A MODERN CHRONICLE

By Winston Churchill

Volume 6. 

CHAPTER VI

CLIO, OR THALIA?

According to the ordinary and inaccurate method of measuring time, afortnight may have gone by since the event last narrated, and Honora hadtasted at last the joys of authorship. Her name was not to appear, to besure, on the cover of the Life and Letters of General Angus Chiltern; norindeed, so far, had she written so much as a chapter or a page of a workintended to inspire young and old with the virtues of citizenship. Atpresent the biography was in the crucial constructive stage. Should theletters be put in one volume, and the life in another? or should theletters be inserted in the text of the life? or could not there be athird and judicious mixture of both of these methods? Honora's counsel onthis and other problems was, it seems, invaluable. Her own table wasfairly littered with biographies more or less famous which had beenfetched from the library, and the method of each considered. 

Even as Mr. Garrick would never have been taken for an actor in his coachand four, so our heroine did not in the least resemble George Eliot, forinstance, as she sat before her mirror at high noon with Monsieur Cadronand her maid Mathilde in worshipful attendance. Some of the ladies, indeed, who have left us those chatty memoirs of the days before theguillotine, she might have been likened to. Monsieur Cadron was anartist, and his branch of art was hair-dressing. It was by his own wishhe was here to-day, since he had conceived a new coiffure especiallyadapted, he declared, to the type of Madame Spence. Behold him declaringecstatically that seldom in his experience had he had such hairs to workwith. 

"Avec une telle chevelure, l'on peut tout faire, madame. Etre simple, c'est le comble de l'art. Ca vous donne, " he added, with clasped handsand a step backward, "ca vous donne tout a fait l'air d'une dame deNattier. "

Madame took the hand-glass, and did not deny that she was eblouissante. If madame, suggested Monsieur Cadron, had but a little dress a la MarieAntoinette? Madame had, cried madame's maid, running to fetch one withlittle pink flowers and green leaves on an ecru ground. Could anycoiffure or any gown be more appropriate for an entertainment at whichClio was to preside?

It is obviously impossible that a masterpiece should be executed underthe rules laid down by convention. It would never be finished. Mr. Chiltern was coming to lunch, and it was not the first time. On herappearance in the doorway he halted abruptly in his pacing of thedrawing-room, and stared at her. 

"I'm sorry I kept you waiting, " she said. 

"It was worth it, " he said. And they entered the dining room. A subdued, golden-green light came in through the tall glass doors that opened outon the little garden which had been Mrs. Forsythe's pride. The scent ofroses was in the air, and a mass of them filled a silver bowl in themiddle of the table. On the dark walls were Mrs. Forsythe's preciousprints, and above the mantel a portrait of a thin, aristocratic gentlemanwho resembled the poet Tennyson. In the noonday shadows of a recess was adark mahogany sideboard loaded with softly gleaming silver--Honora's. Chiltern sat down facing her. He looked at Honora over the roses, --andshe looked at him. A sense of unreality that was, paradoxically, strongerthan reality itself came over her, a sense of fitness, of harmony. Andfor the moment an imagination, ever straining at its leash, was allowedto soar. It was Chiltern who broke the silence. 

"What a wonderful bowl!" he said. 

"It has been in my father's family a great many years. He was very fondof it, " she answered, and with a sudden, impulsive movement she reachedover and set the bowl aside. 

"That's better, " he declared, "much as I admire the bowl, and the roses. "

She coloured faintly, and smiled. The feast of reason that we areimpatiently awaiting is deferred. It were best to attempt to record theintangible things; the golden-green light, the perfumes, and the faintmusical laughter which we can hear if we listen. Thalia's laughter, surely, not Clio's. Thalia, enamoured with such a theme, has taken thestage herself--and as Vesta, goddess of hearths. It was Vesta whom theyfelt to be presiding. They lingered, therefore, over the coffee, andChiltern lighted a cigar. He did not smoke cigarettes. 

"I've lived long enough, " he said, "to know that I have never lived atall. There is only one thing in life worth having. "

"What is it?" asked Honora. 

"This, " he answered, with a gesture; "when it is permanent. "

She smiled. 

"And how is one to know whether it would be--permanent?"

"Through experience and failure, " he answered quickly, "we learn todistinguish the reality when it comes. It is unmistakable. "

"Suppose it comes too late?" she said, forgetting the ancient verseinscribed in her youthful diary: "Those who walk on ice will slideagainst their wills. "

"To admit that is to be a coward, " he declared. 

"Such a philosophy may be fitting for a man, " she replied, "but for awoman--"

"We are no longer in the dark ages, " he interrupted. "Every one, man orwoman, has the right to happiness. There is no reason why we shouldsuffer all our lives for a mistake. "

"A mistake!" she echoed. 

"Certainly, " he said. "It is all a matter of luck, or fate, or whateveryou choose to call it. Do you suppose, if I could have found fifteenyears ago the woman to have made me happy, I should have spent so muchtime in seeking distraction?"

"Perhaps you could not have been capable of appreciating her--fifteenyears ago, " suggested Honora. And, lest he might misconstrue her remark, she avoided his eyes. 

"Perhaps, " he admitted. "But suppose I have found her now, when I knowthe value of things. "

"Suppose you should find her now--within a reasonable time. What wouldyou do?"

"Marry her, " he exclaimed promptly. "Marry her and take her to Grenoble, and live the life my father lived before me. "

She did not reply, but rose, and he followed her to the shaded corner ofthe porch where they usually sat. The bundle of yellow-stained envelopeshe had brought were lying on the table, and Honora picked them upmechanically. 

"I have been thinking, " she said as she removed the elastics, "that it isa mistake to begin a biography by the enumeration of one's ancestors. Readers become frightfully bored before they get through the firstchapter. "

"I'm beginning to believe, " he laughed, "that you will have to write thisone alone. All the ideas I have got so far have been yours. Why shouldn'tyou write it, and I arrange the material, and talk about it! That appearsto be all I'm good for. "

If she allowed her mind to dwell on the vista he thus presented, she didnot betray herself. 

"Another thing, " she said, "it should be written like fiction. "

"Like fiction?"

"Fact should be written like fiction, and fiction like fact. It'sdifficult to express what I mean. But this life of your father deservesto be widely known, and it should be entertainingly done, like Lockhart, or Parton's works--"

An envelope fell to the floor, spilling its contents. Among them wereseveral photographs. 

"Oh, " she exclaimed, "how beautiful! What place is this?"

"I hadn't gone over these letters, " he answered. "I only got themyesterday from Cecil Grainger. These are some pictures of Grenoble whichmust leave been taken shortly before my father died. "

She gazed in silence at the old house half hidden by great maples andbeeches, their weighted branches sweeping the ground. The building was ofwood, painted white, and through an archway of verdure one saw thegenerous doorway with its circular steps, with its fan-light above, andits windows at the side. Other quaint windows, some of them of triplewidth, suggested an interior of mystery and interest. 

"My great-great-grandfather, Alexander Chiltern, built it, " he said, "onland granted to him before the Revolution. Of course the house has beenadded to since then, but the simplicity of the original has always beenkept. My father put on the conservatory, for instance, " and Chilternpointed to a portion at the end of one of the long low wings. "He got theidea from the orangery of a Georgian house in England, and an Englisharchitect designed it. "

Honora took up the other photographs. One of them, over which shelingered, was of a charming, old-fashioned garden spattered withsunlight, and shut out from the world by a high brick wall. Behind thewall, again, were the dense masses of the trees, and at the end of a pathbetween nodding foxgloves and Canterbury bells, in a curved recess, astone seat. 

She turned her face. His was at her shoulder. 

"How could you ever have left it?" she asked reproachfully. 

She voiced his own regrets, which the crowding memories had awakened. 

"I don't know, " he answered, not without emotion. "I have often askedmyself that question. " He crossed over to the railing of the porch, swungabout, and looked at her. Her eyes were still on the picture. "I canimagine you in that garden, " he said. 

Did the garden cast the spell by which she saw herself on the seat? orwas it Chiltern's voice? She would indeed love and cherish it. And was ittrue that she belonged there, securely infolded within those peacefulwalls? How marvellously well was Thalia playing her comedy! Which was thereal, and which the false? What of true value, what of peace and securitywas contained in her present existence? She had missed the meaning ofthings, and suddenly it was held up before her, in a garden. 

A later hour found them in Honora's runabout wandering northward alongquiet country roads on the eastern side of the island. Chiltern, who wasdriving, seemed to take no thought of their direction, until at last, with an exclamation, he stopped the horse; and Honora beheld an abandonedmansion of a bygone age sheltered by ancient trees, with wide landsbeside it sloping to the water. 

"What is it?" she asked. 

"Beaulieu, " he replied. "It was built in the seventeenth century, Ibelieve, and must have been a fascinating place in colonial days. " Hedrove in between the fences and tied the horse, and came around by theside of the runabout. "Won't you get out and look at it?"

She hesitated, and their eyes met as he held out his hand, but sheavoided it and leaped quickly to the ground neither spoke as they walkedaround the deserted house and gazed at the quaint facade, broken by acrumbling, shaded balcony let in above the entrance door. No sound brokethe stillness of the summer's day--a pregnant stillness. The air washeavy with perfumes, and the leaves formed a tracery against themarvellous blue of the sky. Mystery brooded in the place. Here, in thisremote paradise now in ruins, people had dwelt and loved. Thought endedthere; and feeling, which is unformed thought, began. Again she glancedat him, and again their eyes met, and hers faltered. They turned, as withone consent, down the path toward the distant water. Paradise overgrown!Could it be reconstructed, redeemed?

In former days the ground they trod had been a pleasance the width of thehouse, bordered, doubtless, by the forest. Trees grew out of the flowerbeds now, and underbrush choked the paths. The box itself, that onceprimly lined the alleys, was gnarled and shapeless. Labyrinth hadreplaced order, nature had reaped her vengeance. At length, in thedeepening shade, they came, at what had been the edge of the old terrace, to the daintiest of summer-houses, crumbling too, the shutters off theirhinges, the floor-boards loose. Past and gone were the idyls of which ithad been the stage. 

They turned to the left, through tangled box that wound hither andthither, until they stopped at a stone wall bordering a tree-arched lane. At the bottom of the lane was a glimpse of blue water. 

Honora sat down on the wall with her back to a great trunk. Chiltern, with a hand on the stones, leaped over lightly, and stood for somemoments in the lane, his feet a little apart and firmly planted, hishands behind his back. 

What had Thalia been about to allow the message of that morning to creepinto her comedy? a message announcing the coming of an intruder not inthe play, in the person of a husband bearing gifts. What right had he, inthe eternal essence of things, to return? He was out of all time andplace. Such had been her feeling when she had first read the hastilywritten letter, but even when she had burned it it had risen again fromthe ashes. Anything but that! In trying not to think of it, she hadpicked up the newspaper, learned of a railroad accident, --and shuddered. Anything but his return! Her marriage was a sin, --there could be nosacrament in it. She would flee first, and abandon all rather than submitto it. 

Chiltern's step aroused her now. He came back to the wall where she wassitting, and faced her. 

"You are sad, " he said. 

She shook her head at him, slowly, and tried to smile. 

"What has happened?" he demanded rudely. "I can't bear to see you sad. "

"I am going away, " she said. The decision had suddenly come to her. Whyhad she not seen before that it was inevitable?

