielding to thetemptation of speaking that afterwards she shuddered to think of thosetimes. You must postulate that what she desired above all things wasto keep a shut mouth to the world; to Edward and to the women that heloved. If she spoke she would despise herself. 

From the moment of his unfaithfulness with La Dolciquita she never actedthe part of wife to Edward. It was not that she intended to keep herselffrom him as a principle, for ever. Her spiritual advisers, I believe, forbade that. But she stipulated that he must, in some way, perhapssymbolical, come back to her. She was not very clear as to what shemeant; probably she did not know herself. Or perhaps she did. 

There were moments when he seemed to be coming back to her; there weremoments when she was within a hair of yielding to her physical passionfor him. In just the same way, at moments, she almost yielded to thetemptation to denounce Mrs Basil to her husband or Maisie Maidanto hers. She desired then to cause the horrors and pains of publicscandals. For, watching Edward more intently and with more straining ofears than that which a cat bestows upon a bird overhead, she was awareof the progress of his passion for each of these ladies. She was awareof it from the way in which his eyes returned to doors and gateways; sheknew from his tranquillities when he had received satisfactions. 

At times she imagined herself to see more than was warranted. Sheimagined that Edward was carrying on intrigues with other women--withtwo at once; with three. For whole periods she imagined him to be amonster of libertinage and she could not see that he could have anythingagainst her. She left him his liberty; she was starving herself to buildup his fortunes; she allowed herself none of the joys of femininity--nodresses, no jewels--hardly even friendships, for fear they should costmoney. 

And yet, oddly, she could not but be aware that both Mrs Basil andMaisie Maidan were nice women. The curious, discounting eye which onewoman can turn on another did not prevent her seeing that Mrs Basil wasvery good to Edward and Mrs Maidan very good for him. That seemed her tobe a monstrous and incomprehensible working of Fate's. Incomprehensible!Why, she asked herself again and again, did none of the good deeds thatshe did for her husband ever come through to him, or appear to hime asgood deeds? By what trick of mania could not he let her be as good tohim as Mrs Basil was? Mrs Basil was not so extraordinarily dissimilar toherself. She was, it was true, tall, dark, with soft mournful voice anda great kindness of manner for every created thing, from punkah men toflowers on the trees. But she was not so well read as Lenora, at anyrate in learned books. Leonora could not stand novels. But, even withall her differences, Mrs Basil did not appear to Leonora to differ sovery much from herself. She was truthful, honest and, for the rest, justa woman. And Leonora had a vague sort of idea that, to a man, all womenare the same after three weeks of close intercourse. She thought thatthe kindness should no longer appeal, the soft and mournful voice nolonger thrill, the tall darkness no longer give a man the illusionthat he was going into the depths of an unexplored wood. She could notunderstand how Edward could go on and on maundering over Mrs Basil. Shecould not see why he should continue to write her long letters aftertheir separation. After that, indeed, she had a very bad time. 

She had at that period what I will call the "monstrous" theory ofEdward. She was always imagining him ogling at every woman that he cameacross. She did not, that year, go into "retreat" at Simla because shewas afraid that he would corrupt her maid in her absence. She imaginedhim carrying on intrigues with native women or Eurasians. At dances shewas in a fever of watchfulness. 

She persuaded herself that this was because she had a dread of scandals. Edward might get himself mixed up with a marriageable daughter of someman who would make a row or some husband who would matter. But, really, she acknowledged afterwards to herself, she was hoping that, Mrs Basilbeing out of the way, the time might have come when Edward should returnto her. All that period she passed in an agony of jealousy and fear--thefear that Edward might really become promiscuous in his habits. 

So that, in an odd way, she was glad when Maisie Maidan came along--andshe realized that she had not, before, been afraid of husbands andof scandals, since, then, she did her best to keep Maisie's husbandunsuspicious. She wished to appear so trustful of Edward that Maidancould not possibly have any suspicions. It was an evil position forher. But Edward was very ill and she wanted to see him smile again. Shethought that if he could smile again through her agency he might return, through gratitude and satisfied love--to her. At that time she thoughtthat Edward was a person of light and fleeting passions. And she couldunderstand Edward's passion for Maisie, since Maisie was one of thosewomen to whom other women will allow magnetism. She was very pretty; shewas very young; in spite of her heart she was very gay and light on herfeet. And Leonora was really very fond of Maisie, who was fond enough ofLeonora. Leonora, indeed, imagined that she could manage this affairall right. She had no thought of Maisie's being led into adultery; sheimagined that if she could take Maisie and Edward to Nauheim, Edwardwould see enough of her to get tired of her pretty little chatterings, and of the pretty little motions of her hands and feet. And she thoughtshe could trust Edward. For there was not any doubt of Maisie's passionfor Edward. She raved about him to Leonora as Leonora had heard girlsrave about drawing masters in schools. She was perpetually asking herboy husband why he could not dress, ride, shoot, play polo, or evenrecite sentimental poems, like their major. And young Maidan had thegreatest admiration for Edward, and he adored, was bewildered by andentirely trusted his wife. It appeared to him that Edward was devotedto Leonora. And Leonora imagined that when poor Maisie was cured of herhear and Edward had seen enough of her, he would return to her. She hadthe vague, passionate idea that, when Edward had exhausted a number ofother types of women he must turn to her. Why should not her type haveits turn in his heart? She imagined that, by now, she understood himbetter, that she understood better his vanities and that, by making himhappier, she could arouse his love. 

Florence knocked all that on the head. . . . 

PART IV

I

I HAVE, I am aware, told this story in a very rambling way so that itmay be difficult for anyone to find their path through what may be asort of maze. I cannot help it. I have stuck to my idea of being in acountry cottage with a silent listener, hearing between the gusts of thewind and amidst the noises of the distant sea, the story as it comes. And, when one discusses an affair--a long, sad affair--one goes back, one goes forward. One remembers points that one has forgotten and oneexplains them all the more minutely since one recognizes that one hasforgotten to mention them in their proper places and that one may havegiven, by omitting them, a false impression. I console myself withthinking that this is a real story and that, after all, real stories areprobably told best in the way a person telling a story would tell them. They will then seem most real. 

At any rate, I think I have brought my story up to the date of MaisieMaidan's death. I mean that I have explained everything that went beforeit from the several points of view that were necessary--from Leonora's, from Edward's and, to some extent, from my own. You have the facts forthe trouble of finding them; you have the points of view as far as Icould ascertain or put them. Let me imagine myself back, then, atthe day of Maisie's death--or rather at the moment of Florence'sdissertation on the Protest, up in the old Castle of the town ofM----. Let us consider Leonora's point of view with regard to Florence;Edward's, of course, I cannot give you, for Edward naturally never spokeof his affair with my wife. (I may, in what follows, be a little hardon Florence; but you must remember that I have been writing away at thisstory now for six months and reflecting longer and longer upon theseaffairs. ) And the longer I think about them the more certain Ibecome that Florence was a contaminating influence--she depressed anddeteriorated poor Edward; she deteriorated, hopelessly, the miserableLeonora. There is no doubt that she caused Leonora's character todeteriorate. If there was a fine point about Leonora it was that shewas proud and that she was silent. But that pride and that silence brokewhen she made that extraordinary outburst, in the shadowy room thatcontained the Protest, and in the little terrace looking over the river. I don't mean to say that she was doing a wrong thing. She was certainlydoing right in trying to warn me that Florence was making eyes at herhusband. But, if she did the right thing, she was doing it in the wrongway. Perhaps she should have reflected longer; she should have spoken, if she wanted to speak, only after reflection. Or it would have beenbetter if she had acted--if, for instance, she had so chaperonedFlorence that private communication between her and Edward becameimpossible. She should have gone eavesdropping; she should have watchedoutside bedroom doors. It is odious; but that is the way the job isdone. She should have taken Edward away the moment Maisie was dead. No, she acted wrongly. . . . And yet, poor thing, is it for me to condemnher--and what did it matter in the end? If it had not been Florence, itwould have been some other. . . Still, it might have been a better womanthan my wife. For Florence was vulgar; Florence was a common flirt whowould not, at the last, lacher prise; and Florence was an unstoppabletalker. You could not stop her; nothing would stop her. Edward andLeonora were at least proud and reserved people. Pride and reserve arenot the only things in life; perhaps they are not even the best things. But if they happen to be your particular virtues you will go all topieces if you let them go. And Leonora let them go. She let them gobefore poor Edward did even. Consider her position when she burst outover the Luther-Protest. . . . Consider her agonies. . . . 

You are to remember that the main passion of her life was to get Edwardback; she had never, till that moment, despaired of getting him back. That may seem ignoble; but you have also to remember that her gettinghim back represented to her not only a victory for herself. It would, asit appeared to her, have been a victory for all wives and a victory forher Church. That was how it presented itself to her. These things are alittle inscrutable. I don't know why the getting back of Edward shouldhave represented to her a victory for all wives, for Society and forher Church. Or, maybe, I have a glimmering of it. She saw life as aperpetual sex-baffle between husbands who desire to be unfaithful totheir wives, and wives who desire to recapture their husbands in theend. That was her sad and modest view of matrimony. Man, for her, was asort of brute who must have his divagations, his moments of excess, hisnights out, his, let us say, rutting seasons. She had read few novels, so that the idea of a pure and constant love succeeding the sound ofwedding bells had never been very much presented to her. She went, numbed and terrified, to the Mother Superior of her childhood's conventwith the tale of Edward's infidelities with the Spanish dancer, and allthat the old nun, who appeared to her to be infinitely wise, mystic andreverend, had done had been to shake her head sadly and to say:

"Men are like that. By the blessing of God it will all come right in theend. "

That was what was put before her by her spiritual advisers as herprogramme in life. Or, at any rate, that was how their teachings camethrough to her--that was the lesson she told me she had learned of them. I don't know exactly what they taught her. The lot of women was patienceand patience and again patience--ad majorem Dei gloriam--until upon theappointed day, if God saw fit, she should have her reward. If then, inthe end, she should have succeeded in getting Edward back she would havekept her man within the limits that are all that wifehood has to expect. She was even taught that such excesses in men are natural, excusable--asif they had been children. 

And the great thing was that there should be no scandal before thecongregation. So she had clung to the idea of getting Edward back with afierce passion that was like an agony. She had looked the other way; shehad occupied herself solely with one idea. That was the idea of havingEdward appear, when she did get him back, wealthy, glorious as it were, on account of his lands, and upright. She would show, in fact, that inan unfaithful world one Catholic woman had succeeded in retaining thefidelity of her husband. And she thought she had come near her desires. 

Her plan with regard to Maisie had appeared to be working admirably. Edward had seemed to be cooling off towards the girl. He did nothunger to pass every minute of the time at Nauheirn beside the child'srecumbent form; he went out to polo matches; he played auction bridgein the evenings; he was cheerful and bright. She was certain that he wasnot trying to seduce that poor child; she was beginning to think thathe had never tried to do so. He seemed in fact to be dropping backinto what he had been for Maisie in the beginning--a kind, attentive, superior officer in the regiment, paying gallant attentions to a bride. They were as open in their little flirtations as the dayspring from onhigh. And Maisie had not appeared to fret when he went off on excursionswith us; she had to lie down for so many hours on her bed everyafternoon, and she had not appeared to crave for the attentions ofEdward at those times. And Edward was beginning to make little advancesto Leonora. Once or twice, in private--for he often did it beforepeople--he had said: "How nice you look!" or "What a pretty dress!"She had gone with Florence to Frankfurt, where they dress as well asin Paris, and had got herself a gown or two. She could afford it, andFlorence was an excellent adviser as to dress. She seemed to have gothold of the clue to the riddle. 

Yes, Leonora seemed to have got hold of the clue to the riddle. Sheimagined herself to have been in the wrong to some extent in the past. She should not have kept Edward on such a tight rein with regard tomoney. She thought she was on the right tack in letting him--as shehad done only with fear and irresolution--have again the control of hisincome. He came even a step towards her and acknowledged, spontaneously, that she had been right in husbanding, for all those years, theirresources. He said to her one day:

"You've done right, old girl. There's nothing I like so much as to havea little to chuck away. And I can do it, thanks to you. "

That was really, she said, the happiest moment of her life. And he, seeming to realize it, had ventured to pat her on the shoulder. He had, ostensibly, come in to borrow a safety-pin of her. And the occasion ofher boxing Maisie's ears, had, after it was over, riveted in her mindthe idea that there was no intrigue between Edward and Mrs Maidan. Sheimagined that, from henceforward, all that she had to do was to keep himwell supplied with money and his mind amused with pretty girls. She wasconvinced that he was coming back to her. For that month she no longerrepelled his timid advances that never went very far. For he certainlymade timid advances. He patted her on the shoulder; he whispered intoher ear little jokes about the odd figures that they saw up at theCasino. It was not much to make a little joke--but the whispering of itwas a precious intimacy. . . . 

