THE TRAGIC BRIDE

by

FRANCIS BRETT YOUNG

London: Martin Secker1920

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WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR

NOVELS

 THE YOUNG PHYSICIAN THE CRESCENT MOON THE IRON AGE THE DARK TOWER DEEP SEA UNDERGROWTH (with E. BRETT YOUNG)

POETRY

 FIVE DEGREES SOUTH POEMS, 1916-1918

BELLES LETTRES ROBERT BRIDGES: A CRITICAL STUDY MARCHING ON TANGA

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TO

THE COUNTESS OF

PEMBROKE AND MONTGOMERY

PROLOGUE

I never met Gabrielle Hewish. I suppose I should really call her by thatname, for her marriage took the colour out of it as surely as if she hadentered a nunnery, and adopted the frigid and sisterly label of somefemale saint. Nobody had ever heard of her husband before she marriedhim, and nobody ever heard of Gabrielle afterwards, except those who wereacquainted with the story of Arthur Payne, as I was, and, perhaps, acoroner's jury in Devonshire, a county where juries are more than usuallyslow of apprehension. In these days you will not even find the name ofHewish in Debrett, for Gabrielle was the baronet's only child, and whenSir Jocelyn died, in the early days of his daughter's married life, thefamily, which for the last half century had been putting out no more thana few feeble and not astonishingly brilliant leaves on its one livingbranch, withered altogether, as well it might in the thin Irish soilwhere it had stubbornly held its own since the days of Queen Elizabeth. After all, baronetcies are cheap enough in Ireland, and one more or lesscould make very little difference to the amenities of County Galway, where Roscarna, for all I know, may have been absorbed and parcelled outby the Congested Districts Board ten years ago. Even in clubs and placeswhere they gossip, I doubt if the Hewishes of Roscarna are remembered, for modern memories are short, and in Gabrielle's day the illustratedSunday newspapers had not contrived to specialise in the smiles ofwell-connected young Irishwomen. 

Of course the Payne episode--I'm not sure it should not rather be calledthe Payne miracle--had always lain stored somewhere in my literary attic;its theme was too exciting for a man who deals in such lumber to haveforgotten; but that admirable woman, Mrs. Payne, had whetted my curiosityto such an extent that I weakly promised her secrecy before she told itto me. "I can't resist telling you, " she said, "because it wouldn't befair of me to deprive you: it's far too much in your line. " She evenflattered me: "You'd do it awfully well too, you know; but I have a sortof sentimental regard for her--not admiration, or anything of that kind, but an indefinite feeling that _noblesse oblige_. In her ownextraordinary way she did us a good turn, and however carefully youwrapped it up she might recognise her portrait and feel embarrassed. It's she that I'm thinking of, not Arthur. Arthur was too young at thetime to realize what was happening, and if he saw your picture of twowomen desperately fighting over the soul or body of a boy of seventeenwho resembled himself I doubt if he'd tumble to the portrait. He's adear transparently honest person like his father. Still, I don't want tohurt her, and so, if you want the story, you must gloat over it inprivate, and cherish it as an unwritten masterpiece. Probably if you_did_ write it, it wouldn't be a masterpiece at all. Console yourselfwith that. "

She told me her story--for of course I gave her the promise that shedemanded--in a midge-infested corner of the garden at Overton, whileArthur, the unconscious subject of it, was playing tennis with theclergyman's daughter whom he married a year later. I think Mrs. Payneknew that this affair was coming off, and offered me the tale as acombination of oral confession and Nunc Dimittis, watching the boy whileshe told it to me with a sort of hungry maternal satisfaction, assomebody whom she had not only brought into the world but for whosesalvation she was responsible. No doubt she had put up a hard fight forhim and had every reason to be satisfied, though Gabrielle shared thehonours of the mother's triumph in her own defeat. We sat there talkinguntil all the birds were silent, but a single blackbird that made a noisein the shrubbery like that of two pebbles knocked sharply together; untilthe young people on the tennis court could no longer see to play, and thetall Californian poppies at the back of the herbaceous border that washer special pride shone like moon-flowers in the dusk. 

"When I think of all that . . . That summer, " she said with a sigh, "I'm sothankful . . . So thankful. " And then Arthur came back with his sweaterover his arm, swinging his racket, and she went straight up to him andkissed him with the sort of modesty that you would have expected in ayoung girl rather than a middle-aged widow. 

"You dear thing, Mater, " he said, kissing her forehead in return. 

This is the land of digression into which memories of Overton lead one. My only excuse is that part of the story, and indeed its emotional climaxbelongs to Overton, to that smoothly ordered country house with its hugesentinel elms and its peculiar atmosphere of leisure and peace. No doubtMrs. Payne was aware of this when she kissed her son. From the lawnwhere we were sitting she could see the yew-parlour and the cypress hedgein the shadow of which she had stood on the tremendous evening aboutwhich she had been telling me. We walked back to the terrace, and on theway she gave me a shy smile, half triumph, half apology. She nevermentioned the episode again and though the story fermented in my brain, maturing, as I hoped, like a choice vintage, and has emerged from time totime when my mind has been free from other work, I have kept my promiseand have neither repeated it nor written it till this day. 

Now, at last, I find myself absolved. Arthur Payne, I believe, ishappily married to the fresh young person with whom he was playingtennis. Soon after their marriage they emigrated to the backs of Canada, or was it New Zealand: somewhere at any rate beyond the reach of colonialeditions. Overton is now in the possession of a Midland soap-boiler. Mrs. Payne, having fulfilled her main function in life and fearingEnglish winters, has retired to a small villa at Mustapha Superieur, nearAlgiers, where, though she live for ever she is not likely to read thisbook. And Gabrielle, the beautiful Gabrielle, is dead. 

The news came as a shock to me. For the moment I, who had never even seteyes on her, suffered the pain of an almost personal bereavement; I wasmoved, as poets are moved by the vanishing of something beautiful fromthe earth. Was she then so beautiful? I don't know. But I like topersuade myself that she was a fiery, elemental creature of a rare andpathetic brilliance . . . For the sake of her story, no doubt. But, forthe moment, when old Colonel Hoylake, who always began his _Times_ byquotations from the obituary column--he had survived the age when birthsor marriages are interesting--suddenly brought out the word Hewish:Gabrielle Hewish, I was startled out of the state of pleasant lethargyinto which a day's fishing on the Dulas and the Matthews' beer hadplunged me, and became suddenly wide awake. I had the feeling that somebright thing had fallen: a kingfisher, a dragonfly. "Hewish, " hemurmured again. "Gabrielle Hewish . . . Well, well. "

"You know the family?"

"Yes, I knew her father, poor feller, " he said. 

Now I was full of eagerness. It had come over me all at once that thisobituary notice was, for me, a happy release. It meant that, for a monthor two, all through the mesmeric hours that I should spend up to my kneesin the swift Dulas, alone with the dippers and the ring-ousels and theplaintive sand-pipers, I should be able to explore, to my own content, this forbidden treasure, searching in the dark soul of MarmadukeConsidine and the tender heart of Gabrielle; threading the lanes thatspread in a net about the schoolhouse at Lapton Huish; brooding over thedeceptive peace of Overton Manor; recalling the scene in the yew-parlour, the atmosphere, terrifically charged with emotion, of the day when Mrs. Payne took her courage in her hands and fought like a maternal tigressfor Arthur's soul. My heart beat faster as I led the old fisherman onwith "Yes?"

He laid aside _The Times_ and lit one of the long Trichinopoly cherootsthat he smoked perpetually, settling himself back in the comfortablehotel chair. 

"Hewish, " he said. "Sir Jocelyn Hewish. That was the father's name. Lived at a place called Roscarna in the west of Ireland. He was anextraordinarily good fisherman: tied his own flies. I have somesea-trout flies in my book that he tied thirty years ago . . . A kind ofblue teal that he'd invented. Of course they had a fine string ofwhite-trout lakes--many a good fish I've had there--but the remarkablething about Roscarna was this. Right in front of the house at the bottomof the sunk fence, there ran a stretch of river, --about three hundredyards of it, clear deep slides with a level muddy bottom. One winter oldSir Jocelyn took it into his head to clean up this bit of water, and whenthey came to scrape the bottom they found under the mud that the wholebed of the stream was paved with marble slabs like a swimming bath . . . Connemara marble. They went on with the job because it looked so well, all this green, veined stuff shining through the clear water. So theyscoured the bottom and fixed up a banderbast for keeping the mud fromcoming downstream from above, and having made a sort of stewpond, put infour or five hundred yearling brownies. You'd never believe how thosefish grew. In a couple of years the water was full of three and fourpounders, lovely fish with a small head and pink flesh like a salmon. Quite a curious thing! And you'll never guess the reason. No sooner hadthey cleared away the mud than the place swarmed with freshwater shrimps. The yearlings throve on them like a smolt when it goes down to the sea. That was the remarkable thing about Roscarna. . . . "

I knew, of course, that it wasn't. The remarkable thing about Roscarna, to anyone with a ha'porth of imagination, was Gabrielle Hewish. Luckilythat admirable gossip Hoylake had another interest in life besidesfishing stories, and one that served my purpose, --genealogy. It is aninterest not uncommon with old soldiers--that is why they often writesuch incredibly dull memoirs--and after allowing him a number of sportingdigressions in the direction of a Lochanillaun pike and the altogetheradmirable blackgame shooting at Roscarna, which, he assured me, wasbetter than anything in the west except Lord Dudley's shoot on theCorrib, I played him tactfully into the deeper water that interested meand, by the end of the week, had succeeded in drawing from him a gooddeal of irrelevant family history and, what is more to the point, afairly consecutive account of the last of the Hewishes, Sir Jocelyn andhis amazing daughter. 

As he told it to me in the parlour of the fishing inn beside the Dulas, Ibegan to realise that accidentally, and at the moment when I needed itmost, I had stumbled on a fountain of curious knowledge. If I had missedmeeting him, my story, fascinating as it was, would have been incomplete. It armed me with a whole new theory of Gabrielle, suggesting causes, or, if you like, preparations for the extraordinary episode that followed. It showed me that I had been flattering myself that I knew all about itwhen, as a matter of fact, I had only got hold of one--and the wrong--endof the stick. I fished the Dulas for a fortnight, hypnotised, ponderingon the whole curious business, not only when the bright water rippled byme, but when old Hoylake told me stories of mahseer and tiger fish andbarracuda that he had missed, when I was walking through the pinewoodsunder the mountain, when I was eating, and, I verily believe, when I wasasleep. I had thought before that my friend Mrs. Payne was the heroineof the story. Now I am not sure that Gabrielle does not share thehonours. 

I

And, first of all, I dreamed of Roscarna. Partly for the sheer pleasureof reconstructing a shadowy countryside that I remembered, partly becauseRoscarna, the house in which the Hewish family had run to seed in itslatter generations, was very much to the point. Twenty miles fromGalway--and Irish miles, at that--it stands at the foot of the mountainson the edge of the tract that is called Joyce's Country, a districtfamous for inbreeding and idiocy where everyone was called Joyce, excepting, of course, the Hewishes of Roscarna, who were aliens, Elizabethan adventurers from the county of Devon, cousins of the Earls ofHalberton, who had planted themselves upon the richest of the Joyces'lands in the early seventeenth century and built their house in theEnglish fashion of the time. 

I imagine that it was the founder of the house who paved his river bedwith marble slabs, smoothing the stickles into a long clear slide. Labour, no doubt, was cheap or forced, and the Elizabethan fancy lavish. In the mouth of the valley, where it opens on the lake, they planted agirdle of dark woods growing so near to the new house that the Hewishes, walking in their gardens, could almost fancy themselves in England andlose sight of the mountain slopes that swept up into the crags behindthem. The house stood with its back to the hills and all westernbarrenness, looking over a level, terraced sward, past a river that hadbeen tamed to the smoothness of a chalk stream, to homely woodlands ofbeech and elm that might well have been haunted by nightingales if onlythere had been nightingales in Ireland. There were no nightingales inDevon, so that the first Hewish was under no necessity of importing themto complete his picture. But he had his gravelled walks, his poets'avenue of yews, that grew kindly, his sundials with their graceful andmelancholy admonitions, his box-hedges and white peacocks, and the fancyof some Hewish unknown had blossomed at last in a Palladian bridge offreestone, spanning the quiet river. 

Roscarna, in fact, was a bold experiment, destined from the first tofail. Never, in all its history, could it have become the living thingthat its founders dreamed, any more than the Protestant Church that theybuilt in the village of Clonderriff could be the home of a living faith;for though they turned their backs upon the mountains of Joyce's Country, the mountains were always there, and the house itself, which should haveglowed with the warmth of red brick, or one of those soft building-stonesthat mellow as they weather, seemed always cold and desolate, being madeof a hard, cold, Connaught rock, that made the Palladian bridge look likethe fanciful toy that it was, and grew bleaker, bluer, colder, as theyears went by. 

I think of it as one thinks of the villas that Roman colonists builtabove the marches of Wales, built obstinately on the Roman plan that theclimate of Italy had dictated to their fathers, with open atrium andterraces protected from the sun. "What's good enough for Rome, " theysaid, "is surely good enough for Siluria, " and, shivering, showed thelatest official visitor a landscape that might have been transportedbodily from the Sabine Hills . . . If only there were more sun! "But we_do_ miss the lizards and the cicalas, " they would say with a sigh. Nodoubt the most enthusiastic built themselves Palladian . . . I meanEtruscan bridges and marble stew-ponds for mullet, until, in the end, theimmense inertia of the surrounding country asserted itself and thenatural desires of mankind led to a mingling of British blood withtheirs, till the Roman of the first century became the Briton of thethird. 

The parallel is as near as it may be, for though the first Hewish was anEnglishman, his great-great-grandson was Irish, and the only thing thatwas left to remind him of his ancestry was the house of Roscarna, thesullen Connaught stone fixed in an alien design, and the huge belt oftimber through which the gorse and heather were slowly creeping down fromthe mountain and settling in the valley bottom that they had onceinhabited. But the foreign woods that trailed along the shore of thelake were admirable for black-cock. 

The transformation was very gradual. The first Hewishes, no doubt, keptin touch with their English cousins. London was their metropolis, and toLondon, in the fashions of their remote province, they would return withamusing tales of Irish savagery that made them good company in aneighteenth century coffee-house. Little by little they found theirEnglish interests waning, and the social centre shifting westwards. Dublin became their city, and to a stately house in Merrion Square thefamily coach migrated in the season, until, at last, it seemed hardlyworth while to cross the dreariness of the central plain, and atown-house in Galway seemed the zenith of urbanity. Galway, indeed, hadrisen on a wave of prosperity. In the streets above the Claddagh, merchants who had grown rich in the Spanish trade were building solidhouses with carved lintels and windows of stained glass. The Hewishesinvested money in these new ventures. In Galway a Hewish of Roscarna wassomebody: there the family was taken for granted and, following the wayof least resistance, the Hewishes settled down into the state ofprovincial notabilities. 

Notabilities as long as the Spanish money lasted--then notorieties. For, as Roscarna, the symbol of a tradition, decayed, the men of the Hewishfamily developed a curious recklessness in living. 

It was as though the original vigour of the tree planted in a foreignsoil had been enough to keep it fighting and flourishing for a couple ofhundred years and then had suddenly failed, dying, as a tree will, fromabove downwards. 

For the first half of the nineteenth century a series of dissoluteHewishes--they never bred in great numbers--lived wildly upon the edge ofConnemara, drinking and fighting and gaming and wenching while the roofof Roscarna grew leaky and the long stables were turned into pigsties, and soft mud silted over the marble bottom below the Palladian bridge. If they had lived in England the estate would have vanished field byfield until nothing but the house was left; but the outer land atRoscarna was of no marketable value, and when Sir Jocelyn succeeded tothe property in the year 1870, he found himself master of many worthlessacres and a ruined house that he was powerless to repair. It was nowonder that he went to the dogs like his father before him, for thepassage of every generation had made recovery more difficult. Of coursehe should really have become a soldier; but soldiering in those days wasan expensive calling. As a baronet--even as an Irish baronet--a gooddeal would have been expected of him, far more than the dwindling meansof Roscarna could possibly supply, and since every career seemed closedto him but one of provincial dissipation he is scarcely to be blamed forhaving followed it. 

When Colonel Hoylake knew him he was a middle-aged man and a reformedcharacter, and the fact that he ever came to be either is enough to showthat the original Hewish strain was still strong enough to put up somesort of fight. He cannot have been without his share of original virtue, but by his own account, his youth, hopeless and therefore abandoned, musthave been pretty lurid. Of course he drank. His father must have taughthim to do that as a matter of habit. He was equally at home with theancient sherries, a few bins of which remained in the Roscarna cellars toremind him of the Spanish trading days, or with the liquid fire that theJoyces distilled in the mountains under the name of potheen. 

Of course he gambled. He was sufficiently Irish for that: and his gamingpassion soon made Roscarna a sort of savage Monte Carlo, to which themore dissolute younger sons of the surrounding gentry foregathered:Blakes and O'fflahertys, and Kilkellys, and all the rest of them. 

In the middle of the stables, at the back of the house, stood a hugedeserted pigsty surrounded by a stone wall, and this place became underJocelyn's regime, a cockpit, in which desperate birds were pitted againstone another, fighting fiercely until they dropped. Even in his laterdays according to Hoylake, he was not ashamed of these exploits. Thegamblers invented for themselves new refinements of sport or cruelty. Spider-racing. I do not suppose that anyone living to-day knows whatspider-racing is. This was the manner of it. At night, when the bigblack-bellied spiders that haunted the lofts came out to spread theirnets, stable-boys were sent with candles to collect them in tins, andnext morning, when the gamblers assembled in the pigsty at Roscarna apiece of sheet iron, fired to a dull red heat would be placed in thecentre. On this hot surface the long-legged insects were thrown. Naturally they must run or be shrivelled with heat. And the one that ranthe furthest was counted the winner. Betting on these unfortunatecreatures Jocelyn and his friends spent many happy forenoons, and Jocelynwas counted as good a judge of a spider as any man in Galway. In hisdealings with women he was relatively decent, relapsing, at an early ageinto a relation irregular, but so domestic as to be respectable, with awoman named Brigit Joyce who kept house for him and cooked potatoes anddistilled potheen as well as any female in the district. I do not knowif they had many children. If they did, it is probable that these foundtheir vocation in collecting spiders in the stables, or even drifted backinto the hill community from which their mother had come. 

Through all his dissipations Sir Jocelyn preserved one characteristic, anunerring instinct for field-sports that no amount of drinking couldimpair. He could hit a flying bird with a stone, was a deadly shot forsnipe or mallard, rode like a centaur, and fished with the instinct of aheron. It is probable that his consciousness of this faculty was at thebottom of his startling recovery. Possibly he was frightened to find alittle of his skill failing. I only know that at the age of forty-eight, he pulled himself up short. His eyes, seeing clearly for the first timein his life, became aware of the appalling ruin into which Roscarna hadfallen. He became sober for six days out of the seven, setting aside theSabbath for the worship of Bacchus, and during the remainder he devotedhimself seriously, steadily to the reclamation of his estate. Herepaired the roof of the house with new blue slates, cleared the atticsof owls and the chimneys of jackdaws; he dredged the river and discoveredthe marble bottom, netted the pike and put down yearling trout. Gradually he restored Roscarna to its old position as a first-classsporting property; and so, having fought his way back, step by step, intothe company of decent men, he married a wife. 

Hardly the wife one would have expected from a Hewish, it is true. Hername was Parker, her father was a shop-keeper in Baggot Street, Dublin, and how Hewish met her God only knows. She was a sober, plain-sailingEnglishwoman, a Protestant, with a religious bias that may have made thereformation of a dissolute baronet attractive to her. She had a littlemoney, to which she stuck like glue, and an abundance of common-sense. It speaks well for the latter that she appreciated, from the first, thevalue of Biddy Joyce in the kitchen, and kept her there, boilingpotatoes, although she knew that she had been her husband's mistress. Firmly, but certainly, she ordered Jocelyn's life, realising, with him, that Roscarna was worth saving, subsidising, with a careful hand, hisattempts to restore the woods and waters, interesting herself in thehousing of his tenants, and renewing the connection of Roscarna with theparish church of Clonderriff, of which the Hewishes were patrons. It wasshe who appointed Marmaduke Considine to the vacant living. 

For ten years she lived soberly with Sir Jocelyn at Roscarna, hopingardently that a son might be born to them who should carry on the familyname and succeed to the fruits of her economies. In the eleventh year oftheir married life it seemed that her hopes were to be realised. EvenJocelyn, the new Jocelyn, appreciated the importance of the event. Heand Biddy Joyce, now an old and shrivelled woman, but one unrivalled inmaternal experience, nursed Lady Hewish as though the whole of theirfuture happiness depended on it. Every Sunday young Mr. Considine dinedat Roscarna with the family, and spent the evening in religiousdiscussions with her ladyship. Every month the doctor rode over fromGalway to feel her pulse. On a dark winter evening in the year eighteeneighty-three the child was born--a girl. They christened her Gabrielle, and a week later Lady Hewish died. 

II

Her death knocked poor Sir Jocelyn to pieces. Not altogether becausehe had loved her, but because he had made the habit of depending on herand happened to be a creature of habits . . . Good or bad. So, havingbeen bereft of that of matrimony, he returned, for a time to that ofdrinking, leaving the child in the spiritual charge of Mr. Considine, agentleman of small domestic experience, and the physical care of BiddyJoyce, a mother of many. For the time being Jocelyn was far too busyto bother his head about her, and Biddy dragged her up in the kitchenof Roscarna where she had suckled her half-brothers before her, Mr. Considine exercising a general supervision, pending the day when hersoul should be fit for salvation and ghostly admonition. 

In the early stages of Jocelyn's relapse the Parkers of Baggot Streetdescended on Roscarna in force: a proceeding that Lady Hewish haddiscountenanced in her lifetime. Neither Jocelyn nor Biddy invitedthem to stay, and they returned to Dublin scandalised, with the reportof Gabrielle, a very small baby of eighteen months with coal black eyesand hair, playing like a kitten with the foot of a dead rabbit on thekitchen floor. "Only to think what poor Laura would have felt!" theysighed, not realising that such a train of thought was in the nature ofthings unprofitable. 

So Gabrielle grew, and so, in a few years, Jocelyn, with a tremendouseffort pulled himself together, returning, as though refreshed, to hissporting pursuits, the woods, the lake and the river. He even found anew hobby: the breeding of Cocker spaniels, and worked up an interestin the development of his daughter that ran easily with that oftraining his puppies. He took a great delight in teasing smallanimals, and treated Gabrielle and the cockers on much the same lines, with the result that the puppies were usually a little cowed andpuzzled when he teased them, but Gabrielle bit his hand. This pleasedhim; for he set great store by animal spirits in any form, and hecarried his fingers bandaged in the hunting-field for several weeks inorder that he might tell the story of his daughter's prowess. Jocelynwas growing rather childish in his old age. 

There were really three periods in Gabrielle's early life. The first, before her father began to take notice of her, was spent altogether inthe company of Biddy, who embraced her in her general devotion tochildren. Biddy called herself a Catholic, and for this reasonsecretly feared and hated the supervision of young Mr. Considine, apriest of the Church of Ireland; but at heart she was as pagan as thetop of Slievegullion, and along with her favourite Christian oaths (inone of which St. Anthony of Padua was disguised as Saint AntonioPerrier), and her whispered "Aves, " she taught Gabrielle enough paganmythology and folklore to set her head spinning whenever she foundherself alone in the woods or the fields. 

If ever she strayed into the forbidden lanes beyond the lodge-gates atRoscarna she lived in fear of seeing the dead-coach come round thecorner: a tall coach, painted black and drawn by coal-black horses andon the box two men, black-coated with black faces, who might jump fromthe coach and catch her up and throw her inside it. You could neverknow when the dead-coach was coming, for its wheels were bound with oldblack rags, so that they made no noise on the stones. Then, in thefields where corn was growing one might come across the "limrechaun, "with consequences untold but terrible. And, above all things, she wasnever to pick up an old comb in the road, for as like as not the combwould be the property of the banshee, a little old woman with longnails and hairy arms. When Gabrielle asked what would happen if shepicked up the banshee's comb, Biddy told her that the banshee wouldcome crying to her window at night, and that if this ever happened, shemust get a pair of red hot tongs and hold the comb in the window forthe banshee to take. This seemed to Gabrielle an unnecessarycomplication; but Biddy told her that if she didn't follow it in everyparticular the banshee would scratch the hand off her. Faced with thepossibility of this disaster, and not knowing how she could possiblyget hold of a pair of red hot tongs in the middle of the night, Gabrielle decided that if ever she saw a comb in the road, she wouldnot bring it home with her. And this was a wise decision, for theheads of the children in Joyce's Country were not above suspicion. Indeed most of the terrors with which Biddy inspired her were based onprinciples that were ethically sound and combined romantic colour withpractical utility. 

When she was six her father began to take her out with him at the timewhen he exercised the puppies. She and the puppies would run abouttogether and by the same word be called to heel. She found that shecould do most of the things that they did. Once, on a summer day whentwo of them had conscientiously frightened a water-rat out of its holeon the margin of the lake, Gabrielle, who was far ahead of her fatherand hot with running, plunged in after them. She got her mouth full ofwater, and thought she was drowning, and Jocelyn, frightened for herlife, ran in after her and rescued her with the water up to his neck. "Now that you're here, " he said, "you'd better learn to swim. " And hemade her, then and there, bringing her back to Biddy Joyce like a smalldrowned cat, with her black hair clinging close to her head. It was agreat achievement, and since Biddy could not, for the moment, produceany mythological terror in the nature of a Loreley better than a pikethat preyed on swimmers, Gabrielle would often go down to the lakesecretly in the middle of a summer morning, and strip off her clothesand float on her back in the sunshine. She must have looked a strangelittle thing with her long white legs, her smooth black hair, her deepviolet eyes, and her red lips; for she had this amazing combination offeatures that you will sometimes find in the far West. She did not getthem from her mother or from Jocelyn, both of whom were blond Saxons. I suppose they came to her through the blood of some Irishwoman whom adead Hewish had married perhaps a hundred years before. 

While Biddy Joyce instructed her in oaths and legend, and her fathertaught her to ride, to swim, to shoot and to fish, her moral andliteral education were entrusted to Mr. Considine. Physically Mr. Considine was of a type that does not change much with the passage oftime. When first he came to Roscarna, a couple of years beforeGabrielle was born, he was a young man of twenty. How he came to bechosen for the cure of Clonderriff I do not know, unless he were insome way connected with the Parker family. He was a Wiltshireman, tall, sandy-haired, with a long face and a square jaw to which he gavean air of determination by constantly gritting his teeth. Gabrielle, as imitative as a starling, began to mimic this habit of his until oneday he found himself staring at her, as at a mirror, and told her tostop. She had meant no harm; she didn't even know that she was doingit, but he treated the offence quite seriously. 

It was his nature to treat everything seriously, including his missionamong the heathen or, what was worse, the Catholic Joyces. He taughther the alphabet and the Lord's Prayer, and the collect for the week, and simple fractions and the capes and headlands of England (the capesand headlands of Ireland didn't matter) and the verb "to have" inFrench, together with long lists of the kings of Israel and Judah. Gabrielle was very quick to learn. From the first her memory was apleasant surprise to her--sometimes a surprise to Mr. Considine, aswhen she offered to give him the Kings of Judah backwards, a proceedingthat struck him as not only revolutionary but irreverent, and tingedwith a flavour of the Black Mass. 

Gabrielle always knew when she had annoyed or embarrassed him, notbecause he reproved her in any way--to have shown heat in words wouldhave been against his principles--but because he did show heat in hisneck, where a faint flush would spread upwards to his ears above theband of his clerical collar. When she was thoroughly bored Gabriellewould sometimes try this experiment, just in the same way as she madethe snapdragons put out their tongues. 

Jocelyn liked Considine and trusted him, partly, no doubt, because hehappened to be an Englishman--the only one in this wilderness ofJoyces--and partly because he was something of a sportsman: a littletoo serious and determined for his sport to appear natural, but for allthat a good shot over dogs, and a very accurate, if not instinctivefisherman. In his boyhood, in Wiltshire, he had learned the techniqueof the dry fly, and his successes with trout in gin-clear water madeJocelyn respect him. 

Considine's friendship with Jocelyn must be put to his credit. If hehad been a prig he would either have turned up his nose at his patron'smorals or condoned them with a sense of self-sacrifice and forbearance. He didn't do either. He just took Jocelyn for what he was worth, realising the shabby trick that heredity had played him; and hisattitude toward Gabrielle was much the same. He knew that he couldn'tand didn't want to keep pace with her enthusiasms any more than hecould keep pace with the baronet's potations. He had been born on ableak downland, and some of its characteristics had got into the thin, cold humour that was his blood. He was incapable of the generouspassions of the people of Roscarna; but I think he was a good man, forall that. Even Mrs. Payne, who had reason to be irritated by hiscoldness, acknowledged this. And he was as conscientious in hiseducation of Gabrielle as in the care of his parish. 

The child matured very quickly. Physically I mean. That is the way inthe west. Of course she was a great tom-boy, tall for her years, veryfrank in her speech and totally unconscious of her sex, as free andvirginal as the young Artemis. The world of books to which Mr. Considine introduced her in her school-hours was wholly forgottenoutside them. In the woods and on the mountains she throve as amagnificent young animal, moving with an ease and grace and freedomthat civilised woman has lost. Her clothes were of Connemara homespun, but to a body such as hers, clothes did not matter. She went barefootlike the girls of Joyce's Country, and her ankles were as clean cut asthe cannon of a thoroughbred. She wore her black hair in a thick plaitthat fell below her waist. She had no friends but Biddy, her fatherand Considine, except a few men, contemporaries of Jocelyn, who jokedwith her in the hunting field. She knew no women; for ladies did notcall at Roscarna, and the county could never forgive her mother'sorigins in Baggott Street. All her life was uncomplicated andmiraculously happy. 