He seized her wrist as it lay on the wall, and she winced from the suddenpain of his grip. 

"Honora, I love you, " he said, "I must have you--I will have you. I willmake you happy. I promise it on my soul. I can't, I won't live withoutyou. "

She did not listen to his words--she could not have repeated themafterwards. The very tone of his voice was changed by passion; creationspoke through him, and she heard and thrilled and swayed and soared, forgetting heaven and earth and hell as he seized her in his arms andcovered her face with kisses. Thus Eric the Red might have wooed. And bywhat grace she spoke the word that delivered her she never knew. Assuddenly as he had seized her he released her, and she stood before himwith flaming cheeks and painful breath. 

"I love you, " he said, "I love you. I have searched the world for you andfound you, and by all the laws of God you are mine. "

And love was written in her eyes. He had but to read it there, though herlips might deny it. This was the man of all men she would have chosen, and she was his by right of conquest. Yet she held up her hand with agesture of entreaty. 

"No, Hugh--it cannot be, " she said. 

"Cannot!" he cried. "I will take you. You love me. "

"I am married. "

"Married! Do you mean that you would let that man stand between you andhappiness?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, in a frightened voice. 

"Just what I say, " he cried, with incredible vehemence. "Leave him--divorce him. You cannot live with him. He isn't worthy to touch yourhand. "

The idea planted itself with the force of a barbed arrow from astrong-bow. Struggle as she might, she could not henceforth extract it. 

"Oh!" she cried. 

He took her arm, gently, and forced her to sit down on the wall. Such wasthe completeness of his mastery that she did not resist. He sat downbeside her. 

"Listen, Honora, " he said, and tried to speak calmly, though his voicewas still vibrant; "let us look the situation m the face. As I told youonce, the days of useless martyrdom are past. The world is moreenlightened today, and recognizes an individual right to happiness. "

"To happiness, " she repeated after him, like a child. He forgot his wordsas he looked into her eyes: they were lighted as with all the candles ofheaven in his honour. 

"Listen, " he said hoarsely, and his fingers tightened on her arm. 

The current running through her from him made her his instrument. Did hesay the sky was black, she would have exclaimed at the discovery. 

"Yes--I am listening. "

"Honora!"

"Hugh, " she answered, and blinded him. He was possessed by the tragicfear that she was acting a dream; presently she would awake--and shatterthe universe. His dominance was too complete. 

"I love you--I respect you. You are making it very hard for me. Pleasetry to understand what I am saying, " he cried almost fiercely. "Thisthing, this miracle, has happened in spite of us. Henceforth you belongto me--do you hear?"

Once more the candles flared up. 

"We cannot drift. We must decide now upon some definite action. Our livesare our own, to make as we choose. You said you were going away. And youmeant--alone?"

The eyes were wide, now, with fright. 

"Oh, I must--I must, " she said. "Don't--don't talk about it. " And she putforth a hand over his. 

"I will talk about it, " he declared, trembling. "I have thought it allout, " and this time it was her fingers that tightened. "You are goingaway. And presently--when you are free--I will come to you. "

For a moment the current stopped. 

"No, no!" she cried, almost in terror. The first fatalist must have beena woman, and the vision of rent prison bars drove her mad. "No, we couldnever be happy. "

"We can--we will be happy, " he said, with a conviction that was unshaken. "Do you hear me? I will not debase what I have to say by resorting tocomparisons. But--others I know have been happy are happy, though theirhappiness cannot be spoken of with ours. Listen. You will go away--for alittle while--and afterwards we shall be together for all time. Nothingshall separate us: We never have known life, either of us, until now. I, missing you, have run after the false gods. And you--I say it withtruth-needed me. We will go to live at Grenoble, as my father and motherlived. We will take up their duties there. And if it seems possible, Iwill go into public life. When I return, I shall find you--waiting forme--in the garden. "

So real had the mirage become, that Honora did not answer. The desert andits journey fell away. Could such a thing, after all, be possible? Didfate deal twice to those whom she had made novices? The mirage, indeed, suddenly became reality--a mirage only because she had proclaimed itsuch. She had beheld in it, as he spoke, a Grenoble which was paradiseregained. And why should paradise regained be a paradox? Why paradiseregained? Paradise gained. She had never known it, until he had flungwide the gates. She had sought for it, and never found it until now, andher senses doubted it. It was a paradise of love, to be sure; but one, too, of duty. Duty made it real. Work was there, and fulfilment of thepurpose of life itself. And if his days hitherto had been useless, hershad in truth been barren. 

It was only of late, after a life-long groping, that she had discoveredtheir barrenness. The right to happiness! Could she begin anew, and foundit upon a rock? And was he the rock?

The question startled her, and she drew away from him first her hand, andthen she turned her body, staring at him with widened eyes. He did notresist the movement; nor could he, being male, divine what was passingwithin her, though he watched her anxiously. She had no thought of thefirst days, --but afterwards. For at such times it is the woman who scansthe veil of the future. How long would that beacon burn which flamed nowin such prodigal waste? Would not the very springs of it dry up? Shelooked at him, and she saw the Viking. But the Viking had fled from theworld, and they--they would be going into it. Could love prevail againstits dangers and pitfalls and--duties? Love was the word that rang out, asone calling through the garden, and her thoughts ran molten. Let loveoverflow--she gloried in the waste! And let the lean years come, --shedefied them to-day. 

"Oh, Hugh!" she faltered. 

"My dearest!" he cried, and would have seized her in his arms again butfor a look of supplication. That he had in him this innate andunsuspected chivalry filled her with an exquisite sweetness. 

"You will--protect me?" she asked. 

"With my life and with my honour, " he answered. "Honora, there will be nohappiness like ours. "

"I wish I knew, " she sighed: and then, her look returning from the veil, rested on him with a tenderness that was inexpressible. "I--I don't care, Hugh. I trust you. "

The sun was setting. Slowly they went back together through the paths ofthe tangled garden, which had doubtless seen many dramas, and the courseschanged of many lives: overgrown and outworn now, yet love was loth toleave it. Honora paused on the lawn before the house, and looked back athim over her shoulder. 

"How happy we could have been here, in those days, " she sighed. 

"We will be happier there, " he said. 

Honora loved. Many times in her life had she believed herself to have hadthis sensation, and yet had known nothing of these aches and ecstasies!Her mortal body, unattended, went out to dinner that evening. Never, itis said, was her success more pronounced. The charm of RandolphLeffingwell, which had fascinated the nobility of three kingdoms, haddescended on her, and hostesses had discovered that she possessed themagic touch necessary to make a dinner complete. Her quality, as we know, was not wit: it was something as old as the world, as new as modernpsychology. It was, in short, the power to stimulate. She infused a senseof well-being; and ordinary people, in her presence, surprised themselvesby saying clever things. 

Lord Ayllington, a lean, hard-riding gentleman, who was supposed to be onthe verge of contracting an alliance with the eldest of the Grenfellgirls, regretted that Mrs. Spence was neither unmarried nor an heiress. 

"You know, " he said to Cecil Grainger, who happened to be gracing hiswife's dinner-party, "she's the sort of woman for whom a man mightconsent to live in Venice. "

"And she's the sort of woman, " replied, "a man couldn't get to go toVenice. "

Lord Ayllington's sigh was a proof of an intimate knowledge of the world. 

"I suppose not, " he said. "It's always so. And there are few Americanwomen who would throw everything overboard for a grand passion. "

"You ought to see her on the beach, " Mr. Grainger suggested. 

"I intend to, " said Ayllington. "By the way, not a few of your Americanwomen get divorced, and keep their cake and eat it, too. It's a bitdifficult, here at Newport, for a stranger, you know. "

"I'm willing to bet, " declared Mr. Grainger, "that it doesn't pay. Whenyou're divorced and married again you've got to keep up appearances--thefirst time you don't. Some of these people are working pretty hard. "

Whereupon, for the Englishman's enlightenment, he recounted a littlegossip. 

This, of course, was in the smoking room. In the drawing-room, Mrs. Grainger's cousin did not escape, and the biography was the subject oflaughter. 

"You see something of him, I hear, " remarked Mrs. Playfair, a lady thedeficiency of whose neck was supplied by jewels, and whose conversationsounded like liquid coming out of an inverted bottle. "Is he reallyserious about the biography?"

"You'll have to ask Mr. Grainger, " replied Honora. 

"Hugh ought to marry, " Mrs. Grenfell observed. 

"Why did he come back?" inquired another who had just returned from aprolonged residence abroad. "Was there a woman in the case?"

"Put it in the plural, and you'll be nearer right, " laughed Mrs. Grenfell, and added to Honora, "You'd best take care, my dear, he'sdangerous. "

Honora seemed to be looking down on them from a great height, and toReginald Farwell alone is due the discovery of this altitude; hisreputation for astuteness, after that evening, was secure. He had satnext her, and had merely put two and two together--an operation that isprobably at the root of most prophecies. More than once that summer Mr. Farwell had taken sketches down Honora's lane, for she was on what wasknown as his list of advisers: a sheepfold of ewes, some one had calledit, and he was always piqued when one of them went astray. In addition tothis, intuition told him that he had taken the name of a deity invain--and that deity was Chiltern. These reflections resulted in anotherafter-dinner conversation to which we are not supposed to listen. 

He found Jerry Shorter in a receptive mood, and drew him into CecilGrainger's study, where this latter gentleman, when awake, carried on hislifework of keeping a record of prize winners. 

"I believe there is something between Mrs. Spence and Hugh Chiltern, after all, Jerry, " he said. 

"By jinks, you don't say so!" exclaimed Mr. Shorter, who had a profoundrespect for his friend's diagnoses in these matters. "She was dazzlingto-night, and her eyes were like stars. I passed her in the hall justnow, and I might as well have been in Halifax. "

"She fairly withered me when I made a little fun of Chiltern, " declaredFarwell. 

"I tell you what it is, Reggie, " remarked Mr. Shorter, with morefrankness than tact, "you could talk architecture with 'em from now toChristmas, and nothing'd happen, but it would take an iceberg to write abook with Hugh and see him alone six days out of seven. Chiltern knockswomen into a cocked hat. I've seen 'em stark raving crazy. Why, there wasthat Mrs. Slicer six or seven years ago--you remember--that CecilGrainger had such a deuce of a time with. And there was Mrs. Dutton--Iwas a committee to see her, when the old General was alive, --to saynothing about a good many women you and I know. "

Mr. Farwell nodded. 

"I'm confoundedly sorry if it's so, " Mr. Shorter continued, withsincerity. "She has a brilliant future ahead of her. She's got good bloodin her, she's stunning to look at, and she's made her own way in spite ofthat Billycock of a husband who talks like the original Rothschild. Bythe bye, Wing is using him for a good thing. He's sent him out West topull that street railway chestnut out of the fire. I'm not particularlysqueamish, Reggie, though I try to play the game straight myself--the waymy father played it. But by the lord Harry, I can't see the differencebetween Dick Turpin and Wing and Trixy Brent. It's hold and deliver withthose fellows. But if the police get anybody, their get Spence. "

"The police never get anybody, " said Farwell, pessimistically; for thechange of topic bored him. 