And then--smash--it all went. It went to pieces at the moment whenFlorence laid her hand upon Edward's wrist, as it lay on the glasssheltering the manuscript of the Protest, up in the high tower with theshutters where the sunlight here and there streamed in. Or, rather, itwent when she noticed the look in Edward's eyes as he gazed back intoFlorence's. She knew that look. 

She had known--since the first moment of their meeting, since the momentof our all sitting down to dinner together--that Florence wasmaking eyes at Edward. But she had seen so many women make eyes atEdward--hundreds and hundreds of women, in railway trains, in hotels, aboard liners, at street corners. And she had arrived at thinking thatEdward took little stock in women that made eyes at him. She had formedwhat was, at that time, a fairly correct estimate of the methods of, the reasons for, Edward's loves. She was certain that hitherto they hadconsisted of the short passion for the Dolciquita, the real sort oflove for Mrs Basil, and what she deemed the pretty courtship of MaisieMaidan. Besides she despised Florence so haughtily that she could notimagine Edward's being attracted by her. And she and Maisie were asort of bulwark round him. She wanted, besides, to keep her eyes onFlorence--for Florence knew that she had boxed Maisie's ears. AndLeonora desperately desired that her union with Edward should appear tobe flawless. But all that went. . . . 

With the answering gaze of Edward into Florence's blue and upliftedeyes, she knew that it had all gone. She knew that that gaze meant thatthose two had had long conversations of an intimate kind--about theirlikes and dislikes, about their natures, about their views of marriage. She knew what it meant that she, when we all four walked out together, had always been with me ten yards ahead of Florence and Edward. She didnot imagine that it had gone further than talks about their likes anddislikes, about their natures or about marriage as an institution. But, having watched Edward all her life, she knew that that laying on ofhands, that answering of gaze with gaze, meant that the thing wasunavoidable. Edward was such a serious person. 

She knew that any attempt on her part to separate those two would be torivet on Edward an irrevocable passion; that, as I have before toldyou, it was a trick of Edward's nature to believe that the seducing of awoman gave her an irrevocable hold over him for life. And that touchingof hands, she knew, would give that woman an irrevocable claim--to beseduced. And she so despised Florence that she would have preferred itto be a parlour-maid. There are very decent parlour-maids. 

And, suddenly, there came into her mind the conviction that MaisieMaidan had a real passion for Edward; that this would break herheart--and that she, Leonora, would be responsible for that. She went, for the moment, mad. She clutched me by the wrist; she dragged me downthose stairs and across that whispering Rittersaal with the high paintedpillars, the high painted chimney-piece. I guess she did not go madenough. 

She ought to have said:

"Your wife is a harlot who is going to be my husband's mistress. . . "That might have done the trick. But, even in her madness, she wasafraid to go as far as that. She was afraid that, if she did, Edward andFlorence would make a bolt of it, and that, if they did that, she wouldlose forever all chance of getting him back in the end. She acted verybadly to me. 

Well, she was a tortured soul who put her Church before the interests ofa Philadelphia Quaker. That is all right--I daresay the Church of Romeis the more important of the two. 

A week after Maisie Maidan's death she was aware that Florence hadbecome Edward's mistress. She waited outside Florence's door and metEdward as he came away. She said nothing and he only grunted. But Iguess he had a bad time. 

Yes, the mental deterioration that Florence worked in Leonora wasextraordinary; it smashed up her whole life and all her chances. Itmade her, in the first place, hopeless--for she could not see how, afterthat, Edward could return to her--after a vulgar intrigue with a vulgarwoman. His affair with Mrs Basil, which was now all that she had tobring, in her heart, against him, she could not find it in her to callan intrigue. It was a love affair--a pure enough thing in its way. Butthis seemed to her to be a horror--a wantonness, all the more detestableto her, because she so detested Florence. And Florence talked. . . . 

That was what was terrible, because Florence forced Leonora herself toabandon her high reserve--Florence and the situation. It appears thatFlorence was in two minds whether to confess to me or to Leonora. Confess she had to. And she pitched at last on Leonora, because if ithad been me she would have had to confess a great deal more. Or, atleast, I might have guessed a great deal more, about her "heart", and about Jimmy. So she went to Leonora one day and began hinting andhinting. And she enraged Leonora to such an extent that at last Leonorasaid:

"You want to tell me that you are Edward's mistress. You can be. I haveno use for him. " That was really a calamity for Leonora, because, oncestarted, there was no stopping the talking. She tried to stop--butit was not to be done. She found it necessary to send Edward messagesthrough Florence; for she would not speak to him. She had to give him, for instance, to understand that if I ever came to know of his intrigueshe would ruin him beyond repair. And it complicated matters a good dealthat Edward, at about this time, was really a little in love with her. He thought that he had treated her so badly; that she was so fine. Shewas so mournful that he longed to comfort her, and he thought himselfsuch a blackguard that there was nothing he would not have done to makeamends. And Florence communicated these items of information to Leonora. 

I don't in the least blame Leonora for her coarseness to Florence; itmust have done Florence a world of good. But I do blame her for givingway to what was in the end a desire for communicativeness. You see thatbusiness cut her off from her Church. She did not want to confess whatshe was doing because she was afraid that her spiritual adviserswould blame her for deceiving me. I rather imagine that she would havepreferred damnation to breaking my heart. That is what it works out at. She need not have troubled. 

But, having no priests to talk to, she had to talk to someone, andas Florence insisted on talking to her, she talked back, in short, explosive sentences, like one of the damned. Precisely like one of thedamned. Well, if a pretty period in hell on this earth can spare herany period of pain in Eternity--where there are not any periods--I guessLeonora will escape hell fire. 

Her conversations with Florence would be like this. Florence wouldhappen in on her, whilst she was doing her wonderful hair, with aproposition from Edward, who seems about that time to have conceived thenaïve idea that he might become a polygamist. I daresay it was Florencewho put it into his head. Anyhow, I am not responsible for the odditiesof the human psychology. But it certainly appears that at about thatdate Edward cared more for Leonora than he had ever done before--or, at any rate, for a long time. And, if Leonora had been a person to playcards and if she had played her cards well, and if she had had no senseof shame and so on, she might then have shared Edward with Florenceuntil the time came for jerking that poor cuckoo out of the nest. Well, Florence would come to Leonora with some such proposition. I do not meanto say that she put it baldly, like that. She stood out that she was notEdward's mistress until Leonora said that she had seen Edward coming outof her room at an advanced hour of the night. That checked Florencea bit; but she fell back upon her "heart" and stuck out that she hadmerely been conversing with Edward in order to bring him to a betterframe of mind. Florence had, of course, to stick to that story; for evenFlorence would not have had the face to implore Leonora to grant herfavours to Edward if she had admitted that she was Edward's mistress. That could not be done. At the same time Florence had such a pressingdesire to talk about something. There would have been nothing else totalk about but a rapprochement between that estranged pair. So Florencewould go on babbling and Leonora would go on brushing her hair. And thenLeonora would say suddenly something like:

"I should think myself defiled if Edward touched me now that he hastouched you. "

That would discourage Florence a bit; but after a week or so, on anothermorning she would have another try. 

And even in other things Leonora deteriorated. She had promised Edwardto leave the spending of his own income in his own hands. And she hadfully meant to do that. I daresay she would have done it too; though, nodoubt, she would have spied upon his banking account in secret. Shewas not a Roman Catholic for nothing. But she took so serious a viewof Edward's unfaithfulness to the memory of poor little Maisie that shecould not trust him any more at all. 

So when she got back to Branshaw she started, after less than a month, to worry him about the minutest items of his expenditure. She allowedhim to draw his own cheques, but there was hardly a cheque that she didnot scrutinize--except for a private account of about five hundred ayear which, tacitly, she allowed him to keep for expenditure on hismistress or mistresses. He had to have his jaunts to Paris; he had tosend expensive cables in cipher to Florence about twice a week. But sheworried him about his expenditure on wines, on fruit trees, on harness, on gates, on the account at his blacksmith's for work done to a newpatent Army stirrup that he was trying to invent. She could not seewhy he should bother to invent a new Army stirrup, and she was reallyenraged when, after the invention was mature, he made a present to theWar Office of the designs and the patent rights. It was a remarkablygood stirrup. 

I have told you, I think, that Edward spent a great deal of time, and about two hundred pounds for law fees on getting a poor girl, thedaughter of one of his gardeners, acquitted of a charge of murdering herbaby. That was positively the last act of Edward's life. It came at atime when Nancy Rufford was on her way to India; when the most horriblegloom was over the household; when Edward himself was in an agony andbehaving as prettily as he knew how. Yet even then Leonora made him aterrible scene about this expenditure of time and trouble. She sort ofhad the vague idea that what had passed with the girl and the rest ofit ought to have taught Edward a lesson--the lesson of economy. Shethreatened to take his banking account away from him again. I guess thatmade him cut his throat. He might have stuck it out otherwise--but thethought that he had lost Nancy and that, in addition, there was nothingleft for him but a dreary, dreary succession of days in which he couldbe of no public service. . . Well, it finished him. 

It was during those years that Leonora tried to get up a love affair ofher own with a fellow called Bayham--a decent sort of fellow. A reallynice man. But the affair was no sort of success. I have told you aboutit already. . . . 

II

WELL, that about brings me up to the date of my receiving, in Waterbury, the laconic cable from Edward to the effect that he wanted me to go toBranshaw and have a chat. I was pretty busy at the time and I was halfminded to send him a reply cable to the effect that I would start ina fortnight. But I was having a long interview with old Mr Hurlbird'sattorneys and immediately afterwards I had to have a long interview withthe Misses Hurlbird, so I delayed cabling. 

I had expected to find the Misses Hurlbird excessively old--in thenineties or thereabouts. The time had passed so slowly that I had theimpression that it must have been thirty years since I had been in theUnited States. It was only twelve years. Actually Miss Hurlbird was justsixty-one and Miss Florence Hurlbird fifty-nine, and they were both, mentally and physically, as vigorous as could be desired. They were, indeed, more vigorous, mentally, than suited my purpose, which was toget away from the United States as quickly as I could. The Hurlbirdswere an exceedingly united family--exceedingly united except on one setof points. Each of the three of them had a separate doctor, whom theytrusted implicitly--and each had a separate attorney. And each of themdistrusted the other's doctor and the other's attorney. And, naturally, the doctors and the attorneys warned one all the time--against eachother. You cannot imagine how complicated it all became for me. Ofcourse I had an attorney of my own--recommended to me by young Carter, my Philadelphia nephew. 

I do not mean to say that there was any unpleasantness of a graspingkind. The problem was quite another one--a moral dilemma. You see, oldMr Hurlbird had left all his property to Florence with the mere requestthat she would have erected to him in the city of Waterbury, Ill. , amemorial that should take the form of some sort of institution for therelief of sufferers from the heart. Florence's money had all come tome--and with it old Mr Hurlbird's. He had died just five days beforeFlorence. 