This Arcadian state of affairs might well have gone on for ever, ifJocelyn, feeling that he would like to give her a great treat and, perhaps, becoming proudly conscious of her beauty, had not determined, in the August of her sixteenth year, to take her to Dublin for theHorse Show week. She thrilled to the idea, not because she was anxiousto meet her own species but because she loved horses. They travelledup by train from Galway through the vast monotonies of the Bog ofAllen, and put up at Maple's Hotel in Kildare Street, within fiveminutes' walk of her maternal grandmother's shop. In those days noIrish gentleman would have dreamed of dining in a public room, and theytook their meals sedately in a private apartment. 

Gabrielle had never set foot in a city before. The smooth pavements, the high buildings and the shop windows of Grafton Street excited her. Everything in Dublin wore an air magnificent and spacious. Even theducks on the pond in the middle of Stephen's Green were exotic, andlike no other ducks that she had known. But she could not enjoy herexcitement to the full, for the feminine instinct in her realised fromthe first that her clothes were different from those of the peopleabout her; and this disappointed her, for they were her best, made bythe urbane fingers of Monoghan, the tailor at Oughterard. 

When she walked down Grafton Street she fancied that people stared ather. It never struck her as possible that they were staring at hervivid and unusual beauty. It struck her as funny that her father didnot seem to be aware of the discrepancy in her dress. He wasn't in theleast. He had taken his daughter for granted. In his unconsciousarrogance he imagined that the distinction of being a Hewish ofRoscarna was sufficient in itself to make her independant of externals, and, as he proposed no alterations she trusted his judgment and theywent to the Horse Show together in their ill-cut tweeds. 

Gabrielle was entranced by the jumping. Whenever a horse topped thefences she straightened her back automatically as though she had beenriding herself. With such splendid animals as those she felt that shecould have made a better job of it. For the moment she forgot allabout her questionable clothes; but when, later in the day, she wastaken by her father to be presented to the Halbertons, the family ofthe Devonshire peer with whom the Hewishes were connected, she becameimmediately and horribly conscious of Lady Halberton's magnificence andthe elegance of her daughters. It shocked and thrilled her to see thatthe elder Halberton girl powdered her nose. She wondered what it mustfeel like to have one's hands encased in skin-tight gloves, and howthese English people managed to speak with such an elegant tiredness. It seemed to her inevitable that Lady Halberton must be ashamed of hercousins, and she was relieved, but a little frightened, to hear thisgreat lady invite her father and her to dinner at the Shelbourne on thefollowing night. After all, she reflected, there must be something inthe name of Hewish. She wondered how on earth she could make herfather understand that she couldn't very well go to dinner in the dressthat she was wearing, the only one that she possessed. 

III

It is extraordinary to think how forty-eight hours had turned thisamazing, sexless creature into a woman. The problem of a dinner-dresswas solved for her almost at once by Jocelyn himself. As soon as theywere safely back at Maple's he asked her if she really wanted to dinewith the Halbertons at the Shelbourne, and when she said, "Of course!"he produced a five pound note from the pigskin case that he carried inhis coat-tail, and turned her loose in Grafton Street. An hour latershe returned, breathless with excitement, carrying the dress that shehad bought, a frock of white muslin, high at the neck andhand-embroidered with a pattern of shamrock. Life was becoming amatter of great excitement. 

The maid at Maple's dressed her in the evening, a blowsy young womanfrom Carlow who called her 'my darlin, ' and told her that she had abeautiful head of hair. Biddy had never told her that her hair wasbeautiful, and Gabrielle herself had always considered it something ofa nuisance. In the hotel bedroom a cunning combination of mirrorsshowed her the thick plait hanging down her back. She had never seenher own back before. Looking at it she shrugged her shoulders to seewhat they looked like. 

Of course she was ready dressed long before she need have been. Shewent down into the hall of the hotel and waited for her father. Shehoped, and was almost sure, that she looked lovely. While she stoodthere, looking into a huge oval mirror, an old gentleman of much thesame cut as her father came in and stared at her as though she weresome new and curious animal. She turned and smiled at him. She wouldhave smiled at anyone on that evening. He did not give her a smile inreturn. He only went red in his bald scalp and cleared his throat, hobbling up to his room and wondering what the devil Maple's was comingto. 

A moment later Jocelyn arrived, very stately in the evening dress ofthe seventies. His face looked brown and hard and weathered, like afilbert, against his white spread of shirt-front. His eyes twinkled, his temples were flushed, and the twisted cord of an artery could beseen pulsating across each of them: all three being symptoms of thebottle of Pommery on which he had dressed. When he saw Gabrielle hesaid "Ha--very good, very good, " and she, in an access of enthusiasm, kissed him and smelt his vinous breath. 

It was no more than a stone's throw from their hotel to the Shelbourne, Jocelyn remembering his long-forgotten manners stepped asidecourteously when they crossed the road as if he were escorting a reallady. Gabrielle couldn't understand this at all; she would have likedto jog along with him arm in arm. The magnificence of the Shelbournewith its uniformed porters overpowered Gabrielle, and when she reachedthe Halbertons' private room, she, who had often been reproved fortalking the heads off Biddy and Mr. Considine, was dumb. Jocelyn, however, pouring gin and bitters on his Pommery, did talking enough forboth of them. He was in excellent form. His talk flowed steadily andGabrielle, drifting as it were, into an eddy, was left at liberty toexamine her cousins and their company. 

Lord Halberton and Jocelyn Hewish had very little in common. The peershe noticed wore an air of great fragility, as though he had beensprinkled with powder to preserve him. His movements were all minuteand precise. He walked with short steps; and when he smiled, asJocelyn, already in the story-telling stage, compelled him to do, hislips twitched apart for a moment and then closed again as if he wereafraid that any expression more violent might make his teeth fall out. Gabrielle decided that he must be very old, so old that he was onlykept alive by these precautions. She had noticed, too, when she shookhands with him that the flesh of his fingers was limp, and that thejoints were stiff like those of a dead man. 

Lady Halberton, who, at the Horse Show had struck her as an ancient andwithered woman, now appeared middle-aged, scintillating in a scheme ofblack and silver. Her dress and her toupet were black, relieved bysilver sequins and a silver mounted tiara. High lights in keeping withthe scheme were supplied by other jewels on her fingers, her glitteringfilbert nails and a diamond pendant that sparkled on the white and bonyridge of her breastbone. The Halberton daughters, whose accentsGabrielle had been imitating in her bedroom when she lay awake withexcitement the night before, were inclined to be friendly with her; butas all their conversation had to do with a world of which Gabrielleknew nothing, they did not get very far. Both of them were over thirtyand unmarried. From time to time, taking new courage, each in turnwould make a pounce on Gabrielle with some question that led nowhere, and then flutter off again. The fact that she obviously puzzled themamused Gabrielle, and she soon regained the confidence that the sightof the hall porters had shaken. From time to time Lady Halberton wouldturn on her a smile full of glittering teeth, and twice, apropos ofnothing, Gabrielle heard her say: "Sweet child! You must really lether come and stay with us at Halberton, Sir Jocelyn, " though thebaronet did not seem to hear what she said. 

They dined _en famille_. Lord Halberton ate as gingerly as he smiled, probably for the same reason. The party had been squared by theaddition of two young men, one of them a soldier from the Curragh, named Fortescue, and the other a naval sub-lieutenant, named Radway. He and Gabrielle, as the least important persons, found themselves ineach other's company, while Captain Fortescue dished up the kind ofsmall talk to which they were accustomed to the two Halberton girls, Lady Halberton continuously sparkling at Sir Jocelyn and her husbandpresiding over the whole function with set lips like a cataleptic. 

It was Radway who saved Gabrielle from throttling herself with theflower of a French artichoke, a vegetable with which she wasunacquainted, and in a burst of gratitude she confided to him the factthat this was her first dinner party. From this they slipped into aneasy intimacy; easy for her because she was so thankful to find someoneto whom she could babble, and for him because she was so utterlyunguarded. It had been unusual for him to meet a girl of birth orbreeding who was not preoccupied with matrimonial possibilities; andthis creature was as frank as she was beautiful. 

Radway had never been in Ireland before. The cruiser on which heserved was visiting Kingstown, and at the Horse Show he had run acrossthe Halbertons whom he had met when he was stationed in their owncounty at Devonport. Beyond them he didn't know a soul in the country, and the soft western brogue of Gabrielle fascinated him. He encouragedher to talk, and she was quite willing to do so, telling of Roscarnaand the hills and the river, of her lessons with Mr. Considine, of hersecret bathes in the lake and other things as intimate which would havepersuaded him that she was an exceedingly fast young woman if he hadnot been already convinced that she was nothing but a child. 

It gave her a great happiness to talk about Roscarna in this alienland. And Radway was glad to listen if only for the pleasure ofhearing her voice. 

Radway was a straight-forward young man, twenty-four or five years ofage. That he was eminently presentable one deduces from the fact thatthe Halbertons condescended to entertain him, though Lady Halberton, asthe years went by, was known to make social sacrifices for the sake ofthe dear girls. I do not think it is profitable to seek for muchsubtlety in Radway. It is better to accept him as the clean sturdytype of youth that Dartmouth turns afloat every year. Physically hewas fair (Arthur Payne also was fair), with a straight mouth, excellentteeth, and blue, humorous eyes. 

There is nothing younger for its age than a naval sub-lieutenant. Inthe traditional simplicity of seamen there is more than a tradition;for the inhabitants of a ship are a small island community in whichgrown men live and accept a glorified version of life at a publicschool until they reach the flag-list, or are shot out into the worldon a pension that is inadequate for its enjoyment. The one subject onwhich the wardroom claims to be authoritative is that of women; andRadway was already as well acquainted with the Irish aspects of thesport as with the Japanese. In daring, as in physical perfection, thewardroom of the _Pennant_ considered that the daughters of the Irishsquirearchy took some beating; and Radway had heard, no doubt, storiesof many wayward and passionate episodes with which the hospitality ofIrish country houses had been enlivened. Gabrielle was the first ofthe kind that he had met, her frankness, her beauty, and her sudden, enchanting intimacy seemed to tell him that he was in luck's way and onthe edge of an adventure. It was not the part of a sailor to missopportunities of experience. He couldn't guess, poor devil, what theend would be, but naval tradition favoured the taking of all possiblerisks, and he determined to let the affair develop as rapidly aspossible. 

The dulness of the rest of the party isolated them. To all intents andpurposes they were alone. The difference between this girl and all theothers that he had met was that she withheld nothing, she didn't hedge, or try to protect herself with any assumption of feminine mystery. Itpuzzled Radway. He wondered, in his innocence, if he had succeeded inmaking a swift, bewildering conquest. Of course he hadn't doneanything of the sort, but the speculation disarmed him, and by the endof the evening he was thoroughly bowled over. 

So was Sir Jocelyn--but in another way. All the time that she had beentalking to Radway Gabrielle had kept her eye on him. She knew thatthings were reaching a point of danger when she saw his eyes fill withtears as he told the sympathetic Lady Halberton of the loss of hiswife. The achievement of sentiment in Jocelyn marked a fairly highdegree of intoxication. In the middle of her description of theRoscarna black-game shooting Gabrielle stopped dead. Radway wonderedwhat on earth had happened to her. 

It was a difficult moment, for she hadn't the least idea of itsconventional solution. She only knew that somehow she must rescue herfather before he became impossible. She supposed that, in the ordinaryway, it was his duty and not hers to bring the visit to an end, but sheknew that as long as there was whiskey in the decanter he wouldn'tdream of going. So she left Radway in the middle of her sentence, walked straight up to Lady Halberton and said, "Good-night, " with astaggering abruptness, and before he knew what had happened LordHalberton was handing Jocelyn his hat. 

It took Radway more than a minute to recover from this cold douche; buthe was too far gone to let the possibility of romantic developmentsslip, and before the Hewishes left, he contrived to let Gabrielle knowthat he wanted to meet her again. "Outside the gates of TrinityCollege to-morrow at four o'clock, " he whispered. She said nothing. He wondered, for one moment, whether she was deeper than he hadimagined. Then she looked him full in the eyes and nodded. It gavehim a thrill of delight. He found himself listening in a dream to LadyHalberton's reminiscences of the Admiral's garden party, at which theyhad met, and a maternal appreciation of the accomplishments of herelder daughter, Lady Barbara. 

IV

Gabrielle piloted Jocelyn, who was still in a good humour, to hisbedroom door. Then she went to bed herself and slept as well as ever. Jocelyn, alone in his room, called for another bottle of whiskey andmade a night of it. To be exact he made three days of it--four lessthan might reasonably have been expected. For Gabrielle to have takenhim back to Roscarna was out of the question: and so she went onquietly living at Maple's, and absorbing the strangeness of Dublinwhile he finished it out. The servants of the hotel were very kind toher; and the waiter who attended to Jocelyn's desires brought her nightand morning bulletins of her father's condition that were tinged with akind of melancholy admiration. "A wonderful gentleman for his age, " hesaid. "There's many a young man would envy the likes of him. Sure, he'd drink the cross off an ass's back, so he would!"

Of course she met Radway. They met, as he had arranged, at TrinityCollege gates, and went for a long walk along the blazing quays of theLiffey. It was an unusual promenade for the month of August, butneither of them knew Dublin. 

He found her difficult. The affair did not develop along the linesthat he had intended, and as his time was limited, this made himanxious. With Gabrielle the anticipation was always so much morewonderful than the event. It thrilled him strangely to see herapproaching when they met: this tall slim girl with her splendidfreedom of gait, her black hair, her pallor, her red lips. When he sawher coming he would think of all the passionate things that he wantedto say to her; but as soon as they started on their walk together shemade the saying of them impossible--she was so obviously and vividlyinterested in other and unsentimental things. 

Her interest in the commonplace and (to his mind) unromantic irritatedhim; but an instinct of good manners, that was not the least of hischarm, compelled him to humour her. Once she sat for a whole hour in adark cellar that smelt of tallow where a couple of men were engaged inmaking those enormous candles that people in Ireland light on ChristmasDay; and once Radway was forced to follow her into the forecastle of aBreton schooner reeking of garlic, where she practised the French thatConsidine had taught her. 

Later in the afternoon he took her to tea at Mitchell's, where sheconsumed the first ice of her life, and was so pleased with thesensation that she demanded a second; all of which was disappointingfor Radway, who wanted to arouse her appetite for romance rather thanices. It seemed as if his nuances of love-making, the indirect methodsof approach that modern girls expected, were wasted on her. In theevening he took her out to Howth, relying on the influence of time andplace to help him in methods more primitive. It was incredible to himthat she shouldn't--or perhaps wouldn't--realise what he was drivingat. Apparently she didn't understand the first conventions of thegame, and when her obtuseness forced him to a sudden and passionatedeclaration she laughed at him. 

This damping experience, so unusual in the traditions of the wardroom, took the wind out of his sails. He decided that she had been making afool of him and that he had been wasting his time. With a desperateattempt at preserving his dignity he took her back to Maple's, conscious all the time, of her tantalising beauty. He had planned aformal goodbye; but when he told her that his ship was sailing on thenext day, she said, quite simply and with an unusual tenderness in hereyes that she was sorry. "If only you meant what you say. . . " he said, clutching at a straw. "Of course I mean it, " she said. "I shall bevery lonely without you. You're the first friend I've ever had. Iwish some day, " she added, "you could come to Roscarna. "

He told her that it was not at all unlikely that the _Pennant_ wouldsome day put into Galway, and she warmed at once to the idea. "Howsplendid!" she said. "I shall expect you. Don't forget to bring a gunwith you. "

They walked up and down Kildare Street making plans of what they mightdo. "But in a week you'll have forgotten all about it, " she said. "Nobody ever comes to Roscarna. "

"Do you think that I could possibly forget you?" he protested. 

This time she did not laugh at him. "No. . . I don't think you will, "she said, and then, after an awkward silence, "Please don't take anynotice of what I said this evening. I don't really understand thatsort of thing. " Then they said good-bye. It was a queerunsatisfactory ending for him, but her last words had reassured him. Thinking it over in the train on the way to Kingstown he decided thatshe had been honestly and quite naturally amused at the conventionalphrases of a modern lover, and the realisation of this only made hermore unusual and more desirable. It would be a strange experience tomeet her in her proper setting, and if the _Pennant_ should give himthe opportunity he determined not to miss it. Next morning the shipleft Kingstown for Bermuda. 

It was not in Radway's nature to take these things lightly. At adistance the memory of Gabrielle gained a good deal by imagination. Itseemed to him that she was far too precious to lose, and the fact thatshe was a cousin of the exclusive Halbertons settled any socialscruples that might have worried him. He forgot his repulse at Howthin the memory of the sweeter moment when they had parted. After allthere was no hurry. She was only a child, as her behaviour had shownhim so often. At the same time he was anxious that she should notforget him, and for this reason he wrote her a number of letters fromBermuda, from Jamaica and Barbadoes and other ports on the Atlanticstation. They were not love letters in any sense of the word; but theyserved to keep him in her mind, and, few as they were, made an immensebreach in the zone of isolation that surrounded Roscarna. 

They were the first letters of any kind that Gabrielle had received. The postman from Oughterard did not visit Roscarna twenty times in theyear, and since his arrival was something of an event, entailing a mealand endless gossip with Biddy Joyce, Sir Jocelyn soon became aware ofhis daughter's correspondence. He questioned her about it, and she, without the least demur, handed him Radway's letters. He sniffed atthem. If that was all the fellow had to say it struck him as a wasteof time and paper. Who was he, anyhow? Gabrielle explained that hehad dined with them at the Halbertons, and Jocelyn, who naturally hadno recollection of the event, was satisfied with these credentials. "Iasked him to come and shoot here, " said Gabrielle. Jocelyn stared ather with wrinkled eyes. "The devil you did!" said he. 

Radway's letters had exactly the effect on her that he had intended. They were an excitement, and she read them over and over again till shealmost knew them by heart. They were the first outside interest thathad ever entered her life. With Considine's help she looked up theports at which they were posted on a big map in the library andthinking of their romantic names and the wonders that they suggested, she also thought a good deal of the writer. 

So it was, almost unconsciously, that Radway began to fill aconsiderable place in her thoughts. His impression had fallen on anextraordinarily virginal mind that the thought of love-making had neverdisturbed. Physically, she hadn't responded to him in the least; butthe long silences of Roscarna and particularly those of the followingwinter, when Slieveannilaun loomed above the woods like an immense andsnowy ghost, and the lake was frozen until the cold spell broke andsnow-broth swirled desolately under the Palladian bridge, gave her timefor reflection in which her fancy began to dwell on the problems ofideal love. In this dead season the letters of Radway were more thanever an excitement. They stirred her imagination with pictures ofburning seas and lurid tropical sunsets, and with this pageantry thememory of him would invade the dank gloom of the library where she andConsidine pursued the acquisition of knowledge. 

It was inevitable that she should have found some outlet of the kind, for in the curious circumstances of her upbringing she had missed thatsentimental stage which is the measles of puberty. She had nevertrembled with adoration of a schoolmistress and Considine was anunthinkable substitute. In Dublin she had learned for the first timethat she was beautiful, and that her country clothes did not show herat her best. This, together with Radway's attentions, had revealed toher the fact that she was a woman, and therefore made to love and beloved. 

She loved Roscarna passionately, but in this neither Roscarna nor itsinhabitants could help her. Under the most romantic circumstances inthe world she could find no romance. Her new-born instinct revealeditself in a curious, almost maternal devotion to her father and thecurrent litter of puppies. Jocelyn found its expression unusual butnot unpleasant: the attentions of this charming daughter flattered him;and the puppies liked it, too, licking her face when she smothered themwith motherly caresses. But these things were not enough for her, andit came as a great relief when she discovered another outlet in thecontents of the library bookshelves. 

She became a greedy student of romance. The Hewishes had never beengreat readers, but in the early nineteenth century one of them had feltit becoming to his position as a country gentleman to buy books. Theromantic education of Gabrielle was accomplished, as became anIrishwoman, in the school of Maria Edgeworth. _Castle Rackrent_ravished her. She thrilled to the elegancies of _Belinda_ and to theIrish atmosphere of _Ormond_. From these she plunged backwards intothe romantic mysteries of Mrs. Radcliffe, living, for a time, insurroundings that might well have been imitated from the wintryRoscarna. She read indiscriminately, and, in her eagerness ofimagination, became the heroine of fiction incarnate and the beloved ofevery dashing young gentleman in print that she encountered. 

Jocelyn was inclined to laugh at her, but Biddy, who considered thatall books except the breviary, which she possessed but could not read, were inventions of the devil, disapproved. "Sure and you'll be afterrotting your poor brain with all that rubbidge, " she said, rising to amore vehement protest when, in the middle of the night, she discoveredGabrielle fallen asleep with an open copy of _Don Juan_ beside herpillow and a spent candle flaring within an inch of the lacebed-curtains. Gabrielle smiled when Biddy woke her with a stream offluent abuse, for she had been dreaming that she herself was Haidee andher Aegean island lay somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. 

She lost a little of her gaiety, and irritated the serious Considine byher dreaminess at the time when she was supposed to be acquiring usefulknowledge. He complained to Jocelyn, and Jocelyn, who hated beingworried about his daughter, was at last induced, after consultationwith Biddy Joyce, to send into Galway for the doctor. It pleased himto have the laugh of Considine when the doctor pronounced her sound inwind and limb--as well he might, for both were of the best. 

Gabrielle couldn't understand what all the fuss was about. She washappy in her new world--just as happy as she had been in the oldone--with the difference that she was possibly now more sensitive tothe beauty that surrounded her. In the time of her childhood she hadlived purely for the moment; sufficient unto each day had been itsparticular physical joys; now she knew that the future held more forher, that the life which she had taken for granted would not go on forever. Strange things must happen, possibly things more strange thanthe adventures that she had found among books. She was now seventeen. In her heart she felt an intuition that something must happen soon. She waited for it to come with a kind of hushed excitement. 

At the beginning of May she received a letter from Radway in which hetold her that the _Pennant_ was leaving the West Indies. Taking it forgranted that he would keep his promise of coming to Roscarna she wasdistressed to think that the shooting season was over. She had alwaysremembered the long grey shape of the _Pennant_ that he had shewn her, lying off Kingstown on the evening of their visit to Howth. FromRoscarna itself the sea was not visible, but from the knees ofSlieveannilaun, a mile or so behind the house, she knew that she couldoverlook, not only the shining Corrib, which is an inland sea, but allthe scattered lakelets of Iar Connaught, the creeks, the islands, andbeyond, the open sea. Lying in the heather, hearing nothing but theliquid whinny of the curlews that had lately forsaken the tidal watersfor the mountains, she would watch the foam that fringed the islands, unconscious of the sea's sound and tumult, half expecting that amiracle would happen and that someday she would see the three-funnelled_Pennant_ steaming over the white sea into Galway Bay. 

V

But the spring passed, and the summer wore on, and Gabrielle heard nomore of him. It was a summer of terrific heat; the flanks of themountains were parched and slippery even in that moist countryside, andit would have taken more than a dream to make her climb Slievannilaun. She lived the life that an animal leads in summer, cooling her limbs inthe lake, and only stirring abroad in the early morning or the dusk. The weather told on Biddy, who lived in the kitchen where a fire burnedall the year round, on Considine, who walked up to Roscarna forGabrielle's lessons in the morning sun, and on Jocelyn, who seemed tofeel it more than either of them. Indeed, if they had noticed Jocelyn, they would have had some cause for anxiety; but Jocelyn never talkedabout his health, even to Biddy, though he himself perceived, with someirritation, that he was growing old. Secretly he fought against it, driving himself to youthful exertions with an artificial and desperateenergy that deceived them, but he slept badly at night, and could notkeep himself awake in the daytime. Even Gabrielle remarked that he waslosing his memory for names, and got snubbed for her trouble. Shefound it was better to leave him alone, and put his irritability downto the excessive heat. 

In the blue evening, when flocks of starlings were already beginning tosweep the sky above the reedbeds of the lake, and white owls flutteredout like enormous moths, Gabrielle would walk out for a breath of coolair over the baked crevasses of the bog, or more often down their onlyroad; a track that flattered the dignity of Roscarna at the lodge gatesbut degenerated as it approached Clonderriff. 

In the full glare of daylight Clonderriff, for all Mr. Considine'slabours, was a sordid collection of cabins, whitened without, but fullof peat-smoke and the odours of cattle within. The cabins stood on thebrow of a hill. In winter they seemed to crouch beneath a sweepingwind--and the grass thatchings would have been whirled away if they hadnot been kept in position by ropes that were weighted with stones. Thesmall irregular plots in which the villagers grew their potatoes werebounded by dry walls through crevices of which the wind whistledshrilly, and scattered with boulders too deeply imbedded to be worththe labour of moving, and the walls and boulders were alike coveredwith an ashen lichen that made them look as if they were crusted overwith bitter salt that the wind had carried in from sea. Between thegarden plots lay a wilderness of common land, on which lean cattlegrazed or routed among heaps of decaying garbage: in winter adesolation, in summer a purgatory of flies. But with the coming ofevening and a softer air Clonderriff became transformed. One saw nolonger the sordid details, only the long and level lines of the bog, the white-washed cabins shining milky as elder-blossom in moonlight, their windows bloomed with candlelight. In every cranny of the gardenwalls the crickets began their tingling chorus, but every other livingthing in the village seemed at rest. 

Often, when she felt lonely, Gabrielle would walk down the road toClonderriff, not because she found it beautiful, as it surely was, butfor the sake of its homeliness and the contrast of its gentle life tothe moribund atmosphere of Roscarna. She loved the pale cabins, each acradle of mysterious life; she loved the sound of placid cattle feedingin the darkness, and above all she loved the sound of human voices whenthe men sprawled by the roadside telling old stories, and the tall, barefooted women stood above them very slim in their folded shawls. Sometimes as she passed quietly along the road, she would becomeconscious, without hearing, of human presences, and see a pair oflovers sitting on the end of a stone wall with their lips together, andthen she would return to Roscarna full of wonder and excitement. 

One night in August the impulse seized her to put on the white dressthat she had worn in Dublin. When dinner was over she left Jocelynsnoring over his port and walked as though she were dreaming down theClonderriff road. The air was full of pale grass-moths. Her heartfluttered within her: she couldn't think why. She herself was like awhite, fluttering moth. She came quickly to the outskirts of thevillage. The cabins were asleep. In none of them could as much as acandlelight be seen. It was strange that the village should be deaderthan Roscarna, and she felt as though a sudden and deeper darkness haddescended on her. A little frightened she decided that she would gothrough to the end of the village and pay a visit to Considine: notbecause she wanted to see him in the least, but because she lovedshocking him, and nothing surely could shock him more at this time ofnight than the moth-like apparition that she presented. She even felta wayward curiosity to know what he did with himself at night. Forseveral years there had been whispers of a theological thesis that hewas writing for his doctor's degree. She imagined him, with a readinglamp and red eyes, up to his ears in the minor prophets. It would befun to see what he thought of her. 

She hurried on through the silent village, but when she came to anisolated cabin at the end of it she heard a sound that explained thedesolation of the rest; a noise of terrible and unearthly wailing. Inthe darkness of this curious night it seemed to her a very awful thing. She guessed that somebody had died in the last cabin, and that a wakewas being held. For a moment she hesitated, and then, as curiosity gotthe better of her horror, she came gradually nearer. 

The women were keening somewhere at the back of the house, but thefront windows blazed with the light of many candles, and the door ofthe cabin was wide open. Inside its narrow compass a crowd ofvillagers, twenty or thirty of both sexes, was gathered. Gabrielle, clutching at the wall, drew nearer and looked inside. 

The room was full of bottles, a thicket of empty bottles stood on thetable, the press, and in the corner by the fireplace. The floor wasstrewn with the figures of men and women who had drunk until theydropped. Those who were still awake, and reasonably sober, wereplaying a kind of round game, passing from hand to hand a stick, theend of which had been lighted in the fire. As it passed from one toanother the holder said the words: "If Jack dies and dies in my hand aforfeit I'll give. " The game was quite exciting, and Gabrielle foundherself wondering in whose hand the glowing stick would go out; butwhile she watched it her eyes became accustomed to the light of theroom and fell at last upon a spectacle of cold horror. The coffin inwhich the dead man was to be buried had been reared up on one endagainst the further wall, and within it the body stood erect, held inthis position by a cross-work of ropes. It was that of an old man withgrey untidy hair. He stood there bound, with his eyes closed, his headlolling forward, and his mouth open. She couldn't stand it. Shewanted to cry out, but her voice would not come, and so she simplyturned and ran blindly along the dark road towards Oughterard. 

She ran till she was out of breath and stood against a wall panting andtrembling. She hated the darkness, for it seemed vaguely threatening. The thin music of the crickets made it feel as if it were charged withsome electric fluid in which the silence grew more awfully intense. Itcame to her, with a sudden shock, that if she were to return toRoscarna she must pass that dreadful spectacle again, and alone. Theonly thing that she could possibly do to save herself from thiscalamity, was to go on to Considine's house and beg him to take herhome again. She didn't want to do this, for she felt in her bones thathe would laugh at her. 

She stood in the shadow of a white-thorn, and though she had now ceasedfrom her storm of trembling, her body gave a shudder from time to time, like a tree that frees its storm-entangled branches when the wind hasfallen. She heard a slow step mounting the road. She prayed that thenew-comer might be Considine, for then her frightened condition wouldspare her explanations. The steps came nearer. Out of the darkness ashadowy form approached her. It seemed to her that it was that of aman of superhuman size--one of the giants who, Biddy had told her, layburied in the long barrows on the edge of the bog. But this wasnonsense. She planned what words she would say to him. Abreast of herhe stopped, and stared at her white dress. Then suddenly he cried, "Gabrielle!" in a voice that she remembered well. It was Radway's. Ina moment she found herself crying, beyond control, in his arms. Sheclove to him, sobbing desperately, and he kissed her, her eyes, thatshe tried to shield from him, her neck, her lips. It was an amazingmoment in the darkness. 