"No, I suppose they don't, " answered Mr. Shorter, cheerfully finishinghis chartreuse, and fixing his eye on one of the coloured lithographs oflean horses on Cecil Grainger's wall. "I'd talk to Hugh, if I wasn't asmuch afraid of him as of Jim Jeffries. I don't want to see him ruin hercareer. "

"Why should an affair with him ruin it?" asked Farwell, unexpectedly. "There was Constance Witherspoon. I understand that went pretty far. "

"My dear boy, " said Mr. Shorter, "it's the women. Bessie Grainger here, for instance--she'd go right up in the air. And the women had--well, achildhood-interest in Constance. Self-preservation is the first law--ofwomen. "

"They say Hugh has changed--that he wants to settle down, " said Farwell. 

"If you'd ever gone to church, Reggie, " said Mr. Shorter, "you'd knowsomething about the limitations of the leopard. "

CHAPTER VII

"LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS"

That night was Honora's soul played upon by the unknown musician of thesleepless hours. Now a mad, ecstatic chorus dinned in her ears and sether blood coursing; and again despair seized her with a dirge. Periods ofsemiconsciousness only came to her, and from one of these she wassuddenly startled into wakefulness by her own words. "I have the right tomake of my life what I can. " But when she beheld the road of terrors thatstretched between her and the shining places, it seemed as though shewould never have the courage to fare forth along its way. To look backwas to survey a prospect even more dreadful. 

The incidents of her life ranged by in procession. Not in naturalsequence, but a group here and a group there. And it was given her, forthe first time, to see many things clearly. But now she loved. God aloneknew what she felt for this man, and when she thought of him the veryperils of her path were dwarfed. On returning home that night she hadgiven her maid her cloak, and had stood for a long time immobile, --gazingat her image in the pierglass. 

"Madame est belle comme l'Imperatrice d'Autriche!" said the maid atlength. 

"Am I really beautiful, Mathilde?"

Mathilde raised her eyes and hands to heaven in a gesture that admittedno doubt. Mathilde, moreover, could read a certain kind of history if theprint were large enough. 

Honora looked in the glass again. Yes, she was beautiful. He had foundher so, he had told her so. And here was the testimony of her own eyes. The bloom on the nectarines that came every morning from Mr. Chamberlin'sgreenhouse could not compare with the colour of her cheeks; her hair waslike the dusk; her eyes like the blue pools among the rocks, and touchednow by the sun; her neck and arms of the whiteness of sea-foam. It wasmeet that she should be thus for him and for the love he brought her. 

She turned suddenly to the maid. 

"Do you love me, Mathilde?" she asked. 

Mathilde was not surprised. She was, on the contrary, profoundly touched. 

"How can madame ask?" she cried impulsively, and seized Honora's hand. How was it possible to be near madame, and not love her?

"And would you go--anywhere with me?"

The scene came back to her in the night watches. For the little maid hadwept and vowed eternal fidelity. 

It was not--until the first faint herald of the morning that Honora couldbring herself to pronounce the fateful thing that stood between her andhappiness, that threatened to mar the perfection of a heaven-born love--Divorce! And thus, having named it resolutely several times, the demonof salvation began gradually to assume a kindly aspect that at timesbecame almost benign. In fact, this one was not a demon at all, but aliberator: the demon, she perceived, stalked behind him, and his name wasNotoriety. It was he who would flay her for coquetting with theliberator. 

What if she were flayed? Once married to Chiltern, once embarked uponthat life of usefulness, once firmly established on ground of her owntilling, and she was immune. And this led her to a consideration of thoseshe knew who had been flayed. They were not few, and a surfeit ofpublicity is a sufficient reason for not enumerating them here. Andduring this process of exorcism Notoriety became a bogey, too: he hadbeen powerless to hurt them. It must be true what Chiltern had said thatthe world was changing. The tragic and the ridiculous here joining hands, she remembered that Reggie Farwell had told her that he had recently madea trip to western New York to inspect a house he had built for a"remarried" couple who were not wholly unknown. The dove-cote, he hadcalled it. The man, in his former marriage, had been renowned all up anddown tidewater as a rake and a brute, and now it was an exception when hedid not have at least one baby on his knee. And he knew, according to Mr. Farwell, more about infant diet than the whole staff of a maternityhospital. 

At length, as she stared into the darkness, dissolution came upon it. Thesills of her windows outlined themselves, and a blurred foliage wassketched into the frame. With a problem but half solved the day hadsurprised her. She marvelled to see that it grew apace, and presentlyarose to look out upon a stillness like that of eternity: in the greylight the very leaves seemed to be holding their breath in expectancy ofthe thing that was to come. Presently the drooping roses raised theirheads, from pearl to silver grew the light, and comparison ended. Thereds were aflame, the greens resplendent, the lawn sewn with the diamondsof the dew. 

A little travelling table was beside the window, and Honora took her penand wrote. 

 "My dearest, above all created things I love you. Morning has come, and it seems to me that I have travelled far since last I saw you. I have come to a new place, which is neither hell nor heaven, and in the mystery of it you--you alone are real. It is to your strength that I cling, and I know that you will not fail me. 

 "Since I saw you, Hugh, I have been through the Valley of the Shadow. I have thought of many things. One truth alone is clear-- that I love you transcendently. . You have touched and awakened me into life. I walk in a world unknown. 

 "There is the glory of martyrdom in this message I send you now. You must not come to me again until I send for you. I cannot, I will not trust myself or you. I will keep this love which has come to me undefiled. It has brought with it to me a new spirit, a spirit with a scorn for things base and mean. Though it were my last chance in life, I would not see you if you came. If I thought you would not understand what I feel, I could not love you as I do. 

 "I will write to you again, when I see my way more clearly. I told you in the garden before you spoke that I was going away. Do not seek to know my plans. For the sake of the years to come, obey me. 

 "HONORA. "

She reread the letter, and sealed it. A new and different exaltation hadcome to her--begotten, perhaps, in the act of writing. A new couragefilled her, and now she contemplated the ordeal with a tranquillity thatsurprised her. The disorder and chaos of the night were passed, and shewelcomed the coming day, and those that were to follow it. As though thefates were inclined to humour her impatience, there was a telegram on herbreakfast tray, dated at New York, and informing her that her husbandwould be in Newport about the middle of the afternoon. His western tripwas finished a day earlier than he expected. Honora rang her bell. 

"Mathilde, I am going away. "

"Oui, madame. "

"And I should like you to go with me. "

"Oui, madame. "

"It is only fair that you should understand, Mathilde. I am going awayalone. I am not--coming back. "

The maid's eyes filled with sudden tears. 

"Oh, madame, " she cried, in a burst of loyalty, "if madame will permit meto stay with her!"

Honora was troubled, but her strange calmness did not forsake her. Themorning was spent in packing, which was a simple matter. She took onlysuch things as she needed, and left her dinner-gowns hanging in theclosets. A few precious books of her own she chose, but the jewellery herhusband had given her was put in boxes and laid upon the dressing-table. In one of these boxes was her wedding ring. When luncheon was over, anastonished and perturbed butler packed the Leffingwell silver and sent itoff to storage. 

There had been but one interruption in Honora's labours. A note hadarrived--from him--a note and a box. He would obey her! She had known hewould understand, and respect her the more. What would their love havebeen, without that respect? She shuddered to think. And he sent her thisring, as a token of that love, as undying as the fire in its stones. Would she wear it, that in her absence she might think of him? Honorakissed it and slipped it on her finger, where it sparkled. The letter wasbeneath her gown, though she knew it by heart. Chiltern had gone at last:he could not, he said, remain in Newport and not see her. 

At midday she made but the pretence of a meal. It was not untilafterwards, in wandering through the lower rooms of this house, become sodear to her, that agitation seized her, and a desire to weep. What wasshe leaving so precipitately? and whither going? The world indeed waswide, and these rooms had been her home. The day had grown blue-grey, andin the dining room the gentle face seemed to look down upon hercompassionately from the portrait. The scent of the roses overpoweredher. As she listened, no sound brake the quiet of the place. 

Would Howard never come? The train was in--had been in ten minutes. Hark, the sound of wheels! Her heart beating wildly, she ran to the windows ofthe drawing-room and peered through the lilacs. Yes, there he was, ascending the steps. 

"Mrs. Spence is out, I suppose, " she heard him say to the butler, whofollowed with his bag. 

"No, sir, she's is the drawing-room. "

The sight of him, with his air of satisfaction and importance, proved anunexpected tonic to her strength. It was as though he had brought intothe room, marshalled behind him, all the horrors of her marriage, and shemarvelled and shuddered anew at the thought of the years of thatsufferance. 

"Well, I'm back, " he said, "and we've made a great killing, as I wroteyou. They were easier than I expected. "

He came forward for the usual perfunctory kiss, but she recoiled, and itwas then that his eye seemed to grasp the significance of her travellingsuit and veil, and he glanced at her face. 

"What's up? Where are you going?" he demanded. "Has anything happened?"

"Everything, " she said, and it was then, suddenly, that she felt thestore of her resolution begin to ebb, and she trembled. "Howard, I amgoing away. "

He stopped short, and thrust his hands into the pockets of his checkedtrousers. 

"Going away, " he repeated. "Where?"

"I don't know, " said Honora; "I'm going away. "

As though to cap the climax of tragedy, he smiled as he produced hiscigarette case. And she was swept, as it were, by a scarlet flame thatdeprived her for the moment of speech. 

"Well, " he said complacently, "there's no accounting for women. A case ofnerves--eh, Honora? Been hitting the pace a little too hard, I guess. " Helighted a match, blissfully unaware of the quality of her look. "All ofus have to get toned up once in a while. I need it myself. I've had todrink a case of Scotch whiskey out West to get this deal through. Nowwhat's the name of that new boat with everything on her from a cafe to aStock Exchange? A German name. "

"I don't know, " said Honora. She had answered automatically. 

To the imminent peril of one of the frailest of Mrs. Forsythe's chairs, he sat down on it, placed his hands on his knees, flung back his head, and blew the smoke towards the ceiling. Still she stared at him, as in astate of semi-hypnosis. 

"Instead of going off to one of those thousand-dollar-a-minute doctors, let me prescribe for you, " he said. "I've handled some nervous men in mytime, and I guess nervous women aren't much different. You've had theselittle attacks before, and they blow over--don't they? Wing owes me avacation. If I do say it myself, there are not five men in New York whowould have pulled off this deal for him. Now the proposition I was goingto make to you is this: that we get cosey in a cabin de luxe on thatGerman boat, hire an automobile on the other side, and do up Europe. It'sa sort of a handicap never to have been over there. "

"Oh, you're making it very hard for me, Howard, " she cried. "I might haveknown that you couldn't understand, that you never could understand--whyI am going away. I've lived with you all this time, and you do not knowme any better than you know--the scrub-woman. I'm going away fromyou--forever. "

In spite of herself, she ended with an uncontrollable sob. 

"Forever!" he repeated, but he continued to smoke and to look at herwithout any evidences of emotion, very much as though he had received anultimatum in a business transaction. And then there crept into hisexpression something of a complacent pity that braced her to continue. "Why?" he asked. 