Well, I was quite ready to spend a round million dollars on the reliefof sufferers from the heart. The old gentleman had left about a millionand a half; Florence had been worth about eight hundred thousand--andas I figured it out, I should cut up at about a million myself. Anyhow, there was ample money. But I naturally wanted to consult the wishes ofhis surviving relatives and then the trouble really began. You see, ithad been discovered that Mr Hurlbird had had nothing whatever the matterwith his heart. His lungs had been a little affected all through hislife and he had died of bronchitis. It struck Miss Florence Hurlbirdthat, since her brother had died of lungs and not of heart, his moneyought to go to lung patients. That, she considered, was what her brotherwould have wished. On the other hand, by a kink, that I could not at thetime understand, Miss Hurlbird insisted that I ought to keep the moneyall to myself. She said that she did not wish for any monuments to theHurlbird family. At the time I thought that that was because of a NewEngland dislike for necrological ostentation. But I can figure out now, when I remember certain insistent and continued questions that she putto me, about Edward Ashburnham, that there was another idea in her mind. And Leonora has told me that, on Florence's dressing-table, beside herdead body, there had lain a letter to Miss Hurlbird--a letter whichLeonora posted without telling me. I don't know how Florence had time towrite to her aunt; but I can quite understand that she would not liketo go out of the world without making some comments. So I guess Florencehad told Miss Hurlbird a good bit about Edward Ashburnham in a fewscrawled words--and that that was why the old lady did not wish the nameof Hurlbird perpetuated. Perhaps also she thought that I had earned theHurlbird money. It meant a pretty tidy lot of discussing, what with thedoctors warning each other about the bad effects of discussions on thehealth of the old ladies, and warning me covertly against each other, and saying that old Mr Hurlbird might have died of heart, after all, in spite of the diagnosis of his doctor. And the solicitors all hadseparate methods of arranging about how the money should be invested andentrusted and bound. Personally, I wanted to invest the money so thatthe interest could be used for the relief of sufferers from the heart. If old Mr Hurlbird had not died of any defects in that organ he hadconsidered that it was defective. Moreover, Florence had certainly diedof her heart, as I saw it. And when Miss Florence Hurlbird stood outthat the money ought to go to chest sufferers I was brought to thinkingthat there ought to be a chest institution too, and I advanced the sumthat I was ready to provide to a million and a half of dollars. Thatwould have given seven hundred and fifty thousand to each class ofinvalid. I did not want money at all badly. All I wanted it for was tobe able to give Nancy Rufford a good time. I did not know much abouthousekeeping expenses in England where, I presumed, she would wishto live. I knew that her needs at that time were limited to goodchocolates, and a good horse or two, and simple, pretty frocks. Probablyshe would want more than that later on. But even if I gave a million anda half dollars to these institutions I should still have the equivalentof about twenty thousand a year English, and I considered that Nancycould have a pretty good time on that or less. Anyhow, we had a stiffset of arguments up at the Hurlbird mansion which stands on a bluffover the town. It may strike you, silent listener, as being funny if youhappen to be European. But moral problems of that description and thegiving of millions to institutions are immensely serious matters in mycountry. Indeed, they are the staple topics for consideration amongstthe wealthy classes. We haven't got peerage and social climbing tooccupy us much, and decent people do not take interest in politics orelderly people in sport. So that there were real tears shed by bothMiss Hurlbird and Miss Florence before I left that city. I left it quiteabruptly. Four hours after Edward's telegram came another from Leonora, saying: "Yes, do come. You could be so helpful. " I simply told myattorney that there was the million and a half; that he could investit as he liked, and that the purposes must be decided by the MissesHurlbird. I was, anyhow, pretty well worn out by all the discussions. And, as I have never heard yet from the Misses Hurlbird, I ratherthink that Miss Hurlbird, either by revelations or by moral force, haspersuaded Miss Florence that no memorial to their names shall be erectedin the city of Waterbury, Conn. Miss Hurlbird wept dreadfully when sheheard that I was going to stay with the Ashburnhams, but she did notmake any comments. I was aware, at that date, that her niece had beenseduced by that fellow Jimmy before I had married her--but I contrivedto produce on her the impression that I thought Florence had been amodel wife. Why, at that date I still believed that Florence had beenperfectly virtuous after her marriage to me. I had not figured it outthat she could have played it so low down as to continue her intriguewith that fellow under my roof. Well, I was a fool. But I did not thinkmuch about Florence at that date. My mind was occupied with what washappening at Branshaw. I had got it into my head that the telegrams hadsomething to do with Nancy. It struck me that she might have shown signsof forming an attachment for some undesirable fellow and that Leonorawanted me to come back and marry her out of harm's way. That was whatwas pretty firmly in my mind. And it remained in my mind for nearly tendays after my arrival at that beautiful old place. Neither Edward norLeonora made any motion to talk to me about anything other than theweather and the crops. Yet, although there were several young fellowsabout, I could not see that any one in particular was distinguished bythe girl's preference. She certainly appeared illish and nervous, exceptwhen she woke up to talk gay nonsense to me. Oh, the pretty thing thatshe was. . . . 

I imagined that what must have happened was that the undesirable youngman had been forbidden the place and that Nancy was fretting a little. What had happened was just Hell. Leonora had spoken to Nancy; Nancy hadspoken to Edward; Edward had spoken to Leonora--and they had talked andtalked. And talked. You have to imagine horrible pictures of gloom andhalf lights, and emotions running through silent nights--through wholenights. You have to imagine my beautiful Nancy appearing suddenly toEdward, rising up at the foot of his bed, with her long hair falling, like a split cone of shadow, in the glimmer of a night-light that burnedbeside him. You have to imagine her, a silent, a no doubt agonizedfigure, like a spectre, suddenly offering herself to him--to save hisreason! And you have to imagine his frantic refusal--and talk. And talk!My God!

And yet, to me, living in the house, enveloped with the charm of thequiet and ordered living, with the silent, skilled servants whose merelaying out of my dress clothes was like a caress--to me who was hourlywith them they appeared like tender, ordered and devoted people, smiling, absenting themselves at the proper intervals; driving me tomeets--just good people! How the devil--how the devil do they do it?

At dinner one evening Leonora said--she had just opened a telegram:

"Nancy will be going to India, tomorrow, to be with her father. "

No one spoke. Nancy looked at her plate; Edward went on eating hispheasant. I felt very bad; I imagined that it would be up to me topropose to Nancy that evening. It appeared to me to be queer that theyhad not given me any warning of Nancy's departure--But I thought thatthat was only English manners--some sort of delicacy that I had not gotthe hang of. You must remember that at that moment I trusted in Edwardand Leonora and in Nancy Rufford, and in the tranquility of ancienthaunts of peace, as I had trusted in my mother's love. And that eveningEdward spoke to me. 

What in the interval had happened had been this:

Upon her return from Nauheim Leonora had completely broken down--becauseshe knew she could trust Edward. That seems odd but, if you knowanything about breakdowns, you will know that by the ingenious tormentsthat fate prepares for us, these things come as soon as, a strain havingrelaxed, there is nothing more to be done. It is after a husband's longillness and death that a widow goes to pieces; it is at the end of along rowing contest that a crew collapses and lies forward upon itsoars. And that was what happened to Leonora. 

From certain tones in Edward's voice; from the long, steady stare thathe had given her from his bloodshot eyes on rising from the dinner tablein the Nauheim hotel, she knew that, in the affair of the poor girl, this was a case in which Edward's moral scruples, or his social code, or his idea that it would be playing it too low down, rendered Nancyperfectly safe. The girl, she felt sure, was in no danger at all fromEdward. And in that she was perfectly right. The smash was to come fromherself. 

She relaxed; she broke; she drifted, at first quickly, then with anincreasing momentum, down the stream of destiny. You may put it that, having been cut off from the restraints of her religion, for the firsttime in her life, she acted along the lines of her instinctive desires. I do not know whether to think that, in that she was no longer herself;or that, having let loose the bonds of her standards, her conventionsand her traditions, she was being, for the first time, her own naturalself. She was torn between her intense, maternal love for the girl andan intense jealousy of the woman who realizes that the man she loves hasmet what appears to be the final passion of his life. She was dividedbetween an intense disgust for Edward's weakness in conceiving thispassion, an intense pity for the miseries that he was enduring, and afeeling equally intense, but one that she hid from herself--a feeling ofrespect for Edward's determination to keep himself, in this particularaffair, unspotted. 

And the human heart is a very mysterious thing. It is impossible to saythat Leonora, in acting as she then did, was not filled with a sort ofhatred of Edward's final virtue. She wanted, I think, to despise him. Hewas, she realized gone from her for good. Then let him suffer, let himagonize; let him, if possible, break and go to that Hell that is theabode of broken resolves. She might have taken a different line. Itwould have been so easy to send the girl away to stay with some friends;to have taken her away herself upon some pretext or other. That wouldnot have cured things but it would have been the decent line, . . . But, atthat date, poor Leonora was incapable of taking any line whatever. 

She pitied Edward frightfully at one time--and then she acted alongthe lines of pity; she loathed him at another and then she acted as herloathing dictated. She gasped, as a person dying of tuberculosis gaspsfor air. She craved madly for communication with some other human soul. And the human soul that she selected was that of the girl. 

Perhaps Nancy was the only person that she could have talked to. Withher necessity for reticences, with her coldness of manner, Leonora hadsingularly few intimates. She had none at all, with the exception ofthe Mrs Colonel Whelen, who had advised her about the affair with LaDolciquita, and the one or two religious, who had guided her throughlife. The Colonel's wife was at that time in Madeira; the religious shenow avoided. Her visitors' book had seven hundred names in it; there wasnot a soul that she could speak to. She was Mrs Ashburnham of BranshawTeleragh. 

She was the great Mrs Ashburnham of Branshaw and she lay all day uponher bed in her marvellous, light, airy bedroom with the chintzes andthe Chippendale and the portraits of deceased Ashburnhams by Zoffany andZucchero. When there was a meet she would struggle up--supposing it werewithin driving distance--and let Edward drive her and the girl to thecross-roads or the country house. She would drive herself back alone;Edward would ride off with the girl. Ride Leonora could not, thatseason--her head was too bad. Each pace of her mare was an anguish. 

But she drove with efficiency and precision; she smiled at the Gimmersand Ffoulkes and the Hedley Seatons. She threw with exactitude penniesto the boys who opened gates for her; she sat upright on the seat of thehigh dog-cart; she waved her hands to Edward and Nancy as they rode offwith the hounds, and every one could hear her clear, high voice, in thechilly weather, saying: "Have a good time!"

Poor forlorn woman!. . . 

There was, however, one spark of consolation. It came from the fact thatRodney Bayham, of Bayham, followed her always with his eyes. It had beenthree years since she had tried her abortive love-affair with him. Yetstill, on the winter mornings he would ride up to her shafts and justsay: "Good day, " and look at her with eyes that were not imploring, but seemed to say: "You see, I am still, as the Germans say, A. D. --atdisposition. "

It was a great consolation, not because she proposed ever to take himup again, but because it showed her that there was in the world onefaithful soul in riding-breeches. And it showed her that she was notlosing her looks. 

And, indeed, she was not losing her looks. She was forty, but she was asclean run as on the day she had left the convent--as clear in outline, as clear coloured in the hair, as dark blue in the eyes. She thoughtthat her looking-glass told her this; but there are always thedoubts. . . . Rodney Bayham's eyes took them away. 

It is very singular that Leonora should not have aged at all. I supposethat there are some types of beauty and even of youth made for theembellishments that come with enduring sorrow. That is too elaboratelyput. I mean that Leonora, if everything had prospered, might havebecome too hard and, maybe, overbearing. As it was she was tuned downto appearing efficient--and yet sympathetic. That is the rarest of allblends. And yet I swear that Leonora, in her restrained way, gave theimpression of being intensely sympathetic. When she listened to you sheappeared also to be listening to some sound that was going on in thedistance. But still, she listened to you and took in what you said, which, since the record of humanity is a record of sorrows, was, as arule, something sad. 

I think that she must have taken Nancy through many terrors of the nightand many bad places of the day. And that would account for the girl'spassionate love for the elder woman. For Nancy's love for Leonora was anadmiration that is awakened in Catholics by their feeling for the VirginMary and for various of the saints. It is too little to say that thegirl would have laid her life at Leonora's feet. Well, she laidthere the offer of her virtue--and her reason. Those were sufficientinstalments of her life. It would today be much better for Nancy Ruffordif she were dead. 

Perhaps all these reflections are a nuisance; but they crowd on me. Iwill try to tell the story. 

You see--when she came back from Nauheim Leonora began to have herheadaches--headaches lasting through whole days, during which she couldspeak no word and could bear to hear no sound. And, day after day, Nancy would sit with her, silent and motionless for hours, steepinghandkerchiefs in vinegar and water, and thinking her own thoughts. Itmust have been very bad for her--and her meals alone with Edward musthave been bad for her too--and beastly bad for Edward. Edward, ofcourse, wavered in his demeanour, What else could he do? At times hewould sit silent and dejected over his untouched food. He would utternothing but monosyllables when Nancy spoke to him. Then he was simplyafraid of the girl falling in love with him. At other times he wouldtake a little wine; pull himself together; attempt to chaff Nancy abouta stake and binder hedge that her mare had checked at, or talk about thehabits of the Chitralis. That was when he was thinking that it wasrough on the poor girl that he should have become a dull companion. Herealized that his talking to her in the park at Nauheim had done her noharm. 

But all that was doing a great deal of harm to Nancy. It graduallyopened her eyes to the fact that Edward was a man with his ups and downsand not an invariably gay uncle like a nice dog, a trustworthy horse ora girl friend. She would find him in attitudes of frightful dejection, sunk into his armchair in the study that was half a gun-room. She wouldnotice through the open door that his face was the face of an old, deadman, when he had no one to talk to. Gradually it forced itself upon herattention that there were profound differences between the pair that sheregarded a her uncle and her aunt. It was a conviction that came veryslowly. 