Then she stopped crying and began to laugh unnaturally. In this wayshe blurted out the story of her fright, and he, still clasping her, listened until she was calm. 

"But what are you doing here? How did it all happen?" she said. Shedid not know what she was saying for happiness. 

Little by little he told her. The _Pennant_ had put in to Devonportfor repairs a week before. He had been granted a month's leave, andhis first thought had been Roscarna. After a couple of days at his ownhome he had crossed to Ireland, arriving late in the afternoon atOughterard, where he found a room at an hotel. In Dublin he had armedhimself with an Ordnance map, and looking at this, it had seemed to himthat it would be easy enough to walk to Roscarna in the evening and lether know that he had arrived. Time was so short that he could not bearto miss a moment of her. So he had set out from Oughterard along theroad to Clonderriff, hoping to reach Roscarna in daylight and to returnwith the rising moon. He had reckoned without Irish miles and Irishroads, and forgotten that a sailor who has been long afloat is out ofwalking trim. He had made poor progress, and nothing but the distantlight of the cabin on the top of the hill in which the wake was beingheld had prevented him from giving up his attempt to see her. And thenthis astounding miracle had happened, and he had found her crying inhis arms . . . Surely a lover's luck!

"And now you'll be coming with me to Roscarna, " she said. 

She was so happy. She passed the cabin of the wake without a shudder. They walked as lovers, arm in arm, and soon a yellow moon, in its thirdquarter, rose, making Clonderriff beautiful, and flinging their movingshadows upon the pale stones at the roadside. As they breasted thehill, an arm of Corrib burned above the black like a band of sunsetcloud, rather than moonlit water. Its beauty overwhelmed them. Theyclung to each other and kissed again. He told her that she was just ashe had seen her first in her white dress, just as he had alwaysimagined her in his days at sea, only more beautiful. She was so palein the moonlight, and her lips so happy. She was glad that an inspiredcaprice had made her put on her white dress. 

He asked her whether it was very far to Roscarna. "If you could missthe way, " he said, "we might go on wandering for ever in the moonlight. There never could be another night like this. "

But they had come already to the dark belt of woodland that the firstHewishes had planted, a darkness unvisited by moonlight, where theirfeet rustled a carpet of dead leaves, and shy, nocturnal creatures madeanother rustling beside them. At the edge of the wood a bird flew outof a thorn tree. "It's a brown owl, " cried Radway; but when its wingscaught the moonlight they saw the band of white. "It's a magpie, " shesaid. "One for sorrow . . . " and smiled. 

Roscarna stood before them, the ghost of a great house with many solemnwindows for eyes. It looked blank, uninhabited, lifeless. Between thehouse and the river moonlight smoothed the lawns. The moon made thatcold stone phantom imponderable, a grey mirage. Radway could notbelieve, for a moment, that it was real; but the sense of Gabrielle'scold cheek against his lips, her fingers twined in his, and her soft, unhurried breathing recalled him, telling him that he was a lover, awake and alive. 

They crossed the bridge and entered the house by the front doors. Thelatch clanged to, echoing, and Biddy Joyce appeared in a red petticoat. Gabrielle introduced Radway, and Biddy was not scandalized, being usedto the freedoms of Irish hospitality. Jocelyn had been in bed for halfan hour or more, she said, and as the state in which he had retired wasproblematical they thought it better not to disturb him. They gaveRadway supper in the dining-room, Gabrielle sitting opposite to himwith her chin in the cup of her hands and her face white withcandle-light. 

In the meantime Biddy had prepared a guest-room for him, a sombrechamber with long windows, so sealed by neglect that they could not beopened, in which a broken pane served for ventilator. In the middle ofit stood a bed, painted and gilt, in the manner of the seventeenthcentury, with panels of crimson brocade, threadbare but stillbeautiful, although the pattern of their ornament had faded long since. Gabrielle lighted him to his room, stepping softly along the uncarpetedpassage. At the door they surrendered themselves to a passionategood-night. 

VI

Radway stayed at Roscarna for three days. Irish ways are easy, andJocelyn did not appear surprised to see his daughter's correspondent atthe breakfast-table. He measured Radway shrewdly with his screwed-upeyes and decided that he was a sportsman, which, together with theHalbertons' introduction, was good enough for him. He only regrettedthat he could not do the sporting honours of the place for theirvisitor. There was a certain giddiness, he said, that troubled him atunexpected moments and made him disinclined to go too far afield; buthe placed his rods and the contents of the gun-room at Radway'sdisposal and pressed him to stay as long as the place amused him. 

Jocelyn, as host, was very much the country gentleman, picking up thethread of courtly hospitality at the point where it had been broken somany years ago, almost without any effort. It is probable that he hadbegun to realise that things were not well with him, and that sinceGabrielle might soon be left alone in the world, it would be wiser towelcome a possible husband for her. Certainly he did his best forRadway, and Radway, no doubt, found him delightful, for Jocelyn hadgrown milder as he aged and had never been without a good deal ofpersonal charm. On the other hand, it is not unlikely that Radway toldhim of his intentions with regard to Gabrielle, even though nothing sodefinite as an engagement was announced. At any rate, the guestsettled down happily at Roscarna, and the morning after his arrival theluggage cart was sent in to his hotel at Oughterard to bring back histraps and gun-case. 

Of course Gabrielle took possession of him. The terms of their newrelation had been fixed miraculously and finally by the character oftheir moonlit meeting at Clonderriff. No formal words were spoken, butthey knew that they were lovers, having arrived at this heavenly stateafter a whole year of waste. On Gabrielle's side there were never anydoubts or questionings. She was his altogether. She wanted him toknow all that could be known of her, and since she felt that so much ofher was the product of Roscarna, it was necessary that he should knowRoscarna first. 

With the spells of moonshine withdrawn he knew it for the wan, neglected ruin that it was, but her romantic passion for its stoneshelped to maintain the first atmosphere of illusion. She showed him, with a beautiful emotion, the room in which she had been born, thelofts in which she had played with the stableboys in her childhood, heralder-screened bathing place by the lake, the library where herromantic education had been begun. 

Here, by the most likely chance, they encountered Considine. He hadwalked up, as usual, in the morning to read Dante with her. He camethrough the house unannounced and entered the library where the loverswere bending with their heads close together over the map on whichGabrielle had followed the course of Radway's West Indian voyages, and, being engrossed in these tender reminiscences, they did not see him. He stood in the doorway, gazing, uncertain as to what he should say ordo. In his seventeen years at Clonderriff he had got out of the way ofdealing with social problems. 

At last Gabrielle looked up, saw him, and blushed. She hastened tointroduce Radway: "The friend I met in Dublin" . . . As if there had beenonly one. 

By this time Considine had recovered himself. He shook hands withRadway heartily and talked to him about the shooting. In those fewmoments it was the man and not the parson who appeared, and Radway, frankly, took him at his own valuation and liked him. 

"Quite a good sort, your padre, " he said to Gabrielle afterwards, andshe was glad that he was pleased. For herself it had never occurred toher to consider whether he was good or bad. To her he had never beenanything more than a figure: Mr. Considine: but it pleased her thatanything associated with her should give her lover pleasure. Considinewas sufficiently tactful not to mention Dante, and Gabrielle solved hisdifficulty by asking him for a short holiday during Radway's stay. Hecoughed and said he would be delighted, and since he did not offer togo they left him in the library. 

From the first he must have seen how things were. At the best he was alonely man, and this must have seemed the last aggravation of hisloneliness. I do not suppose he considered that he was in love withGabrielle, but he was undoubtedly attached to her, for he was not anold man nor vowed to celibacy, and it had been his leisurely delight towatch her beauty unfolding. Leisurely . . . Because he was slow ineverything, slow in his speech, slow to anger, and slow to love--whichdoes not imply that he was without intelligence or feeling or sex. Itwould not be fair to dismiss the feelings of Considine as unimportant;but it would be even less fair to sentimentalize them, for the leastthing that can be said of him is that he was not sentimental himself. When they left him he tried to persuade himself that he was not jealousby settling down to the composition of his weekly sermon; but he didnot risk any further disturbance of mind by seeing them together again. 

The sunny season held. The river water was so low as to be unfishable, but in the string of lakelets below Loughannilaun Radway landed half adozen sea-trout with Gabrielle, who knew the stones in every pool, asghillie. In the divine relaxation of their love-making they were notinclined for strenuous exercise; but when evening fell, and the skycooled, they would wander abroad together by the lake and through thewoodlands or lie dreaming, side by side, in the deep heather. 

During the days of Radway's visit, Jocelyn felt an obligation to appearpresentable, and every evening, when dinner was over, Radway wouldsmoke a cigar in his company, listening to his stories of old Galwaydays and sportsmen long since dead. As Jocelyn's memory for immediatethings had faded he seemed to remember his early days more clearly, and, like many Irishmen, he was an amusing talker. Gabrielle would siton a low stool between them in the white dress that Radway loved. Itmade the solitude for which they were both waiting seem more preciousto see her thus at a distance, pale and fragile and miraculous againstthe sombre background of the Roscarna oak. Then Jocelyn would begin toyawn, and fidget for the nightcap of hot whiskey that Biddy preparedfor him, and at last discreetly vanish. And so the most precious oftheir moments began. 

Of these one can say nothing. Naturally enough, in later years, whenshe made Mrs. Payne her confidante, Gabrielle did not speak of them. And even if she had done so Mrs. Payne was too surely a woman offeeling ever to have betrayed her confidence. Under that wasting moonthey loved, and I know nothing, but that it must have been strange forthe empty shell of Roscarna, that tragic theatre, to reawaken to such avivid and youthful passion. The world was theirs, and nobody heededthem, unless it were Biddy Joyce, a creature whose whole life wascoloured by shadowy premonitions. 

Gabrielle could not bear that he should leave her, but Radway's plansfor the immediate future had been made without reckoning for anythingas momentous as this love-affair. He was pledged, in four days, tovisit an aunt in North Wales, and though he could not undertake todisappoint the old lady, he consoled Gabrielle by showing her how shortand how convenient the passage to Holyhead was. To her, England seemeda country as remote as Canada, but he promised her that he would returnwithin a week, and suggested that this would be a good opportunity ofspeaking of their engagement to Jocelyn. "But I wish you were notgoing, " she said. "I feel as if I shall lose you. "

They had determined to devote the last day of his stay to visiting thetop of Slieveannilaun, where there were plenty of grouse. The plangave them an excuse for a day of the most absolute solitude and theshooting that she had promised him long ago in Dublin. Biddy would cutsandwiches for them and Gabrielle would carry them in a game-bag slungover her shoulders. 

At dawn a mist of sea-fog overspread the country-side, and Radway, gazing through the open window, saw the fine stuff driven down thevalley in sheets against the darkness of the woods; but by the timethat they had finished breakfast the sun had broken through, soaringmagnificently in the moist air and promising a greater heat than ever. Jocelyn, on the stone terrace, watched them depart. "I wish I weregoing with you, " he said with a twinkle, "but it's a job for youngpeople. Collar-work all the way, and you'll find the grass on themountain as slippery as ice. " They left him, laughing. He likedRadway. Gabrielle might easily do worse. At the edge of the wood sheturned and waved her handkerchief; but Jocelyn was tossing biscuits tohis favourite spaniel Moira and did not see. 

They climbed Slieveannilaun happily, for they were young and full ofvigour. Gabrielle was quieter and more serious than usual, under theshadow of his going. He killed two and a half brace of grouse. Itpleased her to see the ease and precision with which his gun came up. 

Near the place where they lunched they saw three fox cubs running withtheir mother, a sight that filled Gabrielle with delight. On a stonenear by them a small mouse-coloured bird, a meadow pipit, made a noise, _tick-tick_, like the ferrule of a walking-stick on stone. From thisexalted station they could no longer see Roscarna, for the house andthe woods were lost in the immense trough beneath them. They only sawthe Corrib and the lakes of Iar Connaught and, beyond, an immense bowof sea. 

"I hate the sea, " she said. "It will take you away from me. "

"You can't hate it more than I do, " he said laughing. "All sailorshate the sea. But somehow, I don't think I was ever born to bedrowned. "

The sunshine made them sleepy and they lay down in the heather. He laythere with his head on her breast and slept. But Gabrielle did notsleep. She watched him lazily and with a strange content. 

When he woke the sun was beginning to sink. They walked back along theridge in a state that was curiously light-hearted. She seemed to beable to forget for the first time the fact that he was to leave hernext day. The evening was cool and fresh and the air of the mountainas clear as spring water. When they came to the descent he insisted oncarrying the bag that held the game. There was a little quarrel and areconciliation of kisses. They set off together once more hand inhand. Halfway down the mountain, on a patch of shining grass, heslipped, and the weight of the game-bag overbalanced him. Gabriellelaughed as he fell, but her laugh was lost in the report of the gun. How the accident happened no one can say, but Radway had blown hisbrains out. 

VII

The inquest at Roscarna was Biddy Joyce's affair. It was the next bestthing to a wake, and she took the opportunity of having a dhropstirrun'--as she put it. The sergeant of the constabulary, an erectUlsterman with mutton-chop whiskers, had spread a wide net for hisjury. They came from Joyce's Country, from Iar Connaught, from islandsof the Corrib, like dusty pilgrims. Biddy housed them in the stables, where they slept it off for a couple of nights. Jocelyn himselfentertained the coroner. He seemed particularly anxious that nothingin the way of scandal should appear, though he really had no cause foranxiety, since a man who takes the risk of scrambling down amountain-side with his gun loaded, supplies an obvious explanation fordisaster. 

Naturally it was Gabrielle who suffered most. From the first she hadbehaved extraordinarily well. Nobody had seen the poor child's firstagony of passionate grief; but she had pulled herself together quickly, leaving Radway's body where it lay, and had hurried down to Roscarnawhere she found Jocelyn dosing [Transcriber's note: dozing?] on theterrace. She had been tight-lipped and pale and awfully quiet, showingno emotion but an unprofitable desire for speed when she led thestable-hands up the mountain to the place where she had left her lover. 

She did not cry at all until the work was done. Then, in the rougharms of Biddy, she collapsed pretty thoroughly. Biddy put her to bed, but she would not stay there. Later in the day she was found wanderingalong the passages to the room where Radway had slept. She told Biddythat she only wanted to be left alone; and in that room she stayeduntil the time came when she had to give her evidence. In the courtshe did not turn a hair, though Biddy stood ready with a battery oftraditional restoratives in case she faltered. 

Jocelyn had a very thin time of it. The strain made him more shakythan usual, and when telegrams began to flutter in from Radway'srelatives a few days later--Radway had left no address and so they hadbeen forced to wire to the Halbertons--he threw up the spongealtogether. His weakness was Considine's opportunity. Considineundertook the whole management of the Radways' visit, received them, conducted them to the room in which their son's remains were lying anddid his best to explain to them what he had been doing in thisoutlandish place. I suppose that this kind of solemn condolence ispart of a parson's ordinary duties, but it must be admitted thatConsidine performed it well. He impressed the Radways as being solidand dependable and a gentleman. His capability and discretion madethem feel that Roscarna was not so disreputable and outlandish afterall. He scarcely mentioned Gabrielle, except as the only witness ofthe accident, and the Radway family returned to England with theirson's body, satisfied that he had gone to Roscarna for the grouseshooting on the invitation of people who, in spite of theirquestionable appearance, were actually connected with the Halbertons, and thankful that no element of intrigue or passion had any part in thetragedy. 

On their return they wrote Considine a long letter in which theythanked him for his courtesy and regretted that their son's lastmoments had not been rejoiced by his ghostly ministrations. As alittle thank-offering (not for their son's death, but for Considine'skindness) they proposed the erection of a stained glass window in hischurch, a proposal that Considine gladly accepted. 

It was not until the Radways had disappeared and Roscarna began torecoil into its old routine of life, that Gabrielle collapsed. Theblow to her imagination had been heavier than anyone dreamed, sostaggering, in its first impact, that for a time she had been numbed. In a week or two, with returning consciousness, her sufferings began tobe felt. She could not sleep at night, and when she did sleep shedreamed perpetually of one thing, the endless, precarious descent of aslippery mountain-side in the company of Radway. The dream alwaysended in the same way, with a fall, a laugh, a shattering report, and aflash of light which meant that she was awake. 

In her disordered eyes the woods of Roscarna, the river, and the laketook on a melancholy tinge. Though this aspect of them was new to her, it is hardly strange that she should have seen them thus, for thebeauty of Roscarna is really of an elegiac kind, an autumnal beauty ofdesertion and of decay. As for Slieveannilaun, she dared not look atit. 

Jocelyn tried hard to cheer her up. With an effort he whipped upenough energy to take her out with his dogs and his gun, until her lookof horror made him suspect that the sound of a gunshot was a nightmareto her, as indeed it was, reminding her of many dreams and oneunforgettable reality. She did her best to hide this from him, for shesaw that he was really trying to be kind. 

Considine also tried to interest her in new things and to distract hermind. His methods were tactful. He knew perfectly well that theofficial manner of condolence that had gone down so well with theRadways wouldn't do for her. He just treated her as the child that heknew her to be, trying to induce her to join in a game of pretendingthat nothing had happened. Gabrielle realised his humane attempt fromthe first and even, for a time, tried to play up to him, but the affairended disastrously in a flood of bitter, uncontrollable tears for whichneither the parson nor the man could offer any remedy. It seemed tohim that this was a woman's job, and so he and Jocelyn met in solemnconsultation with Biddy Joyce. 

At this point an easy solution seemed to offer itself in an invitationfrom the Halbertons. They had heard all the details of the affair fromRadway's people and wrote inviting Gabrielle to stay with them in Devonfor a month. The two men prepared the bait most carefully, but whentheir plan was disclosed to her, Gabrielle rejected it with an unusualdegree of passion, imploring them to leave her alone . . . Only to leaveher alone. 

They resigned her to the care of Biddy, who had always considered ither proper function and privilege to deal with the affair. She setabout it clumsily but with confidence, tempting Gabrielle to eat withcarefully prepared surprises, obviously humouring her in everything shedid. From the very first she had viewed the Radway affair withsuspicion, and now she found it difficult not to say, 'I told you so, 'though, as a matter of fact, she had done nothing of the sort. 

Altogether her methods were too transparent to be successful; and sinceher own robust habit of body made it difficult for her to divine anysubtler cause for Gabrielle's condition, she leapt at once to thephysical explanation suggested to her by her own experience of theconsequences of love-making in Joyce's country. She watched Gabriellewith a keen and matronly eye, collecting her evidence from day to dayafter the anxious manner of mothers. When she had dwelt upon theproblem for a couple of months she prepared the results of herscrutinies and offered them in a complete and alarming dossier toJocelyn. In her opinion--and on this subject at least her opinion wasof value--there could be no doubt as to Gabrielle's condition. 

To Biddy Joyce this seemed the most natural thing in the world, but toJocelyn the announcement came as a tremendous surprise. He knew wellenough that this sort of accident was an everyday affair, in effect theusual prelude to matrimony, among the peasantry of Connaught; but thatsuch an ugly circumstance should intrude itself into the Hewishfamily--in the case of one of its female members--seemed a monstrouscalamity. He was in no condition to stand another shock, and Biddy'spronouncement completely knocked him over. In a case of this kind itwas idle to doubt her authority. He only wondered how he could makethe best of a desperate job. 

Distasteful as the business was to him, he decided to tackle Gabrielleherself. It was a very strange interview. On Jocelyn's part therewere no recriminations. He was growing gentle in his old age, and inany case he regarded Gabrielle as the victim of a tragedy. All that hewanted to do was to get at the truth, and than this nothing could havebeen harder, for in Gabrielle he found not only an amazingignorance--or if you prefer the word, innocence--but a flaming, passionate determination to keep silence on the subject of herintimacies with Radway. To her the story was sacred, and far tooprecious to be bruised by the examination of any living soul. 

It is probable that Jocelyn tackled the matter with the utmostdelicacy. Fundamentally, he had the instincts of a gentleman, and, asGabrielle knew, he loved her; but on this one subject no amount ofentreaties or tenderness could make her speak. In the end, when hecould get nothing out of her, he compelled himself to tell her ofBiddy's suspicions. It seemed to him that this might force her into afull confession of her relations with her lover. It did nothing of thesort. She simply stood clutching a tall oak chair and looking straightout of the window over the dark woods. Then she said: "Does Biddyreally think I am going to have a baby?" And Jocelyn nodded his head. Then she said nothing more. She simply went out of the room like asleep-walker, leaving poor Jocelyn overwhelmed with misery by a silencethat he interpreted as an admission of guilt. For him, at any rate, the matter was settled and the acuteness of Biddy Joyce finallyestablished. 

And there one must leave it. Gabrielle herself accepted the verdictwithout question, but whether from her own secret knowledge or out ofan innocence that is almost incredible but not, in her case, impossible, I cannot say. Naturally enough, in that other strangeinterview with Mrs. Payne, she did not go into details, and as far aswe are concerned the truth will never be known. Not that it reallymatters. The only thing that concerns us is the effect upon herfortunes of this real or imaginary catastrophe. All that we can say isthat when she walked out of the Roscarna dining-room after her hourwith Jocelyn she was subtly and curiously changed. 

From that moment she became, in fact, a person hypnotised, possessed bythe contemplation of her approaching motherhood. She was no longerrestless or tearful. She began to sleep again, and her sleep was nolonger troubled by that recurrent dream. A strange calm descended onher, the calm of a Madonna thrilled by an angelic annunciation--ahallucinated calm that made her remote and independent, utterly unmovedby the commotion into which the household of Roscarna had been thrown. 

Her acceptance of the situation crumpled up Jocelyn entirely. He couldnot for a moment see any way out of the difficulty. As usual he fellback on Biddy, who brought her practical knowledge to his rescue. Biddy was emphatic. In the circumstances there was only one thing tobe done. Gabrielle must be married--somehow--anyhow--and the soonerthe better. It was the sort of thing that happened every day of theweek and the resources of civilisation had never been able to findanother solution. Jocelyn shook his head. It was all very well totalk about marriage, but where, in the neighbourhood, could abridegroom be found at such short notice? Biddy's suggestion of half adozen available Joyces failed to satisfy him. However suitable theJoyces might be for casual relations the idea of marriage with one ofthem was unthinkable. After all, whatever she had done, Gabrielle wasa Hewish and the heiress, whatever that might mean, of the Roscarnamortgages. Biddy, impatient of his obstinacy, gave him up. 

With feelings of sore humiliation he consulted Considine. It was ahard confession for Jocelyn and the awkwardness of Considine did notmake it easier. It seemed as if the two of them were up against astone wall. Considine blushing and monosyllabic, begged for time toconsider what might be done; and the fact that he did not seem to beutterly hopeless cheered Jocelyn considerably. Gabrielle, in themeantime, continued rapt and passive. 

In a week the result of Considine's deliberations emerged, and, in afortnight, Gabrielle, only daughter of Sir Jocelyn Hewish, Baronet, ofRoscarna, County Galway, was married to the Rev. Marmaduke Considine atthe church of Clonderriff. The _Irish Times_ described the wedding asquiet. 

VIII

It is a curious task to enquire into the motives of Considine. Withoutdoubt he felt under some obligation to the family of Hewish, andparticularly to that dead lady Gabrielle's mother, and it isconceivable that he had known enough of Jocelyn during their eighteenyears' acquaintance to have separated his good points from hisweakness, and even to respect him. But the conditions of hisdependence on the Roscarna family can hardly be said to have includedthe fathering of its errors, and no degree of respect for Jocelyn couldhave made him think it his duty to marry the daughter. Was it, perhaps, a sense of religious duty that compelled him? It is difficultto think of marriage with a creature of Gabrielle's physicalattractions as a mortification of the flesh; and though the ceremony ofmarriage is supposed to save the reputation of a person in Gabrielle'sposition, there was no religious dogma which decreed that marriage witha clergyman could save her soul. 

Then was it a matter of sheer Quixotism! That vice, indeed, mightconceivably have smouldered in the mind of this queer stick of a man, alonely fellow cherishing in solitude exaggerated ideals of womankindand quick to rise to a point of honour. Even this will not do. Thereis nothing in the rest of Considine's history that suggests thesentimentalist. For a parson he was decidedly a man of the world, witha good business head, a sense of proportion, and a keen, if deliberatehumour. In matters of sentiment I should imagine him reliable. 

Only one other cause for his conduct suggests itself, and that Ibelieve to be the true explanation. He married Gabrielle Hewishbecause he wanted to do so; because he loved her. And that is notdifficult to imagine since he had known her intimately ever since shewas born, had helped and witnessed the whole awakening of herintelligence; had found in her company his principal diversion; hadwatched her growing beauty, and seen its final perfection. He knew herso well, body and mind, that, whatever might have happened, he couldnot help believing in her complete innocence--so well that he couldafford to disregard conventional prejudices in looking at hermisfortune. 

It is even possible that he may have dreamed of marrying her before themisfortune came, waiting, in his leisurely way, for the suitablemoment. At Roscarna he had no great cause to fear any rival in love;and since an ugly providence had obligingly removed the intruderRadway, there was no reason why he should not benefit by Radway'sdeath. Considine was a man of forty, full of vigour and not too oldfor passion. The prospect of a fruitful marriage was doubtless part ofthe programme which he had mapped out for himself. Nor must it beforgotten that he was a poor man and Gabrielle her father's onlydaughter. 

With Gabrielle herself the problem is more difficult still. It is noteasy to imagine her submitting to the embraces of her tutor, howeverdeep and ardent his affection may have been, within a few months of thecatastrophe that had overwhelmed her first love. We may take it forcertain that she did not then, nor at any time, love Considine. It isimpossible that she should have thought of him in the character of alover, though I have little doubt but that she would have preferred himto any of the swarm of Joyces whom Biddy was ready to produce. 

Perhaps she was offered the alternative, --I cannot tell. It is certainthat Jocelyn and Biddy told her, in different ways, that marriage was anecessity to her virtue, and since she was compelled by threats andblandishments and entreaties to make a virtue of necessity, she chose, no doubt the course that was least distasteful to her. One cannot evenbe certain, in the light of after events, that she understood themeaning of marriage, or anything about it save that it was the onlything that could make an honest woman of her. She was so young, solonely, so numbed and overwhelmed by her misfortune. I do not supposethat she minded very much what they did with her as long as they lefther at last in peace. That she was impressed by the serious persuasionof Biddy Joyce goes without saying, for there was no other woman bywhom she could set her standard of conduct. No doubt the distress ofJocelyn, who was now something of a pathetic figure, moved her too. Itmust have given her pleasure of a sort to see the way in which he wasrelieved by her acceptance of the Considine plan--if anything sopassive can be called an acceptance. The shame of the moment had sobroken him that his sudden recovery of spirits must have beenaffecting. It must have seemed to her that she had saved her father'slife. 

When once the matter was settled Jocelyn became almost light-hearted, trying by little tokens of affection and an attitude that was almostjocular, to pretend that nothing had happened and that the marriage wasno more than the happy conclusion of a normal courtship. On the eve ofthe wedding he gave her the contents of her mother's jewel-box, whichincluded some beautiful ornaments of early Celtic work. He kissed herand fondled her and hoped she would be happy, but she could not smile. He dressed elaborately for the ceremony, and when he had left herbehind with Considine, feasted solemnly at Roscarna until Biddy and thecoachman carried him upstairs. Never in the history of Roscarna wassuch a tragic bride. 

The married couple settled down at Clonderriff in the small grey housethat Considine inhabited. In his bachelor days it had been acomfortless place, but Jocelyn had seen to it that it was furnishedwith some of the lumber of Roscarna: the presses were filled with fineHewish linen and the plate engraved with the Hewish crest. 

Jocelyn had hoped, in the beginning, that Considine would forsake hisvillage and come to live at Roscarna. He himself, he said, needed nomore in his old age than a couple of rooms; his daughter and hisson-in-law might take a wing to themselves and do what they liked withit. He had counted a good deal on the attraction to Considine of theRoscarna library. His offer was refused. Considine already had hisplans cut and dried. Quite apart from the fact that his parochialduties tied him to Clonderriff, he had decided that it would be betterfor Gabrielle to be separated from all her old associations. Likeeverything else he undertook, whether it were catching a trout orreclaiming a drunkard, the plan was carefully reasoned. Gabrielle wasembarking on a new life that would, presumably, always be that of acountry parson's wife. He had caught her young--it was unfortunate, ofcourse, that he hadn't caught her three months younger--but in any caseshe was still young enough to be plastic and amenable to maritalinfluence. It seemed to him that he had a good chance of moulding herinto the shape that would suit his purpose, and it was obvious that theprocess would be easier if she were isolated from the free and easymanners of Roscarna which had--so very nearly--proved her ruin, andparticularly those of Biddy Joyce, who was not only a Catholic, but thepossessor of an unvarnishable past in which his father-in-law had ashare. 

Considine's decision was final, and Jocelyn perforce submitted to it. Indeed, Jocelyn was far too feeble in these days to pit himself againstConsidine's more vigorous personality, even if he had not recognisedthe fact that he was in Considine's debt; so he went on living atRoscarna, wholly dependent on Biddy for his creature comforts, and onthe dogs for his amusement. It was a mild and placid sunset. 

Meanwhile Gabrielle, innocent of all domestic accomplishments, struggled with the complications of her husband's housekeeping, andConsidine returned, like a giant refreshed, to the composition of hisdoctor's thesis. 