"Because--because I don't love you. Because you don't love me. You don'tknow what love is--you never will. "

"But we're married, " he said. "We get along all right. "

"Oh, can't you see that that makes it all the worse!" she cried. "I canstand it no longer. I can't live with you--I won't live with you. I'm ofno use to you--you're sufficient unto yourself. It was all a frightfulmistake. I brought nothing into your life, and I take nothing out of it. We are strangers--we have always been so. I am not even your housekeeper. Your whole interest in life is in your business, and you come home toread the newspapers and to sleep! Home! The very word is a mockery. Ifyou had to choose between me and your business you wouldn't hesitate aninstant. And I--I have been starved. It isn't your fault, perhaps, thatyou don't understand that a woman needs something more than dinner-gownsand jewels and--and trips abroad. Her only possible compensation forliving with a man is love. Love--and you haven't the faintest conceptionof it. It isn't your fault, perhaps. It's my fault for marrying you. Ididn't know any better. "

She paused with her breast heaving. He rose and walked over to thefireplace and flicked his ashes into it before he spoke. His calmnessmaddened her. 

"Why didn't you say something about this before?" he asked. 

"Because I didn't know it--I didn't realize it--until now. "

"When you married me, " he went on, "you had an idea that you were goingto live in a house on Fifth Avenue with a ballroom, didn't you?"

"Yes, " said Honora. "I do not say I am not to blame. I was a fool. Mystandards were false. In spite of the fact that my aunt and uncle are themost unworldly people that ever lived--perhaps because of it--I knewnothing of the values of life. I have but one thing to say in my defence. I thought I loved you, and that you could give me--what every womanneeds. "

"You were never satisfied from the first, " he retorted. "You wanted moneyand position--a mania with American women. I've made a success that fewmen of my age can duplicate. And even now you are not satisfied when Icome back to tell you that I have money enough to snap my fingers at halfthese people you know. "

"How, " asked Honora, "how did you make it?"

"What do you mean?" he asked. 

She turned away from him with a gesture of weariness. 

"No, you wouldn't understand that, either, Howard. "

It was not until then that he showed feeling. 

"Somebody has been talking to you about this deal. I'm not surprised. Alot of these people are angry because we didn't let them in. What havethey been saying?" he demanded. 

Her eyes flashed. 

"Nobody has spoken to me on the subject, " she said. "I only know what Ihave read, and what you have told me. In the first place, you deceivedthe stockholders of these railways into believing their property wasworthless, and in the second place, you intend to sell it to the publicfor much more than it is worth. "

At first he stared at her in surprise. Then he laughed. 

"By George, you'd make something of a financier yourself, Honora, " heexclaimed. And seeing that she did not answer, continued: "Well, you'vegot it about right, only it's easier said than done. It takes brains. That's what business is--a survival of the fittest. If you don't do theother man, he'll do you. " He opened the cigarette case once more. "Andnow, " he said, "let me give you a little piece of advice. It's a goodmotto for a woman not to meddle with what doesn't concern her. It isn'ther business to make the money, but to spend it; and she can usually dothat to the queen's taste. "

"A high ideal?" she exclaimed. 

"You ought to have some notion of where that ideal came from, " heretorted. "You were all for getting rich, in order to compete with thesepeople. Now you've got what you want--"

"And I am going to throw it away. That is like a woman, isn't it?"

He glanced at her, and then at his watch. 

"See here, Honora, I ought to go over to Mr. Wing's. I wired him I'd bethere at four-thirty. "

"Don't let me keep you, " she replied. 

"By gad, you are pale!" he said. "What's got into the women these days?They never used to have these confounded nerves. Well, if you are bent onit, I suppose there's no use trying to stop you. Go off somewhere andtake a rest, and when you come back you'll see things differently. "

She held out her hand. 

"Good-by, Howard, " she said. "I wanted you to know that I didn't--bearyou any ill-will--that I blame myself as much as you. More, if anything. I hope you will be happy--I know you will. But I must ask you to believeme when I say that I shan't come back. I--I am leaving all the valuablethings you gave me. You will find them on my dressing-table. And I wantedto tell you that my uncle sent me a little legacy from my father-anunexpected one--that makes me independent. "

He did not take her hand, but was staring at her now, incredulously. 

"You mean you are actually going?" he exclaimed. 

"Yes. "

"But--what shall I say to Mr. Wing? What will he think?"

Despite the ache in her heart, she smiled. 

"Does it make any difference what Mr. Wing thinks?" she asked gently. "Need he know? Isn't this a matter which concerns us alone? I shall gooff, and after a certain time people will understand that I am not comingback. "

"But--have you considered that it may interfere with my prospects?" heasked. 

"Why should it? You are invaluable to Mr. Wing. He can't afford todispense with your services just because you will be divorced. That wouldbe ridiculous. Some of his own associates are divorced. "

"Divorced!" he cried, and she saw that he had grown pasty white. "On whatgrounds? Have you been--"

He did not finish. 

"No, " she said, "you need fear no scandal. There will be nothing in anyway harmful to your--prospects. "

"What can I do?" he said, though more to himself than to her. Her quickear detected in his voice a note of relief. And yet, he struck in her, standing helplessly smoking in the middle of the floor, chords of pity. 

"You can do nothing, Howard, " she said. "If you lived with me from now tothe millennium you couldn't make me love you, nor could you love me--theway I must be loved. Try to realize it. The wrench is what you dread. After it is over you will be much more contented, much happier, than youhave been with me. Believe me. "

His next remark astonished her. 

"What's the use of being so damned precipitate?" he demanded. 

"Precipitate!"

"Because I can stand it no longer. I should go mad, " she answered. 

He took a turn up and down the room, stopped suddenly, and stared at herwith eyes that had grown smaller. Suspicion is slow to seize thecomplacent. Was it possible that he had been supplanted?

Honora, with an instinct of what was coming, held up her head. Had hebeen angry, had he been a man, how much humiliation he would have sparedher!

"So you're in love!" he said. "I might have known that something was atthe bottom of this. "

She took account of and quivered at the many meanings behind his speech--meanings which he was too cowardly to voice in words. 

"Yes, " she answered, "I am in love--in love as I never hoped to be--as Idid not think it possible to be. My love is such that I would go throughhell fire for the sake of it. I do not expect you to believe me when Itell you that such is not the reason why I am leaving you. If you hadloved me with the least spark of passion, if I thought I were in theleast bit needful to you as a woman and as a soul, as a helper and aconfidante, instead of a mere puppet to advertise your prosperity, thiswould not--could not--have happened. I love a man who would give up theworld for me to-morrow. I have but one life to live, and I am going tofind happiness if I can. "

She paused, afire with an eloquence that had come unsought. But herhusband only stared at her. She was transformed beyond his recognition. Surely he had not married this woman! And, if the truth be told, down inhis secret soul whispered a small, congratulatory voice. Although he didnot yet fully realize it, he was glad he had not. 

Honora, with an involuntary movement, pressed her handkerchief to hereyes. 

"Good-by, Howard, " she said. "I--I did not expect you to understand. If Ihad stayed, I should have made you miserably unhappy. "

He took her hand in a dazed manner, as though he knew not in the leastwhat he was doing. He muttered something and found speech impossible. Hegulped once, uncomfortably. The English language had ceased to be amedium. Great is the force of habit! In the emergency he reached for hiscigarette case. 

Honora had given orders that the carriage was to wait at the door. Theservants might suspect, but that was all. Her maid had been discreet. Shedrew down her veil as she descended the steps, and told the coachman todrive to the station. 

It was raining. Leaning forward from under the hood as the horsesstarted, she took her last look at the lilacs. 

CHAPTER VIII

IN WHICH THE LAW BETRAYS A HEART

It was still raining when she got into a carriage at Boston and droveunder the elevated tracks, through the narrow, slippery business streets, to the hotel. From the windows of her room, as the night fell, she lookedout across the dripping foliage of the Common. Below her, and robbed fromthat sacred ground, were the little granite buildings that housed theentrances to the subway, and for a long time she stood watching thepeople crowding into these. Most of them had homes to go to! In thegathering gloom the arc-lights shone, casting yellow streaks on theglistening pavement; wagons and carriages plunged into the maelstrom atthe corner; pedestrians dodged and slipped; lightnings flashed fromoverhead wires, and clanging trolley cars pushed their greater bulkthrough the mass. And presently the higher toned and more ominous bell ofan ambulance sounded on its way to the scene of an accident. 

It was Mathilde who ordered her dinner and pressed her to eat. But shehad no heart for food. In her bright sitting-room, with the shadestightly drawn, an inexpressible loneliness assailed her. A largeengraving of a picture of a sentimental school hung on the wall: shecould not bear to look at it, and yet her eyes, from time to time, werefatally drawn thither. It was of a young girl taking leave of her lover, in early Christian times, before entering the arena. It haunted Honora, and wrought upon her imagination to such a pitch that she went into herbedroom to write. 

For a long time nothing more was written of the letter than "Dear UncleTom and Aunt Mary": what to say to them?

 "I do not know what you will think of me. I do not know, to-night, what to think of myself. I have left Howard. It is not because he was cruel to me, or untrue. He does not love me, nor I him. I cannot expect you, who have known the happiness of marriage, to realize the tortures of it without love. My pain in telling you this now is all the greater because I realize your belief as to the sacredness of the tie--and it is not your fault that you did not instil that belief into me. I have had to live and to think and to suffer for myself. I do not attempt to account for my action, and I hesitate to lay the blame upon the modern conditions and atmosphere in which I lived; for I feel that, above all things, I must be honest with myself. 

 "My marriage with Howard was a frightful mistake, and I have grown slowly to realize it, until life with him became insupportable. Since he does not love me, since his one interest is his business, my departure makes no great difference to him. 

 "Dear Aunt Mary and Uncle Tom, I realize that I owe you much --everything that I am. I do not expect you to understand or to condone what I have done. I only beg that you will continue to --love your niece, "HONORA. "

She tried to review this letter. Incoherent though it were andincomplete, in her present state of mind she was able to add but a fewwords as a postscript. "I will write you my plans in a day or two, when Isee my way more clearly. I would fly to you--but I cannot. I am going toget a divorce. "

She sat for a time picturing the scene in the sitting-room when theyshould read it, and a longing which was almost irresistible seized her togo back to that shelter. One force alone held her in misery where shewas, --her love for Chiltern; it drew her on to suffer the horrors ofexile and publicity. When she suffered most, his image rose before her, and she kissed the ring on her hand. Where was he now, on this rainynight? On the seas?

At the thought she heard again the fog-horns and the sirens. 

Her sleep was fitful. Many times she went over again her talk withHoward, and she surprised herself by wondering what he had thought andfelt since her departure. And ever and anon she was startled out ofchimerical dreams by the clamour of bells-the trolley cars on theirceaseless round passing below. At last came the slumber of exhaustion. 

It was nine o'clock when she awoke and faced the distasteful task she hadset herself for the day. In her predicament she descended to the office, where the face of one of the clerks attracted her, and she waited untilhe was unoccupied. 

"I should like you to tell me--the name of some reputable lawyer, " shesaid. 

"Certainly, Mrs. Spence, " he replied, and Honora was startled at thesound of her name. She might have realized that he would know her. "Isuppose a young lawyer would do--if the matter is not very important. "

"Oh, no!" she cried, blushing to her temples. "A young lawyer would dovery well. "

The clerk reflected. He glanced at Honora again; and later in the day shedivined what had been going on in his mind. 