It began with Edward's giving an oldish horse to a young fellow calledSelmes. Selmes' father had been ruined by fraudulent solicitor and theSelmes family had had to sell their hunters. It was a case that hadexcited a good deal of sympathy in that part of the county. And Edward, meeting the young man one day, unmounted, and seeing him to be veryunhappy, had offered to give him an old Irish cob upon which he wasriding. It was a silly sort of thing to do really. The horse was worthfrom thirty to forty pounds and Edward might have known that the giftwould upset his wife. But Edward just had to comfort that unhappy youngman whose father he had known all his life. And what made it all theworse was that young Selmes could not afford to keep the horse even. Edward recollected this, immediately after he had made the offer, andsaid quickly:

"Of course I mean that you should stable the horse at Branshaw until youhave time to turn round or want to sell him and get a better. "

Nancy went straight home and told all this to Leonora who was lyingdown. She regarded it as a splendid instance of Edward's quickconsideration for the feelings and the circumstances of the distressed. She thought it would cheer Leonora up--because it ought to cheer anywoman up to know that she had such a splendid husband. That was the lastgirlish thought she ever had. For Leonora, whose headache had left hercollected but miserably weak, turned upon her bed and uttered words thatwere amazing to the girl:

"I wish to God, " she said, "that he was your husband, and not mine. Weshall be ruined. We shall be ruined. Am I never to have a chance?" Andsuddenly Leonora burst into a passion of tears. She pushed herself upfrom the pillows with one elbow and sat there--crying, crying, crying, with her face hidden in her hands and the tears falling through herfingers. 

The girl flushed, stammered and whimpered as if she had been personallyinsulted. 

"But if Uncle Edward. . . " she began. 

"That man, " said Leonora, with an extraordinary bitterness, "would givethe shirt off his back and off mine--and off yours to any. . . " She couldnot finish the sentence. 

At that moment she had been feeling an extraordinary hatred and contemptfor her husband. All the morning and all the afternoon she had beenlying there thinking that Edward and the girl were together--in thefield and hacking it home at dusk. She had been digging her sharp nailsinto her palms. 

The house had been very silent in the drooping winter weather. And then, after an eternity of torture, there had invaded it the sound of openingdoors, of the girl's gay voice saying:

"Well, it was only under the mistletoe. ". . . And there was Edward's gruffundertone. Then Nancy had come in, with feet that had hastened up thestairs and that tiptoed as they approached the open door of Leonora'sroom. Branshaw had a great big hall with oak floors and tiger skins. Round this hall there ran a gallery upon which Leonora's doorway gave. And even when she had the worst of her headaches she liked to have herdoor open--I suppose so that she might hear the approaching footstepsof ruin and disaster. At any rate she hated to be in a room with a shutdoor. 

At that moment Leonora hated Edward with a hatred that was like hell, and she would have liked to bring her riding-whip down across the girl'sface. What right had Nancy to be young and slender and dark, and gay attimes, at times mournful? What right had she to be exactly the womanto make Leonora's husband happy? For Leonora knew that Nancy would havemade Edward happy. 

Yes, Leonora wished to bring her riding-whip down on Nancy's young face. She imagined the pleasure she would feel when the lash fell across thosequeer features; the plea sure she would feel at drawing the handle atthe same moment toward her, so as to cut deep into the flesh and toleave a lasting wheal. 

Well, she left a lasting wheal, and her words cut deeply into the girl'smind. . . . 

They neither of them spoke about that again. A fortnight went by--afortnight of deep rains, of heavy fields, of bad scent. Leonora'sheadaches seemed to have gone for good. She hunted once or twice, letting herself be piloted by Bayham, whilst Edward looked after thegirl. Then, one evening, when those three were dining alone, Edwardsaid, in the queer, deliberate, heavy tones that came out of him inthose days (he was looking at the table):

"I have been thinking that Nancy ought to do more for her father. He isgetting an old man. I have written to Colonel Rufford, suggesting thatshe should go to him. "

Leonora called out:

"How dare you? How dare you?"

The girl put her hand over her heart and cried out: "Oh, my sweetSaviour, help mel" That was the queer way she thought within her mind, and the words forced themselves to her lips. Edward said nothing. 

And that night, by a merciless trick of the devil that pays attentionto this sweltering hell of ours, Nancy Rufford had a letter from hermother. It came whilst Leonora was talking to Edward, or Leonora wouldhave intercepted it as she had intercepted others. It was an amazing anda horrible letter. . . . 

I don't know what it contained. I just average out from its effects onNancy that her mother, having eloped with some worthless sort of fellow, had done what is called "sinking lower and lower". Whether she wasactually on the streets I do not know, but I rather think that she ekedout a small allowance that she had from her husband by that means oflivelihood. And I think that she stated as much in her letter to Nancyand upbraided the girl with living in luxury whilst her mother starved. And it must have been horrible in tone, for Mrs Rufford was a cruel sortof woman at the best of times. It must have seemed to that poor girl, opening her letter, for distraction from another grief, up in herbedroom, like the laughter of a devil. 

I just cannot bear to think of my poor dear girl at that moment. . . . 

And, at the same time, Leonora was lashing, like a cold fiend, into theunfortunate Edward. Or, perhaps, he was not so unfortunate; because hehad done what he knew to be the right thing, he may be deemed happy. I leave it to you. At any rate, he was sitting in his deep chair, andLeonora came into his room--for the first time in nine years. She said:

"This is the most atrocious thing you have done in your atrociouslife. " He never moved and he never looked at her. God knows what was inLeonora's mind exactly. 

I like to think that, uppermost in it was concern and horror at thethought of the poor girl's going back to a father whose voice madeher shriek in the night. And, indeed, that motive was very strong withLeonora. But I think there was also present the thought that she wantedto go on torturing Edward with the girl's presence. She was, at thattime, capable of that. 

Edward was sunk in his chair; there were in the room two candles, hiddenby green glass shades. The green shades were reflected in the glassesof the book-cases that contained not books but guns with gleaming brownbarrels and fishing-rods in green baize over-covers. There was dimly tobe seen, above a mantelpiece encumbered with spurs, hooves and bronzemodels of horses, a dark-brown picture of a white horse. 

"If you think, " Leonora said, "that I do not know that you are in lovewith the girl. . . " She began spiritedly, but she could not find anyending for the sentence. Edward did not stir; he never spoke. And thenLeonora said:

"If you want me to divorce you, I will. You can marry her then. She's inlove with you. "

He groaned at that, a little, Leonora said. Then she went away. 

Heaven knows what happened in Leonora after that. She certainly does notherself know. She probably said a good deal more to Edward than I havebeen able to report; but that is all that she has told me and I am notgoing to make up speeches. To follow her psychological development ofthat moment I think we must allow that she upbraided him for a greatdeal of their past life, whilst Edward sat absolutely silent. And, indeed, in speaking of it afterwards, she has said several times: "Isaid a great deal more to him than I wanted to, just because he was sosilent. " She talked, in fact, in the endeavour to sting him into speech. 

She must have said so much that, with the expression of her grievance, her mood changed. She went back to her own room in the gallery, and satthere for a long time thinking. And she thought herself into a moodof absolute unselfishness, of absolute self-contempt, too. She said toherself that she was no good; that she had failed in all her efforts--inher efforts to get Edward back as in her efforts to make him curb hisexpenditure. She imagined herself to be exhausted; she imagined herselfto be done. Then a great fear came over her. 

She thought that Edward, after what she had said to him, must havecommitted suicide. She went out on to the gallery and listened; therewas no sound in all the house except the regular beat of the great clockin the hall. But, even in her debased condition, she was not the personto hang about. She acted. She went straight to Edward's room, opened thedoor, and looked in. 

He was oiling the breech action of a gun. It was an unusual thing forhim to do, at that time of night, in his evening clothes. It neveroccurred to her, nevertheless, that he was going to shoot himself withthat implement. She knew that he was doing it just for occupation--tokeep himself from thinking. He looked up when she opened the door, hisface illuminated by the light cast upwards from the round orifices inthe green candle shades. 

She said:

"I didn't imagine that I should find Nancy here. " She thought that sheowed that to him. He answered then:

"I don't imagine that you did imagine it. " Those were the only wordshe spoke that night. She went, like a lame duck, back through the longcorridors; she stumbled over the familiar tiger skins in the dark hall. She could hardly drag one limb after the other. In the gallery sheperceived that Nancy's door was half open and that there was a light inthe girl's room. A sudden madness possessed her, a desire for action, athirst for self-explanation. 

Their rooms all gave on to the gallery; Leonora's to the east, thegirl's next, then Edward's. The sight of those three open doors, side byside, gaping to receive whom the chances of the black night might bring, made Leonora shudder all over her body. She went into Nancy's room. 

The girl was sitting perfectly still in an armchair, very upright, asshe had been taught to sit at the convent. She appeared to be as calmas a church; her hair fell, black and like a pall, down over both hershoulders. The fire beside her was burning brightly; she must have justput coals on. She was in a white silk kimono that covered her to thefeet. The clothes that she had taken off were exactly folded upon theproper seats. Her long hands were one upon each arm of the chair thathad a pink and white chintz back. 

Leonora told me these things. She seemed to think it extraordinary thatthe girl could have done such orderly things as fold up the clothes shehad taken off upon such a night--when Edward had announced that he wasgoing to send her to her father, and when, from her mother, she hadreceived that letter. The letter, in its envelope, was in her righthand. 

Leonora did not at first perceive it. She said:

"What are you doing so late?"

The girl answered: "Just thinking. "

They seemed to think in whispers and to speak below their breaths. ThenLeonora's eyes fell on the envelope, and she recognized Mrs Rufford'shandwriting. 

It was one of those moments when thinking was impossible, Leonora said. It was as if stones were being thrown at her from every direction andshe could only run. She heard herself exclaim: "Edward's dying--becauseof you. He's dying. He's worth more than either of us. . . . "

The girl looked past her at the panels of the half-closed door. 

"My poor father, " she said, "my poor father. " "You must stay here, "Leonora answered fiercely. "You must stay here. I tell you you must stayhere. "

"I am going to Glasgow, " Nancy answered. "I shall go to Glasgow tomorrowmorning. My mother is in Glasgow. "

It appears that it was in Glasgow that Mrs Rufford pursued herdisorderly life. She had selected that city, not because it was moreprofitable but because it was the natal home of her husband to whom shedesired to cause as much pain as possible. 

"You must stay here, " Leonora began, "to save Edward. He's dying forlove of you. "

The girl turned her calm eyes upon Leonora. "I know it, " she said. "AndI am dying for love of him. "

Leonora uttered an "Ah, " that, in spite of herself, was an "Ah" ofhorror and of grief. 

"That is why, " the girl continued, "I am going to Glasgow--to take mymother away from there. " She added, "To the ends of the earth, " for, ifthe last months had made her nature that of a woman, her phrases werestill romantically those of a schoolgirl. It was as if she had grownup so quickly that there had not been time to put her hair up. But sheadded: "We're no good--my mother and I. "

Leonora said, with her fierce calmness:

"No. No. You're not no good. It's I that am no good. You can't let thatman go on to ruin for want of you. You must belong to him. "

The girl, she said, smiled at her with a queer, far-away smile--as ifshe were a thousand years old, as if Leonora were a tiny child. 

"I knew you would come to that, " she said, very slowly. "But we are notworth it--Edward and I. "

III

NANCY had, in fact, been thinking ever since Leonora had made thatcomment over the giving of the horse to young Selmes. She had beenthinking and thinking, because she had had to sit for many days silentbeside her aunt's bed. (She had always thought of Leonora as her aunt. )And she had had to sit thinking during many silent meals with Edward. And then, at times, with his bloodshot eyes and creased, heavy mouth, he would smile at her. And gradually the knowledge had come to herthat Edward did not love Leonora and that Leonora hated Edward. Severalthings contributed to form and to harden this conviction. She wasallowed to read the papers in those days--or, rather, since Leonora wasalways on her bed and Edward breakfasted alone and went out early, overthe estate, she was left alone with the papers. One day, in the papers, she saw the portrait of a woman she knew very well. Beneath it she readthe words: "The Hon. Mrs Brand, plaintiff in the remarkable divorce casereported on p. 8. " Nancy hardly knew what a divorce case was. She hadbeen so remarkably well brought up, and Roman Catholics do not practisedivorce. I don't know how Leonora had done it exactly. I suppose she hadalways impressed it on Nancy's mind that nice women did not read thesethings, and that would have been enough to make Nancy skip those pages. 