The estate of matrimony suited Considine. In the soft clean climate ofGalway a man ages slowly, and this marriage renewed his youth. It madehim full of new energies and enthusiasms, and revealed a boyish aspectin his character that seemed to Gabrielle a little grotesque, or evenfrightening. He wanted to express himself boisterously, flagrantly, and the proceeding was extraordinary in the case of a man who hadalways been so self-contained. Lacking any other outlet for theseebullitions he threw himself energetically into his theologicalwritings and worked off his surplus physical steam in the management ofthe Roscarna estate, for which Jocelyn was gradually becoming more andmore unfitted. In this, as in most things that he undertook, Considineshowed himself efficient, and Jocelyn began to congratulate himself onthe fact that he had secured a son-in-law with a genuine passion forthe land that meant so much to him. 

During all this time Gabrielle remained the same indefinitely tragicfigure. There was nothing physically repulsive in Considine, but evenif there had been, I do not suppose that she would have felt itacutely. She had become passive. The abruptness of the first tragedyhad numbed her so completely that nothing less than another emotionalcatastrophe could awaken her to consciousness. 

In this expectant hallucinated state she passed through the earlymonths of her married life, faithfully performing her domestic duties, sad, yet almost complacent in her sadness. Autumn swept over thecountryside. Mists rising from the Corrib at dawn lapped the feet ofthe hills on which Clonderriff stood, mingling, at last, with themelancholy vapour of white fog rolling in from sea. Leaves began tofall in the parsonage garden, and the lawn was frosted at daybreak withcold dew. The hint of chilliness in the air only stimulated Considineto fresh energies, sending him out on long tramps with his gun. Heseemed to think it strange that Gabrielle, in her new state, shouldhate the sight, and above all, the sound of firearms. He tried to jokeher out of it--he would never treat her as anything but a child--but toher it was not a subject on which jokes could be made. 

Biddy was a frequent and puzzled visitor at Clonderriff, puzzled, and alittle disappointed because her physiological prophecies did not seemto be approaching fulfilment. By the time that Gabrielle had beenmarried a couple of months it became questionable whether there hadbeen any social necessity for the hurried ceremony; but though she hadher own doubts on the subject, Biddy was far too cunning to give thisaway to her own discredit, and when Jocelyn or Considine consulted heras to how these matters were proceeding, she armed herself withinscrutable feminine mystery trusting to luck and assuring them it wasonly a question of time. After all, probabilities were on her side, and no doubt it came as a great relief to her when, in due course, thedoctor from Galway confirmed her diagnosis. With this vindication ofher judgment she became more and more attentive to Gabrielle, walkingover two or three times a week to Clonderriff and instructing her inthe traditional duties of motherhood as they are taught in the west. 

All through the days of autumn Gabrielle sat at her window looking overthe misty lawn and making the clothes for her baby. It is notsurprising, under the circumstances, that Considine did not show anysymptoms of paternal pride. This, it must be confessed, was the mostunpleasant condition of his bargain. Still, he had undertaken itdeliberately, and meant to go through with it like a man. He lookedforward to the time when it should be over and done with. Then theywould be able to make a new start; Gabrielle would be wholly his, andRadway, he confidently expected, forgotten. 

In the meantime, having, in the flush of marriage completed histheological thesis and sent it off to the university from which heexpected a doctor's degree, he determined to enjoy the sportingpossibilities of Roscarna to the full. His shooting took him farafield, and he saw very little of Gabrielle in the daytime. He keptaway deliberately, for her condition made her strange and irritable attimes, and he did not consider that devotion to her in a difficulty forwhich he had not been responsible was part of his contract. Later, nodoubt, his turn would come. For the present, moreover, he felt that hecould not quite trust himself, and the fear that his suppressedgrudging might make him lose control of his temper made him anxious toavoid the risk. Gabrielle was thankful for this. She never feltunkindly towards him, and yet she was glad when she could feel sure ofnot seeing him for a time. In the dusk he would return, too druggedwith air and exercise to take much notice of her, and for this also shewas thankful. 

One evening in February, when Gabrielle was sitting in a dream over herturf fire, Considine came home from a day's blackcock shooting in thewoods on the edge of the lake. She did not hear him coming, for thegarden path was now deep in fallen leaves. As he turned to open thehouse door Considine saw a small shadow moving under the garden hedge. He thought it was a rabbit, and quickly, without considering, heslipped a cartridge into his gun, aimed at it, and fired. The sound ofa shattering report at close quarters broke Gabrielle's dream, recalling an old horror. She jumped to her feet and cried out. Considine, hearing her cry, dropped his gun and ran into the house. Hefound her standing with her hands pressed to her eyes and tremblingviolently. She did not see him when he called her name, and then, still shaken like a poplar in a storm, she turned on him with eyes fullof hate and let loose on him a flood of language such as she must havelearned from the Roscarna stable-boys, words that she couldn't possiblyhave spoken if she were sane. He apologised for his carelessness andtried to soothe her, and when she had stopped abusing him and brokendown into desolate tears he picked her up in his arms, carried her totheir bedroom, and sent a messenger riding to Roscarna for Biddy Joyce. 

She lay on the bed quivering, and Considine, white and harassed, stayedbeside her. He did not dare to leave her alone, even though she wouldnot look at him. By the time that Biddy arrived in a fluster, Gabrielle's child had been prematurely born. There was never anyquestion of independent life. The case remained in Biddy's hands, andwhether the child were Radway's or Considine's, nobody in the world butBiddy Joyce and Gabrielle ever knew. There is no doubt that Biddywould have committed herself to any lie rather than lose her reputationas an authority, for Biddy was a Joyce. Personally I cherish thepassionate belief that no man but Considine was the father. 

IX

It is certain that Considine secretly regarded the death of Gabrielle'schild with thankfulness. It had brought their equivocal relation to anend, and now that the matter was cleared up there was no reason why theirmarried life should not be as plain-sailing as he desired. This was thebeginning. 

As for Gabrielle, she recovered slowly. The emotional storm that hadbeen the cause of her accident had affected her more deeply than theillness itself, which Biddy, as might be expected, mismanaged. Thewintry season was at its loneliest when she came downstairs again, verypale and transparent, and began to settle down into the ways of thehouse. Even so the storm had cleared the air, and when she began torecover her strength she also recovered some of her spirit. Lookingbackward she realised the depths in which she had been struggling anddetermined, rather grimly, that whatever happened she would never descendto them again. She was naturally a healthy and a happy creature, and nowthat her troubles were over she meant to enjoy life. 

Considine rejoiced at her recovery. It must not be forgotten thatConsidine was genuinely in love with her, that he found her physicallyexquisite, and had always delighted in her swift mind. And even ifGabrielle could not give him in return an ideal passion, she did not, inthe very least, dislike him. She had always looked upon him as a goodfriend. Before their marriage, ever since her earliest childhood theyhad spent many happy hours together. As a tutor he had been able tointerest her, and apart from the fact that he was now her husband andcould offer her tenderness and admiration as well, there was no reasonwhy her life should be very different from what it had been. The onlything that she loved of which he had deprived her was Roscarna. Atfirst, she had felt that more than anything; but when she recovered fromher illness and was able for the first time to accompany Considine on hisvisits to the estate, it seemed to her that her passion for Roscarna hadfaded. Perhaps also she was now a little frightened by its associations, and felt that it would be safer for her to cut herself entirely free fromeverything that reminded her of the old era. When she visited the houseto see her father she would look wistfully, almost fearfully, at her oldhaunts; the path to the lake, the woods that she never entered now, and, above them, the cloudy vastness of Slieveannilaun. She used to go thereonce a week, and Considine, as a matter of course, went with her. 

By the beginning of the spring her reason for these visits ceased. Jocelyn, who had been ailing for a year or more, suddenly died. 

I suppose it was the kind of death that he might have expected. It wasnow two years since he had been able to take the keen physical delight incountry life that had been his chief apology for his early excesses. Even before the blow of Radway's accident and Gabrielle's marriage hadfallen upon him his arteries had been ageing, and though he was barelysixty years of age a man is as old as his arteries. The end came swiftlywith a left-sided cerebral haemorrhage that robbed him of his speech andparalysed the right side of his body, not in the middle of any unusualexertion, but when he was sitting quietly over the fire after dinner. Biddy found him there when she brought him in his nightcap, huddled up onthe floor where he had fallen. She had expected something of the kindfor long enough. No one in the world knew Jocelyn as well as she did. 

She guessed that nothing could be done, and waited for the morning beforeshe sent for Considine or the doctor. In the afternoon when Gabrielleand Considine visited him Jocelyn was almost good-humoured, laughingsardonically and screwing up one of his bird-like eyes while, from theother, tears escaped. He passed from laughter to tears quite easily. Itwas very horrible to see one side of his childish grey-whiskered facepuckered up with crying and the other limp and blank. He finished bymaking cheerful signs to them that he was sure he would be better in aweek. Of course he wasn't. Within five days his poor brain was smittenwith two more tremendous blows. The third stroke killed him, coming inthe night. It was Biddy who kissed his face and put Peter's pence uponhis eyes and folded his arms on his breast. If any woman in the worldhad a right to perform this melancholy function for Jocelyn it was she. He was hers, and when he died she was alone with him, which was as itshould have been. 

Even when he was dead, Biddy had not finished with him. For many yearshe had trusted her with the key of the cellar, and this privilege allowedher to arrange a wake exceeding in magnificence anything in the memory ofJoyce's Country. They kept it up for three days, the scattered Joycesforegathering from outlandish corners of Mayo and Connemara. Naturallyshe didn't tell Considine. He himself discovered the darkeneddining-room at Roscarna strewn with human débris and lit with fiftycandles. The candles were popish and the drinkers were pagan, so heturned on Biddy and told her more or less what he thought of her. Hepointed with disgust to a couple of drinkers who lay snoring on a sofaunder the window. "All the riff-raff of the country!" he said. Biddyflared up. "Riff-raff, is it? Sure it's his own sons and mine who do beafter paying respect to their own father, and him lying dead!"

But Considine was not to be beaten. He had known for many years thatBiddy was a kindly humbug. He knew that if he didn't now get rid of herRoscarna would become nothing more than a warren in which her innumerablerelatives might swarm. He purged Roscarna of Joyces, Biddy included. Heburied Jocelyn decently according to the ritual of the Church of Ireland, and proceeded to put his wife's estate in order as soon as her father'sremains were disposed of. 

There was more work in it than he had bargained for. Even the smallimmediate courtesies and formalities took time; the announcements in thepapers and short obituary notices; letters, discreetly composed, announcing the melancholy event to Lord and Lady Halberton; an officialsearch for Jocelyn's last will; a formal application for probate. 

When these things were finished, Considine's real work had only begun. He had to readjust the whole financial fabric of Roscarna, to find outwhat money was owed or owing, to decide how much of Gabrielle's paperinheritance was tangible. He unearthed the firm of Dublin solicitors inwhose hands the business of the estate had been allowed to drift for thelast twenty years. They seemed to him a pack of shifty rogues. He wasnot used to dealing with lawyers, and what he took for cunning wasnothing more than the traditional gesture of the profession. It wasunthinkable that a firm of such ancient establishment should show anytraces of haste in a matter of business. When Considine began to hurrythem up they simply offered to surrender the business. No doubt theyknew far better than Considine that there wasn't much in it. He imaginedthat they were bluffing and took them at their word, with the result thatthere fell upon Clonderriff a snowstorm of documents--leases andmortgages and conveyances and post-obits--all the documentary débris of acrumbled estate, from the Elizabethan charter on which the first Hewishhad founded Roscarna to the illiterate IOU's of Jocelyn's spider-racingdays. Considine, up to his neck in it, called on Gabrielle to help inthe ordering of her affairs. At Clonderriff they had not room enough forthis accumulation of papers, so they set aside the library at Roscarnafor the purpose, sorting and indexing the Hewish dossier as long as thedaylight lasted. Considine worked steadily through them as though hewere dealing with a mathematical calculation. To Gabrielle, on the otherhand, there was something mysterious in her occupation; fingering thesepapers that other fingers had touched she communed with the dead--notwith her father, who could scarcely write his own name, but with theancient stately Hewishes who had built Roscarna and grown rich on theSpanish trade. Sitting at the long table with Considine, a pile ofpapers before her, her attention would wander, and while her eyes watchedthe west wind blowing along the woods she would feel that she was notherself but another Hewish woman staring out of the library windows on arough day in March a hundred years ago. And in this dream she would belost until the light died on the woods in a stormy sunset, and Considinebegan to collect the papers in sheaves and lock them in the press. 

By the time that spring appeared, Considine doing his best to put theaffairs of Roscarna in order, had realised the hopeless disorder in whichthey were involved. In the whole of Jocelyn's tenure of the estate theonly stable period had been that of his bourgeois marriage. In youth hehad been wildly profligate, in old age negligent, in neither caring foranything beyond his immediate needs. His tenants owed him thousands ofpounds that he had never attempted to recover, for he had found it easierto borrow money on mortgage than exact it in rent. As a result ofJocelyn's finance Considine found that Gabrielle's only hope of savinganything from the ruined fortune lay in the sacrifice of Roscarna itself. The property, hopelessly degenerated as an agricultural estate, had stillsome value as a fishing or shooting box, and there was a chance that somewealthy Englishman might buy it for that purpose. For a moment the ideaof selling Roscarna hurt her, but after a little thought she consented tothe sale. Considine advertised the opportunity in the English sportingpapers, but the only reply that came to him was a long and anxious letterfrom Lord Halberton, who had been shocked to see the Irish branch of hisfamily reduced to selling their house and lands. His lordship offered tocome over in person and give Considine the benefit of his opinion. Considine wrote very fully in reply, enclosing a balance-sheet that madeLord Halberton sit up and rub his eyes. The business-like tone ofConsidine's letter struck him very favourably; that sort of thing was sorare in a parson. As a matter of fact he had already heard from theRadways how tactfully Considine had managed the difficult situation oftheir son's death. 

It struck him that Considine was too good a man to be wasted in the wildsof Ireland where the cause of tradition and aristocracy needed nobolstering. A fellow who could wind up an estate as entangled asRoscarna would be useful in the sphere of the Halberton territorialinfluence. He talked the matter over with his wife, and in the end wroteto Considine at some length, concurring in his wise determination to getrid of Roscarna. 

"_If you sell Roscarna_, " he wrote, "_it will scarcely be fitting foryour wife to remain in the district occupying a small house inClonderriff. My lady and I both consider that this proceeding would beincompatible with Gabrielle's dignity. As luck will have it the livingof Lapton Huish (that is the way in which your wife's name is spelt inEngland) will shortly be vacant. I have persuaded Dr. Harrow, thepresent incumbent, who is over ninety and not very active, that it wouldbe well for him to make way for a younger man. The living is notgenerously endowed, but it has the advantage of being on the edge of myestates, and I have great pleasure in offering it to you. There is noreason why it should not lead to further advancement_. "

The receipt of this letter made Considine tremulous with pleasure. Hisoriginal settlement in Ireland had been the result of a romanticinclination to play the missionary in a godless Catholic country. Whenfirst he came to Clonderriff he hadn't for a moment realised that thehuge inertia of the west would get hold of him and enchain him; but withthe passage of time this was what had happened. He knew now that hecould not, of his own will, escape; and at the very moment when Jocelyn'sdeath had created a general upheaval and made the situation inClonderriff restless, Lord Halberton's offer gave him the chance not onlyof returning to his own country, but of making up for lost time. Hejumped at it, and Gabrielle, who could not bear the idea of seeing herown Roscarna in the occupation of strangers, gladly consented. I do notsuppose it would have made much difference to Considine if she hadobjected. 

X

At Lapton Huish, in the following autumn, Mrs. Payne found them. Thedetails of what had happened in the interval are not very clear, butthe effect of the change upon Gabrielle must have been considerable, for the Mrs. Considine who appeared to Mrs. Payne does not seem to havehad much in common with the dazed, hysterical child we left atRoscarna. I doubt if it was the experience of her marital relationswith Considine that made her grow up; from the first she had tacitlydisregarded them. I suppose the change was simply the result of livingin a more civilised and populous country, for South Devon was both, incomparison with her lost Roscarna. 

The Halbertons had been very kind to them. How much of their kindnesssprang from original virtue, and how much from anxiety that the leastconnection of the family should be worthy of their reflected lustre, itis difficult to say. No doubt it pleased them to be generous on afeudal scale, particularly since Gabrielle, with her striking beautyand sharp wits, showed possibilities of doing them credit. As soon asthe aged Dr. Harrow had been bundled out, the establishment of theConsidines became a game as entertaining to Lady Halberton in thesphere of religious culture, as chemical experiments were to herhusband in that of root-crops--with the delightful difference thathuman souls ran away with much less money than mangolds. 

While the Rectory at Lapton was having its roof repaired, its wallspainted, and the fungus that grew in the cupboards of old CanonHarrow's bedroom removed, the Considines were housed at Halberton andinstructed in the family tradition. In the case of Dr. Considine--hishoneymoon activities had pulled off the degree in divinity--this waseasy, for he had spent his childhood on a feudal estate in Wiltshireand his politics were therefore identical with Lord Halberton's. WithGabrielle, whom Lady Halberton took in hand, the process was moredifficult. She couldn't, at first, quite catch the Halberton air, but, being an admirable mimic, she soon tumbled into it. The clothes withwhich Lady Halberton supplied her helped her to realise the characterthat she was expected to assume. Sometimes she felt so pleased withher performance that she was tempted to overdo it and suddenly foundherself presenting a caricature of Halberton manners that was so acuteas to be cruel. And sometimes, when she felt that she couldn't keep itup, she would suddenly drop the whole pretence and relapse into theinsinuating brogue of Biddy Joyce; an amazing trick that she employedwith scandalous effect in later years. But although she occasionallylaughed at it, Gabrielle found the ease and luxury of Halberton Housevery much to her taste. She lost her thin and anxious expression andbecame a great favourite, not only with Lady Halberton, but also withthe old gentleman and Lady Barbara, the elder daughter, who was stillunmarried and likely to remain so. 

After six weeks at Halberton the Considines moved into the Rectory atLapton, a square, solid building, endowed with luxuriant creepers andprotected on the side that faced the prevailing wind and the roadway, with a covering of hung slates. On the three other sides lay a gardenwhich had been too much for Canon Harrow and his gardener Hannaford. Both of them had been old and withered, and the tremendous vitality ofthe green things that grew in that rich red soil had overcome all theirefforts at repression so that the house had been besieged and chokedwith vegetation and mildewed with the dampness of rain and sap. It wasall very lush and generous and cool, no doubt, in summer; but when therain that drove in from the Channel glistened on the hung slates anddripped incessantly from myriads of shining leaves, the Rector ofLapton Huish might as well have been living in a tropical swamp. Tothe north of them, the huge masses of Dartmoor stole the air, so thattheir life seemed to be lost in a windless eddy, and in the deepvalleys with which the country was scored the air lay dead for manymonths at a time. Gabrielle, accustomed to the free spaces ofConnemara, felt the change depressing, though she would not admit it;indeed, she had far too many things to think about to have time forspeculating on her own health. 

First of all the callers. At Roscarna the reputation of Jocelyn and, above all, his relations with Biddy Joyce, had saved the Hewishes fromthese formalities; and the great distances that separated the houses ofgentlefolk in the west of Ireland would have made hospitality a morespontaneous and less formal affair in any case. In Devon, as Gabriellesoon discovered, calling was a ritual complicated by innumerable shadesof social finesse. Lady Halberton had already coached her in the listof people whom she must know, people she could safely know at adistance, and people whom it was her duty to discourage. As soon asshe was settled in at Lapton the county descended on her and she wasoverwhelmed with visitors from all three classes. 

If she had been a stranger the Devonshire people would probably havewatched her with a preconceived suspicion and dislike for a couple ofyears, but even her questionable qualities of youth and spontaneitycould not dispose of the fact that she had been born a Hewish and hadlately visited at Halberton House. In that mild climate people remainalive, or, if you prefer it, asleep, longer than in any other part ofEngland, and the visitors who came flocking to Lapton were, for themost part, in a stage of decrepit or suspended life. They drovethrough the steep and narrow lanes in all sorts of ancient vehicles, injingles, victorias, barouches and enormous family drags. Theircoachmen, older and more withered than themselves, wore mid-Victorianwhiskers, and shiny cockades on their hats. In Gabrielle'sdrawing-room the visitors sat on the extreme edges of their chairs. They spoke with a faded propriety, dropped their final "g's, " andspecialised in the abbreviation "ain't. " They stayed for a quarter ofan hour exactly by the French clock on the mantelpiece, contriving, inthis calculated period, to make it quite clear that they were on termsof intimacy with the Halbertons, and they invariably finished byinviting the Considines to lunch. 

In this way Gabrielle became familiar with a number of dining-roomsfurnished in mahogany and horsehair and hung with opulent studies ofstill life in oils and engravings after Mr. Frith. The meal wasusually served by the whiskered coachman, who wore, for the occasion, awaistcoat decorated with dark blue and yellow stripes, and there wasalways cake for lunch. After the port, which generally made her feelsleepy, Considine would be taken off to see the stables, and Gabrielleconducted to a walled garden, heavy with the scent of ripening fruit, where there was no shade but that of huge apple trees, frosted withAmerican blight, that reminded her, in their passive mellowness, of thepeople who owned them. Nothing more violent than archery, in its oldand placid variety, ever invaded the lives of these county families. If it had not been for the headaches with which their society alwaysafflicted her, Gabrielle would have been tempted time after time toscandalise them, but the example of Considine, who was always frigidlyat ease, restrained her, and so she allowed herself to be lulled tosleep, recovering slowly as they drove back through the green lanes toLapton. 

Her symptoms of boredom were taken, in this society, for evidence ofher good breeding, and since she was too tired to be scandalous, Gabrielle became a social success. Her success is important, notbecause it changed her in any way, but because it paved the way for thedevelopment by which she became acquainted with Mrs. Payne, and themost intriguing episode of her life began. 

It was notorious that Considine's parochial labours occupied verylittle of his time. The parish was small and scattered, Lapton Huishitself being a mere hamlet, and the neighbouring farmers so soaked inrespectable tradition and isolated from opportunities of vice thattheir souls lay in no great danger of damnation. The activities ofConsidine were practically limited to his Sunday services, but thoughthe softness of the climate might eventually have transformed him intoa likeness of the ancient automaton who had preceded him, it was not inhis nature to take things easily. He came of a vigorous stock. Theclear, thin air of the Wiltshire downland that his ancestors hadbreathed makes for energy of temperament. At Roscarna he had givenvent to this in the education of Gabrielle, the acquisition of hisdoctor's degree, and the management of his father-in-law's estate. Hiscapacity for management, of which he had shown evidence in hiswinding-up of the Roscarna affairs, appealed to Lord Halberton, and itwas not long before he proposed a series of improvements to the Laptonproperty that took his patron's fancy. In Considine's ideas there wasnot only imagination, but money, and Halberton was getting rather tiredof his own expensive agricultural experiments. 

The big house of the parish, Lapton Manor, had lain for several yearsunoccupied, for no other reason apparently but that it was isolated andout of date. To Lord Halberton it represented at least a thousandpounds a year in waste. When Considine had been at Lapton Huish for alittle more than six months this deserted mansion suggested itself tohim as an outlet for his energies. He told Gabrielle nothing ofthis--he was not in the habit of discussing business matters withGabrielle--but he rode over to Halberton House one day with anelaborate and practical paper scheme. He proposed, in effect, tovacate the Rectory, and take over Lapton Manor as it stood. 

The idea had been suggested to him at first by one of the consequencesof Gabrielle's social success. The wife of a neighbouring baronet hadfallen in love with her--the fact that her husband had followed suitmade things easier. This woman was the mother of two sons, of whom theelder, the heir to the title, was delicate. She did not wish toseparate the boys, and realising that it was impossible to send themtogether to an ordinary preparatory school, the notion had come to herof asking the Considines if they would take them into their house atLapton. Doctor Considine, no doubt, would find time to equip them witha good classical education, while Gabrielle could supply the feminineinfluence which was so essential to real refinement. She was not onlytired of tutors--their equivocal social status was so tiresome!--butsufficiently Spartan to feel that her sons would be better away fromhome for a little while. Away, but not too far away. Gabrielle hadthought it would be rather fun to have a couple of boys, even dull boyslike the Traceys, in the house. She had told Considine that she wouldlike the arrangement if only the Rectory were bigger. As it was theycouldn't possibly entertain the proposal. 

This set Considine thinking, and from his deliberations emerged themuch more ambitious scheme of taking over Lapton Manor, and equippingit as a special school for the education of really expensive boys. Hedecided that he would not take a greater number than he could educateby himself. His pupils must all be well-connected or wealthy. Hewould teach them not only the things with which a public school mightreasonably be expected to equip them, but the whole duty of a landedproprietor. The neglected Manor lands, already a drag on the Halbertonproperty, should be his example. His pupils should see it recovergradually with their own eyes. The fees they paid should go to itsdevelopment, and provide at the end of three or four years' work thesatisfaction of a model and profitable estate. 

All Considine's heart was in the plan. He loved teaching, and he lovedthe land. He had a natural aptitude for both, and the opportunity ofdeveloping them seemed too good to be missed. Lord Halberton agreed. A lease was signed in which Considine, paying a nominal rent for LaptonManor, undertook to restore the lands and house to the condition fromwhich they had fallen. Both landlord and tenant were delighted withtheir bargain. In six weeks the Rectory had been vacated and relet toan old lady from the north of England who wanted to die in Devonshire, and the Considines had moved to the Manor, under the benignant eyes ofLady Halberton. In another fortnight the first pupils, the Traceyboys, arrived, and Considine was advertising in _The Morning Post_ and_The Times_ for three at fees that even Lord Halberton consideredoutrageous. "There's plenty of money in the country, " said Considine. With the insight of genius he added to his advertisement, "Special careis given to backward or difficult pupils. "

XI

When Mrs. Payne had the good luck to stumble on Considine'sadvertisement--for, in spite of the strange complications that ensuedfor the Considines the occasion was certainly fortunate for her--thatremarkable person was at her wits' ends. If she had not been a womanof resource and character as well as a devoted mother I think she wouldhave given up the problem of Arthur as a bad job long before this; butit was literally the only thing that really mattered to her in life, and if she had abandoned the struggle I do not know what would havebecome of her. 

By ordinary canons Mrs. Payne could not be considered an attractivewoman. The only striking features in her plain, and ratherexpressionless face were her eyes, which were of a soft andextraordinarily beautiful grey. She had large hands and feet, nofigure to speak of, and she dressed abominably. She possessed in fact, all the virtues and none of the graces, and was, in this respect at anyrate, the diametrical opposite of her son. Her appearance suggestedthat life had given her a tremendous battering, a condition that wouldhave been pitiful if it were not that she also gave the impression ofhaving doggedly survived it; and for this reason one could not helpadmiring her. 

Her husband had been a business man of exceptional brilliance, of abrilliance, indeed, that was almost pathological, and may haveaccounted in part for the curious mentality of Arthur. In a short, butincredibly active life, he had amassed a fortune that was considerable, even in the midlands where fortunes are made. I do not know what hemanufactured, but his business was conducted in Gloucester, and theOverton estate, which he acquired shortly before his death, lay underthe shadow of Cotswold, between its escarpment and the isolated hill ofBredon, within twenty miles of that city. Mr. Payne had died of acutepneumonia in a sharp struggle that was in keeping with his strenuousmode of life. Seven months after his death his only child, Arthur, wasborn. 

In the care of her son, and the control of the fortune to which hewould later succeed, Mrs. Payne, who was blessed with an equal vocationfor motherhood and finance, became happily absorbed. Everythingpromised well. The business in Gloucester realised more than she couldhave expected, and she settled down in the placid surroundings ofOverton with no care in the world but Arthur's future. 

He was a singularly beautiful child, fair-haired, with a skin that evenin manhood was dazzlingly white, and eyes that were as arresting as hismother's: a creature of immense vitality, who shook off the usualdiseases of childhood without difficulty, and developed an early andalmost abnormal physical perfection. He was not, it is true, particularly intelligent. He did not begin to talk until he was overthree years old; but this slowness of development was only in keepingwith his mother's physical type, and his early childhood was a periodof sheer delight to her in which no shadow of the imminent troubleappeared. 

By the time that he had reached his seventh year, Mrs. Payne wasbeginning to be worried about him. His bodily health was stillmagnificent, but there was a strain in his character that worried her. It appeared that it was impossible for him to tell the truth. Haphazard lying is no uncommon thing in children, proceeding, as itsometimes does, from an excess of imagination and an anxiety to appearstartling; but imagination was scarcely Arthur's strong point, and hislies were not haphazard, but deliberately planned. 

To a woman of Mrs. Payne's uncompromising truthfulness this habitappeared as a most serious failing. She could not leave it to chance, in a vague hope that Arthur would "grow out of it. " She tackled it, heroically and directly, by earnest persuasion, and later, bypunishments. By one method and another she determined to appeal to hismoral sense, but after a couple of years of hopeless struggling she wasdriven to the conclusion that this, exactly, was what he lacked. Itseemed that he had been born without one. 

The thing was impossible to her, for his father had been a man ofexceptional probity and, without self-flattery, she knew that sheherself was the most transparently honest person on earth. As the boygrew older his opportunities for showing this fatal deficiencyincreased. Whatever she said or did, and however sweetly he acceptedher persuasions and punishments, it became evident that she, at anyrate, was incapable of keeping his hands from picking and stealing andhis tongue from evil speaking, lying, and slandering. The conditionwas the more amazing in the face of his great natural charms. All herfriends and visitors at Overton found the boy delightful; his physicalbeauty remained as wonderful as ever; on the surface he was a normaland exceptionally attractive child; but in her heart she realisedbitterly that he was a completely a-moral being. 