"Well, " he said, "there are a great many. I happen to think of Mr. Wentworth, because he was in the hotel this morning. He is in the TremontBuilding. "

She thanked him hurriedly, and was driven to the Tremont Building, through the soggy street that faced the still dripping trees of theCommon. Mounting in the elevator, she read on the glass door amongst thenames of the four members of the firm that of Alden Wentworth, andsuddenly found herself face to face with the young man, in his privateoffice. He was well groomed and deeply tanned, and he rose to meet herwith a smile that revealed a line of perfect white teeth. 

"How do you do, Mrs. Spence?" he said. "I did not think, when I met youat Mrs. Grenfell's, that I should see you so soon in Boston. Won't yousit down?"

Honora sat down. There seemed nothing else to do. She remembered himperfectly now, and she realized that the nimble-witted clerk had meant tosend her to a gentleman. 

"I thought, " she faltered, "I thought I was coming to a--a stranger. Theygave me your address at the hotel--when I asked for a lawyer. "

"Perhaps, " suggested Mr. Wentworth, delicately, "perhaps you would preferto go to some one else. I can give you any number of addresses, if youlike. "

She looked up at him gratefully. He seemed very human and understanding, --very honourable. He belonged to her generation, after all, and shefeared an older man. 

"If you will be kind enough to listen to me, I think I will stay here. Itis only a matter of--of knowledge of the law. " She looked at him again, and the pathos of her smile went straight to his heart. For Mr. Wentworthpossessed that organ, although he did not wear it on his sleeve. 

He crossed the room, closed the door, and sat down beside her. 

"Anything I can do, " he said. 

She glanced at him once more, helplessly. 

"I do not know how to tell you, " she began. "It all seems so dreadful. "She paused, but he had the lawyer's gift of silence--of sympatheticsilence. "I want to get a divorce from my husband. "

If Mr. Wentworth was surprised, he concealed it admirably. His attitudeof sympathy did not change, but he managed to ask her, in a business-liketone which she welcomed:--"On what grounds?"

"I was going to ask you that question, " said Honora. 

This time Mr. Wentworth was surprised--genuinely so, and he showed it. 

"But, my dear Mrs. Spence, " he protested, "you must remember that--that Iknow nothing of the case. "

"What are the grounds one can get divorced on?" she asked. 

He coloured a little under his tan. 

"They are different in different states, " he replied. "I think--perhaps--the best way would be to read you the Massachusetts statutes. "

"No--wait a moment, " she said. "It's very simple, after all, what I haveto tell you. I don't love my husband, and he doesn't love me, and it hasbecome torture to live together. I have left him with his knowledge andconsent, and he understands that I will get a divorce. "

Mr. Wentworth appeared to be pondering--perhaps not wholly on the legalaspects of the case thus naively presented. Whatever may have been hisprivate comments, they were hidden. He pronounced tentatively, and alittle absently, the word "desertion. "

"If the case could possibly be construed as desertion on your husband'spart, you could probably get a divorce in three years in Massachusetts. "

"Three years!" cried Honora, appalled. "I could never wait three years!"

She did not remark the young lawyer's smile, which revealed a greaterknowledge of the world than one would have suspected. He said nothing, however. 

"Three years!" she repeated. "Why, it can't be, Mr. Wentworth. There arethe Waterfords--she was Mrs. Boutwell, you remember. And--and Mrs. Rindge--it was scarcely a year before--"

He had the grace to nod gravely, and to pretend not to notice theconfusion in which she halted. Lawyers, even young ones with white teethand clear eyes, are apt to be a little cynical. He had doubtless seenfrom the beginning that there was a man in the background. It was not hisbusiness to comment or to preach. 

"Some of the western states grant divorces on--on much easier terms, " hesaid politely. "If you care to wait, I will go into our library and lookup the laws of those states. "

"I wish you would, " answered Honora. "I don't think I could bear to spendthree years in such--in such an anomalous condition. And at any rate Ishould much rather go West, out of sight, and have it all as quickly overwith as possible. "

He bowed, and departed on his quest. And Honora waited, at momentsgrowing hot at the recollection of her conversation with him. Why--sheasked herself should the law make it so difficult, and subject her tosuch humiliation in a course which she felt to be right and natural andnoble? Finally, her thoughts becoming too painful, she got up and lookedout of the window. And far below her, through the mist, she beheld theburying-ground of Boston's illustrious dead which her cabman had pointedout to her as he passed. She did not hear the door open as Mr. Wentworthreturned, and she started at the sound of his voice. 

"I take it for granted that you are really serious in this matter, Mrs. Spence, " he said. 

"Oh!" she exclaimed. 

"And that you have thoroughly reflected, " he continued imperturbably. Evidently, in spite of the cold impartiality of the law, a New Englandconscience had assailed him in the library. "I cannot take er--theresponsibility of advising you as to a course of action. You have askedme the laws of certain western states as to divorce I will read them. "

An office boy followed him, deposited several volumes on the taule, andMr. Wentworth read from them in a voice magnificently judicial. 

"There's not much choice, is there?" she faltered, when he had finished. 

He smiled. 

"As places of residence--" he began, in an attempt to relieve the pathos. 

"Oh, I didn't mean that, " she cried. "Exile is--is exile. " She flushed. After a few moments of hesitation she named at random a state the laws ofwhich required a six months' residence. She contemplated him. "I hardlydare to ask you to give me the name of some reputable lawyer out there. "

He had looked for an instant into her eyes. Men of the law are notinvulnerable, particularly at Mr. Wentworth's age, and New Englandconsciences to the contrary notwithstanding. In spite of himself, hereyes had made him a partisan: an accomplice, he told himself afterwards. 

"Really, Mrs. Spence, " he began, and caught another appealing look. Heremembered the husband now, and a lecture on finance in the Grenfellsmoking room which Howard Spence had delivered, and which had grated onBoston sensibility. "It is only right to tell you that our firm doesnot--does not--take divorce cases--as a rule. Not that we are taking thisone, " he added hurriedly. "But as a friend--"

"Oh, thank you!" said Honora. 

"Merely as a friend who would be glad to do you a service, " he continued, "I will, during the day, try to get you the name of--of as reputable alawyer as possible in that place. "

And Mr. Wentworth paused, as red as though he had asked her to marry him. 

"How good of you!" she cried. "I shall be at the Touraine until thisevening. "

He escorted her through the corridor, bowed her into the elevator, andher spirits had risen perceptibly as she got into her cab and returned tothe hotel. There, she studied railroad folders. One confidant was enough, and she dared not even ask the head porter the way to a localitywhere--it was well known--divorces were sold across a counter. And as sheworked over the intricacies of this problem the word her husband hadapplied to her action recurred to her--precipitate. No doubt Mr. Wentworth, too, had thought her precipitate. Nearly every important actof her life had been precipitate. But she was conscious in this instanceof no regret. Delay, she felt, would have killed her. Let her exile beginat once. 

She had scarcely finished luncheon when Mr. Wentworth was announced. Forreasons best known to himself he had come in person; and he handed her, written on a card, the name of the Honourable David Beckwith. 

"I'll have to confess I don't know much about him, Mrs. Spence, " he said, "except that he has been in Congress, and is one of the prominent lawyersof that state. "

The gift of enlisting sympathy and assistance was peculiarly Honora's. And if some one had predicted that morning to Mr. Wentworth that beforenightfall he would not only have put a lady in distress on the highroadto obtaining a western divorce (which he had hitherto looked upon asdisgraceful), but that likewise he would miss his train for Pride'sCrossing, buy the lady's tickets, and see her off at the South Stationfor Chicago, he would have regarded the prophet as a lunatic. But that isprecisely what Mr. Wentworth did. And when, as her train pulled out, Honora bade him goodby, she felt the tug at her heartstrings which comesat parting with an old friend. 

"And anything I can do for you here in the East, while--while you are outthere, be sure to let me know, " he said. 

She promised and waved at him from the platform as he stood motionless, staring after her. Romance had spent a whole day in Boston! And with Mr. Alden Wentworth, of all people!

Fortunately for the sanity of the human race, the tension of grief isvariable. Honora, closed in her stateroom, eased herself that night bywriting a long, if somewhat undecipherable, letter to Chiltern; and wasable, the next day, to read the greater portion of a novel. It was onlywhen she arrived in Chicago, after nightfall, that loneliness againassailed her. She was within nine hours--so the timetable said--of St. Louis! Of all her trials, the homesickness which she experienced as shedrove through the deserted streets of the metropolis of the Middle Westwas perhaps the worst. A great city on Sunday night! What traveller hasnot felt the depressing effect of it? And, so far as the incomingtraveller is concerned, Chicago does not put her best foot forward. Theway from the station to the Auditorium Hotel was hacked and bruised--soit seemed--by the cruel battle of trade. And she stared, in a kind offascination that increased the ache in her heart; at the ugliness andcruelty of the twentieth century. 

To have imagination is unquestionably to possess a great capacity forsuffering, and Honora was paying the penalty for hers. It ran riot now. The huge buildings towered like formless monsters against the blacknessof the sky under the sickly blue of the electric lights, across thedirty, foot-scarred pavements, strange black human figures seemed towander aimlessly: an elevated train thundered overhead. And presently shefound herself the tenant of two rooms in that vast refuge of thehomeless, the modern hotel, where she sat until the small hours lookingdown upon the myriad lights of the shore front, and out beyond them onthe black waters of an inland sea. 

 . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 

From Newport to Salomon City, in a state not far from the Pacific tier, is something of a transition in less than a week, though in modern lifewe should be surprised at nothing. Limited trains are wonderful enough;but what shall be said of the modern mind, that travels faster thanlight? and much too fast for the pages of a chronicle. Martha Washingtonand the good ladies of her acquaintance knew nothing about the upperwaters of the Missouri, and the words "for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer" were not merely literature to them. 

'Nous avons change tout cela', although there are yet certain cruditiesto be eliminated. In these enlightened times, if in one week a lady isnot entirely at home with husband number one, in the next week she mayhave travelled in comparative comfort some two-thirds across a continent, and be on the highroad to husband number two. Why travel? Why have to putup with all this useless expense and worry and waste of time? Why nothave one's divorce sent, C. O. D. , to one's door, or establish a new branchof the Post-office Department? American enterprise has surely lagged inthis. 

Seated in a plush-covered rocking-chair that rocked on a track of itsown, and thus saved the yellow-and-red hotel carpet, the Honourable DaveBeckwith patiently explained the vexatious process demanded by hisparticular sovereign state before she should consent to cut the Gordianknot of marriage. And his state--the Honourable Dave remarked--was in thevery forefront of enlightenment in this respect: practically all that shedemanded was that ladies in Mrs. Spence's predicament should become, protempore, her citizens. Married misery did not exist in the HonourableDave's state, amongst her own bona fide citizens. And, by a wiseprovision in the Constitution of our glorious American Union, no onestate could tie the nuptial knot so tight that another state could notcut it at a blow. 

Six months' residence, and a whole year before the divorce could begranted! Honora looked at the plush rocking-chair, the yellow-and-redcarpet, the inevitable ice-water on the marble-topped table, and thepicture of a lady the shape of a liqueur bottle playing tennis in thelate eighties, and sighed. For one who is sensitive to surroundings, thatroom was a torture chamber. 