She read, at any rate, the account of the Brand divorcecase--principally because she wanted to tell Leonora about it. Sheimagined that Leonora, when her headache left her, would like to knowwhat was happening to Mrs Brand, who lived at Christchurch, and whomthey both liked very well. The case occupied three days, and the reportthat Nancy first came upon was that of the third day. Edward, however, kept the papers of the week, after his methodical fashion, in a rack inhis gun-room, and when she had finished her breakfast Nancy went tothat quiet apartment and had what she would have called a good read. It seemed to her to be a queer affair. She could not understand why onecounsel should be so anxious to know all about the movements of Mr Brandupon a certain day; she could not understand why a chart of the bedroomaccommodation at Christchurch Old Hall should be produced in court. She did not even see why they should want to know that, upon a certainoccasion, the drawing-room door was locked. It made her laugh; itappeared to be all so senseless that grown people should occupythemselves with such matters. It struck her, nevertheless, as odd thatone of the counsel should cross-question Mr Brand so insistently and soimpertinently as to his feelings for Miss Lupton. Nancy knew Miss Luptonof Ringwood very well--a jolly girl, who rode a horse with two whitefetlocks. Mr Brand persisted that he did not love Miss Lupton. . . . Well, of course he did not love Miss Lupton; he was a married man. You mightas well think of Uncle Edward loving. . . Loving anybody but Leonora. Whenpeople were married there was an end of loving. There were, no doubt, people who misbehaved--but they were poor people--or people not likethose she knew. So these matters presented themselves to Nancy's mind. But later on in the case she found that Mr Brand had to confess to a"guilty intimacy" with some one or other. Nancy imagined that he musthave been telling some one his wife's secrets; she could notunderstand why that was a serious offence. Of course it was not verygentlemanly--it lessened her opinion of Mrs Brand. But since she foundthat Mrs Brand had condoned that offence, she imagined that they couldnot have been very serious secrets that Mr Brand had told. And then, suddenly, it was forced on her conviction that Mr Brand--the mildMr Brand that she had seen a month or two before their departure toNauheim, playing "Blind Man's Buff" with his children and kissing hiswife when he caught her--Mr Brand and Mrs Brand had been on the worstpossible terms. That was incredible. 

Yet there it was--in black and white. Mr Brand drank; Mr Brand hadstruck Mrs Brand to the ground when he was drunk. Mr Brand was adjudged, in two or three abrupt words, at the end of columns and columns ofpaper, to have been guilty of cruelty to his wife and to havecommitted adultery with Miss Lupton. The last words conveyed nothing toNancy--nothing real, that is to say. She knew that one was commanded notto commit adultery--but why, she thought, should one? It was probablysomething like catching salmon out of season--a thing one did not do. She gathered it had something to do with kissing, or holding some one inyour arms. . . . 

And yet the whole effect of that reading upon Nancy was mysterious, terrifying and evil. She felt a sickness--a sickness that grew as sheread. Her heart beat painfully; she began to cry. She asked God how Hecould permit such things to be. And she was more certain that Edward didnot love Leonora and that Leonora hated Edward. Perhaps, then, Edwardloved some one else. It was unthinkable. 

If he could love some one else than Leonora, her fierce unknown heartsuddenly spoke in her side, why could it not be herself? And he did notlove her. . . . This had occurred about a month before she got the letterfrom her mother. She let the matter rest until the sick feeling wentoff; it did that in a day or two. Then, finding that Leonora's headacheshad gone, she suddenly told Leonora that Mrs Brand had divorced herhusband. She asked what, exactly, it all meant. 

Leonora was lying on the sofa in the hall; she was feeling so weak thatshe could hardly find the words. She answered just:

"It means that Mr Brand will be able to marry again. "

Nancy said:

"But. . . But. . . " and then: "He will be able to marry Miss Lupton. "Leonora just moved a hand in assent. Her eyes were shut. 

"Then. . . " Nancy began. Her blue eyes were full of horror: her brows weretight above them; the lines of pain about her mouth were very distinct. In her eyes the whole of that familiar, great hall had a changed aspect. The andirons with the brass flowers at the ends appeared unreal; theburning logs were just logs that were burning and not the comfortablesymbols of an indestructible mode of life. The flame fluttered beforethe high fireback; the St Bernard sighed in his sleep. Outside thewinter rain fell and fell. And suddenly she thought that Edward mightmarry some one else; and she nearly screamed. 

Leonora opened her eyes, lying sideways, with her face upon the blackand gold pillow of the sofa that was drawn half across the greatfireplace. 

"I thought, " Nancy said, "I never imagined. . . . Aren't marriagessacraments? Aren't they indissoluble? I thought you were married. . . And. . . " She was sobbing. "I thought you were married or not married asyou are alive or dead. " "That, " Leonora said, "is the law of the church. It is not the law of the land. . . . "

"Oh yes, " Nancy said, "the Brands are Protestants. " She felt a suddensafeness descend upon her, and for an hour or so her mind was at rest. It seemed to her idiotic not to have remembered Henry VIII and the basisupon which Protestantism rests. She almost laughed at herself. 

The long afternoon wore on; the flames still fluttered when the maidmade up the fire; the St Bernard awoke and lolloped away towards thekitchen. And then Leonora opened her eyes and said almost coldly:

"And you? Don't you think you will get married?"

It was so unlike Leonora that, for the moment, the girl was frightenedin the dusk. But then, again, it seemed a perfectly reasonable question. "I don't know, " she answered. "I don't know that anyone wants to marryme. "

"Several people want to marry you, " Leonora said. 

"But I don't want to marry, " Nancy answered. "I should like to go onliving with you and Edward. I don't think I am in the way or that I amreally an expense. If I went you would have to have a companion. Or, perhaps, I ought to earn my living. . . . "

"I wasn't thinking of that, " Leonora answered in the same dull tone. "You will have money enough from your father. But most people want to bemarried. "

I believe that she then asked the girl if she would not like to marryme, and that Nancy answered that she would marry me if she were told to;but that she wanted to go on living there. She added:

"If I married anyone I should want him to be like Edward. "

She was frightened out of her life. Leonora writhed on her couch andcalled out: "Oh, God!. . . "

Nancy ran for the maid; for tablets of aspirin; for wet handkerchiefs. It never occurred to her that Leonora's expression of agony was foranything else than physical pain. 

You are to remember that all this happened a month before Leonora wentinto the girl's room at night. I have been casting back again; but Icannot help it. It is so difficult to keep all these people going. Itell you about Leonora and bring her up to date; then about Edward, whohas fallen behind. And then the girl gets hopelessly left behind. I wishI could put it down in diary form. Thus: On the 1st of September theyreturned from Nauheim. Leonora at once took to her bed. By the 1stof October they were all going to meets together. Nancy had alreadyobserved very fully that Edward was strange in his manner. About the 6thof that month Edward gave the horse to young Selmes, and Nancy had causeto believe that her aunt did not love her uncle. On the 20th she readthe account of the divorce case, which is reported in the papers of the18th and the two following days. On the 23rd she had the conversationwith her aunt in the hall--about marriage in general and about her ownpossible marriage, her aunt's coming to her bedroom did not occur untilthe 12th of November. . . . 

Thus she had three weeks for introspection--for introspection beneathgloomy skies, in that old house, rendered darker by the fact that it layin a hollow crowned by fir trees with their black shadows. It was nota good situation for a girl. She began thinking about love, she who hadnever before considered it as anything other than a rather humorous, rather nonsensical matter. She remembered chance passages in chancebooks--things that had not really affected her at all at the time. Sheremembered someone's love for the Princess Badrulbadour; she rememberedto have heard that love was a flame, a thirst, a withering up of thevitals--though she did not know what the vitals were. She had a vaguerecollection that love was said to render a hopeless lover's eyeshopeless; she remembered a character in a book who was said to havetaken to drink through love; she remembered that lovers' existenceswere said to be punctuated with heavy sighs. Once she went to the littlecottage piano that was in the corner of the hall and began to play. Itwas a tinkly, reedy instrument, for none of that household had any turnfor music. Nancy herself could play a few simple songs, and she foundherself playing. She had been sitting on the window seat, looking out onthe fading day. Leonora had gone to pay some calls; Edward was lookingafter some planting up in the new spinney. Thus she found herselfplaying on the old piano. She did not know how she came to be doing it. A silly lilting wavering tune came from before her in the dusk--a tunein which major notes with their cheerful insistence wavered and meltedinto minor sounds, as, beneath a bridge, the high lights on dark watersmelt and waver and disappear into black depths. Well, it was a silly oldtune. . . . 

It goes with the words--they are about a willow tree, I think: Thou artto all lost loves the best The only true plant found. 

--That sort of thing. It is Herrick, I believe, and the music with thereedy, irregular, lilting sound that goes with Herrick, And it wasdusk; the heavy, hewn, dark pillars that supported the gallery were likemourning presences; the fire had sunk to nothing--a mere glow amongstwhite ashes. . . . It was a sentimental sort of place and light andhour. . . . 

And suddenly Nancy found that she was crying. She was crying quietly;she went on to cry with long convulsive sobs. It seemed to her thateverything gay, everything charming, all light, all sweetness, had goneout of life. Unhappiness; unhappiness; unhappiness was all around her. She seemed to know no happy being and she herself was agonizing. . . . 

She remembered that Edward's eyes were hopeless; she was certain that hewas drinking too much; at times he sighed deeply. He appeared as a manwho was burning with inward flame; drying up in the soul with thirst;withering up in the vitals. Then, the torturing conviction came toher--the conviction that had visited her again and again--that Edwardmust love some one other than Leonora. With her little, pedagogicsectarianism she remembered that Catholics do not do this thing. ButEdward was a Protestant. Then Edward loved somebody. . . . 

And, after that thought, her eyes grew hopeless; she sighed as the oldSt Bernard beside her did. At meals she would feel an intolerable desireto drink a glass of wine, and then another and then a third. Then shewould find herself grow gay. . . . But in half an hour the gaiety went; shefelt like a person who is burning up with an inward flame; desiccatingat the soul with thirst; withering up in the vitals. One evening shewent into Edward's gun-room--he had gone to a meeting of the NationalReserve Committee. On the table beside his chair was a decanter ofwhisky. She poured out a wineglassful and drank it off. Flame thenreally seemed to fill her body; her legs swelled; her face grewfeverish. She dragged her tall height up to her room and lay in thedark. The bed reeled beneath her; she gave way to the thought that shewas in Edward's arms; that he was kissing her on her face that burned;on her shoulders that burned, and on her neck that was on fire. 

She never touched alcohol again. Not once after that did she have suchthoughts. They died out of her mind; they left only a feeling of shameso insupportable that her brain could not take it in and they vanished. She imagined that her anguish at the thought of Edward's love foranother person was solely sympathy for Leonora; she determined thatthe rest of her life must be spent in acting as Leonora'shandmaiden--sweeping, tending, embroidering, like some Deborah, somemedieval saint--I am not, unfortunately, up in the Catholic hagiology. But I know that she pictured herself as some personage with a depressed, earnest face and tightly closed lips, in a clear white room, wateringflowers or tending an embroidery frame. Or, she desired to go withEdward to Africa and to throw herself in the path of a charging lion sothat Edward might be saved for Leonora at the cost of her life. Well, along with her sad thoughts she had her childish ones. She knewnothing--nothing of life, except that one must live sadly. That she nowknew. What happened to her on the night when she received at once theblow that Edward wished her to go to her father in India and the blowof the letter from her mother was this. She called first upon her sweetSaviour--and she thought of Our Lord as her sweet Saviour!--that Hemight make it impossible that she should go to India. Then she realizedfrom Edward's demeanour that he was determined that she should go toIndia. It must then be right that she should go. Edward was always rightin his determinations. He was the Cid; he was Lohengrin; he was theChevalier Bayard. 

Nevertheless her mind mutinied and revolted. She could not leave thathouse. She imagined that he wished her gone that she might not witnesshis amours with another girl. Well, she was prepared to tell him thatshe was ready to witness his amours with another young girl. She wouldstay there--to comfort Leonora. 

Then came the desperate shock of the letter from her mother. Her mothersaid, I believe, something like: "You have no right to go on living yourlife of prosperity and respect. You ought to be on the streets with me. How do you know that you are even Colonel Rufford's daughter?" She didnot know what these words meant. She thought of her mother as sleepingbeneath the arches whilst the snow fell. That was the impressionconveyed to her mind by the words "on the streets". A Platonic sense ofduty gave her the idea that she ought to go to comfort her mother--themother that bore her, though she hardly knew what the words meant. Atthe same time she knew that her mother had left her father with anotherman--therefore she pitied her father, and thought it terrible in herselfthat she trembled at the sound of her father's voice. If her motherwas that sort of woman it was natural that her father should have hadaccesses of madness in which he had struck herself to the ground. Andthe voice of her conscience said to her that her first duty was to herparents. It was in accord with this awakened sense of duty that sheundressed with great care and meticulously folded the clothes that shetook off. Sometimes, but not very often, she threw them helter-skelterabout the room. 

And that sense of duty was her prevailing mood when Leonora, tall, clean-run, golden-haired, all in black, appeared in her doorway, andtold her that Edward was dying of love for her. She knew then with herconscious mind what she had known within herself for months--that Edwardwas dying--actually and physically dying--of love for her. It seemedto her that for one short moment her spirit could say: "Domine, nuncdimittis, . . . Lord, now, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace. " Sheimagined that she could cheerfully go away to Glasgow and rescue herfallen mother. 