In nothing was this more apparent than in his behaviour towardsanimals. Overton, lying as it did in the midst of a green countryside, was a natural sanctuary for all wild creatures, in which Arthur, fromhis earliest years, had always shown a peculiar interest. As a child, he would spend many hours with the keeper, developing an instinct forwood-craft that seemed to be the strongest in his composition. He knewall the birds of the estate, their habits, their calls, their refuges. Once in the shadow of the woods, he himself was a wild animal, acreature of faunish activity and grace. Mrs. Payne always encouragedthis passion of his as a natural and admirable thing, until, one day, the keeper, who was no more humane than the majority of keepers, cameto her with a shocking story of Arthur's cruelty: an enormity that itwould have taken the mind of a devil, rather than a man, to imagine. When she taxed the boy with it he only laughed. She thrashed thematter out; she pointed out to him that he had done a devilish thing;but in the end she had to give it up, for it became clear to her thathe was trying as hard as he could to see her point of view butcouldn't, simply because it wasn't in him. She began to realise slowlyand reluctantly that it was no good for her to appeal to something thatdidn't exist. The boy had been born with a body a little above thenormal, and a mind a little below the average, but nature had cruellydenied him the possession of a soul, and neither her prayers nor herdevotion could give him what he congenitally lacked. 

She wondered whether the isolation of his life at Overton had anythingto do with it, whether contact with other children of his own age wouldreduce him to the normal. She took the risk, and sent him at the ageof twelve, to a preparatory school in Cheltenham. Before the firstterm was half over they sent for her and asked her to remove him. Thehead master confessed that the case was beyond him. On the surface theboy was one of the most charming in the whole school, but his heart wasan abyss of the most appalling blackness. Mrs. Payne entreated him totell her the worst. He hedged, said that it wasn't just one thing thatwas wrong, but everything--everything. She asked him if he had everknown a case that resembled Arthur's. No, he thanked Heaven that hehadn't. Could he advise her what to do? Lamely he suggested a tutor, and then, as an afterthought, a mental specialist. 

The word sent a chill into Mrs. Payne's heart. The idea that thisbright, delightful child, the idol of her hopes, was the victim of someobscure form of moral insanity frightened her. But she was a woman ofcourage and determined to know the worst. She took him to a specialistin London. 

Arthur thoroughly enjoyed this desolating trip. The specialist talkedvaguely, leaving her nothing but the faintest gleam of hope. Therewere more things in heaven and earth, he said, than were dreamed of inthe philosophy of the most distinguished alienists. He talkedindefinitely of internal secretions. It was possible, he said--andunderlined the word--possible, just barely possible, that in a year ortwo--to put it bluntly, at the time of puberty--the boy's dispositionmight suddenly and unaccountably change. He implored her not to counton it, and assured her that, for the present, medical science could dono more. If, by any chance, his prophecy should be fulfilled, hebegged Mrs. Payne to let him know. The case, if she would pardon theuse of this objectionable word, was one of the greatest professionalinterest. 

She took Arthur back to Overton and waited desperately. Tutorsucceeded tutor. Each of them found Arthur charming and impossible. For herself she saw no change in him that was not physical. By thistime she had abandoned any idea of finding him a profession. At thesame time, she was anxious to make him capable of managing the Overtonestate, and though she dared not send him to one of the ordinaryagricultural colleges for fear of a repetition, on a larger scale, ofthe Cheltenham disaster, she thought that it might be possible to finda capable land-agent who would give him some kind of training and putup with his idiosyncrasy for the sake of a substantial fee. 

While searching for a suitable instructor she happened to seeConsidine's advertisement. The fact that he gave the name of a greatlandowner, Lord Halberton, as a reference, convinced her that theopportunity was genuine, and the prospectus promised instruction in allthe subjects that would be most useful to Arthur. The fact that only asmall number of pupils was to be taken, and that the place should beregarded as a friendly country-house rather than as a school, attractedher; but the part of the advertisement that finally persuaded her to afaint glimmer of hope was Considine's artfully worded final paragraph:"Special care is given to backward or difficult pupils. "

Like all sufferers from incurable diseases she was only too ready toplace confidence in any person who laid claim to special knowledge. She began to wonder if Considine was such a specialist. She wrote tohim, looking for a miracle to save her from her afflictions. 

Considine replied formally. He did not jump at the idea of takingArthur, a fact which convinced her that education at Lapton Manor wassomething of a privilege, and this made her disregard the fact that theprivilege was expensive. Still, his note was direct and business-like. He made it clear that if he were willing to take backward or difficultboys he expected to be paid a little more for his trouble, but theconfident tone in which he wrote suggested that he was a man who knewhis business. 

He did know his business. Considine was a clear-headed and capableperson with a degree of confidence in himself that went a long waytowards assuring his success. He proposed, finally, that it would bemore satisfactory for both of them if Mrs. Payne were to visit him atLapton and see the place and its owners for herself. Then they couldtalk the matter over, and define the peculiar difficulties of Arthur'scase. More and more impressed, she accepted the proposal. Considinemet her train at Totnes with a dogcart and drove her to Lapton Manor. 

XII

In that part of the world the early autumn is the most lovely season ofthe year. The country in its variety and sudden violences of shape andcolour seemed to her sensationally lovely after the mild beauty of herown midland landscape, dominated and restrained by the level skylinesof Cotswold. Considine, who spoke very little as he drove, but was astylish whip, told her the names of the villages through which theypassed, names that were as soft and sleepy as Lapton Huish itself. Heshowed her his church, with a flicker of pride, and the hung slates ofthe Rectory wall through a gap in the green. Then they passed into theopen drive of Lapton Manor. 

He explained to her that the estate had been neglected and was now thesubject of an experiment; but it seemed to her that the level fieldsthrough which the drive extended had already come under the influenceof his orderly mind. To everything that Considine undertook thereclung an atmosphere of formal precision that suggested nothing so muchas the eighteenth century. The Manor, suddenly sweeping into view frombehind a plantation of ilex, confirmed this impression. It was such ahouse as Considine must inevitably have chosen, a solid Georgianstructure, square and sombre, with a pillared portico in front shadingthe entrance and its flanking windows. The window panes of the upperstorey blazed in the setting sun. 

In the hall Gabrielle Considine awaited them. She was dressed inblack--probably she was still in mourning for Jocelyn--with a whitemuslin collar such as a widow might have worn. To Mrs. Payne, by anunconscious personal contrast, she seemed very tall and graceful andexceedingly well-bred. No doubt Considine had prepared the way forthis impression. On the drive up he had spoken several times of LordHalberton, "my wife's cousin. " Mrs. Considine's voice was very soft, with the least hint of Irish in it, an inflection rather than a brogue. Her hands, her neck and her face were very white. Possibly her skinseemed whiter because of the blackness of her hair and of her dress andthe beautiful shape of her pale hands. Curiously enough, the chiefimpression she made on Mrs. Payne was not the obvious one of youth; andthis shows that Gabrielle, outwardly, at any rate, had changedenormously in the last year. Mrs. Payne did not know then, andcertainly would never have guessed, that the lady of the house wasunder twenty years of age. She only saw a creature full of grace, ofdignity, and of quietness, and she knew that Considine was proud ofthese qualities that his wife displayed. There was nothing to suggestthat the pair were not completely happy in their marriage. 

After dinner they proceeded to business. They sat together in thedrawing-room, Mrs. Considine busy with her embroidery at a small tableapart, while her husband, capably judicial, begged Mrs. Payne to tellhim the peculiar features of Arthur's case. She found Considinesympathetic, and the telling so easy that she was able to expressherself naturally in the most embarrassing part of her story. Considine helped her with small encouragements. Gabrielle saidnothing, bending over her work while she listened. Indeed, she hadscarcely spoken a dozen words since Mrs. Payne's arrival. When shecame to the episode of Arthur's expulsion from the school atCheltenham, Considine made an uneasy gesture suggesting that his wifeshould retire, and Gabrielle quietly rose. 

Mrs. Payne begged her to stay. "It is much better that you should bothknow everything, " she said. "I want you to realise things at theirworst. It is much better that you should know exactly where we stand. "

She wondered afterwards why Considine had suggested that Gabrielleshould go. At first she had taken it for granted that he was merelyconsidering her own maternal feelings in an unpleasant confession. Itwas not until she thought the matter out quietly at Overton that shedecided that his action was really in keeping with the rest of hisattitude towards his wife; that he did, in fact, regard her as a smallchild who should be repressed and denied an active interest in hisaffairs. Gabrielle's quietness had puzzled her. Perhaps this was itsexplanation. 

For the time the story absorbed her and she thought no more ofGabrielle. Considine was such an excellent listener, sitting therewith his long fingers knotted and his eyes fixed on her, that she foundherself subject to the same sort of mesmeric influence as had overcomeLord Halberton. He inspired her with a curious confidence, and shebegan to hope, almost passionately, that he would undertake the care ofArthur. Before she had finished her narrative she was assailed with afear that he wouldn't--he seemed to be weighing the matter so carefullyin his mind--and burst out with an abrupt: "But you _will_ take him, won't you?"

Considine smiled. "I shall be delighted, " he said. 

Her thankfulness, at the end of so much strain, almost bowled her over. 

"You make me feel more settled about him already, " she said. "I'malmost certain that he will be happy here. I feel that I'm so lucky tohave heard of you. You and your wife, " she added, for all the timethat she had been speaking, she had been conscious of the silentinterest of Gabrielle. When it came to a question of terms there wasnothing indefinite about Considine. The fees that he suggested wereenormous, but Mrs. Payne's faith in him was by this time so secure thatshe would gladly have paid anything. All through the rest of her visitthis slow and steady confidence increased. From the bedroom in whichshe slept she could see the wide expanse of the home fields. It seemedto her that the quiet of Lapton was deeper and mellower and moreintense than any she had ever known. It was saturated with the senseof ancient, stable, sane tradition. It breathed an atmosphere in whichnothing violent or strange or abnormal could ever flourish. She feltthat, in contrast with their restless modern Cotswold home, its intensenormality must surely have some subtle reassuring effect upon her son. Gazing over those yellow fields in the early morning she felt a moresettled happiness than she had ever known since her husband's death. 

So, full of hope, she returned to Overton and announced thearrangements she had made to Arthur. He took to them gladly. He wastired of the unnatural indolence of Overton, and in any case he wouldhave welcomed a change. In everything but his fatal abnormality he wasan ordinary healthy boy, and the prospect of going into a new county, and learning something of estate management, a subject in which he wasreally interested, appealed to him. She described the drive from thestation, the house, and the general conditions in detail. Herenthusiasm for Considine rather put him off. 

"I hope he isn't quite such a paragon as you make out, " he said, "orhe'll have no use for me. "

Gabrielle appeared as a rather shadowy figure in his mother'sbackground. "Oh, there's a wife, is there?" he said. "That's rather apity. " She smiled, for this was typical of his attitude towards women. 

Even though she smiled at it her heart was full of thankfulness, for, as he had grown older, she had lived in an indefinite terror of whatmight happen when Arthur did begin to notice women. It was quite badenough that he should be without a conscience in matters of truth andproperty; if he were to be found without conscience in matters of sexthere was no end to the complications with which she might have todeal. She always remembered the specialist's prophecy that the periodof puberty might be marked by a complete change for the better in hisdangerous temperament, but she was secretly haunted by a fear that thiscritical age might, by an equal chance, reveal some new abnormality oreven aggravate the old. Arthur was now nearly seventeen, andphysically, at any rate, mature. For the present she lived in a stateof exaggerated hopes and fears. 

The amazing part of the whole business was that Arthur didn't realiseit. He looked upon the anxiety which Mrs. Payne found it so difficultto conceal as feminine weakness. He wished to goodness that shewouldn't fuss over him, being convinced that he himself was anordinary, plain-sailing person who had submitted for long enough to anunreasonable degree of pampering. He didn't see any reason why heshouldn't be treated like any other boy of his age, and felt that hehad already been cheated of many of the rights of youth. One of theprincipal reasons why he welcomed the Lapton plan was that it wouldfree him from the constant tug of apron-strings, and allow him to mixfreely with creatures of his own age and sex. 

He went off to Lapton in the highest spirits, determined to have a goodtime, rejoicing in the prospect of freedom in a way that made hismother feel that she had been something of an oppressor. She could notresist the temptation of seeing the last of him, and so they travelleddown together. This time she stayed a couple of days at Lapton. Itwas part of Considine's plan to let parents see as much of the place asthey wanted, if only to convince them that they were getting theirmoney's worth. 

Everything that Mrs. Payne saw reassured her. The routine of the houseseemed to be reasonable and healthy. The mornings were devoted tolessons in the library. After lunch the pupils went out over thefields or into the woods where Considine instructed them in details offarming and forestry. Their work was not merely theoretical. They hadto learn to use their hands as well as their brains, to plough afurrow, or bank a hedge, or dig a pit for mangolds. Considine keptthem busy, and at the same time made them useful to himself. They usedto come in at tea-time flushed with exercise and pleasantly fatigued. The late afternoon and evening were their own. They played tennis orracquets, or read books in the library, a long room with many tallwindows that had been set aside for their instruction and leisure. 

Mrs. Payne rejoiced to find that their life at Lapton was so full. Inthe absence of any idleness that was not well-earned she saw thehighest wisdom of Considine's system; for it seemed to her that heranxiety for Arthur had probably done him an injustice in depriving himof a natural outlet for his energies. At Lapton he could scarcely findtime for wickedness. 

In this way her admiration for Considine increased. She only regrettedthat she had not been able in the past to secure a tutor of his capableand energetic type. Reviewing the series of languid and futile youngmen whom the very best agencies had sent her, she came to theconclusion that no man of Considine's type could ever have been forcedto accept a tutor's employment. Even in the choice of his pupils shesaw signs of his discrimination. In addition to the two Traceys, whosedelightful manners were undeniable, he had secured two other boys: onethe younger son of an East Anglian peer, and the other a boy whosefather was a colonel in the Indian army. The paragraph in Considine'sadvertisement that had first attracted her had made her wonder if hisschool might not develop into a collection of oddities, but all thepupils that she saw were not only the sons of gentlemen but obviouslynormal. She felt that their influence, seconding the control ofConsidine, must surely have a stabilising effect upon Arthur, and wascontent. 

During the two days of her visit she still found Gabrielle a littlepuzzling. She couldn't quite believe that her extreme quietness andreserve were nothing more than simplicity. Knowing nothing of herorigins she did not realise that Gabrielle was actually shy of her, andthat this, and nothing else, explained her air of mystery. On the lastnight, however, feeling that after all Gabrielle was the only woman inthe house in whom she could confide, she overcame her own diffidence, and told her the whole story over again from a personal and femininepoint of view. Gabrielle listened very quietly. 

"I'm so anxious that I felt bound to tell you, just in the hope thatyou'd be interested, " said Mrs. Payne. "One woman feels that it takesanother woman to understand her. If you had children of your own, you'd understand quite easily what I mean. "

"I think I do understand, " said Gabrielle. 

"There are little things about which I should be ashamed to worry yourhusband. I wonder if it would be asking too much of you to hope thatyou would sometimes write to me, and tell me how he is? Naturally Ican't expect you to take a special interest in Arthur, more than inothers----" She found it difficult to say more. 

"Of course I will write to you if you want me to, " said Gabrielle. 

Mrs. Payne, impulsively, kissed her. 

XIII

Gabrielle fulfilled her promise. All through the first term, whileautumn hardened into winter, at Lapton a season of sad sunlight, shekept Mrs. Payne posted in the chronicle of Arthur's progress, and thesedutiful letters comforted his mother in her unusual loneliness atOverton. They were not particularly interesting letters, and theynever brought to her any announcement of the long-awaited miracle, butthey gave her the assurance that some other woman had her eye on him, and this, for some strange reason that may have been explained byArthur's dependence on her through her long widowhood, comforted her. 

In the beginning Gabrielle interested herself in Arthur simply for thesake of Mrs. Payne; she had been touched by the mother's anxiety andfound her, perhaps, a little pathetic; but in a little time she beganto be interested in Arthur for himself. 

In the ordinary way she did not see a great deal of her husband'spupils. Nominally, of course, she was the female head of thehousehold, but Considine, aware of her limited domestic experience, andher ignorance of English customs, had secured a housekeeper from hisown home in Wiltshire, a Mrs. Bemerton, who also filled the office ofmatron. As might be expected in a woman of Considine's choice, Mrs. Bemerton was capable and, as luck would have it, she was also kindly. All the domestic arrangements at Lapton ran smoothly under herdirection. She was reasonably popular with the boys and mothered them. She even found time to mother Gabrielle--respectfully, for she had comefrom a county that is staunchly feudal, and was aware of her mistress'saugust connections. 

It was fortunate for Gabrielle in her relations with the boys that shehad so little to do with their domestic management. The fact that sheonly saw them in their moments of recreation saved her from beingregarded as an ogress, her only suspicious circumstance being the factthat she was married to Considine. Before the winter came she hadplayed games with them, and since she had so much of the tomboy in her, had made herself acceptable as a sportswoman and a good sort. By thetime that Arthur Payne arrived the days were drawing in, and she sawvery little of them, except in the evenings, after dinner, when she andConsidine would join them in a game of snooker in the billiard-room, ortake a hand of whist, old-fashioned whist, in the library. 

It was here that she first became personally aware of Arthur'sdisability. For several weeks she had been getting used to him as anormal being, attractive because he was so undeniably handsome andwell-developed, more than usually attractive to her, perhaps, becauseshe was dark and he was fair. She had noticed his eyes, so like thebeautiful eyes of Mrs. Payne, his splendid teeth, and the charmingingenuousness of his manner. Subtly influenced by these physicalfeatures, and taking him for granted, she had almost forgotten thecurious history that Mrs. Payne had confided to her, and it came as ashock to her playing cards against him one evening, to realise suddenlythat he was cheating. 

Her first impulse was one of indignation; but as she was not quite sureof herself she said nothing, waiting to see if she could possibly havebeen mistaken. In a few moments he cheated again, this time beyond anypossible doubt. She flushed with vexation. It seemed to her anenormous thing. She was just on the point of throwing down her cardswhen Mrs. Payne's story came back to her. Instead of dislike she felta sudden wave of pity and wonder. She had wanted, on the spur of themoment, to give him away; but she realised that this would onlydiscredit him with the other boys and probably lay him open to a sortof persecution. If he wasn't really responsible, that would be a pity;and so she held her tongue. 

All the same she couldn't go on playing cards with him. She knew thatif she did she would be bound to continue on the look-out, and beshocked by a series of these ugly incidents. She asked Considine if hewould read to them, and he consented readily. He liked reading aloud, partly because he was, not unreasonably, vain of his speaking voice andpartly because the practice was part of his theory of education. Atthat time he was reading Stevenson, an author who was supposed tocombine a flawless literary style with the soundest moral precepts andan attitude towards life that encouraged the manly virtues peculiar toEnglishmen. Gabrielle enjoyed his reading thoroughly, for she had somuch of the boy in herself, and was quite unacquainted with anyVictorian literature. He read _Catriona_ slowly, and with gusto. Gabrielle from her corner watched Arthur Payne, sprawling on a sofa atthe edge of the lamp-light. He was really a remarkably handsome younganimal with his fair hair tangled and his hands clasped on his knees. She could see his eyes in the gloom. They seemed to burn witheagerness while he listened, as though his imagination were on firewithin. She forgot that Considine was reading and went on watching theboy. It seemed to her incredible that it was he whom she had detectedin such a deliberate dishonour half an hour before. It was melancholy. She felt most awfully sorry for him. She wished, above all things, that she could help him. People said that he was beyond help. In theend he became conscious of her scrutiny and smiled across at her. Andthis broke the spell of reflection. She heard Considine's voice:

_'I will take up the defence of your reputation, ' she said. 'You mayleave it in my hands. ' And with that she withdrew out of the library. _"That's the end of chapter nineteen. "

He closed the book, putting a marker in it methodically, as was hiswont. Gabrielle thanked him. She smiled to herself, for it seemed toher that the words of Miss Grant with which he had recalled her fromher abstraction had a curious and prophetic meaning for herself. Shewas thankful, for a moment, that she hadn't thoughtlessly givenArthur's reputation away to his comrades. She felt herself thrilled bya new and curious interest. She determined, as a part of her duty tohis mother, to speak to Arthur himself about what she had observed. 

She caught him in the passage just as the boys were going to bed, anddrew him aside into the drawing-room. The room was quite dark. 

"Arthur, I want to speak to you, " she said. 

He laughed. "What's the matter?"

"When we were playing cards to-night you cheated. "

For a moment there was silence. Then he laughed again--not an uneasy, shameful laugh, but one of sheer amusement. It shocked her. At lasthe said:

"Did you see it? Then why didn't you make a fuss about it?"

She was thankful, at any rate, that he had not lied to her. That waswhat she had fearfully expected. 

"I didn't want to give you away to the others. "

"Why not? It wouldn't have been any news to them. They know that Icheat already. That's why they're up against me. But that doesn'tworry me. "

"I don't understand you. It seemed to me a horrible thing to do. Can't you see that?"

"No, I can't. Perhaps I'm different. When I play I play to win. "

"But that's the whole point. If you don't stick to the rules of thegame there's no credit in winning, is there?"

He was silent for a moment. Then, with an effort of the mostcourageous honesty, he said: "Well, it feels the same to me. I likewinning--anyhow. "

She hesitated for a moment. 

"It makes it so that--so that we can't respect you, " she said. 

"Now I suppose you'll go and tell Dr. Considine. Just my luck. "

"Indeed, and I shan't do anything of the sort. It's between us two, "she replied. 

He was silent. 

"Well, it does no good talking about it, " he said mournfully. "I'mmade differently, that's all. Do you want anything else?"

She didn't, and he left her in the dark. 

This small incident and the conversation that followed opened her eyesto the reality of the problem. She didn't indeed tell Considine whathad happened, but she did talk to him once or twice about the historyof Arthur Payne. He did not tell her much, for it was part of his planthat his wife should not be mixed up in the business of the school. These things, in his opinion, lay entirely outside a woman's province. Her place was in the drawing-room and her position that of a hostessor, providentially, that of a mother. For the present there were nosigns of her fulfilling the latter. 

In spite of Considine's discouragement her interest in Arthur was nowfully aroused, and more eagerly for the very reason of the limits whichher husband had set to her activities. Life at Lapton Manor to aperson of Gabrielle's essential vitality was dull. The nature of thesurrounding country with its near horizons and lack of physical breadthor freedom imprisoned her spirit. Even Roscarna in its decay had beenmore vital than this sad, smug Georgian manor-house set in its circleof low hills. Over there, in winter, there had been rough Atlanticweather, and a breath of ice from the snowy summits of Slieveannilaunor the mountains of Maamturk. Here, even in their more frequentsunshine, the air lay dead, ebbing like a sluggish river, from Dartmoorto the sea. In winter the county families went to sleep like dormice, so that no strange-calling conveyances passed the lodge-gates atLapton, and the life of Gabrielle was like that of those sad roses thatlingered on the south wall beneath her bedroom window in a state thatwas neither life nor death. If she had shared Considine's interest inhis profession things might have been different. No doubt she wouldhave thrown herself into it with enthusiasm; but her enthusiasm was ofa very different nature from the steady flame that burned in Considine. No doubt he knew this, and felt that her sharing would be disturbing byits violence. In the ordinary course of events I suppose he expectedthat she would have another child, but as this interest was denied her, she was thrown more and more upon her own resources. 

Her promise to Mrs. Payne gave her a reasonable excuse for her growinginterest in Arthur. She had never returned to the card-playingincident; but as time went on a number of others equally distressingpresented themselves. Having constituted herself his specialprotectress and the saviour of his reputation she tackled each of themwith courage. In every case she found herself baffled by the fact thatarguments which seemed to her unanswerable made no appeal to him, notbecause he wasn't anxious to see things with her eyes, but because theycame within the area of a kind of blind-spot in his brain. She soonfound that she couldn't appeal on moral grounds to an a-moralintelligence. She would have appealed on grounds material, but itseemed to be ironically decreed that material and moral grounds shouldbe rarely at one. Sweet persuasion was equally useless. And indeed, how could she expect to succeed by her influence where maternal lovehad failed so signally? Even so, she would not own herself beaten. Itwas tantalising; for the more she saw of Arthur the better she likedhim, and in these days she was seeing a good deal of him. 

The opportunity arose from Arthur's trouble. He had told her the truthwhen he said his fellow-pupils at Lapton were already aware of his lackof honour in games. Nothing is less easily forgiven by boys, and whenthe others discovered that he cheated and lied, not so much by accidentas on principle, they began to treat him as an outcast from theirdecent society. The Traceys went so far as to report his failing toConsidine. An unpleasant _contretemps_, but one that Considine hadexpected. He explained to them that Payne was not entirely to blame, and that his constitution was not normal. He advised them to take theweakness for granted. Even when he did this he knew that suchdistinctions were unlikely to be acceptable to a boyish code of honour. On the other hand the special fees that Mrs. Payne was paying him wereessential to the development of his plans. As a compromise he decidedto keep Arthur apart from the others in their amusements in the mostnatural way he could devise. Practically for want of a better solutionhe handed him over to the care of Gabrielle. 

Arthur resented this. He was fond of games and of sport. He likedwinning and he liked killing; he thought it humiliating to his manlydignity to be relegated to Gabrielle's society. He wrote bitterly tohis mother about it, using the contemptuous nickname that the boys hadinvented for Mrs. Considine. 

"_I think old Considine, _" he wrote, "_must be thinking of turning meinto a nursemaid. I'm always being told off to help Gaby in the gardenor take her for drives in the pony-cart. Not much fun taking a womanshopping!_"

But Gabrielle was glad of it. The new plan supplied her with the firstprolonged companionship of a person of her own age--there were lessthan three years between them--that she had known. Little by littleArthur accepted it, and they became great friends. 

It was a curious relation, for though it must have been simple on hisside, on hers it was full of complication. To begin with his societywas a great relief from her loneliness. Again, she had already, forwant of another enthusiasm, conceived an acute interest in his curioustemperament, and her eagerness to get to the bottom of it, and, ifpossible, to find a cure, was now fanned by something that resembled amaternal passion. They spent the greater part of his spare timetogether, and often, at hours when he would normally have been workingwith Considine, she would ask for him to take her driving into Totnesor Dartmouth, their two market towns. In the evenings they would walkout together in search of air along the lip of the basin in whichLapton Manor lay. 

On one of these evening walks a strange thing happened. They hadclimbed the hills and had sat for a few minutes on the summit watchingthe sun go down behind the level ridges that lead inward from theStart. While they were sitting there in silence, Arthur suddenlyslipped away over the brim of a little hollow full of bracken on theedge of the wood. A moment later Gabrielle heard him laughing, andwalked over quietly to see what he was doing. She saw him crouched, quite unconscious of her presence, among the ferns at the bottom of thehollow. He had caught a baby rabbit, and now he was torturing thesmall terrified creature, its beady eyes set with fear, just as a catplays with a mouse. He was watching it intently: letting it escape tothe verge of freedom and then catching it and throwing it violentlyback. For a second it would lie motionless with terror and then makeanother feeble attempt at escape. She watched this display of animalcruelty with horror, and yet she could not speak, for she wanted to seewhat he would do next. At last the rabbit refused to keep up theheartless game any longer. It simply lay and trembled. Arthur proddedit with his foot, but it would not move. This appeared to incense him. He took a flying kick at the poor beast and killed it. It lay for amoment twitching, its muzzle covered in blood. A little thing nobigger than a kitten two months old----

Gabrielle ran to him flaming with anger. She picked up the mutilatedrabbit and hugged it to her breast. 

"Why did you do that? You beast, you devil!" she cried. 

She could have flown at him in her anger. Arthur only laughed. Hestood there laughing, staring straight at her with his wide honest eyes. 

"It's dead. It's all right, " he said. 

Her fingers were all dabbled with the blood of the rabbit that twitchedno longer. She could do nothing. She dropped the carcase with apitiful gesture of despair and burst into bitter tears. 

She sat sobbing on the edge of the hollow. She could not see him, butpresently she heard his voice, curiously shaken with emotion, at herside. 

"I say, Mrs. Considine, " he said. "Don't--please don't--I simply can'tstand it. "

"Oh, get away--leave me alone, " she sobbed. "I can't bear you to benear me. It was so little. So happy----"

He wouldn't go. He spoke again, and his voice was quite changed--shehad never heard a note of feeling in it before. "I can't bear it. You--I can't bear that you should suffer. I swear I won't do a thinglike that again--not if it hurts you. On my honour I won't. "

"Yes, you will. I suppose you can't help it. It's awful. You haven'ta soul. You aren't human. "

His voice choked as he replied. "I swear it--I do really. I could doanything for you, Mrs. Considine. I feel that I could. For God's saketry me!"

She compelled herself, still sobbing, to look at him. She saw that hisface was tortured, and his eyes full of tears. But she could say nomore, and they walked home in silence. 

XIV

This distressing picture troubled Gabrielle for several days, and yet, beneath her remembrance of anger and disgust, she could not helpfeeling a curious excitement when she reflected that, for the firsttime since she had known him, Arthur had shown her signs of pity andtenderness. For a little while they lived under its shadow thoughneither of them spoke of it again. Arthur, in particular, was awkward;but whether he were ashamed of his cruelty, or merely of the effectthat it had produced on her, she could not say. Although she found itdifficult to believe in the first explanation she was deeply touched, and perhaps a little flattered, by the possibility of the second. Certainly his attitude toward her had changed. In everything that hesaid or did, he now seemed pathetically anxious to please her, and eventhis was encouraging. She didn't tell Considine what had happened. She knew very well that he would consider the incident trivial and, ina few words, shatter her illusion of its significance. And this fearproved that she was not so very sure that it was significant herself. 