"But Mr. Beckwith, " she exclaimed, "I never could spend a year here!Isn't there a--house I could get that is a--a little--a little betterfurnished? And then there is a certain publicity about staying at ahotel. "

The Honourable Dave might have been justly called the friend of ladies ina temporary condition of loneliness. His mission in life was not merelythat of a liberator, but his natural goodness led him to perform ahundred acts of kindness to make as comfortable as possible the purgatoryof the unfortunates under his charge. He was a man of a remarkableappearance, and not to be lightly forgotten. His hair, above all, fascinated Honora, and she found her eyes continually returning to it. Soincredibly short it was, and so incredibly stiff, that it reminded her ofthe needle points on the cylinder of an old-fashioned music-box; and shewondered, if it were properly inserted, what would be the resultantmelody. 

The Honourable Dave's head was like a cannon-ball painted white. Acrossthe top of it (a blemish that would undoubtedly have spoiled the tune)was a long scar, --a relic of one of the gentleman's many personaldifficulties. He who made the sear, Honora reflected, must have been astrong man. The Honourable Dave, indeed, had fought his way upwardthrough life to the Congress of the United States; and many were theharrowing tales of frontier life he told Honora in the long winterevenings when the blizzards came down the river valley. They would fill abook; unfortunately, not this book. The growing responsibilities oftaking care of the lonely ladies that came in increasing numbers toSalomon City from the effeter portions of the continent had at lengthcompelled him to give up his congressional career. The Honourable Davewas unmarried; and, he told Honora, not likely to become so. He was thusat once human and invulnerable, a high priest dedicated to freedom. 

It is needless to say that the plush rocking-chair and the picture of theliqueur-bottle lady did not jar on his sensibilities. Like an eminentphysician who has never himself experienced neurosis, the Honourable Davefirmly believed that he understood the trouble from which his client wassuffering. He had seen many cases of it in ladies from the Atlanticcoast: the first had surprised him, no doubt. Salomon City, though itcontained the great Boon, was not esthetic. Being a keen student of humannature, he rightly supposed that she would not care to join the colony, but he thought it his duty to mention that there was a colony. 

Honora repeated the word. 

"Out there, " he said, waving his cigar to the westward, "some of theladies have ranches. " Some of the gentlemen, too, he added, for itappeared that exiles were not confined to one sex. "It's social--a littletoo social, I guess, " declared Mr. Beckwith, "for you. " A delicatecompliment of differentiation that Honora accepted gravely. "They've gota casino, and they burn a good deal of electricity first and last. Theydon't bother Salomon City much. Once in a while, in the winter, they comein a bunch to the theatre. Soon as I looked at you I knew you wouldn'twant to go there. "

Her exclamation was sufficiently eloquent. 

"I've got just the thing for you, " he said. "It looks a little as if Iwas reaching out into the sanitarium business. Are you acquainted by anychance with Mrs. Boutwell, who married a fellow named Waterford?" heasked, taking momentarily out of his mouth the cigar he was smoking bypermission. 

Honora confessed, with no great enthusiasm, that she knew the presentMrs. Waterford. Not the least of her tribulations had been to listen to apartial recapitulation, by the Honourable Dave, of the ladies he hadassisted to a transfer of husbands. What, indeed, had these ladies to dowith her? She felt that the very mention of them tended to soil the puregarments of her martyrdom. 

"What I was going to say was this, " the Honourable Dave continued. "Mrs. Boutwell--that is to say Mrs. Waterford--couldn't stand this hotel anymore than you, and she felt like you do about the colony, so she rented alittle house up on Wylie Street and furnished it from the East. I tookthe furniture off her hands: it's still in the house, by the way, whichhasn't been rented. For I figured it out that another lady would becoming along with the same notions. Now you can look at the house anytime you like. "

Although she had to overcome the distaste of its antecedents, the house, or rather the furniture, was too much of a find in Salomon City to beresisted. It had but six rooms, and was of wood, and painted grey, likeits twin beside it. But Mrs. Waterford had removed the stained-glasswindow-lights in the front door, deftly hidden the highly ornamentalsteam radiators, and made other eliminations and improvements, includingthe white bookshelves that still contained the lady's winter readingfifty or more yellow-and-green-backed French novels and plays. Honora'sfirst care, after taking possession, was to order her maid to removethese from her sight: but it is to be feared that they found their way, directly, to Mathilde's room. Honora would have liked to fumigate thehouse; and yet, at the same time, she thanked her stars for it. Mr. Beekwith obligingly found her a cook, and on Thursday evening she satdown to supper in her tiny dining room. She had found a temporary haven, at last. 

Suddenly she remembered that it was an anniversary. One week ago thatday, in the old garden at Beaulieu, had occurred the momentous event thathad changed the current of her life!

CHAPTER IX

WYLIE STREET

There was a little spindle-supported porch before Honora's front door, and had she chosen she might have followed the example of her neighboursand sat there in the evenings. She preferred to watch the life about herfrom the window-seat in the little parlour. The word exile suggests, perhaps, to those who have never tried it, empty wastes, isolation, loneliness. She had been prepared for these things, and Wylie Street wasa shock to her: in sending her there at this crisis in her life fate hadperpetrated nothing less than a huge practical joke. Next door, forinstance, in the twin house to hers, flaunted in the face of liberaldivorce laws, was a young couple with five children. Honora counted them, from the eldest ones that ran over her little grass plot on their way toand from the public school, to the youngest that spent much of his timegazing skyward from a perambulator on the sidewalk. Six days of the week, about six o'clock in the evening, there was a celebration in the family. Father came home from work! He was a smooth-faced young man whom afortnight in the woods might have helped wonderfully--a clerk in the bigdepartment store. 

He radiated happiness. When opposite Honora's front door he would openhis arms--the signal for a race across her lawn. Sometimes it was thelittle girl, with pigtails the colour of pulled molasses candy, who wonthe prize of the first kiss: again it was her brother, a year her junior;and when he was raised it was seen that the seat of his trousers wasobviously double. But each of the five received a reward, and the babywas invariably lifted out of the perambulator. And finally there was aconjugal kiss on the spindled porch. 

The wife was a roly-poly little body. In the mornings, at the sidewindows, Honora heard her singing as she worked, and sometimes the sunstruck with a blinding flash the pan she was in the act of shining. Andone day she looked up and nodded and smiled. Strange indeed was theeffect upon our heroine of that greeting! It amazed Honora herself. Astrange current ran through her and left her hot, and even as she smiledand nodded back, unbidden tears rose scalding to her eyes. What was it?Why was it?

She went downstairs to the little bookcase, filled now with volumes thatwere not trash. For Hugh's sake, she would try to improve herself thiswinter by reading serious things. But between her eyes and the book wasthe little woman's smile. A month before, at Newport, how little shewould have valued it. 

One morning, as Honora was starting out for her lonely walk--that usuallyled her to the bare clay banks of the great river--she ran across herneighbour on the sidewalk. The little woman was settling the baby for hisairing, and she gave Honora the same dazzling smile. 

"Good morning, Mrs. Spence, " she said. 

"Good morning, " replied Honora, and in her strange confusion she leanedover the carriage. "Oh, what a beautiful baby!"

"Isn't he!" cried the little woman. "Of all of 'em, I think he's theprize. His father says so. I guess, " she added, "I guess it was because Ididn't know so much about 'em when they first began to come. You take myword for it, the best way is to leave 'em alone. Don't dandle 'em. It'shard to keep your hands off 'em, but it's right. "

"I'm sure of it, " said Honora, who was very red. 

They made a strange contrast as they stood on that new street, with itsnew vitrified brick paving and white stone curbs, and new little treesset out in front of new little houses: Mrs. Mayo (for such, Honora's cookhad informed her, was her name) in a housekeeper's apron and ashirtwaist, and Honora, almost a head taller, in a walking costume ofdark grey that would have done justice to Fifth Avenue. The admiration inthe little woman's eyes was undisguised. 

"You're getting a bill, I hear, " she said, after a moment. 

"A bill?" repeated Honora. 

"A bill of divorce, " explained Mrs. Mayo. 

Honora was conscious of conflicting emotions: astonishment, resentment, and--most curiously--of relief that the little woman knew it. 

"Yes, " she answered. 

But Mrs. Mayo did not appear to notice or resent her brevity. 

"I took a fancy to you the minute I saw you, " she said. "I can't say asmuch for the other Easterner that was here last year. But I made up mymind that it must be a mighty mean man who would treat you badly. "

Honora stood as though rooted to the pavement. She found a replyimpossible. 

"When I think of my luck, " her neighbour continued, "I'm almost ashamed. We were married on fifteen dollars a week. Of course there have beentrials, we must always expect that; and we've had to work hard, but--ithasn't hurt us. " She paused and looked up at Honora, and addedcontritely: "There! I shouldn't have said anything. It's mean of me totalk of my happiness. I'll drop in some afternoon--if you'll let me--when I get through my work, " said the little woman. 

"I wish you would, " replied Honora. 

She had much to think of on her walk that morning, and new resolutions tomake. Here was happiness growing and thriving, so far as she could see, without any of that rarer nourishment she had once thought so necessary. And she had come two thousand miles to behold it. 

She walked many miles, as a part of the regimen and discipline to whichshe had set herself. Her haunting horror in this place, as she thought ofthe colony of which Mr. Beckwith had spoken and of Mrs. Boutwell's row ofFrench novels, was degeneration. She was resolved to return to Chiltern abetter and a wiser and a truer woman, unstained by the ordeal. At theoutskirts of the town she halted by the river's bank, breathing deeply ofthe pure air of the vast plains that surrounded her. 

She was seated that afternoon at her desk in the sitting-room upstairswhen she heard the tinkle of the door-bell, and remembered herneighbour's promise to call. With something of a pang she pushed back herchair. Since the episode of the morning, the friendship of the littlewoman had grown to have a definite value; for it was no small thing, inHonora's situation, to feel the presence of a warm heart next door. Allday she had been thinking of Mrs. Mayo and her strange happiness, andlonging to talk with her again, and dreading it. And while she wasbracing herself for the trial Mathilde entered with a card. 

"Tell Mrs. Mayo I shall be down in a minute, " she said. 

It was not a lady, Mathilde replied, but a monsieur. 

Honora took the card. For a long time she sat staring at it, whileMathilde waited. It read:

 Mr. Peter Erwin. 

"Madame will see monsieur?"

A great sculptor once said to the statesman who was to be his model:"Wear your old coat. There is as much of a man in the back of his oldcoat, I think, as there is in his face. " As Honora halted on thethreshold, Peter was standing looking out of the five-foot plate-glasswindow, and his back was to her. 

She was suddenly stricken. Not since she had been a child, not even inthe weeks just passed, had she felt that pain. And as a child, self-pityseized her--as a lost child, when darkness is setting in, and the willfails and distance appalls. Scalding tears welled into her eyes as sheseized the frame of the door, but it must have been her breathing that heheard. He turned and crossed the room to her as she had known he would, and she clung to him as she had so often done in days gone by when, hurtand bruised, he had rescued and soothed her. For the moment, the delusionthat his power was still limitless prevailed, and her faith whole again, so many times had he mended a world all awry. 

He led her to the window-seat and gently disengaged her hands from hisshoulders and took one of them and held it between his own. He did notspeak, for his was a rare intuition; and gradually her hand ceased totremble, and the uncontrollable sobs that shook her became less frequent. 

"Why did you come? Why did you come?" she cried. 

"To see you, Honora. "

"But you might have--warned me. "

"Yes, " he said, "it's true, I might. "

She drew her hand away, and gazed steadfastly at his face. 