IV

AND it seemed to her to be in tune with the mood, with the hour, andwith the woman in front of her to say that she knew Edward was dying oflove for her and that she was dying of love for Edward. For that facthad suddenly slipped into place and become real for her as the nichedmarker on a whist tablet slips round with the pressure of your thumb. That rubber at least was made. 

And suddenly Leonora seemed to have become different and she seemed tohave become different in her attitude towards Leonora. It was as ifshe, in her frail, white, silken kimono, sat beside her fire, but upon athrone. It was as if Leonora, in her close dress of black lace, with thegleaming white shoulders and the coiled yellow hair that the girl hadalways considered the most beautiful thing in the world--it was asif Leonora had become pinched, shrivelled, blue with cold, shivering, suppliant. Yet Leonora was commanding her. It was no good commandingher. She was going on the morrow to her mother who was in Glasgow. 

Leonora went on saying that she must stay there to save Edward, who wasdying of love for her. And, proud and happy in the thought that Edwardloved her, and that she loved him, she did not even listen to whatLeonora said. It appeared to her that it was Leonora's business to saveher husband's body; she, Nancy, possessed his soul--a precious thingthat she would shield and bear away up in her arms--as if Leonora werea hungry dog, trying to spring up at a lamb that she was carrying. Yes, she felt as if Edward's love were a precious lamb that she were bearingaway from a cruel and predatory beast. For, at that time, Leonoraappeared to her as a cruel and predatory beast. Leonora, Leonora withher hunger, with her cruelty had driven Edward to madness. He must besheltered by his love for her and by her love--her love from a greatdistance and unspoken, enveloping him, surrounding him, upholding him;by her voice speaking from Glasgow, saying that she loved, that sheadored, that she passed no moment without longing, loving, quivering atthe thought of him. 

Leonora said loudly, insistently, with a bitterly imperative tone:

"You must stay here; you must belong to Edward. I will divorce him. "

The girl answered:

"The Church does not allow of divorce. I cannot belong to your husband. I am going to Glasgow to rescue my mother. "

The half-opened door opened noiselessly to the full. Edward was there. His devouring, doomed eyes were fixed on the girl's face; his shouldersslouched forward; he was undoubtedly half drunk and he had the whiskydecanter in one hand, a slanting candlestick in the other. He said, witha heavy ferocity, to Nancy:

"I forbid you to talk about these things. You are to stay here until Ihear from your father. Then you will go to your father. "

The two women, looking at each other, like beasts about to spring, hardly gave a glance to him. He leaned against the door-post. He saidagain:

"Nancy, I forbid you to talk about these things. I am the master of thishouse. " And, at the sound of his voice, heavy, male, coming from a deepchest, in the night with the blackness behind him, Nancy felt as if herspirit bowed before him, with folded hands. She felt that she would goto India, and that she desired never again to talk of these things. 

Leonora said:

"You see that it is your duty to belong to him. He must not be allowedto go on drinking. "

Nancy did not answer. Edward was gone; they heard him slipping andshambling on the polished oak of the stairs. Nancy screamed when therecame the sound of a heavy fall. Leonora said again: "You see!"

The sounds went on from the hall below; the light of the candle Edwardheld flickered up between the hand rails of the gallery. Then they heardhis voice:

"Give me Glasgow. . . Glasgow, in Scotland. . I want the number of a mancalled White, of Simrock Park, Glasgow. . . Edward White, Simrock Park, Glasgow. . . Ten minutes. . . At this time of night. . . " His voice wasquite level, normal, and patient. Alcohol took him in the legs, not thespeech. "I can wait, " his voice came again. "Yes, I know they have anumber. I have been in communication with them before. "

"He is going to telephone to your mother, " Leonora said. "He will makeit all right for her. " She got up and closed the door. She came backto the fire, and added bitterly: "He can always make it all right foreverybody, except me--excepting me!"

The girl said nothing. She sat there in a blissful dream. She seemed tosee her lover sitting as he always sat, in a round-backed chair, inthe dark hall--sitting low, with the receiver at his ear, talking in agentle, slow voice, that he reserved for the telephone--and savingthe world and her, in the black darkness. She moved her hand over thebareness of the base of her throat, to have the warmth of flesh upon itand upon her bosom. 

She said nothing; Leonora went on talking. . . . 

God knows what Leonora said. She repeated that the girl must belongto her husband. She said that she used that phrase because, thoughshe might have a divorce, or even a dissolution of the marriage by theChurch, it would still be adultery that the girl and Edward would becommitting. But she said that that was necessary; it was the price thatthe girl must pay for the sin of having made Edward love her, for thesin of loving her husband. She talked on and on, beside the fire. Thegirl must become an adulteress; she had wronged Edward by being sobeautiful, so gracious, so good. It was sinful to be so good. She mustpay the price so as to save the man she had wronged. 

In between her pauses the girl could hear the voice of Edward, droningon, indistinguishably, with jerky pauses for replies. It made her glowwith pride; the man she loved was working for her. He at least wasresolved; was malely determined; knew the right thing. Leonora talkedon with her eyes boring into Nancy's. The girl hardly looked at her andhardly heard her. After a long time Nancy said--after hours and hours:

"I shall go to India as soon as Edward hears from my father. I cannottalk about these things, because Edward does not wish it. "

At that Leonora screamed out and wavered swiftly towards the closeddoor. And Nancy found that she was springing out of her chair withher white arms stretched wide. She was clasping the other woman to herbreast; she was saying:

"Oh, my poor dear; oh, my poor dear. " And they sat, crouching togetherin each other's arms, and crying and crying; and they lay down in thesame bed, talking and talking, all through the night. And all throughthe night Edward could hear their voices through the wall. That was howit went. . . . Next morning they were all three as if nothing had happened. Towards eleven Edward came to Nancy, who was arranging some Christmasroses in a silver bowl. He put a telegram beside her on the table. "Youcan uncode it for yourself, " he said. Then, as he went out of the door, he said: "You can tell your aunt I have cabled to Mr Dowell to comeover. He will make things easier till you leave. " The telegram when itwas uncoded, read, as far as I can remember: "Will take Mrs Rufford toItaly. Undertake to do this for certain. Am devotedly attached to MrsRufford. Have no need of financial assistance. Did not know there was adaughter, and am much obliged to you for pointing out my duty. --White. "It was something like that. Then the household resumed its wonted courseof days until my arrival. 

V IT is this part of the story that makes me saddest of all. For I askmyself unceasingly, my mind going round and round in a weary, baffledspace of pain--what should these people have done? What, in the name ofGod, should they have done?

The end was perfectly plain to each of them--it was perfectly manifestat this stage that, if the girl did not, in Leonora's phrase, "belong toEdward, " Edward must die, the girl must lose her reason because Edwarddied--and, that after a time, Leonora, who was the coldest and thestrongest of the three, would console herself by marrying Rodney Bayhamand have a quiet, comfortable, good time. That end, on that night, whilst Leonora sat in the girl's bedroom and Edward telephoned downbelow--that end was plainly manifest. The girl, plainly, was half-madalready; Edward was half dead; only Leonora, active, persistent, instinct with her cold passion of energy, was "doing things". What then, should they have done? worked out in the extinction of two very splendidpersonalities--for Edward and the girl were splendid personalities, inorder that a third personality, more normal, should have, after a longperiod of trouble, a quiet, comfortable, good time. 

I am writing this, now, I should say, a full eighteen months afterthe words that end my last chapter. Since writing the words "untilmy arrival", which I see end that paragraph, I have seen again for aglimpse, from a swift train, Beaucaire with the beautiful white tower, Tarascon with the square castle, the great Rhone, the immense stretchesof the Crau. I have rushed through all Provence--and all Provence nolonger matters. It is no longer in the olive hills that I shall find myHeaven; because there is only Hell. . . . 

Edward is dead; the girl is gone--oh, utterly gone; Leonora is havinga good time with Rodney Bayham, and I sit alone in Branshaw Teleragh. Ihave been through Provence; I have seen Africa; I have visited Asia tosee, in Ceylon, in a darkened room, my poor girl, sitting motionless, with her wonderful hair about her, looking at me with eyes that didnot see me, and saying distinctly: "Credo in unum Deum omnipotentem. . . . Credo in unum Deum omnipotentem. " Those are the only reasonable wordsshe uttered; those are the only words, it appears, that she everwill utter. I suppose that they are reasonable words; it must beextraordinarily reasonable for her, if she can say that she believes inan Omnipotent Deity. Well, there it is. I am very tired of it all. . . . 

For, I daresay, all this may sound romantic, but it is tiring, tiring, tiring to have been in the midst of it; to have taken the tickets; tohave caught the trains; to have chosen the cabins; to have consultedthe purser and the stewards as to diet for the quiescent patient who didnothing but announce her belief in an Omnipotent Deity. That may soundromantic--but it is just a record of fatigue. 

I don't know why I should always be selected to be serviceable. I don'tresent it--but I have never been the least good. Florence selected mefor her own purposes, and I was no good to her; Edward called me to comeand have a chat with him, and I couldn't stop him cutting his throat. 

And then, one day eighteen months ago, I was quietly writing in myroom at Branshaw when Leonora came to me with a letter. It was a verypathetic letter from Colonel Rufford about Nancy. Colonel Rufford hadleft the army and had taken up an appointment at a tea-plantingestate in Ceylon. His letter was pathetic because it was so brief, soinarticulate, and so business-like. He had gone down to the boat to meethis daughter, and had found his daughter quite mad. It appears that atAden Nancy had seen in a local paper the news of Edward's suicide. Inthe Red Sea she had gone mad. She had remarked to Mrs Colonel Luton, who was chaperoning her, that she believed in an Omnipotent Deity. Shehadn't made any fuss; her eyes were quite dry and glassy. Even when shewas mad Nancy could behave herself. 

Colonel Rufford said the doctor did not anticipate that there was anychance of his child's recovery. It was, nevertheless, possible that ifshe could see someone from Branshaw it might soothe her and it mighthave a good effect. And he just simply wrote to Leonora: "Please comeand see if you can do it. "

I seem to have lost all sense of the pathetic; but still, that simple, enormous request of the old colonel strikes me as pathetic. He wascursed by his atrocious temper; he had been cursed by a half-mad wife, who drank and went on the streets. His daughter was totally mad--and yethe believed in the goodness of human nature. He believed that Leonorawould take the trouble to go all the way to Ceylon in order to soothehis daughter. Leonora wouldn't. Leonora didn't ever want to see Nancyagain. I daresay that that, in the circumstances, was natural enough. At the same time she agreed, as it were, on public grounds, that someonesoothing ought to go from Branshaw to Ceylon. She sent me and her oldnurse, who had looked after Nancy from the time when the girl, a childof thirteen, had first come to Branshaw. So off I go, rushing throughProvence, to catch the steamer at Marseilles. And I wasn't the leastgood when I got to Ceylon; and the nurse wasn't the least good. Nothinghas been the least good. The doctors said, at Kandy, that if Nancy couldbe brought to England, the sea air, the change of climate, the voyage, and all the usual sort of things, might restore her reason. Of course, they haven't restored her reason. She is, I am aware, sitting in thehall, forty paces from where I am now writing. I don't want to be in theleast romantic about it. She is very well dressed; she is quite quiet;she is very beautiful. The old nurse looks after her very efficiently. 

Of course you have the makings of a situation here, but it is all veryhumdrum, as far as I am concerned. I should marry Nancy if her reasonwere ever sufficiently restored to let her appreciate the meaning of theAnglican marriage service. But it is probable that her reason willnever be sufficiently restored to let her appreciate the meaning of theAnglican marriage service. Therefore I cannot marry her, according tothe law of the land. 

So here I am very much where I started thirteen years ago. I am theattendant, not the husband, of a beautiful girl, who pays no attentionto me. I am estranged from Leonora, who married Rodney Bayham in myabsence and went to live at Bayham. Leonora rather dislikes me, becauseshe has got it into her head that I disapprove of her marriage withRodney Bayham. Well, I disapprove of her marriage. Possibly I amjealous. Yes, no doubt I am jealous. In my fainter sort of way I seem toperceive myself following the lines of Edward Ashburnham. I suppose thatI should really like to be a polygamist; with Nancy, and with Leonora, and with Maisie Maidan and possibly even with Florence. I am no doubtlike every other man; only, probably because of my American origin I amfainter. At the same time I am able to assure you that I am a strictlyrespectable person. I have never done anything that the most anxiousmother of a daughter or the most careful dean of a cathedral wouldobject to. I have only followed, faintly, and in my unconscious desires, Edward Ashburnham. Well, it is all over. Not one of us has got what hereally wanted. Leonora wanted Edward, and she has got Rodney Bayham, apleasant enough sort of sheep. Florence wanted Branshaw, and it is Iwho have bought it from Leonora. I didn't really want it; what Iwanted mostly was to cease being a nurse-attendant. Well, I am anurse-attendant. Edward wanted Nancy Rufford, and I have got her. Onlyshe is mad. It is a queer and fantastic world. Why can't people havewhat they want? The things were all there to content everybody; yeteverybody has the wrong thing. Perhaps you can make head or tail of it;it is beyond me. 