The curious atmosphere that now developed between them revealed itselfmore particularly in the letters which they were both of them writingto Mrs. Payne at Overton. Arthur's had never been very fluent, butGabrielle had found an outlet for herself in this correspondence. Inhis early letters from Lapton Arthur had rarely mentioned Gabrielle;whenever he had done so it had been half contemptuously, as though thefeeling of repression which emanates from the best of schoolmasters hadattached itself to the schoolmaster's wife. At the same time Gabriellehad been brief, but extremely natural. With the card-playing incidenta new situation had developed. Arthur, as we have seen, had beeninclined to turn up his nose at Gabrielle's society when it was thrustupon him by Considine, while Gabrielle had given signs of a morematernal care. In the later stages of this period Gabrielle, beingtaken as a matter of course, had practically dropped out of Arthur'sletters. The episode of the rabbit changed all this, for while Arthurnow began to expand in a naďve enthusiasm, Gabrielle's attempts atwriting about him fell altogether flat. Judging by her letters Mrs. Payne might reasonably have supposed that she had grown thoroughly sickof the boy. 

The real cause of her reticence was not so easily fathomable. Isuppose it was her instinctive method of withdrawing a subject that wassecretly precious to her from the knowledge of the one person in theworld who might reasonably assert a right to share it. If she hadanalysed it, no doubt she would have proved that her interest in Arthurwas more intimate than she had ever confessed. But she didn't analyseit. Neither, for that matter, did Mrs. Payne. Looking backward, ayear later, that good woman realised what a psychological howler shehad made. At the time she was merely thankful that Arthur was happy inthe society of a woman whom she liked and trusted--to whom, indeed, shehad more or less confided him--and sorry that at the very moment whenher influence might have counted, Gabrielle appeared to be losinginterest in the boy. It cheered her to think that Arthur wasexpressing any admiration so human and, to be frank, so unlike himself. She was even more cheered when she received Considine's report on himat the beginning of the Christmas holidays. "_There have been one ortwo unpleasant incidents, _" wrote the tactful Considine, "_but duringthe latter part of the term I must say that your boy's conduct has beenpractically unexceptionable. I think it is only right to tell you thatI have great hopes of him. _" At the same time Gabrielle was silent. 

Of course Considine didn't really know as much about it as she did. Hehad seen the broad effects of Arthur's adoration--for that is what itwas now becoming--but he knew nothing of the struggles that had gone totheir making. During the latter part of the term his conduct had notbeen by any means "unexceptionable"; but it was part of Gabrielle'squeer policy of secrecy to hide any lapse on Arthur's part from herhusband. She tackled them alone, forcing herself, against her owncompassionate instincts, to play upon Arthur's feelings. She had nowdiscovered that where appeals to general morality, or even to reason, were bound to fail, the least sign of suffering on her part couldreduce Arthur to a miserable and perfectly genuine repentance. Suchwas the end of all their struggles; and there were many; for she wouldnot let the least sign of his old weakness pass. At times she feltthat she was cruel, but she allowed herself to be harrowed, finding, perhaps, in the pain that she inflicted on both of them, something thatwas flattering both to her conscience and to her self-esteem. 

During all this time there was nothing approaching intimacy betweenthem. To him, however he might adore her, she was always Mrs. Considine. In all their relations they preserved the convention thatshe was a creature of another world and of another age. No doubt hischildishness made the illusion easy to him. With her there must surelyhave been moments of emotion when she realised that the barrier wasartificial. It is impossible to say how soon the first of thesemoments came. 

Certainly when he returned to Overton for the holidays with Considine'sencouraging report, she felt terribly lonely. For the last two monthsshe had concerned herself so passionately with the discovery--one mightalmost say the creation--of his soul, that his departure left her notonly with a physical blank, but with a spiritual anxiety. She wonderedall the time what was happening to him; whether in her absence he waskeeping it up or drifting into a state of tragic relapse. On theevening before he left she had made him promise to write to her, buthis boyish letters were wholly unsatisfactory. She believed that hewas telling her the truth in them, and yet he told her so little. Sheeven wished that she had kept up the habit of writing to Mrs. Payne;for the least sidelight on the condition of affairs at Overton wouldhave been grateful to her. She did write to Mrs. Payne, but destroyedthe letter, feeling that a sudden revival of her custom when Arthur wasno longer at Lapton would seem merely ridiculous. 

The Christmas holidays were a dreary time for her. Deserted by allyouth the Manor House slipped back into its ancient and melancholypeace. Winter descended on them. She had been told that the climateof South Devon resembled that of Connemara, but this was not the kindof winter that she had known before. Snow never fell, as it used tofall on her own mountains, turning Slieveannilaun into a great ghost, and bringing the distant peaks of the Twelve Pins incredibly nearer. Perhaps snow fell on Dartmoor; but from Lapton Dartmoor could not beseen. In those deep valleys it could only be felt as a reservoir ofchilly moisture, or a barrier confining cold, dank air. Instead ofsnowing it rained incessantly. The soft lanes became impassable withmud, turning Lapton into a peninsula, if not an island. 

At the New Year they went on a visit to Halberton House. During theirstay there Lady Barbara conceived a sudden and violent passion forGabrielle, that culminated in Gabrielle being taken solemnly to hercousin's virginal bedroom and hearing the story of an old unhappylove-affair. All the time that she listened to Lady Barbara'splaintive voice Gabrielle was wondering what had happened at Overton, and whether Arthur was keeping to the solemn undertaking that he hadgiven her. She wondered if it were possible that regard for hismother's feelings might now be filling the place of her own influence;if Mrs. Payne were arrogantly taking to herself the credit for themiracle which Lapton had seen so laboriously begun. She hoped, knowingthat it was wicked of her to do so, that this had not happened. Shefelt that the change in Arthur was hers and hers only. She foundherself forced to confess that she was jealous of Mrs. Payne. . . . 

"And then, " said Lady Barbara, "just when I was certain, positivelycertain that he cared for me--after that morning in church, youknow--his mother broke her leg huntin' in Leicestershire. The wirecame in with the mornin' letters, and the first thing I knew of hisgoin' was seein' the luggage cart with his hat-box in the drive. Then, poor dear, he met this widow at a dance at Belvoir. I begged mother tolet me go and stay with the Pagets at Somerby, but she said it would beundignified. He was killed in the Chitral a year later. I felt I musttell you, dear, because I can't help feelin' a little envious of yourhappy marriage. Dr. Considine is such a man . . . And I always feel it'sso safe marryin' a clergyman. "

The idea of envying her marriage with Considine was so ridiculous thatGabrielle couldn't repress an inexcusable smile, but Lady Barbara cutshort her blushing apology. "I don't begrudge you your happiness, mydear, " she said. 

Seeing Lady Barbara sitting opposite to her with her thin arms stickingstraight out of a camisole, and two plaits of hair patheticallytrailing one on either side of her narrow forehead, Gabrielle wassuddenly overwhelmed with the consciousness of her own youth--not onlythat, but her amazing difference in temperament from these people ofher own blood. Retiring from her cousin's chaste kisses to her ownroom, she stood for a long while in front of her mirror, tinglinglyaware of her freshness and beauty and vitality. Considine, emergingfrom his dressing-room, found her there. 

"Vanity, vanity!" he said, taking her in his arms and kissing her. Gabrielle suddenly thought how glad she would be to hand him over tothe admiring Lady Barbara. She remembered the chill kiss of hercousin, and then the kiss of Considine. Neither of them, she decided, was a real kiss. 

The new term began on the twenty-fifth of January. Gabrielle hadawaited it with a subdued excitement. When the day came, she compelledherself to appear more placid than usual. It was a sunny morning ofthe kind that often gives a feeling of spring to the Devon winter, amorning full of promise. Considine had suggested that she should driveinto Totnes and do some shopping before meeting the train from theMidlands, but she would not do so. All morning she made herself busyin the house, and later in the day, hearing the wheels of the wagonetteon the drive, she slipped out into the garden to visit a border wherethe crocus spears were pushing through the soil. She could not explainher own sudden shyness. She was tremulous, tremulous with life. Therewas a smell of spring in the air. Arthur came out to find her in thegarden. His eyes glowed with the pleasure of seeing her again, but shewould not look at him. 

"Well, " she said, "what happened?"

"Oh, it was all right, " he said. "I think it was all right. I'malmost sure of it. I always thought of you, you see. Imagined whatyou'd think of me. " He didn't say that he had considered what hismother would think. She was suddenly, jealously, thankful. 

With his return she regained her content, feeling no longer the weightof winter. He spoke no more regretfully of his exclusion from thesports of the other pupils and they settled down once again into theirhappy routine of walks and drives. In a little while the crocusesburst into flame in the borders, and in the hedges the wild arums beganto unfold. 

One Friday afternoon in the middle of March she asked Considine to letArthur drive her into Dartmouth. The day was so mild that they chosethe high-road that skirts the edge of Start Bay. There was a feelingof holiday in the air, for the sea beneath them was of a pale andshimmering blue like a stone blazing with imprisoned light or abutterfly's wing. On the road they met a long procession of carriers'vans heaped high with shopping baskets, and the happy faces of countrypeople stared at them from under the hoods. The road shone white, having been scoured with rain, and all the hedgerows smelt of greenthings growing, with now and then a waft of the white violet. The skywas so clear that they could see the smoke of many liners, hull down, making the Start. When they reached the crest of the hill aboveDartmouth a man-of-war appeared, a three-funnelled cruiser, steamingfast towards the land. She was so fleet and strong that she seemed toshare in the exhilaration of the day. They dropped down slowly intoDartmouth and lost sight of her. 

Gabrielle had a great deal of shopping to do, and Arthur drove her fromone shop to another, waiting outside in the pony-trap while she madeher purchases. Then they had tea together in a restaurant on the quay. They had never been more happy together. When they came out of thetea-shop on to the pavement they found themselves entangled in a groupof sailors, liberty-men who had been disembarked from the cruiser thatnow lay anchored in the mouth of the Dart. They came along thefootpath laughing, pleased to be ashore. Arthur and Gabrielle stoodaside to let them pass, and as they did so Gabrielle saw the name_H. M. S. Pennant_ upon their cap-ribbons. She became suddenly pale andsilent. The light had faded from the day. She begged Arthur to driveher home as quickly as he could. 

Arthur was puzzled by her strangeness. He could not understand why shedid not speak to him. They drove on in silence through the dusk. Sothey came to the point at which the coast road turns inward towardsLapton Huish, a lonely spot where the cliffs break away into low hills, and the highroad runs between a ridge of shingle on one side and on theother two reedy meres. The night was windless, and they heard no soundbut a faint shivering of reed-beds, and the plash and withdrawal oflanguid waves lapping the miles of fine shingle with a faint hiss likethat of grain falling on to a mound. 

On the bridge that spanned the channel connecting the two meresGabrielle asked him to stop. He did so, wondering, and she climbed outof the trap, and leaned upon the coping, looking out over the water. He couldn't think what to make of her. He did not know how dear ismystery to the heart of a woman. He stood by, awkwardly looking ather. At last she said slowly, "I hate the sea. . . . I hate it. But Ilove lake-water, " which didn't lead much further. But he knew that shewas for some reason unhappy, and found this difficult to bear. He camenear to her, leaning over the bridge at her side. 

"I wish you'd tell me what's the matter, " he said. "It's all very wellyour helping me, but it's a bit one-sided if I can't do anything foryou. "

She gazed at his shadowy face in the darkness, and then gently put herhand on his. She felt a kind of shudder go through him as he claspedit. 

XV

After that night it is difficult to believe that Gabrielle any longerdeceived herself, though I do not suppose that Arthur realised the truemeaning of their relation. The significant feature in it is that hewas gradually and almost imperceptibly becoming a normal human being. Gabrielle had begun by developing in him a substitute for a conscience;for since he had begun to consider everything that he said or did inthe light of its probable effect upon his idol, it had become a habitwith him to follow a definite code of conduct, and the saying thathabit is second nature finds an example in his extraordinary case. 

It is fascinating, but I believe profitless, to speculate on the subtlehereditary influences that underlay their attraction for each other. One can imagine that their state presented an example of the way inwhich people of abnormal instincts tend to drift together: Arthur, thea-moral prodigy, and Gabrielle, the last offshoot of the decayed houseof Hewish, daughter of the definitely degenerate Sir Jocelyn. But I donot think that there was anything abnormal or decadent in Gabrielle'scomposition. Her nature was gay and uncomplicated, in singularcontrast to her involved and sombre fate. One is forced to theconclusion that the Payne miracle was the result of nothing moreuncommon than the natural birth of a tender passion between two youngpeople of opposite sexes, whom chance had isolated and thrown into eachother's company. The specialist who had vaguely suggested to Mrs. Payne the hope that manhood might work a change in Arthur had beennearer the mark than he himself supposed, for though the physical stateeffected nothing in itself, its first consequence, the growth of anideal love, became his soul's salvation. 

Of all that happened during the Easter term we can know nothing, savethat it was spring, that they were supremely happy, and that Considinewas blind . . . Blind, that is, to everything in the case but the resultsof Arthur's infatuation. These, indeed, were so obvious that he couldnot very well miss them. The boy's essential childishness, the thingthat had added an aspect of horror to his habits of stealth andcruelty, gradually disappeared. He began to grow up. I mean that hismind grew up, for he had already shown a premature physicaldevelopment. Practically the space of a single term had changed himfrom a child into a man. Considine, seeing this, innocently flatteredhimself upon the admirable results of his educational system. Acountry life, with plenty of exercise in the open air, and anunconventional but logical type of literary education that was his owninvention. Result: "_Mens sana in corpore sano_. " Arthur was a showcase, and seemed to make possible the acquisition of a long series of"difficult" pupils at enormous and suitable fees. 

When once the boy got going, the rate of his mental development made itdifficult for Considine to keep pace with him. His mind, that had oncebeen slow, worked with a sort of feverish activity, as though he weresubconsciously aware that he had whole years of leeway to make up. Theother pupils, who had always taken Arthur's comparative dulness forgranted, and looked down upon him for it, noticed the change, and foundthat if they were not careful he would outstrip them. At the same timethey began to discover that he was a thoroughly good fellow and towonder how on earth they had been so mistaken in him before. Frombeing something of an outcast he now became a favourite, asserting, forthe first time, the full advantage of his physical maturity. 

Considine was quick to take advantage of the change. He had alwaysbeen tempted by the idea of examination successes, and although herealised the disadvantage with which Arthur, in his renaissance, wasstarting, he saw no reason why the boy should not eventually do himcredit in some public competition. There should be no difficulty forexample, in getting him into Sandhurst . . . Or, perhaps, Woolwich, ashis new aptitude for mathematics suggested. He wrote at length to Mrs. Payne, discussing these possibilities. This was his quiet andconsidered way of revealing to her his success. 

Mrs. Payne, whose glimpses of the new Arthur in the Christmas holidayshad buoyed her with hopes in which she dared not place too much faith, replied to his letter in a fever of excitement. Was it really possibleto think of such a career? Was there now no fear that if Arthur wentto Woolwich or Sandhurst something terrible might happen? Of course, seeing what he had done already, she was prepared to trust Dr. Considine's judgment in everything; but in any case, if the future thathe suggested were remotely possible, she would very much rather thatArthur should not go into the army. One of their neighbours had latelybeen killed in the Boer War. 

Her letter paved the way for Considine's triumph. He wrote and toldher that he thought he could now safely say that there was nothing atall abnormal about her son. He did not wish to take undue credit forthe revolutionary change in Arthur's disposition, but could not helpfeeling that the boy was a credit to the Lapton regime. Seeing thatArthur was her only son he could quite understand her objection to hisadopting the hazardous calling of a soldier. As an alternative he nowsuggested the Civil Service. Arthur's money--if he might descend tosuch a practical consideration--would be extremely useful to him if heserved under the Foreign Office. Of course he could not promisesuccess, but under the new conditions he thought it worth while tryingto prepare Arthur for one of the examinations. Mrs. Payne consented. She only hoped that Considine had not been deceived. 

Arthur did not object to the process of cramming that he now underwentat Considine's hands. His newly-awakened thirst for knowledge was noteasily quenched. Considine, taking his education as a seriousproposition for the first time, naturally considered that the manyhours that Arthur spent with Gabrielle were waste. He also felt thatsince he was now acceptable to them as a sportsman, Arthur should takehis place again with the other boys. He had not calculated the effectof his decision on Gabrielle or on Arthur himself. That it could haveany effect at all upon her had never entered his mind. 

Gabrielle painfully decided that she would say nothing, but Arthurfound himself torn between two interests. Even during the growth ofhis devotion to Gabrielle he had always felt a sneaking suspicion thathis constant enjoyment of her society was a little derogatory to hismanly dignity. He knew that his big limbs were made for more activepursuits than walking over a hillside at a woman's pace, or driving apony-cart into Dartmouth. At the same time he saw that he could notnow desert her without a feeling of shame in addition to that of love. 

"What shall I do about it?" he said to her. 

"You must do what you think right. " The sentence would have had nomeaning less than six months before. 

"It isn't that exactly, I suppose I must do what Dr. Considine orders. "

"Very well. . . . You must do what he orders. "

"I shall never see you, Mrs. Considine!" She was still Mrs. Considineto him. For answer she only took his hand and smiled. 

From that time he followed obediently his master's plans. Considinekept him busy, and the walks and drives that he had taken withGabrielle almost ceased. At first, making a deliberate sacrifice, shehad wondered if she would lose him; but she need never have fearedthis. The moments in which they met were stolen and therefore sweet. She still remained the confidante of all his emotions and thoughts, andsince the time in which these confidences could be given to her was nowso short, each moment of it burned with a new intensity. They met bycalculated chances and in strange places; and their meetings werelovers' meetings, even if they never spoke of love. 

If the holidays at Christmas had been a desolation to Gabrielle, herparting from Arthur next Easter was clouded by a sense of more positivewant. It was the season of lovers, days of bright sunshine, eveningsof a surpassing tenderness. She went to the station with him in thepony-cart alone. She sat like a statue in the trap while the trainpuffed its way slowly up the gradient and its noise died away in arhythmical rumble. When she awoke to the fact that he had gone shefelt a sudden impulse to do something desperate, if only she couldthink of anything desperate to do. She felt that she would like toshock Considine and the Halbertons and the whole county, to be, for onemoment, outrageous and unrestrained. But she couldn't do anything ofthe kind; her wild spark of energy seemed so pathetically small andfeeble against the vast inertia of that dreamy countryside. Even ifshe were to cry out at the top of her voice she couldn't assert heridentity; those huge passive folds of green country wouldn't believeher. They wouldn't accept the fact that she was Gabrielle Hewish, nowcalled Considine. To them she was just the wife of a country parsondawdling through the leafy lanes in a pony-trap. She lashed the ponyinto a canter, but felt no better for it. The animal settled downagain into his shamble. No power on earth could make him keep oncantering over the hills of the South Hams, and he knew it. 

Arrived at Lapton she handed over the pony to a groom and set offwalking violently across country, hoping in this way to cool the heatof her blood. She felt that she would like to go on walking till shedropped, but as soon as her limbs began to tire she knew that thiswould not bring her content. She hurried back to the Manor a fewminutes late for dinner. Considine, to whom unpunctuality was theeighth deadly sin, was pacing up and down the hall, his hands behindhis back, with the impatience of an animal prowling in a cage. 

"Ah, here you are at last!" he said. 

They went in to dinner, but she could not eat. Considine's appetitewas as regular as everything else in his time-table. He ate heartilyand methodically. She found it difficult to sit still and watch himeating. 

"What's the matter with you?" he said at last. 

"I don't know. I'm restless to-day. "

"Well, there's no reason why you shouldn't rest now that the house isempty again. The holidays come as a great relief in a place like this. And the Spring Term is always the most trying. "

He watched her narrowly, then and for several days afterwards. When hebecame solicitous about her health she always knew that he waswondering if at last she was going to fulfil his desire for a child ofhis own. On these occasions he overwhelmed her with attentions. 

Meanwhile Arthur, in the best of spirits, had arrived at Overton. Mrs. Payne awaited him in a state of tremulous emotion. Now, for the firsttime, she was to see her son made whole. Her elation was not withoutmisgiving, for the news of the miracle was almost too good to be true;she couldn't help feeling that the Considines had judged him with ascrutiny more superficial than her own, and though it was not for herto dispute the intellectual blossoming that had raised such hopes inhis master, she couldn't be sure about the deeper, moral change untilshe had seen for herself. Certainly his appearance on the stationplatform gave her a sudden thrill of pleasure. Her boy had become aman; his body had gained in solidity and balance, and his upper lip wasfledged with a fair down. He took her in his arms and kissed her witha serious manliness that was new to her, and made her heart leap withpride. His voice, too, had deepened. It was soft and low anduncannily like his father's. Time after time she was struck by littletricks of gesture and expression that were familiar to her, but hadnever appeared in him before. He was indeed a stranger, yet a hundredtimes more lovable than the son she had known. 

A couple of days convinced her that the change was not merely somethingadded, but vital and elemental. He showed it in a multitude of smallthings--in his consideration for the servants, in his attentions toherself, in the serious interest that he showed in matters that had nottouched him before, in affairs, in books, in newspaper politics. Evenso she had been flattered too often by transient improvements to beconvinced. Deliberately and fearfully she tested him, but never foundhim wanting. Then her joy and thankfulness were too deep for words. 

And yet the position was not without its awkwardness. She knew thatArthur was kinder, more human, and--if that were possible to her--morelovable, but, in spite of these things, she could not help feeling thatthere was something in this new and delightful nature that was foreignto herself . . . Foreign, and even, subtly, hostile. It seemed to herthat in some peculiar way he was on the defensive. Up to a certainpoint she could enter freely into his confidence, but after that pointshe knew in her heart that there was something that he denied her. Now, more than ever in her life, she wanted to feel that he was whollyhers; and now, if she were to confess the truth, he seemed less hersthan he had ever been before. At times, indeed, when their intimacyshould have been at its best, she felt that she had lost himaltogether, and that his mind was hundreds of miles away from her, asindeed it was. She consoled herself by supposing that his life was nowso crowded with new interests and dreams of future adventure that hecould be forgiven if their wonder enthralled and overwhelmed him. Itwas indeed a wonderful thing if this son of hers, at the age ofseventeen, should see life with the eyes of a child new-born into theworld. She envied him this ecstasy, even though its real explanationwas far simpler than that which she imagined. When he walked insilence with her through the fields, or sat dreaming under the cedar onthe lawn when evening came, it is possible that Arthur had sight of thenew heaven and new earth that she imagined, for his eyes were lover'seyes. But this she never guessed. 

XVI

In the last week of the holidays, if only Mrs. Payne had been moreacute, she might have surprised his secret. Walking the lowest oftheir meadows on the side of Bredon Hill, they came suddenly upon asouthern slope already powdered with the flowers of cowslips. Thiscloth of gold was the chief glory of their spring, blooming mile onmile of meadowland, and drenching the air with a faint perfume. Mrs. Payne stooped to pick some, for the scent provoked so many memories, and to her it was one of the sensations that returned year by year withamazing freshness--that and the spice of pinks in early summer or thegreen odour of phlox. "Smell them, they smell like wine, " she said, giving her bunch to Arthur. 

"Mrs. Considine told me that there are no cowslips in their part ofDevon, " he said. And then, after a moment of hesitation, he went downon his knees and began to pick the flowers. The hue of their smoothstalks was pale as the first apple-leaves, springing straight andslender each above its leafy mat. 

"Why are you picking so many? They're more beautiful as they are. "

"If they haven't any I'd like to send her some?"

He went on picking cowslips till the light faded from the fields. Nextmorning he packed them carefully, and posted them, with a letter, toLapton. She thought it very charming and thoughtful of him to sendMrs. Considine the flowers. It merely struck her as typical of his newnature, and she thought it rather shabby of Gabrielle, when, afterthree days of waiting, she had not acknowledged the gift. Altogethershe felt that Mrs. Considine had been rather a broken reed as far asArthur was concerned. In the beginning she had taken to her, andexpected quite a lot of her. Arthur, too, seemed disturbed that shedid not reply. Day after day he waited for a letter from Lapton witheagerness. There was no reason why he shouldn't have been anxious toknow that his present had not gone astray. She had not seen the notethat Arthur posted with his flowers. 

With no more than the vaguest mistrust--for she still felt that in someway she had fallen short of full possession, Mrs. Payne saw him returnto Lapton for the summer term. During the early weeks Arthur scarcelyever wrote to her, and when she protested mildly, his reply seemed toher evasive. It was a dutiful reply, and though she couldn't helpadmitting that in Arthur the recognition of any duty was a new thing, the suspicion that for some obscure reason she was losing him, persisted. She was not in the ordinary way a woman of acuteintuitions, but her whole mind had been so wrapped up in that son ofhers that she was sensitive to the smallest changes of tone, and sheknew that while he was writing her letters his head had been full ofother things. At the same time she had sense enough to see that withhis recovery Arthur's life had become crowded with so many newinterests that she couldn't reasonably expect the old degree ofabsorption in herself. This was the price of his recovery, and shedetermined to pay it without grudging. 

She settled down into this state of patience and resignation. She evenprepared to deny herself her usual privilege of a visit to Lapton interm-time, feeling that it would be unfair of her to interrupt theprogress of Considine's remarkable system. In the meantime she kept intouch with Arthur through her jealous care of the things that he hadleft behind, in the arrangement of his books, in the mending of hisclothes, and in the preparation of an upstairs room that he had begunto turn into a study for his holiday reading. On these inanimatetraces of him she lavished a peculiar tenderness, for their presencehad the effect of making her feel less lonely. 

One day she took up to his new study a number of note-books that he hadused during the Easter holidays. When he had sat out under the cedarin the evenings she had often noticed him writing with a pencil thoughshe had never thought to enquire what he was doing. Now, with a chancecuriosity, she happened to open one of these books and examine what hehad written. She saw at once that they were verses, and laughed at theidea. But when she had read one or two of his poems she laughed nolonger. She realised at once that they were love-poems, feeble andamateurish in their expression, but daringly sensual and passionate intheir content. They made the good woman blush--her husband had neverbeen so direct in his days of courtship--but to her blushes succeeded amoment of fierce maternal alarm. It was impossible, she thought, thatanyone innocent of a violent sexual passion could have conceived theideas that the verses contained. They were fully as physical, andnearly as direct, as the love-songs of Herrick. She was not onlyshocked, but frightened, for her long years of widowhood had isolatedher from all feelings of the kind that Arthur expressed so glibly. Sheread the poems over again and again. She could not sleep at night forthinking of them. In the end she became convinced that the thing whichshe had feared most had come to pass; that even if the coming ofmanhood had brought to Arthur the birth of a moral sense in matters ofordinary social intercourse, the gain had been neutralised by therelease of a new instinct that was powerful enough to wreck the rest. The boy was obviously and violently in love--not with any shadowydreamed ideal, but actually with a woman of definite physicalattributes. It was almost possible to reconstruct a picture from thepoems. A skin of ivory, grey eyes, hair that was like night, red lips, pale hands, all rather commonplace, but, none the less, damninglydefinite. 

It is curious that the image of Gabrielle never suggested itself toher. Perhaps it was the fact that Arthur, for some unaccountablereason, probably because he usually saw them in a half-light, had madeher violet eyes--an unmistakable feature--grey. As the matter stoodMrs. Payne was convinced that he had become entangled, and intimatelyentangled, with some dangerous and designing woman. It was her plainduty to save him. The only thing that restrained her from immediateaction was the fear that any big emotional disturbance might undo thework that Considine had already accomplished. She didn't in the leastconnect the passion with the reformation, and yet she wondered ifinterference with the one might somehow prejudice the other. It was aharrowing dilemma. 

In the end, with her accustomed courage, she decided to face the risk. At any rate no harm need be done by her taking Considine into herconfidence. She encouraged herself with a pathetic trust in hisstability and wisdom in all matters that affected Arthur. Without eventhe warning of a telegram she made her decision, ordered the carriagefor the station and set off for Lapton. 

She arrived there late on a Saturday night to the astonishment of theConsidines, who had disposed of the boys for the evening, and weresitting together in the library. Considine, who prided himself onnever being surprised by an emergency, welcomed her as if there werenothing unusual in her visit, and Gabrielle, a little nervous, went offto see the housekeeper, and arrange about a room for the visitor. Atthe door Mrs. Payne stopped her. "If you don't mind, " she said, "Ishould be glad if you wouldn't let Arthur know that I'm here. "

Considine was quick to agree: "Certainly not, if you wish it. "

Gabrielle left them and he prepared to hear her story. She was veryagitated, and found it difficult to express herself. For a littletime, in spite of Considine's encouragements, she beat about the bush. She felt that her revelation would amount to a criticism of Considine'smanagement. 

At last, realising that she was getting no further, she produced herdocuments and handed them to him. 

Considine examined them slowly and judicially without a flicker ofemotion. It seemed to Mrs. Payne a very solemn moment, full of awfulpossibilities. She waited breathlessly for his verdict. 

"Well?" he said at last, putting the papers aside. 

"Arthur wrote them. "

"Yes. . . . I recognised his writing. "

"He is in love with some woman. "

"Presumably . . . Yes. But I'm not so sure of that. "

"What do you mean?" She gasped at the prospect of relief. 

He explained to her at length. It was a very common thing for boys ofArthur's age, he said, to write verse. 

"Verses of that kind?"

Yes. . . Even verses of that kind. To be perfectly candid he himself, when a boy in his teens, had done very much the same sort of thing. Itwas true perhaps that the verses which he had written had not beenquite so . . . Perhaps frank was the best word. On the other hand hisown development had followed more normal lines. He hadn't, in themanner of Arthur, burst suddenly into blossom. All boys wrote verses. Often they wrote verses of an amatory character, not particularlybecause they happened to be in love, but because the bulk of Englishlyrical poetry, to which they went for their models, was, regrettably, of an amatory character. At this stage in a boy's development, even inthe development of the greatest poets (and Arthur, he noticed inpassing, did not show any signs of amazing genius) the verses wereusually imitative. It rather looked as if he had been reading Herrick, or possibly the Shakespeare sonnets . . . The dark lady, you know. Seriously, he didn't think there was anything to worry about. Hefolded the papers and handed them back to her. 