"Why aren't you angry?" she said. "You don't believe in what I havedone--you don't sympathize with it--you don't understand it. "

"I have come here to try, " he said. 

She shook her head. 

"You can't--you can't--you never could. "

"Perhaps, " he answered, "it may not be so difficult as you think. "

Grown calmer, she considered this. What did he mean by it? to imply aknowledge of herself?

"It will be useless, " she said inconsequently. 

"No, " he said, "it will not be useless. "

She considered this also, and took the broader meaning that such acts arenot wasted. 

"What do you intend to try to do?" she asked. 

He smiled a little. 

"To listen to as much as you care to tell me, Honora. "

She looked at him again, and an errant thought slipped in between herlarger anxieties. Wherever he went, how extraordinarily he seemed toharmonize with his surroundings. At Silverdale, and in the drawing-roomof the New York house, and in the little parlour in this far westerntown. What was it? His permanence? Was it his power? She felt that, butit was a strange kind of power--not like other men's. She felt, as shesat there beside him, that his was a power more difficult to combat. Thatto defeat it was at once to make it stronger, and to grow weaker. Shesummoned her pride, she summoned her wrongs: she summoned the ego whichhad winged its triumphant flight far above his kindly, disapproving eye. He had the ability to make her taste defeat in the very hour of victory. And she knew that, when she fell, he would be there in his strength tolift her up. 

"Did--did they tell you to come?" she asked. 

"There was no question of that, Honora. I was away when--when theylearned you were here. As soon as I returned, I came. "

"Tell me how they feel, " she said, in a low voice. 

"They think only of you. And the thought that you are unhappy overshadowsall others. They believe that it is to them you should have come, if youwere in trouble instead of coming here. "

"How could I?" she cried. "How can you ask? That is what makes it sohard, that I cannot be with them now. But I should only have made themstill more unhappy, if I had gone. They would not have understood--theycannot understand who have every reason to believe in marriage, why thoseto whom it has been a mockery and a torture should be driven to divorce. "

"Why divorce?" he said. 

"Do you mean--do you mean that you wish me to give you the reasons why Ifelt justified in leaving my husband?"

"Not unless you care to, " he replied. "I have no right to demand them. Ionly ask you to remember, Honora, that you have not explained thesereasons very clearly in your letters to your aunt and uncle. They do notunderstand them. Your uncle was unable, on many accounts, to come here;and he thought that--that as an old friend, you might be willing to talkto me. "

"I can't live with--with my husband, " she cried. "I don't love him, andhe doesn't love me. He doesn't know what love is. "

Peter Erwin glanced at her, but she was too absorbed then to see thething in his eyes. He made no comment. 

"We haven't the same tastes, nor--nor the same way of looking at things--the same views about making money--for instance. We became absolutestrangers. What more is there to say?" she added, a little defiantly. 

"Your husband committed no--flagrant offence against you?" he inquired. 

"That would have made him human, at least, " she cried. "It would haveproved that he could feel--something. No, all he cares for in the worldis to make money, and he doesn't care how he makes it. No woman with anatom of soul can live with a man like that. "

If Peter Erwin deemed this statement a trifle revolutionary, he did notsay so. 

"So you just--left him, " he said. 

"Yes, " said Honora. "He didn't care. He was rather relieved thanotherwise. If I had lived with him till I died, I couldn't have made himhappy. "

"You tried, and failed, " said Peter. 

She flushed. 

"I couldn't have made him happier, " she declared, correcting herself. "Hehas no conception of what real happiness is. He thinks he is happy, -hedoesn't need me. He'll be much more--contented without me. I have nothingagainst him. I was to blame for marrying him, I know. But I have only onelife to live, and I can't throw it away, Peter, I can't. And I can'tbelieve that a woman and a man were intended to live together withoutlove. It is too horrible. Surely that isn't your idea of marriage!"

"My idea of marriage isn't worth very much, I'm afraid, " he said. "If Italked about it, I should have to confine myself to theories and--anddreams. "

"The moment I saw your card, Peter, I knew why you had come here, " shesaid, trying to steady her voice. "It was to induce me to go back to myhusband. You don't know how it hurts me to give you pain. I love you--Ilove you as I love Uncle Tom and Aunt Mary. You are a part of me. But oh, you can't understand! I knew you could not. You have never made anymistakes--you have never lived. It is useless. I won't go back to him. Ifyou stayed here for weeks you could not make me change my mind. "

He was silent. 

"You think that I could have prevented--this, if I had been lessselfish, " she said. 

"Where you are concerned, Honora, I have but one desire, " he answered, "and that is to see you happy--in the best sense of the term. If I couldinduce you to go back and give your husband another trial, I shouldreturn with a lighter heart. You ask me whether I think you have beenselfish. I answer frankly that I think you have. I don't pretend to sayyour husband has not been selfish also. Neither of you have ever tried, apparently, to make your marriage a success. It can't be done without anhonest effort. You have abandoned the most serious and sacred enterprisein the world as lightly as though it had been a piece of embroidery. Allthat I can gather from your remarks is that you have left your husbandbecause you have grown tired of him. "

"Yes, " said Honora, "and you can never realize how tired, unless you knewhim as I did. When love dies, it turns into hate. "

He rose, and walked to the other end of the room, and turned. 

"Could you be induced, " he said, "for the sake of your aunt and uncle, ifnot for your own, to consider a legal separation?"

For an instant she stared at him hopelessly, and then she buried her facein her hands. 

"No, " she cried. "No, I couldn't. You don't know what you ask. "

He went to her, and laid his hand lightly on her shoulder. 

"I think I do, " he said. 

There was a moment's tense silence, and then she got to her feet andlooked at him proudly. 

"Yes, " she cried, "it is true. And I am not ashamed of it. I havediscovered what love is, and what life is, and I am going to take themwhile I can. "

She saw the blood slowly leave his face, and his hands tighten. It wasnot until then that she guessed at the depth of his wound, and knew thatit was unhealed. For him had been reserved this supreme irony, that heshould come here to plead for her husband and learn from her own lipsthat she loved another man. She was suddenly filled with awe, though heturned away from her that she might not see his face: And she sought invain for words. She touched his hand, fearfully, and now it was he whotrembled. 

"Peter, " she exclaimed, "why do you bother with me? I--I am what I am. Ican't help it. I was made so. I cannot tell you that I am sorry for whatI have done--for what I am going to do. I will not lie to you--and youforced me to speak. I know that you don't understand, and that I causedyou pain, and that I shall cause--them pain. It may be selfishness--Idon't know. God alone knows. Whatever it is, it is stronger than I. It iswhat I am. Though I were to be thrown into eternal fire I would notrenounce it. "

She looked at him again, and her breath caught. While she had beenspeaking, he had changed. There was a fire in his eyes she had never seenbefore, in all the years she had known him. 

"Honora, " he said quietly, "the man who has done this is a scoundrel. "

She stared at him, doubting her senses, her pupils wide with terror. 

"How dare you, Peter! How dare you!" she cried. 

"I dare to speak the truth, " he said, and crossed the room to where hishat was lying and picked it up. She watched him as in a trance. Then hecame back to her. 

"Some day, perhaps, you will forgive me for saying that, Honora. I hopethat day will come, although I shall never regret having said it. I havecaused you pain. Sometimes, it seems, pain is unavoidable. I hope youwill remember that, with the exception of your aunt and uncle, you haveno better friend than I. Nothing can alter that friendship, wherever yougo, whatever you do. Goodby. "

He caught her hand, held it for a moment in his own, and the door hadclosed before she realized that he had gone. For a few moments she stoodmotionless where he had left her, and then she went slowly up the stairsto her own room . . . . 

CHAPTER X

THE PRICE OF FREEDOM

Had he, Hugh Chiltern, been anathematized from all the high pulpits ofthe world, Honora's belief in him could not have been shaken. Ivanhoe andthe Knights of the Round Table to the contrary, there is no chivalry soexalted as that of a woman who loves, no courage higher, no endurancegreater. Her knowledge is complete; and hers the supreme faith that isunmoved by calumny and unbelief. She alone knows. The old Chiltern didnot belong to her: hers was the new man sprung undefiled from the sacredfire of their love; and in that fire she, too, had been born again. Peter--even Peter had no power to share such a faith, though what he hadsaid of Chiltern had wounded her--wounded her because Peter, of allothers, should misjudge and condemn him. Sometimes she drew consolationfrom the thought that Peter had never seen him. But she knew he could notunderstand him, or her, or what they had passed through: that kind ofunderstanding comes alone through experience. 

In the long days that followed she thought much about Peter, and failedto comprehend her feelings towards him. She told herself that she oughtto hate him for what he had so cruelly said, and at times indeed herresentment was akin to hatred: again, his face rose before her as she hadseen it when he had left her, and she was swept by an incomprehensiblewave of tenderness and reverence. And yet--paradox of paradoxes--Chiltern possessed her!

On the days when his letters came it was as his emissary that the sunshone to give her light in darkness, and she went about the house with asong on her lips. They were filled, these letters, with an elixir ofwhich she drank thirstily to behold visions, and the weariness of herexile fell away. The elixir of High Purpose. Never was love on such aplane! He lifting her, --no marvel in this; and she--by a magic power oflevitation at which she never ceased to wonder--sustaining him. By heraid he would make something of himself which would be worthy of her. Atlast he had the incentive to enable him to take his place in the world. He pictured their future life at Grenoble until her heart was strainedwith yearning for it to begin. Here would be duty, --let him who wouldgainsay it, duty and love combined with a wondrous happiness. He at aman's labour, she at a woman's; labour not for themselves alone, but forothers. A paradise such as never was heard of--a God-fearing paradise, and the reward of courage. 

He told her he could not go to Grenoble now and begin the life withouther. Until that blessed time he would remain a wanderer, avoiding thehaunts of men. First he had cruised in the 'Folly, and then camped andshot in Canada; and again, as winter drew on apace, had chartered anotheryacht, a larger one, and sailed away for the West Indies, whence theletters came, stamped in strange ports, and sometimes as many as fivetogether. He, too, was in exile until his regeneration should begin. 

Well he might be at such a time. One bright day in early winter Honora, returning from her walk across the bleak plains in the hope of letters, found newspapers and periodicals instead, addressed in an unknown hand. It matters not whose hand: Honora never sought to know. She had longregarded as inevitable this acutest phase of her martyrdom, and the longnights of tears when entire paragraphs of the loathed stuff she hadburned ran ceaselessly in her mind. Would she had burned it beforereading it! An insensate curiosity had seized her, and she had read andread again until it was beyond the reach of fire. 

Save for its effect upon Honora, it is immaterial to this chronicle. Itwas merely the heaviest of her heavy payments for liberty. But what, sheasked herself shamefully, would be its effect upon Chiltern? Her faceburned that she should doubt his loyalty and love; and yet--the questionreturned. There had been a sketch of Howard, dwelling upon the prominenceinto which he had sprung through his connection with Mr. Wing. There hadbeen a sketch of her; and how she had taken what the writer was pleasedto call Society by storm: it had been intimated, with a cruelty knownonly to writers of such paragraphs, that ambition to marry a Chiltern hadbeen her motive! There had been a sketch of Chiltern's career, incarefully veiled but thoroughly comprehensible language, which might havemade a Bluebeard shudder. This, of course, she bore best of all; or, letit be said rather, that it cost her the least suffering. Was it not shewho had changed and redeemed him?