Is there any terrestial paradise where, amidst the whispering of theolive-leaves, people can be with whom they like and have what they likeand take their ease in shadows and in coolness? Or are all men's liveslike the lives of us good people--like the lives of the Ashburnhams, of the Dowells, of the Ruffords--broken, tumultuous, agonized, andunromantic, lives, periods punctuated by screams, by imbecilities, bydeaths, by agonies? Who the devil knows?

For there was a great deal of imbecility about the closing scenes of theAshburnham tragedy. Neither of those two women knew what they wanted. Itwas only Edward who took a perfectly clear line, and he was drunk mostof the time. But, drunk or sober, he stuck to what was demanded byconvention and by the traditions of his house. Nancy Rufford had to beexported to India, and Nancy Rufford hadn't to hear a word of love fromhim. She was exported to India and she never heard a word from EdwardAshburnham. 

It was the conventional line; it was in tune with the tradition ofEdward's house. I daresay it worked out for the greatest good of thebody politic. Conventions and traditions, I suppose, work blindly butsurely for the preservation of the normal type; for the extinction ofproud, resolute and unusual individuals. 

Edward was the normal man, but there was too much of the sentimentalistabout him; and society does not need too many sentimentalists. Nancy wasa splendid creature, but she had about her a touch of madness. Societydoes not need individuals with touches of madness about them. So Edwardand Nancy found themselves steamrolled out and Leonora survives, theperfectly normal type, married to a man who is rather like a rabbit. For Rodney Bayham is rather like a rabbit, and I hear that Leonora isexpected to have a baby in three months' time. 

So those splendid and tumultuous creatures with their magnetism andtheir passions--those two that I really loved--have gone from thisearth. It is no doubt best for them. What would Nancy have made ofEdward if she had succeeded in living with him; what would Edward havemade of her? For there was about Nancy a touch of cruelty--a touch ofdefinite actual cruelty that made her desire to see people suffer. Yes, she desired to see Edward suffer. And, by God, she gave him hell. 

She gave him an unimaginable hell. Those two women pursued that poordevil and flayed the skin off him as if they had done it with whips. Itell you his mind bled almost visibly. I seem to see him stand, naked tothe waist, his forearms shielding his eyes, and flesh hanging from himin rags. I tell you that is no exaggeration of what I feel. It was asif Leonora and Nancy banded themselves together to do execution, for thesake of humanity, upon the body of a man who was at their disposal. Theywere like a couple of Sioux who had got hold of an Apache and had himwell tied to a stake. I tell you there was no end to the tortures theyinflicted upon him. 

Night after night he would hear them talking; talking; maddened, sweating, seeking oblivion in drink, he would lie there and hear thevoices going on and on. And day after day Leonora would come to him andwould announce the results of their deliberations. 

They were like judges debating over the sentence upon a criminal; theywere like ghouls with an immobile corpse in a tomb beside them. I don'tthink that Leonora was any more to blame than the girl--though Leonorawas the more active of the two. Leonora, as I have said, was theperfectly normal woman. I mean to say that in normal circumstances herdesires were those of the woman who is needed by society. She desiredchildren, decorum, an establishment; she desired to avoid waste, shedesired to keep up appearances. She was utterly and entirely normal evenin her utterly undeniable beauty. But I don't mean to say that she actedperfectly normally in this perfectly abnormal situation. All the worldwas mad around her and she herself, agonized, took on the complexion ofa mad woman; of a woman very wicked; of the villain of the piece. Whatwould you have? Steel is a normal, hard, polished substance. But, if youput it in a hot fire it will become red, soft, and not to be handled. Ifyou put it in a fire still more hot it will drip away. It was likethat with Leonora. She was made for normal circumstances--for Mr RodneyBayham, who will keep a separate establishment, secretly, in Portsmouth, and make occasional trips to Paris and to Budapest. 

In the case of Edward and the girl, Leonora broke and simply went allover the place. She adopted unfamiliar and therefore extraordinary andungraceful attitudes of mind. At one moment she was all for revenge. After haranguing the girl for hours through the night she harangued forhours of the day the silent Edward. And Edward just once tripped up, andthat was his undoing. Perhaps he had had too much whisky that afternoon. She asked him perpetually what he wanted. What did he want? What did hewant? And all he ever answered was: "I have told you". He meant thathe wanted the girl to go to her father in India as soon as her fathershould cable that he was ready to receive her. But just once he trippedup. To Leonora's eternal question he answered that all he desired inlife was that--that he could pick himself together again and go on withhis daily occupations if--the girl, being five thousand miles away, would continue to love him. He wanted nothing more, He prayed his Godfor nothing more. Well, he was a sentimentalist. 

And the moment that she heard that, Leonora determined that the girlshould not go five thousand miles away and that she should not continueto love Edward. The way she worked it was this:

She continued to tell the girl that she must belong to Edward; she wasgoing to get a divorce; she was going to get a dissolution of marriagefrom Rome. But she considered it to be her duty to warn the girl of thesort of monster that Edward was. She told the girl of La Dolciquita, ofMrs Basil, of Maisie Maidan, of Florence. She spoke of the agoniesthat she had endured during her life with the man, who was violent, overbearing, vain, drunken, arrogant, and monstrously a prey to hissexual necessities. And, at hearing of the miseries her aunt hadsuffered--for Leonora once more had the aspect of an aunt to thegirl--with the swift cruelty of youth and, with the swift solidaritythat attaches woman to woman, the girl made her resolves. Her aunt saidincessantly: "You must save Edward's life; you must save his life. Allthat he needs is a little period of satisfaction from you. Then he willtire of you as he has of the others. But you must save his life. "

And, all the while, that wretched fellow knew--by a curious instinctthat runs between human beings living together--exactly what was goingon. And he remained dumb; he stretched out no finger to help himself. All that he required to keep himself a decent member of society was, that the girl, five thousand miles away, should continue to love him. They were putting a stopper upon that. 

I have told you that the girl came one night to his room. And thatwas the real hell for him. That was the picture that never left hisimagination--the girl, in the dim light, rising up at the foot of hisbed. He said that it seemed to have a greenish sort of effect as ifthere were a greenish tinge in the shadows of the tall bedposts thatframed her body. And she looked at him with her straight eyes of anunflinching cruelty and she said: "I am ready to belong to you--to saveyour life. "

He answered: "I don't want it; I don't want it; I don't want it. "

And he says that he didn't want it; that he would have hated himself;that it was unthinkable. And all the while he had the immense temptationto do the unthinkable thing, not from the physical desire but because ofa mental certitude. He was certain that if she had once submitted to himshe would remain his for ever. He knew that. 

She was thinking that her aunt had said he had desired her to love himfrom a distance of five thousand miles. She said: "I can never love younow I know the kind of man you are. I will belong to you to save yourlife. But I can never love you. "

It was a fantastic display of cruelty. She didn't in the least knowwhat it meant--to belong to a man. But, at that Edward pulled himselftogether. He spoke in his normal tones; gruff, husky, overbearing, as hewould have done to a servant or to a horse. 

"Go back to your room, " he said. "Go back to your room and go to sleep. This is all nonsense. "

They were baffled, those two women. 

And then I came on the scene. 

VI MY coming on the scene certainly calmed things down--for the wholefortnight that intervened between my arrival and the girl's departure. I don't mean to say that the endless talking did not go on at night orthat Leonora did not send me out with the girl and, in the interval, give Edward a hell of a time. Having discovered what he wanted--thatthe girl should go five thousand miles away and love him steadfastlyas people do in sentimental novels, she was determined to smash thataspiration. And she repeated to Edward in every possible tone that thegirl did not love him; that the girl detested him for his brutality, hisoverbearingness, his drinking habits. She pointed out that Edward in thegirl's eyes, was already pledged three or four deep. He was pledged toLeonora herself, to Mrs Basil, and to the memories of Maisie Maidan andto Florence. Edward never said anything. 

Did the girl love Edward, or didn't she? I don't know. At that time Idaresay she didn't though she certainly had done so before Leonora hadgot to work upon his reputation. She certainly had loved him for whatI call the public side of his record--for his good soldiering, for hissaving lives at sea, for the excellent landlord that he was and the goodsportsman. But it is quite possible that all those things came toappear as nothing in her eyes when she discovered that he wasn't a goodhusband. For, though women, as I see them, have little or no feeling ofresponsibility towards a county or a country or a career--although theymay be entirely lacking in any kind of communal solidarity--they havean immense and automatically working instinct that attaches them to theinterest of womanhood. It is, of course, possible for any woman to cutout and to carry off any other woman's husband or lover. But I ratherthink that a woman will only do this if she has reason to believe thatthe other woman has given her husband a bad time. I am certain thatif she thinks the man has been a brute to his wife she will, with herinstinctive feeling for suffering femininity, "put him back", asthe saying is. I don't attach any particular importance to thesegeneralizations of mine. They may be right, they may be wrong; I am onlyan ageing American with very little knowledge of life. You may take mygeneralizations or leave them. But I am pretty certain that I am rightin the case of Nancy Rufford--that she had loved Edward Ashburnham verydeeply and tenderly. 

It is nothing to the point that she let him have it good and strong assoon as she discovered that he had been unfaithful to Leonora and thathis public services had cost more than Leonora thought they ought tohave cost. Nancy would be bound to let him have it good and strong then. She would owe that to feminine public opinion; she would be driven to itby the instinct for self-preservation, since she might well imaginethat if Edward had been unfaithful to Leonora, to Mrs Basil and to thememories of the other two, he might be unfaithful to herself. And, no doubt, she had her share of the sex instinct that makes women beintolerably cruel to the beloved person. Anyhow, I don't know whether, at this point, Nancy Rufford loved Edward Ashburnham. I don't knowwhether she even loved him when, on getting, at Aden, the news of hissuicide she went mad. Because that may just as well have been for thesake of Leonora as for the sake of Edward. Or it may have been for thesake of both of them. I don't know. I know nothing. I am very tired. Leonora held passionately the doctrine that the girl didn't love Edward. She wanted desperately to believe that. It was a doctrine as necessaryto her existence as a belief in the personal immortality of the soul. She said that it was impossible that Nancy could have loved Edwardafter she had given the girl her view of Edward's career and character. Edward, on the other hand, believed maunderingly that some essentialattractiveness in himself must have made the girl continue to go onloving him--to go on loving him, as it were, in underneath her officialaspect of hatred. He thought she only pretended to hate him in orderto save her face and he thought that her quite atrocious telegram fromBrindisi was only another attempt to do that--to prove that she hadfeelings creditable to a member of the feminine commonweal. I don'tknow. I leave it to you. There is another point that worries me a gooddeal in the aspects of this sad affair. Leonora says that, in desiringthat the girl should go five thousand miles away and yet continue tolove him, Edward was a monster of selfishness. He was desiring the ruinof a young life. Edward on the other hand put it to me that, supposingthat the girl's love was a necessity to his existence, and, if he didnothing by word or by action to keep Nancy's love alive, he couldn't becalled selfish. Leonora replied that showed he had an abominably selfishnature even though his actions might be perfectly correct. I can't makeout which of them was right. I leave it to you. 

It is, at any rate, certain that Edward's actions were perfectly--weremonstrously, were cruelly--correct. He sat still and let Leonora takeaway his character, and let Leonora damn him to deepest hell, withoutstirring a finger. I daresay he was a fool; I don't see what objectthere was in letting the girl think worse of him than was necessary. Still there it is. And there it is also that all those three presentedto the world the spectacle of being the best of good people. I assureyou that during my stay for that fortnight in that fine old house, Inever so much as noticed a single thing that could have affected thatgood opinion. And even when I look back, knowing the circumstances, Ican't remember a single thing any of them said that could have betrayedthem. I can't remember, right up to the dinner, when Leonora read outthat telegram--not the tremor of an eyelash, not the shaking of a hand. It was just a pleasant country house-party. 

And Leonora kept it up jolly well, for even longer than that--she keptit up as far as I was concerned until eight days after Edward's funeral. Immediately after that particular dinner--the dinner at which Ireceived the announcement that Nancy was going to leave for India on thefollowing day--I asked Leonora to let me have a word with her. She tookme into her little sitting-room and I then said--I spare you the recordof my emotions--that she was aware that I wished to marry Nancy; thatshe had seemed to favour my suit and that it appeared to be rather awaste of money upon tickets and rather a waste of time upon travel tolet the girl go to India if Leonora thought that there was any chance ofher marrying me. 