For once in a way Considine didn't satisfy her. There were otherthings, she said. Things that she hadn't attached any value to at thetime when they happened, but which now seemed significant. When shecame to think of it Arthur's whole behaviour during the holidays hadbeen that of a youth who was in love. With all deference to Dr. Considine she felt that she couldn't pass the matter over. It was herplain duty to enquire into it, and find, if possible, a more obviousreason for this strange and sudden outburst. 

Considine agreed that no harm could be done by a little quietinvestigation. At the same time he couldn't possibly see whatopportunities Arthur could have had for falling in love at Lapton. 

"We're very isolated here, " he said. "The Manor is a kingdom initself. It seems to me that circumstances would force him to invent anideal for the want of any living model. "

She shook her head. There was no isolation, she said, into which lovecould not enter; and this, in the face of classical precedent, Considine was forced to admit. Could she, then, make any suggestions?

Mrs. Payne said, "Servants, " and blushed. 

Considine also blushed, but with irritation. The suggestion broughtthe matter uncomfortably near home. 

"I think you can put that out of your mind, " he said. "I'll admit thatI did not consider this point when I engaged them, but I do not thinkyou'll find any one peculiarly attractive among them. "

"They're women, " said Mrs. Payne obstinately. 

It seemed to her that Considine's incredulity was forcing them bothinto a blind alley. 

"If you don't mind, " she said, "I think it would be better for me totalk the matter over with your wife. A woman, if you'll allow me tosay so, is much more acutely sensitive to . . . This kind of thing. "

Again Considine blushed. The prospect of engaging Gabrielle in thematter was altogether against his principles. He had always made it arule that her essential femininity should not be compromised by anycontact with the business of the school. He did not even like her totake an intimate share in the management of the house. After all shewas a Hewish and a cousin of the august Halbertons. That was why hehad employed Mrs. Bemerton as housekeeper. 

"I shall be obliged, " he said, "if you don't mention a matter that maypossibly become unsavoury, to Mrs. Considine. She knows nothing of theservants, and I prefer her to take no part in the affairs of my pupils. "

Altogether the good woman felt that she had been snubbed for her pains. She had expected a great deal from Considine, and even more fromGabrielle. Still, if Considine objected to his wife being consulted, she was prepared to accept his decision. The only course that remainedopen to her was to make enquiries for herself, and determine, byobservation, what women were possibly available for the disposal ofArthur's affections. 

"Very well, " she said with a sigh. "If you don't wish me to speak toyour wife, of course I won't. "

"If you'll pardon my saying so, I think you're unduly anxious. Afterall, the most obvious thing is to ask Arthur himself. Why not do that?"

She hesitated and then spoke the truth. 

"I'm afraid he'd tell me a lie. I don't want him to do that . . . Now. I'd much rather find out for myself. I wish I could believe you. I doindeed. "

She paused for a moment and then said, almost as if she were speakingto herself, "There's no place where there aren't opportunities. Farmer's daughters . . . Village girls. There are more women in theworld than there are men. "

He couldn't help smiling at the mathematical accuracy of her remark, but once more he shook his head. 

"At any rate, " she said, returning to the practical aspect of the case, "I suppose you've no objection to my staying here for a day or two, andkeeping my eyes open. Failing anything else I will speak to Arthurabout it. "

"Please consider the house your own, " said Considine, who had nowrecovered his usual politeness. 

"Thank you, " she said. "You're very kind. But you know how grateful Iam to you already. "

Mrs. Considine returned, and a little later showed her to her room. Inthe candle-light of the passage Mrs. Payne was assailed by anoverwhelming desire to break her promise and disclose her troubles toGabrielle. She felt that her quest was so lonely. Gabrielle seemed toher sympathetic and she knew that it would be a great relief to her todiscuss the affair with another woman. As they paused at her bedroomdoor, her old attraction towards Mrs. Considine that had onceculminated in an impulsive kiss took hold of her again. She wanted, for some obscure reason, to kiss Gabrielle once more. Perhaps therewas something in the attraction of her opposite physical type thataccounted for this impulse as well as for Arthur's infatuation. Forthe present she suppressed her inclination. After all Considine hadacted fairly enough with her, and she felt that she could not fail himin a point of honour. 

Alone in her room she read over Arthur's poems again. Now that she wasso near to him they impressed her less with a sense of fear and anxietythan with one of pity and of love. He was her child, and therefore tobe protected and caressed. She found it difficult not to leave herroom in the night, and grope her way along the creaking corridors tothe room in which she knew he was sleeping. She wanted to kiss him andhold him in her arms. She placed the poems on the table at her bedsideand blew out the candle. It was unfortunate for her bewilderment thatArthur had not left in his notebook the rough copy of the verses thathe had sent to Gabrielle with the box of cowslips, the verses to whichshe had not dared to reply. 

Next morning at breakfast Arthur and his mother met. All through theholidays she had been indefinitely conscious of an awkwardness betweenthem; now, with so much guilty knowledge in her mind, the relationbecame definitely embarrassing. She wondered if he felt it as deeplyas she did. Certainly he showed no sign of any emotion but surprise ather visit. 

"But if you came last night, why on earth didn't you come along to myroom?" he said. "And why are you so mysterious? What's it all about?"

She put him off as well as she could. "I wanted to see you, that wasall, " she said. "I thought you would be pleased by the surprise, " andthen: "You don't seem very pleased. "

"Of course I'm pleased, " he said, blushing. "But I don't understandit. "

Whatever he said she knew in her heart that she wasn't wanted. It wasa bitter thing to realise, but it made her more than ever certain thatthere was a secret to be disclosed. 

After breakfast the Sunday morning routine of a country house began. She and Arthur walked together over the fields to church. The wholecountry breathed a lazy atmosphere of early summer. Its beauty and itsplacidity mocked her. Before them went the Considines. He wore a longcassock that swept the grass, as they went, while Gabrielle walked insilence at his side. Never once in their journey did she look back. It struck Mrs. Payne for the first time how young she was, how verymuch younger and more supple than her husband. And yet they seemed tobe happy. 

The service was the usual slow ceremony of a village church, Considinemoving with the dignity of his vestments from the lectern and the altarto the organ seat which he also occupied. Arthur, standing or kneelingat his mother's side, appeared to be properly engrossed in the service. Singing the psalms beside him she became aware how much of a man he wasnow, for his voice, that had been cracking for several years, had nowsunk to a deep and sonorous bass. 

It was not until Considine ascended the pulpit and began to preach, that Mrs. Payne became conscious of anything extraordinary. At firstshe was held by the sermon, which was unusually well constructed, butin the middle of it she became aware that Arthur was not listening. Hesat straight in the pew beside her as though he were intent on thepreacher, but all the time his eyes were wandering to the other side ofthe aisle. Mrs. Payne tried to follow their direction. Here, presumably, was a fairly representative collection of the femaleinhabitants of the village. Here she might expect to find the farmer'sdaughter, or, in the last emergency, the housemaid, on whom hisaffections were centred. She heard no more of Considine, only watchingArthur's eyes, and watching, she soon discovered that these were forMrs. Considine and her alone. She could not deny the fact thatGabrielle, with her fine pale profile set against a pillar of greysandstone, was a creature of amazing beauty. She herself wasfascinated by this vision of refinement and grace to such a degree thatshe almost shared in Arthur's rapture. 

For a little while she could not be sure of it, for this was the lastpossibility that had entered her mind: but at last it seemed thatGabrielle became conscious of the gaze that she could not see. Suddenly, without the least warning, she turned her head in Arthur'sdirection. Their eyes met. She blushed faintly, and, at the samemoment, became aware of Mrs. Payne. The blush deepened, spreading intothe ivory whiteness of her neck; and Mrs. Payne had no need to look ather any longer, for she knew. 

Her mind leapt quickly to the whole situation. In the light of thisevidence she recalled a hundred things that had not even puzzled herbefore. She saw the reason for the strange fate that had overtakentheir correspondence, she divined the secret of Gabrielle's suddenreticence, and the break in Arthur's frank enthusiasms. She knew thatshe had made a triumphant discovery, but in her elation realised thatit would be wiser to go gently. This was a secret that could not beblurted out without disaster. The situation needed careful handling. 

Once in possession of certain knowledge it was no longer difficult forher to interpret Arthur's moods. In the afternoon when they sat outunder the trees on the lawn, she stumbled on a strange corroboration. She had fallen into a doze in a lounge chair at his side, and when sheawoke she saw that he was reading poetry. He seemed to be reading onepoem over and over again, and a sudden curiosity made her ask what hewas reading. "Tennyson, " he said, and closed the book. But he hadleft a long grass for marker between the pages, and when they movedtowards the house at tea-time she picked up the book and opened it. Her eyes fell upon a significant stanza from "Maud. "

 She came to the village church, And sat by a pillar alone; An angel watching an urn Wept over her, carved in stone: And once, but once, she lifted her eyes, And suddenly, sweetly, strangely blushed, To find they were met by my own . . . 

Mrs. Payne's heart beat faster as she read the verse. Later in theday, to test him, she asked him what he had been reading. She halfexpected him to tell her a lie, but, strangely enough, it was the truththat he gave her. 

"What do you like about 'Maud'?" she said. 

"I like it all, " he replied. "It's the kind of thing that anyone mightfeel. " He hesitated. "And there's one part of it in particular----"

She waited, with her heart in her mouth. 

"What is that?" she said. 

"Oh, right at the beginning. I don't suppose it would mean much toyou. I can't remember it exactly, but it starts like this:

 I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood, Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red heath, The red-ribbed ledges drip with a silent horror of blood . . . 

I can't remember any more. . . "

"But why should that appeal to you?" she asked, disappointed. 

"I don't know. It reminds me of something that happened to me once. "

She did not feel that it would be profitable to press him further onthis uninteresting point. 

XVII

All that afternoon and evening Mrs. Payne watched them. The rôle ofdetective was unnatural to her, and once or twice she couldn't helpfeeling that it was unworthy, and that she herself was an ogress, theywere so young and so unsuspicious. She had an impression not that theywere deliberately hiding anything from her, but that the understandingbetween them somehow tacitly excluded her from their intimacy. Shefelt out of it at Lapton, hovering impotently on the edge of the magiccircle that their passion had created. The strangest thing of allabout this amazing relation of theirs was its air of innocence. Shewas so keenly aware of this, and felt herself so likely to fall avictim to the idea's persuasions, that she had to make an unusualeffort, to remain awake and alive to her plain duty, and to the factthat this simple and natural love affair was a crime against society, adisaster that might wreck not only Considine's home, but all Arthur'sfuture. 

She could not make up her mind what to do, and this unsettled her, forin the ordinary way she was a woman of determination who acted firstand afterwards considered the propriety of her actions. Her firstimpulse was to go straight to Considine and say, "I told you so. " Thiscourse presented her with the opportunity of an easy triumph, and wasin keeping with her downright traditions; but in this case she was notin the least anxious to make a personal score. She saw that if shetold Considine she would be firing the train to an explosion that mightend in nothing but useless wreckage. Considine, for instance, admittedly touchy on the subject of Gabrielle, might refuse to believeher and show her the door. Arthur would be forced to leave Lapton; andshe thought too highly of Considine's influence on him to run the riskof a relapse. On the other hand Considine might believe her, and putthe very worst construction on what she told him. She saw thepossibility of Arthur's being landed in the Divorce Court, which wasunthinkable. She abandoned the idea of approaching Considine at all. 

The next course that suggested itself was that of tackling Arthur; butthe atmosphere of mistrust, if not of actual hostility, that at presentinvolved their relations made her think twice about this. She couldnot dare to treat Arthur as a normal person, for she knew that his holdon normality was recent and precarious, and feared that a violent orpassionate scene might undo in a moment all the developments that hadbeen accomplished in the last six months. Even if they escaped thiscatastrophe it was possible that she might offend him so deeply as tolose him. 

There remained Gabrielle, and though she knew that she was old enoughto speak to Gabrielle with the authority of a mother, she felt thatthis would be impossible at Lapton. It was a curious attitude that shefound difficult to explain, but it seemed to her that to tackle Mrs. Considine in her husband's house was dangerous, that it would give toGabrielle an unreasonable but inevitable advantage. At Lapton Mrs. Payne felt she was a stranger, insecure of her ground, and therefore inan inferior position; and this struck her more forcibly when shereflected that, though she was confident of the rightness of herconclusions, the actual evidence that she possessed was extremelysmall. She admitted to herself that it would be difficult to carry herpoint on the strength of looks and blushes, and was thankful that shehad not been betrayed by her instincts into hasty action. 

Lying sleepless on her bed that night with her eyes open in the darkshe evolved a new plan that would not only give her the advantage ofchoosing the site of the coming struggle, but would eliminate theuncertain element of Considine and probably provide her with evidenceto strengthen her charge. This change of plan involved a duplicityagainst which her straightforward nature rebelled, but with Arthur'sfuture at stake she would have stopped at nothing. After breakfast onthe Monday morning she went to Considine in his study, thanked him forhis kind consideration, and confessed that she had been needlesslyalarmed. Considine gracefully accepted this confession and the impliedapology, assuring her once more that there was really nothing to worryabout. Then, very carefully she made another suggestion. It was usualat Lapton for the pupils to go home for a long week-end at half term. She wondered if Mrs. Considine would like to come back to Overton withArthur? The rest and change would do her good, and it would beinteresting for Gabrielle, who had seen so little of England, to visitCotswold. Mrs. Payne promised to take great care of her. She gave herinvitation in a way that suggested that it was an attempt to makeamends for her suspicions. It conveyed at the same time an implicitconfidence and an anxiety to please. 

Considine tumbled headlong into her trap. He thanked her for herinvitation, saying that he had no objection, but that Gabrielle, ofcourse, must decide for herself. His tone made it clear that such avisit must be regarded as a condescension. The Halbertons, he said, had been begging Gabrielle for a long time to spend a week with them, but she was devoted to Lapton. 

"At any rate I may ask her?" said Mrs. Payne. 

"Certainly, certainly--you'll find her in the garden. "

Mrs. Payne was in some doubt as to what Gabrielle's answer would be. 

She moved to the proposal obliquely, feeling like a conspirator, andone so unused to conspiracy that her manner was bound to betray her. They began by talking about the gardens at Overton, the beauty ofCotswold stone, the essential difference of her country from that inwhich Lapton lay. 

"You can't know England, " she said, "until you've seen the Vale ofEvesham. "

She didn't care twopence ha'penny for the Vale of Evesham--she was justtalking for time. Gabrielle listened to her very quietly, and Mrs. Payne took her silence for evidence that she was playing her handbadly. This flustered her. She became conscious of the fact thatnature had built her too roughly for diplomacy. Not daring to hedgeany longer she blurted out her invitation, and Gabrielle, instantlydelighted, accepted, transforming herself, in Mrs. Payne's mind from asubtle designing creature into something very like a victim. So, forone moment she appeared; but in the next Mrs. Payne felt nothing butexultation at the successful beginning of her plan. 

"Arthur has told me that there are nightingales at Overton, " saidGabrielle dreamily. "I wonder if I shall hear one? There are nonightingales in Ireland or in this part of England. " And although Mrs. Payne could hardly accept an interest in ornithology for explanation ofher readiness to come to Overton, she was quick to promise thatnightingales should be in full song at the next weekend. 

Thus having laid her plans, she resisted, though with difficulty, allher impulses to continue her search for evidence. It was hard to doso, for all through the evening Gabrielle and Arthur were together inher presence, and she found it impossible not to watch them out of thecorner of her eye or strain her ears to catch what they were saying;but she realised that the least slip at this stage might ruin herchances of success, and devoted her attention or as much of it as shecould muster, to Considine. Next morning, with a sense of successfulstrategy, she returned to Overton by an early train. 

The rest of the week was for her a period of acute suspense. ForGabrielle and Arthur it was one of delightful anticipation. On Fridayat midday Considine drove them to Totnes station, the scene of theirlast parting, and set them on their journey. They watched him standingserious on the platform as the train went out, and when they lost sightof his tall figure at a curve in the line, it seemed to them as thoughthe last possible shadow had been lifted from them. In the first partof their journey a soft rain hid the shapes of the country throughwhich they passed, so soft that they could keep the windows open, andyet so dense as to give them a feeling of delicious loneliness, forthey could see nothing but the grassed embankments starred withprimroses. All through the Devon valleys and over the turf moors ofSomerset this weather held. It was not until they had changed atBristol and crept under the escarpment of the lower Cotswolds that theair cleared. 

At a junction below the southern end of Bredon they emerged in an airthat this vast sheeting of fine moisture had washed into a state ofbrilliant clarity. The evening through which they drove to Overton wasfull of birdsong and sweet with the smell of young and tender green. There was not a breath of wind, but the sky was cool, and into it theold trees lifted their branches with an air of youth and vernalstrength. When the road climbed, scattered woodlands stretched beneaththem in clear and comely contours. A hovering kestrel hung poised likea spider swinging from a thread. She swooped, and her chestnut backwas lit into flame. The great elms that gird the village of Overtonreceived them. Arthur touched up the horse as they swung past thechurch and a row of cottages with long trim gardens. 

Mrs. Payne, who was working on the herbaceous border in front of thehouse, heard the grating of the carriage wheels on the gravel of thedrive. She took off her gardening gloves and came to meet them. Arthur jumped down from the carriage and kissed his mother. Gabrielle, also approaching her, put up her face to be kissed, and Mrs. Payne, whocould not very well refuse her, felt that the kiss was a kind ofbetrayal. She wished, in her instinctive honesty, that it could havebeen avoided. 

It was a bad beginning, and gave her a hint of the kind of emotionalconflict that she had let herself in for when she assumed the rôle ofdetective. What made it a hundred times worse was the fact that shereally liked kissing Gabrielle, for her kindly heart warmed to the girlagain as it had warmed when first they met. "I'm sentimental, " shethought, "for heaven's sake let us get it over!"

Gabrielle, however, was quite unconscious of the struggle that dividedMrs. Payne's breast. She was a child launched on a holiday with thefriend of her choice in the most delightful season of the year. Shedidn't scent any hostility in the atmosphere of Overton; and this wasstrange in a person who moved through life by the aid of intuitionsrather than reasons. She felt contented at Overton, just as she hadfelt contented at Roscarna. She was more at home there than she couldever have been at Lapton or Clonderriff; her mind was as sensitive tosky changes as the surface of a lonely lake. Mrs. Payne had given heran airy bedroom facing west, and while the maid unpacked her thingsGabrielle stood at the window looking out over meadows, golden in thelow sun. Beneath her lay the lawns, smooth and kempt and of a rich, analmost Irish green, on which the black shadows of cedar branches werespread. A tall hedge of privet divided the lawns from the vegetablegarden in which a man was working methodically. She saw the pattern ofpaths and hedges from above as though they were lines in a picture. Inthe middle of the lawn stood a square of clipped yew trees, making ahollow chamber of the kind that formal gardeners call a yew-parlour, with a stone sundial in the middle of it. "What a jolly place forchildren to play in, " she thought. A blackbird broke into a whistle inthe privet hedge and brought her heart to her mouth. Could anynightingale sing sweeter?

"I think that is all, madam, " said the maid demurely. Gabrielle smiledat her and thanked her, and the girl smiled back. Like everything elsein Mrs. Payne's admirably managed house she was fresh and clean, homelier than the frigid servants at Halberton House, happier--that wasthe only word--than Gabrielle's own servants at Lapton. Yes, happier----

When she came downstairs Arthur was waiting for her. 

"I thought you were never coming, " he said. Their time was short andhe was anxious to show her all the altars of his childhood. They metMrs. Payne in the hall. She smiled at them with encouragement, for itwas part of her settled plan to let them have their own way and sotempt them into a naturalness that might betray them. She, too, hadthe feeling that she was fighting against time. 

Arthur was full of enthusiasms. They went together to the stables, where he introduced her to Hollis, the coachman standing in hisshirtsleeves in a saddle-room that smelt of harness-polish. He stoodin front of a cracked mirror brushing his hair, hissing softly, asthough he were grooming a horse, and round his waist was a red-stripedbelt of the webbing out of which a horse's belly-band is made. 

"Well, Mr. Arthur, you're looking up finely, sir, " he said, touchinghis forelock. Even the stables exhaled the same atmosphere of pleasantleisure as the house. 

"I want you to get a side-saddle ready for Brunette to-morrow, Hollis, "said Arthur. "Mrs. Considine and I are going for a ride over the hill. "

At the end of the stables they encountered a pair of golden retrievers. For a moment they stared at Arthur, and then, suddenly recognising him, made for him together, jumping up with their paws on his shoulders andlicking him with their pale tongues. 

"What beauties, " Gabrielle cried. 

"Yes, they come from Banbury, " he said. "I'll get you a pup next termif you'd like one. "

Their evening was crowded with such small wonders. "I can't show youhalf the things I want to, " he said. "It's ridiculous that you shouldonly be here for three days. " He would have gone on for ever, and shehad to warn him when the clock in the stables struck seven that theyhad only just time to dress for dinner. On the way upstairs he showedher his new study, with the bookshelves that he had bought in the lastholidays. 

"I do all my writing here, " he said, and then suddenly but shylyemboldened: "it was here that I wrote to you when I sent you thecowslips. "

He had never dared to mention the incident before. 

"You didn't answer me, " he went on. "Why didn't you answer me? I wishyou'd tell me. "

"Arthur--I couldn't--you know that I couldn't. "

A panic seized her and she went blushing to her room. 

She was still flushed with excitement or pleasure when she came down todinner. Mrs. Payne, in a matronly dress of black, sat at the head ofthe table with Arthur and Gabrielle on either side of her facing eachother. The arrangement struck her as a triumph of strategy. From thiscentral position she could see them both and intercept any such glancesas had passed between them in the church at Lapton. In this she wasdisappointed, for there was nothing to be seen in the behaviour ofeither but a transparent happiness. "They only want encouragement, "she thought, and settled down deliberately to put them at their ease, aproceeding that was quite unnecessary for the last feeling that couldhave entered either of their minds was that of guilt. 

So the evening passed, in the utmost propriety. No look, no sign, nosymptom of unusual tenderness appeared. It even seemed that Gabriellewas particularly anxious to make the conversation general. "Oh, you'reartful!" thought Mrs. Payne, "but I'll have you yet. " They talked ofLapton, of Considine and of the Traceys. Only once did Mrs. Paynesurprise a single suspicious circumstance. 

"I showed Mrs. Considine the dogs, mother, " he said. "She's fallen inlove with Boris. "

"Yes, his eyes are like amber, " said Gabrielle. 

"So I thought I'd like to write to Banbury to-morrow and get her apuppy. "

"Certainly, dear, " said Mrs. Payne suavely. Bedtime came. Gabrielleand Arthur shook hands in the most ordinary fashion. Mrs. Payne, seeing Gabrielle to her door and submitting, once again, to anuncomfortable kiss, felt that her triumphant plan had already shownitself to be a failure. She went along the passage to her own roomwith a sense of bewilderment and defeat. She could not sleep forthinking. She wondered, desperately, if when all other methods hadfailed, as she now expected they would, she could possibly approachtheir secret from another angle, laying aside her watchful inactivityand becoming in defiance of all her principles an "agent provocateuse. "If it came to the worst she might be forced to do this, for very littletime was left to her. If she remained static she would be powerless. Next day, she reflected, they had planned a ride over the flat top ofBredon Hill. She could not go with them; she could not even watchthem; yet who knew what shames might be perpetrated in that secrecy asthey rode through the green lanes of the larch plantations? Never wasa better solitude made for lovers. Her imaginings left her tantalisedand thwarted, for she was sure now, more than ever, that there was asecret to be surprised. 

She lay there sleepless in the dark till the stable clock slowly strucktwelve. Then she sighed to herself and decided that she must try tosleep. 

XVIII

Lying thus, upon the verge of slumber, Mrs. Payne became aware of asound of light steps in the corridor outside her room. She opened hereyes and lay with tense muscles listening. The sound was unmistakable, and the steps came from the direction of Arthur's room, the only one onthat side of hers that was occupied. The steps came nearer. Passingher bedroom door they became tiptoe and cautious, as though the walker, whoever he might be, was anxious not to arouse her attention. Thesound passed and grew fainter down the length of the corridor, and sheknew then that the very worst had happened, for Gabrielle's room lay atthe end of the passage. Many things she had dreaded, but not this lastenormity. 

She crept out of bed, neglecting in her anxiety to put on adressing-gown, and went softly to the door. She wondered how she couldopen it without making a noise, and if, when she had opened it, shecould hear at such a distance. 

Very carefully with her hot hand she turned the door handle and openeda small chink that fortunately allowed her to look along the passagetowards Gabrielle's room. Through a window halfway down the corridormoonlight cut across it, throwing on the floor the distorted shadow ofan Etruscan vase. She remembered that Arthur's father had bought it inItaly on their honeymoon, yet, while this thought went through hermind, her ears were strained to listen. She could do no more, for thefurther end of the passage was plunged by this insulating flood ofmoonlight into inscrutable darkness. 

It was so quiet that she felt that she had missed him; he had alreadyentered her room; but while she considered the awful indignity ofsurprising him there, the sound of a light tapping on the door's panelrelieved her. She thanked God that she was still in time. 

The knock was repeated and evidently answered, for now she heard himspeak in a whisper. He called her Mrs. Considine--it was ridiculous!"Are you awake?" she heard. "The nightingale--yes, the nightingale. We could go down into the garden under the trees. If you're game. Howsplendid of you! . . . Yes, I'll wait below . . . . Outside, under yourwindow. "

Before Mrs. Payne could pull herself together she heard his stepsreturning. She closed the door fearfully. He came along the passageand stopped for a moment just outside her room. There was nothingbetween them but an oak door, so thin, she felt, that he must surelyhear her anxious breath. She dared not breathe, but in a moment hepassed by. 

Why had he stopped outside her door? What curious filial instinct hadmade him think of her at that moment? Had he thought kindly, or onlyperhaps suspiciously, wondering if she were safely asleep? Shecouldn't tell. Her mind was too full of disturbing emotions to allowher to think. One thing emerged foremost from her confusion, a feelingof devout thankfulness that her first fears had not been justified, andas the dread of definite and paralysing defeat lifted from her mind, she realised with a sudden exultation that chance had given her thevery opportunity for which she had been waiting and scheming. If shewent carefully she might see them together, alone and unsuspecting, andknow for certain by their behaviour how far matters had gone. 

She dared not switch on the light or strike a match for fear that herwindows might become conspicuous. Very gently she released one of theblinds, admitting the light of the luminous sky. She dressedhurriedly, catching sight of her figure in the long pier glass as shepulled on her stockings. For the moment it struck her as faintlyludicrous to see this middle-aged woman in a long white nightdressbehaving like a creature in a detective story. It was extravagant. People of her age and figure and general sobriety didn't do this sortof thing in real life. But the seriousness of her mission recalledher, and while she had been considering the picturesque aspects of thecase she found that she had actually, unconsciously dressed . . . Andonly just in time, for now she heard the lighter step of Gabrielle inthe passage. 

The sound gave her a sudden flush of anger. She wanted, there andthen, to open her door and ask Gabrielle where she was going. It wastantalising to let the thing go on and hold her hand. She clutched onto the foot of the bed to save herself from doing anything so rash. Gabrielle's steps passed, and the house was quiet again. The mostdifficult moment had come. "I hope to goodness none of the servantsare awake, " she thought. . . 

Reaching the top of the staircase she heard them whispering in thehall. It seemed that they were going out brazenly by the front door, and since it seemed to her that to follow them closely would bedangerous she herself hastened round to the back staircase and letherself out of the house by a side door set in an angle of the buildingthat sheltered her. 

An eastward drift of cloud came over, hiding the moon, and she was gladof this, for the crude moonlight had put her to shame by itsbrilliance. She wondered to see the clouds moving so fast, for in thegarden not a tree stirred but one aspen that made a sound as of gentlerain. She heard the grating of their feet on the drive, and then, bythe sudden cessation of this sound, guessed that they had stepped on tothe lawn. Arthur's low voice came to her clearly. "He's stoppedsinging, but I think he'll sing again, " and from Gabrielle a whispered"Yes. "

Mrs. Payne could scarcely be certain of the words she heard: she knewthat she ought in some way to get nearer to them, but the expanse ofdewy turf by which they were surrounded made it impossible for her toapproach without being seen. Very cautiously she cut across to theleft and into the shelter of the privet hedge, along which she stoleuntil she reached their level. 

They stood together in the middle of the lawn without speaking. Atlast Gabrielle shivered. Arthur noticed it quickly. "I hope you'renot cold, " he said. 

"No, I'm not cold--only--only we're so exposed out here. If we couldget a little more into the shadow I should feel more comfortable----"

"That's easily managed, " he said laughing. "We can go over by thesundial. It's called a yew-parlour, I think. It might have been madefor us. "

So they passed into its shade. Mrs. Payne noticed eagerly that hishand was not on her arm. The yew hedge that now sheltered themconcealed her also from their sight, and, greatly relieved, she creptalong her cover of privet into the shadow of a mulberry tree where, bystooping a little, she could watch them unperceived. 

"What a wonderful night, " Gabrielle whispered. 

"I never knew such a night, " he said. "It feels a bit like thatevening when we stood leaning over the bridge by the lake. "

"Don't, " she said. "I want to forget it. Can you smell the dew?"

"Yes, and the scent of may coming over from the meadows. "

"We call it whitethorn in Ireland. "

There was a long pause, then he spoke again. 

"I think you look sad to-night, " he said. "Are you sorry that youcame?"

"No, no--of course not. It's the moonlight that makes me paler thanusual. But I'm always pale. You shouldn't look at me so closely, Arthur. "

"I love to look at you. It isn't always that I get the chance. I justwanted to be certain that you weren't anxious. You don't think that weoughtn't to have come here?"

"No, why shouldn't we?" she said, turning her face away. 