What tortured her most was the intimation that Chiltern's familyconnections were bringing pressure to bear upon him to save him from thissupremest of all his follies. And when she thought of this the strangeeyes and baffling expression of Mrs. Grainger rose before her. Was ittrue? And if true, would Chiltern resist, even as she, Honora, hadresisted, loyally? Might this love for her not be another of his madcaprices?

How Honora hated herself for the thought that thus insistently returnedat this period of snows and blasts! It was January. Had he seen thenewspapers? He had not, for he was cruising: he had, for of course theyhad been sent him. And he must have received, from his relatives, protesting letters. A fortnight passed, and her mail contained nothingfrom him! Perhaps something had happened to his yacht! Visions ofshipwreck cause her to scan the newspapers for storms at sea, --but theshipwreck that haunted her most was that of her happiness. How easy it isto doubt in exile, with happiness so far away! One morning, when the winddashed the snow against her windows, she found it impossible to rise. 

If the big doctor suspected the cause of her illness, Mathilde knew it. The maid tended her day and night, and sought, with the tact of hernation, to console and reassure her. The little woman next door came andsat by her bedside. Cruel and infinitely happy little woman, filled withcompassion, who brought delicacies in the making of which she had spentprecious hours, and which Honora could not eat! The Lord, when he hadmade Mrs. Mayo, had mercifully withheld the gift of imagination. Onetopic filled her, she lived to one end: her Alpha and Omega were husbandand children, and she talked continually of their goodness and badness, of their illnesses, of their health, of their likes and dislikes, oftheir accomplishments and defects, until one day a surprising thinghappened. Surprising for Mrs. Mayo. 

"Oh, don't!" cried Honora, suddenly. "Oh, don't! I can't bear it. "

"What is it?" cried Mrs. Mayo, frightened out of her wits. "A turn? ShallI telephone for the doctor?"

"No, " relied Honora, "but--but I can't talk any more--to-day. "

She apologized on the morrow, as she held Mrs. Mayo's hand. "It--it wasyour happiness, " she said; "I was unstrung. I couldn't listen to it. Forgive me. "

The little woman burst into tears, and kissed her as she sat in bed. 

"Forgive you, deary!" she cried. "I never thought. "

"It has been so easy for you, " Honora faltered. 

"Yes, it has. I ought to thank God, and I do--every night. "

She looked long and earnestly, through her tears, at the young lady fromthe far away East as she lay against the lace pillows, her palenessenhanced by the pink gown, her dark hair in two great braids on hershoulders. 

"And to think how pretty you are!" she exclaimed. 

It was thus she expressed her opinion of mankind in general, outside ofher own family circle. Once she had passionately desired beauty, the highschool and the story of Helen of Troy notwithstanding. Now she began tolook at it askance, as a fatal gift; and to pity, rather than envy, itspossessors. 

As a by-industry, Mrs. Mayo raised geraniums and carnations in her frontcellar, near the furnace, and once in a while Peggy, with thepulled-molasses hair, or chubby Abraham Lincoln, would come puffing upHonora's stairs under the weight of a flower-pot and deposit ittriumphantly on the table at Honora's bedside. Abraham Lincoln did notobject to being kissed: he had, at least, grown to accept the process asone of the unaccountable mysteries of life. But something happened to himone afternoon, on the occasion of his giving proof of an intellect whichmay eventually bring him, in the footsteps of his great namesake, to theWhite House. Entering Honora's front door, he saw on the hall table anumber of letters which the cook (not gifted with his brains) had leftthere. He seized them in one fat hand, while with the other he hugged theflower-pot to his breast, mounted the steps, and arrived, breathless butradiant, on the threshold of the beautiful lady's room, and therecalamity overtook him in the shape of one of the thousand articles whichare left on the floor purposely to trip up little boys. 

Great was the disaster. Letters, geranium, pieces of flower-pot, aquantity of black earth, and a howling Abraham Lincoln bestrewed thefloor. And similar episodes, in his brief experience with this world, hadnot brought rewards. It was from sheer amazement that his tears ceased toflow--amazement and lack of breath--for the beautiful lady sprang up andseized him in her arms, and called Mathilde, who eventually brought awhite and gold box. And while Abraham sat consuming its contents inecstasy he suddenly realized that the beautiful lady had forgotten him. She had picked up the letters, every one, and stood reading them withparted lips and staring eyes. 

It was Mathilde who saved him from a violent illness, closing the box andleading him downstairs, and whispered something incomprehensible in hisear as she pointed him homeward. 

"Le vrai medecin--c'est toi, mon mignon. "

There was a reason why Chiltern's letters had not arrived, and great wereHonora's self-reproach and penitence. With a party of Englishmen he hadgone up into the interior of a Central American country to visit somefamous ruins. He sent her photographs of them, and of the Englishmen, andof himself. Yes, he had seen the newspapers. If she had not seen them, she was not to read them if they came to her. And if she had, she was toremember that their love was too sacred to be soiled, and too perfect tobe troubled. As for himself, as she knew, he was a changed man, whothought of his former life with loathing. She had made him clean, andfilled him with a new strength. 

The winter passed. The last snow melted on the little grass plot, whichchanged by patches from brown to emerald green; and the children ran overit again, and tracked it in the soft places, but Honora only smiled. Warm, still days were interspersed between the windy ones, when the skywas turquoise blue, when the very river banks were steeped in newcolours, when the distant, shadowy mountains became real. Liberty ranriot within her. If he thought with loathing on his former life, so didshe. Only a year ago she had been penned up in a New York street in thatprison-house of her own making, hemmed in by surroundings which she hadnow learned to detest from her soul. 

A few more penalties remained to be paid, and the heaviest of these washer letter to her aunt and uncle. Even as they had accepted other thingsin life, so had they accepted the hardest of all to bear--Honora'sdivorce. A memorable letter her Uncle Tom had written her after Peter'sreturn to tell them that remonstrances were useless! She was theirdaughter in all but name, and they would not forsake her. When she shouldhave obtained her divorce, she should go back to them. Their house, whichhad been her home, should always remain so. Honora wept and pondered longover that letter. Should she write and tell them the truth, as she hadtold Peter? It was not because she was ashamed of the truth that she hadkept it from them throughout the winter: it was because she wished tospare them as long as possible. Cruellest circumstance of all, that alove so divine as hers should not be understood by them, and should causethem infinite pain!

The weeks and months slipped by. Their letters, after that first one, were such as she had always received from them: accounts of the weather, and of the doings of her friends at home. But now the time was at handwhen she must prepare them for her marriage with Chiltern; for they wouldexpect her in St. Louis, and she could not go there. And if she wrotethem, they might try to stop the marriage, or at least to delay it forsome years. 

Was it possible that a lingering doubt remained in her mind that topostpone her happiness would perhaps be to lose it? In her exile she hadlearned enough to know that a divorced woman is like a rudderless ship atsea, at the mercy of wind and wave and current. She could not go back toher life in St. Louis: her situation there would be unbearable: herfriends would not be the same friends. No, she had crossed her Rubiconand destroyed the bridge deep within her she felt that delay would befatal, both to her and Chiltern. Long enough had the banner of their lovebeen trailed in the dust. 

Summer came again, with its anniversaries and its dragging, interminableweeks: demoralizing summer, when Mrs. Mayo quite frankly appeared at herside window in a dressing sacque, and Honora longed to do the same. Buttime never stands absolutely still, and the day arrived when Mr. Beckwithcalled in a carriage. Honora, with an audibly beating heart, got into it, and they drove down town, past the department store where Mr. Mayo spenthis days, and new blocks of banks and business houses that flanked thewide street, where the roaring and clanging of the ubiquitous trolleycars resounded. 

Honora could not define her sensations--excitement and shame and fear andhope and joy were so commingled. The colours of the red and yellow brickhad never been so brilliant in the sunshine. They stopped before the newcourt-house and climbed the granite steps. In her sensitive state, Honorathought that some of the people paused to look after them, and that somewere smiling. One woman, she thought, looked compassionate. Within, theycrossed the marble pavement, the Honourable Dave handed her into anelevator, and when it stopped she followed him as in a dream to anoak-panelled door marked with a legend she did not read. Within was anoffice, with leather chairs, a large oak desk, a spittoon, and portraitsof grave legal gentlemen on the wall. 

"This is Judge Whitman's office, " explained the Honourable Dave. "He'lllet you stay here until the case is called. "

"Is he the judge--before whom--the case is to be tried?" asked Honora. 

"He surely is, " answered the Honourable Dave. "Whitman's a good friend ofmine. In fact, I may say, without exaggeration, I had something to dowith his election. Now you mustn't get flustered, " he added. "It isn'tanything like as bad as goin' to the dentist. It don't amount to shucks, as we used to say in Missouri. "

With these cheerful words of encouragement he slipped out of a side doorinto what was evidently the court room, for Honora heard a droning. Aftera long interval he reappeared and beckoned her with a crooked finger. Shearose and followed him into the court room. 

All was bustle and confusion there, and her counsel whispered that theywere breaking up for the day. The judge was stretching himself; severalmen who must have been lawyers, and with whom Mr. Beckwith was exchangingamenities behind the railing, were arranging their books and papers; someof the people were leaving, and others talking in groups about the room. The Honourable Dave whispered to the judge, a tall, lank, cadaverousgentleman with iron-grey hair, who nodded. Honora was led forward. TheHonourable Dave, standing very close to the judge and some distance fromher, read in a low voice something that she could not catch--supposedlythe petition. It was all quite as vague to Honora as the trial of theJack of Hearts; the buzzing of the groups still continued around thecourt room, and nobody appeared in the least interested. This was acomfort, though it robbed the ceremony of all vestige of reality. Itseemed incredible that the majestic and awful Institution of the agescould be dissolved with no smoke or fire, with such infiniteindifference, and so much spitting. What was the use of all the pomp andcircumstance and ceremony to tie the knot if it could be cut in theroutine of a day's business?

The solemn fact that she was being put under oath meant nothing to her. This, too, was slurred and mumbled. She found herself, trembling, answering questions now from her counsel, now from the judge; and it isto be doubted to this day whether either heard her answers. Mostconvenient and considerate questions they were. When and where she wasmarried, how long she had lived with her husband, what happened when theyceased to live together, and had he failed ever since to contribute toher support? Mercifully, Mr. Beckwith was in the habit of coaching hiswords beforehand. A reputable citizen of Salomon City was produced toprove her residence, and somebody cried out something, not loudly, inwhich she heard the name of Spence mentioned twice. The judge said, "Takeyour decree, " and picked up a roll of papers and walked away. Her kneesbecame weak, she looked around her dizzily, and beheld the triumphantprofessional smile of the Honourable Dave Beckwith. 

"It didn't hurt much, did it?" he asked. "Allow me to congratulate you. "

"Is it--is it all over?" she said, quite dazed. 

"Just like that, " he said. "You're free. "

"Free!" The word rang in her ears as she drove back to the little housethat had been her home. The Honourable Dave lifted his felt hat as hehanded her out of the carriage, and said he would call again in theevening to see if he could do anything further for her. Mathilde, who hadbeen watching from the window, opened the door, and led her mistress intothe parlour. 

"It's--it's all over, Mathilde, " she said. 

"Mon dieu, madame, " said Mathilde, "c'est simple comme bonjour!"