And Leonora, I assure you, was the absolutely perfect British matron. She said that she quite favoured my suit; that she could not desire forthe girl a better husband; but that she considered that the girl oughtto see a little more of life before taking such an important step. Yes, Leonora used the words "taking such an important step". She was perfect. Actually, I think she would have liked the girl to marry me enough butmy programme included the buying of the Kershaw's house about a mileaway upon the Fordingbridge road, and settling down there with the girl. That didn't at all suit Leonora. She didn't want to have the girl withina mile and a half of Edward for the rest of their lives. Still, I thinkshe might have managed to let me know, in some periphrasis or other, that I might have the girl if I would take her to Philadelphia orTimbuctoo. I loved Nancy very much--and Leonora knew it. However, I leftit at that. I left it with the understanding that Nancy was goingaway to India on probation. It seemed to me a perfectly reasonablearrangement and I am a reasonable sort of man. I simply said that Ishould follow Nancy out to India after six months' time or so. Or, perhaps, after a year. Well, you see, I did follow Nancy out to Indiaafter a year. . . . I must confess to having felt a little angry withLeonora for not having warned me earlier that the girl would be going. I took it as one of the queer, not very straight methods that RomanCatholics seem to adopt in dealing with matters of this world. I tookit that Leonora had been afraid I should propose to the girl or, at anyrate, have made considerably greater advances to her than I did, if Ihad known earlier that she was going away so soon. Perhaps Leonorawas right; perhaps Roman Catholics, with their queer, shifty ways, arealways right. They are dealing with the queer, shifty thing that ishuman nature. For it is quite possible that, if I had known Nancy wasgoing away so soon, I should have tried making love to her. And thatwould have produced another complication. It may have been just as well. 

It is queer the fantastic things that quite good people will do in orderto keep up their appearance of calm pococurantism. For Edward Ashburnhamand his wife called me half the world over in order to sit on the backseat of a dog-cart whilst Edward drove the girl to the railway stationfrom which she was to take her departure to India. They wanted, Isuppose, to have a witness of the calmness of that function. The girl'sluggage had been already packed and sent off before. Her berth on thesteamer had been taken. They had timed it all so exactly that it wentlike clockwork. They had known the date upon which Colonel Rufford wouldget Edward's letter and they had known almost exactly the hour at whichthey would receive his telegram asking his daughter to come to him. Ithad all been quite beautifully and quite mercilessly arranged, by Edwardhimself. They gave Colonel Rufford, as a reason for telegraphing, thefact that Mrs Colonel Somebody or other would be travelling by that shipand that she would serve as an efficient chaperon for the girl. It was amost amazing business, and I think that it would have been better inthe eyes of God if they had all attempted to gouge out each other's eyeswith carving knives. But they were "good people". After my interviewwith Leonora I went desultorily into Edward's gun-room. I didn't knowwhere the girl was and I thought I mind find her there. I suppose I hada vague idea of proposing to her in spite of Leonora. So, I presume, I don't come of quite such good people as the Ashburnhams. Edward waslounging in his chair smoking a cigar and he said nothing for quite fiveminutes. The candles glowed in the green shades; the reflections weregreen in the glasses of the book-cases that held guns and fishing-rods. Over the mantelpiece was the brownish picture of the white horse. Thosewere the quietest moments that I have ever known. Then, suddenly, Edwardlooked me straight in the eyes and said:

"Look here, old man, I wish you would drive with Nancy and me to thestation tomorrow. "

I said that of course I would drive with him and Nancy to the station onthe morrow. He lay there for a long time, looking along the line of hisknees at the fluttering fire, and then suddenly, in a perfectly calmvoice, and without lifting his eyes, he said:

"I am so desperately in love with Nancy Rufford that I am dying of it. "

Poor devil--he hadn't meant to speak of it. But I guess he just had tospeak to somebody and I appeared to be like a woman or a solicitor. Hetalked all night. 

Well, he carried out the programme to the last breath. 

It was a very clear winter morning, with a good deal of frost in it. The sun was quite bright, the winding road between the heather and thebracken was very hard. I sat on the back-seat of the dog-cart; Nancy wasbeside Edward. They talked about the way the cob went; Edward pointedout with the whip a cluster of deer upon a coombe three-quarters of amile away. We passed the hounds in the level bit of road beside the hightrees going into Fordingbridge and Edward pulled up the dog-cart so thatNancy might say good-bye to the huntsman and cap him a last sovereign. She had ridden with those hounds ever since she had been thirteen. 

The train was five minutes late and they imagined that that was becauseit was market-day at Swindon or wherever the train came from. That wasthe sort of thing they talked about. The train came in; Edward found hera first-class carriage with an elderly woman in it. The girl entered thecarriage, Edward closed the door and then she put out her hand to shakemine. There was upon those people's faces no expression of any kindwhatever. The signal for the train's departure was a very bright red;that is about as passionate a statement as I can get into that scene. She was not looking her best; she had on a cap of brown fur that did notvery well match her hair. She said:

"So long, " to Edward. 

Edward answered: "So long. "

He swung round on his heel and, large, slouching, and walking with aheavy deliberate pace, he went out of the station. I followed himand got up beside him in the high dog-cart. It was the most horribleperformance I have ever seen. 

And, after that, a holy peace, like the peace of God which passes allunderstanding, descended upon Branshaw Teleragh. Leonora went about herdaily duties with a sort of triumphant smile--a very faint smile, butquite triumphant. I guess she had so long since given up any idea ofgetting her man back that it was enough for her to have got the girl outof the house and well cured of her infatuation. Once, in the hall, when Leonora was going out, Edward said, beneath his breath--but I justcaught the words:

"Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean. " It was like his sentimentalityto quote Swinburne. But he was perfectly quiet and he had given updrinking. The only thing that he ever said to me after that drive to thestation was:

"It's very odd. I think I ought to tell you, Dowell, that I haven't anyfeelings at all about the girl now it's all over. Don't you worry aboutme. I'm all right. " A long time afterwards he said: "I guess it was onlya flash in the pan. " He began to look after the estates again; hetook all that trouble over getting off the gardener's daughter who hadmurdered her baby. He shook hands smilingly with every farmer in themarket-place. He addressed two political meetings; he hunted twice. Leonora made him a frightful scene about spending the two hundred poundson getting the gardener's daughter acquitted. Everything went on as ifthe girl had never existed. It was very still weather. 

Well, that is the end of the story. And, when I come to look at it I seethat it is a happy ending with wedding bells and all. The villains--forobviously Edward and the girl were villains--have been punished bysuicide and madness. The heroine--the perfectly normal, virtuous andslightly deceitful heroine--has become the happy wife of a perfectlynormal, virtuous and slightly deceitful husband. She will shortly becomea mother of a perfectly normal, virtuous slightly deceitful son ordaughter. A happy ending, that is what it works out at. 

I cannot conceal from myself the fact that I now dislike Leonora. Without doubt I am jealous of Rodney Bayham. But I don't know whetherit is merely a jealousy arising from the fact that I desired myself topossess Leonora or whether it is because to her were sacrificed the onlytwo persons that I have ever really loved--Edward Ashburnham and NancyRufford. In order to set her up in a modern mansion, replete withevery convenience and dominated by a quite respectable and eminentlyeconomical master of the house, it was necessary that Edward and NancyRufford should become, for me at least, no more than tragic shades. 

I seem to see poor Edward, naked and reclining amidst darkness, uponcold rocks, like one of the ancient Greek damned, in Tartarus orwherever it was. 

And as for Nancy. . . Well, yesterday at lunch she said suddenly:

"Shuttlecocks!"

And she repeated the word "shuttlecocks" three times. I know what waspassing in her mind, if she can be said to have a mind, for Leonora hastold me that, once, the poor girl said she felt like a shuttlecockbeing tossed backwards and forwards between the violent personalities ofEdward and his wife. Leonora, she said, was always trying to deliver herover to Edward, and Edward tacitly and silently forced her back again. And the odd thing was that Edward himself considered that those twowomen used him like a shuttlecock. Or, rather, he said that they senthim backwards and forwards like a blooming parcel that someone didn'twant to pay the postage on. And Leonora also imagined that Edward andNancy picked her up and threw her down as suited their purely vagrantmoods. So there you have the pretty picture. Mind, I am not preachinganything contrary to accepted morality. I am not advocating free love inthis or any other case. Society must go on, I suppose, and society canonly exist if the normal, if the virtuous, and the slightly deceitfulflourish, and if the passionate, the headstrong, and the too-truthfulare condemned to suicide and to madness. But I guess that I myself, in my fainter way, come into the category of the passionate, of theheadstrong, and the too-truthful. For I can't conceal from myself thefact that I loved Edward Ashburnham--and that I love him because he wasjust myself. If I had had the courage and virility and possibly also thephysique of Edward Ashburnham I should, I fancy, have done much whathe did. He seems to me like a large elder brother who took me out onseveral excursions and did many dashing things whilst I just watched himrobbing the orchards, from a distance. And, you see, I am just as muchof a sentimentalist as he was. . . . 

Yes, society must go on; it must breed, like rabbits. That is what weare here for. But then, I don't like society--much. I am that absurdfigure, an American millionaire, who has bought one of the ancienthaunts of English peace. I sit here, in Edward's gun-room, all day andall day in a house that is absolutely quiet. No one visits me, for Ivisit no one. No one is interested in me, for I have no interests. Intwenty minutes or so I shall walk down to the village, beneath my ownoaks, alongside my own clumps of gorse, to get the American mail. Mytenants, the village boys and the tradesmen will touch their hats to me. So life peters out. I shall return to dine and Nancy will sit oppositeme with the old nurse standing behind her. Enigmatic, silent, utterlywell-behaved as far as her knife and fork go, Nancy will stare in frontof her with the blue eyes that have over them strained, stretched brows. Once, or perhaps twice, during the meal her knife and fork will besuspended in mid-air as if she were trying to think of something thatshe had forgotten. Then she will say that she believes in an OmnipotentDeity or she will utter the one word "shuttle-cocks", perhaps. It isvery extraordinary to see the perfect flush of health on her cheeks, tosee the lustre of her coiled black hair, the poise of the head uponthe neck, the grace of the white hands--and to think that it all meansnothing--that it is a picture without a meaning. Yes, it is queer. 

But, at any rate, there is always Leonora to cheer you up; I don't wantto sadden you. Her husband is quite an economical person of so normala figure that he can get quite a large proportion of his clothesready-made. That is the great desideratum of life, and that is the endof my story. The child is to be brought up as a Romanist. 

It suddenly occurs to me that I have forgotten to say how Edward methis death. You remember that peace had descended upon the house; thatLeonora was quietly triumphant and that Edward said his love for thegirl had been merely a passing phase. Well, one afternoon we were inthe stables together, looking at a new kind of flooring that Edward wastrying in a loose-box. Edward was talking with a good deal of animationabout the necessity of getting the numbers of the Hampshire territorialsup to the proper standard. He was quite sober, quite quiet, his skinwas clear-coloured; his hair was golden and perfectly brushed; thelevel brick-dust red of his complexion went clean up to the rims of hiseyelids; his eyes were porcelain blue and they regarded me frankly anddirectly. His face was perfectly expressionless; his voice was deep andrough. He stood well back upon his legs and said:

"We ought to get them up to two thousand three hundred and fifty. "A stable-boy brought him a telegram and went away. He opened itnegligently, regarded it without emotion, and, in complete silence, handed it to me. On the pinkish paper in a sprawled handwriting I read:"Safe Brindisi. Having rattling good time. Nancy. "

Well, Edward was the English gentleman; but he was also, to the last, a sentimentalist, whose mind was compounded of indifferent poems andnovels. He just looked up to the roof of the stable, as if he werelooking to Heaven, and whispered something that I did not catch. 

Then he put two fingers into the waistcoat pocket of his grey, friezesuit; they came out with a little neat pen-knife--quite a smallpen-knife. He said to me:

"You might just take that wire to Leonora. " And he looked at me with adirect, challenging, brow-beating glare. I guess he could see in my eyesthat I didn't intend to hinder him. Why should I hinder him?

I didn't think he was wanted in the world, let his confounded tenants, his rifle-associations, his drunkards, reclaimed and unreclaimed, get onas they liked. Not all the hundreds and hundreds of them deserved thatthat poor devil should go on suffering for their sakes. 

When he saw that I did not intend to interfere with him his eyes becamesoft and almost affectionate. He remarked:

"So long, old man, I must have a bit of a rest, you know. "

I didn't know what to say. I wanted to say, "God bless you", for I alsoam a sentimentalist. But I thought that perhaps that would not be quiteEnglish good form, so I trotted off with the telegram to Leonora. Shewas quite pleased with it.