Then suddenly, in the edge of the copse beyond the nearest field, thenightingale began. The song was so beautiful in the stillness of thenight that even Mrs. Payne, who had other things to think of, felt itsinfluence. It was a strange, unearthly moment. 

"You hear it?" Arthur whispered; but Gabrielle did not answer; she laidher hand on his sleeve and Arthur trembled at her touch. So they stoodlistening, close together, while Arthur took the hand that held him. She smiled and turned her eyes towards him but they could not look ateach other for long. She surrendered herself to his arms and theykissed. 

Mrs. Payne saw their faces close together in the dusk and their shadowybodies entwined. She could bear it no longer, but turned and gropedher way back along the privet hedge to the door from which she hadfirst come. She did not know where she was going or how she went untilshe found that she had reached her own bedroom again. There, in herdressing-gown, she threw herself on the bed and fell into a fit ofviolent sobbing. She lay there shaken by sobs like a disconsolatechild. Over in the coppice the nightingale sang exultantly as if heknew of the wonder that his song had revealed to the lovers wholistened to him with their lips together. 

XIX

It seemed to Mrs. Payne an endless time before she heard the steps ofGabrielle returning. She thanked heaven when she knew that she wascoming back alone. The bedroom door closed and the sound pulled hertogether. It suggested to her that the time had now come when somethingmust be done, and though it would have been much pleasanter to let thematter stand over until the morning, she knew that nothing could begained by waiting, since all of the three people concerned were at thatmoment awake, and the crisis of the affair had been reached. 

The reasons that had dissuaded her from tackling Arthur himself whenfirst her suspicions were aroused still held. She regarded a scene withhim as dangerous, for she could not be certain that a big emotionaldisturbance would not throw him back into his old nature, quite apartfrom the fact that it would wound her motherly heart. Against Gabrielle, on the other hand, she knew that she could steel herself. Gabrielle wasa woman, a woman younger than herself, and, what was more, a visitor inher house. She was satisfied that she could tell Gabrielle what shethought of her, and, in a single interview bring this most uncomfortableand dangerous state of affairs to an end. 

She got out of bed again and dressed methodically. This time she wasn'tgoing to put up with any condition that detracted from her dignity. So, having done her hair afresh and satisfied herself that all traces of herbreakdown had disappeared, she set out with a high degree of confidenceto Gabrielle's room. There was no light in it, but while she stood atthe door she heard Gabrielle softly singing to herself inside. Singing!. . . Mrs. Payne hardened her heart and knocked at the door. The singingstopped. There was no other sound. Then she knocked again. She heard asoft rustle as Gabrielle stepped to the door. The door opened, andGabrielle, in her nightdress and bare feet, stood before her. She staredat Mrs. Payne. Who could guess that she knew the reason of her visit?She only said: "Oh . . . It's you! I wondered. . . . "

"May I come in?" said Mrs. Payne in a hard voice. As a matter of factnothing could have stopped her going in. 

"Of course, " said Gabrielle. "Do. . . . " She shivered slightly. 

"You'd better put on a dressing-gown, " said Mrs. Payne firmly. "I wantto talk to you. "

Gabrielle obeyed her, like a small child, slipped an embroidered kimonoover her shoulders and stood facing Mrs. Payne. She looked her straightin the eyes, and said in a low voice: "Well, what is it?"

"We won't pretend, " said Mrs. Payne. "You know quite well what it is. "

"Yes . . . I suppose you mean Arthur. "

"And you. "

"You saw us go out to-night . . . Heard us?"

"Yes. "

Gabrielle made a gesture of impatience. "Well, why shouldn't we? It wasthe nightingale. Why shouldn't we listen to a nightingale? I'd neverheard one. "

"I followed you into the garden. "

"That was a mean thing to do!"

"Perhaps it was. No . . . I'd a right to do it. I saw everything thathappened. "

"When we kissed each other?"

Mrs. Payne nodded. Gabrielle looked at her challengingly. "It was thefirst time, " she said. There was a pause and then she burst outpassionately. "I love him . . . We love each other. You can't stop us!"

"It's got to be stopped, " said Mrs. Payne. 

Gabrielle turned away and perched herself on the end of the bed. Sheappeared to be thinking, and when next she spoke it was almost dreamily. 

"It was the first time. We didn't know before to-night. "

There was nothing dreamy about Mrs. Payne's reply. She believed thatGabrielle was acting a part, and had no patience with her. 

"That's rubbish, " she said. "I don't believe it. "

Gabrielle jumped to her feet and faced her again, blazing with pride andanger and amazingly beautiful. 

"You don't believe me? How dare you? I've told you that we didn't know. I don't tell lies. You're insulting me. . . . "

She was so passionate that Mrs. Payne was almost convinced. She softenedfor a moment. "After all, you _ought_ to have known, " she said. "You'rea married woman. "

"Married . . . " Gabrielle repeated. "Yes . . . But I didn't know. I'vetold you I didn't. That's enough. "

"Well, if you didn't know, I _did_, " said Mrs. Payne with a laugh. 

"How? Tell me how?"

"It wasn't difficult to see. "

"I can't imagine it. But I know nothing of love. Only once. . . " andGabrielle relapsed into her dream, standing with her hand on the bedpostgazing towards the window. After a second she turned again quickly. "Then, if you knew, was that why you invited me here?"

Mrs. Payne said: "Yes----"

"Why didn't you tell me instead of doing that?"

"I wanted to make certain. "

"Why didn't you tell my husband?"

"For your sake. I wanted to save you. "

"No, you didn't. . . You weren't thinking of me. You were thinking ofArthur. "

This was perfectly true, but Mrs. Payne had not gone through hell todiscuss fine points of that kind. She had left her room in very much thesame frame of mind as she would have adopted in approaching the dismissalof a servant. She had expected to be met with passionate denials, hadprepared herself, indeed, for a stormy "scene"; instead of whichGabrielle appeared to be curious rather than disturbed about herdiscovery, and a great deal more interested in the psychological than inthe practical aspects of the case. If she had offered any violentopposition to Mrs. Payne, Mrs. Payne could have given her violence inreturn. But she didn't. The mood of exaltation into which theirlove-making had lifted her made her regard this woman with somethingnearer to pity than dislike. Her attitude implied that to consider thepractical aspect of the affair would be in the nature of a condescension. Mrs. Payne naturally resented this, but in any case Gabrielle had takenthe wind out of her sails. They were drifting--rather unpleasantly--awayfrom the object of her visit. She pulled herself--and then Gabrielle--upshort. 

"You can't pretend not to realise the seriousness of your position, " shesaid. "You're a married woman. If you persist in this madness you'llruin your whole life. I'll be candid with you. What happens to youdoesn't matter to me; but what happens to Arthur does. Can't you see theend of it?"

"No . . . It's only begun. . . . "

"Then I'll tell you the end. Your husband will divorce you. "

"Then I shall be free? And why not? We don't love each other. Whyshould we go on living together? The thought of him makes me shudder . . . Now. "

"That is your affair. I'm afraid I can't help you in it. But Arthur ismine. I'm not going to see him dragged into this . . . Impossibility. No. . . We can't discuss it like this. You may be as innocent as you pretendto be--though it's difficult to believe it. You imagine you're in love. You're drifting out of an ordinary sort of friendship into . . . What I sawto-night. Well, that can only lead to the most awful unhappiness for allof us. You must consider it finished. We won't have any disturbance;but, all the same, you can't see Arthur again. We'll invent some reasonto explain your going away to-morrow . . . Something plausible . . . Tosatisfy him. With your husband it will be more difficult. But I'mprepared to help you. It can be managed without any scandal if we worktogether. . . I'm sure you'll agree with me and be sensible about it. Ifyou won't, I can't answer for the consequences. "

Mrs. Payne was presuming too much. All the time that she spoke Gabriellesat with lowered eyes, motionless but for little protesting movements ofher hands; now she turned upon her, speaking very low and rapidly. 

"You think I can give him up? You think it's possible? Love . . . Theonly thing I want! The thing I've never had! Happiness. . . Why shouldyou ruin our happiness? You've had yours. Oh, you're selfish. I shan'tgive him up if he wants me. Ask him yourself if he loves me. . . Ah, you're afraid. You daren't. You daren't!"

She almost laughed, and Mrs. Payne knew that she had spoken the truth. It looked, for a moment, as if she were going to be beaten on this point, for Gabrielle snatched at her weakness, repeating the unanswerable "Youdaren't!" Then, suddenly, without any warning, the girl's triumphantspirit collapsed. From the verge of laughter she toppled over intotears. She put her hands to her eyes and then, turning her back on Mrs. Payne, collapsed on her bed, weeping bitterly. 

At the sight of this thankfulness flooded Mrs. Payne's heart; but beneaththis dominant emotion, which came almost as the result of her consciouswish, flowed another that she would gladly have suppressed: pity, nothingless, for the child who lay sobbing on the bed. A minute before she hadseen in Gabrielle her most dangerous enemy in the world; now, even thoughshe rejoiced in the girl's sudden collapse, she felt that she wanted totake her in her arms and kiss her and comfort her. For a moment or twoshe fought against it, but in the end, scarcely knowing what she haddone, she found that she was fondling Gabrielle's hand and being shakenby the communicated passion of her sobs. One thought kept runningthrough her brain: "I've won . . . I've won, and can afford to begenerous, " and this, together with the curious physical liking that shehad always felt for Gabrielle, disarmed her. She set herself tocomforting the child. It was the last thing in the world she hadintended to do, but it came natural to her motherly soul. She was glad, indeed, that Gabrielle did not resent these attentions, as she very wellmight have done. Gradually her sobbing ceased and she began to speak, clinging all the time to Mrs. Payne, herself not guiltless of asympathetic tear, while she told her the story of her early years: of thewild life she had led at Roscarna, of Jocelyn's debauches and Biddy'srough mothering. 

It was the first time that all this flood of reminiscence had beenloosed. Gabrielle had never made a confidante before, and it was anecstasy of tears and laughter to dwell upon these memories, and torehearse them. "I was so happy as a child, " she said, "so awfully happy. But now there's nothing left. "

Mrs. Payne, still sympathetic, found herself suddenly plunged into theardours of the Radway affair; the miraculous meeting on the Clonderriffroad; the halcyon days of August, and then the overwhelming tragedy. 

"They made me marry him, " said Gabrielle, clutching at her hand. "Theymade me. I didn't understand. It was cruel. It would have been betterif I had died like my baby. "

She relapsed into tears, and Mrs. Payne, quite bowled over by thepiteousness of her case, tried to soothe her with caresses. It was acurious end, she reflected, to the punitive expedition on which she hadset forth. Holding Gabrielle triumphantly in her arms she did notrealize the mistake that she had made. It wasn't the end at all, it wasmerely the beginning. 

"You see what a terrible time I've had, " Gabrielle pleaded, drying hertears. "I always felt that you were the only person I could talk toabout these things. I knew you would sympathize . . . You're so human. Now you can understand why I can't live without Arthur. Do you see?"She looked up, pleading, into Mrs. Payne's eyes. 

Her quiet words staggered that good woman. She had to pull herselftogether and begin all over again. It wasn't easy, for the sympatheticmood into which the girl's story had betrayed her had subtly weakened herpurpose. She felt that her position was false. She must reassertherself, and so she hurriedly freed herself from Gabrielle's arms andstood with her back to the door. Gabrielle too rose and faced her. Hertears had put an end to the dreamy mood in which Mrs. Payne had found herat first. Now she was determined, dangerous, ready to fight with all thequickness of her wits and the suppleness of her youth against the elderwoman's dogged devotion. They faced one another, ready to fight to theend, for the possession of the thing they each loved best, and both ofthem realized the bitter nature of the struggle. 

"We can't speak of that again, " said Mrs. Payne. "I thought that wasunderstood. Surely you didn't imagine that by playing on my feelings youcould make me change my mind? I'm sorry you misunderstood me. I willwrite to your husband to-morrow. For Arthur's sake I hope you won't tellhim the real explanation of your going back, and of Arthur's stayinghere. I think you owe that to us . . . Even if you don't realise that it'salso the best for yourself. " She turned towards the door. "I think wehad better say good-night. There is a train at seven-fifty in themorning. I'm sorry it's so early, but there's no other. As I may notsee you again I'll say good-bye now. There's no reason why we shouldn'tpart friends. "

She held out her hand, she couldn't think why, but as she did soGabrielle clasped it. "No . . . Don't go!" she pleaded. 

"There's nothing more to be said. " But Gabrielle still held her hand andwould not let it go. 

"Only be merciful to me, " she cried. "Let us think about it. There mustbe some other way. Supposing . . . Supposing that we go back to Laptonjust in the ordinary way: supposing that I promise you faithfully thatnothing more shall happen. Listen, we never, never kissed beforeto-night. I'll give you my word of honour that it shan't happen again. . . If only you'll let him go back to us. Isn't that fair? Surely it'sfair. . . . "

Mrs. Payne shook her head. 

"You mean that you don't believe me . . . You won't trust me?"

"I can't trust both of you. Do you think I don't know what love is?"

"But think . . . Think of all these months in which we've been so happytogether without a word of love! I love him . . . You know I love him . . . I believe I love him more than you do. No, don't be angry with me forsaying that! Don't you think my love is strong enough to prevent me fromdoing anything that could possibly harm him? Can't you believe that?"

"No . . . It's too dangerous. You can answer for yourself, but you can'tanswer for Arthur. "

"Oh, if you loved him as you say you do . . . As I believe you do . . . Wouldn't you trust him? I'll talk to him. I can tell him anything. I'll tell him exactly how things stand. I'll tell him what I've promisedyou. Only don't take him away from me altogether. I couldn't bear it. . . I couldn't. " She turned back on herself. "Why won't you believe inhim?"

"You should know why that's impossible. Haven't I told you his history?You've only known him for a year. I've had him for seventeen and lovedhim all the time. " She became almost passionate. "He's my son. And allthose years my love has been full of the awful bitterness of his trouble. The tears! The disappointments! You know nothing of them. You can'trealize how I've struggled and schemed and had my hopes raised and dashedto the ground . . . Time after time. To see the person that you love bestin the world, a part of your own body, living without a soul: a thief, aliar--that's the plain truth--inhuman and cruel . . . But you know as wellas I do what he was. "

"I do know what he was. "

"And now, thanks to your husband--God knows I'm grateful!--he's better. He's what I knew he ought to have been all these awful years. And thenyou come on the scene--you, who've borne nothing of all the yearsbefore--and begin to drag him down again. You must be mad to think Icould risk it!"

"But don't I know all this? Do you think I'm less anxious than you arethat he should stay as he is? Only trust me . . . Trust me! His future. . . Think of that. . . . "

Mrs. Payne laughed bitterly, but Gabrielle persisted. 

"His future . . . My husband says that he can make a success of him. Hecan take a high place in a Government examination; he can get into thediplomatic service. Just believe that I love him too much to stand inhis way. Why, I can even help him. If he does this I know that he'llwant influence. _You_ haven't influence to help him. I don't want tobelittle you, but I know you've nothing but your money, while I _can_help him. My cousin is Lord Halberton. He's been a Cabinet minister. There's no knowing what he mightn't do with his help. If you love anyoneas I do him, why shouldn't you give your life to his interests? That'swhat I'd do. I'd think of nothing else. I'd give all my thoughts tohim. And I promise . . . Oh, I promise faithfully, that I won't let himlove me . . . If only you'll let me love him. "

Mrs. Payne stiffened. "You're trying to bribe me, " she said, "and I'mnot the kind of person who can be bribed. I don't care that much abouthis future! Until the last month I never so much as dreamed that anyfuture of that kind was possible. It's quite enough for me that heshould settle down here into the sort of life that his father would havelived if he'd been spared. I don't want to share his successes withyou. . . . "

"Ah, you're jealous!"

"Of course I'm jealous. I've reason to be. He's mine. But even if Icould trust you . . . And I believe I could . . . Arthur's future wouldn'ttempt me to risk his present. No . . . It's too dangerous. "

"Dangerous. . . " Gabrielle clutched at the word. "Dangerous!" She becamesuddenly quiet and intense. "I don't believe you know where the dangerlies, " she said. 

"I can see the most obvious danger, and that's a love affair with amarried woman. "

"You can't see any other? You said just now that Arthur had changedthanks to my husband. Perhaps my husband took the credit for it and youbelieved it. But it isn't true. I've seen the change coming hour byhour, day by day. Every moment of it I've watched and treasured. He didnot change because he worked with my husband. He changed because I lovedhim and he loved me. I know it . . . I've known it all the time. What didyour love do for him in all those years? Nothing . . . Nothing at all. For heaven's sake don't think I'm boasting! Your love never changed hima hair's breadth, and you know it!"

Mrs. Payne gasped. "You don't realize what you're saying. "

"But I do . . . I do. You say his body's part of you--belongs to you. I'll give you that. But this soul . . . His new soul . . . Is mine. That'spart of our love. Ours and nobody else's. . . . "

Mrs. Payne choked back her emotion. "I don't grudge it you, " she said, "I only thank God for it gratefully . . . Gratefully. "

"But you don't see what I mean, " said Gabrielle slowly. "Arthur haschanged because he loves me. He's ceased to be cruel because he knowsthat for him to be cruel pains me. He's learned to see things just as Isee them. And now you want to separate us . . . Even after what I havepromised you. Can't you see what I'm afraid of?"

She paused, and Mrs. Payne was silent. Gabrielle quickly pressed heradvantage. 

"If you separate us, if you try to destroy our love, you'll be takingaway from him the thing that's saved him. How do you know that he won'tslip back again? You can take his body from me . . . I know that . . . Butyou may lose more than you get. "

Mrs. Payne stood staring straight in front of her. 

"Then you will know what you are worth to him. " Gabrielle's tone wasalmost scornful. "You see how it stands, " she continued. "We both of uswant him for ourselves, we want him as he is to-day . . . And we can'teither of us have him without the other's consent. You hold his body, and I hold his soul. Let's be reasonable. Let's compromise. I'm readyto do my part. Oh, I beg you to be reasonable!"

"You're a devil, not a woman, " said Mrs. Payne. 

"But you see that I'm right?" Gabrielle persisted. 

Mrs. Payne summoned all her strength. "No, I don't. I don't believe it. "

"Ah, you pretend that you don't! But you're bluffing me. I know it. Why did you come to me about this instead of to Arthur himself? Becauseyou were afraid. That was the reason. "

The shot was made at a venture, but Gabrielle quickly saw that it hadtaken effect. She followed it up:

"You thought that if you upset him he might lose what he's gained. Youdon't know--we none of us know yet--how deep the change is. You didn'tdare to face that little risk; but it's nothing compared with the one youwant to take now. That's what you've got to face!"

She could say no more. When she stopped speaking Mrs. Payne knew thatthe girl's eyes were fixed on her eagerly, desperately, trying to searchinto her mind. The older woman stood there still and bewildered by thechoice that had been presented to her. It was the most awful moment inher emotional life. Her mind was a battlefield on which her love, hersense of right, her acquired conventions, her religion, and her hungrymaternal passion were pitted against one formidable dread. She wanted toshield Arthur against harm: from a social disaster no less than from whatshe considered a mortal sin; and, above all, after these years of patientsuffering, she wanted him for herself. It was neither religion normorality that drove her to her final decision, but a thing far stronger:her passionate instinct to possess the son of her body. Even if she wereto lose him, to rescue no more than the changeling that she had alwaysknown, she could not bring herself to share him with any other woman onearth. He was hers and hers alone. She did not know if she were right. She did not care if she were wrong. The decision formed itselfinexorably in her mind. She could only obey it. Gabrielle, watching hernarrowly, saw a sudden peace descend upon her agonised face. Mrs. Paynegave a long shuddering sigh. Then she spoke, dully, mechanically:

"The train goes at seven-fifty. I will order the carriage. I will writeto Dr. Considine in the morning. "

Gabrielle clutched at her breast. "You can't realise what you're doing!It's too great a risk. Think of it again . . . I beg you!"

"No, " said Mrs. Payne slowly. "I've made up my mind. We must inventsome plausible excuse. Illness will do . . . Anything. And you must helpme, if only for your own sake. "

Desperate tears came into Gabrielle's eyes. 

"For your own sake, " Mrs. Payne repeated. "You've realised, I know, thatif you go on with this unfortunate love-affair you must ruin not onlyyour own happiness and your husband's, but Arthur's as well. If you lovehim at all you can't drag him into social ruin. Well, I've made mydecision. If anything disastrous happens my blood's on my own head. Wemust make the best of a bad job. Don't think I'm not sorry for you, mydear. "

This final tenderness was too much for Gabrielle. She broke down, sobbing so tragically in Mrs. Payne's arms that the older woman wasalmost ashamed of her victory. She knew that she could afford to bekind. She felt that she would like to tell her that under any othercircumstances she knew none whom she would rather trust as Arthur's wife;but to say so would have been a bitter mockery. She waited in silencewhile Gabrielle mastered her own feelings and raised, at last, herhaggard eyes. 

"What can you say to my husband?" she said. 

"We must say that I am ill. That will give you a good reason forreturning. "

"And Arthur?"

"The same reason will explain why he doesn't go back to Lapton onTuesday. After that I don't know what I shall do. "

"But I can see him before I go?"

"That would be quite useless. It might even do harm. You are going tohelp me, you know, for his sake. "

"He'll wonder. How can we satisfy him? What can I do?"

"You had better write to him. Tell him that after to-night it'simpossible for you to stay. Only . . . Only please don't mention me. "

"It will kill him. . . . "

"Or save him. It's the only thing that you can do. "

"I'll write it now. "

She went over to the writing table in the window, and there, withstreaming eyes, she wrote her letter. It took her a long time to do, andwhen she had finished she brought it with the envelope to Mrs. Payne. 

"Do you want to read it?" she asked. 

"No . . . Of course I trust you. "

"Thank you. " She fastened the envelope and addressed it. "I feel as ifI were dead, " she said. 

"You're young, " said Mrs. Payne. 

"But you'll let me know what happens, you'll write to me?"

"Yes, I'll write to you. "

"I have a dread, an awful dread of what may happen. I can't be sure thatwe've done right. "

"Neither can I. I had to make a decision. I pray God that it will turnout well. We can do no more. "

"I know now that you love him. I'm glad to know that. "

"Did you ever doubt it?"

"But for me there's nothing left . . . Nothing. " Gabrielle stood for amoment in silence. Then she said, "I'd better pack, " and Mrs. Payneclutching at any refuge from the intensity of the moment offered to helpher. 

"No, " said Gabrielle, "if you don't mind, I'd rather be alone. We'dbetter say good-bye. "

"I don't like to leave you, " said Mrs. Payne, "but perhaps you're right. "

With a sudden impulse Gabrielle came over to her. Mrs. Payne took her inher arms and they kissed. 

"I could love you, " said Gabrielle. "You have Arthur's eyes. . . . "

Mrs. Payne left her. 

XX

Much to the disgust of Hollis, who was in the habit of making the mostof his Sundays, Gabrielle left Overton by the early morning train whileArthur slept undisturbed after his night of wonder, and Mrs. Payne roseanxiously to face the certain embarrassments and the possiblebitterness of her victory. She had not slept at all, for though shenever for one moment dreamed of going back on the decision which herconscience, amongst other things, had dictated, she was still in doubtas to whether she had won her son or lost him for ever. She almostregretted the burst of generosity in which she had refused to readGabrielle's letter of renunciation. For all she knew the wording mightbe provocative and calculated to wreck her plans at the last moment. The letter lay sealed upon her dressing-table. It speaks well for hersense of honour in a bargain that this pathetic document remainedunopened. Meanwhile she only prayed that the hours might pass and herfate be revealed. She could only rack her brains imagining some meansby which the severity of the blow might be tempered for Arthur. 

Next morning he came down ten minutes late for breakfast. He missedGabrielle at once. 

"Where's Mrs. Considine?" he said. "I called at her door as I camedown, but I don't think she's there. "

"No, " said Mrs. Payne. "She had to go back to Lapton by the firsttrain. An urgent call of some kind. "

"A telegram? The old man isn't ill, is he?"

"She left a letter for you, " said Mrs. Payne, handing him Gabrielle'senvelope. 

"What a rotten shame, " he said as he took it. "It's a splendid morningfor a ride. I hope it's not serious. "

He opened the letter and read it. What Gabrielle had written Mrs. Payne never knew, for even in later years he did not tell her. She hadexpected a terrible and passionate outburst and prepared herself tomeet it with argument and consolation, but no outburst came. She sawhim go very red and then white. Then he steadied himself and said in acurious voice: "Mother . . . If you'll excuse me, I must go out. "

She put out her hand to him but he pushed back his chair and wentquickly through the French window of the dining-room, into the garden. She wanted to follow him, for she feared that on the impulse of themoment he might do something terrible, but controlled herself in time. 

She stood on the terrace, impotent, watching him as he crossed the lawnand made for the fields. It was a terrible day for her. She felt thatshe couldn't go to church in her usual way, but stayed at home torturedby the most hopeless and tragic anticipations of evil. At lunch timehe had not returned. It was with difficulty that she restrainedherself from sending Hollis out over the hill with a search party, butthe curious fatalism that had settled on her when once her decision wasmade, compelled her to patience. It was his own battle, she reflected, and if he had wanted her help he would have come to her. Evidently, hehad decided to fight it out alone. She went to her own room and prayeddesperately for his salvation. 

In the evening he returned, tired out with ceaseless wandering. He hadeaten nothing all day and looked very old and haggard. She hadexpected a tender scene of confidence and was ready to overwhelm himwith the consolations of her love; but even now he said nothing to her, and she dared not take the first step herself. From his silent miseryshe gathered that Gabrielle had not told him that she knew of thesecret. Evidently, and very wisely, she had given him general andconventional reasons for her renunciation, treating it as a matter thatconcerned themselves and no one else, denying Mrs. Payne the privilegeand pain of sharing in Arthur's disillusionment. Therefore, his motherjudged it wiser to behave as though she knew nothing of what he wassuffering, though she saw by the steadiness of his demeanour that hehad taken the blow squarely, and come through. 

The fact that he didn't break down miserably, as she had expected hewould, convinced her more than ever that he had become a man. She feltcertain now that she had been right in following her instinct andfacing the risk that her action involved. She believed that she hadtriumphed. Certainly, the boy who faced her at the dinner-table insuffering and awkward silence was very different from the Arthur of sixmonths before. There was a look of determination in his eyes that madeher confident. He kissed her good-night without the least tremor, andshe went to bed herself full of serene thankfulness. Nor did sheforget how much she owed to the girl who was breaking her heart in theloneliness of Lapton. She wrote to Gabrielle that night. "I think itis all right, " she said. "Heaven only knows what I owe you for yourgenerosity . . . What Arthur owes you. "

He never mentioned Gabrielle's name to her again. Next morning, in acalm and serious mood, he approached her on the subject of his returnto Lapton. 

"Would you mind very much, " he said, "if I don't go back to Devonshire?I feel that I'm rather out of place there. You see, I'm older than theothers. Do you think it could be arranged?"

At first she feigned surprise--she could do nothing else--but in doingso she cleverly contrived to make it easy for him. 

"If you wish it I will write to Dr. Considine, " she said. She didn'tsuggest the elaborate falsehoods on which she would build her letter. "I think you are old enough to decide, " she told him. "What would youlike to do?"

"Is there any reason why I shouldn't travel?" he said. "I feel that Iwant a change. I should like to see something of the world. "

So, without further difficulty, it was arranged. She sent him roundthe world with a new tutor, waiting placidly and happily at Overton forhis return. It was in these days that I became acquainted with her andconceived the admiration for her that I still hold. She often spoke tome in terms of the most utter devotion of her son. I imagined her anideal mother, as indeed she was. 

After a year or more abroad Arthur returned, very much the man of theworld. At his own desire he went up to Oxford, where he passed aperfectly normal three years and took a decent degree. In his lastterm he fell in love with the daughter of a neighbouring parson, whom, in due course, he married. The following year the young people wentout to New Zealand, a country to which Arthur had been attracted on histravels, and that is all that I know of him. 

During all this time Mrs. Payne corresponded regularly with Gabrielle. Now that Arthur's safety was beyond question and even in the earlierdebatable period, she had not the least objection to sharing him withher rival . . . At a distance. She even sent her his letters fromabroad. In this way they arrived at a curious and altogether happyintimacy. Gabrielle's letters became part of her life, and when, inthe autumn after Arthur's engagement was announced, they suddenlystopped, Mrs. Payne felt that she had suffered a loss. She wrote twoor three times to Lapton, but received no reply, and it was only by thechance meeting of a friend who had been staying in Devonshire that shelearned what had happened. It came to her as a piece of idle gossip, but the shock of an extraordinary coincidence upset her for many days. It appeared that Dr. Considine, by this time a well known figure in thecounty, had gone out one evening rabbit-shooting with his wife. Asthey were returning from their expedition down one of the steep slopesabove Lapton Manor, he had slipped in getting over a gate and fallen. It was the usual type of shooting accident that no one could explain. The gun had gone off and shot him dead. "He was terribly mutilatedabout the head, " said Mrs. Payne's informant. She did not know whathad happened to his widow. Probably she had gone to her cousins theHalbertons. In any case the jury had completely exonerated her. 

Mrs. Payne flared up in Gabrielle's defence. "Exonerated?"

"It was well known that they were not on the best of terms, " said hervisitor discreetly. 

XXI

I do not know what has possessed me since I began to write this story. I have grown tired of this river, where the trout are always shy, andmore tired than ever of Colonel Hoylake's fishing stories and hisobituary reflections. The place is haunted for me by the tragic imageof Gabrielle Hewish. It is strange that I should be affected by theloss of a woman whom I have never seen or known. But I feel that Icannot stay here any longer. Wherever I go in this valley I amtroubled by a feeling of desolation: a curious feeling, as though somebright thing had fallen--a kingfisher, a dragon-fly.